Wednesday, December 01, 2004

Slavery in the 21st Century



Click here for AmazonThere's a thriving slave trade active -- even now, in the 21st century -- in certain corners of the world. I'll leave it up to you, my esteemed reader, to determine where responsibility lies for this abomination.

Slavery... is alive and well in the Islamic world. This report comes from Sandro Magister in Chiesa:

"Sudan’s first saint, Iosephina Bakhita, was canonized by John Paul II in the year 2000. From an early age she was made a slave, sold and resold at the El Obeid and Khartoum markets. She was fortunate to have ended up in Italy. It was in 1890 that she was finally freed and baptized.

"Yet today, more than a century later, there are still slaves found between the Sahara and the Nile. What’s more, it is slavery having its basis in Islam, inheritor of the trade which for centuries has forcibly sent 11-14 million Africans from the sub-Sahara region to Arab and Muslim countries.

"Little is studied or said about the trade, the opposite being true of slave trade directed toward the Americas. The last general assembly of the African Catholic bishops conferences took place in Dakar in October 2003, where a session was dedicated to the issue, being introduced by statements such as the following:

"'Analyses of this issue have been prohibited at length. One cause of the paralysis of this historical conscience has been the attitude of many intellectuals and Muslim rulers regarding the trans-Saharan trade. For reasons of religious sensitivity they don’t want to properly admit to Arab and Islamic responsibility in this drama, whose evil effects still continue. Today in the Arab world the word ‘black’ simply means ‘slave.’ The tracks of the trans-Saharan trade have formed geographic roads leading to Maghreb and the Middle East.' ...


It's an old article, but one well worth reading.

Slavery in the 21st Century

Tuesday, November 30, 2004

The Archives of Doug Ross @ Journal





Honor Killings



Click here for AmazonFrom Terrorism Unveiled (Hat tip: Polipundit)... a haunting review of the egregious and barbaric practice of "Honor Killing" prevalent in certain cultures. I'll let you figure out for yourself exactly who the culprits are.

To kill a girl because she has sex is quite sickening, especially when the guy is deemed as only giving into the girl’s "seductions."

It’s even worse when the person who chooses to kill the girl is her father, brother or uncle. I guess it reminds me of the passage in the Bible where Jesus rescues the woman who is about to be stoned and says "he who is without sin cast the first stone."

When a family learns that the girl has threatened their "honor" in the community, they discuss this without the girl’s presence, even with the mother, and they just "know" that the girl has to be killed in order to regain their standing in the community—even though the community may not know about the relationship. It’s not even a choice, but a duty.

The mother knows this is the fate for her daughter, and even agrees to it, sometimes choosing the manner in which she will die…perhaps being burned alive, her throat cut, stoned or clubbed to death.

The family leaves the house, and the person who is chosen to kill her comes in and does it as the family is away so there are no witnesses. The whole community knows of the killing and accepts the family into the community with open arms because they have wiped their slate clean with the blood of their child.

Today I was visiting the Center for Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan and my roommate, we’ll call here Sally, went with me because she had to meet with the same professor as I.

She started crying in the taxi on the way back home telling me about her experience the other night with her Jordanian boyfriend, we’ll call him Malik...


Read the whole thing.

Terrorism Unveiled: Honor Killings

Miscellaneous Image Post



Alarmist Link of the Day



Click here for AmazonLittleGreenFootballs, with some choice comments from readers attached.

Yossef Bodansky told the Jerusalem Post yesterday that a massive WMD attack is 'inevitable.' (Hat tip: PDM.)

Bodansky was in Israel for the second annual Jerusalem Summit, an international gathering of conservative thinkers, the Post said.

Al-Qaida has not carried out a second major attack, Bodansky explained, because the first one sufficiently sent the message to the Islamic world that the U.S. could be penetrated, and a second attack necessarily would have to be more grandiose.

Now, however, the re-election of President Bush has set the stage for a massive attack with non-conventional weapons, Bodansky believes.

There has been a debate between bin Laden allies and some Islamic leaders over the propriety of such a large-scale attack on U.S. citizens, he told the Jerusalem paper. But, according to bin Laden’s mindset, that has been resolved by the American electorate backing Bush and thus "choosing" to be enemies of Islam.

Though some debate and doubt may linger, the planning for an attack is finished, Bodansky believes.

"They got the kosher stamp from the Islamic world to use nuclear weapons," he said.

Bin Laden’s theme has shifted since 9-11, Bodanksy said. Previously, perpetual confrontation and jihad against the U.S. was seen as the only way to protect Islam. Now, the emphasis is on punishing American society.

"Just as the West was challenging the quintessence of Islam by means of the globalization era, there was a parallel need by Islamic extremists to strike at — and hurt — the core of American society, this time with weapons of mass destruction," Bodansky said.


So, just as the West challenged barbarism, irrationality, and slavery, with freedom, education, and science; so Islam will challenge freedom, education, and science, with barbarism?

Just as the West challenged islamic oppression of women, so shall Islam challenge the free women of the west with oppression?

Just as the West challenged Islam with religious tolerance, so shall Islam challenge the west with religious persecution?


Wretchard at Belmont Club once detailed the cruel, horrific logic which would follow a nuclear strike on the US. If it looked as though there was only one weapon then there would likely be no nuclear retaliation, but instead a massive conventional one where all countries connected to Islamism would be attacked in some form and Islamist resources around the globe hammered into extinction.

If however it appeared that the enemy was able to deliver successive nuclear strikes then something like MAD would kick in. 1x10^9 people would be killed.


Perhaps the "we're sorry" idiots can wave their signs at the nuclear explosion and make it go away.


...they always have another excuse for hating us. That is why appeasement is such a stupid way to deal with these savages. If whatever condition they demand is met, they will always have another complaint and another threat. The bottom line is that they simply want to murder us. If we don't stop them, they will eventually reach their goals.


A nuclear attack on US by anyone would result:

Total global recession and starvation on a mass scale especially in 3rd world countries. US would eventually recover, large part of the world will not especially after what follows...

Nuclear strikes on Iran, N. Korea, and most of middle east would be demanded and would occur. Dont think for a minute that terror supporting nations will be able to hide behind anonymity of terrorists they will simply parish. No investigation will be needed, the US will simply lash out. I predict that such nations will immediately go through a massive pretense of investigations, arrests and disarmament anything in a rash effort to save their own bacon and appease a deranged US. The effort will prove futile and they will have only themselves to blame. Immediately following the strike US Muslims would be the first to feel the wrath of an angry populace followed by identifible liberals who wont be able to help themselves in somehow blaming us for the attack and praising the brilliance of the manuever. 9/11 anger would pale in comparison.

It will be the greatest tragedy in human history and will change everything everyone ever knew. Following the carnage the Arabs will be a small world minority with a claim to their own self-inflicted holocaust. Ironically, Arab survivors will have to rely on world sympathy to carve out a parcel of land for them to live after radiation renders much of the middleeast uninhabitable. Maybe they could be placed somewhere where all of their neighbors immediately attack them and attempt 'drive them into the sea.'



Alarmist Link of the Day

No Need for Nukes



Click here for AmazonThe Iranian regime owes Bush a thank-you note--and disarmament...

It is these ambitions that reveal the mullahs' intentions. Iran is not simply another democratic state like Britain, France or Israel. Iran is a sponsor of terrorist organizations, including Hamas and Hezbollah, and it does not govern with the consent of the people. The Iranian mullahs' claim to legitimacy is simply raw power. A nuclear weapon would give them even greater power, but not any more moral legitimacy.

It is therefore reasonable to wonder what they would do with this new power. The simple answer is that they would feel protected behind a nuclear umbrella even as they shelter and support terrorist networks. But to what end? Either from the outset or somewhere down the road, Iranian mullahs will find that their nuclear-backed state has some global influence. The authoritarian regime inside Iran will come to see itself as a power capable of checking moderate influences in the Middle East.

Indeed, there is already ample evidence that Iran sees itself as a check on America. From taking Americans hostage in 1979 through trying to destabilize the interim Iraqi government today, Iran has sought to displace the U.S. from the Middle East. In the coming year, it is likely that Iran will emerge as the nation-state antagonist in the war on terror. That much more than offering shelter, Iran will provide terrorists with a symbol of a successful Islamicist check on the West. And from Osama bin Laden on down, terrorists fighters will attribute that success to nuclear weapons...


No need for nukes

The Grassroots Can Save the Democrats



Click here for AmazonJoe Trippi, Howard Dean's campaign manager, weighs in on the changes that must be made to Democratic party strategy.

The staggering defeat of the Democratic Party and its ever-accelerating death spiral weren't obvious from the election results. Two factors masked the extent of the party's trouble. Without the innovation of Internet-driven small-donor fund-raising and a corresponding surge in support from the youngest voters, John Kerry would have suffered a dramatically larger defeat. And the true magnitude of the Democrats' abject failure at the polls in 2004 would have been more clearly revealed.

Mr. Kerry raised nearly half of his war chest over the Internet. He was so successful at this that he actually outspent the Bush campaign. But it was the outsider campaign of Howard Dean, reviled by most of the Democratic establishment, that pioneered the use of the Internet to raise millions in small contributions; Mr. Kerry was just the beneficiary as the party nominee. And it was the risk-taking Dean campaign that forced the risk-averse Kerry campaign to opt out of the public financing system. Had that decision not been forced on Mr. Kerry, he would have been badly outspent by George Bush; he would not have been competitive at all throughout the long summer of 2004...


The Grassroots Can Save the Democrats

Monday, November 29, 2004

Powerline on Palestine



Click here for AmazonThere will be a student council election tomorrow at Al-Najah university in Nablus, on the West Bank. The [accompanying] photo... shows a group of students participating in the student council election on behalf of Hamas. The Associated Press report says:

Palestinian supporters of the Islamic Hamas group, holding a big map of what is now Israel and the Palestinian Territories, including the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.... The map reads in Arabic: 'Muslim Palestine.'


This is the heritage of Yasser Arafat. When Europe, the United Nations and the Clinton administration legitimized Arafat, they legitimized the fantasy that the Israelis can be exterminated and their country turned over to the Palestinians. This is, and always has been, the goal of Hamas, Fatah, the PLO, and so on. Today a new generation of Palestinian "leaders" are following in the terrorist footsteps of Arafat and his henchmen, preferring the fantasy of genocide to the hard work of dealing with the Palestinians' dysfunctional society, corrupt government, and primitive economy...

Click here for AmazonThe [accompanying] photo... shows a campaign rally for Chairman Abbas, which took place earlier today in Nablus. I get the feeling that the Palestinians still don't quite have the hang of this democracy thing. The world pretty clearly has lower expectations of the forthcoming election among the Palestinians than of the just-completed election in Ukraine. It's interesting to consider why this is...


Powerline on Palestine

Oh, that Global War on Terror



Click here for AmazonThe FBI has told Spanish investigators that one of three men believed to have planned the Sept. 11 attacks from Spain in the summer of 2001 also gave the order to carry out the Madrid blasts, the newspaper ABC reported. ...

Investigators have long concluded that the Sept. 11 attacks were partially planned in Spain in July 2001. Hijacker Mohammed Atta, believed to have piloted one of the airliners that crashed into New York’s World Trade Center, visited Spain two months before the attacks and met two men. One was Ramzi bin al-Shaibah, who is being held by U.S. authorities, while the other was unidentified.

ABC said investigators now believe that third man was the one who in December 2003 activated the Qaeda cell that carried out the March 11 attacks, which Spaniards call “our Sept. 11.”

ABC said investigators had narrowed his identity down to three candidates and believed he was a lieutenant of Mustafa Setmarian, increasingly considered to have been a leader of the Madrid train bombers and who may have held a leadership role for al Qaeda in Europe. Setmarian, aged 45 and of Syrian origin, was already wanted as part of a separate investigation into Islamic militant activity in Spain and is the subject of a Spanish wanted notice issued through Interpol.

The State Department said on Nov. 18 it was offering a $5 million reward for information leading to the capture of Setmarian, also known as Mustafa Setmariam Nasar or Abu Musab al-Suri. It described him as an al Qaeda member and former trainer at “terrorist camps” in Afghanistan.


Report: FBI Finds Link Between 9/11, Madrid Bombs

Sunday, November 28, 2004

Letter from Fallujah



Click here for AmazonAt 2Slick’s Forum, an extraordinary letter from an Army officer who took part in the Battle of Fallujah: Letter from Fallujah. (Hat tip: M. Simon.)

In Fallujah, the enemy had a military-type planning system going on. Some of the fighters were wearing body armor and kevlars, just like we do. Soldiers took fire from heavy machine guns (.50 cal) and came across the dead bodies of fighters from Chechnya, Syria, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Afghanistan, and so on...no, this was not just a city of pissed off Iraqis, mad at the Coalition for forcing Saddam out of power. It was a city full of people from all over the Middle East whose sole mission in life was to kill Americans. Problem for them is that they were in the wrong city in November 2004.

Now that it’s over, there is a lot of things that people back home should know. First of all, every citizen of Fallujah (non-insurgent) is getting $2,500 USD (that’s a lot over here) to fix up their house or buy new things that may have been destroyed in the fighting. Insurgents took up positions in resident’s houses so we were forced to destroy a lot of buildings.

There is over $100 million dollars ready to be spent to re-build the city. This may seem like a lot of money, but I can assure you that it is a small price to pay for the amount of evil people no longer alive, contemplating how to kill more Americans. The intelligence value alone is already paying huge dividends. Some of the 900 detainees are telling everything they know about other insurgents. And the enemy never expected such a large or powerful attack and they were so overwhelmed that they left behind all kinds of things, including books with names of other foreign fighters, where their money and weapons come from, etc.

I went into the city 3 times, but after a lot of the fighting had been done. It was amazing to see how the American military had brought the world’s most evil city to its knees. I have an awful lot of pictures that I am going to upload to my webshots site...it will blow your mind to see what the insurgents forced us to do to win this fight. And seeing the pictures of what I saw first hand will make you very happy to be an American and know that our country has this might if evildoers force us to use it.


Go read the whole thing; this is only a small part of it.


Letter from Fallujah

The Next Language



Click here for AmazonAfter almost 9 years of programming in Java, I have been thinking about where Java is going and how it fits into the continuum of programming languages in the enterprise...

...What Java didn’t provide was 4GL type tools, but then again nobody had 4GL type tools for web applications, so it was no big deal. It was expected that those would come. However, many years have past, and the vast majority of J2EE applications are still built by hand. A lesson that Microsoft has learned well is that for API’s to be toolable, they need to be developed concurrently with the tool and both the API and tool should depend on easily externalizable metadata. Java API’s were always written on the merits of the API’s themselves, and subsequent tools were predominantly code generators shunned by programmers.

The Java API’s grew into a morass of inconsistent and incomprehensible API’s, even the most simple things proved to be very complicated. The vast majority of J2EE deployments (over 80% according to Gartner) are simply Servlet/JSP to JDBC applications. Basically HTML front-ends to relational databases. It is ironic that much of what makes Java complicated today is all of its numerous band-aid extensions, such as generics and JSP templates, which were added to make these types of simple applications easier to develop...

...So let’s look at the requirements for today’s corporate applications:

# Handle XML (dynamic data with fluctuating types) well
# Quickly process text into objects and out of objects
# Most apps have limited logic consisting mainly of control flow
# No need for portability beyond Linux/x86 and Windows/x86
# Very thin veneer over the operating system for system services
# Tuned for 1-2 processor x86 machines

Given these requirements, Java does not fare very well:

# XML data is inherently unstructured and it has to be shoehorned into and out of Java, which is a strongly typed language that does not like new types of objects popping into its applications.
# Java is horrific at processing text since it can’t manipulate strings directly.
# While Java is great for complicated applications, it is not ideally suited for specifying control flow.
# Java is a magically portable platform, but there is no longer a requirement for portability other than Linux and Windows.
# Since there is no longer a portability requirement, developers want only a very thin veneer over operating system services like sockets, while Java provides a huge virtual machine in between the application and the operating system.
# Most J2EE implementations are tuned for 4-16 processor SMP boxes

So if Java does not meet these requirements, what does? Apparently what is needed is a language/environment that is loosely typed in order to encapsulate XML well and that can efficiently process text. It should be very well suited for specifying control flow. And it should be a thin veneer over the operating system.

Most Linux distribution in fact bundle three such languages, PHP, Python, and Perl. PHP is by far the most popular, Python is considered the most elegant (if not odd), and Perl the tried-and-true workhorse. All three languages are open source and free. As the following graphs show, PHP use has skyrocketed over the past few years...


The next language

Anatomy of a car wreck



Click here for AmazonT breaks down the cause-and-effect of a major traffic disruption that he narrowly avoided. What he doesn't say is whether he was driving the pimped-out Solara or the Porsche.

Anatomy of a car wreck

Friday, November 26, 2004

Then and Now



Click here for AmazonThe media... get it wrong when they describe the Global War on Terror as a unique experience in the defense of America -- a war unlike any other we've ever fought. Perhaps those reporting today don't know their history because we've been through this before. In fact, the parallels between World War II in the Pacific and the War on Terror are uncanny.

Consider that both World War II and the Global War on Terror began with a surprise air attack. The surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, was possible only because our immigration controls, intelligence services and FBI let us down. The same was true leading up to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Strangely enough, the American death toll is almost the same: 2,403 at Pearl Harbor and 2,966 on Sept. 11.

Click here for AmazonThe Pearl Harbor attack occurs after years of "warnings" that went ignored. The Japanese had made it clear that they were going to evict Europeans and Americans from the Pacific. They had been at war in China since their 1930 seizure of Manchuria and the 1937 invasion of China -- but they still caught us flatfooted.

The same kinds of events happened in 2001. Osama bin Laden had attacked the United States at the World Trade Center in 1993, in Doha, in Tanzania, in Nairobi and on the USS Cole. But we were still caught by surprise on Sept. 11.

Click here for AmazonIn the Pacific, our adversaries were fanatical Japanese soldiers, sailors, airmen and civilians who believed that they had a divine mission to drive us out of the Pacific. They weren't just willing to die for their cause, they wanted to die -- killing a Westerner. And it wasn't just the military. On Saipan, more than 800 Japanese civilians committed suicide rather than be captured.

The Banzai charges starting at Guadalcanal and the Kamikaze attacks that begin at Leyte were beyond the comprehension of most Americans. The Japanese routinely booby-trapped the bodies of their dead, ambushed Americans under false flags of surrender and filmed themselves committing terrible atrocities -- including beheadings. Many even wore headscarves with symbolic messages.

Today, the Jihadists believe they have a divine mission -- to drive the "infidels" out of "Islamic lands." The suicide terrorist is eulogized as a martyr; they routinely videotape and photograph the most heinous murders of their hostages and proudly display the images; if you look carefully at these horrific videos and photos, you will see many of them wearing headscarves emblazoned with verses from the Koran.

Today's enemy is every bit as brutal as the enemy we faced in the Pacific during World War II, and they are every bit as determined to destroy America. The one difference between the Pacific engagement in World War II and today's War on Terror -- though the media ignore it -- is that we are making more progress in less time than during the start of World War II...


Then and Now

Thursday, November 25, 2004

Lileks' Matchbook Museum



Click here for AmazonIf you've never seen the Matchbook Museum, you're missing out on a slice of Americana just as chorny (a word I just coined meaning "cheesy and corny") as the fins on a '57 Cadillac. Oh, and an exceedingly, excessively Happy Thanksgiving to all twelve of my regular readers. :-)

Middle Eastern Press Reactions to the Election



Click here for AmazonIf you're unfamiliar with MEMRI (the Middle Eastern Media Research Institute), then it's high time you became acquainted with their work. Providing translations for various Middle Eastern media outlets (including television), MEMRI does yeoman's work in opening a window on a world that the West seldom sees.

In MEMRI's recap of the Arab press' reactions to the re-election of President Bush, there were, of course, the predictable wails and gnashing of teeth among the Arab fourth estate. However, there were also some interesting liberal and moderate viewpoints. Read on.

The Arabs Must Learn from the U.S. Electoral System

Journalist Hassan Younes wrote in the Qatari daily Al-Watan: "The American elections are an important and sad lesson that the Arab world does not study, and in which it makes do with observer status and expresses its hopes for the victory of the candidate that it thinks will realize its own interests…

"The Americans are voting for everything: president, legislature, governors of states, judges, education superintendents, and many officials. This, while the money-hungry ones in the Arab world scrap amongst themselves to gain the ruler's pleasure and a job – by means of which they will be able to plunder and steal everything within reach.

"The American elections are an opportunity for soul-searching in the Arab world, so that [we will be able to] establish a new regime to reflect the expectations and true will of the people. Only democracy can correct what exists, and only [through democracy] is it possible to find solutions to painful and unsolved problems – including, of course, the Arab-Israeli conflict.

"Had there been such democracy in Iraq, neither the first nor the second Gulf War would have broken out. [Also,] neither the invasion and occupation of this Arab country [i.e. Iraq], nor the disintegration and the destruction which we witness today, would have taken place…"


...and...

Bush's Victory is a Victory for Proper U.S. Middle East Policy

Liberal columnist Shaker Al-Nabulsi wrote on the liberal website www.elaph.com: "Congratulations to President Bush on his landslide victory in the presidential election. Congratulations to the Republican Party for its landslide success in Congress. This is the first time in the history of America that the Republican Party has gained a landslide victory for the presidency and Congress alike. This landslide victory is the victory of American policy on the Middle East, particularly regarding Iraq, Afghanistan, and the war on terror.

"The American people, [who number] over 100 million voters, elected the president of human freedom who liberated Iraq and Afghanistan and promised to establish a Palestinian state in 2005. [They also elected] the son of the one who previously liberated Kuwait.

"The Arab-Americans who voted for Kerry made a mistake, as we said before. They always put their eggs in a basket full of holes, due to lack of clear and clean political vision, lack of knowledge, and failure to read history properly…"


MEMRI: reactions to President Bush's re-election

Wednesday, November 24, 2004

It was a very good month



Click here for AmazonNot every month will run its course quite so swimmingly as November of the year two-thousand and four...

Bush wins.

Kerry loses.

Puff Daschle loses.

MSM loses.

FatBoy loses.

Springsteen loses.

Bon Tony loses.

Soros loses.

Streisand loses.

Ch-Iraq loses!

Arafat DEAD!

Niedermeyer DEAD!

Rather’s career DEAD!

What a month!

And six more days to go!

Forget the cranberries. Pass the champagne!


It was a very good month

Zarqawi's Desperate Message



Click here for AmazonA new statement by the leading terrorist in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, sounds a desperate tone as he lashes out at Muslim intelligentsia for not supporting his gang of butchers. According to the AP, Zarqawi also sounds pretty pessimistic these days:

An audiotape purportedly made by Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi lashed out Wednesday at Muslim scholars for not speaking out against U.S. actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying they have "let us down in the darkest circumstances." ...

"You have let us down in the darkest circumstances and handed us over to the enemy... You have quit supporting the mujahedeen," he said. "Hundreds of thousands of the nation's sons are being slaughtered at the hands of the infidels because of your silence."


Zarqawi obviously doesn't read the New York Times or watch CBS News. If he did, he wouldn't report that Muslims have quit supporting the mujahedeen. The party line in the media here is that Westerners are oppressive occupiers and that the Iraqis want us out. Zarqawi and his gang of bloodthirsty maniacs must see something different...


Zarqawi's Desperate Message

Tuesday, November 23, 2004

Frum vs. CAIR



Click here for AmazonLittle Green Footballs points us to a National Post article by David Frum: The Question of CAIR. Read the whole thing.

Two weeks ago, the National Post and I were served with a notice of libel by the Canadian branch of the Council on American Islamic Relations, or CAIR. The Post and I are not alone. Over the past year, CAIR’s Canadian and U.S. branches have served similar libel notices on half a dozen other individuals and organizations in the United States and Canada. Each case has its own particular facts, yet they are linked by a common theme: That we defendants have accused CAIR (in the words of the notice served on me) of being "an unscrupulous, Islamist, extremist sympathetic group in Canada supporting terrorism."

Lawyers for individuals and newspapers served with libel notices will normally urge their clients to avoid any comment on the matter—to avoid even any acknowledgement that they have been served. This is usually good advice. A notice of libel is not a lawsuit, but a warning of a lawsuit to come. If the potential defendant keeps quiet, the potential plaintiff will often drop the suit altogether.

But wise legal advice often comes at a cost, a cost in public information. So I was heartened that the National Post’s lawyers have encouraged the paper and me to continue with this important story.

CAIR is understandably protective of its reputation. Until recently, it has had considerable success winning acceptance in the United States and Canada as something close to an official spokesman for local Muslim communities. CAIR has been influential in advocating for a sharia court to arbitrate divorces and other family-law matters in the province of Ontario. CAIR’s strong criticisms of Canada’s anti-terror legislation have won respectful hearing in Ottawa. Any reporting or commentary that cast doubt on CAIR’s carefully cultivated image would deeply threaten the group’s mission.

What is that mission? The public record offers some clues:

CAIR was founded in 1994 by alumni of an older group, the Islamic Association for Palestine. The IAP, founded by senior Hamas figure Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook, calls for the destruction of Israel and the creation of an Islamic state under Islamic law in Israel’s place. (In 1996, CAIR would condemn the U.S. government’s decision to deport Marzook as an “anti-Islamic” act.)

CAIR’s first executive director, Nihad Awad, publicly declared himself a supporter of Hamas at a 1994 forum at Barry University in Florida.

One of CAIR’s original advisory board members, Siraj Wahhaj, served as a character witness for Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman. Rahman is the blind Egyptian cleric convicted in 1995 of conspiracy to bomb New York landmarks. CAIR described Rahman’s conviction as a hate crime.

CAIR’s founding chairman, Omar Ahmed, also an IAP alumnus, is said to have declared at a public event in California in July, 1998: "Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran . . . should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth." Ahmed has since disputed the accuracy of the quote—five years after it was reported by a California newspaper.


LGF and Anti-CAIR

Paterno vs. Rather



Click here for Amazon...So Dan Rather has announced his retirement. Like that was unexpected. It is a lot like Joe Paterno announcing his retirement, except Joe's had a much, much better season.

And Joe's got a great lifetime record.

Rather's announcement is more like Ron Artest announcing his retirement, if only Artest would. Both Dan and Ron have consistently lowered the standards of their various games, and have recently taken to attacking their customers because the customers booed.

Let's not spend a lot of time watching the barge go over the falls. Rather's not even a footnote in the history of American journalism much less American history. He was standing around in the right place at the right time and will be remembered for his pratfalls not his professionalism.


Hugh Hewitt on Rather's Retirement

Powerline's Take on Michael Scheuer



Click here for AmazonMichael Scheuer, the ex-CIA man who wrote the book Imperial Hubris, has been in the news. Scheuer apparently was the agent who, for a number of years, was in charge of trying to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. He was on Meet the Press yesterday, and made some deeply weird comments about his former quarry, as noted by Real Clear Politics. The show's transcript is here:

MR. SCHEUER: ...There has to be some command and control there. And to imagine that it doesn't--that he's unable to do it is just absolutely incorrect. He's really a remarkable man, a great man in many ways, without the connotation positive or negative. He's changed the course of history. You just have to try to take your fourth-graders' class to the White House visitors' center...

MR. RUSSERT: When you say "great man," people cringe.

MR. SCHEUER: Yes, sir. Absolutely they cringe, but a great man is someone--a great individual is someone who changes the course of history. And certainly in the last five or six years, America has changed dramatically in the way we behave, in the way we travel. Certainly he's bleeding us to death in terms of money.

MR. RUSSERT: Do you see him as a very formidable enemy?

MR. SCHEUER: Tremendously formidable enemy, sir, an admirable man. If he was on our side, he would be dining at the White House. He would be a freedom fighter, a resistance fighter. It's--and again, that's not to praise him, but it is to say that until we take the measure of the man and the power of his words, we're very much going to be on the short end of the stick.


He sounds for all the world like one of King John's men talking about Robin Hood. Maybe it would have helped to have someone trying to kill bin Laden who wasn't such an admirer...

...The only good thing I know about Michael Scheuer is that he detests Richard Clarke. Apparently the feeling is mutual. The Weekly Standard has an article titled Scheuer v. Clarke, which details their feud. I think they're both right. The conclusion of the Weekly Standard piece is especially interesting:

Scheuer thinks Clarke is a risk-averse poseur who didn't do enough to fight bin Laden prior to September 11, 2001. ... Scheuer said that on 10 separate occasions his unit, codename "Alec," provided key policymakers with information that could've lead to the killing or capture of Osama bin Laden. "In each of those 10 instances," Scheuer said, "the senior policymaker in charge, whether it was Sandy Berger, Richard Clarke, or George Tenet," resisted taking action, afraid it would result in collateral damage or a backlash on the Arab street. According to Scheuer, Clarke's story has changed in the time since. Clarke says the Clinton administration did all that it could to fight terrorism, while the Bush administration was derelict.

One of the reporters raised her hand.

"Just to clarify," she asked. "Did all these 10 instances take place prior to the Bush administration?"

Scheuer nodded.

"That's correct," he said.



Powerline on Scheuer