Lt. Col. Ralph Peters: Islamic State 'Ain't Bankrupt ... It's Spreading Really, Really Fast...' (VIDEO)

Once again, the unshakable, irascible Ralph Peters:

Britney Spears Strips Down to Pink Lingerie for Intimate Collection

At London's Daily Mail, "Britney Spears displays her taut curves in pink bra and knickers as she continues to promote her Intimate Collection."

BONUS: At Life & Style, "Britney Spears’ Super Bowl 2015 Commercial Almost Broke the Internet (Sorry, Kim)." Sounds a little exaggerated, although seeing Britney like that was pretty trippy.

REPORT: Moaz al-Kasasbeh's Murder by Fire is Ritual Purification in Islam

And everyone keeps blubbering, "Islamic State has nothing to do with Islam!"

From Dawn Perlmutter, at FrontPage Magazine, "ISIS Purifies Islam Through Fire":

Fire is symbolic of the destruction of evil. Symbolically people who are burned alive are human sacrifices that are expiating evil from the community. Tainted victims are purified through fire. Fire is considered a powerful transformer of the negative to the positive. Because of such properties, fire is commonly found in purification rites throughout the world. In other cultures polluted persons may be required to walk around, jump over, or jump through fire. Historically, burning a person to death was reserved for the most threating evil, such as heresy or witchcraft and considered an extreme form of purification. In the context of honor killing the use of fire is not only symbolic but practical. Practical in Iraq because most of the homes do not have electricity so every house has a large supply of oil which makes it easier to conceal honor killings under the guise of suicide or kitchen accidents. In the context of the murder of Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh fire is an Islamic purification ritual that serves vengeance and restores honor and purity to the community of believers.

Islamist jihadists from different movements, countries, sects, and factions all emphasize the need to cleanse Islam of its impurities. Al Qaeda’s ideological belief is the purification of Islam through violent struggle. Bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri have continually called on supporters to purify Muslim holy lands of infidels, un-Islamic beliefs, and practices. The Islamic State cleanses Islam of its impurities while protecting its territory in the same manner as Mexican cartels, using brutal tactics that are justified as vengeance.

The title of the video, Healing the Believers’ Chests, is a quote from the Quran: “Fight them, and Allah will punish them by your hands, cover them with shame, help you over them, heal the breasts of Believers.” (Qur’an 9:14). It was reported to mean ‘giving them pleasure’ – interpreted as a reference to achieving revenge. That is one interpretation, however healing is symbolic of purification, the title Healing the Believers’ Chests can be understood as cleansing the community of the contamination of impurity. Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh’s alleged crimes symbolically unleashed an epidemic of contagious evil. The function of the burning ritual is a communal act of expiation, expelling the contagious evil of an infidel enemy through fire. Having ISIS fighters participate and watch makes it a communal sacrificial ritual. Ritualizing the violence justifies it and makes it sacred. Once the transgressor is ritually killed the impurity is removed, the evil has been expelled, taboo has been ameliorated and justice is served. The body is immediately buried under the earth, another purifying element, restoring honor and purity.

Filming and disseminating the ritual killing strikes fear into the hearts of enemies and attracts new recruits. Similar to an arsonist that is fascinated with fire, disaffected young people will be attracted to this ritual burning. Like moths to a flame.

RTWT.

These purification immolations are hardly uncommon for Islamic terrorists.

REPORT: Islamic State Justified Moaz al-Kasasbeh Murder by Fire with Koranic Verses

From Walid Shoebat, "Watch the Most Horrific Video by ISIS Burning POW Jordanian Pilot":

And so the method on how to kill Al-Kassasbeh was not some dreamed up concoction, but stemmed from Islam as the quest on how to execute him circulated the Muslim world. In the burning scene video (see 1:00 above) ISIS gave the Islamic edict straight from the top Islamic authority of Ibn Taymiyya’s jurisprudence:

“So if horror of commonly desecrating the body is a call for them [the infidels] to believe [in Islam], or to stop their aggression, it is from here that we carry out the punishment and the allowance for legal Jihad”...

To desecrate the victim while alive is part and parcel of Islam in hope that people would convert through sheer fear or to repulse the enemy. The backdrop of the video is in Raqqa where over 20 ISIS terrorists met their fate by U.S. led coalition in which according to ISIS were burned alive. To ISIS, they followed the Quran “So whoever has assaulted you, then assault him in the same way that he has assaulted you.” (Q2:194)

More.

According to Shoebat, Islamic State will continue to escalate its methods of murder. Indeed, Muslims are calling for infidels and Jews to be impaled through the anus, in a murder ritual known as Khazouk, dating back the Ottoman empire.

Piers Morgan's Faux Outrage on Islamic State's 'Abominible' Inhumanity

In what could have been an excellent editorial, Mr. Morgan captures the horror of Moaz al-Kasasbeh murder, but then he sputters out with his conclusion about how this has "noting to do with Islam."

For leftists, it's never about Islam --- despite the fact that Islamic State quoted Koranic scripture in the video's release.

Here, "Watching ISIS burn a man alive was the most abominable thing I have ever seen - and any Muslim who won't stand up to these barbarians must watch it too":

My finger hovered over the ‘click’ button.
I’d heard that ISIS had burned a young Jordanian pilot alive in a cage, and there were numerous people posting the snuff movie on social media.

I wanted to watch it.

To see for myself whether it really was, as many claimed, the ‘sickest video ever made’.

But I hesitated.

I don’t ‘need’ to see a man burned alive. Nobody ‘needs’ to see such an abomination.

It’s diabolical enough that it happened at all. Why compound the misery of that man’s life ending by acting as some kind of complicit voyeur?

Then I pressed click anyway.

I watched those murderous bastards light up a trail of petrol into a small cage, I watched as Lieutenant Moaz al-Kasabeh caught fire, and I watched as he screamed in horror and burned to death.

It was just as repulsive and sickening as I feared it would be. Truly the worst thing I have ever had to witness, and as a journalist for 30 years I’ve seen a lot of unpleasant things.

But I’m actually glad I watched it.

Glad I saw in real time, on professionally-crafted movie-quality video, exactly what these monsters are capable of.

Glad I know they have no limits, no humanity, no semblance of any kind of soul.

Glad I saw the undisguised joy in their evil little faces as they perpetrated such a despicable act on a fellow human being.

Glad they repeatedly switched the camera shot from blow-torch to their victim’s face so we can be under no illusion what utter sadists they are.

I’m glad about all this because it allows me to feel such uncontrollable rage that no amount of reasonable argument will ever temper it.

And that’s precisely what we all have to feel now towards ISIS and those who support its hideous activities.

We all have to feel the same kind of unquantifiable, collective horror everyone felt when the full scale of the Nazi concentration camps was revealed.

Hitler’s Nazis and ISIS share similar aspirations and values:

The extermination of vast numbers of people.

The pursuit of power through death and mayhem.

The ability and willingness to commit physical and mental torture and murder so depraved that it defies belief or reasoned understanding.

And as with the Nazis, the world must now come together to rout and destroy them.

The big question is how?

This is not a conventional enemy that operates with an army, air force or navy.

It’s a disparate, amorphous entity whose tentacles spread wide around the Middle East.

Hard to track, thus hard to defeat.

But I believe ISIS made a big strategic error today.

Moaz al-Kasabeh was a devout Muslim.

He was the first high profile Sunni Muslim from a state involved in the US-led coalition ‘war’ effort to be executed.

By killing him in such a grotesquely barbaric way, ISIS should rouse the decent, civilized Muslim world as never before.

It’s easy to justify attacks on the West by screaming to young, impressionable poverty-ravaged minds that it’s ‘revenge’ for all the bombing campaigns in Iraq or Afghanistan.

It’s far tougher to justify the bestial immolation of a young Muslim man to other young Muslims...

Actually, there'd no reason to suspect a backlash in the Muslim world had Islamic State immolated a Christian American or an Israeli Jew.

Indeed, after the Paris attacks Muslims worldwide hoisted "Je Suis Cherif" banners over their heads, in militant solidarity with the Kouachi brothers.

No, sadly, Mr. Morgan's logical flaw is to pretend that Islam isn't really the ideological equivalent to the Nazism that the horror the Jordanian pilots murder evoked.

Jordan's King Abdullah Vows 'Relentless' War Against #ISIS After Pilot Burned Alive

I don't imagine this was the response the jihadists were expecting.

At JPost, "Jordan's king vows 'relentless' war against ISIS after pilot burned alive":

Amman vows to step up role with international coalition fighting ISIS a day after video released of Jordanian pilot being executed by terror group.

The Scourge That Obama Dare Not Name

From S.E. Cupp, at the New York Daily News, "Islamic extremist terrorism: The scourge that Obama dare not name":

There's nothing more childish than living in a fantasyland.

There's a famous painting of a pipe, by Belgian artist Rene Magritte. Under the pipe it says in French, "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" — "This is not a pipe."

The average onlooker says, "of course that's a pipe!" But Magritte is challenging the viewer to acknowledge that, in fact, they are not looking at a pipe, but, more accurately, a painting of a pipe.

It's surrealism at its most annoying. Magritte was that know-it-all at the party who corrects your grammar during a fun game of beer pong: "It's with 'whom' am I playing next."

To the average person, it's pretty clear we're at war with Islamic extremists. Yet, to hear President Obama tell it, we are not technically at war, and even if we are, he wants you to believe religion has little to do with it.

He and his surrogates have repeatedly refused to say the words "Islamic extremism" or "radical Islam" when describing our enemies in groups like Al Qaeda, Jabhat al-Nusra, ISIS and Boko Haram, just to name a few.

His administration was caught flatfooted last week when White House spokesman Eric Schultz painfully strained to justify negotiating with Taliban, insisting it was not a terrorist group but "an armed insurgency."

Surreal indeed...

Cowardly.

Obama's a coward. Simple as that.

Keep reading.

Obama Chief of Staff Denis McDonough: We Don't Negotiate with Terrorists

Oh really?

So the Taliban aren't terrorists?

At Gateway Pundit, "More Lies… Qatar Foreign Minister Admits “We Were Asked to Negotiate Bergdahl Swap”."

'WAR IS NOT VIOLENCE AND KILLING...'

At Stormbringer, "War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose..."

Obama: Islamic State Operating on a 'Bankrupt Ideology' (VIDEO)

As I was saying earlier, "bloodless."

Watch: "Obama: ISIS operating on a 'bankrupt' ideology."

Lt. Col Ralph Peters: Islamic State Terrorists 'Are Having the Time of Their Lives...' (VIDEO)

At Fox News Insider, "'America Needs to Get Serious': Peters Sounds Off on ISIS":

Peters sounded off on the terrorists who are seen in the video, saying, “Those terrorists are the people the president and Democrats don’t even want to waterboard.”

“America needs to get serious," he said.

Peters called for a limited number of boots on the ground for a limited time.

“My God, ISIS is taking over the Middle East, and our president […] can’t even say Islamist terror.”

Watch: "Peters: 'Murder of Pilot Is 'Better than the Best Sex' Jihadists Have Had...'"

Spectacular Video Shows Moment TransAsia Airways Plane Crashes: At Least 12 Killed

Unreal.

At ABC 7 Los Angeles, "TAIWAN PLANE WITH 58 ABOARD CRASHES IN TAIPEI; 12 KILLED."

Also at Sky News, "Taiwan Plane Crash: Passenger Jet Hits Bridge."

UPDATE: At USA Today, "Death toll rises to 31 in Taiwan plane; 12 missing."

President Obama Downplays Terrorist Threat (VIDEO)

Actually, I don't know if he's downplaying it so much as over-rationalizing it. When folks call Obama a political "realist" on national security policy, this is what they're talking about. (See Stephen Walt, for example, a true fanatical supporter of this administration's foreign policy, "Think Before You March").

The problem is it's bloodless realpolitik. It doesn't make for particularly compelling viewing. It seems more like resignation to global dangers, with the luxury of pulling up the drawbridge. Even when there's no existential threat, Americans like some emotion and resolve. And besides, some argue that global jihad is currently "the greatest danger facing mankind."

There's a disconnect.

In any case, watch at Pat Dollard's, "WATCH, (P)RESIDENT EVIL: “I Insist We Do Not Provide a Victory to These Terrorists by Over-inflating Their Importance as a Threat to the U.S.”

U.S. Intelligence Warns of Growing Threat from Islamic State

Well, no doubt.

Britian's Andrew Parker, head of MI5, warned of an immediate al-Qaeda threat just last month, so it's just confirmation at this point. Pretty good timing, considering the Jordanian pilot and all.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Pentagon official lists militants, Russia and China as threats to U.S.":

Russian military activity is at its highest level since the Cold War, destructive state-sponsored attacks on U.S. computer systems are on the rise and Islamic State is expanding into unstable parts of North Africa, the Pentagon's top intelligence official told Congress on Tuesday.

The warnings came against the grim backdrop of the release of a video that appeared to show a Jordanian military pilot being burned alive by his Islamic State captors, and a day after President Obama proposed reversing a five-year decline in military spending to help battle the Sunni Muslim extremists who control parts of Iraq and Syria.

Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said the militant group Islamic State has steadily extended its reach despite near-daily U.S.-led coalition airstrikes that began in August. More than two dozen extremist groups around the world have merged with or pledged allegiance to Islamic State, and its ranks continue to swell with new recruits.

"With affiliates in Algeria, Egypt, Libya, the group is beginning to assemble a growing international footprint that includes ungoverned and undergoverned areas," Stewart, who took command of the Pentagon's spying arm last month, told the House Armed Services Committee in an annual review of national security threats.

The militant group's appeal apparently extends to Canada. Police there on Tuesday charged three men suspected of having ties to an Islamic State recruiting cell in Ottawa. The three reportedly were trying to travel to Syria and were not plotting an attack in Canada when they were arrested.

Rear Adm. John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters that Islamic State "has a fairly evangelical strain about it."

"They want to metastasize. They want to grow. They want to increase their influence," Kirby said. "We're watching it as closely as we can."...

Keep reading.

King Abdullah II of Jordan: Islamic State 'Does Not Resemble Our Religion in Any Way...' (VIDEO)

Actually, at this point literally anything Islam touches turns to death, so it's no surprise that the Ummah is working at Blitzkrieg pace to distance Islam from the fiery hell that is Islamic State.

See Robert Spencer, at Jihad Watch, "Jordan’s Abdullah: Islamic State “does not resemble our religion in any way”":

The video of the burning of the Jordanian pilot is entitled, “Healing the Believers Chests.” That’s from the Qur’an: “Fight them, and Allah will punish them by your hands, cover them with shame, help you over them, heal the breasts of Believers.” (Qur’an 9:14) Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, who years ago tried to murder students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the name of Islam and jihad, also referenced this verse when explaining his actions.

And then there is this story from Muhammad’s conquest of Khaybar: “Kinana b. al-Rabi`, who had the custody of the treasure of B. al-Nadir, was brought to the apostle who asked him about it. He denied that he knew where it was. A Jew came (T. was brought) to the apostle and said that he had seen Kinana going round a certain ruin every morning early. When the apostle said to Kinana, ‘Do you know that if we find you have it I shall kill you?’ he said Yes. The apostle gave orders that the ruin was to be excavated and some of the treasure was found. When he asked him about the rest he refused to produce it, so the apostle gave orders to al-Zubayr b. al-Awwam, ‘Torture him until you extract what he has,’ so he kindled a fire with flint and steel on his chest until he was nearly dead. Then the apostle delivered him to Muhammad b. Maslama and he struck off his head, in revenge for his brother Mahmud.” (Ibn Ishaq 515).

“King Abdullah of Jordan says pilot’s reported ISIL murder does not resemble Islam,” the Telegraph, February 3, 2015...

Jordan Executes Prisoners in Retaliation for Pilot Burned to Death

ICYMI, from earlier, "Jordanian Hostage Moaz al-Kasasbeh Burned Alive (VIDEO)."

Jordan responded without delay.

At the New York Times, "Jordan Executes Prisoners After ISIS Video of Pilot’s Death."

More at iOTW Report, "Jordan Retaliates."

And at Ms. EBL's, "As promised: Jordan quickly executes ISIS terrorists Sadjedah al-Rishwi and Ziyad al-Karbouli."

Jordanian Hostage Moaz al-Kasasbeh Burned Alive (VIDEO)

At Atlas Shrugs, "VIDEO: The Islamic State Burns Jordanian Pilot Alive in a Cage."

WARNING GRAPHIC: "The Enemy: ISIS Burns Jordanian Pilot Alive (VIDEO)."



More at Bare Naked Islam, "ISLAMIC STATE (ISIS) Muslim savages kill captured Jordanian pilot by burning him alive in a cage."

And at London's Daily Mail, "One of the most sickening acts ever committed to film: 22 minutes of carefully edited, and highly choreographed footage that ISIS knows will horrify the West - and entice even more jihadists to their cause."

Perhaps the most horrifying thing I've ever seen.

Obama Expresses Solidarity for New Greek Communist Government

Well, the new radical left government, with the Marxist "Greek Che" prime minister, is a godsend for the communist-loving Barack Hussein.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Obama Expresses Sympathy for New Greek Government: U.S. President Said There Are Limits to How Far European Creditors Can Press Athens":

President Barack Obama expressed sympathy for the new Greek government as it seeks to rollback its strict bailout regime, saying there are limits to how far its European creditors can press Athens to repay its debts while restructuring the economy.

“You cannot keep on squeezing countries that are in the midst of depression. At some point there has to be a growth strategy in order for them to pay off their debts to eliminate some of their deficits,” Mr. Obama said in an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria aired Sunday.

He said Athens needs to restructure its economy to boost its competitiveness, “but it’s very hard to initiate those changes if people’s standards of livings are dropping by 25%. Over time, eventually the political system, the society can’t sustain it.”

Mr. Obama expressed hope that an agreement would be reached so Greece can stay in the eurozone, saying, “I think that will require compromise on all sides.”...

FLASHBACK: "Greece Still Wants Free Lunch."

Same as it ever was...

Super Bowl Breaks Viewing Record

Hey, it's hella entertainment extravaganza.

At WSJ, "Super Bowl Breaks Record for U.S. TV Viewing: Preliminary Nielsen Figures Pegged at 114.4 Million."

Richard Sherman's all, "Dafuq!"

Coca-Cola Targets Online Hate with #MakeItHappy Super Bowl Campaign — #DanicaPatrick

At Ad Week.



More videos at the link.