The ultimate comment on blogging...

7 wanna-be terrorist members of the `Religion of Peace' arrested in FBI sting

Well, whaddya know `bout that?

The FBI arrested seven wanna-be jihadis on terrorism conspiracy charges Tonight in connection with the early stages of a plot to attack Chicago's Sears Tower and other buildings in the United States.

The seven men, including 5 US citizens, 1 illegal alien and one resident alien thought their little cell was dealing with al Qaeda...but it turned out to be the feds.

Apparently, according to ABC News, the group has been under surveillance for some time and was infiltrated by a government informant who allegedly led them to believe he was an Islamic radical.

All are expected to be arraigned in U.S. District Court in Miami tomorrow morning.

The target was supposedly the Sears Tower in Chicago, but the jihadis were also considering attacking FBI facilities and government buildings in Miami...kind of as a warm up before the big game.

What's amusing about the Fox story is that it doesn't mention `Muslim' or `Islam' or `jihad' once....so I guess the perpetrators were Lutherans from Scandanavia.

It's high time we started identifying who we're fighting in this war. And it's high time we started addressing the exporting of jihad ideology to America by our eternal friends, the Saudis. This time, we were lucky. We might not be so lucky next time.

FBI Director Robert Mueller, speaking on CNN, said, "I can tell you that we do have an ongoing operation in Miami. We are conducting a number of arrests and searches and we'll have more about that when the operation is concluded, probably tomorrow morning."

Mueller added that "whenever we undertake an operation like this, we would not do it without the approval of a judge. We've got search warrants and arrest warrants and the like.."

I'm sure CAIR and the ACLU are already plotting strategy.

Stay tuned...

Iran to respond to the incentives package...oh, end of July, mid-August...who knows?

Iran's Ahmadinejad, Kofi Annan and the US all have their own ideas about an appropriate response time for Iran..while the uranium enrichment continues, Iran builds up its military and the clock keeps ticking.

Iran's president Ahmadinejad made a point of saying that Iran would not respond `until August' in a speech to a crowd in western Iran in a speech broadcast live on state television.

The incentives package was given to Iran June 6th.

By the way, the mullah he's shown shaking hands with in the picture is none other than Mullah Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq at their meeting last Sunday, one of the major Shiite parties..which should give you some food for thought when you think about Iraq and its future..

The US, on the other hand, wants an answer by next week.

U.S. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said that it would be “helpful and useful if we could get a response and know where the Iranians are” before the June 29 meeting of G-8 foreign Ministers in Moscow prior to the G-8 summit two weeks later.

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton said that June 29 would be “an ample period of time, very reasonable time in which Iran could respond.”

“I think we’ve made it clear that if the Iranians don’t choose the path that’s been presented to them, the alternative path is one of increasing isolation — that we’d be prepared to move very quickly in the Security Council,” Bolton said.

Kofi Annan, on the other hand, had a little chat with Iran's foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki and says that there will be no Iranian response before mid-July.

"I don't think they will give an answer before the G-8 meeting in St. Petersburg," Annan told reporters after the meeting. The G-8 meeting of the world's eight industrialized democracies in St. Peterburg, Russia is to run July 15-17.

"I expect their answer to come after that meeting, but I can't tell you specifically on what date," Annan said.

The Iranians are acting in accord with their culture...in the bazaar, you never start by putting your best offer on the table first...which is exactly what we've done. it's natural for them to expect the ante to be upped and the package of incentives sweetened as the bargaining intensifies. In the meantime, they are obviously enjoying the sense of power of being at the center of the world's deliberations.

Not only that, but the mullah's tyranical regime has been legitimized by all this far beyond what they could have hoped for.

For me, I myself don't know if this is a final offer (certainly it's more than generous enough) or an opening gambit by the West.

Stay tuned...

Abbas and Olmert meet in Jordan, agree to hold a formal summit later

Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had a breakfast meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the ancient Jordanian city of Petra yesterday morning.

Along with the pita and hummus, the two agreed to hold a formal summit in either Jordan or Egypt in about two weeks.


The meeting was the first between Abbas and Olmert since the Israeli elections.

Jordan's King Abdullah, who met separately with the two leaders wouldn't go public with what he said to Abbas, but was more than willing to tell the press that he used his time with Olmert to urge Israel to agree to a revival of peace negotiations under the so-called 'road map.'

Agreeing to accept this plan as gospel, drawn up with the participation of the Arabs and an Arab-American senator but without the participation of a single Israeli was one of Sharon's biggest errors as Israel's leader.

Abbas has always called for a revival of peace talks, but Olmert had the audacity to made this conditional on the Hamas-led Palestinian government renouncing violence, accepting Israel's right to exist and endorsing past interim agreements which call for a two-state solution. Apparently, Olmert has even given up those modest conditions.

Can't have the Palestinians agree to keep any prior agreements or stop their violence against Israel now, can we? Bad for diplomacy.

Olmert also grovelled and apologized for civilian deaths resulting from Israeli airstrikes against terrorists hidden in their midst. Abbas, of course, did not apologize for the rocket attacks or the ongoing terrorism strikes against Israel.

Of course, in Olmert's case, he has the additional problem of needing to make the right noises in order to keep peace in his home. Both his wife and daughter are activists on the far, far Left of Israeli politics, something that's very well known in Israel.

(Just as a side note, even the Geneva Convention recognizes the right of a nation engaged in hostilities to attack `resistance fighters and guerillas' hidden in the midst of a civilian population and recognizes that there will be collateral damage in those attacks.)

So here we have the amazing spectacle of a man with no clue and no vision negotiating under fire with another man who's government doesn't even recognize it's adversary's right to exist or any prior agreements..and expecting to come up with something meaningful.

Good luck with that.

Olmert's big threat, of course, and the basis on which he and Kadima were elected was his wonderful `disengagement' plan, wherein he would determine Israel's final borders unilaterally by 2010, uprooting thousands of Jews from their homes, property and livelyhood and giving the Palestinians a free gift of 90% of Judea and Samaria(the West Bank) so they have an easier time reaching Jerusalem and Tel Aviv with the qassams and katushkyas.

This brilliant plan has basically gone down the drain.

Olmert's big idea has met with nothing but cold water when he tried to peddle it internationally. The Bush Administration refused to support it when Olmert was in Washington last month, and just yesterday, Egypt and Jordan are against the idea, the EU leaders wouldn't back it, Tony Blair not unexpectedly turned his back on it (Blair need to keep the peace at home too!) and just yesterday the US-European summit in Vienna came out against any Israeli unilateral steps on the West Bank and pimped for negotiations and the road map as the only way forward.

Not only that, but Olmert's plan got another kick in the crotch when radical leftwing MK Yossi Bailin, leader of Meretz, stated that the Olmert plan had no chance of majority support in the Knesset because both his faction and the Arab bloc would vote against it as not giving the Palestinians enough!

The truth of the matter is, there's no real basis for negotiations with the Palestinians. For that matter, there's no basis for a 2nd Arab Palestinian state. Outside of a hatred for Jews and a shared feeling of victimization, there's nothing holding the people known as `Palestinians' together, and no viable economic, geographic or cultural reason for such a state to exist. The world would have for gotten about them a long time ago if they were in, say, Central Africa instead of fighting the Jews.

Israelis partially recognized that when they elected Olmert on the premise that he would forego dealing with them and simply come up with a unilateral solution, but they clung to the fantasy that they could do that without militarily defeating Fatah and Hamas and driving them away from Israel's borders.

That war is coming, and the sooner the Israelis understand that and begin to win it, the better for Israel.

President Bush in Budapest to commemorate the 1956 uprising

President Bush is in Budapest, Hungary today as the country commemorates the 50th anniversary of Hungary’s blooding uprising against Soviets.

He spoke today holding up Hungary’s democracy as a model for Iraq, and spoke rather movingly of Hungary's revolt against the Soviets:

"In 1956, the Hungarian people suffered under a communist dictatorship and domination by a foreign power. That fall, the Hungarian people decided they had enough and demanded change.

From this spot, you could see tens of thousands of students and workers and other Hungarians, marching through the streets.

They called for an end to dictatorship, to censorship and to the secret police. They called for free elections, a free press and the release of political prisoners.

These Hungarian patriots tore down the statue of Josef Stalin and defied an empire to proclaim their liberty.

Twelve days after the Hungarian people stood up for their liberty, the communists in Moscow responded with great brutality. Soon, the streets of Budapest were filled with Soviet tanks. The Red Army killed many who resisted, including women and children. The Soviets threw many more into prison.

They crushed the Hungarian uprising, but not the Hungarian people's thirst for freedom." {....}

"Kossuth Square is named for the father of Hungarian democracy, and
honors more than a century and a half of Hungarian sacrifice in freedom's cause.

A bust of this great leader stands in the United States Capitol. It
affirms that those who fight for liberty are heroes not only in their own land,
but of all free nations. All who love liberty are linked together across the
generations and across the world.

Your great poet, Petofi, said this: "Here is the time, now or never. Shall we be slaves or free? This is the question. Answer: By the God of the Hungarians, we swear, we swear to be slaves no more."

These words were addressed to the Hungarian people, yet they
speak to all people in all times. This is the spirit that we honor
today."

Bush will lay a wreath at the Eternal Flame Memorial to those who died in the 1956 revolt against Russian tanks.

Next month, Bush will be attending the G-8 summit in St. Petersburg with Russian President Putin. Considering Russia's strained relationship with the US and Putin's alliance with Iran, this is obviously a message to Putin and not unconnected.

WMD's found in Iraq after all!

Gee, whaddya know..WMDs in Iraq after all.

Today, Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) and Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) announced Wednesday the finding of over 500 "sarin- and mustard-filled projectiles," in Iraq.

Reading from unclassified portions of a document developed by the U.S. intelligence community, Santorum said, "Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq's pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist."

According to Santorum, "That means in addition to the 500, there are filled and unfilled munitions still believed to exist within the country."

The Pennsylvania senator called the finding "incredibly" significant.

"The idea that, as my colleagues have repeatedly said in this debate on the other side of the aisle, that there are no weapons of mass destruction is in fact false," Santorum said. "We have found over 500 weapons of mass destruction and in fact have found that there are additional chemical weapons still in the country."

Of course, that's nothing to what we would have found if Bush hadn't given Saddam 15 months to sell or hide whatever he managed to get rid of. Or if we took a little trip over the border to Syria.

Here is a transcript of Santorum's interview with radio commentator Hugh Hewitt....good stuff, and significant.

Of course, none of this will make a difference to the Angry Left, now will it?

Two missing US soldiers found in Iraq...tortured and with booby-trapped bodies

I decided not to comment on this story until enough time had passed that I was sure the families had been notified. Also, I wanted to poll some of my military sources to find out a few more facts on exactly what happened and what condition the bodies were found in. (thanks AK, Captain Lou and Hi Five)

PFC Kristian Menchaca, 23, from Houston, Texas and Pfc Thomas L. Tucker, 25, from Madras Oregon, both of the 101st Airborne Division were reported as missing in action after an attack Friday on their checkpoint in Yusefiya, an al Qaeda stronghold. It's pretty certain that the raid was made with the express purpose of grabbing a couple of American soldiers to butcher with the idea of bucking up the mujahadeen's morale and giving the new leader a chance to `make his bones' as it were.

The bodies were found yesterday. It took the troops who discovered the bodies 12 hours to clear the bombs and booby-traps planted around the bodies to target recovery teams.

Both had been tortured in barbaric fashion and the bodies had been desecrated to the point of making a visual ID impossible. DNA testing was necessary to finally verify their identities.

`Credit' was claimed by the Mujahadeen Shura Council, which claimed credit for snatching the two Americans. They stated over the Internet that "the leader Abu Hamza al-Muhajir had been graced by Allah with the implementation of sentence."

Predictably, the reaction from the Angry left has been either to not give a rip `because these guys are mercenaries that volunteeered' or at best, to cite this as more evidence that need to yank the troops out forthwith and to hell with the consequences. Or, as the once sensible Jane Harman (d-IL) put it on `it's not cut and run, it's uh, cut and win!'.

The merits of the Iraq war aside, I am still waiting for these people to admit that the people we are fighting are evil. I am still waiting for one of them to tell me how a retreat helps defeat that evil, or how it makes it go away.

I have a feeling that I would die waiting..which is one reason I don't trust any of these people in the slightest to defend the West. They have no clue as to the basic nature of the enemy we face.

The families and comrades of Privates Menchaca and Tucker, I can only offer this small consolation: My heart goes out to you. These brave men died defending our freedom, doing a job that both of them signed on to do because they knew it was worth while doing. When the call came, they answered, and that is no small thing.

Their blood will be avenged, and if the manner in which they died sends a message to some of their fellow Americans, the sacrifice they made will not have been in vain.

As long as brave men are willing to pick up the gun to defend our liberty, we will keep it. RIP.

President Bush at the Vienna Summit tells Iran to hurry up and deal

President Bush again met with his EU counterparts inVienna to shore up some strategy and consensus.

Iran's Ahmadinejad announced today that Iran would respond to the West's incentive offer `by Aug. 22nd'.

Bush responded at a press conference in Vienna after conferring with EU leaders that this was insufficient.

"It shouldn't take the Iranians that long to analyze what is a reasonable deal," Bush said, adding that he wants a response from Iran in "weeks, not months."

Austrian Chancellor and Head of the European Council Wolfgang Schuessel agreed, saying "We've come to a crossroads on the Iran nuclear issue," Schuessel said. "Now is the right moment for Iran to take this offer, to grab it and to negotiate."

Considering that all they're asking of Iran in exchange for the goodies to get the ball rolling is a moratorium on uranium enrichment while talks are going on, it's hard not to see it that way.

My own bet is that Iran will announce an acceptance sometime in July...and continue its nuclear program on the sly anyway. All Bush is asking for is `verifiable compliance'.....and of course the `verifying ' will be done by Mohammed El Baradi and the clowns at the IAEA. How reassuring! I'm feeling better already.

The closure of Club Gitmo, a cause celebre' with the Europeans also came up, with Dubbya for the first time acknowledging that he wants to close down our summer resort for Islamic terrorists...as soon as an appropriate vehicle for trying them can be worked out.

The press conference grew very feisty once the European press began weighing in. Like the Main Stream Press here, they mostly hate Bush worse than California wine or Wisconsin cheese.

The reporters cited a recent poll which found that many Europeans consider the United States a threat to global stability.

"That's absurd," Bush snapped when asked about the poll results. He got even angrier grew when an obnoxious Austrian reporter insisted on reading him some specific poll numbers.

"Look, people didn't agree with my decision on Iraq, and I understand that. For Europe, September the 11th was a moment; for us, it was a change of thinking," he said.

Schuessel, unlike some of his fellow Europeans, has more than a smidgen of gratitude and remembrance of the past history. He reminded those present of World War II and America's post-war help for Europe to rebuild.

"Don't forget, I was born in 1945. ... I will never forget that America fed us," Schuessel said. "I think it's grotesque to say that America is a threat to the peace in the world compared with North Korea, Iran, other countries."

At least some people remember.

Every week, the Watcher's Council nominate two posts each, one from the Council members and one from outside for consideration by the whole Council. The complete list of this week’s Council nominations is here.



1.Dr. Sanity: EXIT STAGE LEFT
In which Doctor Sanity comments on Michael Barone's column on why the Democrats have trouble winning elections and her reflections on the mental state that persists in calling each defeat a `moral victory'! The Doctor brings her expertise to a point I grasped some time ago; that to understand the Angry left, all you need is a good knowledge of child psychology. Good stuff, as always.

2. J O S H U A P U N D I T: The heartbreak of Dhimmi-itis...Work for the cure. A public service announcement by your friend, Doc Freedom Fighter as we examine the outbreak of a horrible epidemic in the West;dhimmi-itis, a terrible disease that causes non-Muslims in the West to embrace the Islamist world view of themselves,leading to amnesia,vision impairment and if not treated, a loss of self esteem, liberty, and prosperity. A cure IS possible, however.

The fit will hit the shan with this one.

3.Done With Mirrors: Uber Alles- Callimachus examines the German national anthem and it's implications for modern day Germans seeking national dignity and pride.

4. The Education Wonks: The Spellings Report: An Open Invitation For The Secretary EdWonk examines what they consider to be the excessive traveling of the Secretary of Education. I still wonder why we have a federal department for this...

5. The Strata-Sphere: Truthout Fantasizes Again AJ shows why the Left has trouble doing `new media'. The problem is that when you have what amounts to a RELIGIOUS point of view, any facts that are inconvenient fall by the wayside.

6. Early OT 2005 Court stats : New World Man - Matt examines the stats for the Roberts court.

7.Gates of Vienna: Children in Danger From the UN Dymphna puts the whip to the hypocrisy of the UN proclaiming “The Day of the African Child” by UNICEF and using the kids to shill for money and claiming to `emancipate' African children while allowing UN peacekeepers to rape them and sell them into slavery. A memorable beating administered to a very deserving subject.

8. ShrinkWrapped: They Can't Help Themselves, Its Their Nature. Shrinkwrapped talks about the MSM tacitly buying into the Islamist POV in an interview with a prominent American Islamist, and gives a contrasting view form an American Muslim who disagrees...and provides some fascinating detail as to why many American Islamists are, in his words `the same money-grubbing, promise-peddling, rhetoric-spewing, politically out of touch supremacist traditionalist leaders we have in the rest of the Muslim world'.

The pity, Shink, is that we have allowed the Saudis to bankroll and control the majority of mosques and madrassahs in America, giveng moderate Muslims hardly any place to stand up and be counted. A well done piece.

9. Rhymes With Right: Border jumpers cost Harris County $97,300,000 AnnuallyGreg tallies up the cost of illegal immigration in his locale.

10.Right Wing Nut House: “A GRAND OLD FLAG”Rick's tribute to the American flag...a worthy read. It truly is a grand old flag, isn't it?

11. The Glittering Eye: The Iraqi insurgency has no Central Command
Dave expounds on a previous post on the nature of the so-called `insurgency'.

12. The Sundries Shack: We Have Guarded Iraq Well
Jimmie Bise comes up with a good analysis of what the `mission' in Iraq really is..to guard the fledgling Iraqi democracy until they can guard themselves.

`It's an Islamic Jihad, stupid!'

Washington Times columnist Diana West joins the growing number of commentators who realize that calling the current conflict a `war on terror' is a basic and possibly fatal error.





Back when I started this site in September of `05, I caught a lot of flack for calling it a `digest and commentary on the War on Jihad'. many people thought that was `inflamatory' or `racist'. As time goes on, more and more people (though most emphatically NOT our president) wake up to the realization that calling this a `war on terror' is the equivalent of President Roosevelt going to congress on December 8th, 1941 and asking them to declare war on aviation.

Here are some excerpts from Diana West's must-read piece:

"Discussing the "war on terror" has been endlessly awkward. Terror -- like a blitzkrieg, sneak-attack or disinformation -- is a tactic, not an enemy. But in our politically-correct era, we dwell on the tactic, never defining the enemy. Drop 500-pound bombs on his head if we must -- and we must -- but don't describe him as an Islamic jihadist in the age-old tradition of Islamic jihadis going back to Muhammad. Such historical precision might be hurtful and insensitive, and we wouldn't want that.

Indeed, as a matter of American foreign policy, we don't want that. Better to keep things vague and indirect, much as the Victorians are reputed to have done to avoid giving offense in the drawing room. Once upon a time, We the People were crass enough to have repelled a German blitzkrieg, defied Japanese sneak attack, and even, some of us, combated Soviet disinformation. Now, We the Peoples are "enlightened" to the point where we send armies out for years to fight generic "terror" -- no matter how specifically Islamic that it is.

There are many reasons why this matters, not least of which is that, without understanding the religious nature of jihad (holy war), along with its sister institution of dhimmitude (inferior status of non-Muslims under Islam), there can be no triumph over jihad and no avoiding dhimmitude. There can also be no understanding of the religiously rooted attitudes toward jihad movements among even non-violent Muslims, generally ranging from a tacit ambivalence to wild adulation." {....)

Indeed, as Ms. West suggests, were we serious about winning this war, we would be addressing jihadist threats wherever they occurred, whether in Iran, Syria, Gaza or Saudi Arabia or here at home, our borders would be secure and mosques and madrassahs preaching jihad would be closed or under surveillance.

As is usually the case, many of our current politicians are simply out of step with the common sense of the average American. But as more and more people wake up to the fact that we are in an existential war and that it is not possible to make nice to the jihadis and go back to sleep again, the West will get the leadership it needs to lead it to victory.

1938 doesn't last forever.

Fool me once....Saudis offered scholarships to US flight schools!

The Saudi government is offering scholarships for aviation courses in the US!

"...The Ministry of Higher Education and the General Authority of Civil Aviation are offering scholarships to Saudi men and women to study various majors related to civil aviation in the United States.

The forms are available online at the ministry’s website until July 12 for both bachelor’s and post-graduate studies. Nominations will be announced on July 31. Interviews will take place in August and final scholarship winners will be announced on Sept. 2.

The scholarships are available in majors such as communications, electrical and computer engineering, computer science, systems analysis, air traffic control, flight safety, and other majors related to the airline transport industry.

Applicants for the bachelor’s program must have a minimum score of 85 percent in the science section and 90 percent in other sections, such as Qur’an memorizing, administrative and commercial sciences....."

Talk about dhimmi-itis! One of the symptoms is memory loss.

I don't know which is worse...that our government would OK training Saudis in our flight schools or that the Saudis would be so confident of their influence over the White House that they would proceed with it.

Un-freaking-believable.

If the federal government won't do it, local authorities will... crack down on illegal aliens begins

The US federal government may be unwilling to secure our borders and prevent illegal immigration, but in some areas local authorities are filling the gap.

In Georgia, the legislature passed and the governer signed into law the toughest legislation against illegal immigrants in the US, incorporating meaningful penalties against employers and companies who hire them, requiring documentation to purchase property, barring illegal aliens from some state programs and assistance and making English the official language of Georgia.

The result? An influx of illegal aliens out of the state, as proven by a declines in real estate purchases and rentals by Hispanics, claims for public assistance, reduced traffic in Georgia's hospital emergency rooms, reduced crime relate to illegal aliens and reduced enrollment by non-English speakers in schools.

Obviously, significant employer penalties mean that employers suddenly are able to find legal residents for all those `jobs Americans are not doing', Dubbya.

In towns like Hazleton, PA, city councils are increasingly reacting to the problem of illegal immigration by beginning what the mayor calls one of the toughest crackdowns on illegal immigrants in the United States.

"Illegal immigrants are destroying the city," said Mayor Lou Barletta. "I don't want them here, period."

Last week Barletta introduced and the City Council approved a measure that would revoke the business licenses of companies that employ illegal immigrants; impose $1,000 fines on landlords who rent to illegal immigrants; and make English the city's official language.

Barletta said he had to act after two illegal immigrants from the Dominican Republic were charged last month with shooting and killing a man. Other recent incidents involving illegal immigrants include the arrest of a 14-year-old boy for firing a gun at a playground.

"This is crazy," said Barletta, who took office in 2000. "People are afraid to walk the streets. There's going to be law and order back in Hazleton and I'm going to use every tool I possibly can."

In San Bernardino, Calif., a city with a substantial Hispanic population as well as a lot of illegal immigrant workers, voters will decide whether to adopt a measure like the one in Hazleton. Elsewhere, an Idaho county filed a racketeering lawsuit against agricultural companies accused of hiring illegal immigrants. And in New Hampshire, a pair of police chiefs began arresting illegal immigrants for trespassing.

"They're being forced to pick up the financial tab for all of this nonsense and they are doing whatever they can to find ways to combat it at the local level," said Susan Tully, national field director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

Frankly, it's an embarrassment.

My prediction is that Congress, up for re-election and with its ear closer to the ground than the senate will avoid any attempt at securing our borders and dealing with illegal immigration until after November.

Yet another signpost...another Australian Muslim convicted on terrorism charges.

First the US, then Britain, then Britain,then Canada and now Australia. Once again, we have a supposedly fully assimilated, middle class Muslim who just happens to be a jihadi.

Sydney architect Faheem Khalid Lodhi has become the first person to be convicted of a charge of planning a terrorist act on Australian soil.

The jury found the 36-year-old guilty of three terrorism-related charges and Lodhi now faces a maximum penalty of life in prison.

Lodhi was convicted of buying maps of the national electricity grid, possessing instructions on how to make explosives, detonators and poisons and inquiring about purchasing chemicals, all in preparation for a terrorist act.

Prosecutors had previously linked Lodhi to terrorist Willie Brigitte and alleged that he had trained with Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani group that Australia has banned as a terrorist group. They are responsible for the Dewali bombings and numerous atrocities in Kashmir.

The Pakistani-born Australian was acquitted of downloading aerial photographs of three Defence facilities in Sydney including the Holsworthy Barracks, in connection with terrorism...mostly because the prosecution couldn't prove Lodhi's motivation beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Lodhi had pleaded not guilty to the charges and told the court he was trying to establish an import and export business with his family in Pakistan!

So that's why he needed maps of the national electricity grid and instructions on how to make explosives, detonators and poisons.

Three guesses what he was trying to import to Australia.

Intellectual integrity: Ann Coulter and the Jersey Girls

Authoress and columnist Ann Coulter recently wrote a book called `Godless'. The central message of that book is something I've said for some time...that Leftism (Coulter calls it `liberalism', which I feel is a misnomer) is a religion, with its own rigid cathechism, intolerant zealots and leaps of faith. The Left have already proved her point to a degree by going berserk over the book and in particular a mention of the so-called `Jersey Girls'...a group of five 9/11 widows whom Coulter writes about in `Godless' that she says are essentially using their bereavement to advance a political agenda.

Needless to say, the Left has responded by demonizing Coulter, who is persumably laughing all the way to the bank as her book hits number 1 on the NYT bestseller list.

I remember a similar outrage over Coulter's book `Treason', a re-examination of the McCarthy era and of the left's long time assistance and aid to the USSR during the Cold War.

Whenever self-desctibed `liberals' bring up `Godless' or `Treason', I have a simple question that never fails to reduce them to a miasma of mind-numbing rage: `Can you show me something Coulter wrote that was factually inaccurate or substantially untrue?'

While one might question Coulter's way of putting things, or her conclusions, her facts are almost always impeccable.

For instance, take Coulter's book `Treason'. Thanks to the VENONA project and our access to the Soviet Archives, we now know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Rosenbergs, Alger and Donald Hiss,Harry Dexter White, Harry Hopkins, Lauchlin Currie, Nathan Sivermaster, Lud Ullman, Lillian Hellman, Paul Robeson, Walter Duranty and a host of figures in the State Department and Hollywood were in fact either Soviet Agents or people who deliberately and knowingly aided the Soviets with propaganda, direct espionage and/or material aid.

So Coulter's premise in the book, that Senator McCarthy was essentially correct in his statements that Hollywood and the US government were riddled with communist agents and `fellow travelers' during the Roosevelt and Truman administrations stands as simple fact...however unpleasant that might be. When one considers that Alger Hiss was one of Roosevelt's chief advisors at Yalta, it explains a lot.

Likewise, we can take Coulter's statements on the so-called `Jersey Girls' and examine them, stripped of emotion.

Have Kristen Breitweiser, Patty Casazza, Monica Gabrielle, Mindy Kleinberg, and Lorie Van Auken (AKA `The Jersey Girls') used their bereavement to advance a political agenda? Have they expanded that agenda beyond 9/11 related catagories? Have they made substantial money (particularly Breitweiser) from speaking engagements and deals with the Main Stream Media as `commentators'.... positions they have no other qualifications for other than the fact they lost a husband on 9/11?

Obviously the answer's yes.

All five of these women share exactly the same anti-war and anti-Bush agenda. Most of them, if not all have a history of being Democratic party activists. Have they ever turned down a single offer to push that agenda in the media? Have other 9/11 widows with differing political views been afforded anything like the media access or credibility these women have?

Uhhh...no.

And then there's the issue of what I might call `selective outrage.' Have any of these women used the platform given to them by the Main Stream Media to criticize, say, Clinton Deputy Attorney general Jamie Gorelick for effectively preventing the NSA, the FBI and other secutity agencies from sharing intel on Mohammed Atta and the other 9/11 hijackers? Or for using her position on the 9/11 commission to whitewash any intel from Able/Danger and other sources that reflected badly on the Clinton Administration or her own actions?

Hmmmm....crickets chirping.

I have my own differences with some of Ann Coulter's conclusions and occasionally with what I might describe as her style...but she's not wrong on this one. And as I said, the hysteria which which the left has attacked her pretty much proves that the overall message of `Godless' about leftism being a religion is pretty much on target.

It's not hard to imagine them burning Coulter at the stake if they could get away with it.

Bush gives Iran ultimatum on uranium enrichment

President Bush used the occasion of a commencement speech at the US maritime Academy to say to Iran that nations worldwide won't back down from their demand that Tehran suspend uranium enrichment.

"Iran's leaders have a clear choice. We hope they will accept our offer and voluntarily suspend these activities so we can work out an agreement that will bring Iran real benefits," Bush said a day before leaving for Vienna, Austria, where he plans to confer with the EU offcials involved in the negotiations.

If Iran's leaders reject the offer, they will face action before the U.N. Security Council and progressively stronger political and economic sanctions, Bush said during the speech.

Yesterday, Iran accused the United States of trying to sway European nations from a possible compromise. The Iranian foreign ministry said U.S. insistence that negotiations be conditioned on Tehran's suspension of uranium enrichment has narrowed the scope of possible solutions.

Considering that all Bush asked was that the Iranians stop enriching uranium while negotiations were going on in exchange for the outrageous goodies they're being offered, I'd say that was pushing it a bit.

"The United States has offered to come to the table with our partners and meet with Iran's representatives as soon as the Iranian regime fully and verifiably suspends its uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities," Bush said. "I have a message for the Iranian regime: America and our partners are united. We have presented a reasonable offer. Iran's leaders should see our proposal for what it is - a historic opportunity to set their country on a better course."

United?.....hmmm..

Iran, of course, says enriching uranium is its country's right. Iranian officials say they are reviewing the package and will propose amendments. At least, depending on whom you talk to and what day it is.

Stay tuned...

Palestinians launch rocket attack on Sderot during Israeli president Katsav's visit.

Israeli children take cover in Sderot during today's attack


An Israeli city is under siege.

Sderot is in Israel's Negev, located within the pre 1967 borders. Since the IDF `disengaged' from Gaza in a `sacrifice for peace' Sderot, along with neiboring towns and kibutzim has been a target for unceasing Qassam rocket attacks by the Palestinians,fired from the very communities, like Gush Katif and Neve Dekalim that were once home to Jews before they were ethnically cleansed by their own army.

The schools in Sderot and surrounding areas have been closed for six days now, and property damage and several casualties have occurred. The residents, as a protest, had declared a hunger strike and blockaded the city using vehicles. Last night, one of the 4 Qassam missiles fired from Gaza exploded in front of Sderot public library and cut the electrical current.

Today, Israeli president Katsav visited Sderot, along with Defense Minister Amir Peretz, who's house in Sderot has been the site of protests by his neighbors. Peretz just returned from being taunted by Knesset memebers in Jerusalem for "cowardice" and "doing nothing" against the ongoing missile attacks on his own hometown. The Kassam attacks have left five dead and dozens wounded over the past months.

During Katsav's visit,the Palestinians fired off two Qassams, and one of the residents of Sderot was injured by shrapnel. Obviously, the Palestinian terrorists were sending a message..that they were not afraid to target Sderot during the Israeli president’s visit, which was public knowledge. I think it's safe to say that they don't fear the present Israeli government's resolve or response in dealing with Palestinian terrorism.

Katsav said that the ongoing rocket attacks in the aftermath of Israel's disengagement from Gaza left Israel with no option other than a military response.

He told the people of Sderot to put their trust in the IDF in dealing with the Palestinians. I'm sure, knowing Israelis as I do that at least one person told him in no uncertain terms that trusting the IDF wasn't the problem...trusting Israel's current government was another matter altogether!

Katsav also mentioned that the responsibility for the rocket attacks was with the Palestinian leadership, and that if the Palestinian government could not control them, then it had to bear full responsibility for what they were doing.

So just when is Israel going to declare war on the Palestinian government that continues to target Israeli civilians?

Can you imagine what would happen to President Bush in San Diego, Brownsville or El Paso if he dared to show his face in one of those cities when Mexico was firing rockets across our border?

What amazes me is that Olmert, faced with plain evidence of the folly of Israel's pullout from Gaza is now preparing to repeat the process in Judea and Samaria, giving the Palestinians even jucier targets to shoot at in densely populated Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

He had better do some serious rethinking.

Iran and Syria sign mutual defense pact

Iran and Syria have cemented what has been a de facto, non-formal relationship for some time when they signed a mutual defense pact in Tehran last week.

The Syrian military delegation brought a year's worth of secret negotiations to a successful conclusion, with Syria sending a 60 man delegation to Tehran representing every branch of the Syrian armed forces, including intelligence and munitions industries.

Iranian defense minister Gen. Mustafa Najjar said: "Syria’s security is part of Iran’s security" when he signed a new military treaty with his visiting Syrian counterpart, Gen. Hassan Turkmani.

This paves the way for Iran to deploy Revolutionary Guards on the Golan border with Israel and to link up directly with Iran's proxy in South Lebanon, Hezbollah, which both Iran and Syria support. This creates a direct frontline for Iran against Israel, and bolsters Syria.

Iran and Syria also get the benefits of solidifying a bloc against the US, sharing and coordinating military research and resources (including anything the Syrians got from Saddam Hussein).

What's more, this gives Iran a forward position for an Iranian electronic warning station to sound a timely alarm of the takeoff of American warplanes or missiles from the eastern Mediterranean basin on their way to attack, and also allows Iran to also keep electronic track of movements on Israeli air and missile bases, including Arrow anti-missile missile systems.

It also allows free movement of terrorists and supplies along a long border for use against US and allied forces in Iraq.

This is a wartime military alliance against the West..and we had best take it as such.

Whoopsie! British Imam busted on calling for Blair and Bush's murder

You can't make this stuff up. It's amazing what some Muslim imams will say when they think no one's listening.

Lo and behold, The London Times is shocked, shocked at the call for jihad by another imam from the Religion of Peace.

It all started with British MP George Galloway, who went public a couple of weeks ago stating that British PM Tonny Blair was a legitimate target for a homicide bomber. In the US, threatening the life of the president or calling for his murder is grounds for criminal penalties...but perhaps British law is different.

Anyway, the head of the Al-Quds Mosque in Brighton, Imam Abubaker Deghayes, whose brother Omar is a guest of ours at Club Guitmo told an undercover reporter that he agreed with Galloway's statement, and that an attack on the prime minister by a suicide bomber could be morally justified. Deghayes said he prayed for Allah to support anyone who attacked Blair.

Now here's the interesting bit; according to the Times article, Imam Deghayes `took over the mosque using violence, intimidation and threats. Dr Abduljalil Sajid... was forced out as head of the mosque by Deghayes and his supporters.'

Furthermore,the article relates that Sussex police Special Branch held a number of meetings with Sajid about extremist elements at the site, but absolutely no action was taken, even thogh Sajid actually talked about the radical nature of the mosque with none other than Tony Blair!

The mosque is suspected of being a source for recruiting jihadis to fight in Iraq and elsewhere, the British Charity Commission, which has jurisdiction over the mosque because it is run as a charity, said it was clueless on how the mosque was receiving and spending money and added that it was operating “in breach of legal requirements”.

Yet it is still open and ongoing! And at the British taxpayers expense, since it is a tax free charity.

The latest flap came when the London Times sent an undercover reporter to talk to Imam Deghayes, who revealed that he shared Galloway's views on killing Blair.

Deghayes said: "He is a legitimate target. Him and Bush are part of all that we see now."

And when asked if he prayed for to be attacked by a Muslim, he said: "I pray to Allah to support them. Of course, I know anybody who attacks in the name of Islam, Allah will take care of him."

Deghayes then urged the reporter to watch whom he spoke to about this... “Don’t talk openly, like ‘Tony Blair (is) an open target’. Now you can be taken in for glorifying terrorism."

"(Even) among Muslim brothers . . . there are hypocrites, munafiqs (hypocrites). There are spies, all sorts of people. There’s no need to talk about it, to say like this."

Obviously, our friend Deghayes thought he was talking to a symphathetic jihadi and not a member of the press.

Here's the kicker: this mosque, as I write, is still open for business, still operating as a sewer dispensing hatred, still involved in the important task of radicalizing Britain's Muslims for a reprise of the 7/7/05 bombings..or worse.

How many other British mosques and madrassas are preaching the same sort of jihad against their host country? How many American mosques? Is it any wonder that the head of Britain's largest Muslim organization felt free to threaten Britain with violence in the streets?


A nation that allows something like this to flourish has a death wish.

Major allied offensive cracks down on the Taliban in Afghanistan

US-led coalition troops are in the middle of a highly effective offensive in Southern Afghanistan that has taken out about 90 jihadis in less than a week. In view of the heavy casualties the jihadis suffered in a head on attack on US, Canadian and British firepower a few weeks ago, I have a feeling that this campaign could end up being highly effective.

More than 10,000 U.S.-led troops, including Afghan soldiers along with Canadian and British troops have spread out over Helmand, Uruzgan, Kandahar and Zabul provinces in sothern Afghanistan as part of Operation Mountain Thrust. Spearheading the offensive is the famed US 10th Mountain Division.

The guys from the 10th Mountain were involved in securing the Baghran Valley in the northern part of Helmand province.

That it will allow U.S. forces to block the movement of Taliban fighters and supplies.

Operation Mountain Thrust sounds simply amazing, when you see what the 10th Mountain actually accomplished. It involved landing fully loaded CH-47 heliocopters on top of a mountain , in hostile territory and in an area that was 60 miles away from the nearest ground forces, where no one had been for years.

Essentially, the 10th Mountain outflanked the mujahadeen, in what they thought was a safe haven because it was supposedly inaccesible.

All in a day's work for the guys in the 10th Mountain Division! Kudos, guys...

As for the Brits, they took on Taliban fighters on Saturday near Kajaki dam in southern Helmand province, killing six of the muhajadeen. This was in response to mortar attacks by the jihadis trying to take out the dam.

The American led offensive, which began with limited raids in May has been stepped up this week to help prepare for the handover of military control to NATO forces in the southern region next month.

Obviously, after getting their clocks cleaned during their recent attempted offensive,the Taliban is trying to buck up morale and take advantage of any opportunity that offers itself when U.S.-led troops prepare to transfer the regional command to NATO troops from Britain, Canada, the Netherlands and Romania. So far, that hasn't worked out so well for them.

"The Taliban fighters have overwhelmingly been losing," White House spokesperson Tony Snow said. "The government is taking control of more and more territory within Afghanistan proper...."

Afghanistan will never be Belgium..but it looks like substantial progress continues to be made.

Keep in mind that Afghanistan borders Iran. Just as in Iraq, Iran is using its proxies to wage war on the US and its allies.

How Cromwell gave us Joan Collins and other luminaries

Charles Moore in the Telegraph has a number of interesting reflections in his commentary commemorating the 350th anniversary of the return of the Jews to England... they were expelled by Edward I in 1290 and readmitted by Oliver Cromwell in 1656.

Here are a few excerpts:

"Exactly 350 years ago, we began to be a multi-racial society. 1656 marked the return of Jews to England. They had been driven out by an edict of Edward I in 1290. In the intervening centuries - known as the Middle Period - Jews quite often came to this country on business, but they were not permitted to reside here or practise their religion. Their status, in fact, was that of Christians (and Jews) in Saudi Arabia today. In 1656, Cromwell let 300 of them return, and Jews have been here ever since. {...}

Anyone who has ever studied at a university, needed good doctors, shopped at Marks & Spencer or Tesco, benefited from scientific invention, listened to classical music, sought accountants or lawyers, watched a film, bought a book or needed his head examined, has gained from Cromwell's decision. The Jewish contribution is so great that it pervades almost all aspects of British society.....

I have named individual Jews deliberately because, though it is always dangerous to generalise, even favourably, about race, it does seem to my gentile eyes that there is more prodigious ability and energy per Jew than per the rest of us. The community here has never been enormous - at present, it is somewhere between 250,000 and 400,000 - but it has achievements out of proportion to its size...

But the interesting thing for British society today is to ask why such a people have been able to overcome prejudices that at first excluded them absolutely and later accepted them only on qualified terms (Jews could not sit in Parliament until the mid-19th century, for example). The answer could be useful for everyone.

The key, perhaps, is to be found in one of the earliest reports of Jews in England after their return. On October 14, 1663, Samuel Pepys found a way of visiting a synagogue in London (something very unusual for a Gentile at that time). In his diary, he described the service which he witnessed. He did not like it ("I never… could have imagined there had been any religion in the whole world so absurdly performed as this"), but he also noted that the Jews said a special prayer for the King. In other words, they accepted the civil power.....

No believing Jew will obey a civil law that forces him to disobey his religious law - eat pork, for example. But if there is no conflict, his religion teaches him that he must obey the law of the land. In the Talmud, the question arises of whether you should pay taxes to a secular king. Yes, comes the answer, because "The law of the kingdom is the law". {...}

But because of this basic agreement among Jews about the status of the secular law, the effect of these quarrels on the wider society is minimal. It is significant that virtually no one reading this article will have heard of Dayan Chanoch Ehrentreu. He is the chief justice of the Beth Din, the Chief Rabbi's court which adjudicates on the endless delicate points of Jewish law, often relating to diet or Sabbath observance, which come up within the community.

If Judaism were an aggressive religion, seeking to lay down its law for all mankind, then this supremely learned old gentleman could acquire menacing power. Like the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran after 1979, Dayan Ehrentreu could tell people to kill in the name of God. Instead, his effect is the opposite. By policing so meticulously the difference between the precise duties of Jews and the duty to society at large, this scholar helps define the space necessary for people with beliefs quite at variance with those of the majority to live harmoniously among them. In this sense, people can be "fundamentalist" and yet perfectly at home in a society which is not. For 2,000 years, Jews have developed a subtle understanding of the difference between the ideal society that would exist if God's laws prevailed everywhere and the world as it is.

Without this understanding, people do indeed "swallow one another alive" and - one might add in the era of suicide bombings - swallow themselves in the process.
{....)
In the past half-century, Muslims have come where the Jews came earlier, and in much larger numbers. Like such Jews, they have sometimes experienced the unhappiness that comes when one's religion is misunderstood or derided. Unlike the Jews, too many of their leaders tend to teach them that such slights must be avenged, that existence as a minority is just a temporary misfortune, not a state to be lived with, and that the law of England is virtually no law at all. If that attitude continues, society is reduced to a conflict about who will swallow whom alive. To avoid that is a huge and urgent task. "

Now as for me, I'm shocked, shocked that a member of the British press would indulge in tilting at such sacred cows as multiculturism and moral relevance.

And since he has obviously insulted Islam, I am sure that we can shortly expect a fatwa issued by the adherants of the Religion of Peace.

Sarcasm aside, it is an astute observation on Moore's part that many members of Britain's Muslim community do not feel obligated to be British or to abide by its laws. That is because the first loyalty of many Muslims is not to the country which has treated them so generously but to the Muslim umma, or worldwide Islamic community.

What is fascinating is that many Britons continue to excuse this, out of sheer ignorance. Or perhaps, unlike Mr. Moore, they see the idea of Jews in Britain as a deteriment, and feel that Britain has much more to gain by demonizing Jews and Israel and appeasing Muslims. That can definitely be said to be true of a large chunk of the Labour Party.

They don't realize that Britain, like the US belongs to the part of the world Muslims refer to as `dar Harb' (literally `the place of war') and as such is subject to conquest, either by conversion (dawa) and/or jihad.

Conquerors do not respect the laws or institutions of the conquered or soon to be conquered. Particularly when that conquest is felt to be a religious mandate.

Some MUTUAL tolerance is no doubt called for. Those requesting it should be prepared to extend it...and subordinate their religious imperative towards conquest in exchange for the benefits of living in a free society. If that's impossible, perhaps they should relocate to parts of the Islamic world where their prejudices and intolerance are more in tune with their ideas on how to live.