Competition Among Major Regional Players Fuels Rise of Islamic State

At WSJ, "Regional Discord Fuels Islamic State's Rise in Mideast":

Pretty much everyone in the Middle East is supposed to be fighting against Islamic State. Yet, the Sunni extremist group retains large swaths of Syria and Iraq and is spreading elsewhere in the region.

This isn’t because of its military might or strategic sophistication. The explanation is different: For most of the major players in the complicated conflicts ravaging the Middle East, the defeat of Islamic State remains a secondary goal, subordinate to more pressing objectives.

For some of these powers, Islamic State’s existence and its barbarism are actually useful, for now, because they serve as a lever in conflicts with more immediate and dangerous foes.

Though able to take advantage of sectarian fissures in Syrian and Iraqi societies to carve out a territory the size of the U.K., Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, isn’t strong enough to represent a conventional military threat to the region’s biggest nations.

But these countries do live in existential fear of some of their neighbors.

In particular, the Saudi-led bloc of Sunni Arab nations bitterly competes with Shiite-dominated Iran in what has become a zero-sum contest for influence—a contest that Russia has now entered on the Shiite side by supporting the Syrian regime.

That contest is also playing out in Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition has been battling Iran-supported Houthi militants while Islamic State affiliates strengthen their position and attack both sides.

“Everyone hates their neighbor more than they hate ISIL,” said a senior Obama administration official.

Among the powers involved in the conflict, the U.S. is probably the only one, together with its European allies, focused on degrading and eventually destroying Islamic State as a primary goal.

But that effort, too is subordinated to the Obama administration’s overriding concern about preventing American casualties. This severely limits America’s ability to help forces fighting against Islamic State. It has also given rise to widespread theories claiming that Washington, too, doesn’t actually want the group to be defeated because it supposedly seeks to perpetuate regional instability.

The gap between American objectives and means has bolstered Islamic State’s narrative of invincibility, allowing it to draw thousands of recruits.

“We have an interest in defeating ISIS, but we don’t want to do that ourselves: We want other people to go in and lose their lives in doing it,” said Andrew Tabler, a Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy...

More.

Breitbart Looks to Expand Globally

Breitbart is reviled by leftists, obviously for getting the job done. Professor Melissa Zimdars, of Merrimack College in Massachusetts, even included Breitbart on her "scholarly" list of "fake" news sites. Actually, most "fake" news I read is on the left. For progs like Professor Zimdars, "fake" news is real conservative leaning news they don't like.

In any case, the folks at the Breitbart shop are looking for growth opportunities.

At LAT, "Breitbart News, fiery conservative outlet buoyed by Trump victory, aims to go global":

It all began a little more than 10 years ago in a basement in Westwood: a small army of young employees in T-shirts and shorts huddled over their laptops, determined to launch a news site that would shake up the world of conservative media.

At first, the site started by Andrew Breitbart was a simple news aggregation service. But in a few short years it evolved into an idiosyncratic voice combining original reporting, incendiary commentary and outright trolling, in keeping with the rambunctious spirit of its founder, who died in 2012.

As its popularity grew, many condemned its rhetoric as extremist, xenophobic, sexist and a platform for hate speech — accusations its leaders have denied. Others laughed it off as a journalistic lightweight catering to a far-right fringe known as the alt-right.

No one’s laughing anymore. As Donald Trump prepares to take office as president, the Breitbart News Network stands poised to become one of the most influential conservative media companies in the country. Stephen K. Bannon, the site’s controversial executive chairman, was a key figure in Trump’s campaign and has been named chief White House strategist.

For Breitbart, this could mean a direct line to the West Wing, a level of media access unprecedented in modern times, according to experts. While some believe this will turn the outlet into an extension of the Trump administration, leaders at Breitbart see it as an opportunity that will allow them to compete not only with conservative rivals like Fox News, but the entire media firmament, which it sees as dishonest about its left-leaning bias...

More.

Paris Attack Was Work of 3 Teams, An 'Act of War' by Islamic State, France Says (VIDEO)

You've got huge banner headlines running at the New York Times.

It's major.

See, "Three Teams of Coordinated Attackers Carried Out Assault on Paris, Officials Say; Hollande Blames ISIS":

PARIS — Three teams of Islamic State attackers acting in unison carried out the terrorist assault in Paris on Friday night, officials said Saturday, including one assailant who may have traveled to Europe on a Syrian passport along with the flow of migrants.

“It is an act of war that was committed by a terrorist army, a jihadist army, Daesh, against France,” President François Hollande told the nation from the Élysée Palace, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State. “It is an act of war that was prepared, organized and planned from abroad, with complicity from the inside, which the investigation will help establish.”

As the death toll rose to 129 — with 352 others wounded, 99 of them critically — a basic timeline of the attacks came into view.

The Paris prosecutor, François Molins, said the attackers were all armed with heavy weaponry and suicide vests. Their assault began at 9:20 p.m. Friday, when one terrorist detonated a suicide bomb outside the gates of the soccer stadium on the northern outskirts of Paris. It ended at 12:20 a.m. Saturday when the authorities stormed a concert hall, the Bataclan. One attacker there was killed; two others detonated suicide vests. Inside the hall, 89 people, who had been listening to a rock band, had been shot to death.

The man with the Syrian passport — which Greek officials said had been registered at the Aegean island of Leros on Oct. 3 — was 25, and died at the stadium. Another assailant, who died at the concert hall, was 29 and a native of Courcouronnes, about 20 miles south of Paris. He had a criminal record and was known to be involved in extremist Islamic ideology, Mr. Molins said.

The hunt for possible accomplices of the terrorists gained steam on Saturday. Officials in Belgium announced three arrests, one of them linked to a rental car found in Paris. In Germany, the police were exploring whether a man they arrested last week with weapons in his car and his GPS navigator set for Paris was linked to the attacks. But it remained unclear how a plot of such sophistication and lethality could have escaped the notice of intelligence agencies, both in France and abroad.

Mr. Hollande declared three days of national mourning, and said that military troops would patrol the capital. France remained under a nationwide state of emergency.

Mr. Hollande vowed to “be unforgiving with the barbarians from Daesh,” adding that France would act within the law but with “all the necessary means, and on all terrains, inside and outside, in coordination with our allies, who are, themselves, targeted by this terrorist threat.”

The attacks, and the possibility that the Islamic State was to blame, promised to further traumatize France and other European countries already fearful of violent jihadists radicalized by the conflicts in Syria and elsewhere...

Keep reading.

Al Gore Wins Nobel Peace Prize

Former Vice President Al Gore won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to build and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made global warming. The award will be shared equally with the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The Washington Post has the story (see also Memeorandum):

Former Vice President Al Gore Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize today, along with a United Nations panel that monitors climate change, for their work educating the world about global warming and advocating for political action to control it.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee characterized Gore as "the single individual who has done most" to convince world governments and leaders that climate change is real, is caused by human activity, and poses a grave threat.

Gore has focused on the issue through books, promotional events and his Academy Award-winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth." The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a joint project between the United Nations Environment Program and the World Meteorological Organization, has been monitoring evidence of climate change and possible solutions since 1988.

The science showcased by the panel and Gore's advocacy have helped to "build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change," the committee said.

"Whereas in the 1980s global warming seemed to be merely an interesting hypothesis, the 1990s produced clear scientific support."

As with last year's award to Bangladeshi banker Mohammad Yunus, whose pioneering use of small loans to the very poor contributes to the stability of developing nations, this year's prize focused on an issue not directly related to war and peace, but seen as critical to maintaining social stability.

The panel said that global warming "may induce large-scale migration and lead to greater competition for the earth's resources. Such changes will place particularly heavy burdens on the world's most vulnerable countries. There may be increased danger of violent conflicts and wars, within and between states."

Highlighting those risks, and the role people play in both creating and potentially mitigating them, has defined public life for Gore since he lost the closely fought 2000 presidential election to President Bush.

From that difficult race, in which he won the popular vote but lost the electoral college in a case ultimately decided by the Supreme Court, he emerged as a controversial figure -- ridiculed by opponents as an environmental extremist, and hailed by supporters as "the Gore-acle" for his foresight on issues like the Internet and climate change.

In a statement, Gore, 59, said he was honored to receive the prize. He said he would donate his share of the $1.5 million award to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a non-profit he chairs that works to educate the public about climate change and mobilize global support for action.

The article also notes that Gore's Nobel win is generating intense speculation that he'll enter the 2008 presidential race. Gore dismissed the notion, as well he should. It's very late in the season, and as Gore has not been involved in the normal pre-primary activites - especially fundraising - a late entry into the race would be unlikely to knock Hillary Clinton from her frontrunner status (see also The Politic and Dan Balz).

This presidential speculation's fascinating. It's normally the case that a former president (and not a presidential loser) wins the Nobel, like Jimmy Carter, who won in 2002 for his administration's diplomatic legacy, and his work for Habitat for Humanity. (Carter's humanitarianism is arguably more deserving of the prize, not being bogged down in the same kind to pseudo-scientific controversy as Gore's "Inconvenient Truth".)

I'm sure there'll be loads of commentary on this over the weekend, so I'll just note that the political motivations of the Nobel Committee have long been suspect.

UPDATE: Damian Thompson at London's Daily Telegraph asks, "What has Al Gore done for world peace?":

Climate change is a threat to the environment, not to "peace" and international order. The prize has gone to some sleazy recipients in the past, but at least you can make a case that their actions staved off bloodshed.

America's Terror Recruits

At WSJ, "U.S. Authorities Struggle to Find a Pattern Among Aspiring Islamic State Members":

Federal authorities investigating suspected Islamic State supporters in all 50 states have found no clear pattern to the type of American inspired to try to join the militant group, complicating efforts to thwart terror recruiting.

Some common threads exist, such as the fact that would-be recruits are often in their teens or early 20s and use social media to express support for Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. But overall, the group is broad, covering people who were raised Muslim and those who converted, married and single people, male and female, rich and poor, U.S.-born citizens and recent immigrants.

An estimated 180 Americans have traveled or attempted to travel to the civil war in Syria, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said this week. Not all of those, however, are believed to have joined extremist groups.

“An interesting fact on some of the individuals that we investigate for support to ISIL is the lack of a singular profile,” Michael Steinbach, head of the FBI’s counterterrorism division, said at a congressional hearing last week. “We find citizens, legal permanent resident aliens, some folks that are overstaying their visa. There’s actually quite a diversity of those individuals who for one reason or another state an intent to harm the United States.”

The three Brooklyn men arrested last week for allegedly plotting to support Islamic State were just the latest in a recent string of arrests. Federal authorities have prosecuted almost 30 people in Islamic State-related cases in the past 18 months, according to the Justice Department. The criminal complaints span from California to North Carolina, and the FBI said last week that Islamic State investigations have now been opened in all 50 states.

The motivations for joining Islamic State can vary widely, said Matthew Levitt, director of the Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at the Washington Institute, a think tank.

“All kinds of different people are being radicalized,” Mr. Levitt said. “Some are loners seeking more of the belonging and adventure. Some have ethnic-identity issues. Some are drawn to the radical ideology.”

One trait that links some of the cases: Defendants are often teenagers trying to hide their travel plans from their parents.

The mother of 19-year-old Akhror Saidakhmetov, one of the Brooklyn defendants, took his passport away because she was afraid he would travel to Syria to wage jihad, according to a criminal complaint unveiled in Brooklyn federal court last week. After Mr. Saidakhmetov called his mother and repeatedly asked for his passport so that he could join Islamic State, she hung up the phone, the complaint said. An attorney for Mr. Saidakhmetov said his client was awaiting an indictment...

More.

The United Nations Human Rights Council is a Joke

At the Telegraph UK, "Israel used 'incredible violence' against Gaza aid flotilla, says UN Human Rights Council":

The sharply critical report found there was "clear evidence to support prosecutions" against Israel for "wilful killing" and torture committed in the raid on the flotilla on May 31. Nine activists on a Turkish ship were killed as they attempted to breach the Israeli naval blockade of Gaza.

However, Israel brushed aside the findings of the UN Human Rights Council, which it has consistently denounced as biased against the Jewish state.

A spokesman for the Israeli foreign ministry accused the body of having a "politicised and extremist approach," adding: "The Human Rights Council blamed Israel prior to the investigation and it is no surprise that they condemn after."

The investigation mounted by the Council has largely been superseded by a separate inquiry launched by Ban Ki-Moon, the UN secretary general, which has won the backing of the United States, Britain and much of the international community.

This investigation, which is being headed by Geoffrey Palmer, the former prime minister of New Zealand, has yet to report its findings.

In an unprecedented move, Israel agreed to co-operate with Mr Palmer's inquiry in August, largely in an attempt to diminish the credibility of the Human Rights Council investigation.

Israel maintains that its soldiers acted in self-defence after coming under attack from activists wielding clubs, axes and metal rods.

However the report found that Israeli commandos' response to the flotilla was disproportionate and "betrayed an unacceptable level of brutality".

"The conduct of the Israeli military and other personnel towards the flotilla passengers was not only disproportionate to the occasion but demonstrated levels of totally unnecessary and incredible violence," the report said.

"The circumstances of the killing of at least six of the passengers were in a manner consistent with an extralegal, arbitrary and summary execution," it added.

The 56-page report also said that the Israeli blockade was itself unlawful, because of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, meaning Israel's claim that it was entitled to use force to defend the blockade should be dismissed.

The Human Rights Council, a subsidiary body of the UN General Assembly, has courted controversy for its excessive focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

While it has passed over a dozen resolutions condemning Israel since it was created in 2006, the council has been more reluctant to censure states such as Sudan, which has been accused of serious human rights violations in Darfur.

The United States withdrew from the council in 2008 but rejoined when President Barack Obama became president last year.

Israel, which has also launched its own domestic inquiry into the raid on the aid flotilla, refused to co-operate with the council's probe.

Chris Matthews Special on MSNBC: 'Rise of the New Right'

Both parties, and both ideological perspectives, have their extremists. And one of the more interesting things about American politics is how each side labors to brand the other as outside the mainstream. Which side is winning? The conservatives, libertarians and tea partiers, who've been making the case that the Obama-Democrats are pushing a socialist-authoritarian regime on the country. It's not extreme to suggest it. They've been proving it in spades, with Obama's Oval Office disaster on Tuesday just the latest in the left's long propaganda campaign to bring about the communist cap-and-tax system of economic statism. Meanwhile, the left's media elites strain to portray the tea party movement as gun-toting terrorists about to kill and maim legions, the most recent example being Chris Matthews' one-hour special last night. I watched it, but check Lori Ziganto's piece, "Chris Matthews’ “Rise of The New Right”: Delusional Neo-Communist Propaganda":

Last night, MSNBC aired a Chris Matthews special, labeled a documentary, called The Rise of the New Right. I decided to take a quick break from my radical right wing extremist acts like bitterly clinging to my guns and my Bible, whilst fiendishly drawing Hitler moustaches on Obama photos, to watch it. I know. Apparently, I’m a glutton for punishment. However, while absolutely infuriating, it was simultaneously hilarious and almost took my mind off the distressing shortage of windmills in this country.

Almost immediately, two things became rather apparent. Firstly, MSNBC’s NewSpeak definition of “documentary” is evidently “blatant fallacies and pure propaganda”. Secondly, it’s quite clear that Chris Matthews’ leg ‘tingle’ has moved into his brain, or what passes for some semblance of one. Either that, or he’s merely decided to embrace his cuckoo pants. Plus, he’s a big, fat liar. I feel no qualms about saying that, since Matthews spent a full hour demonizing me and people like me as violent, irrational racists. In fact, the entire show could be summed up like this:

Racists. Birthers. Guns! Evil scary militia groups that have the same “Don’t Tread on Me” flag!!! Chanting “USA, USA” and being fond of the Constitution and, you know, liberty is super scary and ominous. Also, racist. And violence fomenting. Plus, racist.

RTWT.

How to Manufacture an Anti-Muslim Hate-Crime 'Epidemic'

From Michelle Malkin:

Step one: Find an expert with an impressive-sounding academic title to legitimize shoddy advocacy propaganda.

Meet Brian Levin. He’s the one-man band behind something called the “Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism” at California State University, San Bernardino. The “center” (that is: Levin) claims to be “nonpartisan” and “objective.” But he is a former top staffer of the militant, conservative-smearing Southern Poverty Law Center, which was forced to apologize earlier this year after including famed black neurosurgeon and GOP 2016 candidate Ben Carson on its “extremist watch list” of hate groups.

At SPLC, Levin infamously posited that the 2002 Beltway jihad snipers were Angry White Men, a fatal error echoed by politically correct law enforcement officials whose wild-goose chase needlessly cost lives. A decade later, the SPLC’s target map and list of social conservative groups were used by convicted left-wing domestic terrorist Floyd Lee Corkins to shoot up the Washington, D.C., office of the Family Research Council.

The radical left-wing SPLC, whose annual “hate and extremism” report spawned Levin’s sham “center,” brazenly declared that its mission is to “destroy” its political opponents. Harper’s Magazine writer Ken Silverstein called the SPLC and its work “essentially a fraud” that “shuts down debate, stifles free speech, and most of all, raises a pile of money, very little of which is used on behalf of poor people.”

Step two: Enlist gullible, lazy, biased, and complicit journalists who recycle the “expert’s” sweeping pronouncements as proven facts, backed up by other ideologically vested advocacy group spokespeople.

NBC News, The New York Times, the Daily Mail and Slate all quoted Levin over the past week hyping his new “study” (published in esteemed academic journal The Huffington Post) on an alleged “increase,” “surge” and “spike” in “crimes against Muslims and mosques” this year.

Levin’s “methods” of “analysis”? Stringing together “apparent hate crimes reported in the media and by civil rights groups across the United States.” Most prominent among his sources: the Council on American-Islamic Relations, whose jihad-apologizing frontman Ibrahim Hooper was quoted by both NBC and The New York Times backing Levin’s “research” (which were, of course, based on several of CAIR’s grievance-grifting claims). Cozy, huh?

“We’re seeing so many of these things happening that it’s unbelievable,” Hooper told the Times.

Indeed, it is.

In his list of “Suspected Hate Crimes Directed at Actual or Perceived Muslim Institutions or Individuals Since Paris Attacks,” Levin cites a Nov. 26 incident in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, noting, “Cab driver shot. Attempted Murder.”

The rest of the story: The suspect is 26-year-old Anthony Mohamed, whose father is Muslim. Authorities have so far refused to press hate crimes charges despite CAIR’s demands. At a hearing this week, the cab driver denied in court that he had been subjected to negative comments about his religion before Mohamed allegedly shot him in the back. Court filings fail to mention any evidence of anti-Muslim bias in the case.

Or take a look at Levin’s No. 23: “12/6 Buena Park, CA. Sikh Temple. Vandalism, Crim. Mischief.” CAIR’s Los Angeles office publicized vandalism at an Orange County Sikh temple, immediately condemning a “tiny minority of bigots who violate our nation’s longstanding principles of religious tolerance and inclusion.”

The rest of the story: Authorities arrested a local, 20-year-old Brodie Durazo, after he admitted spray-painting the temple, a tractor trailer and other property in the gang-infested neighborhood. “I have lived alongside this temple for many years of my life and have never once seen you as anything but a peaceful people,” he told the temple-goers in a personal apology at the house of worship. “I just hope that you will see by my presence that all I want is for peace as well.”

Not a menacing “bigot.” Just a bored punk.

Or consider Levin’s No. 33: “12/10 Tampa, FL. Rocks/shots at 2 Muslim drivers. Assault, Threat leaving relig. service in hijab.”

Both women are unidentified. Their unvetted stories were immediately publicized by, you guessed it, CAIR. “Both incidents were investigated by Hillsborough County sheriff’s deputies,” according to local Florida media, “though investigators said neither case involved definitive proof of a hate crime.” In one case, the sheriff’s office spokeswoman said, “It could have been road rage or just a misunderstanding.” In the second case involving alleged shots fired at a vehicle, investigators said the woman “was not sure where or when” a bullet hole found on the car was made.

Step three: Attack the messenger. After I published a lengthy post on my blog outlining an epidemic of Muslim hate-crime hoaxes at colleges, mosques and businesses dating back to 2001, Levin took to Twitter to accuse me of “smears.” The facts, which the rest of the media failed to inform readers about while hyping Levin’s work this week, speak for themselves (see michellemalkin.com).

Step four: Classify this article as “hate” and any media outlet that publishes it as a “hate group” so that other journalists shun the truth and continue perpetuating the hoax.

'Objectification' Hypocrisy

I seem to really have hit a nerve with my post making extreme fun of Roy Edroso. Look, I'll be honest: I don't have the slightest problem posting images of Sports Illustrated cover models on my page. Doesn't bother me a bit. It's a free world, you know. And frankly, they're a helluva lot more wholesome than the floozies at the Village Voice's "Bikini Burlesque (NSFW). And shoot, if I were Roy, I'd be ashamed to be blogging at a magazine that posted stuff like that right next to each of my entries, much less some of these "Choice Cunts":

But apparently struck dumb by the return-fire ridicule, Roy was reduced to bleating a snippy comment at the post: "Don't like scantily-clad women, Don? Well, to each his own."

Well no, Roy, I obviously love "scantily-clad women," conservative women especially! What I don't like is your radical agenda, and your freaking gratuitous demonization campaigns. And what better way to ruthlessly mock you and your leftist cadres than to ridicule the extremist libertinism that adorns each and every one of your posts. Like I said at my entry, "This really was too good to pass up!"

And I guess it really was. Satan's sidekick T-Bogg jumped on it faster than Jane Hamsher's blackface on Joe Lieberman. And then, in another puerile effort at conservative excoriation, Little Scotty Eric Kaufman decided he'd have a go at it as well, with a post (almost-endlessly) entitled, "Just because he hates feminism and festoons his virtual office with photographs of naked women doesn't mean he makes female students uncomfortable."

A monument to childishness, it's on Twitter too:

I have nothing but contempt for miniscule academic mountebanks like Scotty Kaufman. This prick's an ugly little twerp, and I don't mean that figuratively. His post is yet another really shitty attempt at cutting snark, and it's so bad that even his own commenters dissed it. I will eschew substantive comments on what's posted therein, but readers are welcomed to have a look for themselves. What I can say is that Scott Eric Kaufman represents all that is genuinely wicked and destructive in university culture today. I scoff at whatever claims to moral rectitude this hate-pimp could possible make. This is a merchant of hate of the most despicable kind, although perhaps there's some humor in it that he's actually quite terrible at the trade. Indeed, so far it's been all falsehoods and fabrications, and so it is again. Indeed, this spindle of a man is obsessed with conservative academics, and he's made it his driving ambition to literally destroy them. And let me disabuse readers of Scotty's denials of his desire for my academic termination. Au contraire. That's exactly what he wants, like E.D. Kain before him. This is an agenda driven purely by desperation to purge the ideological other, plain and simple. It's really all he does. And in reading Little Scotty's tantrum at the comments, please keep in mind that there is absolutely nothing authoritative about him. His words, all distortions and lies, signify sound and fury, and little else. But keep flailing, I say. There is nothing better to illustrate the totalitarianism of the today's left than the self-supposed superiority of the politically-correct mind on display. And those denials of political disagreement are worth Olympic gold. Such hypocrisy, given the radical female exploitation at Village Voice (met with SEK's deafening silence), is breathtaking. In any case, this is truly priceless, on the evil "objectification" of a true-academic's babe-blogging:

It's not a trick, you lecherous fraud. You're a disgrace, not because I disagree with you politically, but because you're incapable of understanding that you're actively discouraging half of your students from ever being able to trust you because you want to post pictures of half-naked women on your blog.

I'm a teacher, one who's committed in a way you aren't, as is evidenced by the fact that you value your "freedom" to post pictures that play into the insecurities of half the student body over your responsibilities as a teacher. You've surveyed the field of available options, and chosen the abstraction that affords you titillation over the one that allows you to effectively reach more of your students.

You are, I repeat, a disgrace to the profession. You don't understand this, and I get that, but when you choose satisfying your libido in the company of strangers over fostering an environment in which all your students can safely invest in the rigors of your course, you have failed as a teacher. I'm not trying to get you fired. I'm not going to write anyone any letters, nor will I encourage anyone else to. But you deserve to be.

'Moderate' Imam Rauf Condemns U.S. — ' More Muslim Blood On Its Hands Than al Qaeda'

Great scoop, from Pamela:

And at Jawa Report:

Once again, this is not evidence that Rauf is an extremist wolf in moderate sheep's clothing. For Muslims, the idea that US foreign policy is hostile to Muslims and that Americans don't care about the deaths of innocents is widely held. By definition, this makes Rauf's opinion mainstream in most majority Muslim countries.

On other issues, Rauf would be considered quite liberal in the Muslim community.

But to equivocate between the intentional killing of civilians by al Qaeda and the unintended killing of civilians by the US is worse than wrong -- it is evil.

Yes, we kill civilians sometimes. That is truly one of the many sad realities of warfare.

When al Qaeda kills civilians they not only do it intentionally, but they also celebrate it.

No one in the West praises the Predator drone operator who accidentally blows up a wedding party. We think of such acts as the regrettable but inevitable outcome of war.

But in many parts of the Muslim world "The Magnificient 19" -- the men who carried out the 9/11 attacks -- are praised as heroes and martyrs.

The Character Assassination of Robert Spencer

From David Horowitz, at FrontPage Magazine (via Blazing Cat Fur):

Robert Spencer has never supported a terrorist act. His crime in the eyes of the left is to have told the truth about Islamic fanatics beginning with the Islamic prophet who called for the extermination of the Jews and said in his farewell speech that he was called to fight until all men say that there is no God but allah.

See also Daniel Greenfield, "In Defense of Robert Spencer."

No tragedy goes long without exploitation, and the atrocities in Norway are no exception to that rule. The media is hard at work accusing researchers who monitor and warn about Islamic radicalism and terrorism of being responsible for the actions of an extremist and a terrorist.

Is silencing researchers who have put years of effort into exposing networks of radicals the right response to a terrorist attack? No reasonable person would think so. But that is exactly what media outlets like the New York Times and the Atlantic are trying to do.

Also, a response at Jihad Watch, "New York Times convicts Spencer of guilt for Norway murders." And Spencer at Human Events, "Accept Jihad, Or Children Will Die."

Leftists Chant for the Death of Ann Althouse — UPDATED!!

God have mercy on us all, for there is evil in the world.

I love Ann Althouse. She is my friend and I look up to her in many ways. I am thus horrified to see calls for her death at a leftist message board discussing recent responses to the death of Elizabeth Edwards:

I can't fucking wait for Ann Althouse to die. The only thing that would make that perfect would be if her husband cheats on her beforehand.

While I've already posted on all of this at length, I'm still shocked at how brazen are some of the leftist death chants, for Althouse — and for me too, from the genuinely demonic Tintin at Sadly No!, as just one more example:

RELATED: Recall that RepRacist3 has been retweeting all kinds of vile hatred like this, which once again demonstrates that his claims to Christian compassion are all just poorly executed acts of deception. God have mercy on him.

**********

UPDATE: Racist Repsac3 tried to comment, alleging that "no conservatives are behind you" on this. Not true, obviously — and hilariously so, since no sooner than I deleted RepRacist's comment did I find Althouse at the Sitemeter, linking with "Oh, the violent ideation of the lefties!"

It's so hypocritical!

Word.

I've been receiving praise and thanks all week, and it's just killing the nihilists, who have responded to my honest and very straightforward reflections on faith with an extremist jihad. So yeah, hypocritical, but typical for these Godless freaks.

Heads Explode: Leftist Outrage at Erick Erickson CNN Pick

Steve Benen's the ultimate hypocritical concern troll. See, "THIS IS CNN?...." (via Memeorandum):

This is easily the worst decision CNN has ever made. That the network probably reviewed Erickson's work before hiring him, and offered him a job anyway, suggests CNN's professional standards for what constitutes "an important voice" have all but disappeared.

Check Benen's post for a long hissy fit on how awful is Erick Erickson. Gee, he said bad things. Can you say extremist? Wake up, Steve Dunderhead.

And check the comments at CNN, which have now been closed, "Erickson joins the Best Political Team":

Well, that makes my TV viewing choice easy. No more CNN for me! Erickson is nothing more than ignorant, lying scum who loves to stir up crowds with blatant untruths that do nothing but divide this country. Why would you possibly think that he could add to an intelligent discussion? Or does CNN simply want to turn into a shout fest for ratings? I thought you got over that when you fired Beck. CNN is absolutely foolish to ask him to join their usually reasonable commentators, and CNN will no longer be turned on in this household!

Heads exploding, and lots of 'em!

Debating Atheist Nihilism

Regular readers may remember my post from some time back on our freaky anti-religionist counter-culture, "Atheist Nihilism."

Well it turns out that today's story of an athiest statement of coequal political status sheds a needed light on that debate - in this month when we celebrate the birth of Christ.

As MSNBC reports, authorities in Washington State allowed an atheist sign to be displayed opposite a traditional Christian Nativity scene at the Capitol Building in Olympia. The athiest statement included this passage:

There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds ...

Such blatant hostility to traditional American values apparently angered the state's residents, who have been flooding the governor's office with more than 200 calls an hour, and that's not to mention an apparent avalanche of e-mails as well.

It turns out, in any case, that this display of militant atheism, which was sponsored by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, was too much even for Paul at the well-known far-left blog, Shakesville, where he comments on the athiest group's surprise at the backlash:

Oh, puh-LEEZE. You can't for a second tell me that you were expecting any other reaction when you put this sign up. As I've documented far too many times, there are people out there whipped into a frenzy over the manufactured "War on Christmas" that are dying to find examples that it's really happening. And I've got a little news for you, radical athiests: When you do stuff like this, it appears as if it does exist, and you're not helping ....

You know something? I seriously f***ing doubt that there was anything on the Nativity scene explicity stating anything about non-believers going to hell. Symbolically? Well, that's arguable. But to say that there was an explicit message is disingenuous, it insults the atheists that can tell the godd****d difference between an expression of celebration of a religious holiday and an attack on themselves or atheism itself, and it's just f***ing annoying. (This is, of course, completely separate from atheists - not to mention religious people, for that matter - who object to religious displays in public spaces for constitutional reasons. There's a difference between that and "You hurt my feelings!") Besides, if you're an atheist, why the f**k are you worried about anyone saying you're going to hell it the first place? You don't believe in hell, remember? "I guess they don't follow their own commandments." Oh, shut the f**k up. You wanted this. You were hoping they would do this so you could use that stupid line.

Never mind the incongruity between Paul principled outrage and his crass vulgarity (common to leftists, of faith or otherwise, apparently).

But what's interesting is not only that Paul's correct (and it's rare that I agree with the lefties), but that his comments have pissed off Brian at Incertus, who would normally be allied with Shakesville on the usual range of all-encompassing anti-conservative derangement. Incertus' post is entitled, "Controversial? Why?":

Dear Paul ... you're not only wrong, but you managed to be more offensive than I ever imagined you capable of being while doing it. Please take your self-righteousness and false equivalencies, fold them up until they have four or five very pointy ends, and insert them in the most uncomfortable place you can imagine.

Well, no, Paul is not wrong. There are no "false equivalencies" here: The Freedom From Religion Foundation sucks, frankly.

It's a pretty good indication that when folks up in Washington, a "blue state" if there ever was one, get upset with extremist displays of atheist nihilism, such anti-religionism is obviously way beyond the pale

It's one thing to tolerate diversity of opinion. But when such views themselves become so oppositional as to be inherently hostile toward folks of otherwise good-faith and acceptance of difference in opinion - and this during a time of year when people are reaching out to join hands in callling for peace on earth - then it's obvious something's really out of whack here.

I've already identfied Incertus for its extreme anti-capitalist political agenda. Now with the author's variation on the Marxist attack on religion as the "opiate of the masses," it's clear that this particular blog's neo-Stalinist agenda is truly hegemonic in its anti-American project.

Obama White House Defends Sharia Law

Dalia Mogahed, President Obama's hardline Islamic advisor, is in the news today in two pieces: Stephen Schwartz's, "What Do Muslims Want? A White House Adviser Defends Sharia," and Cinnamon Stillwell's, "Does Sharia Law Promote Women’s Rights?"

Here's this from the Schwartz essay:

Dalia Mogahed has enjoyed a varied career. Born in Egypt, she was brought to America as a child and climbed a fairly ordinary professional ladder. She earned a master's in business at the University of Pittsburgh and pursued success in corporate life. But she became an American Muslim celebrity after joining Georgetown professor John L. Esposito, a tireless defender of radical Islam, in producing a controversial study, Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think. With its wildly overreaching subtitle, the volume was based on polling by the Gallup Organization, where Mogahed gained a post as Senior Analyst and Executive Director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies.

All of which was rather banal in Washington's subculture of Muslim advocacy, until President Obama named Mogahed to his Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Mogahed is now a prominent Obama satellite, and, as noted here last month, she appeared at a Pentagon iftar, or Ramadan fast-breaking event, alongside a noted Saudophile, James Zogby of the Arab American Institute.

Early in October, Mogahed gave a telephone interview to a British Muslim fundamentalist television network, IslamChannel. The program also interviewed Nazreen Nawaz, a female representative of the ultra-radical Islamist group Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HT), or the Islamic Liberation Party, as a live guest. HT calls for a global Islamic regime (the "caliphate"), under sharia law, and the destruction of the West. The show was posted on Sunday, October 4, to HT's UK website here. While television debate between sharply-opposed individuals has become a dominant form of public communication all over the world, Dalia Mogahed made no effort, in her encounter with an extremist advocate, to establish any distance between their views.

Rather, Mogahed delivered a defense of sharia law, and, in particular, its application to women. She alleged that "the perception of sharia and portrayal of sharia has been oversimplified even among Muslims," and called for sharia to be viewed "holistically" (a meaningless cliché.) According to her, "the majority of women around the world associate sharia with 'gender justice.'" Presumably, her broad reference to "the majority of women," rather than Muslim women, was a slip of the tongue. But there is no doubt that in her perspective, sharia as public law guarantees Muslim women a dignity absent in the West.

Mogahed further declared that Muslim women support "universal values of justice and equality" but reject "Western values," which she associated with sexual promiscuity and male disrespect of women. As projected by Mogahed, the views of Muslims are either fundamentalist or confused. Their attitudes toward Islamic law are divided, in her terms, only between supposedly wanting sharia to be the sole source of governance and seeing it as one source of legislation among various canons. But for her, even this distinction is less important than proclaiming the satisfaction of Muslim women with sharia.

Mogahed cited "one woman in Malaysia" who "specifically" told the pollsters "she felt sorry for Western women because she felt that they always felt that they always needed to please men." As if choosing individual voices out of a putative billion were not absurd enough, Mogahed drew on another single citation to portray Muslim women abroad as complaining that Western women lack social status.

And from Stillwell:

In thinking about women’s rights, sharia law, or Islamic law, doesn’t typically come to mind.

Yet, according to a survey conducted by Dalia Mogahed, executive director and senior analyst of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies and appointee to President Obama’s Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, the two are closely intertwined. Her survey alleges that a majority of Muslim women believe sharia law should either be the primary source or one source of legislation in their countries, while viewing Western personal freedoms as harmful to women.

The Closing of Barack Obama's Mind

Pretty good, although not a new revelation, or anything.

From Peter Wehner, at Commentary:

The Closing of Barack Obama’s Mind - by @Peter_Wehner - https://t.co/wUbkXlTnbP pic.twitter.com/sdCPMioeaf

— Commentary Magazine (@Commentary) December 5, 2015

If you want to witness an adamantine mind at work, you could do a whole lot worse tha[n] observe the 44th president of the United States. Barack Obama is the most rigidly ideological president of my lifetime, a man who has a nearly blind adherent to a particular ideology (progressivism). It’s a disturbing, if at times a psychologically fascinating, thing to witness.

We're seeing it play out in multiple ways, but let me offer just one illustration — his approach to jihadism. It has been clear from the start of his presidency that Mr. Obama has decided that Islam is wholly separate from Islamic terrorism, which explains his refusal to use the words (or variations of the words) radical or militant Islam. It also explains why his administration has used absurd euphemisms like “man-caused disaster” and “workplace violence” to describe Islam-inspired attacks. Why the 2009 Christmas Day bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was an “isolated extremist.” Why the shooting at a Kosher supermarket in Paris earlier this year was “random.” (The gunman had declared his allegiance to ISIS.) And why the president, in an effort to protect Islam, invokes the Crusades at a National Prayer Breakfast, despite the fact that the Crusades happened roughly a thousand years ago. On and on it goes.

We have a president who is eager to put a racial frame around incidents in which white cops kills blacks, even if, as in the case of Officer Darren Wilson and Michael Brown, the shooting was justified and there was no evidence that it was racially motivated. No matter; the incidents fit into Mr. Obama’s worldview, and off to the races he went.

But in the case of jihadism, when the killers themselves are invoking the Koran and the Islamic faith to justify their malevolence — when the caliphate established in the heart of the Middle East is called the Islamic State — the president refuses to confront it. He goes into contortions to downplay or ignore the connection to Islam. He has a narrative to advance, and he will do it even if he has to run roughshod over reality to do it.

No one is asking Mr. Obama to indict all of Islam or have America or the West declare a war on it. He should do neither. But what we should expect is the president to understand the nature of the enemy we’re facing. It would also be refreshing if the president did not live in a world hermetically sealed off from facts that are inconvenient to his worldview. But that is precisely what Mr. Obama is doing...

Still more.

Leftists Attack GOP as "Ugly Americans"

To follow up my previous entry on Sarah Palin's surge in public opinion, it turns out that Gallup's new tracking numbers see John McCain cutting Barack Obama's lead in the presidential horse race in half since the start of the GOP convention.

What's particulary interesting, of course, has been the left's reaction to the Palin nomination. It's not just the initial unfounded smears alleging that Palin covered-up her daughter's preganancy (that Bristol Palin was Trig's mom), but also the broader ideological challenge the Alaska Governor has presented to the postmodern left (including the radical feminists and the "P.A.N.T.H.E.R.'s):

Apparently, Governor Palin fits right into the left's program of anti-GOP demonization, which can be seen around the leftosphere of late.

Here's Chris Bowers, for example, on how "Palin Satisfies Conservative Persecution Lust:

Palin has grown popular among the conservative base primarily because she has been able to satisfy the conservative persecution lust that is at the core of the American conservative system of belief. Without an evil, stereotyped, identity group out to attack them, there is nothing holding together the conservative system of belief.

At the Huffington Post, John Seery argues that Sarah Palin's "The Face of the Ugly American":

I know, I know: Sarah Palin is receiving rosy plaudits for her speech last night....

My honest-to-goodness visceral reaction was quite otherwise. What I saw on that stage was the personification of small-minded smugness, an utter lack of humility, a kind of self-righteous entitlement based on little more than puffed-up narrowness. She struck me not as plucky but, rather, as stunningly immodest--to the point of arrogance. Some people are arrogant and maybe deserve to be. They know it, and flaunt it, while everyone else thinks they are jerks. But there's another kind of arrogance, perhaps harder to spot at first, an arrogance that apparently doesn't even recognize itself as such, a sanctified, self-satisfied presumptuousness that flows from sheer naïveté about oneself and the world and manifests itself in giddy ambition.

Palin, in other words, is a brash, white trash hick, but don't miss the rest of Seery's post.

Seery argues John McCain's an "ugly American" as well. But he's not the first: Cernig at Newshoggers attacked McCain last week as "the ugliest American":

Out of all the ugly Americans of the modern hard right, John McCain is rising as the star.

The ugly American meme surrounding the 2008 GOP ticket represents, essentially, the latest example of the left's psychiatric paranoia at the Republican Party's personalities and politics, which one might clinically diagnose as a new "McCain-Palin Derangement Syndrome" (see here and here for partial recognition of the malady).

Indications of McCain-Palin Derangement include the attacks on the Arizona Senator as representing "four more years" of the George W. Bush administration (which triggered the initial specification of this ideological psychiatric syndrome), as well as the slurs against Governor Palin as "a rightwing-Christian anti-choice extremist."

If the nation's indeed witnessing an election contest deciding final cultural supremacy over "the two Americas," the utter demonization of the McCain-Palin ticket we're now seeing will be just a preview of left's evil partisanship in the couple of months ahead.

Leftists Freak Out as GOP 'Flips the Script' with Democrats' War on Women

The introduction to this clip is hilarious in how aggressively Chris Matthews asserts a conservative "war on women" --- which everyone knows only exists in the minds of Democrats. And now that we've got marquee Democrat headlines of disgusting Democrat dehumanization of women, Matthews is twisting in his seat at MSNBC, worrying about how the left's sexist women-groping, dick-exposing entitlement culture is somehow an aberration.

It's not. This is how leftists roll.



It turns out the RNC has been doing double-time getting the word out on all the disgusting Democrats sexism, and folks in D.C. are looking to tamp it down. See WaPo, "GOP finds its own ‘War on Women’."

And far-left extremist Katrina vanden Heuvel is not pleased, "The GOP misunderstands the ‘war on women’."

Malala Yousufzai Airlifted to Britain

It's a good thing. She was as good as dead if she stayed in Pakistan.

At the New York Times, "Schoolgirl Wounded by Taliban Is Airlifted to Britain":

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – The Pakistani schoolgirl who was shot by the Taliban last week for advocating girls’ education has been flown to Britain for emergency specialist care, the Pakistani military said on Monday.

Malala Yousafzai, 14, left an air base in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, where she was being treated for head wounds in a military hospital, on an air ambulance sent from the United Arab Emirates.

In a statement, the military said she would receive immediate treatment for her skull, which was fractured after a bullet passed through her head, as well as “long-term rehabilitation including intensive neuro rehabilitation.”

Malala will be treated at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham in central England, a center which has specialized in the treatment of troops wounded in Afghanistan, Prime Minister David Cameron’s office said in a statement quoted by The Associated Press.

Pakistan said it would pay for her treatment.

A Pakistani military intensive care specialist accompanied her on the flight, which by midmorning Monday had stopped in the United Arab Emirates for refueling en route to Britain.

The mercy flight produced a sigh of relief of sorts among Pakistanis who have kept an anxious national vigil for Ms. Yousafzai since she was shot by a militant gunman last Tuesday as she returned from school in Mingora, the main town in the Swat Valley, in northwestern Pakistan.

The daughter of a schoolmaster, Ms. Yousafzai had become known for her eloquent and impassioned advocacy of education and children’s rights in the face of Taliban threats, which made her a potent symbol of resistance to the militants’ extremist ideology.

Actually, families better keep their kids close. I expect this is the beginning of a new reign of terror. See Der Spiegel, "Schoolgirl Shooting: Pakistanis Fear Resurgent Taliban in Swat Valley."

Leftists Launch "Currency Trutherism" Against Bachmann

Are conservatives interested in standing up for Michele Bachmann? I sent out my post yesterday to a number of top bloggers but heard nothing. Maybe I'm wrong about this. Maybe she's indeed the extremist that the leftists keep portraying her to be. Can it really be that top right-wing bloggers are willing to let Bachmann hold down the fort on her own? Not me. I don't buy the meme that she's dog-whistling to the black-copter crowds. Bachmann's speaking more clearly about things that are half of the top conservative opinion makers in the Washington press corps (Brooks, Frum, etc.).

The leftosphere smells blood in the wake of Bachmann's denunciation of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's comments suggesting an "openness" to the displacement of the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency. Eric Kleefeld's got a post up right now, "Bachmann Blasts Obama's 'Economic Marxism,' Calls For 'Orderly Revolution' To Save Freedom." Here's the key quote from the audio:

At this point the American people - it's like Thomas Jefferson said, a revolution every now and then is a good thing. We are at the point, Sean, of revolution. And by that, what I mean, an orderly revolution - where the people of this country wake up get up and make a decision that this is not going to happen on their watch. It won't be our children and grandchildren that are in debt. It is we who are in debt, we who will be bankrupting this country, inside of ten years, if we don't get a grip. And we can't let the Democrats achieve their ends any longer.

Just so folks are clear, notice how Bachmann clarifies her point: "And by that, what I mean, an orderly revolution ..."

No matter. Matthew Yglesias is on the hunt, "Bachmann and Beck Double-Down on Currency Conspiracy Theory." And Steve Benen diagnoses Ms. Bachmann as insane:

Bachmann simply isn't well. Were she not an elected member of the U.S. Congress, she'd probably be shouting conspiracy theories and holding cardboard signs on some sidewalk somewhere. But what I find especially interesting is that her paranoid delusions are so detached from obvious truths. If Bachmann wanted to complain that a 39.6% top rate was the epitome of Marxism, she'd be just another conservative. But she's convinced herself that the Obama administration will "move us to an international currency," due entirely to her breathtaking stupidity.

Gird your loins, conservatives!

Bachmann's proposed resolution to protect the dollar as the country's sovereign unit of exchange is perfectly justified in light of monetary history and the outlandish comments from Secretary Geithner. Advanced economies are not inoculated from supranational pressures toward monetary homogenization or unification, as the case of the European Union indicates. Once Ms. Bachmann refers to "One World Currency," the only logical reference point is to a national currency unit that would replace current dollar hegemony worldwide. There is no alternative for circulation within borders for everday tendered transactions. More abstract currency units, for example, the IMF's "SDRs", do not circulate as legal tender within nations - they are accounting units for central bank transactions. For something to displace an indigenous legal tender as a means of domestic exchange, an international reserve currency would be introduced into local markets for stability and confidence. This is not unusual, as the dollar now routinely serves as the local unit of exchange in transitioning economies. If anything is outlandish in all of this, it's the idea that Americans should take seriously the notion that China has the economic power to replace U.S. as the world's leading economic power. This is the administration's stupidity, not Representative Bachmann's. She's simply putting in place legislative protections against this administration's transnationalists, those who are willing to consider the replacement of the dollar of the world's reserve currency. See the discussion, for example, at the Wall Street Journal, "The Chinese Yuan: The Next World Currency?"

There's nothing stupid about Michele Bachmann's concern for American sovereignty or her distrust of the Democratic financial manderins in Washington. What is not so smart is how conservatives, at least as demonstrated by the lack of response to the left's "currency trutherism" against Ms. Bachmann, aren't taking these atacks seriously. (But thank goodness for William Jacobson's exceptional essay, "Yet Another Cheap Attack On Michele Bachmann.)

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UPDATE: See also Snooper Report, "I Want To Bear Michele Bachmann's Babies!"