Friday, April 01, 2016

The Council Has Spoken! Our Watcher's Council Results

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The Council has spoken, the votes have been cast, and the results are in for this week's Watcher's Council match up.

“Good courage in a bad affair is half of the evil overcome.”
- Titus Maccius Plautus

"He who does not punish evil commands it to be done." - Leonardo Da Vinci

"Shall I tell you what the real evil is? To cringe to the things that are called evils, to surrender to them our freedom, in defiance of which we ought to face any suffering." - Seneca

"The trouble with Islam is deeply rooted in its teachings. Islam is not only a religion. Islam (is) also a political ideology that preaches violence and applies its agenda by force." - Dr. Wafa Sultan



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This week's winning essay,Joshuapundit's's How Pakistan Celebrated Easter ...And The Message it Sends Us Is my reaction to certain events that occurred in Pakistan on Easter Sunday...and their wider meaning for the rest of us. Here's a slice:

Today was Easter Sunday, and many people took their families for an outing. In Lahore, Pakistan, many Christians took their children to Gulshan-e-Iqbal park for a special outing in an area set aside for them.

A Taliban faction called Jamaat-ul-Ahrar set off a huge bomb in the parking area, right near the swings, the picnic area and the children's rides, with the exploding vehicles in the parking area adding to the carnage. One source, ARY News estimated that as much as five to six kg of explosives may have been used. The blast was heard all over the city. Javed Ali, a 35-year-old who lives opposite the park near the center of the city, said the force of the blast shattered the windows of his home. “After 10 minutes I went outside. There was human flesh on the walls of our house."

According to Senior police official Haider Ashraf, ball bearings were found all over the crowded park. That's a common tactic, one frequently used by the Arabs whom call themselves Palestinians against Israelis. The blast force turns the ball bearings into high velocity anti-personnel weapons, rather like shrapnel.

As Jamaat-ul-Ahrar spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan told the Associated Press in a phone call, "The target was Christians."

It was indeed. It was their way of saying 'Happy Easter, infidels.'

At least 72 people have been pronounced dead so far, many of them children. The injured are still being treated and number is over 300 so far, many of them in critical condition. The death toll will undoubtedly go higher.



The Pakistani authorities, of course, have officially condemned the attack and the chief minister of Punjab province, Shahbaz Sharif, has announced three days mourning and pledged to ensure that those involved in the attack are brought to trial.

But this is Pakistan, where Christian churches are routinely bombed and burned, where Christian girls are abducted, raped and forcibly converted to Islam and where Pakistan's ISI, the equivalent of MI5 or the CIA collaborated in the horrific attacks on Mumbai in 2008. Any action taken will likely be marginal and based on eliminating a few convenient jihadis rather than actually eliminating the cause...the hatred many of Pakistan's Muslims have for anyone who isn't one.

As I reread what I wrote after Mumbai, I sadly see I was exactly right when predicted that the open attacks on soft targets in large cities  was a successful tactic and that we would see it in the near future in places like Paris, Boston and Brussels.

And I also wrote that the West was wasting its time expecting Islam to moderate itself. Individuals can and do, but the faith as a whole never will. And it is more than just a few 'fanatics perverting a great religion' as President Obama is fond of saying in between golf games and tango sessions. It is a mainstream and accurate reading of the Qu'ran, Sunna and Hadiths, the Muslims scriptures. And a significant number of the Muslim world follows and agrees with that reading whether they actually participate in the killing, finance it, or simply cheer it on.

And for those Muslims whom don't, whom disobey Qu'ran 5:51 too openly*, they have a lesson to teach them and any others with the same idea. So even many of those Muslims disgusted by jihad and worried about the effects on their peaceful life in the West generally keep their mouths shut. It's not like the western governments, America included are listening to them anyway. Many others, who see the great strides triumphalist Islam is making in the appeasement minded West are listening to what's being preached in their mosques and on social media and moving in that direction, something called 'radicalization' by the usual suspects.

Is there a solution?

President Obama thinks he has one. As he mentioned today in an Easter message that barely mention Easter, his idea of a solution is to bring even more of these people to America expose them to our freedom and they will change like magic.  And to make it even harder to vet them, he's had his people openly tip off these 'refugees' to scrub their Facebook and other social media accounts.

Our president's solution is also to protect and empower Islamists, especially the Muslim Brotherhood and their jihad friendly mosques. Or to quote him,America and the world will never solve this 'problem' without the assistance of friendly, helpful Muslims And we had better be careful to avoid offending them in any way. Federal Agents are actually prohibited now from considering religion, immigration status or national origin in their investigations.

In Europe, it's even worse, where people actually get arrested for defending themselves against 'refugees' or merely speaking up about what's going on.



The thing is, we've been trying it Obama's way since the Clinton Administration. How has this approach worked? Have jihadist attacks in America and around the world increased or decreased?

I think the answer is obvious.

Our president's attitude, echoed by EU leaders like Angela Merkel is why Paris and Brussels happened, why the Tsarnaev brothers were able to enter America so easily and pull off a jihad attack in the heart of the Boston Marathon, why Nidal Hassan was able to kill American military at Fort Hood and why a jihadist Muslim couple were able to massacre people in San Bernardino. And why there's a lot more of the same coming, if our present path continues.

Much more at the link.

In our non-Council category, the winner was the one and only Mark Steyn with his right on target piece, he One-Stop Shop for All Your Terror-Sentimentalizing Needs submitted by Joshuapundit. Steyn approaches what has become the sickening rituals that follow every jihadist attack on the West with his customary wit and it's definitely a must read.

Here are this week’s full results. Only Fausta was unable to vote this week, but was not affected by the usual 2/3 vote penalty for not voting:

Council Winners

Non-Council Winners


See you next week!

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum. and every  Tuesday morning, when we reveal the weeks' nominees for Weasel of the Week!

And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council, and the results are posted on Friday morning.

 It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere, and you won’t want to miss it...or any of the other fantabulous Watcher's Council content.

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