What we can learn from the UK...

Melanie Phillips writes a great piece today titled Preventing National Suicide - Tips on conserving and protecting from across the pond. Here is the closing half:

... Obama believes America has to expiate its sins: both its original, Founding sins of slavery and racism, and its latter-day sins against the world of Islam. Britain likes the sound of that. It wants America to be humbled. Nations, it thinks, cause wars. Arrogant, hubristic, imperial nations like Bush’s America cause big and horrible wars. By contrast transnational institutions — such as the sacred UN or EU — promote civilised “engagement” with the enemy to discuss grievances and reach compromises. So it is thrilled that Obama will get out of Iraq and talk to Iran and may even force wretched Israel (which Britain blames for Everything Bad in the World) to give away the disputed territories and half of Jerusalem to the Arabs.

The fact that such actions would leave Iraq in chaos, empower Iran still further, destroy Israel’s security and imperil the free world doesn’t trouble it at all. And if Obama, under the responsibility of office, should change from an appeaser to a war leader in America’s national interest, then Britain’s new found love for America would revert once again into rage and disdain.

Of course. transnational progressivism, multiculturalism, victim culture, pacifism. and all the rest of it do amount to a national suicide note. The reason Britain has embraced them is because, for the past several decades, it has lost belief in itself as a nation and so has been systematically hollowing out its values and its defences.

The result is a cultural vacuum which is steadily being filled by radical Islamism. Paralyzed by its “universal” value system of multiculturalism and minority rights, Britain is failing to assert its own civilisational principles against the cultural onslaught being mounted by Islamists. Accordingly, it is permitting the spread of Muslim enclaves governed by a parallel jurisdiction of sharia law — the steady creation of a “state within a state” — encouraging the development of sharia finance, and permitting Saudi money to fund British universities and other institutions.

Millions of Britons are appalled by the implosion of British culture, identity, and values. But they find themselves politically disenfranchized, because the Conservative party does not understand that British values are under attack. And Republicans should take careful note of this in order to recognize a similar danger and dilemma facing them following their defeat.

The British Conservatives think that, to regain power, they have to show they have broken with cultural conservatism and go instead with the way society has changed — gay rights, green politics, anti-racism. What they have failed to grasp is that such change has turned values such as right and wrong, good and bad on their heads and has produced a sentimentalised, cruel, oppressive and perverse society — one where burglars go scot-free but householders are prosecuted for putting the wrong kind of garbage in the trash can, and where people are too frightened to protest at the erosion of British, Christian, or Western values because of the opprobrium that will follow.

The Conservatives don’t realize that by embracing such “change” they are endorsing a kind of enslavement. They don’t realize that the first duty of a conservative is to conserve that which is precious and protect it against attack. The result is that millions feel betrayed and abandoned by the absence of conservatism, and yet more still think the Conservative party is just a bunch of opportunists who don’t have any principles. Why vote for the progressive wannabes, after all, when you can have the real thing?

The challenge for conservatives on both sides of the pond is to find a way of conserving the essential values of Western Civilization and defend them against the onslaught being mounted against them both from within and from without — but to do so in a way that is generous and big-hearted rather than narrow and sectarian, and embraces rather than repels.

Very well-done, I think. It won't be easy, as anything conservative is often painted as hateful and mean by the U.S. media. Is a humbled, apologetic United States really a good thing for the rest of the world? I don't think so, but I guess we'll see.

Save the planet... don't have kids? (updated)

Please God, save us from ourselves... literally:

At the age of 27 this young woman at the height of her reproductive years was sterilised to "protect the planet".

Incredibly, instead of mourning the loss of a family that never was, her boyfriend (now husband) presented her with a congratulations card.

While some might think it strange to celebrate the reversal of nature and denial of motherhood, Toni relishes her decision with an almost religious zeal.

"Having children is selfish. It's all about maintaining your genetic line at the expense of the planet," says Toni, 35.

"Every person who is born uses more food, more water, more land, more fossil fuels, more trees and produces more rubbish, more pollution, more greenhouse gases, and adds to the problem of over-population."

While most parents view their children as the ultimate miracle of nature, Toni seems to see them as a sinister threat to the future.

It's an extreme stance which one might imagine is born from an unhappy childhood or an upbringing among parents who share similar, strong beliefs.

Good grief! Where have we heard this before... the environuts taking their twisted logic to the point where the answer is human extinction? Start here.

From LifeSite.net:

Global populations have been falling dramatically and few countries of the developed world have a fertility rate higher than bare replacement level. Recent statistics have shown that nearly 40 per cent of the world’s countries have fertility rates from 0 to 2.4 children born per woman, whereas the bare minimum replacement level is 2.1.

A United Nations report showed in August this year that 28 per cent of the world’s countries allow abortion on demand. 84 per cent of the wealthier countries allow abortion on eugenic grounds for “foetal impairment”; 78 per cent allow it on “economic or social” grounds and 84 per cent of wealthy countries allow abortion in cases of rape or incest.

But not everyone is as sanguine about humanity’s impending self-induced extinction. Mark Steyn wrote last year that the falling fertility levels in Europe and the formerly Christian west will spell the end of western civilization. “We are living through a remarkable period: the self-extinction of the races who, for good or ill, shaped the modern world,” Steyn wrote.

“Much of what we loosely call the Western world will not survive this century, and much of it will effectively disappear within our lifetimes, including many if not most Western European countries....Europe by the end of this century will be a continent after the neutron bomb: The grand buildings will still be standing, but the people who built them will be gone.”

Mark Steyn on the "logical reduction of environmentalism:


Hat tip to HotAir with Save the planet: Have an abortion.

Oh, and how can we save the planet? It's so obvious!

Update: Right on queue, Mac Johnson chimes in with some outstanding commentary:

... But don’t think I am critical of the eco-sterility cause. For once, I have found a leftist movement that I totally agree with. Leftist should not breed under any circumstances. If we can get 100% compliance on this point, we’re just one generation away from a better world. I think it’s fair to say that Vernelli and her kind are absolutely correct: the fewer children they have, the better.

It amuses me greatly that the greatest political proponents of evolutionary theory today, western leftists, are about to be its most recent victims. I can assure you that no species, no group, no community has ever successfully evolved childlessness as one of its defining characteristics. The dinosaurs and the Shakers tried, but for some reason they’re not around today to share their wisdom on the subject.

By contrast, social conservatives the world over, many of whom reject or question evolution as a theory, are all set to be the theory’s great winners, since they maintain the traditional love of family. But then it doesn’t matter who believes Mr. Darwin. It just matters who has kids. The future belongs to those who send descendants there.

The future will not belong to those that commit evolutionary suicide because they are fretting overly about their carbon footprint. It is safe to say, therefore, that the future will not belong to sterile vegan animal rights activist environmental patients.

Whew! One less thing to worry about.

Wouldn't that be nice!

Kathleen Parker also chimes in with Survival of the Stupidest.

Babies aborted for minor disabilities..

From the TimesOnline in the UK:

MORE than 50 babies with club feet were aborted in just one area of England in a three-year period, according to new statistics.

Thirty-seven babies with cleft lips or palates and 26 with extra or webbed fingers or toes were also aborted.

The data have raised concerns about abortions being carried out for minor disabilities that could be cured by surgery.

...

In 2003 Joanna Jepson, a Church of England curate, instigated a legal challenge against West Mercia police for failing to prosecute doctors who carried out an abortion on a baby with a cleft palate at 28 weeks’ gestation. The challenge failed but raised public concerns over terminations for minor disabilities.

However, the latest figures — released by the South West Congenital Anomaly Register — show that dozens of abortions are still carried out after the condition is discovered.

Jepson, now vicar of St Peter’s church in Fulham, west London, said: “These figures raise grave questions about how the law is being implemented for babies diagnosed with a disability. I have strong doubts that the law is being used to protect the unborn.”

Also, the Archbishop of Canterbury urges re-think on abortion:

... There were nearly 200,000 abortions in England and Wales in 2005, according to the Department of Health, and a recent survey by the medical journal Lancet reported that one-third of pregnancies in Europe ends in abortion.

There have been calls in Britain for the upper time limit on abortions to be shortened from 24 weeks to 21 weeks but a recent parliamentary bill on the matter was defeated.

The archbishop made no direct call for legislation to be tightened, but he pointed out the paradox he saw between those who campaign for greater "foetal rights", condemning women who smoke during pregnancy, but fail to speak out about abortion.

Abortion is a far less politicised issue in Britain than in the United States. However, several bills have been introduced in parliament in recent months by legislators looking to tighten restrictions and prompt women to think harder about the issue.

Good.

Choosing the wrong side in the UK...

Has the Sun Set on the British Isle? by Rabbi Aryeh Spero:

Something is rotten in the state of England. A series of recent decisions and proclamations by prestigious English institutions reveals an indifference to its own English way of life and a submission to brazen demands made by domestic Islamic groups which could forever diminish the historic English culture. In addition, British organizations are issuing alarming statements telegraphing an official loathing of America and Israel. In fact, a German author has aptly entitled a recent book warning of the pervasive obsequiousness weakening today’s England and Europe: "Hurray, We are Capitulating."

A highly vocal Islamic group in England is demanding that British public schools reshape entire curricula and school activities to conform to Islamic beliefs and attitudes so that Moslem students feel comfortable. In effect, English schools may begin looking and acting more like Islamic schools than what has been the traditional English one. Infected by political correctness and multiculturalism, many top British officials and its Department of Education seem ready to begin testing the "plan", though it will probably result in the discomfort of the millions of majority students who are not Moslem and impose behaviors that effectively sideline British ways in Britain itself.

Schools may soon be required to have separate swimming for boys and girls and require that girls and boys wear swimsuits covering from the neck to the knee. If such a request had come from the Church of England it would have, for certain, been summarily shot down. Certain sports, such as tennis, alien to many Islamic countries, as well as other recreational activities may soon be prohibited. There will be times set aside for prayer, with designated Islamic prayer rooms and rugs; no meat will be served during the month of Ramadan and pork will be prohibited in school throughout the entire year. There are many more demands. ...

Read the rest.

And they think we're in a funk.

How to grow a terrorist at home

UK: Muslims protest Rushdie knighthood

Courtesy of AllahPundit:

Must-watch dispatches on UK Mosques...

"An ideology of bigotry and intolerance spreading through Britain".

Britain is screwed:
Part I of III from Kasper1062:

This investigation into Britain's mosques, by Channel 4's respected Dispatches programme,has revealed worrying evidence of just how rife Islamic extremism is among Muslim preachers.

The undercover TV inquiry, conducted over ten months, reveals some religious clerics urging their congregations to start preparing for jihad (holy war) against infidels or non-Muslims. Another is caught on camera telling families to hit their daughters for not covering their heads with the veil or hijab.

One imam from a Derby mosque, called Dr Ijaz Mian, was filmed calling for the creation of an Islamic 'state within a state' in Britain before the country is taken over by Muslims.

Addressing a group of youths, he said: 'King. Queen. House of Commons ... if you accept it, you are part of it. If you don't accept it, you have to dismantle it. So you being a Muslim, you have to fix a target. There will be no House of Commons ... Muslims just grow in strength ... then take over.'

The programme paints an alarming picture of how preachers, even at what are regarded as the most moderate mosques, urge their followers to reject Britain's legal system in favour of shariah law and its radical rulebook.

The investigators spent four months filming undercover at one mosque, Green Lane in Birmingham, which caters for thousands of worshippers.

The main preacher is Abu Usamah, an American convert to Islam, who studied at Medinah University in Saudi Arabia, before coming to Britain. He is seen telling worshippers not to believe that Islamic terrorists are operating in Britain, as all non-Muslims are liars.

In another sequence, he is heard saying that Christians and Jews are 'kuffaars' (non-believers) and the enemies of Islam. 'No one loves the kuffaar, not a single person loves the kuffaar,' he rants. 'We hate the kuffaar!' Then he adds, triumphantly: 'Allah has not given those people who are kuffaar a way over the believer. They shouldn't be in authority over us. Muslims shouldn't be satisfied with anything other than a total Islamic state.

'I encourage all of you to begin to cultivate ourselves for the time that is fast approaching - where the tables are going to turn and the Muslims are going to be in the position of being uppermost in strength. And when that happens, people won't get killed - unjustly,' he promises.

As for women, he says they are 'deficient, even if they have a PhD. Her intellect is incomplete. She may be suffering from hormones that will make her emotional. It takes two witnesses of a woman to equal the one witness of a man.'

He goes on to say that gays deserve to die. 'If I were to call homosexuals perverted, dirty, filthy dogs who should be murdered ... that's my freedom of speech, isn't it?'

The TV investigators also bought damning videos and DVDs of speeches by Muslim preachers from a shop at the London Central Mosque in Regent's Park.

The mosque has always been hailed by the Muslim Council of Britain and the Government as a symbol of reason and mainstream Islamic life in this country.

But the programme's team found copies of films of preachers decrying the equality of women as a 'bunch of foolishness' and claiming that Christian missionaries put the Aids virus into medicines in order to poison the people of Africa.

The TV exposé, like the Mail's own investigation in Surrey, shows that the systematic brainwashing of Muslims by their religious leaders is now commonplace. And it appears to be producing results.

Twenty-eight per cent said they believed Britain should be an Islamic state. In another worrying sign, one in three young Muslims said that the London bombings were justified because Britain had joined America in the 'war on terror'.

Part II:

Part III:


(Thanks to Allah for the tip.)

Big Players in the main-stream-media showing their true colors... (updated)

Click the image to the right for today's Vent with Michelle Malkin on the continuing devolution of the "international" MSM, with CNN leading the way.

Michelle has been all over the MSM "old" media of late...

If only CNN were honest enough to admit what the BBC now admits: They're biased. They're dhimmis. And they hate America!

She also covers the latest on the NY Times and the calamity of Calame...

Blaming the White House ain't gonna cut it, Mr. Calame. If you're going to write a mea culpa, write a mea culpa.

Haven't the front-page Busha culpas embarrassed your newspaper enough?

Are the terrorists wrong and evil, or do they just have a different perspective? CNN, the BBC and the NT Times feel the latter... and blame us/Bush for the terrorists actions in the first place.

Update: Michelle on O'Reilly.

Update #2: Michelle covers the tracking down of Iraqi snipers.

Update #3: A "Ca-lame" response to Michelle.

Jack Straw from... Londonistan?

Michelle links this op-ed from the Times of London:

... Some Muslim women say that it is their choice to wear it; I don’t agree. Why would any woman living in a tolerant country freely choose to wear such a restrictive garment? What these women are really saying is that they adopt the veil because they believe that they should have less freedom than men, and that if they did not wear the veil men would not be accountable for their uncontrollable urges — so women must cover-up so as not to tempt men. What kind of a message does that send to women?

---

Why would any woman
living in a tolerant country
freely choose to wear
such a restrictive garment?

---

But a lot of women are not free to choose. Girls as young as three or four are wearing the hijab to school — that is not a freely made choice. Girls under 16 should certainly not have to wear it to school. And behind the closed doors of some Muslim houses, women are told to wear the hijab and the veil. These are the girls that are hidden away, they are not allowed to go to universities, they have little choice in who they marry, in many cases they are kept down by the threat of violence.

So for women such as them it was absolutely right for Jack Straw to raise this issue. Nobody should feel threatened by his comments; after all, the debate about veils has been raging in the Islamic community for many years. To argue that non-Muslims have no right to discuss it merely reinforces the idea that Muslims are not part of a wider society. It also suggests, wrongly, that wearing the veil affects only Muslims. Non-Muslims have to deal with women wearing a veil, so why shouldn’t their feelings be taken into consideration? I would find it impossible to deal with any veiled woman because it goes so deeply against my own values and basic human instincts. How can you develop any kind of a social relationship with someone who has shut themselves away from the rest of the world?

---

How can you develop any kind
of a social relationship
with someone who has shut themselves
away from the rest of the world?

---

And if we can’t have a debate about the veil without a vocal minority of Muslims crying “Islamophobia”, how will we face other issues, such as domestic violence, forced marriages, sexual abuse and child abuse that are rife in the Muslim community?

Robert Spencer is at the helm for today's Vent:


Praise Jack Straw, and read Melanie Phillips' Londonistan.

Update: Unfree Under Islam

Muslim women across the world are caught in a terrible predicament. They aspire to live by their faith as best they can, but their faith robs them of their rights. Some women have found a way out of this dilemma in the principle of separation of organized religion and state affairs. They fight an uphill battle to achieve and hold on to their basic rights.

The Politics of Hypocrisy...

Here's part of a nice article from Jim Clonts:

... The modern liberal loves hypocrisy. It's just too easy and so politically correct. When faced with a diverse point of view, just raise the notion that your opponent is not worthy of taking a position. Some favorite fodder for liberals in our national history include slavery, our treatment of the American Indian, ignoring the Holocaust, US support for the Shah of Iran, the Iran-Contra fiasco, Viet Nam, and, of course, faulty intelligence about Iraqi WMDs. No matter the topic of discussion, you can bet the liberals will bring up one of these as proof we are we are not allowed to assume the moral high ground.

---

When faced with a diverse point of view,
just raise the notion that your opponent
is not worthy of taking a position.

---

Every now and then I watch Prime Minister's Questions on C-Span. This is where the Prime Minister of Great Britain stands before the House of Commons and answers their questions. The first time I saw this I was astounded. Here was Tony Blair of the Labor Party receiving questions from his Conservative rivals and actually responding on-topic to the question at hand. They actually addressed each other, made extremely persuasive arguments, and debated national topics. Unlike our Congress, where most speeches are political sound bites made to empty chambers, or our presidential debates, where the candidates are not allowed to address each other directly, these men and women actually called each other on the carpet. At the end of the evening, the average British citizen not only knows why Blair supports an issue, they know both sides of the issue and can form their own decision.

Although all politicians are capable of political-speak, I've never heard a liberal actually answer a question with a salient, on-topic answer. They constantly criticize the war in Iraq and our efforts to fight terror, but when asked what they would do differently, they spout something like, "George Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction and took us into this war under false pretenses. Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with September 11th. We must change course. New leadership is required, a new vision, a new strategy." Did I miss something here? The President's stated strategy is to train the Iraqi security forces until they can handle the job themselves, then bring our forces home. This may or may not be a good strategy, but it is a strategy. If the Democrats have a better one, what is it? I'm not opposed to a better strategy. How about giving us one, please!

Maybe they have one and just won't admit it. The only pretense of a Democrat strategy I've heard so far is from Howard Dean, John Kerry and John Murtha. They say to pull our troops out immediately. This is not a popular strategy with the American people, so most Democrats won't adopt it. Staying the course, however, is not exactly popular either. At least the President has the guts to stand by his convictions. If leaving Iraq to the insurgents is really the right thing to do, then the Dems need to stand behind their convictions, popular or not, and let the American people decide their fate in November.

---

Modern liberals have either forgotten
how to debate or have decided
it does not serve them well to try.

---

Modern liberals have either forgotten how to debate or have decided it does not serve them well to try. They just attack, typically with very effective one-liners completely out of the context of the debate. One-liners are great sound bite fodder for the media. Comprehensive and complex arguments are too long for a news update between My Name is Earl and The Office, or for the moving ticker-tape at the bottom of the screen on cable news networks. ...

Very nice Jim!

Blair: '[W]e will not win until we shake ourselves free of the wretched capitulation to the propaganda of the enemy'...

Tony Blair will be missed. Sky news has coverage.

From his final speech as PM at the annual Labour Party conference yesterday:

This is a struggle that will last a generation and more. But this I believe passionately: we will not win until we shake ourselves free of the wretched capitulation to the propaganda of the enemy, that somehow we are the ones responsible.

This terrorism isn't our fault. We didn't cause it.

It's not the consequence of foreign policy.

It's an attack on our way of life.

It's global.

It has an ideology.

It killed nearly 3,000 people including over 60 British on the streets of New York before war in Afghanistan or Iraq was even thought of.

It has been decades growing.

Its victims are in Egypt, Algeria, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Turkey.

Over 30 nations in the world.

It preys on every conflict.

It exploits every grievance.

And its victims are mainly Muslim.

This is not our war against Islam.

This is a war fought by extremists who pervert the true faith of Islam. And all of us, Western and Arab, Christian or Muslim, who put the value of tolerance, respect and peaceful co-existence above those of sectarian hatred, should join together to defeat them.

It is not British soldiers who are sending car bombs into Baghdad or Kabul to slaughter the innocent.

They are there along with troops of 30 other nations with, in each case, a full UN mandate at the specific request of the first ever democratically elected Governments of those countries in order to protect them against the very ideology also seeking the deaths of British people in planes across the Atlantic.

If we retreat now, hand Iraq over to Al Qaida and sectarian death squads and Afghanistan back to Al Qaida and the Taleban, we won't be safer; we will be committing a craven act of surrender that will put our future security in the deepest peril.

Of course it's tough.

Not a day goes by or an hour in the day when I don't reflect on our troops with admiration and thanks - the finest, the best, the bravest, any nation could hope for.

They are not fighting in vain. But for this nation's future.

Straight-talk. (Video)

Tony Blair is right...

I copied this out of a previous post because it deserves to stand on it's own. There's also an update below that just irks the heck out of me.

It seems clear that we're not going to have the cojones to truly take the upper hand in the war against Islamic Fascism. I'll say this though: Tony Blair has done his part.

"The danger with America today is not that they are too much involved." ... "We want them engaged. The reality is that none of the problems that press in on us can be resolved or even contemplated without them"

Bravo Mr. Blair.

Jimmy carter is either shamelessly anti-American or recklessly naive.

For God's sake... can someone please tell Carter that he's not helping!!!

"Ex-US President Jimmy Carter has said he is "disappointed" by the apparently subservient attitude of the British government towards the White House.

Mr Carter said Tony Blair was a good man, but could have used his influence with President Bush more wisely. ...

... Mr Carter told Newsnight: "I have been really disappointed in the apparent subservience of the British government's policies related to many of the serious mistakes that have been originated in Washington."

Mr Carter, an opponent of the US-led war in Iraq, added: "No matter what kind of radical or ill-advised policy was proposed from the White House, it seems to me that almost automatically the government of Great Britain would adopt the same policy without exerting its influence. ...

... Asked if he thought Britain was exerting its influence behind the scenes, Jimmy Carter replied he had seen no evidence of that.

"I haven't seen the corrective effect of British disagreement with what the White House has proposed. It may be there, it hasn't been evident to the public," he said.

I don't know about this, but Jimmy is flat-out delusional. He would be the first one the Islamic Fascists/Radicals would kill if he wasn't so damn helpful to their cause. Correction... they don't care, they'd kill him without blinking an eye.

How about this for a plan...'we win, they lose'.

... and as Michael Reagan suggests, it's kill or be killed:

... This incident is an example of the out-of-control political correctness that is driving the U.S. strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan. Out of fear of offending the people whose freedom we are fighting to ensure, we are waging a war by half-measures.

Our enemy is a furtive force lurking hidden among the civilian population, using civilians as human shields. The only way to deal with these fanatical insurgents is to kill them all, and in order to kill them all you have to be willing to inflict unintended damage on the civilian population, just as we did when we bombed Berlin and Tokyo and Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

When you fight this kind of war, you incur the wrath of the media and the anti-war left, who remain ever-alert for any chance to charge the U.S. with committing “atrocities.” When you allow fear of their reaction to dictate the rules of engagement, you allow them to lead you to defeat.

“War is Hell,” Sherman once said. It still is, and always will be. Live with it, or go hide someplace and hope the victorious enemy won’t find you and cut your head off, a form of political incorrectness that doesn’t bother them one bit. ...

You've got to be freaking kidding me... we're doomed:

... U.S. intelligence officers in Afghanistan are still fuming about the recent lost opportunity for an easy kill of Taliban honchos packed in tight formation for the burial, NBC News reported.

The unmanned airplane, circling undetected high overhead, fed a continuous satellite feed of the juicy target to officers on the ground.

"We were so excited. I came rushing in with the picture," one U.S. Army officer told NBC.

But that excitement quickly turned to gut-wrenching frustration because the rules of engagement on the ground in Afghanistan blocked the U.S. from mounting a missile or bomb strike in a cemetery, according to the report. ...

Complete and utter insanity. "Rules of engagement"? I'm sorry... when it's clear that your enemy's only "rule" is that there are no rules, you must adjust and do what is necessary to defeat them.

Coming right after ABC's "Path to 9/11" that noted the numerous government failures to kill the enemy when the opportunities presented themselves, this is even more mind-numbing.

It seems clear that we're not going to have the cojones to truly take the upper hand in the war against Islamic Facism. I'll say this though: Tony Blair has done his part.

"The danger with America today is not that they are too much involved." ... "We want them engaged. The reality is that none of the problems that press in on us can be resolved or even contemplated without them"

Bravo Mr. Blair.

(hat tips to Michelle Malkin)

Fred Huchison get's it:

"Islamo-fascist terror represents the greatest unleashing of cosmic evil since the Communists and the Nazis. Islamo-fascists seek nothing less than the destruction of civilization, the destruction of the West, and bringing the entire world under barbarous, totalitarian, Islamist regimes."

An issue of threat assessment...

Tony Blankley nails it:

... All those critics who say we should change our foreign policies because we are causing the Islamists to attack us are - whether they use the term or not - arguing to appease aggressors by changing ourselves in conformity with the aggressor's desires.

The politically correct crowd who say we should change the way we talk, think and behave, change our surveillance of Muslims, even here in America, because it offends Islamist sensibilities - wish to gain safety by appeasing the violent and offended Islamists.

These arguments are not immoral or cowardly. If we could vouchsafe America from the danger of nuclear, biological and other mass slaughters of millions of our citizens, it would be reckless not to carefully consider such appeasements.

This is an issue of threat assessment. The appeasers don't see the threat as so great. Thus they think we are overreacting and even adding to the problem.

---

The appeasers don't see the
threat as so great.
Thus they think we are overreacting
and even adding to the problem.

---

But for President Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Tony Blair, Australian Prime Minister Howard and (considerably lower on the food chain) me and millions of others, we are convinced that no amount of appeasement of the terrorists' desires will make us safer.

As I wrote in my book last year ("The West's Last Chance"), just as Hitler's Nazis, the radical Islamists are irreconcilable and unlimited in their goals. And, they are expanding their reach into the broad grass roots of Islam throughout the world (including in Europe and the United States).

A maximum effort to extirpate the malignancy is the only and best defense for our way of life.

I'm not against the appeasers because they are immoral or cowardly. I merely disagree with them because I believe that, like Neville Chamberlain, they underestimate the threat, and are thus dangerously wrong.

Damn that's good.

Newt is also on the money... with five big facts that we must confront on this fifth anniversary.

1: The Threat Is Mortal, Direct and Immediate.

2: The Threat Is Global and Involves Increasing Cooperation Among an Emerging Anti-American Coalition

3: Our Enemies Are Increasingly Confident and Clear in Their Statements of What They Intend to Do to Defeat Us

4: Despite These Clear Facts There Is Great Confusion Among our Elites and in the News Media and, Therefore, Among the American People

5: If the Threat Is Truly This Great, Then We Have to Confront the Fact That Much More Must be Done if We Are to Win

BBC: 'Lets sit down and talk with Osama'...

BBC urges appeasement:



AllahPundit has the story.

... Without further ado, then. It opens at Ground Zero and closes at the Iwo Jima Memorial, just to make the message of surrender that much more rancid and astonishing. Dedicated to a special lady who can’t figure out what crazy Don Rumsfeld’s so worried about.

Love and war.

(Orignial video link here.)

Rather than elevate the culture, the BBC degrades it—at public expense...

Dalrymple, on Subsidized Stupidity:

For a license to receive television broadcasts in their homes, British households must pay an annual fee of about $200 (soon to rise), which subsidizes the once famous but now increasingly infamous BBC. This broadcasting system exemplifies two of the guiding principles of contemporary British public life: the active promotion of vulgarity and the shameless looting of the public purse. ...

State-run news.

Unrelated, but also from Dalrymple... if you have 10-15 minutes, please read The Frivolity of Evil from two years ago.

... So while my patients know in their hearts that what they are doing is wrong, and worse than wrong, they are encouraged nevertheless to do it by the strong belief that they have the right to do it, because everything is merely a matter of choice. Almost no one in Britain ever publicly challenges this belief. Nor has any politician the courage to demand a withdrawal of the public subsidy that allows the intensifying evil I have seen over the past 14 years—violence, rape, intimidation, cruelty, drug addiction, neglect—to flourish so exuberantly. With 40 percent of children in Britain born out of wedlock, and the proportion still rising, and with divorce the norm rather than the exception, there soon will be no electoral constituency for reversal. It is already deemed to be electoral suicide to advocate it by those who, in their hearts, know that such a reversal is necessary.

I am not sure they are right. They lack courage. My only cause for optimism during the past 14 years has been the fact that my patients, with a few exceptions, can be brought to see the truth of what I say: that they are not depressed; they are unhappy—and they are unhappy because they have chosen to live in a way that they ought not to live, and in which it is impossible to be happy. Without exception, they say that they would not want their children to live as they have lived. But the social, economic, and ideological pressures—and, above all, the parental example—make it likely that their children's choices will be as bad as theirs.

Ultimately, the moral cowardice of the intellectual and political elites is responsible for the continuing social disaster that has overtaken Britain, a disaster whose full social and economic consequences have yet to be seen. A sharp economic downturn would expose how far the policies of successive governments, all in the direction of libertinism, have atomized British society, so that all social solidarity within families and communities, so protective in times of hardship, has been destroyed. The elites cannot even acknowledge what has happened, however obvious it is, for to do so would be to admit their past responsibility for it, and that would make them feel bad. Better that millions should live in wretchedness and squalor than that they should feel bad about themselves—another aspect of the frivolity of evil. Moreover, if members of the elite acknowledged the social disaster brought about by their ideological libertinism, they might feel called upon to place restraints upon their own behavior, for you cannot long demand of others what you balk at doing yourself.

There are pleasures, no doubt, to be had in crying in the wilderness, in being a man who thinks he has seen further and more keenly than others, but they grow fewer with time. The wilderness has lost its charms for me.

I'm leaving—I hope for good.

Enlightening.

Replacing Kofi...

This article's premise that Kofi "has done well" is debatable. Many of us would have liked to see Kofi pay the price for the staggeringly massive oil for food scandal, but change at the top of the U.N. is coming and that process appears to me to be both interesting and somewhat discouraging.

... In a thoroughly opaque process - not greatly dissimilar to the selection of a new pope - some of the fifteen countries on the UN Security Council have already put forward candidates for consideration. In late July 2006, the council held its first straw poll. Each government signaled its preferences by marking on secret ballots whether it would "encourage" or "discourage" a candidate or offer "no opinion". The second straw poll - seen as hugely significant in terms of the final outcome - is likely to be held very shortly.

Although many of the proposed candidates have impressive records of political and diplomatic service behind them, none of them is widely known beyond their home countries or outside of the UN system. The four main contenders are from Asia, a reflection of an existing unwritten rule that the top UN job should rotate and that this time is Asia's turn.

The marginal frontrunner to succeed Annan is Ban Ki-Moon, minister of foreign affairs and trade in South Korea. In the July straw poll he received more "encouragements" and fewer "discouragements" than any other candidate. He has good relations with the United States (having served twice in the Korean embassy in Washington) and with China. Ki-Moon has been deeply involved in trying to reduce tensions on the Korean peninsula, including a major role in attempting to defuse the North Korean nuclear issue at the fifth round of the six-party talks on Korea, held in Beijing in November 2005. But ironically this may work against him. There are few people who appear to have the trust of the Chinese, the North Koreans and the other parties to this process, and there may be pressure to keep him in post.

No one on the list of "contenders" is from the U.S., U.K., or Australia... other than Tony Blair and Bill Clinton at the bottom as "Populist Long Shots". Shocking.

BBC: Execution of a Teenage Girl

On August 15th, 2004 a 16-year-old girl was hanged in a public square in Neka, Iran, a small industrial town by the Caspian Sea. Her death sentence was for crimes against chastity. Her name was Atefah Sahaaleh. The only evidence against Atefah was her own forced confession.

Atefah railed against her judge in court for its unfairness, but this was her undoing. Judge Haji Rezai, who was also the local mullah, prosecutor and head of the city administration, personally obtained permission from Iran's Supreme Court to execute her, and put the noose around her neck himself before she was hoisted on a crane jib arm to her death.

Using undercover footage, eyewitness accounts and drama recontruction, this film tells an unforgettable story of the life and tragic death of an ordinary teenage girl under Iran's mullahs:



Here's a previous post.

Anti-Americanism is the internationalism of imbeciles...

An British perspective looking in... interesting:

ANYONE WHO THINKS of American foreign policy in the Middle East as cussed, overzealous, hot-headed and hypocritical will be unconsoled to learn that this was the kind of thing people were saying about Puritanism and its adherents some four hundred years ago. Like so much else in modern America, its actions abroad should be viewed through the prism of the country’s root religion, Puritanism. ...

... Abstemious in their own lives, they take brief working holidays in Mexico or Montego Bay, where their conversation is laced with laments about the drinking, drug taking and sexual improvidence of the young and the poor. To minimise contact with “losers” they live in gated communities, send their children to private schools and bequeath them just enough to provide a headstart for becoming upstanding self-made men, in the image of their fathers. ...

The rest... here.

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The British Sunday Times uncovers the "new woman"...

The "new woman" is a housewife:

A NEW breed of educated women has discovered the secret of a happy marriage — opting to stay at home instead of pursuing a career.

The phenomenon, in which wives prefer their husbands to be the main breadwinner, has been identified by American sociologists and is now gaining a foothold in Britain.

Unlike the housewives of the 1950s, who had little choice over rearing children and acting as homemaker, this generation of women is building on the advances of the feminist movement to determine their optimum lifestyle.

The women are predominantly drawn from the middle classes and have young offspring. They regard themselves as “at-home mothers”, seeing their prime responsibility as bringing up the children rather than housekeeping.

They include women who have given up jobs altogether as well as those who have taken extended career breaks to be with their children throughout their upbringing.

According to research by academics at the University of Virginia, 52% of modern housewives describe themselves as “very happy” with their marriages compared with 41% of working women.

Other key ingredients to matrimonial bliss include an attentive and emotionally responsive husband, a sense of fairness in a relationship and a lifelong commitment to the institution of marriage.

Women who go to church with their husbands also claim they are happier than those who do not, according to the study, which is based on the responses of more than 5,000 couples.

“Progressive women with kids at home feel it is a legitimate choice,” said Brad Wilcox, co-author of the report, which has been published in the Social Forces journal.

In a second study that has not yet been published, Wilcox found that even wives who described themselves as feminists claimed they were happier staying at home to raise children. The research shows fairness is seen as vital, although this need not mean splitting domestic chores down the middle.

In most marriages, wives do twice as much housework as husbands, yet only 30% of women in the study thought their relationship was unfair.

“They tend to think things are fair, either because the man is taking the lead in breadwinning and/or he is taking care of the car and other household affairs,” said Wilcox.

With divorces in Britain reaching a seven-year high in 2004, the latest year for which figures are available, some couples might heed the example of Jessica Renison, a self-declared “liberated” housewife.

Renison, 33, a former English teacher from Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, has chosen to stay at home to raise her 16-month-old son George, while her husband Mark continues to teach physics at a secondary school.

“I certainly feel a woman has a right to work if that is what she feels is right for her family,” said Renison. “But I am happier than I would be if I was working. If you are working, you can be torn between professional and home life.

“It is a difficult decision to make from a financial standpoint, but I do feel liberated.”

Kirsty Robeson, 32, from Wolsingham, County Durham, gave up her job in financial public relations to raise daughters, aged one, three and five.

“If your mind is fully occupied with other things and you don’t put the effort into marriage, then it can go awry,” said Robeson. “My husband Simon is involved emotionally with everything that happens at home and everything to do with the domestic side.”

The University of Virginia study does, however, have its critics. Claire Fox, director of the Institute of Ideas in London, said: “What makes a happy marriage is likely to be people engaging with each other. If the full extent of your relationships with the external world is the toddlers’ group, daytime TV and ironing, it has got its limits.”

Does this mean that the "new man" is going to make a comeback too?

The "obey your husband" part doesn't have a chance in my house :), but the feminist movement sure hasn't done the male role any favors in the last 40 years.

Related post here.

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Katie Cronkite: Good Night, and Good Pluck...

Katie Couric is getting $15M ($60K/day) to head over to CBS...good for her.

Is she liberal enough to replace Dan "I'm sticking to my story" Rather? We'll see.

The Media Research Center covers her "Years of Liberal Tilt" here.

This story about the 15 page "briefing book" resume to help the press tout her serious news qualifications is interesting. Howard Kurtz got the memo:

"After a 15-year run at Today in which Couric has interviewed everyone from President Bush, Tony Blair and Colin Powell to Bill Gates, Donald Trump and O.J. Simpson, her hard-news background is hardly in doubt."

Looks like Katie's replacement sure seems liberal enough for the Today show.

Not sure why I care enough to post on this anyway. I guess it will be interesting to see how it all pans out...like slowing down to see the car crash on the side of the road.

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Tony Blair is right...

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, March 21: (Video here)

"Here, in its most pure form, is a struggle between democracy and violence.

"We must reject the thought that somehow we are the authors of our own distress, that if only we altered this decision or that, the extremism would fade away. The only way to win is to recognize this phenomenon is a global ideology, to see all areas in which it operates as linked, and to defeat it by values and ideas set in opposition to those of the terrorists.

"The fundamental point: 'We' is not the West. 'We' are as much Muslim as Christian or Jew or Hindu. 'We' are those who believe in religious tolerance, openness to others, to democracy, liberty, and human rights administered by secular courts.

"This is not a clash between civilizations. It is a clash about civilization. It is the age-old battle between progress and reaction, between those who embrace and see opportunity in the modern world and those who reject its existence; between optimism and hope on the one hand, and pessimism and fear on the other.

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This is not a clash between civilizations.
It is a clash about civilization.

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"(The terrorists) know that if they can succeed either in Iraq or Afghanistan, or indeed in Lebanon or anywhere else wanting to go the democratic route, then the choice of a modern democratic future for the Arab or Muslim world is dealt a potentially mortal blow. Likewise if they fail, and those countries become democracies and make progress and, in the case of Iraq, prosper rapidly, then not merely is that a blow against their whole value system but it is the most effective message possible against their wretched propaganda about America, the West, the rest of the world.

"That to me is the painful irony of what is happening. They have so much clearer a sense of what is at stake. They play our own media with a shrewdness that would be the envy of many a political party. Every act of carnage adds to the death toll. But somehow it serves to indicate our responsibility for disorder rather than the act of wickedness that causes it. For us, so much of our opinion believes that what was done in Iraq in 2003 was so wrong that it is reluctant to accept what is plainly right now.

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That to me is the painful irony
of what is happening. They (terrorists)
have so much clearer a
sense of what is at stake.

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"What happens in Iraq or Afghanistan today is not just crucial for the people in those countries or even in those regions, but for our security here and round the world. It is a cause that has none of the debatable nature of the decisions to go for regime change. It is an entirely noble one - to help people in need of our help in pursuit of liberty - and a self-interested one, since in their salvation lies our own security."

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