Weekend Movie: The Fate of Saddam's Pride and Joy

In The Lighthouse Movie Theater today a story from way, way back when the grown-ups were in charge: "Israel's Raid on Saddam's Nuclear Reactor in 1981"

Introduction to Dossier "Bus Line O" on the Road to Nowhere

It started with the evil Neocons' influence on the Bush I Administration and their policy after 9/11 to start 'exporting' democracy as a strategy in the fight against terrorism. After all, it's not democracies that produce violence, but despotic collectives to whom terror and coercion is part of the doctrine.

It must have taken an extraordinary amount of courage. This strategy is in fact what "the war in Iraq" was all about: liberating the country from Saddam's Baathist fascist regime - and the very, very long shot indeed - of establishing a democracy in the heart of the Middle East.

In the long run it paid of as it always does ... at the price of blood, sweat and tears ... no thanks to the weasel white-flag raisers and the terror apologizers all over the Leftist world. But it's historical dividend that may well continue to pay of in many ways in the years to come.

The U-turn in Western public opinion against "egocentric cultural imperialism" has baffled many: how come liberals started jettisoning their hitterto absolute belief in democratic principles, women's rights, human rights, gay rights, equal rights, civil rights? Leftist intellectuals started issuing pamphlets to the effect that democracy is "actually very much overrated"; Feminists began to campaign for their Muslim sisters' "right to wear the hijab" and other baffling inconsistencies to boot.

Watch the latest shock and awe in PJTV's "InstaVision: Is Freedom Blossoming in the Middle East?", an interview of InstaPundit Glenn Reynolds with Joshua Muravchik, author of "The Next Founders, Voices of Democracy in the Middle East".

At first it looked like perhaps another accident of the dialectic, caused by the Left's habitual and often irrational embrace of the diametrically opposite position of the opponent, no matter if - as a result - you have to start supporting something totally outrageous (like the oppression of the oppressed)! As it turned out, in the final analysis it was something much more interesting than that.

The long and short of it was, the Left's moral compass had just made an inexplicable U-turn. Present blogger embarked on a fascinating quest involving ideological archeology and in the end found that on the philosophical level the Left's about turn was not as erratic as it looked at first glance.

A more accurate description of the postmodern Left - which includes many feminists, legions of environmentalists and 'identity' theorists, hosts of Third-World'ers, New Agers, Luddites and other fruit cakes - would really be "the Collectivist Left and Right". Like all true socialists, they are the heirs of the Counter-Enlightenment, and not - repeat not -  of the mainstream Enlightenment (Classical Liberalism), or of the Radical Enlightenment (free-thinkers, Deists, naturalists, materialists: hear Pat Condell in "Liberty be Damned" and you'll get a good idea of the difference).

The Counter-Enlightenment (also known as the anti Modernists, or the anti philosophes) was a reactionary movement, that acted on every level against the values of the Enlightenment: averse to reason (i.e. philosophy), against individualism, anti democracy and contra capitalism, more often than not with a phobia for technological advancement and a suspicion and distaste for civilization.

An excerpt from "Pomo's Inside-Out, Upside-Down World of Moral Inversion":

"(...)  commentators express their surprise of postmodernism ending up on a par with Nazi, Fascist or extreme Nationalist ideas, expressing their shock, shock at postmodernist involvement in Nazi scandals, or anti-philosophes suddenly spouting crypto fascist propaganda. Richard Wolin admits that the postmodern assault on reason familiarly rings of the standard European reactionary critique as traditionally expressed by the anti-modernists [Richard Wolin, "The Seduction of Unreason: The Intellectual Romance with Fascism from Nietzsche to Postmodernism", Princeton University Press, 2004, Introduction p. 12]. " Wolin builds a good case, to which results from recent research might also be added. Surprised? Not really. All such malignant forms of state collectivism are reducible to the usual suspects."

Over the last few years it has become quite apparent that the Left, having first usurped and then perverted Liberalism for it's own dark purposes, have now reverted to the original ideology of irrational collectivism at the very opposing end of the philosophical scale. A main tenet of that ideology is cultural relativism, or polylogism as described here. As so many of its toxic ideas, today we know it under an innocent sounding epithet with a corrupt definition: multiculturalism.

The new addition to Politeia Articles, dossier "Bus Line O" chronicles the ideological reversal. There's no need anymore to be surprised or outraged by Obama and his ilk hobnobbing with tyrants and petty potentates, in the process propelling the innocents and the oppressed under his poisonous postmodern bus.

Here's Alfonzo Rachel again and his great satire on the bus theme.

- Filed on Articles in dossier "Bus Line O" - 

From the Pathological to the Utterly Depraved

Newscom.au: "Iraqi woman had 80 women raped then recruited as suicide bombers"

A woman suspected of recruiting more than 80 female suicide bombers has confessed to organising their rapes so she could later convince them that martyrdom was the only way to escape the shame.

Samira Jassam, 51, was arrested by Iraqi police and confessed to recruiting the women and orchestrating dozens of attacks.

In a video confession, she explained how she had mentally prepared the women for martyrdom operations, passed them on to terrorists who provided explosives, and then took the bombers to their targets. (...) >>>

You can watch the news item here.

Let that piece of evil sink in on you: having eighty women purposely raped so that their sense of life and self would be so destructed, that the only way out would be blowing themselves up, including hundreds of others in the process.

Now that's depravity for you! And does it say something about a culture when the evil organizor is lovingly dubbed "the Mother of All Believers" - raised onto the shield and made the heroine!

Where does such clearly socio-pathological behavior come from. On the part of the victims it's the culture of shame - a result of the tribal/collectivist way of life. Read all about that in "Lies, Deceit, and the Shame Culture".

Totalitarian collectivism and the Sorelian myth of Muslim victimhood drive the mentality that prescribes the lone drone's duty to sacrifice to the common cause. That explains the acts of all involved in this truly sick story.

The same author, NASA psychiatrist and blogger, Dr Sanity offers this explanation in the case of the Palestinians.

Dr Sanity: "Western Enablers and Palestinian Dysfunction"

(...) instead of nurturing their victimhood and refining their hate, the survivors [of the Holocaust] focused on making a new and positive life for themselves and their descendants. These damaged and pitiful remnants from the Holocaust went on to make a desert bloom, build world class education and scientific institutions and become an economic first world nation. The State of Israel was a clarion Kaddish prayer in a way - it was a prayer that affirmed life and the potential of man.

- Cartoon: Glenn Foden -

Where the Jews succeeded in transforming their trauma into something positive for themselves and the world, the Palestinians have failed spectacularly and accomplished the exact opposite.

And, they have had plenty of help in doing so. Perhaps the most guilty of enabling and encouraging Palestinian and Islamic/Arab victimhood and aggression have been the world community (through the UN) and the ‘compassionate’—and often counterproductive—foreign policy of Western democracies and of the Israelis themselves.

In a way this process is the equivalent of a psychotic patient attempting to convince his psychiatrist that it is the psychiatrist that is paranoid, and astonishingly, the psychiatrist agrees! (...) >>>

- Filed on Articles in "The Political Pathology Asylum" -

This Week's Madhouse: Wilders, Winter, Failed Philosophy

There seems to be an epidemic going on within the Postmodern West, in which valid and factual criticisms of Islam, made by politicians like Susanne Winter in Austria (bottom update) and Geert Wilders in the Netherlands are being outlawed as per the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) demands. The following question to our political leaders imprints itself on my consciousness:

Is progress temporarily suspended until Eurabia has managed to catch up with the rest of humanity, or is it your intention to keep the backward course until we've actually reverted to a level of development, on par with the pre Enlightenment age?

Our position, that the Amsterdam Court of Appeal's decision this week to prosecute Geert Wilders for - in short - insulting Islam, is encouraging the forces of chaos and radicalism, is almost immediately vindicated by today's news.

• A well know Muslim hate preacher in a speech at Rotterdam University has called for Wilders "to be flogged".
• One of the parties who pressed the charges - an anti racism platform - is now calling for the outlawing of all regular political discourse involving non-whites: the prosecution of a Wilders Free Party member who voiced accusations at the Netherlands Antilles Government this week of corruption, a known fact.

In the meanwhile relativist thought does its destructive work on the souls of the people on West Street. What strikes me in TV interviews and polls is that ordinary people have taken up a position as if Wilders' point is, to willfully and spitefully hurt poor, ordinary Muslims, either out of cold, electoral calculation, or because 'he just hates Muslims' (much like the Left hate George Bush and Muslims hate Jews).

It's as if it's just Wilders' hateful character, and that he might just as easily have swapped his perverted, vicious opinion for a warmer and fuzzier one, had he not had such an unpleasant, fascist personality. Do you see what's happening here?

It is almost as if it's a matter of civility, of etiquette. That is the result of the relativist position that denies the existence of objective reality. Everything is taken as filtered and tainted by the subjective, personal perspective.

The followers of this philosophy believe that the result will be, respect and tolerance for each and every position (the sole exception is made for the white, male 'power structure's narrative, which is uniquely evil). And reality being what it is, to appreciate it all, means to love none. In effect, it is the philosophy of Nothing that once again at some point in the foreseeable future, will end in human drama.

Over on Pajames TV Michael Ledeen in "Faster Please" has a fascinating interview with award-winning milblogger Michael Yon. They talk about the War on Terrorism and recent developments in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Netherlands is one of the coalition countries presently entrenched in Afghanistan. It is this small country's heftiest mission since the Korean War. But the national narrative looks at the Afghan undertaking almost entirely in terms of development aid. The highly trained military are seen as glorified development workers, commonly referrred to as 'soldiers'.

While the Russians have been denying the coalition access to infrastructure to assist operations in Afganistan, only this morning Yahoo!News report that the ice is thawing: "Russia sees its relations with NATO improving and wants the military alliance to succeed in Afghanistan, to reduce the regional threat".

The Taliban meanwhile kept busy blasting their way backwards through time by blowing up four boys' and one girls' school in Pakistan's scenic Swat valley. It's no reminder to the Dutch public in general that the failed state of Afghanistan, if left unchecked, can still be a major threat to the region and the world at large.

Other than the Troofers' version of events, no lessons were taken from 9/11. So these occurances in the tribal regions do not trigger any correlation being drawn between failed states and flying bombs in the capital of Capitalism.

A consequence of waking up to reality is having to deal with unpleasant facts, something that would never do for the ever 'personal realization' driven hedonists of the late counter-cultural revolution.

As for Iraq, that Bush-neocon disaster nobody wants to talk about anymore since the highly successful surge, Yon explains how the most explosive region - Al Anbar province - has proved to be key to the pacification of the entire country. The marines, rather than being IED'd to pieces, are now actually bored to death.

And on a lighter note, Yon is going to serve Troofy film manufacturer Michael Moore with a lawsuit pertaining to copyright infringements.

Who could have thought that life amongst the atoms and molecules would be that hard?!

Update:

And of course - how embarrassing - the initiative to support Geert comes from the US ...

The Flaming Blog: "Support Geert Wilders"

The Flaming Blog is proud to present this site in order to help raise money for Geert Wilders, the Dutch parliamentarian being prosecuted for his outspokenness about the dangers of Islam and the Islamisation of the Netherlands and all of the west. Wilders is being prosecuted by his own countrymen, being called an extremist, a xenophobe and all other sorts of names while the true extremists and hate-mongers exist right under their noses. The Flaming Blog offers its full support to Geert. On this site, you will find tee shirts that will help raise awareness of Geert's plight and the plight of free speech in the West. All of the proceeds go to Geert's defense fund. We must stop his prosecution and the destruction of his party, the Dutch Freedom Party! (...) >>>

Also ... a Theo van Gogh design (left) - Theo, who already gave his life for freedom!

The International Free Press Society: "Policy Statement"

In recent years - and in particular since 9/11 - freedom of speech has been shrinking throughout the world. This is true not only in countries where this most basic freedom has been tenuous at best, but increasingly where it was first conceived and long enshrined: Europe, the United States and other countries where Western ideas of liberty have taken root.

It is time to confront and reverse the forces, both internal and external, that are now arrayed against free speech, time to organize not just locally and nationally, but also globally in recognition of the common danger imperiling all free societies. The sole purpose of The International Free Press Society (IFPS) is to defend freedom of expression wherever and by whomever it is threatened. (...) The stakes in this battle could not be higher. (...) >>>

- Filed on Articles in "In Defense of Liberty" -

The Unraveling: 0's Meddling in Iraq, Confirmed

In an often quoted post of September 17, "The Hidden Sinisterisms of the O Campaign" we reported as follows:

First the explosives. The media are nowhere in evidence in the matter, but the initial charges were laid out nevertheless in a NY Post article titled "Obama Tried to Stall GIs' Iraq Withdrawal" (...)

Amir Tehari alleges that Obama on his recent fact-finding mission in Iraq a few months ago, against official policy ... "(...) has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence. According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July. (...)

- Caption: Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari and Foreign Secr. Condoleezza Rice -

Video material is available here. The McCain camp has responded that "(...) If news reports are accurate, this is an egregious act of political interference by a presidential candidate seeking political advantage overseas. Senator Obama needs to reveal what he said to Iraq's Foreign Minister during their closed door meeting. (...)" >>>

During the same trip Obama also tried to persuade the US commanders, including Gen. David Petraeus, to suggest a "realistic withdrawal date." They declined. (...)". Bob Owens in a PJs article "Obama’s Questionable Diplomacy in Iraq" had a reaction to the allegations from the Multi-National Force Iraq Press Desk.

Fast forward to breaking news this morning by The Right Perspective, mentioning the comments made by an Iraqi MP in newspaper Aswat al Iraq. The article "Lawmakers call on Obama to pull out troops from Iraq" quotes legislature Mohammed al-Mehmedawi of al-Fadila bloc saying ...

“Obama advised Iraqi politicians not to sign the pact.” “He did so because he believed that if the pact would not be signed, it would be a landmark for republicans’ policy failure in Iraq,” he noted.

The keen observer may have noticed nothing was spared in the Obama campaign to win the Presidency. A number of efforts crossed the line of generally accepted standards of proper conduct. The above was clearly one of them.

One cannot help wondering, will the unraveling continue?



- Filed in Articles in "The Pomo Presidency" -

http://tiny.cc/MWgKk

The Hidden Sinisterisms of the O Campaign

As news is breaking in the blogosphere (the MSM are keeping mum) of the potential time bomb under Obama's carefully cultivated personality cult, evidence of yet another sinister ploy is emerging.

First the explosives. The media are nowhere in evidence in the matter, but the initial charges were laid out nevertheless in a NY Post article titled "Obama Tried to Stall GIs' Iraq Withdrawal" by a journalist of doubtful repute. He is however directly quoting a named Iraqi government official, which lends some credibility to the claim in which Amir Tehari alleges that Obama on his recent fact-finding mission in Iraq a few months ago, against official policy ...

"(...) tried to persuade the US commanders, including Gen. David Petraeus, to suggest a "realistic withdrawal date." They declined. (...)". Bob Owens in a PJs article "Obama’s Questionable Diplomacy in Iraq" has a reaction to the allegations from the Multi-National Force Iraq Press Desk. At the same time, while campaigning in public for a speedy withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, Obama also ...

"(...) has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence. According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July. (...) Obama insisted that Congress should be involved in negotiations (...) "However, as an Iraqi, I prefer to have a security agreement that regulates the activities of foreign troops, rather than keeping the matter open." Zebari says. (...)

The article calculates that "judging by how long the current talks have taken, restarting the process from scratch would leave the two sides needing at least six months to come up with a draft accord. That puts us at May 2010 for when the draft might be submitted to the Iraqi parliament - which might well need another six months to pass it into law." >>>

So, there you have it, for what it's worth, pending confirmation (if any). Video material is available here. The McCain camp has responded that "(...) If news reports are accurate, this is an egregious act of political interference by a presidential candidate seeking political advantage overseas. Senator Obama needs to reveal what he said to Iraq's Foreign Minister during their closed door meeting. (...)" >>>

Ed Morrisey in "Did Obama just confirm Taheri?" on Hot Air comments that "Obama’s national security spokeswoman Wendy Morigi said Taheri’s article bore “as much resemblance to the truth as a McCain campaign commercial.” In fact, Obama had told the Iraqis that they should not rush through a “Strategic Framework Agreement” governing the future of US forces until after President George W. Bush leaves office, she said. Which is exactly what Taheri wrote. Barack Obama went to Iraq and interfered with the diplomatic efforts of the elected United States government, in a war zone no less, by telling the Iraqis to stop negotiating with the President. How exactly does that make Taheri’s column untruthful?"

Obama's involvement with unrepentant domestic terrorist Bill Ayers has also been buried by the media, but it is really far more substantial than "just a guy who lives in my neighborhood" and deflecting charges about the relation with "guilt by association."

Obama and Ayers served together on separate Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) boards for over six years. The rent-free offices of the CAC were situated in the University of Chicago, where Ayers is employed. Although a self-confessed failure as far as improving education standards are concerned, CAC did manage to funnel some $ 100 million to their allies in the Local School Councils (LSC's).

Don't be fooled by that Orwellian term. LCS's are derided by the worried Social Democratic unionist blogger on Global Labor as vestiges, not of grassroots-up democratic institutions, but on the contrary, of strongholds of Marxist top-down authoritarianism: "I do not think that the link made here between the LSC’s and “democracy” is, in fact, accurate," he writes. "I think that such “councils” look eerily similar to efforts by regimes like those in Nicaragua under the Sandinistas and Venezuela under Chavez to impose control over teachers and their independent unions by an authoritarian regime." Is soviet perhaps the word you are looking for?

"Thus, it is not a surprise to me that Bill Ayers has traveled several times in recent years to Venezuela where he has spoken in front of Hugo Chavez and has enthusiastically applauded that regime’s efforts to link education policy to the Chavez “revolution.” As Ayers stated in a speech there in November 2006 “La educacion es Revolucion!” He applauded “the profound educational reforms underway here in Venezuela under the leadership of President Chavez” and he said he “share[d] the belief that education is the motor-force of revolution.” Indeed, all Marxist offshoots like to start reconstructed reality indoctrination as early as possible, preferably before the onset of concept-based cognition.

The Global Labor blogger - perturbed by the Obama 'authoritarian' influence on education - in addition asserts that Obama's eduction adviser, Prof. Linda Darling-Hammond - like Ayers - is persuaded of the justice of the 'educational debt', reparations due to black citizens as 'historically oppressed." Leaving aside the correctness or justice of this claim, chances are that Obama, should he win the elections, would advance Prof. Darling to the education top-slot of his administration.

If Obama doesn't share the Marxist beliefs with his former CAC board colleague Ayers, then why does he have Mike Klonsky serving on the campaign blogs, answering matters pertaining to education and 'social justice', as Global Labor alleges? Both Klonsky and Ayers emerged from the SDS: whereas Ayers started his Weather Underground mob, Klonsky - via the October League - founded the US Communist Party (Marxist-Leninst) (CP (ML)), which was officially sanctioned by the Chinese regime.

The unionist Global Labor blogger in another post, "Who Sent Obama?" (the answer by the way is, Bill Ayers) writes: "(...) in retrospect the Ayers/Ayers (business from above [ed. Ayers' business man father, Tom], local activism from below) joint campaign against both the Chicago School District bureaucracy and the Teachers Union is reminiscent of the kinds of alliances one finds in neo-stalinist regimes like that of Cuba, China or Sandinista-run Nicaragua. In the Chinese Cultural Revolution, for example, Mao appealed to local activists to attack the party bureaucracy. These authoritarian movements often try to build their power against democratic institutions like unions."

Yes, the revolution has a habit of eating its own children!

"Well-intentioned liberals even from the business community are often willing to support such efforts because they view the traditional labor movement as even more of a threat than the neo-stalinist authoritarians like Castro, Chavez or Ortega. While many on the left try to portray such movements as a new form of democracy, they are anything but" [our emphasis].

Get this! What precisely is Obamaism but - by his own confession - the umpteenth version of Marxism light, usually referred to as 'the real third way'? But all we get is obfuscation? All that's being micro scrutinized and discussed - and rightly so - are McCain's policy proposals: what about O's? It is beyond comprehension that in 2008 we are yet again presented with another variety of the ideology with a track record of unprecedented proportions; in the light of present financial crisis journalists are seriously asking the rhetorical question, is Capitalism bankrupt?

Should we be surprised of the sort of tactics that were applied throughout the history of collectivism in the service of the revolution? Another name for community organizer is 'agitator' (go ahead, ask Alinsky) (must we really keep on repeating history?):

The Corner: "The Obama Silencing Machine"

Much of Barack Obama's political success can be traced to a database listing contact information for millions of people, a tool that has proved invaluable in raising record sums of money and organizing a national volunteer network. Now Obama's presidential campaign is increasingly using the list to beat back media messages it does not like, calling on supporters to flood radio and television stations when those opposed to him run anti-Obama ads or appear on talk shows. It did so as recently as Monday night, when it orchestrated a massive stream of complaints on the phone lines of Tribune Co.-owned WGN-AM in Chicago when the radio station hosted author David Freddoso, who has written a controversial book about the Illinois Democrat. (...)The latest use of the database, called the Obama Action Wire, is proving yet another new and potentially powerful tactic in the closing weeks of a campaign that has already been dominated by Internet-based messages and media. >>>

Here's an interview with Freddoso on Glenn Beck.

There are several words which spring to mind to describe such tactics, none of which have pleasant connotations. Enforcers, thugs, militias, Brown Shirts, Storm Troopers, and many more. Atlas Shrugs has the details, both of this and another occasion. It rather answers the pregnant question, what form would O's national service take (don't ever come up with "we didn't know").

Obama to date has been bullet-proof against such circumstantial evidence - cautions from Kenya on his character and associations thrown to the wind.

Increasingly it seems the future of America can go two ways: either Obama wins the elections and the land becomes a crypto semi fascist tranzy republic as admired by the EU, swathes of Latin America and the UN; or - due to 'America's inherent racism' - Obama forfeits the Presidential race, resulting in the morbid Obama intoxicants turning inward imploding in on themselves; or on the contrary, seeking external release with the wrath of Action Wire unleashed upon the nation. Richard Miniter on PJMs ventures a possible future avenue.

Younger people, born after the collapse of the Soviet Union have no idea about the depths of the Orwellian machinations from hell; older ones, lured into a false sense of security by the 'peace dividend' have allowed themseves to forget: to their benefit, here's the latest on Hugo Chavez' human rights record over the last ten years: read US for Venezuela for a preview of the dystopia of Obamanation.

Whatever the outcome of the postmodern culture war, fasten seat-belts please, very tightly.

Update: Melanie Phillips has done some research; for an overview of that read The Spectator's "The Long March To The White House". Here's an instructive sample of the classical Marxist lingo in which CPUSA supporter Frank Chapman described Obama’s victory in the Iowa caucus in the People’s Weekly:

Obama’s victory was more than a progressive move; it was a dialectical leap ushering in a qualitatively new era of struggle. Marx once compared revolutionary struggle with the work of the mole, who sometimes burrows so far beneath the ground that he leaves no trace of his movement on the surface. This is the old revolutionary ‘mole,’ not only showing his traces on the surface but also breaking through.’

Phillips concludes: "Ah yes, redefining deviancy as normality, the agenda indeed of Gramsci/Alinsky: patron saints of community organisers, apostles of deeply underground mole-like revolutionary Marxism, architects of the wildly successful undermining of western morality and society in America and Britain -- and now poised to embed itself in the White House, epicentre of the oppressive global capitalist regime, itself. Join up the dots."

- Filed on Article in "The New Storm Troopers" and "The Pomo White House" -

What is never said...

Here's what you can hear these days, six years after September 11: "The US President, through his war in Iraq against Islamic totalitarianism, radicalized the Muslim world and weakened the Western world. Incidentally, France predicted that." Nice.

But then, how come that Jacques Chirac has already fallen into oblivion? It's not him but Tony Blair, who left power not long after him, who has been appointed as mediator in the Near-East. Maybe our leaders believe that "George Bush's poodle" knows it better, right?

The angelic view says that terrorism is the expression of poverty and humiliation. This cliché forgets about the jihad fought against Western world and its way of life, in the name of a conquest and submission ideology. Some months ago, Osama Bin Laden invited Americans to join Islam while Al-Qaida attacked twice disobedient Algeria. Hatred leads Muslims into murdering other Muslims ...

But this time, victims were reacting. Algerians demonstrated in the streets, saying clearly "No to violence." On the same day in Gaza, a general strike took place to protest against the violent politics of Hamas. In Iraq, a poll showed that citizen consider Al Qaida to be the main cause of violence (21%), before USA (19%) and Iran (11%)

Nazislamism, fought by Bush and Blair, is beginning to be rejected by Muslims who feel dishonored by its barbary. In the al-Anbar province (Iraq) Sunnite militia are now collaborating with Americans. In Iran, Ahmadinejad is considered a disgrace for part of the population. In Morocco, even the so called "moderate islamists" didn't do good in the last election.

One wonders if it would be the case if pacifist France had been followed, France which advocated status-quo in Iraq and didn't want to hear about a war against terrorism? USA's strategy can't be summed up in the chaos that medias love to describe. Pointing his finger at the enemy, Bush has been awakening the Free World's vigilance. THAT'S WHAT IS NEVER SAID.

Some kind of contempt towards Arab-Muslim world leads to think that it can only understand the voice of tyranny. In essence, it's the argument of the Leftist intelligentsia who condemn Bush for willing to free Iraq of its pseudo-secular dictatorship. When hearing them, you get the feeling that Saddam Hussein should have been left free to terrorize its people.

Actually, even if Americans blew up Iraq's occupation with their unpreparedness and certitude, they nonetheless clarified the stake, showing that the cultures clash is between submission and freedom rather than between Arabs and Westerners.

Yes, it was naive to think that democracy would prevail in Baghdad and then spread in the neighbouring countries. But it's still reachable and many Iraqis hope to consolidate it. "We are building the bases of a new democracy" explains Hohyar Zebari, Foreign Affairs Minister. Still, many so-called specialists go on incriminating USA and this position makes Bin Laden master of the game. This kind of "surrender" only satisfies islamists.

The free world can't afford to give a hand to its enemies. Now, radical Islam takes advantage of this confusion to try and establish itself in Europe. In Germany, two converts were on the verge of committing suicide attacks. The Jewish community in this country must be concerned with the rise of this new antisemitism initiated by hatred preachers.

Not long ago in the Netherlands, ex-Muslims decided to denounce politic Islam. "We are breaking the taboo coming with abjuration of Islam, but we also take the party of reason, rights and universal values as well as secularism" they wrote in their "European declaration for tolerance." In France also, many secular Muslims have adapted to the rules and way of life of Western society. We must support these democrats.

These days as we see Belgium tearing apart between Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia reminds us how fragile a nation is when it's no more welded by a shared identity. In the heart of Europe, this country could well explode because two communities, however born of the same Christian culture, don't feel interdependent anymore.

That's why a country like France must consolidate the national feeling which is essential to its unity, while immigration upsets its demography. The greater Paris (Ile-de-France) accounts for 19% of French population and contributes for 43% of the population's growing, just because of the fecundity of African or North African immigration. Will France always be able to inspire this overly Muslim population with its Western values? It's only possible through fighting the pressure of radical Islam.

(Based on an article by Ivan Rioufol, editor of "Le Figaro" and Senior Fellow at the Atlantis Institute)

"The Fable of the Knife"

Dr Sam C. Holliday, director of the Armiger Cromwell Center, following his first essay in these pages, "Effectively Communicating Jihad: a spade is a spade", in a second article is sharing with us today "The Fable of the Knife", which dates back to the days of the Greek Civil War. He does the introduction himself:

We welcome the good news that killings are down in Iraq. However, we must not forget the ‘Fable of the Knife’. Future hirabahists (Islamic extremists who kill the innocent) will surely remember it. There is no need for each generation to relearn its lesson. The origin of this fable is unknown. From 1947 to 1949 it was told in Greece, and since then many variations have been told.

THE FABLE - Do three insurgents with one hunting knife, or a battalion, control the town?

The battalion is well equipped with the latest in vehicles, communication, and weapons. Its soldiers are well-trained professionals. Most of the time they are in their fortified compound. All guns and ammunition in the town have been collected and destroyed, and no enemy units have been reported in the vicinity. Several times a day vehicles from the compound patrol the town with the soldiers smiling and waving to the people; from time to time they stop and talk - as best they can. Officers from the battalion meet regularly with town leaders to discuss how to improve public utilities, facilitate economic development, and improve governance. They also talk - through an interpreter - about the glories of freedom, and the advantages of democracy. Every day the battalion commander reports to his superior that the town is secure and under his control.

The three insurgents have no vehicle, only face-to-face communication, and one hunting knife. Anyone who has spoken out against the insurgents has been found the next morning in front of his home with his throat cut.

Who controls the town, the three insurgents with one hunting knife or the battalion?

LESSON TO BE LEARNED - Local security must be of, by and for the people.

The big dog theory holds that the biggest, badest dog can dominate all other dogs, and also the cats. In accordance with this theory, war-fighting forces should be able to dispatch insurgents to the ash can of history. But the hirabahists are not dogs or cats; they are snakes, insects, bacteria and viruses. So the battalion is unable to neutralize them. The ruthlessness, cruelty and determination of the insurgents give them the upper hand in a battle of wills.

Sam C. Holliday is a graduate of the U. S. Military Academy at West Point, a former director of Stability Studies at the Army War College, and a retired Army Colonel. He earned a Master's in Public Affairs from the University of Pittsburgh and a doctorate in International Relations from the University of South Carolina. Currently he is Director of The Armiger Cromwell Center, a small nonprofit Internet clearinghouse for thinking "outside of the box of conventional wisdom." By means of its online essays, the ACC seeks more effective foreign policies to achieve stability through equilibrium.

- Related: The Fable of the Water Buffalo and the Sparrow

Copyright © 2007 Armiger Cromwell Center, 3750 Peachtree Road, NE, Suite 374, Atlanta, GA 30319-1322 armigercc@comcast.net Permission is granted to forward this essay to friends or colleagues, on a fair use basis. For reprint permission contact Armiger Cromwell Center.

Update Iraq: Grim as Ever ... only Kidding!

Even before 'the surge' took hold, things were looking up. Not that you'd figure that from the reporting in what is collectively termed, 'the West'. Just how misleading the reporting by the politically biased mainstream press is, has already been published in a number of blogs, and by some critical journalists with a beating heart for the investigative side of the profession - those that haven't become part of the global conspiracy for the cultivation of the anti American consensus.

Michael Yon - an independent reporter [1] who's been blogging from Iraq (at his own expense) since December 2004 - describes in "Resistance is Futile: You will be (Mis)informed" in no uncertain terms how the public is hoodwinked into believing that the war is long hopelessly lost. The Democrats have a vested interest that this perception takes hold if they want to win the next presidential elections, which they do, desperately.

Yon sums up the situation in a set of illustrative pictures, and in a few pointed words: "A gulf", "a gap", "a chasm", "a parallel universe". "All describe the bizarro-world contrast between what most Americans seem to think is happening in Iraq versus what is really happening in Iraq ... I was at home in the United States just one day before the magnitude hit me like vertigo: America seems to be under a glass dome which allows few hard facts from the field to filter in unless they are attached to a string of false assumptions."

"The situation in Iraq has drastically changed, but the inertia of bad news leaves many convinced that the mission has failed beyond recovery, that all Iraqis are engaged in sectarian violence, or are waiting for us to leave so they can crush their neighbors. This view allows our soldiers two possible roles: either “victim caught in the crossfire” or “referee between warring parties.” Neither, rightly, is tolerable to the American or British public."

This is how bad the situation is! Osama bin Laden just released the fourth video this year, bitterly scolding "the laxness" of his Iraqi cronies (clients, appears to be the new neutrality term). Newsday reports that "in the brief tape played on Al-Jazeera television, the terrorist leader urged militants to "beware of division", lamenting the "fanatical" tribal loyalties. This is perhaps no wonder, as the news that even Sunni tribesmen have had their fill of being slaughtered by the death cult, may not yet have filtered through to the profound Waziri layer of rocks, under which these hirabahists [2] live.

In an 'in their face' provocation "the U.S. military plans a "unification parade" today in Ramadi, the Anbar provincial capital, to showcase the success of a tribal alliance with some Sunnis. Maj. Lee Peters, a military spokesman, said increased security will protect the celebration, which will include at least 200 Sunni sheiks and hundreds of other dignitaries in commemoration of Sheik Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, founder of the anti-al-Qaeda Anbar Salvation Council, assassinated by a bomb Sept. 13."

Even the shushing tones of "the enslavers of women, the killers of homosexuals, the beheaders of reporters, and the incinerators of men and women" - tut-tutting from a place beyond history so much raw, unsophisticated, direct cowboy brawn - cannot stop the advancement of the loathsome neocon dream of democracy for all.

Once it lets its civilizational influence felt, not only will Islam cease to be a hotbed and a justification for Hirabah [2], it will also help foster a culture in which gruesome anti human practices as shown today by our friends at Muslims Against Sharia, will become a thing of the past (caution: the images are very graphic!).

- Photo courtesy of Michael Yon

[1] Others are Matt Sanchez and Michael J. Totten

[2] Hirabahists are evildoers, committing Hirabah - unholy war - that will incur Allah's condemnation on Judgment Day

Kurdistan: the Plot Thickening

Turkey's parliament voted overwhelmingly today to approve an offensive against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, authorizing Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to order the Turkish military to cross into Iraq over a one-year period. Yesterday we already mentioned that the plot in the region is thickening amidst moves in the U.S. to complicate matters even further, quite unnecessarily so, one might add.

While NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and other diplomats are falling over one another to press upon Turkey to pull punches, Turkish leaders have stressed that the vote would not mean there would be an immediate cross-border attack on members of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK. Over the summer period Turkey has amassed forces along the border that far outnumber the American troops in Iraq.

NewsMax in the meantine published two exclusive interviews that their correspondent Kenneth R. Timmerman just recently had with Kurdish rebel forces in their camp, hidden on a hillside near the village of Marado in the flank of 10,000-foot Qandil mountains, by no means Marxist PKK, but Party of the Free Life of Kurdistan, PJAK. Perhaps not entirely surprisingly it would appear that Turkey and Iran have made common cause against the Kurds.

For your convenience above historical map from this source, which just might raise a few eye brows in the region.

- "Kurdish Rebels Strike Iran"- "Kurdish rebels based in the rugged mountains along Iraq’s northeastern border with Iran told Newsmax in exclusive interviews at secret guerilla bases that they have killed 200 Iranian Revolutionary Guards troops during clashes over the past two months. Guerilla leaders of the Party of the Free Life of Kurdistan, PJAK, said they have clashed with Iranian forces 21 times during this time. Iran has not admitted to the losses. The intense fighting began on Aug. 16, when Iran and Turkey began jointly shelling villages inside Iraq where rebels from those countries have their bases. Both Iran and Turkey are currently massing troops on their sides of the border with Iraq, in preparation for a ground and airborne assault on the rebel bases inside Iraq, according to published reports and information from local sources. >>>

- "Turkey Forms Alliance With Iran Against Kurds" - "U.S. ally Turkey and U.S. arch-enemy Iran have formed a military alliance to drive opposition Kurds from bases in northern Iraq they have used since 2004 to launch guerrilla operations inside Iran, rebel leaders told Newsmax at a secret base in the Qandil mountains. Both Iran and Turkey have vowed to send troops into northern Iraq, but until now evidence of active military cooperation between them has remained a closely-held secret. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has stepped up political and diplomatic threats in recent days, telling the United States he would cut off U.S. access to the strategic Incirlik airbase in eastern Turkey if the U.S. tried to prevent Turkey from sending troops against the Kurdish bases in northern Iraq." ...

"The goal of the Iranians is to drive us from the border area,” rebel leader Biryar Gabar told Newsmax. “They want to turn this area into a no-man’s land, so they can use it to smuggle weapons and Islamist guerillas into Iraq to fight the Americans. He called the Iran-Turkey entente “an anti-American alliance,” not just an anti-Kurdish agreement, and said that it resulted from deliberate decisions from the ruling Islamist AKP party of Prime Minister Erdogan to transform Turkey into an increasingly Islamist state."

"A senior European official, who was involved in talks to bring Turkey into the European Union, told Newsmax recently he had been “stunned” by the hard-line toward the Kurds taken by AKP party leader Abdullah Gul, now Turkey’s president. “He was totally uncompromising,” the official said. “He took a harder line than the Turkish military.” Iran has been offering Turkey an economic agreement with Iran in July to build a strategic pipeline that will bring Iranian natural gas to Europe, in defiance of a U.S. led effort to increase the economic squeeze on Iran." >>>

Keeping you posted.

Blackfive: How Dim is Nancy Pelosi?

Blackfive answer the rhetorical question in the affirmative and say, stunningly so.

In our opinion things couldn't be worse. Mrs Pelosi is Speaker of the House and as such not a total dimwit, but a politician. She knows - or ought to know - exactly what she is doing. Blackfive know that too.

"The fact that the leader of the Dems in the House has this little regard for our forces and their safety as well as our victory is sad but clearly a chosen path. They have been trying to get this war lost for a couple of years now, so the sabotaging of relations with the country most capable of making things miserable for us is par for the course."

It is another example of politicians subordinating global and geopolitical interests to shortsighted party-political interests: the irresponsible destructiveness that is running in too many of the current crop of politicians' veins since it was stirred to consciousness in 1968*.

Any time in the last ninety years or so would have been a good time to address the Human Rights of the Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians at the hands of the Ottomans. The current one is decidedly not, but is coincides with the plot thickening at the Turkish-Iraqi border in Northern Iraq.

Either Mrs Pelosi is stunningly dim, or stunningly evil.

Update 1: Here's a letter from President Bill Clinton during his Presidency to Dennis Hastert, regarding the controversy during his presidency. That apparently, was also a less fortunate moment.
- Hat Tip: Siggy via Dr Sanity: "Needless to say, the Republican-led Congress--in the interests of national security--listened to the wise counsel of then-President Clinton."

Update 2: *As by sheer coincidence Roger L. Simon in "1968 Revisited" today elaborates on the generation of Boomers and Pre Boomers. He doesn't take the irreversible KGB subversion and de-moral-ization program into consideration, and the devastating influence that was the Frankfurt School for Higher Communism. It was this fifth column that entirely orchestrated Western youth culture, including the subversion of the churches and the destruction of the family unit as a result of pushing the Marxist dialectic.

As by another coincidence Fjordman describes in "The Fatherless Civilization", a review of Diana West's book, "The Death of the Grown-Up": the redistribution of power from the white male (the oppressing White Patriarchate) to perceived minorities or 'victims', including women, the oppressed.

All three are missing this point. This is not without significance as we are experiencing a revival presently, as witnessed by the subject matter of this post: the willful undermining and sabotage of Western interests. To say that they cannot help it, they were programmed this way, sounds to me too much like an excuse, one that I am unwilling to offer.