by Jonathan Winer*
How do you get an evil dictator who starves his people to understand that you really mean business when you say he has to stop his nuclear proliferation program?
Treasury has decided you do it by taking away his iPods, sports cars, and booze.
by Bill Levinson
Senator James Webb (D-VA) said this in his rebuttal to George Bush’s State of the Union address:
The President took us into this war recklessly. He disregarded warnings from the national security adviser during the first Gulf War, the chief of staff of the army, two former commanding generals of the Central Command, whose jurisdiction includes Iraq, the director of operations on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and many, many others with great integrity and long experience in national security affairs. We are now, as a nation, held hostage to the predictable and predicted disarray that has followed.
Since he (inadvertantly of course) left out some other people who “took us into this war recklessly,” we will help him out by reminding him and the American public of what his friends John Kerry, Hillary “I Want a Third Term in 2008″ Clinton, Thomas Daschle, Albert “The World is Melting” Gore, and William “I did not have sex with that woman, depending on what you mean by sex” Jefferson Clinton said about Iraq.
By Andrew L. Jaffee
Let’s count the ways Jimma Carter would find to blame Israel for the savage chaos now going down amongst Palestinians. If Palestinians treat each other this way, how can we expect Israel to reach a “peace agreement” with them? From the BBC:
Eight people including at least two civilians have died in new violence in Gaza between the rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah.
Hamas militants besieged the home of a Fatah activist, leading to an exchange of gunfire and casualties. Groups have also seized members of rival factions.
This followed overnight violence which left a member of each faction dead.
“Have died?” Talk about misusing the passive voice…
by Kenneth W. Stein*
Jimmy Carter’s engagement in foreign affairs as a former president is unprecedented in U.S. history. Because he regards the Arab-Israeli conflict as among Washington’s most important foreign policy topics, he has written more than two dozen articles and commentaries about the conflict, eight in the past year alone. In these publications, Carter uses his credibility as a former president, Nobel laureate, and key player in the September 1978 Camp David accords and the Egypt-Israel peace treaty to unfold his set of truths and often to criticize U.S. policy. He relishes the role of elder statesman and believes that with his accrued wisdom and experience, he can contribute to solutions.
By Andrew L. Jaffee
The BBC has reported that “Al-Qaeda’s deputy leader has mocked US President George W Bush’s plan to increase Iraq troop numbers.” Ayman al-Zawahiri “called on all Muslims to bear arms or support those bearing arms to defend Islam.” Really, Mr. Zawahiri? Which Islam, Sunni or Shiite? Some of us know that you hate Shiites as much as, or possibly more so, than you hate Americans. How does al-Zawahiri feel about his “fellow” Shiite Muslims? Here he is, in his own words:
by Bill Levinson
Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred threescore and six (Revelations 13:18).
While we do not take the book of Revelations literally, we recognize it as an outstanding model for the charismatic demagogue who has come many times in human history, usually to sow boundless destruction and misery in his wake. His standard modus operandi is to appeal to ignorant and superstitious followers with religious imagery, as done by the Mahdi (the slave trader Mohammed Ahmed, 1843-1885, played by Sir Laurence Olivier in Khartoum) and Mohammed himself.
He may also, however, invoke national and cultural myths and legends. Adolf Hitler appealed to Germanic and Scandinavian legends while broadcasting Wagnerian operas, Napoleon Bonaparte appealed to French nationalism, and Attila the Hun “found” the sword of the War God. Even the sainted Joan of Arc found it convenient to “find” the Sword of Charlemagne lying around somewhere, and her followers found it convenient to at least pretend that it was indeed the artifact in question. As reported by MEMRI, however, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is going all the way and using the False Prophet and Messianic Leader role pair that appears in Revelations.
From the Anti-Defamation League
This Friday, the United Nations General Assembly will vote on a resolution condemning the biggest lie of our time. The resolution “condemns without any reservation any denial of the Holocaust.”
Today is the day to stand up to the deniers and their sponsors. Sign ADL’s statement to the President of the General Assembly, voicing our support for the resolution NOW.
By Andrew L. Jaffee
The Brits, under the “leadership” of yutzes like London Mayor Ken Livingstone, have helped make the UK very vulnerable to attack and infiltration by Islamo-fascists, all under the rubric of “multi-culturalism” (see “Britain stands at the precipice” and “Europe is Finished, Predicts Mark Steyn”). But a poll released today shows that the British peoples’ appetite for political correctness has been waning since 1990. Perhaps events like the 7/7 attack and the foiled airliner plot have given Brits pause for a little reality check, as a “Huge majority say civil liberty curbs a ‘price worth paying’ to fight terror,” reports the Guardian:
By Andrew L. Jaffee
When Israel was defending its civilian population from Hezbollah rockets last summer, the world condemned the Jewish state’s response as “disproportionate.” The loss of Lebanese lives and infrastructure at the hands of the Little Satan was bemoaned ad nauseam. But now it is Hezbollah who is killing Lebanese, destroying the economy, and trying to overthrow a democratically elected government. Will we see any UN resolutions against Hezbollah? I doubt it. Here’s the result of Hezbollah’s recent “protests” in Lebanon:
By Andrew Whitehead
As you may know, Anti-CAIR uses material from leading personalities to illustrate the threat of radical Islam. To this end, we’ve used the material of Dr. Daniel Pipes on many occasions.
Dr. Pipes recently participated in a debate in London, Great Britain, at the invitation of London’s mayor, Ken Livingstone.
I invite you to read the following commentary about how Dr. Pipes & Co. did in the debate:
By Andrew L. Jaffee
Syria and Iran’s proxy in Lebanon, the terrorist group Hezbollah, is aiming to overthrow the current Lebanese government. This is nothing new. What is noteworthy is that at least Bloomberg, not exactly a small media outlet, is refreshingly clear about the situation in Lebanon:
Hezbollah, the Shiite Muslim Party aiming to topple Lebanon’s pro-Western government, blocked roads and set barricades alight in a major escalation in ten-weeks of protest. …
“This has nothing to do with democracy or freedom,'’ Samir Geagea, a Christian politician who supports the Siniora government, told Lebanese television. “This has been transformed into a coup d’etat.'’ …
Hezbollah triggered the 33-day summertime war with Israel when it abducted a pair of Israeli solders at the border with the Jewish state. …
By Andrew L. Jaffee
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has outdone even himself, telling “U.S. officials to ‘Go to hell, gringos!’ and call[ing] Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ‘missy’ on his weekly radio and TV show Sunday,” according to the AP. The Bush administration has long been criticized for not using sufficiently diplomatic, delicate language, but ¿cuál es éste? Hugo is pushing through “legislation” that will allow him to rule by decree and be dictator for life. Let me switch languages, but isn’t this a bit of koyaanisqatsi (Hopi for “life out of balance”), to put it into the lexicon of the politically correct?
By Andrew L. Jaffee
Iraq’s terrorists upped the ante today, savagely killing 75 people and injuring 160 at a Shiite “second-hand clothes market popular with the city’s poorer residents” in Baghdad, just as new American troops arrived to shore up security in the nation’s capital. Of course the attack was timed to coincide with the U.S. troops’ arrival. Such cynical evil has worked in the past for Iraq’s terrorists, so they’re trying to scuttle any hopes for the U.S.’s last chance in Iraq to succeed, by using tried and tested methods of inflaming sectarian tensions. Iraq’s Shiites showed enormous restraint while Sunni terrorists were killing them en masse — that is, until the Samarra bombing. The Sunni strategy of stoking hatred worked. Go with what works, right? Cynical, but pragmatic in an evil kind of way.
By Andrew L. Jaffee
Two groups of Iranian MJs (member of the Majlis, parliament) have signed letters critical of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s handling of nuclear issues, his Holocaust denial conference, and the domestic economy. Even “hard-line newspapers” have joined the criticism. Today, Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, once on track to succeed Supreme Leader Khomeini, let Ahmadinejad have it. This internal censure is notable precisely because Iran is a dictatorship, and the criticism has been allowed out into the open. Here’s Montazeri, from the BBC:
By Andrew L. Jaffee
What happened to Muammar Gaddafi’s jamahiriya, the socialist “state of the masses?” Reality happened. One by one, the socialist/communist states created during the 20th century have either collapsed or co-opted the free enterprise system because… capitalism is dynamically adaptive, while communism is stolid, glacial, and discourages creativity. “Vietnam has embarked on an extensive reform program which aims at developing a market economy…” China’s economy would make Marx and Engels turn in their graves. So it goes that now Libya is engaging in free market reforms:
The Libyan government is to lay off 400,000 people - more than a third of its workforce - to ease public spending and stimulate the private sector.
Libyan Prime Minister Baghdadi Mahmudi told parliament the number of civil servants had become excessive.
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