The Afghanistan blues....

British blogpal Canker writes in his post Terror incognita on what appears to be a fundamental problem in Afghanistan - disagreement between the Brits and Americans on how to handle the resurgent Taliban.

He's right.It is worrisome when allies disagree on strategy. But in reality, neither the British approach or ours is likely to yield the fruits of victory.

The key to understanding that, of course is contained in the Robert Fox First Post article Canker links to -

"From their safe zone in Waziristan in Pakistan, they plan to establish a separatist 'Talibanistan' across southern Afghanistan before mounting an offensive on Kabul next year."

There's the problem in a nutshell..the fact that these jihadi scum have a `safe zone' at all. You can't win a war when the enemy has a refuge to flee to so they can regroup, rearm and attack again. That's exactly what the Taliban has done.

In spite of the professions of Pakistan's president, General Musharref, Pakistan is NOT an ally of the west in this fight. And it needs to be made clear to him in no uncertain terms that he had better pick a dog in this fight, or face the consequences.

And those consequences ought to be complete and decisive.

The Palestinian Gang war continues..6 killed in Gaza

The turf war continues in the Palestinian areas as the Hamas and Fatah gangs jockey for position.

The `ceasefire' barely lasted fo the time it took for the media to report it.

Gun battles raged throughout the Gaza Strip today, and six gunmen died. Two Hamas men and two of Abbas' were killed in street battles, while two more of Abbas' men were found dead after being abducted. At least a dozen people were wounded, including five children who were caught in the crossfires.

Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, reiterated in a speech broadcast live on television that Hamas rejected Abbas's election call. Hamas has said it would boycott any polls.

In the same speech, Haniyeh accused the United States on Tuesday of spearheading efforts to bring down his democratically-elected government.

"There is an undeclared decision to bring down the government... and the Americans are leading this effort," Haniyeh said.

I agree with him.

There is supposedly another ceasefire in the offing, this one brokered by the Egyptians. I'll believe it when I see it.

Nancy Pelosi's sour grapes

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, preparing to engage in labor relations with her farmworkers

Who woulda thunk it? It takes a self-described `progressive' to really understand the culture of corruption. It seems that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has her own "grapes of wrath" scenario going on.

A large part of the fortune of the Pelosi family is a Napa Valley vineyard worth $25 million that Rep. Pelosi owns with her husband. The vineyard produces expensive grapes for high-end wines. Napa grapes bring up to $4,000 a ton compared with $300 a ton for, say, San Joaquin grapes.

But as Peter Schweizer reveals in his book"Do As I Say (Not As I Do)," Pelosi, a winner of the 2003 Cesar Chavez award from the United Farm Workers, hires only nonunion workers at her vineyard and sells these grapes almost exclusively to nonunion wineries.

So much for championing the working man.

Now , here's the interesting bit. Rep. Pelosi has a long record of opposing border security and any efforts to stem illegal immigration. Meanwhile, she appears to be among those rich employers who financially benefit from a steady supply of cheap foreign labor.

She led the opposition and voted against the Secure Fence Act of 2006 recently signed into law by President Bush to build a 700-mile fence along the U.S.-Mexican border.

She opposed the anti-terror legislation known as the Real ID Act of 2005, while be quoted as sayng that Democrats under her leadership "defeated Republican attempts to restrict the Matricula Consular card" an easily forged document issued by the Mexican government, which are legal IDs in her home state of California.

She voted against a bill to make employers such as herself financially liable for hospital costs if undocumented employees seek medical attention, which means that these people go to local hospitals and ERs where taxpayers foot the bill. As a result, many hospitals and emergency rooms are threatened with closure, especially in Pelosi's home state of California.

In 2005 she voted against stopping the issuance of driver's licenses to illegal aliens and against a requirement that businesses use an electronic system to verify whether new hires have the legal right to work in the U.S.

Speaker Pelosi also is no fan of enforcement of the laws against the hiring of illegal aliens. In 2003, she accused immigration officers of conducting "terrorizing raids" on Wal-Mart stores that led to the arrest of over 300 illegal aliens.

Now, even the most conservative estimates agree that at least half of the migrant labor force in the Napa Valley consists of `undocumented workers', AKA illegal aliens.

You have to wonder if Speaker Pelosi's opposition to enhanced border security might just be due due to the fact that the House Democratic leader personally profits from a steady supply of cheap foreign labor!

An important detail to remember is that the traffic over our border doesn't just consist of cheap immigrant labor. There are also what Immigration and Customs Enforcement calls OTMs (Other Than Mexicans) among whom potential terrorists could sneak in undetected.

So here we have a scenario where Speaker of the House Pelosi not only seems to put her personal financial interests above national security concerns, but apparently makes a point of not checking too closely to see whether her workforce consists of undocumented workers while she's doing it.

Not that it would ever happen, but if the folks at ICE are ever actually looking for an employer to target as a violator of immigration law statutes, there's this vineyard in Napa Valley I know about that might be a good target...

The story of Hanukkah

Several of the members of Joshua's Army have requested some background on the story of Hanukkah. Here goes...

Hanukkah celebrates one of the important miracles in Jewish history and reminds us of the triumph of faith. It takes place every year in mid to late December. While its date varies if you go by the western calendar, in the Hebrew calendar Hanukkah always falls on the 25th day of Kislev.

Hanukkah celebrates the Jewish war for independence in the second century B.C. The story is told in the First Book of Maccabees, and retold in the Second Book of Maccabees. A contemporary military history of the war can be found in Battles of the Bible, coauthored by Chaim Herzog and Mordechai Gichon.

After his death, Alexander the Great's empire broke into several parts, and Israel was under the control of the Seleucid empire, based in Syria. Israel had lived peacefully under the Persian Empire and under the Ptolemic empire (of Egypt), both which tolerated Judaism; but the Seleucid Emperor Antiochus Epiphanes was an arrogant, bigoted Hellenizer, who attempted to force the Jews to abandon their religion and to adopt Greek customs and worship.

There were those Jews who considered themselves `modern' and `assimilated' who were willing to go along with this, even to the extent of having surgical operations to reverse circumcision.

Others did not, and they were prosecuted vigorously and brutalized by the Greeks.

The start of the Maccabean Revolt sprang from a single spontaneous act of resistance. In the foothills village of Modiin in 167CE, a Greek army unit set up an altar, and ordered the local Jewish rabbi, Mattathias, to sacrifice a pig and eat it. He refused, as did his five sons. When a Jewish collaborator came forward to offer the sacrifice, a furious Mattathias "ran and killed him on the spot, killed the king's officer who was forcing them to sacrifice, and tore down the altar" (1 Mac. 2:15-25).

Mattathias, his sons and their followers then headed for the Judean hills, to launch a guerilla war. They were farmers who had no military training,fighting a professional army. There had not been a Jewish army since Babylon had destroyed the Judean kingdom four centuries before. Their only weapons were farming tools and whatever simple weapons they could construct, such as maces or slings. During this first year, Mattathias died, and his middle son Judah took over command as his successor.

Nicknamed "the hammer" ("Maccabee," in Hebrew), Judah constructed a guerilla army that staged daring nighttime raids on the Greek outposts, then melted back into the countryside. His successes attracted more supporters, and the revolt spread.

The war went on for 25 years, one of the most singular wars for independence in history. The miracle, perhaps is that it was fought at all, let alone won.

The Seleucids and Antiochus sent huge, well equipped armies into Israel to subdue the Jews. They were all defeated, at odds that seem miraculous even today. Judah Maccabee turned out to be a tactical genius, using unheard of tactics, leading the Greek phalanxes into the hills where they could not maneuver and destroying them.

In 164 CE, the Jews defeated a force comanded by the Viceroy Lysias that outnumbered them two to one. That battle took place six miles north of Hebron, near the Jewish fortress of Beth-zur. The victory allowed Judah and his army to retake Jerusalem.

When they entered Jerusalem, Judah and his followers entered the Holy Temple on the Temple Mount. The Temple had been wrecked and horribly desecrated, with profanities scrawled on the walls and the Ark by the Seleucids.

The Maccabees built a new altar. When the time came to light the N'er Tamid, the Eternal Light of the Temple, the Jews could find only one sanctified jar of oil marked with the seal of the High Priest. It was only enough to last one evening. On the 25th of Kislev, in the year 164 CE,the lamp was lit with this small jar of oil and, miraculously, stayed lit for eight days, until more oil suitable for the temple was made. The eight days of Hanukkah celebrate that miracle, as well as the divine intervention that had led the Jews to amazing victories over well-equipped professional armies far superior in numbers. "Therefore, carrying ivy-wreathed wants and beautiful branches and also fronds of palm, they offered hymns of thanksgiving to him who had given success to the purifying of his own holy place" (2 Mac. 10:7).

The war itself continued. In 160 CE, near modern-day Ramallah, Judah was killed, but Judah's brother Jonathan, and then his brother Simon took command of the Jewish army, finally winning complete independence in 142 CE. At last, "All the people sat under their own vines and fig trees, and there was none to make them afraid" (1 Mac. 14:12.).

Towards the end of the war, Antiochus and the Seleucids became so obsessed with defeating the Jews that they sacked their own cities and sold their own citizens into slavery to get money to pursue the war against the Jews.

The War of the Maccabees was the first war ever fought for religious freedom. Somehow, a group of farmers with no military training who refused to bow to their oppressors defeated a mighty empire and its immense standing armies. There seems to be no plausible explanation for the victory of the Jews except that it was a miracle.

Hannukah reminds us that with G-d's help, victory over evil is assured and no miracle is impossible. Modern Israel and the survival of the Jewish people against all odds are proof of that.


Symbols in Hanukkah

Aside from the Hanukkiah (candlesticks), the other great symbol of Hanukkah are those small spinning tops known as dreidels.













The four letters which appear on the four corners of a dreidel allude to the miracle of Hanukkah. They spell out: Nes (N-miracle), Gadol (G-great), Haya (H-happened) and Sham (S-there, meaning in Israel). Or, `a great miracle happened there.'

Indeed it did.

Chag Sameach! Happy Hannukah!

Ex-president and Jew hater for sale - Jimmy Carter's dirty little secret

Ahh, the good old days...back when senility was just setting in....


There's been a certain - aroma - around ex-president Jimmy Carter for quite some time now. Lately, the smell has gotten so sickening that even long time admirers of his like the Leftist columnist Michael Kinsley have urged him to clean up his act.

Carter has been a long time anti-Semite and Israel basher, as well as a proponent of Yasir Arafat and what he dubs `the Palestinian Cause'. He's been justifying this obvious bias for years by claiming that his only motive is `peace'.

Lately, Carter has been making the round touting his latest book,` Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid'. It is full of lies, distortions, outright falsehood, and if Carter Center fellow and longtime adviser Kenneth Stein (who resigned over what he called `fabrications, designed to provoke' in the book ) is to be believed, plagiarism.

Carter has refused to defend the book on its merits or factual content, and has merely stated to all queries that he `stands by the book.'

Instead, he's tried to shift the focus away from any criticism and focus on his critics.

Carter's been loud in complaining that critic of his book are `compromised' by their ties to AIPAC, the so-called `Jewish lobby' and, in a new low even for him, simply because they're Jews. In making the rounds of interview about his book, Carter never misses an opportunity to mention what he likes to call the "powerful influence of AIPAC," or “representatives of Jewish organizations” in the media as the prime culprits behind criticism of his latest screed and, believe it or not "university campuses with high Jewish enrollment" as an excuse to avoid debating people like Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz.

So, according to Carter, criticism of him and his book by people with a Jewish or pro-Israel taint is dishonest and caused by hidden, dishonest motives which makes their position suspect.

Well and good. But let's examine Jimmy Carter's motivations, shall we? For a start, let's follow the money trail to see where President Carter is coming from.

For instance, the the Carter Center, which Carter founded at Emory University in 1982, has been the recipient of Arab mega-bucks for years. And still is.

Carter is a major recipient of aid from the Saudis, for instance. Before his death in 2005, King Fahd was a longtime contributor to the Carter Center and gave Carter several million-dollar donations. In 1993 alone, King Fahd presented Carter with a gift of $7.6 million. And the king was definitely not alone in his largesse. As of 2005, the king’s high-living nephew, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, has donated at least $5 million to the Carter Center...that we know about.

The Saudi Fund for Development, the kingdom’s leading loan organization and one of the sources of money for all those hardline mosques and madrassahs shows up repeatedly on the Carter center’s list of supporters. Carter has also taken money from the Bin Laden family - in 2000 he secured a pledge from the bin-Laden family for a $1 million contribution to his center.

Another big source of funds for Carter has been the United Arab Emirates. In 2001, Carter went to Dubai - a country where Jews are not permitted by law, incidentally - to accept the Zayed International Prize for the Environment, named for Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, the late UAE sheik and founder of the government funded Zayed Center, the source of some of the most virulently anti-American and anti-Semitic propaganda in the world. Among other things, the Zayed Center took a book written by a French author claiming that 9/11 was an inside job by the CIA and the Mossad, translated into Arabic and distributed it throughout the entire Middle East. And the Zayed Center is a prime benefactor and host to Holocaust deniers of all persuasions.

Carter got a $500,000 prize from these people, and when he spoke at the awards ceremony,he gushed that the "award has special significance for me because it is named for my personal friend, Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan al-Nahyan."

Birds of a feather, eh, Mr. Carter?

President Carter still receives a yearly stipend from the Zayed Center. Jew hatred and Israel bashing pays pretty well.

Even funnier, Carter has called the UAE as an "almost completely open and free society" - this in a country where the `government' - the ruling Sheik - picks a select group of citizens to `vote', exercises strict press censorship, bars Jews from the country and follows the diktats of sharia law.

And he calls Israel a `racist apartheid state'?

Jimmy Carter, frankly, has become a bought and paid for shill for the Arabs to parrot their racist, anti-Israel agenda. He has forfeited any right to be taken seriously, and in reality ought to be forced to register as a foreign lobbyist.

He was an utter failure and disgrace as a president and has metamorphosed into a sour, bitter senile old bigot redolent of intellectual flatulence who deserves the disdain of any person with even a semblance of decency or patriotism.

Shocking news! The French surrender....

This is unprecendented, from the nation that gave us the proud legacy of Marshal Petain and Admiral Darlan...(ok, sarcasm off)

The latest news on our loyal ally is that they have announced that France is going to pull its troops from Afghanistan.

The French made the decision to pull out their special forces troops, based in the southeastern city of Jalalabad, just as the Taliban appear to be racheting things up in spite of the the strong increase - 32,800 troops — in NATO's International Security Assistance Force. Hey,quand aller obtient dur, les Français sortent - jeûner !

France has 1,100 men in the NATO force, but so far they have refused to send any of them outside the relatively safe Afghan capital, Kabul. After the French contingent based in Jalalabad pulls out, the rest of the French forces will remain stationed in Kabul - to direct traffic, perhaps.

Perhaps it's just as well, if you know what I mean.

The Palestinian turf war continues as the `families' go to the mattresses..

Today's festivities included a hit attempt on the Hamas foreign minister and mortar fire on Abbas' Gaza offices as the struggle for control of the Palestinian territories continues.

Hamas Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahhar's motorcade was fired on early this morning as it drove near the Foreign Ministry in Gaza City. Zahhar was unharmed, but the attack unleashed a ferocious gang shootout that raged for more than an hour in downtown Gaza. At least 15 other people were wounded besides the presidential guards, including a French journalist with Liberation newspaper, Didier Francois, who was shot in the leg. Zahhar blamed top Fatah leaders for the attack on him, saying they were "fully responsible" for what happened "and what will happen."

Abbas' 4,000-strong `presidential guard' along with some of their Fatah allies, took over the Hamas-run agriculture and transport ministries, essentially trying to create a defensive enclave in Gaza City. al-Zahhar accused Abbas' security men of attempting a "military coup" by overrunning the ministries.

Today's attempted hit on al-Zahhar follwed the attack by Hamas on the headquarters of Abbas' `Preventive Security Service' HQ, which killed a Fatah officer and wounded several others... and a mortar attack on president Abbas' offices in Gaza, which killed two people and wounded 13 others.

There has been some chatter from a couple of the usual sources, but I'm pretty sure any abatement in the violence will be temporary..especially if Abbas continues to push for new elections.

Abbas is in an interesting corner. If he doesn't name a specific date for elections and backs down, he will look weak, even to his own followers. If he does push for elections, the war escalates.

It would take at least 3-4 months to set up new elections anyway, and and even if they're held Hamas has the option of boycotting them ( which would make them meaningless) or just simply shooting up the voting booths. Abbas will need Hamas to agree to new elections...which doesn't look like happening.

Here's why, aside from the problems Abbas has with Hamas.

Abbas' own Fatah Central Committee has been very clear that it's not in favor of early elections, because its chances of gaining a majority of the parliament are almost nil. Plus, Abbas would likely not win the chairmanship against Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, who retains his popularity among the Palestinians.

To add to the mix, Palestinian law requires that Abbas resign as PA chairman close to the time a date for elections is set. Which means that the interim head of the Palestinian Authority would be the speaker of the PA parliament, Aziz Duek, of Hamas, now residing in an Israeli prison. So Abbas would be giving the chairmanship on a silver platter to Hamas on the day he sets an election date.

Really, Abbas' only chance is indeed a military coup, which would involve destroying Hamas in both the West Bank and Gaza.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali - Why Muslims deny the Holocaust.

You'll remember Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She is a Somali immigrant who served in the parliament of the Netherlands until earlier this year. She's the author of "Infidel," an autobiography to be published next year. Here, in today's LA Times piece she makes the point in a Los Angeles Times editorial that when it comes to the Holocaust, not only are Muslims subjected to nearly constant anti-Semitic propaganda fromthe cradle, much of the Muslim world hasn't even heard of it!

ONE DAY IN 1994, when I was living in Ede, a small town in Holland, I got a visit from my half-sister. She and I were both immigrants from Somalia and had both applied for asylum in Holland. I was granted it; she was denied. The fact that I got asylum gave me the opportunity to study. My half-sister couldn't.

In order for me to be admitted to the university I wanted to attend, I needed to pass three courses: a language course, a civics course and a history course. It was in the preparatory history course that I, for the first time, heard of the Holocaust. I was 24 years old at that time, and my half-sister was 21.


In those days, the daily news was filled with the Rwandan genocide and ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia. On the day that my half-sister visited me, my head was reeling from what happened to 6 million Jews in Germany, Holland, France and Eastern Europe.

I learned that innocent men, women and children were separated from each other. Stars pinned to their shoulders, transported by train to camps, they were gassed for no other reason than for being Jewish.

I saw pictures of masses of skeletons, even of kids. I heard horrifying accounts of some of the people who had survived the terror of Auschwitz and Sobibor. I told my half-sister all this and showed her the pictures in my history book. What she said was as awful as the information in my book.

With great conviction, my half-sister cried: "It's a lie! Jews have a way of blinding people. They were not killed, gassed or massacred. But I pray to Allah that one day all the Jews in the world will be destroyed."

She was not saying anything new. As a child growing up in Saudi Arabia, I remember my teachers, my mom and our neighbors telling us practically on a daily basis that Jews are evil, the sworn enemies of Muslims, and that their only goal was to destroy Islam. We were never informed about the Holocaust.

Later, as a teenager in Kenya, when Saudi and other Persian Gulf philanthropy reached us, I remember that the building of mosques and donations to hospitals and the poor went hand in hand with the cursing of Jews. Jews were said to be responsible for the deaths of babies and for epidemics such as AIDS, and they were believed to be the cause of wars. They were greedy and would do absolutely anything to kill us Muslims. If we ever wanted to know peace and stability, and if we didn't want to be wiped out, we would have to destroy the Jews. For those of us who were not in a position to take up arms against them, it was enough for us to cup our hands, raise our eyes heavenward and pray to Allah to destroy them.

Western leaders today who say they are shocked by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's conference this week denying the Holocaust need to wake up to that reality. For the majority of Muslims in the world, the Holocaust is not a major historical event that they deny. We simply do not know it ever happened because we were never informed of it.

The total number of Jews in the world today is estimated to be about 15 million, certainly no more than 20 million. On the other hand, the world's Muslim population is estimated to be between 1.2 billion and 1.5 billion. And not only is this population rapidly growing, it is also very young.

What's striking about Ahmadinejad's conference is the (silent) acquiescence of mainstream Muslims. I cannot help but wonder: Why is there no counter-conference in Riyadh, Cairo, Lahore, Khartoum or Jakarta condemning Ahmadinejad? Why are the 57 members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference silent on this?

Could the answer be as simple as it is horrifying: For generations, the leaders of these so-called Muslim countries have been spoon-feeding their populations a constant diet of propaganda similar to the one that generations of Germans (and other Europeans) were fed — that Jews are vermin and should be dealt with as such? In Europe, the logical conclusion was the Holocaust. If Ahmadinejad has his way, he shall not want for compliant Muslims ready to act on his wish.

The world needs to be informed again and again about the Holocaust — not only in the interest of the Jews who survived and their offspring but in the interest of humanity.

Let the Muslims fight it out!

In view of recent Saudi threats to get involved to protect the Sunnis in Iraq, columnist Dianne West has a suggestion : Let the Muslims fight it out.

Here it is, in its entirety:

"Funny thing about the recent op-ed by Nawaf Obaid in The Washington Post outlining likely Saudi actions if the United States withdraws from Iraq: namely, that Saudis would both support Sunnis in Iraq (versus Shi'ites supported by Iran) and manipulate the oil market to "strangle" the Iranian economy.

I think it sounds peachy, this let-them-devour-each-other strategy — which I'm guessing many Americans mutter to one another in frankness, if not also in confidence.

After the column appeared, not only did the Saudi government disavow it, but Mr. Obaid was fired from his job advising the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Turki al-Faisal. Hmmm, thought Saudi-ologists.

Before anyone could say, "shifting desert sands," Mr. Turki resigned his post in Washington, hightailing it back to the so-called kingdom for reasons unknown but possibly concerning machinations related to securing the post of foreign minister long held by Mr. Turki's ailing brother, Prince Saud al-Faisal. The post is also coveted by former Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan. Hmmm again.

But now it seems the Obaid column "reflected the view of the Saudi government," after all. At least, that's the way the New York Times tells it. Meanwhile, the Associated Press is reporting that "private" Saudi money is already supporting Sunni forces in Iraq. According to the New York Times, this private funding could easily become official Saudi policy. While Saudi leaders say they have so far withheld support from al Qaeda-led Sunni groups in Iraq, the newspaper explains, "if Iraq's sectarian violence worsened, the Saudis would line up with Sunni tribal leaders" — al Qaeda or no al Qaeda. Meanwhile, we already know Iran is backing, if not guiding, Iraqi Shi'ites.

So what should we do?

I propose two options, neither of which has occurred to Iraq Study Groupies calling for peace parleys with Hezbollah boosters and Holocaust deniers, or to hawkish proponents of "winning" Iraq (or at least Baghdad) with more troops. But maybe that's because neither group dares to reckon with the two greatest obstacles to our efforts in the region: namely, Islam (culturally unsuited to Westernity) and our own politically correct ROE, or rules of engagement (strategically unsuited to victory).

The first option is military, but it carries a seemingly insurmountable cultural override. The fact is, the United States has an arsenal that could obliterate any jihad threat in the region once and for all, whether that threat is bands of IED-exploding "insurgents" in Ramadi, the deadly so-called Mahdi Army in Sadr City, or genocidal maniacs in Tehran. In other words, it's a disgrace for military brass to talk about the 21st-century struggle with Islam as necessarily being a 50- to 100-year war. Ridiculous. It could be over in two weeks if we cared enough to blast our way off the list of endangered civilizations.

As a culture, however, the West is paralyzed by the specter of civilian casualties, massive or not, that accompanies modern (not high-tech) warfare, and fights accordingly. It may well have been massive civilian casualties in Germany (40,000 dead in Hamburg after one cataclysmic night of "fire-bombing" in 1943, for example) and Japan that helped end World War II in an Allied victory. But this is a price I doubt any Western power would pay for victory today.

So, the military solution — which isn't the same as boosting ROE-cuffed troop levels in Baghdad — is out, unless or until our desperation level rises to some unsupportably manic level. The great paradox of the "war on terror," of course, is that as our capacity and desire to protect civilians in warfare grows, our enemy's capacity and desire to kill civilians as a means of warfare grows also. Our fathers saved us from having to say, "Sieg Heil," but what's next — "Allahu akbar"?

Not necessarily. There's another Middle Eastern strategy to deter expansionist Islam: Get out of the way. Get out of the way of Sunnis and Shi'ites killing each other. As a sectarian conflict more than 1,000 years old, this is not only one fight we didn't start, but it's one we can't end. And why should we? If Iran, the jihad-supporting leader of the Shi'ite world, is being "strangled" by Saudi Arabia, the jihad-supporting leader of the Sunni world, isn't that good for the Sunni-and-Shiite-terrorized West?

With the two main sects of Islam preoccupied with an internecine battle of epic proportions, the non-Muslim world gets some breathing room. And we sure could use it — to plan for the next round."

Abbas declares war on Hamas

The Beast continues to eat itself, and the red line has been crossed. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas decided to go for broke and call for dissolving the Hamas government prior to new elections for the Palestinian parliament, but without naming a specific date.

To Hamas, this is a declaration of open hostilities. Their spokesmen are referring to this as a war between the party of Allah and the party of Satan. The local bosses like Ismail Haniyeh have rightly called this an attempted coup d'etat - while the Syrian factions like Hamas kingpin Khalid Meshaal have already denounced the move as illegal.

Before Abbas made his speech, both sides got in position . Hamas units got ready to seize the Gaza bases of the Fatah-controlled Preventive Security Service command, Palestinian intelligence and the Palestinian national TV studios. Fatah put forces in place to overrun the Balata refugee camp in Nablus, on the West Bank, the main Hamas stronghold in the area.

In the West Bank, Fatah has more boots on the ground, but Hamas has been moving large groups of fighters and weaponry into the region. In Gaza, the situation is just the opposite, with Hamas and its allies greatly outnumbering the Fatah fighters. They also have the advantage of massive amounts of armaments shipped to Gaza via Egypt.

Another factor is the question of how loyal Abbas' fighters really are to him. A lot of Fatah's support is the bought kind, paid for by American tax dollars.

Abbas began his speech in Ramallah by blaming Hamas for the ongoing turmoil in the Palestinian areas. He said that the kidnap of the Israeli soldier Gilead Shalit by Hamas in June was the cause of 500 Palestinian deaths, 4,000 injured and thousands of homes wrecked. (Of course, all those Qassam rockets and terrorist attacks from both Gaza and the West Bank have nothing to do with that..right?)

At one point in his little screed, he warned Hamas not to try to "terrorize" him by claiming its rule was God's will!

Hamas leaders said the speech's confrontational tone made it clear Abbas was no longer a partner in government. "Abu Mazen (Abbas) is not part of the solution anymore. He is part of the problem now," said Ahmed Yousef, senior adviser to Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas.


Abbas also claimed that the attack on Haniyeh's convoy that killed one of his bodyguards and wounded five people, including Haniyeh's son Friday was not a Fatah plot to assassinate Haniyeh . He blamed that little dust up on a mixup between Hamas and Fatah gangsters that kinda got a little out of hand, like. Boys will be boys, ya Allah!

Hamas isn't buying this for a second. The Hamas leadership has already ordered a death sentence for Gaza gang boss Mohammed Dahlan, Fatah's chief functionary in Gaza. They blame him for orchestrating the attack on Abbas' orders.

In view of Dahlan's CIA connections, they might very well be right.

So what we have here is the beginnings of a full fledged gang war, with both sides going to the mattresses.

So what brought this on?

For his part, Abbas had little choice. Things were at a standstill and Hamas was only getting stronger on the ground over time. I also wouldn't be surprised if his US backing wasn't at stake unless he directly challenged Hamas and did something to convince the Bush Administration that his grip on power was strong enough to be worth supporting.

As far as Hamas goes, they realized this was in the cards a long time ago, whch is why they've been arming and preparing.

As I've written before, this has become a proxy war between the Bush Administration and Iran, with both the US and Iran arming and training the respective sides.This is an incredibly bad idea for the US.

For one thing, even if Abbas and Fatah are successful, the nature of the regime and the people is not going to create either one of those utopian `Arab democracies'or even a US ally. These majority of these people, whether Hamas or Fatah are not our friends and are not interested in any kind of peace in the region that doesn't involve destroying Israel and driving the Jews into the sea. And that includes `moderate' Abbas, who cheerfully went along for the ride during the entire Arafat regime. Because of that little fact, Abbas and the Palestinians, even if they win are likely to demand a price from the US that we may not be able of willing to pay.

For another thing, I have a major problem with the hypocrisy of an American government touting `Arab democracy' on one hand and subverting it on the other. Whatever I might think of Hamas,they won a relatively fair election, and our meddling is not lost on the people in the region who's hearts and minds we're supposedly trying to win.

If we don't like the new Palestinian government because they're a fascist, terrorist, Islamist entity, then fine..we can cut off all aid, contact and support for them. We've done it with others.

But because the Palestinians happen to be fighting the Jews in Israel, and because we, the EU and most of all the Saudis want a Palestinian government with a veneer of anti-terrorist `respectability' so we can continue to fund them, the Bush Administration is willing to try and subvert the legally elected government the Palestinians voted in.

Weekend Monkey: Answers to `You're the Qadi!'

Whaddup, Primates!

Here are the correct answers to our quiz, Let's play `You're the Qadi!'


Now, as I said, a Qadi is an Islamic judge versed in sharia Islamic law and we had two of the best, Ibn-Habish and Ali Boobah come up with the questions and answers, exclusively for the Real Banana - so let's have a shout out for these fun loving Jihadis of Jurisprudence who were such good sports:

























Remember, these are all real cases with actual rulings based on sharia, and the object was to pick the answer you thought was most correct according to sharia.

So let's see the answers!

1) Omar and Aminah are the son and daughter of the recently deceased Ali, who left an estate valued at $75,000 dinars. Ali left no will, and they are arguing over the split. What's yer ruling?

a) Fifty/fifty - no way, infidel

b) 1/3 to the court, 1/3 to each heir -kinky, and both the Qadis loved it, but not sharia.

c) Omar gets it all - lots of you picked this but no.

d) Omar gets 75%. Aminah gets 25%- the right answer! (Qu'ran 4.11)Though if Aminah is married, the money normally becomes her husbands' property. Just like Aminah.



2) Omar (also known as `Lefty' because of a previous conviction) is accused by Joseph, a Christian, of stealing from his store. Joseph claims he caught Omar leaving the shop with Joseph's merchandise in his pocket, and Ali, another Christian was a witness. What's yer ruling?


a) Omar is guilty and will have to figure out a new strategy for picking his nose and wiping his bottom. - OK, most of you realized this wasn't sharia.

b) There's no case. - the best answer, since there's no proof. Infidels can't testify in a sharia court before a Qadi, أبله!


c) Joseph and Ali are sentenced to fifty lashes each for defaming a Muslim.

unlikely, but it has been known to happen, depending on whether the Qadi is in a foul mood. 1/2 a point if you picked this.


d) Omar is guilty, but because the theft was from a Christian he is only sentenced to fifty lashes rather than another amputation. Allah is compassionate. - huh uh. Like I said, no evidence, no case!


3) Jihad al-Tahami sent his wife Alia a text message over her cell phone saying `I divorce thee, I divorce thee, I divorce thee' locked her out of the house and is refusing to let her see the kids. She has come to you for legal redress. What's yer ruling?


a) the divorce is not legal, Alia is entitled to access to her children, and the couple must undergo counseling with an imam and come before the Qadi again before the divorce can be legal. -

WRONG! What do you think this is, Dr. Phil or something?

b) The divorce is legal, but Alia is entitled to see her children and take her property out of the house. -

Nope. The kids and any property the woman brings to the marriage remain the husbands', except her original dowry - IF she can somehow prove that she hasn't already given up the moolah to her Islamic Mac Daddy, which is almost impossible. That's why a number of American women who have married Iranians, Saudis and other Arabs and had kids have lost all access to them in the event of escape/divorce.


c) Jihad and Alia must both come before the Qadi for a ruling for the divorce to be legal.

No...the Qadi is not a family counselor, infidel. What were you thinking?

d) The divorce is legal, and Alia needs to stop wasting the Qadi's time and get on with life. - The right answer. The high religious court in Saudi Arabia has approved text messages as a legal, Qu'rannic notification of divorce. Ibn Habish had a very funny story he told me about the time that he had to disallow one of these because the motard only sent two text messages instead of the required three..ما الذي نكتة!!


4) Some local Christians were doing a badly needed repair on their church, and a board fell off the building. Omar claims the board hit him and he was injured, even though no one but Omar saw this happen and there are no bruises, cuts or marks on Omar. What's yer ruling?


a) Omar has no proof the board hit him, since no one saw it and he has no obvious injuries...so no case. - not quite, kaffur.

b) Omar is entitled to damages - maybe..but by itself, not the right answer.

c) You call the head of the church into court and ask to see proof that the repairs were permitted, and base your ruling on his answer. - the right answer! According to sharia any repairs to a church or synagogue are de facto illegal without permission from the Emir, Kalifa or other ruling body.

If the Church had permission, the Qadi may then rule on the rightness of the claim. If there was no permission, the Church is de facto guilty and penalties may apply for the non-permitted repair..but not necessarily for any damages to Omar.

d) The head of the church is imprisoned for assaulting a Muslim. And the church must pay damages to Omar.

- not really correct, infidels! The Qadi would rule based on `c'.


5) Mumtaz, a young Muslim woman, claims she was raped by Ibrahim, a married Muslim man. Maryam, her sister claims she saw Ibrahim running from the scene of the crime right after it occurred. Ibrahim claims he was nowhere near Mumtaz. What's yer ruling?

a) This is a situation that would most likely never come before the Qadi - this was a trick question, as `a' is the right answer in the real world. Mumtaz's family would likely perform an honor killing on her if she made something like this public. Not to mention the fact that Mumtaz would be an admitted adulteress, since Ibrahim is married. A teenage girl in Iran got hung
for this one! Although it was for killing her attempted rapist (`murder') rather than for adultery..she would have been stoned if it was just adultery.


b) You decree that, since it is likely that Ibrahim did in fact rape Mumtaz, they must marry to preserve Islamic justice and order. Just to make sure, you have Ibrahim `interrogated' to get to the truth, as the law allows. - this has happened when unmarried people are caught in illicit sexual relations, but not in a case like this.

c) There is insufficient evidence for a ruling. - Nope. TWO Muslim women presented evidence and womens' testimony has half the weight of a Muslim man. And thus they are equivalent to the required four Muslim males ( an adaptation of Quran 24: 4) Had it been just one, than `c' would have been the correct answer.


d) Ibrahim must pay damages to Mumtaz's family. - half credit if you picked this, as the Qadi might rule this way if it actually got into Court. Of course, damages could be blood money, livestock or the court ordered rape of a female relative of Ibrahim's by the males of Mumtaz's clan. The last one is fairly common in places like Pakistan. Allah in his wisdom provides for these situations.


6) Isaac, a Jew, comes before the court claiming he was assaulted and robbed by Mohammed, a Muslim. There was a Muslim policeman who witnessed the crime and has testified to the court that he saw the crime take place. He also testifies that at the time of the crime, he saw Isaac dressed in ordinary clothing. What's yer ruling?


a) Mohammed loses a hand as a warning those who would disturb the Peace of Islam. - nope..not the right answer by itself.


b) Because Isaac is a Jew, Mohammed is let off with a mere fifty lashes and must return what he stole to Isaac. - uh uh. Theft is theft, and it was witnessed by a Muslim male who gave evidence in court.


c) Mohammed is imprisoned -possible, but not the best answer according to sharia, since it does not account for Isaac's transgression.


d) Mohammed loses a hand as a thief. And Isaac is sentenced to one hundred lashes because he was not dressed in the distinctive clothing denoting that he was a Jew. Allah's justice is served.

- the sharia-licious answer. Mohammed was in fact a thief and Isaac committed the offense of not wearing the sharia mandated clothing and/or badges denoted that he was a Jew. Hey,where do you think Hitler got the idea? Allah's justice is served indeed.



7) Ali, a Christian, comes to you for justice. He claims that his young virgin daughter Sarai was forcibly kidnapped off the street by a group of Muslim youths, held against her will and assaulted until she agreed to become a Muslima and marry the ringleader. Yakub, the head of the gang , tells you that Sarai came there of her own free will, has converted to Islam and is now one of his wives. An imam has confirmed that Sarai did indeed recite the shaheedah (`there is no G-d but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet') in his presence.

Ali asks that you bring Sarai into court to hear her side of this, and complains that Sarai has not been permitted to see her family since she was kidnapped. Ali also quotes the Qu'rannic verse to you about there being no compulsion in religion. What do you say, Qadi?


a) You bring Sarai into court to hear her testimony, and will base your final ruling on that. - No. She's legally a Muslim and now the property of Yakub.



b) The marriage and the conversion to Islam must stand, but you tell Yakub that she must be permitted to see her family. - The Qadi cannot and would not order a Muslim man to permit this. Next, you'll be saying we ought to let them drive cars and go out by themselves!



c) You rule that the marriage and conversion are perfectly legal and will stand and that nothing Sarai would say would have any bearing on the matter. As a matter of fact, Ali should be proud that his daughter has now embraced the true faith. What's more, Sarai must have her husband's permission to have any contact with her Christian family. And you issue a stern rebuke t0 Ali for wasting the court's time and for presuming to quote the Holy Qu'ran to you, an Islamic scholar and tell him that it is only by the mercy of Allah that you do not order him whipped. - The Sharia-licious answer...bask in the glory of Allah's Law as revealed by this Egyptian case!



8) Eva is a ferenghi (foreigner)who accepted a ride home from a nightclub from two Muslim men. She went to the police and charged the two men with rape, claiming they pulled the car into a remote street and forced her to have sex with them. Her clothes and physical condition bear this out.The two Muslim men, one of whom is married, admitted taking her in their car from the club and admitted having sex with her, but claim that it was consensual. What's yer ruling, Qadi?

a) In view of the victim's physical condition, the sex was obviously not `consensual.' The two men will `interrogated' as the law allows and be punished for rape and battery after their confession. - Nope.

b) Since the woman is a non-Muslim, her testimony cannot be admissible in a sharia court. Case dismissed! - True, but not the answer that applies here

c) Since the woman is a foreigner and got into the car willingly , the men will not be punished for rape as such but will pay monetary damages for `assault'. - uh-uh.

d) This woman has admitted having sex with a married man out of her own mouth. She is an adulteress and will be imprisoned and suffer the traditional punishment of stoning as an example to others, ya Allah! - The sharia answer! This was a real case in Qatar, and the French woman involved was only extricated after her government exerted diplomatic pressure, and/or paid a bribe.

9)Mohammed is brought before you, charged with assault for knocking a Jew off a horse without any apparent provocation. Several witnesses saw this occur. Mohammed claims he is innocent of any crime. What's yer ruling?

a) Mohammed is guilty - witnesses saw the crime and he will be punished with fifty lashes. - nope. See below.

b) Mohammed is guilty and will have to pay money to the Jew for damages. uhhh-nope!

c) Mohammed is innocent under sharia. -the right answer, praise Allah! The Jew was on a horse and thus his head was higher than a Muslims'. Mohammed is to be commended for his piety and respect for sharia and the Qadi's authority.

d) Mohammed will not be punished for assaulting a Jew, but will be lashed for lying to a Qadi. - Mohammed told the truth to the Qadi - he was innocent of any crime.


10)Abdul borrowed money from Achmed to go on the haj (pilgrimage to Mecca) and promised Hamid that he would repay the money within a month of his return, plus give him a color TV from his shop as a bonus. Witnesses have confirmed the agreement. Abdul returned the money as scheduled but refuses to give Achmed the TV. Achmed wants the TV as promised or the cash equivalent. What do you say, Qadi?


a) Abdul must comply. A deal's a deal. - no...this was not legal according to sharia.


b) As Qadi, you rule that the men must arbitrate their differences, come to an agreement and appear before you in 10 days' time..when you will hear what they have agreed on and give your ruling. - not the right answer here.


c) Achmed has committed an offense under sharia, and will pay a fine to the court. - Behold the wisdom of Allah! The Qadi in this case realized that the promised TV amounted to interest on the debt, and thus Achmed was guilty of the crime of usury( Qu'ran 3:13).


Well, there it is, Primates! Score yourself:

0 - 5 - Infidel dog, incapable of higher understanding

6-7 - You show some understanding, but need much instruction in the ways of Allah

8-10 - Ya Allah! Want to fill in for ibn-Habish or Ali Booba in court sometime?


I'll announce the results and the prize to the winner next week!

Assassination attempt on Hamas PM Haniyah - Hamas declares Holy War on Fatah and Abbas

Talk about your `Godfather' scenarios!

As Ismail Haniyeh's convoy moved from the Rafah crossing this morning, a hit was apparently attempted by the Force 17 guards at the crossing, and a real gangland shootout developed between the rivals for rulership of the Beast.

Bullets flew in every direction as bystanders ran to get out of the the way. One Hamas goombah was killed when he took a bullet for Haniyeh, and Haniya's son was among five injured in Thursday's gun battle at the Rafah border crossing from Egypt into Gaza. Meanwhile, the Egyptians are still working on hunting down the hundreds of Palestinians who escaped into Egypt after the border fence was blown.

The Palestinians fingered Fatah gang boss Mohammed Dahlan for the attempted hit. Dahlan is the chief Fatah functionary in Gaza, and a contact of our own CIA as well as the British MI5 group stationed in Rafah.

"Mohammed Dahlan bears the direct responsibility for the assassination attempt which targeted the prime minister and he bears responsibility for the blood of the martyrs in the incident," a Hamas spokesman told a news conference in Gaza.

"The dirty hands which assassinated and wounded the bodyguards of the prime minister and attacked the prime minister's convoy will not escape punishment," he added.

In another related attack today, some of the Fatah `soldiers' fired on a Hamas rally in Ramallah in Judea (the West Bank). The rally included civilians as well as Hamas gunmen. At least 32 Hamas supporters there were wounded by gunfire from Fatah-loyal forces, hospital officials were quoted as saying by Reuters.




In Ramallah today - trying to protect the innocent. Can you imagine these kids' future?

Haniyeh wasted no time in getting to the point. At a separate rally in Gaza City, up to 60,000 Hamas supporters gathered in a stadium where they were told that Abbas had launched a war against Allah and Hamas.

"What a war Mahmoud Abbas you are launching, first against God, and then against Hamas," senior Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya told the rally, according to al-Reuters.

Abbas is expected to make a speech this weekend calling for new elections and the dissolving of the Hamas parliament.

For Hamas, this would mean that they would imediately go to the mattresses - or in other words, a full on gang war.

Stay tuned...

Watcher's Council Results, 12/15/06

The winners are in for this week's Watcher's Council:

This week's winner was Andrew Olmsted : The Peace Myth Inhis first win as a member of the Council, Major Andrew Olmsted writes about what he considers the mistaken idea that peace is the normal condition of mankind, and relates this to our situation in Iraq. Congratulations, Major! Well done..

In second place was Soccer Dad: Baker's bad recipe a fine essay in which Soccer Dad wrote about James Baker and the ISG buying into the fallacy that if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were `solved' that the problems of Iraq and elsewhere in the region would magically disappear. A great examination of a really stoopid premise by Soccer Dad.

For non-Council Post the winner was Winds of Change.NET: The clash of convictions and the remaking of the world of wars in which this blogger examines the idea that `the outcome of modern wars is decided in the mind.'

Second Place was a tie between The Indepundit and my own nominee, CQ.com: "Democrats’ New Intelligence Chairman Needs a Crash Course on al Qaeda"

A complete list of the votes can be found atthe site of our fearless leader, Watcher of Weasels


Hearty Kudos to all the winners.

Now I've seen everything -Wolf Blitzer interviews David Duke on CNN

YouTube - Duke interview on CNN

It used to be that proto-Nazis like David Duke met in the shadows, because decent people would not tolerate them.

Things have changed. Thanks to the `anti-Zionism' of the American Left and what I can only call the buffoonery of the dinosaur media , people like Duke now have a new `legitimacy'. Duke agrees totally with people like Cindy Sheehan, Michael Moore, Jimmy Carter and a host of others...the `no war forIsrael ' crowd.

So here we have the interesting spectacle of David Duke being given a forum by none other than CNN's Wolf Blitzer, someone who some people might consider Jewish because of his ancestry. Duke is allowed to get away with lie after lie after lie on camera, is actually treated politely and seriously by Blitzer rather than being called on his blatant untruths and failure to answer questions. And he actually puts Blitzer on the defensive!

What's more, look at the comments. The cockroaches have come out of the wooodwork and think they're human.

At times like this, I remember how my father, of blessed memory and those of his generation used to deal with wannabe brownshirts like Duke and his ilk. And you don't do it by `dialogue', passing out leaflets at a card table or `debating'. You have to get in their faces and let them know that while they're free to express their racism, it has personal and painful consequences.

And you don't allow idiots like Blitzer to give them a forum on national TV, at major universities or in the mainstream media.

At least not without paying a price for it.

House of Saud....

The Gaza gang wars continue..as Hamas PM Haniyeh is denied entrance back to Gaza with Iranian Cash and the US trains Fatah goons

Things are definitely heating up in the Beast's gangland fiefdoms in Gaza and the West Bank.

Most of the action today was in Gaza.

It started out with a gangland style hit on Hamas religious Qadi Bassam al-Fara in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis at his home. Needless to say,the Hamas boys vowed vengeance in return.

The fun continued when Hamas PM Ismail Haniyeh tried to come back to Gaza through the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Sinai with a fat suitcase full of cash - about $31M, from all accounts.

The Israelis requested that the EU monitors and Abbas' Force 17 guards not let him in with the money, for obvious reasons...so the money was confiscated. And that led to real shoot out!

Hundreds of Hamas Ezz e-Din al-Qassam militiamen attacked the terminal, seized control of the border crossing and ran off the European monitors and Fatah Presidential Guard 17 troops. They then tore down the terminal and blew up Egypt's border fence.

The Rafah exit to Egypt was stormed by Palestinians desperate to try and escape from the Palestinian experiment in self government. Their `Arab brothers' the Egyptians will have to round them up later,just as they have before, and shove them back into Gaza.

Haniyeh is scheduled to come across the border tomorrow,minus the suitcase. He has some particularly interesting company, according to my sources - a senior Hamas military delegation led by Abu Obeida al Jerat, who signed military pacts with Hamas kingpin Khalid Meshaal between Hamas and Iran for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards to provide providing advanced training for Hamas fighters. Which is why Haniyeh got the money, of course. No Jew killing, no cash...mujahadeen suckahs!

In Nablus, in the West bank (Judea and Samria) the IDF Security forces foiled a major terrorist attack
by `moderate' Abbas' armed faction, the al-Aksa Brigade. They stopped a car and found 18 lbs. of explosives in the trunk in a black bag, which was then detonated.

There was also the little matter of the IDF making a major sweep throughout the entire area, busting piece loving terrorist cells in Nablus, Qalqiliya, Hebron and Bethelehem.

Meanwhile,it came out today that the US is training Abbas' goons in what is described as `counter terrorism'.

Does that mean that al Aksa and Force 17 are going to start killing themselves?


The American security coordinator in the territories, General Keith Dayton, has been giving secret training to Force 17 (AKA `the Palestinian Presidential Guard') to provide "support" to Fatah in its turf war for power with Hamas. The initial training was conducted by American military instructors in a military camp near Jericho, for some 400 men. And now Dayton has requested that the so-called `Quartet' put in place Egyptian, British and Jordanian instructors to train this private army loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, growing it to around 6,000 trained Jew killers. Of course, no one is remembering how Force 17 participated in active terrorism when they were Arafat's men - as was Abbas.

If those men are trained and armed, they will eventually end up by turning their guns on Jewish civilians, just like last time. And perhaps on Americans too, which has also happened before.

They're also conveniently forgetting the findings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank that the Palestinian Security Services were overstaffed, out of control, had no accountability and were an insurmountable burden on the Palestinian economy.

And that was before the addition of more than 35,000 troops in the last three years..not counting non-existent people drawing a paycheck from us gullible Westerners...the old mafia `no-show job' racket.

The turf war continues in earnest. Abbas has reportedly scheduled a speech to the Palestinians Saturday. If he calls for early elections to try and overturn the Hamas parliament, Hamas will likely consider it a declaraton of war.

Watcher's Council nominations, 12/13/06

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 can be found at the site of our fearless leader, Watcher of Weasels




Watcher's Council News: There is a vacant seat on the Council. Sadly, ShrinkWrapped has unfortunately left us to pursue other goals..I'm sure you'll miss his insightful articles as much as I will. if you're interested in applying for the vacant Council seat, go here.

Here's this week's lineup:

1. J O S H U A P U N D I T: The Real Holocaust deniers This week, I focused on Iran's government sponsored Holocaust denial conference. Many Western leaders profess to be shocked by this, but they avoid any notion who the real modern day `Holocaust deniers' are.

I also explore Ahmadinejad's central premise: that, since the Arabs had nothing to do with the Holocaust, why should they have to put up with Israel being established in their midst, rather than say, Germany? Does he have a point?

2. Gates of Vienna: Democrats Held Meetings with Hamas In this week's essay, Dymphna writes about the the reputed meeting of Democratic congressmen with Hamas, and uses it as a link to explore the entire notion of negotiating with people like Iran and Syria.

nb: While meeting with Hamas would be against US law, apparently Senator Bill Nelson (d-FL) did meet with Syria's Assad, and Democratic Senators Dodd and Kerry apparently have plans to do so as well. What this does to the negotiating posture of the US and the current administration is apparently of no concern to these people.

3. Done With Mirrors: War and War Calimachus has a position on Iraq, and he sticks to it. He says we started it and we had better finish it. Or, as he puts it `You can't just send the war back because it's not the one you ordered.'

4. Soccer Dad: Baker's bad recipe Soccer Dad writes about James Baker and the ISG buying into the fallacy that if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were `solved' that the problems of Iraq and elsewhere in the region would magically disappear.

Of course, the only thing that would disappear if the Israelis are pressured into a settlement is Israel and the Jews..which is probably what Baker's Saudi masters have in mind anyway. Good stuff from Soccer Dad.


5. Right Wing Nut House: A DAY OF INFAMY Rick gives it up with one of his typically well written pieces on the Pearl Harbor attack.


6. The Sundries Shack: Iran’s Plan, on the Second Page This week, Jimmie Bise writes about the Iran Holocaust denial conference and its political aim: to delegitimize Israel and set up the rationale for a second Holocaust.


7. Rhymes With Right:Pearl Harbor, 65 Years Later -- A Family Connection Here, Greg writes about a personal connection to a fascinating and little known group of heroes who helped win WWII - the civilian shipyard workers who performed miracles restoring the ships and facilities at Pearl Harbor after the attack, and even more significantly, took the badly damaged aircraft carrier Yorktown and in three days got it seaworthy and ready to fight at Midway, where it played a decisive role.

For more on this miracle, read Victor Davis Hansen's chapter on Midway in`Carnage and Culture.' You'll be amazed at what these men accomplished.


8. The Glittering Eye : The Sticky Parts of the ISG Report Recommendations This week Dave writes about the more problematic aspects of the ISG and the likely problems ensuing.

9. The Education Wonks: Court-Protected Racial Discrimination?
Here, EdWonk writes about a Federal Appellate Court upholding a tax-exempt Hawaii organization's policy of barring "non-Hawaiian" students from their schools.

10. AMERICAN FUTURE - Vietnam and Iraq: Public and Government Opinion Marc writes this week examining the government and press reactions to events in the Vietnam war , how they affected public opinion and what parallels there may be with the Iraq War.


11. Andrew Olmsted : The Peace Myth Major Andrew Olmsted writes about what he considers the mistaken idea that peace is the normal condition of mankind, and relates this to our situation in Iraq.

He makes one side point that I disagree with totally; that the Bush Administration's decision not to confront Iran and Syria was a wise one, even though he admits they are waging a de facto war against us, because it would have expanded the current war.

IMO, confronting Iran and Syria would have been the only right decision because (a) faced with American resolve, and perhaps a calling card in the form of some Reagan-esque air raids on Tehran and Syria, they would have backed down and gotten out of the way and (b) even if they hadn't we are merely postponing the inevitable to a time of Iran and Syria's choosing.





That's this week's lineup..enjoy

Weekend Monkey: Let's play `You're the Qadi!'

Hidey ho, Primates!

Weekend Monkey has been working on a coupla killer interviews for the Real Banana, as well as doing in-depth interviews for my new intern position. But have I forgotten you? No way!

Today, I have a real treat in store for you..a fun quiz for your enjoyment called `You're the Qadi'!

A Qadi is an Islamic judge versed in sharia Islamic law, and you get to be one. Answer these questions and test your knowledge of the time tested wisdom of Islamic jurisprudence and win a prize!

These are all real cases with real rulings.

And , of course, let's have a shout out to our fun loving contest judges, Ibn-Habish and Ali Boobah!


















Watch out, Primates...some of these questions are harder than you think! Pick the answer you think is most correct according to sharia.


1) Omar and Aminah are the son and daughter of the recently deceased Ali, who left an estate valued at $75,000 dinars. Ali left no will, and they are arguing over the split. What's yer ruling?

a) Fifty/fifty

b) 1/3 to the court, 1/3 to each heir.

c) Omar gets it all

d) Omar gets 75%. Aminah gets 25%


2) Omar (also known as `Lefty' because of a previous conviction) is accused by Joseph, a Christian, of stealing from his store. Joseph claims he caught Omar leaving the shop with Joseph's merchandise in his pocket, and Ali, another Christian was a witness. What's yer ruling?

a) Omar is guilty and will have to figure out a new strategy for picking his nose and wiping his bottom.

b) There's no case.

c) Joseph and Ali are sentenced to fifty lashes each for defaming a Muslim.

d) Omar is guilty, but because the theft was from a Christian he is only sentenced to fifty lashes rather than another amputation. Allah is compassionate.


3) Jihad al-Tahami sent his wife Alia a text message over her cell phone saying `I divorce thee, I divorce thee, I divorce thee' locked her out of the house and is refusing to let her see the kids. She has come to you for legal redress. What's yer ruling?

a) the divorce is not legal, Alia is entitled to access to her children, and the couple must undergo counseling with an imam and come before the Qadi again before the divorce can be legal.

b) The divorce is legal, but Alia is entitled to see her children and take her property out of the house.

c) Jihad and Alia must both come before the Qadi to for a ruling for the divorce to be legal.

d) The divorce is legal, and Alia needs to stop wasting the Qadi's time and get on with life.


4) Some local Christians were doing a badly needed repair on their church, and a board fell off the building. Omar claims the board hit him and he was injured, even though no one but Omar saw this happen and there are no bruises, cuts or marks on Omar. What's yer ruling?

a) Omar has no proof the board hit him, since no one saw it and he has no obvious injuries...so no case.

b) Omar is entitled to damages

c) You call the head of the church into court and ask to see proof that the repairs were permitted, and base your ruling on his answer.

d) The head of the church is imprisoned for assaulting a Muslim. And the church must pay damages to Omar.

5) Mumtaz, a young Muslim woman, claims she was raped by Ibrahim, a married Muslim man. Maryam, her sister claims she saw Ibrahim running from the scene of the crime right after it occurred. Ibrahim claims he was nowhere near Mumtaz. What's yer ruling?

a) This is a situation that would most likely never come before the Qadi

b) You decree that, since it is likely that Ibrahim did in fact rape Mumtaz, they must marry to preserve Islamic justice and order. Just to make sure, you have Ibrahim `interrogated' to get to the truth, as the law allows.

c) There is insufficient evidence for a ruling.

d) Ibrahim must pay damages to Mumtaz's family.


6) Isaac, a Jew, comes before the court claiming he was assaulted and robbed by Mohammed, a Muslim. There was a Muslim policeman who witnessed the crime and has testified to the court that he saw the crime take place. He also testifies that at the time of the crime, he saw Isaac dressed in ordinary clothing. What's yer ruling?

a) Mohammed loses a hand as a warning those who would disturb the Peace of Islam.

b) Because Isaac is a Jew, Mohammed is let off with a mere fifty lashes and must return what he stole to Isaac.

c) Mohammed is imprisoned

d) Mohammed loses a hand as a thief. And Isaac is sentenced to one hundred lashes because he was not dressed in the distinctive clothing denoting that he was a Jew. Allah's justice is served.


7) Ali, a Christian, comes to you for justice. He claims that his young virgin daughter Sarai was forcibly kidnapped off the street by a group of Muslim youths, held against her will and assaulted until she agreed to become a Muslima and marry the ringleader. Yakub, the head of the gang , tells you that Sarai came there of her own free will, has converted to Islam and is now one of his wives. An imam has confirmed that Sarai did indeed recite the shaheedah (`there is no G-d but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet') in his presence.

Ali asks that you bring Sarai into court to hear her side of this, and complains that Sarai has not been permitted to see her family since she was kidnapped. Ali also quotes the Qu'rannic verse to you about there being no compulsion in religion. What do you say, Qadi?

a) You bring Sarai into court to hear her testimony, and will base your final ruling on that.

b) The marriage and the conversion to Islam must stand, but you tell Yakub that she must be permitted to see her family.

c) You rule that the marriage and conversion are perfectly legal and will stand and that nothing Sarai would say would have any bearing on the matter. As a matter of fact, Ali should be proud that his daughter has now embraced the true faith. What's more, Sarai must have her husband's permission to have any contact with her Christian family. And you issue a stern rebuke t0 Ali for wasting the court's time and for presuming to quote the Holy Qu'ran to you, an Islamic scholar and tell him that it is only by the mercy of Allah that you do not order him whipped.


8) Eva is a ferenghi (foreigner)who accepted a ride home from a nightclub from two Muslim men. She went to the police and charged the two men with rape, claiming they pulled the car into a remote street and forced her to have sex with them. Her clothes and physical condition bear this out.The two Muslim men, one of whom is married, admitted taking her in their car from the club and admitted having sex with her, but claim that it was consensual. What's yer ruling, Qadi?

a) In view of the victim's physical condition, the sex was obviously not `consensual.' The two men will `interrogated' as the law allows and be punished for rape and battery after their confession.

b) Since the woman is a non-Muslim, her testimony cannot be admissible in a sharia court. Case dismissed!

c) Since the woman is a foreigner and got into the car willingly , the men will not be punished for rape as such but will pay monetary damages for `assault'.

d) This woman has admitted having sex with a married man out of her own mouth. She is an adulteress and will be imprisoned and suffer the traditional punishment of stoning as an example to others, ya Allah!

9)Mohammed is brought before you, charged with assault for knocking a Jew off a horse without any apparent provocation. Several witnesses saw this occur. Mohammed claims he is innocent of any crime. What's yer ruling?

a) Mohammed is guilty - witnesses saw the crime and he will be punished with fifty lashes.

b) Mohammed is guilty and will have to pay money to the Jew for damages.

c) Mohammed is innocent under sharia.

d) Mohammed will not be punished for assaulting a Jew, but will be lashed for lying to a Qadi.


10)Abdul borrowed money from Achmed to go on the haj (pilgrimage to Mecca) and promised Hamid that he would repay the money within a month of his return, plus give him a color TV from his shop as a bonus. Witnesses have confirmed the agreement. Abdul returned the money as scheduled but refuses to give Achmed the TV. Achmed wants the TV as promised or the cash equivalent. What do you say, Qadi?

a) Abdul must comply. A deal's a deal.

b) As Qadi, you rule that the men must arbitrate their differences, come to an agreement and appear before you in 10 days' time..when you will hear what they have agreed on and give your ruling.

c) Achmed has committed an offense under sharia, and will pay a fine to the court.


Well, there it is, Primates! The answers will appear Friday. And remember, there's a PRIZE for the lucky winner who gets the highest score!

The Real Holocaust deniers

Ahmadinejad's Iran is in the news again...this time for hosting a conference on what Iran's president Ahmadinejad has called the `myth' of the Holocaust. And of course, he has once again said that Israel is fated to `disappear' soon ...and that the `countdown' towards the end of the Zionist regime will be over soon, Allah willing.

A number of Western leaders seem bent on doing collective impressions of Claude Rains' famous Vichy French captain at Rick's Place in `Casablanca'..they're shocked, simply shocked.









I can't imagine why they would be. This has been Iran's position since 1979. It was, after all, Iran's `moderate' ex-president Rafsanjani who said that the problem of Israel could be solved by one nuclear bomb.

These same Western leaders voicing shock and dismay at the spectacle of Iran holding a Holocaust denial conference are fully aware of this, and what's more, they're fully aware that Iran's denial of the first Holocaust is part of its arming of people like Hezbollah and its pursuit of nuclear weapons to perpetrate a second one.

This is whom people like James Baker and others like him want to `negotiate' with.

Frankly, I can do without the `shock' of Tony Blair, when Britain has had a de facto arms embargo on Israel for years and its foreign secretary threw a major fit over US planes refueling in Scotland en route to Israel with desperately needed munitions during the Lebanon War.

The Western powers are in exactly the same place they were before the last Holocaust. Only with less excuse...because they know that not only did it happen, but that it's entirely plausible.

And like the last time, they are doing absolutely nothing to stop it.

In a very real sense, the `Holocaust denial' of the West's leaders is much worse than Ahmadinejad's.

Ahmadinejad's position, of course, is shared by much of the Muslim world - that the Holocaust was a myth, that the sinister Jews used it to `steal' Arab land, and that even if a few Jews did become lampshades and chimney smoke,why should the Arabs suffer for it?

Here's why. Because the Arab world is directly complicit in the Holocaust. And what's more, they know it.

After World War I, the former Ottoman province that became the Palestine Mandate was given by the League of Nations to British authority for the express purpose of creating a Jewish nation. In the area East of the Jordan River, the only real populated communities were places like Jerusalem and Safed, where the majority of the inhabitants were Jews. Britain's first act was to take 80% of this land, everything east of the Jordan River, give it to the Arabs as Trans-Jordan and forbid any Jews from living or settling there. The Zionist movement was promised by Britain that the rest of Palestine - everything else west of the Jordan River-would be the Jewish homeland. This promise was never kept. The British, during their tenure in Palestine put all kinds of arbitrary barriers on Jews migrating to Palestine, while allowing unlimited immigration to what was left of Palestine to Arabs from Syria, Egypt, and the Hejaz.

Of course, even 80% of Palestine was not enough for the Arabs to accept Jews living next to them in peace and equality. Incited by their leaders, the Arabs rioted and created such unrest from the 1930's onward that the British halted all Jewish immigration to the Holy Land on the eve of the Holocaust with the issuance of the White Paper in 1938 , trapping millions of Jews in Europe without a place to flee to. If not for that, the death toll in the Holocaust would have been nowhere near what it was.

If the Arabs `gave' the Jews three times as much land as Israel consists of,it would not be enough to compensate for their part in the slaughter of the Jews of Europe. And they've compounded this sin - and I use the word advisedly - by ethnically cleansing almost a million Jews from the Arab world since 1948,and trying to complete the task of genocide up to our present day.

All during WWII, when a third of the Jewish population of Palestine was in uniform fighting for the allies, the British allowed unlimited migration from the Arab world into Israel. In 1944, Himmler attempted to make a deal with the Allies to exchange the Jewish population of Hungary, about 500,000 people, for a few trucks. The Americans signed on to the deal but the British vetoed it, explicitly because they were afraid of Arab unrest and did not want these Jews in Palestine. Hungary's Jews went to Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen instead of Israel.

During WWII, the Arabs largely sided with the Axis. The `Palestinian' leader, the British appointed Grand Mufti of Jerusalem spent most of the war in Europe recruiting Muslims from Bosnia and the Caucasus to fight in SS divisions for Hitler and the Nazis. And in Egypt, numerous veterans of the British 8th Army who fought and defeated the Nazis at El-Alamein have related how the Egyptians had Cairo all decked out in Nazi flags to welcome the German `liberators' when the British marched back into the city.

In spite of this, the British equipped and trained the Arab armies that attempted to massacre the Jews of Israel in 1948. The most effective Arab fighting force in that war, the Jordanian Arab legion, was led by British officers under the notorious Jew hater Colonel John Glubb (`Glubb Pasha').

Anyone interested in the full sordid story should read Lucy Dawidowicz's ` The War Against the Jews : 1933-1945: and Joan Peter's prize winning From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict over Palestine

In his book, `Crusade in Europe' written in 1946, General Eisenhower wrote about what he called `horror camps' and his reaction on seeing his first one. He made a point of recording those feelings, of seeing that the press toured the camps and took pictures, because somehow he foresaw even then a time when people would deny that the Holocaust occurred.

Footage still exists of American soldiers forcing Germans into the camps to look at what had been done..as if some of those Germans hadn't been living downwind from the smell of burning flesh.

Eisenhower wanted to make sure that `plausible denial' would no longer be an excuse.

There's a lesson in that for our times.

The new pick for head of the House intel committee botches an easy intel quiz...

Sometimes, you have to wonder who's minding the store...


Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's personal pick to head the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Silvestre Reyes (d-TX) failed a basic intel quiz with questions about al Qaeda and Hezbollah today.

When asked by CQ National Security Editor Jeff Stein whether al Qaeda is one or the other of the two major branches of Islam -- Sunni or Shiite -- Reyes answered "they are probably both," then ventured "Predominantly -- probably Shiite."

Hmmm... Al Qaeda was founded by Osama bin Laden as a Sunni organization and views Shiites as heretics - although, when it comes to the great jihad, they cooperate with Shites quite nicely.

Reyes also turned out not to know much about Hezbollah.

Stein's column about Reyes' answers was published on CQ.com's Web site Friday evening.

In fairness, there are probably other members of these committees, from both parties, who are somewhat factually challenged when it comes to our enemies.

So what are they doing sitting on these committees in the first place?

In an interview with CNN, Stein said he was "amazed" by Reyes' lack of what he considers basic information about two of the major terrorists organizations.

"If you're the baseball commissioner and you don't know the difference between the Yankees and the Red Sox, you don't know baseball," Stein said. "You're not going to have the respect of the people you work with."

"If you don't have the basics, how do you effectively question the administration?" he asked. "You don't know who is on first."

Not that a little thing like that is going to get in the way of the usual partisan politics.

Originally,of course, the head of the intel committee was supposed to be the present ranking Democrat member, Jane Harmon. But, as I've chronicled here, she and Pelosi don't like each other. So Harmon is out.

Like I said, sometimes you have to wonder who's minding the store.