FEAR AND PANDERING IN SEATTLE

Yesterday there was a murder in Seattle...a religiously inspired murder...an Islamic-religiously inspired murder. Like the guy at LAX who several years ago shot up the El Al ticket counter...and the Iranian who tried to kill a bunch of students at UNC in Chapel Hill several months ago, this murderer is being "understood," and considered an abberation...it's not really evidence that the world war has come home. Until Hisbollah or Al Quaeda officially "take credit" for a murder, it's only an abberation.

But, not everyone is buying it...and here's a blogger from Seattle who speaks clearly and makes sense, too.

Fear and Pandering In Seattle:

It's just a few hours after the shootings here in beautiful, safe, tolerant Seattle. But already my liberal friends are deeply in denial about the source, the motives, and the probable upcoming replays of this tragedy. The tv and radio versions all failed to mention the one and only truly relevent detail: before opening fire, the shooter said "I'm an Islamic American. I'm angry at Israel."

The unwritten rule here since 9-11 is that we never say, suggest or imply that Islam or Arabs, or citizens of any particular (Arabic) country, or Jihad, or bigotry or hatred are involved in any violent and destructive events. Politically correct terms here in the Emerald City are: Insurgents. Guerrillas. Refugees. Misunderstanding. Tolerance. Rebel. Freedom Fighter. Displaced person. Radical. Homeland. Religious differences. Cultural Forces. Historical oppression.
So Seattle is already tying itself into a pretzel thinking of excuses for this latest, hometown Jihadist evil. Listen to the crud building up around the story: This man had a criminal record. (So it's the fault now of the police who arrested him before?) He was from Pakistan but "an American Citizen." (So his hatreds and violence became our responsibility when he deceived us into naturalizing him?) He "may have had a personal grievance." (If he'd murdered someone at home, there is supposedly never an excuse for domestic violence. But since he did it somewhere else, hey, no problem, we’ll understand, it's just a personal grievance.)

Two days ago I was in New York City and so thankful to be headed home to the pine trees, clean air and marine sensibilities of Seattle. Today I'm ashamed of the place where I was born. When are the arrogantly self-styled elite who speak for this city going to accept reality? No amount of intellectual conjuring will convince rational people that this was an isolated act.
For years the Jihadists have told us in plain language that we must submit or die. They relentlessly spew forth their hatred of Jews and Christians. They proved in New York, Paris, Madrid, London, Bali, Bombay and hundreds of other places, that they mean to kill us all as soon and as painfully as they can.

No, whether this man had explicit help from other Jihadists or not, today we smelt the first Islamist cordite wafting through downtown Seattle, felt the first piece of Jihadi shrapnel in our flesh. Jews have been first in the line of fire elsewhere; today they were the first fallen on Seattle’s battlefield. They will not be the last; the baby killers and torturers of children have promised us that.

Seattle media types must believe it is a hanging offense to speak simple truth. They are afraid to state for the record that it is just bad, wrong and evil to use civilians for shields, murder innocents and seek world domination at any price.

Seattle's glitterati can't find it in their organic, union-label hearts to criticize those who manipulate children into becoming suicide bombers. Our news readers and talking heads find fighting for survival and genocide to be morally indistinguishable. They are so full of leftover sixties peace and love that even a stone cold theological killer in their own town cannot convince them that there is a religious war on.
They are fools, and not even lovable or charming fools. Their dance of denial and deception is moving beyond tediousness and towards foolhardiness and even treason. Today's events will be but the first wedge between the apparatchiks of Seattle and the mostly liberal Jewish establishment that has supported them. Jews know when they are at risk just for being alive and Jewish. The neighbors, friends and family of the wounded and dead know they are targeted and suffering at the hands of organized fanatics, not lone lunatics. How long will it be until the rest of Seattle learns this bitter, bloody truth?

A friend called earlier tonight to say he was headed off to Synagogue. He’s not Jewish, he’s a decent human being and a patriot. He knows who the enemy is and wants to stand with his fellow Americans against that enemy. My heart and spirit are there with him, and with my Jewish fellow Seattleites.
Unless they are outside nattering about the new security measures and pointing out that local mosques are fearful too, I bet the local blather-merchants are nowhere to be seen. Intellectual cowards, and maybe physical ones too.

Shalom, and keep your powder dry.

Isn't that special...they're guarding the Mosques, too, bless their hearts. I bet there are thousands of seething, bloodthirsty Jews there, just waiting to attack the Muslims at their prayers...probably to steal their children for ritual sacrifice. In the days of Moral Equivalence you never know, do you? By all means, prevent that.

We spent five great years in Seattle; our son, Chris was born there, and we remember that city with fondness and thanks. I don't know what they're putting in the drinking water nowadays, but it sounds like they're passing out the Koolaid.

It'll take another "real" attack for us to stop all this loathsome self negotiation, and begin treating this as a war we must not lose. Until then, like the lady says, keep your powder dry.


Transterrestrial Musings adds this perspective. (Click here to read the whole thing.)

...Stop and think about the absurdity of that for a moment. A man walks into a building full of Jews, says that he's angry about Israeli actions, and starts shooting at innocent civilians. But we should be relieved, I guess, because it's not terrorism.

...As was the case with the first three world wars, we are at war not with terror or any other particular tactic, but with an idea, or rather, a large set of ideas, most or all of which are inimical to our culture, and to the civilization that is an outgrowth of the Enlightenment. There is no win-win outcome to this war. There are, in the words of divorce courts, irreconcilable differences between the West and the Jihadis. There is, ultimately, not room enough on this planet for both ideologies, because theirs demands submission of all to it.

...Israelis, even the Israeli left, now finally understand that "land for peace" was a chimera, a hopeless endeavor, because their enemy doesn't want land, or peace. They are like the alien in Independence Day who, when asked what it wanted of us, hissed, "I want you to die." Our culture is an offense to them, our material success is an offense (and rebuke) to them (because infidels have no right to be successful), our very existence, and particularly the existence of Jews in what they consider their own holy land, is an intolerable ongoing offense to them, made more offensive by the fact that this lowest form of life has made the desert bloom in a way that they never could.

It is all one war, and it's not a war against "terror." It is a world war largely of the Anglosphere (and some of its new allies, such as Poland and eastern Europe, and Israel--an honorary member) against fundamentalist Islamism. It is a war in which much of Europe has been cowed into sitting on the sidelines, by the enemy within. Russia and China are torn, partly for purely mercenary reasons, because our enemy is hungry for their arms and has abundant resources with which to purchase them, and partly due to their desire to see the Anglosphere and particularly its lead nation, the "hyperpower," brought low. But Chechnya and the Uigers in western China demonstrate that they will only be able to feed others to the alligator for so long, before they become the next meal.

We are at war with an idea, and it's an idea shared by the man up in Seattle. Part of that idea is that Israel shouldn't exist, and that it's intolerable when it does anything to defend itself and ensure its future existence. That part at least of the idea was clearly shared by the shooter in Seattle, by his own words. He may not (or he may) be a member of Al Qaeda, but we are not at war exclusively with Al Qaeda, which is just one front, one manifestation of the much larger enemy. We battle over a divide of ideologies, and there are many on the other side of that divide, some of whom, sadly, live among us. And they can unfortunately constitute a fifth column. He walked among us, in normal garb, but when he felt his time come, he picked up arms and made war against the nation that had welcomed him, and not against our military, but against helpless women.

The authorities don't want to call him a terrorist. Fine.

Let us, then, call him what he is. He is the enemy. He is a foreign operative on our soil, a spy, a combatant out of uniform, and there is no need for a civil trial. The laws of war allow him to be summarily shot. And if that were to happen, it would, finally, be a welcome recognition of the true nature of this war.

CAN'T WE JUST NEGOTIATE?

"I don't understand why we have to fight the Muslims. Can't we just negotiate?"

Today's London Telegraph has this column by Charles Moore:

Sir Peter Tapsell is, if the phrase is not a contradiction in terms nowadays, a distinguished backbencher. He first entered the House of Commons in 1959. Noted for his grand manner, he is the longest-serving Tory MP.

At foreign affairs questions in Parliament on Tuesday, Sir Peter rose. He wanted Margaret Beckett to tell him whether the Prime Minister had colluded with President Bush in allowing Israel to "wage unlimited war" in Lebanon, including attacks on civilian residential areas of Beirut. These attacks, he added, were "a war crime grimly reminiscent of the Nazi atrocity on the Jewish quarter in Warsaw".
… I found myself winded by Sir Peter's choice of words.

After the firing of hundreds of rockets against its people from across the Lebanese border, Israel is trying to crush the Hizbollah fighters who have perpetrated these acts. In doing so, it has also killed civilians. Some 500 people have died in Lebanon as a result.
What was the "Nazi atrocity on the Jewish quarter in Warsaw"? There were many, of course. But Sir Peter was probably referring to the events of April-May 1943. The Nazis had earlier deported 300,000 Polish Jews to Treblinka. As news of their fate reached Jews in Warsaw, they decided to revolt against further round-ups. For about a month, they resisted. They were subdued: 7,000 of them were killed and 56,000 were sent to the camps.

Sir Peter surely knew this, yet he chose to speak as he did. Here is a man who has been in public life for more than 50 years … and yet he compared Israel's attack to the most famous genocide of the 20th century. What possessed him?

… I ask, rather, because his remark seems to me a symptom of a wider unreality about the Middle East, one that now dominates. It tinged the recent Commons speech by William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary. It permeates every report by the BBC.

You could criticise Israel's recent attack for many things. …. But European discourse on the subject seems to have been overwhelmed by something else - a narrative, told most powerfully by the way television pictures are selected, that makes Israel out as a senseless, imperialist, mass-murdering, racist bully.

Not only is this analysis wrong - if the Israelis are such imperialists, why did they withdraw from Lebanon for six years, only returning when threatened once again? … it is also morally imbecilic. It makes no distinction between the tough, sometimes nasty things all countries do when hard-pressed and the profoundly evil intent of some ideologies and regimes. It says nothing about the fanaticism and the immediacy of the threat to Israel. Sir Peter has somehow managed to live on this planet for 75 years without spotting the difference between what Israel is doing in Lebanon and "unlimited war".

As well as being morally imbecilic, …. It is so lazy.

Thus, for example, you would hardly know from watching the television that most Arab nations in the region, with the notable exception of Syria, detest the power of Hizbollah. You would barely have noticed that Hizbollah is a Shia faction, actively supported by Iran, and therefore feared by most Sunnis and by all who resist Iranian hegemony.

Nor would you have seen investigations of how Hizbollah places its missile sites in civilian areas, or coverage of the report in a Kuwaiti newspaper that Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hizbollah, was expected in Damascus on Thursday for a meeting with the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, and the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council. You would also not have gathered that the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, which the television so recently invited you to admire, cannot possibly be carried through if Syria and Iran and Hizbollah are able to operate in that country.

…. Public discussion therefore does not stop to consider whether the immediate ceasefire called for by most European countries might hand a victory to Hizbollah, which, in turn, would ultimately lead to a much greater loss of life. It just postures.

Part of the same attitude-striking is the attack on Tony Blair for being the "poodle" of America, instead of pursuing an independent foreign policy.

This week marks the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the last Middle East crisis in which Britain acted without concerting with America. On July 26, 1956, Gamal Abdel Nasser, the president of Egypt, nationalised the Suez Canal. Britain accounted for a third of the ships passing through the canal at that time, and we feared that Nasser had put his foot on our windpipe. Eden, perhaps reeling from his good fortune in having employed the young P. Tapsell, concocted a secret plot with France and Israel to regain control of the canal by violence and bring about the fall of Nasser.

Ignoring the delicacies of a presidential election in America and a president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had publicly made it clear that his country opposed force, we went ahead and invaded Egypt on November 5. Furious at having been deceived, America immediately refused to support the pound in the markets, and we crumpled almost overnight.

The then chancellor, Harold Macmillan, who supported the attack from the first but ratted on it in November, wrote in his diary on August 18: "…if Nasser 'gets away with it', we are done for… It may well be the end of British influence and strength for ever." Well, Nasser did get away with it, and British power in the Middle East did collapse.

We have now passed half a century in which the ultimate responsibility for these decisions has passed from us (and from France) to America. Unless we seriously propose to try to regain that responsibility, either alone or in concert, we do well to try to work closely with America rather than acting like a querulous octogenarian. Mr Blair's efforts in Washington yesterday to search for a ceasefire that prefers durability over immediacy are perfectly sensible.

Yet Mr Blair is bayed at by all parties and most of the media. It is as if, having relinquished power, we Europeans now wish our own powerlessness upon the rest of the world. We make vaporous and offensive Nazi comparisons. We preach that unilateral action is always wrong. That position can be maintained only by people who do not have to make life-and-death decisions. It is cheap and immoral.

We ARE negotiating. We are negotiating with ourselves.

There may come a time for negotiation with our enemies, after the threat to us, you and me, not just a bunch of Israelis half a world away, has been dispatched. Until then we have to fight an implacable enemy who's intent on destroying each of us.

That's "Asymmetrical Warfare;" they kill us, and we negotiate with ourselves. Are we having fun yet?

HEZBOLLAH IS NOT SOME SMALL, RAGGED BAND SCATTERED AROUND LEBANON

"The U.N.'s years-long record on the Israel-Lebanon border makes mockery of the term "peacekeeping." On page 155 of my book, "Inside the Asylum," is a picture of a U.N. outpost on that border. The U.N. flag and the Hezbollah flag fly side by side. Observers told me the U.N. and Hezbollah personnel share water and telephones, and that the U.N. presence serves as a shield against Israeli strikes against the terrorists."
---Jed Babbin

SADLY, THIS IS ONLY THE BEGINNING

Art Bolz sent this, which is important enough to post to Patriot's Points.

From the moment after 9/11 Americans have been asking "why?"

Personally I don't care "why," as I'm really concerned about "what," but there must be an answser, and this one makes a lot of sense. Remember what the 9/11 murderers did the day before their attack...they spent it in a South Florida titty-bar getting lap danced.

The psychology behind suicide bombings
By Pierre Rehov, French Documentary Filmmaker

On July 15, MSNBC's "Connected" program discussed the 7/7 London attacks.
One of the guests was Pierre Rehov, a French filmmaker who has filmed six documentaries on the intifada by going undercover in the Palestinian areas.

Pierre's upcoming film, "Suicide Killers," is based on interviews that he conducted with the families of suicide bombers and would-be bombers in an attempt to find out why they do it. Pierre agreed to a request for a Q&A interview here about his work on the new film. Many thanks to Dean Draznin and Arlyn Riskind for helping to arrange this special interview.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Q: What inspired you to produce "Suicide Killers," your seventh film?
A: I started working with victims of suicide attacks to make a film on PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) when I became fascinated with the personalities of those who had committed those crimes, as they were described again and again by their victims. Especially the fact that suicide bombers are all smiling one second before they blow themselves up.

Q: Why is this film especially important?
A: People don't understand the devastating culture behind this unbelievable phenomenon. My film is not politically correct because it addresses the real problem-showing the real face of Islam. It points the finger against a culture of hatred in which the uneducated are brainwashed to a level where their only solution in life becomes to kill themselves and kill others in the name of a God whose word, as transmitted by other men, has be came their only certitude.

Q: What insights did you gain from making this film? What do you know that other experts do not know?
A: I came to the conclusion that we are facing a neurosis at the level of an entire civilization. Most neuroses have in common a dramatic event, generally linked to an unacceptable sexual behavior. In this case, we are talking of kids living all their lives in pure frustration, with no opportunity to experience sex, love, tenderness or even understanding from the opposite sex. The separation between men and women in Islam is absolute.
So is contempt toward women, who are totally dominated by men. This leads to a situation of pure anxiety, in which normal behavior is not possible. It is no coincidence that suicide killers are mostly young men dominated subconsciously by an overwhelming libido that they not only cannot satisfy but are afraid of, as if it is the work of the devil. Since Islam describes heaven as a place where everything on earth will finally be allowed, and promises 72 virgins to those frustrated kids, killing others and killing themselves to reach this redemption becomes their only solution.*

Q: What was it like to interview would-be suicide b ombers, their families and survivors of suicide bombings?
A: It was a fascinating and a terrifying experience. You are dealing with seemingly normal people with very nice manners who have their own logic, which to a certain extent can make sense since they are so convinced that what they say is true. It is like dealing with pure craziness, like interviewing people in an asylum, since what they say, is for them, the absolute truth. I hear a mother saying "Thank God, my son is dead." Her son had became a shaheed, a martyr, which for her was a greater source of pride than if he had became an engineer, a doctor or a winner of the Nobel Prize.
This system of values works completely backwards since their interpretation of Islam worships death much more than life. You are facing people whose only dream, only achievement is to fulfill what they believe to be their destiny, namely to be a shaheed or the family of a shaheed. They don't see the innocent being killed, they only see the impure that they have to destroy.

Q: You say suicide bombers experience a moment of absolute power, beyond punishment. Is death the ultimate power?
A: Not death as an end, but death as a door open to the afterlife. They are seeking the reward that God has promised them. They work for God, the ultimate authority, above all human laws. They therefore experience this single delusional second of absolute power, where nothing bad can ever happen to them, since they become God's sword.

Q: Is there a suicide bomber personality profile? Describe the psychopathology.
A: Generally kids between 15 and 25 bearing a lot of complexes, generally inferiority complexes. They must have been fed with religion. They usually have a lack of developed personality. Usually they are impressionable idealists. In the western world they would easily have become drug addicts, but not criminals. Interestingly, they are not criminals since they don't see g ood and evil the same way that we do. If they had been raised in an Occidental culture, they would have hated violence. But they constantly battle against their own death anxiety. The only solution to this deep-seated pathology is to be willing to die and be rewarded in the afterlife in Paradise.

Q: Are suicide bombers principally motivated by religious conviction?
A: Yes, it is their only conviction. They don't act to gain a territory or to find freedom or even dignity. They only follow Allah, the supreme judge, and what He tells them to do.

Q: Do all Muslims interpret jihad and martyrdom in the same way?
A: All Muslim believers believe that, ultimately, Islam will prevail on earth. They believe this is the only true religion and there is no room, in their mind, for interpretation. The main difference between moderate Muslims and extremists is that moderate Muslims don't think they will see the absolute victory of Islam during their lifetime, therefore they respect other beliefs. The extremists believe that the fulfillment of the Prophecy of Islam and ruling the entire world as described the Koran, is for today.
Each victory of Bin Laden convinces 20 million moderate Muslims to become extremists.

Q: Describe the culture that manufactures suicide bombers.
A: Oppression, lack of freedom, brain-washing, organized poverty, placing God in charge of daily life, total separation between men and women, forbidding sex, giving women no power whatsoever, and placing men in charge of family honor, which is mainly connected to their women's behavior.

Q: What socio-economic forces support the perpetuation of suicide bombings?
A: Muslim charity is usually a cover for supporting terrorist organizations. But one has also to look at countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran, which are also supporting the same organizations through different networks. The ironic thing in the case of Palestinian suicide bombers is that most of the money comes through financial support from the Occidental world, donated to a culture that utterly hates and rejects the West (mainly symbolized by Israel).

Q: Is there a financial support network for the families of the suicide bombers? If so, who is paying them and how does that affect the decision?
A: There used to be a financial incentive in the days of Saddam Hussein ($25,000 per family) and Yasser Arafat (smaller amounts), but these days are gone. It is a mistake to believe that these families would sacrifice their children for money. Although, the children themselves who are very attached to their families, might find in this financial support another reason to become suicide bombers. It is like buying a life insurance policy and then committing suicide.

Q: Why are so many suicide bombers young men?
A: As discussed above, libido is paramount. Also ego, because this is a sure way to become a hero. The shaheeds are the cowboys or the firemen of Islam.
Shaheed is a positively reinforced value in this culture. And what kid has never dreamed of becoming a cowboy or a fireman?

Q: What role does the U.N. play in the terrorist equation?
A: The UN is in the hands of Arab countries and third world or ex-communists countries. Their hands are tied. The UN has condemned Israel more than any other country in the world, including the regime of Castro, Idi Amin or Kaddahfi. By behaving this way, the UN leaves a door open by not openly condemning terrorist organizations. In addition, through UNRWA, the UN is directly tied to terror organizations such as Hamas, representing 65 percent of their apparatus in the so-called Palestinian refugee camps. As a support to Arab countries, the UN has maintained Palestinians in camps with the hope to return into Israel for more than 50 years, therefore making it impossible to s ettle those populations, which still live in deplorable conditions.
Four-hundred million dollars are spent every year, mainly financed by U.S.
taxes, to support 23,000 employees of UNRWA, many of whom belong to terrorist organizations (see Congressman Eric Cantor on this subject, and in my film "Hostages of Hatred").

Q: You say that a suicide bomber is a 'stupid bomb and a smart bomb'
simultaneously. Explain what you mean.
A: Unlike an electronic device, a suicide killer has until the last second the capacity to change his mind. In reality, he is nothing but a platform representing interests which are not his, but he doesn't know it.

Q: How can we put an end to the madness of suicide bombings and terrorism in general?
A: Stop being politically correct and stop believing that this culture is a victim of ours. Radical Islamism today is nothing but a new form of Nazism.
Nobody was trying to justify or excuse Hitler in the 1930s. We had to defeat him in order to make peace one day with the German people.

Q: Are these men traveling outside their native areas in large numbers?
Based on your research, would you predict that we are beginning to see a new wave of suicide bombings outside the Middle East?
A: Every successful terror attack is considered a victory by the radical Islamists. Everywhere Islam expands there is regional conflict. Right now there are thousands of candidates for martyrdom lining up in training camps in Bosnia, Afghanistan, Pakistan. Inside Europe, hundreds of illegal mosques are preparing the next step of brain washing to lost young men who cannot find a satisfying identity in the Occidental world. Israel is much more prepared for this than the rest of the world will ever be. Yes, there will be more suicide killings in Europe and the U.S. Sadly, this is only the beginning.

ASYMMETRICAL WARFARE

There can be no doubt about the misery of the Hizzbollah War, and there are no doubt countless genuine humanitarian tragedies, particularly among the Lebanese civilians...people who have had no real control over Hizbollah's actions.

But....there are always the "buts"....just what are these folks?

Is this Granny with the Rocket Propelled Grenade just an innocent bystander? Maybe she's on the way to the ATM...a girl needs some protection there; can't be too careful, y'know..

But, then there's the problem of the children looking over the berm with the "fighters." Surely children are "innocent" and "civilian" and need to be protected....but who is to protect them, when their big brothers are busy killin' Jews?

And where are the U.N. "Observers" that have been there for nearly 30 years? Maybe they're drinking mint tea with Hezbollah.

To point out the obvious, tearing out one's hair over "civilian casualties" gets dicey when faced with the realities of these pictures of "civilians."

I guess that's why it's called Asymmetrical Warfare.

The Islamofascists get to cheat. The Israelis, who everyone agrees were attacked in an open act of War, get to adhere to the Geneva Conventions.

Tha's cool. Nothing in the Conventions about Grannies, except that they're always "victims."

Horseshit!

Oh, by the way...I'm not the only guy who's noticed.

The U.N. humanitarian chief, returing from a visit to Beirut, accused Hizbullah on Monday of "cowardly blending" among Lebanese civilians and causing the deaths of hundreds.

"Consistently, from the Hizbullah heartland, my message was that Hizbullah must stop this cowardly blending ... among women and children," Egeland said, shortly before departing for Israel. "I heard they were proud because they lost very few fighters and that it was the civilians bearing the brunt of this. I don't think anyone should be proud of having many more children and women dead than armed men."

R.K. Bennett makes these points:

Maybe, as this terrible business in Lebanon unfolds, we'll finally get it:
Guerrillas like to hide behind civilians.

Muslim guerrillas take it a step further: "Civilians" are a weapon to them -- as much a part of the fight as the AK-47 or RPG they carry.

Those who have visited any Hezbollah installation in Lebanon over the years always remark on the fact that there are families, women and children, in and around the place. "Secret" bases are usually hidden in plain site. Houses or apartment buildings become weapons storage or even operations centers. An innocent shed or garage may contain a Toyota or a missile launcher.

Seldom, if ever, has a guerrilla movement been able to so openly and exquisitely weave itself into the fabric of a society as Hezbollah has done in Lebanon.

If the civilians in and around what are in effect operational bases happen to be of Hezbollah's own brand of Islam they automatically become a part of the "sacrificial," suicidal equation. Often without choice or foreknowledge, they die an "honorable" death in the battle against infidels or apostates.

If the civilians happen to be of some other persuasion, Islamic or otherwise, their deaths are not even worth a shrug. However, these mangled bodies and wailing women with arms outstretched do provide an immense propaganda payoff, especially in the Western "crusader" media -- which still places a quaint value on human life.

...Meanwhile, the headlines are filled with the shedding of blood, some innocent, some not so obviously innocent. But all the blood of this terrible struggle is on the hands of Hezbollah. As they have grown tactically and operationally wise in their hatred, they have shown more fully their utter disregard for human life. They have calculated the bloody effect of what they and their mentors in Tehran and Damascus have started.

So what if a beautiful city, Beirut, is destroyed? So what if thousands of the hapless, the ignorant, the innocent die? The Islamofanatic "vision" of submission or extermination is worth any cost. To the Hezbollah leaders, high on the furious anti-Semitic hatred of centuries, this is total war with implications and opportunities for them far beyond any geographical boundaries, and the very term "civilian" -- except for its temporary value in gulling the West -- does not apply.

REVISITING "CANDLES FOR PEACE"

Two days after The Attack on 9/11, I wrote this letter to my daughter, Jennifer, who'd asked that I participate in a nationwide vigil...lighting a "Candle for Peace."

I responded with this letter, which began a website on the war that followed, documenting what was going on, what I was thinking, and what my friends thoughts were. I maintained that site for a while, and left it. This blog is a descendent. Nobody reads it, but it makes me feel better to get this stuff off my chest.

The letter is reproduced below , and anyone who reads it is asked for comments...particularly how things look now, what's changed, and what should be our actions now?

Jen...I'll light up my candle tonight, as you suggest, not for peace for there is no peace, but for Remembrance...Remembrance of a Civilization under siege, and a world where Governments undertook to protect their citizens as their primary, some would say their only, reason for existence. The thousands of our citizens and others...of all colors, accents, and nationalities...who were slaughtered this week were owed, by their Government, that protection.

For at least the last 8 years, and for some time before, the U.S. has been under attack around the world. Bin Laden is under indictment in the US with evidence secured for court proceedings, for killing others of us, multiple times, and has not been pursued. A couple of missiles into an aspirin factory or into some Afgan mud huts could not have been thought by our, then-Government to be effective, only "a message." Such acts of false resolve emboldened our enemies, the killers of our citizens, into creating the scenes we now endure. Symbolism is not the stuff of effective action.

The network of these fanatics extends throughout the entire world, including the U.S., as evidence was presented to the US Congress a year and a half ago. It took me no more than 5 minutes to find it on the Internet. Our Government all along has known of these facts and of these people, and our failure to deal with them, along with the Government's unwillingness/refusal to pursue Bin Laden, or to stop Iraqi weapon production and a multitude of other things that should have been done, constitutes malfeasance of the highest order. For that, we mourn those dead in NYC. How can we thank God for the safety of Patti and Ivan...how we can see the pitiful tears of those folks on TV at night and not be outraged? Peace? This enemy knows no pity, and intends no Peace. Bin Laden is only one of them, and if we're to save ourselves, there must be War, not Peace.

There will be talk of "not being like them" and of "legal protections" and of caution to not hurt anyone else. Such comments assume an obscene equivalence between Civilization as we know it, including the teachings of the Koran and the persons of true Islamic faith, and these pitiless killers of innocents. There is no moral equivalence, and it is not civilized to fail to defend Civilization against them. I don't want to talk of Peace...yet...till we have protected ourselves and others...and that means War, not Peace. No euphemisms....no "neutralization" or "bringing to Justice" or other unclear thinking. They must be hunted down and killed. Bloody, terrible, costly, horrible acts...but they must be killed, as they themselves have established the rule by which this War must be fought.

We cannot fight these people successfully in our own house. There are too many sites in a free country for them to attack us, and not enough of us to guard them all. We must kill them where THEY live, and that will be an ugly sight indeed.

The failure to stop equivalent brutes in the 1930s led to tens of millions of deaths and untold misery in one of the bloodiest Centuries of all history. The guilt of that failure led directly to giving away, to its victims, the land of others who were then displaced and who have fought back ever since. In a very real way, some of the roots, not all, but some of the roots of the current killings lie in a previous generation's unwillingness to fight for itself before The Holocaust.

This may be our Civilization's last chance. Failure may plunge the world back into another Dark Ages. Don't think that's an overstatement. If these killers have their way, the Taliban Way will be Your Way, too.
So tonight, I'll light my candle for Remembrance, and for hopes of a world where my Darling Daughter can live her life of freedom, in what is truly "the last best hope for Mankind on Earth," ... America.

But don't speak to me of Peace.

Love, Dad

THE NANNY STATE MEETS BENNY HILL

An interesting website, Samizdata.net is run by a gaggle of people who describe themselves as: "a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling. ...We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, libertarians, extropians, futurists, 'Porcupines', Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe."

Sometimes their stuff is hard to take, but hard to dispute, and the tension of the conflict makes it interesting reading.

And sometimes it's hard to tell from comedy. Here is the real world in today's European Nanny State.

Overseas readers often scoff at my pessimism about the state we are in in Britain. Scoff may be the wrong word. Scoffing is now under close supervision:

David Ashley, headmaster of Greenslade primary, says that pupils who bring in packed lunches “are allowed chocolate on a biscuit but not a Mars bar”. If such sweeties are spotted, parents are called in for a quiet word.

At Charlton Manor primary, the head, Tim Baker, says: “Children get stickers for healthy boxes . . . If a child brings in a chocolate bar, we take it out of the lunchbox and give it back to the parent at the end of the day.” Pupils give each other away, he confides: “They say, ‘Miss, he’s got sweets in his box’.”

That's not a joke. An agency of the British Government supervises childrens' lunch boxes brought from home, and takes candy from the kids, relying on the little tikes to rat each other out. The crime? Mum sent a Mars bar.

I couldn't make this up.

MY STORY AND I'M STICKING TO IT.

Saddam's Trusted Media Outlets: CNN...Anybody surprised? Click Here to read the whole thing.

CONSIDER THIS

Today's Dems......ever willing to politicize and profit from Americas problems, spent yesterday in synch, claiming that the Proxy War now raging in Lebanon and Israel is somehow George Bush's fault. Had he not been "unengaged" for the past six years, or not fought the Islamofascists in Iraq, thing's would be just peachy over there. If we weren't "bogged down" we could fight our "real enemies," they say.

Oh yeah? Name a time when they were in favor of fighting our enemies. Harry Truman doesn't count. He's dead. If he were alive, they'd have drummed him out long ago. Ditto John Kennedy. Consider Teddy, and then argue with me.

Nevermind that these are the same people who allowed the North Koreans to bamboozle them into believing they'd not develop nukes.

Forget the image of L'Albright chasing the "Dear Leader" down the street to make still another concession.

Forget Blackhawk Down and the abandoment of their own mission in Somalia which convinced Bin Laden that we'd not fight.

Into the Black Hole, Clinton's refusal to take Bin Laden when offered the chance....

And abandon all remembrance of Jimma Caatah's not defending America when the Mullocracy in Iran should have been brought down after making war on the US for a year by taking our Embassy and hostages.

For these Denizens of The Peoples Republic of Moonbattery to be blaming ANY other American for what's clearly the responsibility of Iran-supported terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah borders on psychosis.

Listening to this stuff reminds me of a dog eatin' grass........it makes you puke.

A LETTER TO LIAM

Liam….. Finally I’ve time to respond to your thoughtful letter, and to thank you for the time spent on this correspondence.

Your note responds to two articles that I sent previously, one by Gerard Vanderleun and another by Charles Krauthammer, which were sent to illustrate opinions that are being formulated here in America. As I said before, I was surprised to find that opinions in Europe are so poorly informed about what really goes on in the US. People who have strongly held and very negative views of our politics and our positions are quite ignorant of what they actually are. It’s striking, really, and for that reason I sent some examples. In my mind Vanderleun’s is a radical one, and Krauthammer’s a more reasonable historical review and conclusion, but neither one is known in England, judging from what I read in your papers or see in your TV analyses.

Here’s a German website that analyzes some of what I find unimaginably common. In fairness, the existence of this site itself indicates that all Europeans don’t share this journalist’s view, but the journalist’s opinion is pretty much what I find in much of the European press, and among citizens with whom I spoke. The website author’s critique speaks for itself.

http://medienkritik.typepad.com/blog/financial_times_deutschland/index.html

Apart from their arguments, the articles I sent are important because of their authors. Vanderleun is a former radical of the 60’s, an early adopter in the Free Speech Movement at the University of California, Berkeley, he became an editor of one of the sex-mags…I think it was Hustler…and lived for a while in the New York literary, liberal politics, anti-establishment scene till he was hustled by a wife and left with a different point of view. For such a person to have the strong Pro-Active, “go it alone and to Hell with the weaklings of the Left” attitude represents a serious conversion; it might yet prove to be a conversion on a road to Damascus, if you’ll forgive the “not-intending-to-be-blasphemous” pun. The mere fact of such an opinion being formulated by such a person and influencing other Americans, is itself a point of information that Europeans need to have.

I submit Vanderleun’s piece as an example of what could easily become America’s attitude if European anti-Americanism becomes manifest to a majority of Americans. Krauthammer has it right….we really just want to go about our business, and to be left to our own devices, but if that proves impossible, Vanderleun may persuade a lot of us.

You’ve responded to his rant, correctly in my opinion, and I’m grateful to know that we agree on several points. Particularly I appreciate your understanding that we could do as he suggests, for the reasons you acknowledge, but that we shouldn’t. Not because it’s impractical, nor even wrong, but because it would be a violation of what makes America, well, America. Yes. I agree completely. It is really tempting to take a “blow ‘em all to Hell” attitude, but in the final analysis we can’t and still be true to what we are; and therefore we won’t. But his prediction may be accurate if there’s another major attack on US soil.

I remember seeing the hugely diverse population of London….undoubtedly including some who’d just as easily kill you and me as the passengers in the Underground…and asking myself, “Could I really just blow this man away….kill him in cold blood, just because he’s a Muslim?” When I told you of that query, you and I responded simultaneously, “Of course not.”

Liam, I’m a locked and loaded gun totin’, whiskey drinkin’, cigar smokin’, bad mouthin,’ gas-guzzlin’ SUV drivin’ American, and severely proud of it, but I’m also afflicted with the American Curse of having to “Do The Right Thing.” Can you imagine another people flagellating themselves over whether or not murderers and killers in the most barbaric ways have “rights,” like those we guarantee to ourselves?

Until it’s proved to be the only way, if not the right thing, we’ll not be able to kill them simply because they’re Islamofascists. “Of course not” is the correct answer, and because of that simultaneity of answer I know that we can be friends, and so I’ll speak openly. While I believe that to be the correct answer, I frankly wish it were not, as then Vanderleun’s plan going forward would be more clear and more easily focused. As it is, the reality is messy and difficult. In many ways we’re unclear and uncertain, and we’re seemingly in a mess, and endlessly negotiating with ourselves about what’s right and what’s wrong.

It will take another attack here in the U.S. to end that negotiation. When it does, the world will never be the same; never. That’s Vanderleun’s point. That is a point which Europeans, with so much to lose, seem not to consider. There are others, but about them, later.

We agree on some other things. “That there should be a war on terror is self evident,” for one. Your assertion that the might is right proposition “blinds itself to America’s historical support for the weak and the dispossessed…” is also true. “…Islamic Terrorism presents a threat to virtually all of Western Society, and not just to American interests. Consequently, in the face of such a threat…it is unthinkable that America should act unilaterally,” is also true; but none of these is the entire truth.

You object to the term “unconditional victory over Islamic Totalitarianism” as reminiscent of a call to Jihad. Really, Liam, that’s hardly so. An American Jihad? A religious call to murder?

Just what alternative is there and on what basis shall we negotiate? What shall we be prepared to negotiate away? We did not start this fight; they see themselves as continuing a fight that’s a thousand years old. They have nothing to negotiate, as the only thing they admit to wanting is Us as Them or Us Dead. Not negotiable, my friend. They demand total victory, and they’ll continue to kill us till they get it, or until we do.

There are millions of the “reality challenged” in the Muslim world. Note that by huge percentages across the Muslim world, people claim to believe the U.S. brought down the WTC towers and killed those thousands of us on behalf of an Israeli cabal. Remember the joy in the streets of “Palestine” on the very day of 9/11. Discuss the reality of Hamas, openly dedicate in its very charter to eradicating Israel, freely rocketing Israeli towns over a course of months, and now expecting to “negotiate” a “prisoner trade”….murderers for soldiers. Here’s who they want to trade:


I’m willing to negotiate that there will be peace someday, a peace which preserves Muslims’ rights to their culture, their beliefs and habits, their money and the proceeds from a huge trade in oil…anything other than their right to kill us all.

But this isn’t what they’re talking about, since they already have it. America is not attacking Pakistan, nor Saudi Arabia, nor Turkey nor even Syria, yet, and our President’s going out of his way to avoid war with Iran. We have proposed “talks” on Iraq and other issues which divide us, which they refused; so what’s to negotiate? They make war by proxy on Israel and threaten to kill all those people; so what’s to negotiate? If there can be no negotiations with someone who threatens the entire Western Civilization on the command of a Mullah of the 7th Century in the personage of the Mullahs of the 20th, just what’s left?

Well, we can ignore it, and hope it goes away. That’s what we’ve done for the past twenty something years. We’ve been at war since the Mullahs took hostages and the US Embassy, about which a different kind of American President, one beloved of Europeans, did nothing.

There have been multiple battles across the world since, (See the attachment: Catalogue of Terrorism, that brought it up to last October) but now we’re fighting back. That is what’s different. It frightens a lot of people, but that’s a new reality, too.

If negotiation isn’t possible and fighting is all there is; then your point is that it should not be “unilateral.” I agree, if possible, and so would Vanderleun, although he says it’s not possible. I say it is, and is being done as best we can.

The war, which I call World War Four, is being conducted with the variable assistance of much of the rest of the world, from India and Pakistan to Philippines, Japan, Malaysia, Canada and Great Britain, much of Eurasia, indeed, most of Europe, especially Central Europeans who know something about totalitarianism…just not those who we know now were always on Saddam’s payroll, France, and Russia. This is hardly “unilateralism.” Not all those people agree with us completely, but they’re helping, nonetheless, as they understand there’s little alternative.

North Korea is at the heart of a lot of this. It is they who supplied the technology to the Pakistani, Dr. Khan, who sold it to Libya and Iran. It is they who are building rockets capable of reaching across the world, and which Iran is trying to acquire. It is a seriously dangerous world, and the U.S. is trying to deal with it, for now without more war, but insisting on multiparty action and negotiations as a guiding principle, a principle for which the US Administration is excoriated by its so called friends in Europe and by the semi-treasonous in the US itself. Unilateral? Come on Liam, get real.

What other unilateralism are we guilty of? Kyoto….now there you have it…a “treaty” that was signed even though no one has honored or met their “goals.” Even the Canadians are withdrawing, I believe. The Chinese and Indians are excluded, and the treaty was dead before it was signed. Clinton negotiated it, but didn’t even try to get it ratified by the Senate, as required by U.S. law. The Russians first refused it as unworkable but then cynically signed on as it became clear nobody would enforce it. Our refusal to share such cynical and meaningless “diplomacy” isn’t a sign of unilateralism, it’s a mark of realism. Meanwhile, US proposals for alternative environmental steps are being accepted, and may even be effective.

How about withdrawal from the ABM treaty? That treaty forbade us from developing the very anti-missile technology that is the current technological hope, in light of North Korea’s threats to Japan, Australia, South Korea, and even the U.S. Perhaps it would have been better to symbolically remain signatory while cheating a way around it, but symbolism over action is not going to protect anyone, not even the French.

I think it’s not really unilateralism that’s the heart of the debate. Then what is it? I think it’s the fear that we in the U.S. will take seriously the threat to us, and act to stop it. Not necessarily unilaterally, but act to save ourselves, not automatically including those who have made a passion of anti-Americanism. The Vanderleun Alternative.

Whatever transpires, it will be painful, costly, deadly, possibly fatal to you or me, and scary as Hell. I understand that; it’ll change the way we live in ways that’ll look too much like where we thought we’d never have to go again.

We can’t bear to admit it, and as long as one holds out the phantasm of something other than unconditional victory, there’s hope that we’ll stop short of the unbearable. That’s what’s uncomfortable about the concept of victory. We have people in this country, as you do in Europe, who just cannot imagine a U.S. victory as a desirable goal, for fear that reaching it will be unbearable, but at the same time they ignore the unbearable alternative.

Whatever happens, the conditions have been set by our enemies, not by us. It is they who declare Jihad. It is they who see no choice but death for infidels. It is they who define Dhimmitude. It is they who attack, and tell us again and again that they’ll always attack.

You named the places, and they’re not just places where “the West” is involved at all.…Bali, Chechnya, Bombay, Philippines, western China, Thailand….places where there’s not an American nor a Jew in sight.

It is they who define the unconditional. If we fight, it’ll be unconditional. If we surrender it’ll be unconditional. They have defined the rules of engagement, not we, and fight is what we must do. Slavery is not an option. The loss of Western Civilization and the replication of the Dark Ages is not an option.

Which brings me to your issue of “international institutions,” the existence of which you claim to be the “bulwark against tyranny.”

Well….it sort of depends upon which institutions you’re talking about. I f you mean the Special Relationship between the US and Great Britain, that which reduced me to tears reading Roosevelt’s handwritten note to Churchill, you’re right on the money.

If you mean NATO, well, it depends on whether or not, for example, France or Germany wishes, this week, to participate. It depends upon whether or not the people of European NATO partners want to take seriously their obligations to defend themselves….yes, and to defend us….a seriously chancy matter to say the least.

Over here we’re not impressed by the several years of genocide in the center of Europe, before the U.S. (without U.N. approval by the by) stopped it with armed force. It’s laughable for an American to even imagine being defended by Germany or France. For too long we’ve settled for their not actively trying to harm us. Those days are coming to an end, regardless of whatever Vanderleun’s other predictions come to pass.

So what’s left? Say it isn’t so, my friend, but the thing that’s left is the “United Nations.” Now that’s a really sad case.

You say that imperfect as it is, it’s all that we have, and that we must use it to save ourselves. I'm sorry, but that’s ludicrous. The United Nations isn’t imperfect, if it were, then it could be perfected. It’s worse; it’s useless.

The State of Israel was established by a vote of the United Nations. The Palestinian Camps, “home” to the most wretched people in the world, are UN camps. Funded by the rest of us, mostly the US, for sixty odd years, they’re UN responsibility. The failure of whatever “Peace Process” one speaks of at any one time pales before the failure of the UN to deal with this for more than half a century.

There are said to be some agencies of the U.N. that are effective….W.H.O is commonly quoted as one…but nothing that the UN does could not be done as effectively by a specifically charged separate organization for the desired purpose.

The utter corruption of the U.N. is no longer a matter of debate….it’s the stuff of Monty Python, not a “bulwark” of any kind. Failures are too numerous to recount….and the corpses pile up in Darfur while the UN debates what defines genocide. Ruanda taught Kofi Annan nothing. Slavery still exists in much of that part of the world, ignored by the U.N. The English and their American descendents, to their everlasting credit, fought the slavers and ended it in the civilized world by armed force, bloody sacrifice at sea and in an American Civil War…but today, the “United” Nations dithers while millions barely survive as slaves. A “bulwark” where Mugabe’s Zimbabwe defines the UN on its “Human Rights Council” is too crazy even for Monty.

Talk. Talk. Condemn those who will actually defend Human Rights, but talk and it’s not a bad life for the talkers, New York, the freedom of our Liberal Democracy, and on someone else’s dime. Oh, yes, it’s time to condemn Israel again. How about a 17th resolution calling for Iraq to comply….whoops, I forgot, that’s a moot point. Oh well, never mind. It makes no difference, anyway.

No way, Liam. They’ll not save us, either. So, what will? Let’s consider Krauthammer. After a long historical review he describes American policy and position in the world in these terms.


“…democratic globalism, a foreign policy that defines the national interest not as power but as values, and that identifies one supreme value, what John Kennedy called “the success of liberty.” As President Bush put it in his speech at Whitehall last November: “The United States and Great Britain share a mission in the world beyond the balance of power or the simple pursuit of interest. We seek the advance of freedom and the peace that freedom brings.”

Beyond power. Beyond interest. Beyond interest defined as power. That is the credo of democratic globalism.


It’s not Wilsonian. Wilson envisioned the spread of democratic values through as-yet-to-be invented international institutions. He could be forgiven for that. In 1918, there was no way to know how utterly corrupt and useless those international institutions would turn out to be. Eight decades of bitter experience later--with Libya chairing the UN Commission on Human Rights--there is no way not to know.

In October 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, we came to the edge of the abyss. Then, accompanied by our equally shaken adversary, we both deliberately drew back. On September 11, 2001, we saw the face of Armageddon again, but this time with an enemy that does not draw back. This time the enemy knows no reason.

Were that the only difference between now and then, our situation would be hopeless. But there is a second difference…the uniqueness of our power, unrivaled, not just today but ever. That evens the odds. The rationality of the enemy is something beyond our control. But the use of our power is within our control. And if that power is used wisely, constrained not by illusions and fictions but only by the limits of our mission--which is to bring a modicum of freedom as an antidote to nihilism…,we can prevail.



In this, he means “we” in the larger sense. We….you, Europe, the rest of the world that wishes to live its own way, everyone who doesn’t want to kill us. Just why should this be anathema to the rest of the world? Do they wish for something different? Do they not wish to live free, as they define it? The U.S. policy hasn’t been to enforce our view of The Right Way, but to insist only on freedom to choose whatever someone wishes. We’re not forcing the Danes to stand in line for a Big Mac in Copenhagen, nor the French to flock to Disneyland, or to American movies.

The 11,000,000 blue fingered Iraqis will choose a way different from ours, and their choice was bought by our treasure and our blood. You spoke of our historical commitment to the “weak and the dispossessed,” but I count those hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis in mass graves as among them. How dare the darlings of Europe, who’ve done nothing but enable the killers, complain of our efforts to save ourselves, and them?

The “democratic globalism” can’t be as simple as that, and I’ll not defend it in detail, other than to maintain that whatever its faults, nobody has proposed a much different concept; none but the Jihadis. We can argue about the nuances of defining Democratic, or Realism, whether we’re insufficiently Wilsonian, or whatever, but the differences are slight compared to our differences with our enemies. Unless somebody has a more effective way to resist murder…other than endless U.N. resolutions…the only hope for the future is that the D/Gs are right, and that American power can be used justly. If they’re wrong, we’re doomed.

Which brings us finally to the current battles of WW4, Iraq and Palestine. I don’t like the Battle of Iraq, but the war has to be fought somewhere, and I prefer Iraq to Edinburgh or Charlotte. There may have been a better choice for the battle site. Personally, I’d have voted for Syria first, and then Iran, but all of them had downsides too, and this one was chosen. It’s where we are, now.

I don’t like killing or even hurting anybody. I don’t like butchery, beheadings, gouging eyes out, putting human beings feet first into industrial shredders, cutting out their tongues, rape rooms or mass graves either. All of those are realities for someone, and there was no stopping it without armed force.

The “intelligence” was incomplete, but how could it not be so? The Press didn’t tell us what they knew, as CNN admitted later, so why should the enemy do so? How can intelligence get it right without cooperation of the people on site? How could we have had better intelligence? Well, looking back on a generation of looking askance, endlessly putting off what we now have to do, we can see that we should have depended less on machines and more on old fashioned spies….but we didn’t, and in 2003 we couldn’t have had better intelligence on the ground, in the real world.

We could have been more constant friends, and not allowed Saddam to butcher the people who supported us in the First War, but in deference to the Europeans we didn’t, and today’s Iraqis have a right to be uncertain that we can be counted on, despite what’s been done so far. All the talk about withdrawing from Iraq is only making this worse, and it’s a long way from over. As they come to believe we’ll be there, this time, to protect them, they will provide new and real intelligence. They are doing so now. Zarqawi is below room temperature, and buried. That’s better.

It would be nice if we could be perfect, but we’re not, and imperfections demand improvement, not abandonment of ideals. Yet even with imperfect information, we know now that it wasn’t all that imperfect. Nobody claimed Iraq was involved in 9/11, despite the fact that an Iraqi was among those who first attempted to destroy the WTC several years ago, and that Iraq attempted to assassinate a former U.S. President while visiting Kuwait. The claim was only that Saddam Hussein was working with terrorists of a wide variety, against our people.

Zarqawi and Abu Nidal were in Iraq. We now know there were at least extensive contacts with Bin Laden and Al Quaeda. There were chemical weapons, and they were used to massacre Kurds. T here was an active nuclear program; that’s proved. It was hidden, and perhaps not as well developed as thought to be, but nascent and available for reconstitution in a short time, none the less. And by the way, just how far advanced does it have to be to trigger alarm from the Precious in Europe? Well, let’s look at the Iranian situation.

Here we have a regime that speaks openly of destroying another people, and obviously is run by persons who are deranged, historically if not psychiatrically. It is precisely this that constitutes the issue. If Belgian chocolatiers wanted a nuclear power plant, none of us would have knots in our knickers.

While lying about it, the Iranians clearly seek a weapon with which to destroy whomever they choose. At present the chosen are the Israelis, but what the Hell, they're Jews. A missile of the kind being tested by North Korea, sold to Iran and with an Iranian nuke, will take out London. Is that acceptable to anybody in Europe? Well, for now maybe it can’t reach London…only, say Prague…well, I guess that’s not so bad, they’re Slavs, after all.

After more than two years, there’s been NO progress by the U.N. or E.U. in de-clawing this beast. Obviously, Europeans are waiting again for somebody else to save their bacon, all the while whining about U.S. “unilateralism.” Today, it’s the Israelis fighting the Iranian’s proxies, and for that they receive nothing but vilification in the E.U. Years of suicide bombers, rocket attacks on their civilians, a withdrawal from Gaza that allowed the “Palestinians” to have their own state complete with infrastructure needed to maintain a society…infrastructure that’s been destroyed by their own war among themselves…and Europe dares to speak of “disproportions.” How quaint to demand Israeli withdrawal to a status quo that no other civilized people would have tolerated for a week, much less for years.

Imagine the fury in the U.S. if such a sequence had been launched against us from Mexico. Northern Mexico would be a glass parking lot by now, but the Israelis somehow are considered “disproportionate” after years of tolerating these attacks.

Tomorrow it may have to be the U.S. that again carries the battle, not because we want to be an Empire nor the World’s Policeman, as you put it, yet who else is there?

Well, we in America know, or used to know. There are you Brits. At least there once were you Brits, our constant friends, the source of our laws, our ideals and beliefs, of our founding fathers; the providers of a debt, that as I’ve said, we can never completely pay, for it must always remain as a reminder of the why of The Special Relationship. But I sense a willingness on your people's part, as part of the greater Europe, to toss that over the fence, too.

And from most of Europe, we hear nothing but anti-American drivel about our descent into fascism, or failure to….whatever. It makes me, and a lot of us, sick to hear of it. Sick. Vanderleun may yet be proved right, as his view is the only opposition to Krauthammer’s, save that of the Jihadis, or of the cowards among us.

Terrorism is a tactic in the war. The poor Brazilian man was a victim, and in the wrong place in London, just as were any of the victims of this war at any one time. The Israeli children, the Lebanese mother, the Iraqi doctor or the London librarian, the American soldier or his wife…Liam, the list is endless…all are casualties in this war, and none is more tragic than the other.

All the tears are fungible, Liam. But that’s not a reason, let alone not a permission, to stop defending ourselves with whatever imperfect means we have at any one time and place. If I make a wrong choice in the operating room, and a patient is harmed, the solution is for me to do better, not to stop trying to destroy brain cancer. We have no choice but to deal with our realities and to do as best we can, patiently and until we destroy our enemy’s capacity to destroy us.

I simply cannot understand why this, which seems so obvious to me, is so obscure to so many. Not all are in Europe, by the way; millions of Americans are similarly afflicted. And none of those who hope that America be “brought to heel” or better even, to fail…to be constrained…to no longer be The World’s Policeman, have any idea what kind of a world would emerge from their puerile hopes.

To be blunt about it, there will be no painless victory by the Jihadis. Imagine for a moment that we of the West decide to become Dhimmis after all; to just give it up and hope for the best….sort of like the last generation's pacifist “Better Red Than Dead” scenario.

What remains is precisely the rest of the world that you accuse us of ignoring.

Does anyone think that the Indians will accept Dhimmitude? They’re nuclear armed and came close to nuclear war with Pakistan just a few years ago. It was Cowboy Bush and the hated Rumsfeld of Gitmo who defused that situation.

How about the Israelis? They’ve got an estimated 200 nukes and the means to deliver them. With nothing to lose, and no US to counsel otherwise or protect them from their executioners, does anybody believe that when faced with literal extinction, they will simply go, clutching their children to their breasts, passively into the ovens for the second time in a hundred years?

As the world is currently constituted, that Cowboy President and the sixty million of us who re-elected him are most of what there is between Krauthammer’s hopes, and a fate beyond imagining. There are some in Europe that are willing to fight, but they haven’t the means.

My reading is that even you Brits have no stomach for any more of the fun that Iraq provides. It’s peculiar and sad, I think, for the descendents of Braveheart and of the warriors who conquered the world bringing English Law wherever they went, to “go wobbly” at this critical time and place in history. You need Churchill now, at least as much as you did in 1939. We all do.

Personally, I don’t want to be anything but somebody’s grandpa. I didn’t ask to be a citizen of The Empire, but here we are. Unless somebody else steps up to the plate, somebody who’s not even suited up yet, we’re going to have to bat, like it or not.

Go ahead, Europe, get into the game, but do it fast, for the game will be over if you diddle around much longer.

This is a lot to listen to, my friend. Sorry to burden you with it, but it’s been there for a couple of weeks, moldering, fermenting, and it just burst out, I guess. Painful, I know, but heartfelt, and I believe, true.