Israel's Raid on Saddam's Nuclear Reactor (1981)

Update Iraq: Grim as Ever ... only Kidding!

Even before 'the surge' took hold, things were looking up. Not that you'd figure that from the reporting in what is collectively termed, 'the West'. Just how misleading the reporting by the politically biased mainstream press is, has already been published in a number of blogs, and by some critical journalists with a beating heart for the investigative side of the profession - those that haven't become part of the global conspiracy for the cultivation of the anti American consensus.

Michael Yon - an independent reporter who's been blogging from Iraq (at his own expense) since December 2004 - describes in "Resistance is Futile: You will be (Mis)informed" in no uncertain terms how the public is hoodwinked into believing that the war is long hopelessly lost. The Democrats have a vested interest that this perception takes hold if they want to win the next presidential elections, which they do, desperately.

Yon sums up the situation in a set of illustrative pictures, and in a few pointed words: "A gulf", "a gap", "a chasm", "a parallel universe". "All describe the bizarro-world contrast between what most Americans seem to think is happening in Iraq versus what is really happening in Iraq ... I was at home in the United States just one day before the magnitude hit me like vertigo: America seems to be under a glass dome which allows few hard facts from the field to filter in unless they are attached to a string of false assumptions."

"The situation in Iraq has drastically changed, but the inertia of bad news leaves many convinced that the mission has failed beyond recovery, that all Iraqis are engaged in sectarian violence, or are waiting for us to leave so they can crush their neighbors. This view allows our soldiers two possible roles: either “victim caught in the crossfire” or “referee between warring parties.” Neither, rightly, is tolerable to the American or British public."

This is how bad the situation is! Osama bin Laden just released the fourth video this year, bitterly scolding "the laxness" of his Iraqi cronies (clients, appears to be the new neutrality term). Newsday reports that "in the brief tape played on Al-Jazeera television, the terrorist leader urged militants to "beware of division", lamenting the "fanatical" tribal loyalties. This is perhaps no wonder, as the news that even Sunni tribesmen have had their fill of being slaughtered by the death cult, may not yet have filtered through to the profound Waziri layer of rocks, under which these hirabahists live.

In an 'in their face' provocation "the U.S. military plans a "unification parade" today in Ramadi, the Anbar provincial capital, to showcase the success of a tribal alliance with some Sunnis. Maj. Lee Peters, a military spokesman, said increased security will protect the celebration, which will include at least 200 Sunni sheiks and hundreds of other dignitaries in commemoration of Sheik Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, founder of the anti-al-Qaeda Anbar Salvation Council, assassinated by a bomb Sept. 13."

Even the shushing tones of "the enslavers of women, the killers of homosexuals, the beheaders of reporters, and the incinerators of men and women" - tut-tutting from a place beyond history so much raw, unsophisticated, direct cowboy brawn - cannot stop the advancement of the loathsome neocon dream of democracy for all.

Once it lets its civilizational influence felt, not only will Islam cease to be a hotbed and a justification for Hirabah (unholy war), it will also help foster a culture in which gruesome anti human practices as shown today by our friends at Muslims Against Sharia, will become a thing of the past (caution: the images are very graphic!).

Of the Saddam Connection and Al Qaeda's Unraveling

The Press from Hell has really done it this time, or so it seems. Things are moving on the counter terrorism front you wouldn't believe! Or perhaps you do ... judge for yourself:

- American Thinker: "A Quiet Triumph May be Brewing" by Ray Robison - "There are signs that the global Islamic jihad movement is splitting apart, in what would be a tremendous achievement for American strategy. The center of the action is in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the very territory which is thought to harbor Usama, and from which Al Qaeda was able to launch 9/11. Capitalizing on existing splits, a trap was set and closed, and the benefits have only begun to be evident."

"This cannot be overstated: it is the most crucial development since the capture of Khalid Sheik Mohammed. Cutting al Qaeda's support in Pakistan has been a massive coup, of which our media has no clue of right now. It is the exact sort of thing that the Democrats and their media accomplices always complain that we are not doing and then completely ignore when we do it."

"By way of correlation, you may remember that the German government recently arrested Islamic terrorists planning an attack on US targets. It turns out that those men were trained and controlled by Uzbek terror camps in Pakistan -- this time meaning actual Uzbeks. The stated purpose of the attack was to force the German military to cease operations at an Uzbekistan base which is supporting operations in Afghanistan. The German terrorists were part of the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) which is an offshoot of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). Other recent reports have noted that the order to the terrorists to start the attacks stated it was crucial for them to "go now" and attack within days during early September."

"To cause the German public to demand an end to operations in Afghanistan just as the Madrid train bombings caused the Spaniards to demand an end to that government's involvement in the war on terror. Since the Germans are the only western forces allowed to operate in Uzbekistan this would help al Qaeda forces trapped in Tora Bora."

"The Bush Administration, most likely through the CIA and DIA, has pulled off a fantastic maneuver to split the global Islamic jihad movement at its base. This is the kind of stuff we may not hear about in detail for another fifty years. Congratulations to our President and our brave soldiers and intelligence assets for making this happen. Al Qaeda is losing in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The fact is now inescapable that they have lost the ability to impose their political will on the West, athough this does not mean ...."

Here's a link to a 3D map of Tora Bora, Afghanistan which ran in Time Magazine in 2001.

Here's the entire article! It reads like a spy novel ...! >>>

Wait, there's more by the same author. We already touched the subject in yesterday's digest. The Saddam-Al Qaeda connection!


- American Thinker: "Al Qaeda's Man in Saddam's Iraq" - "As is widely known, Zarqawi was indeed moving between Iraq and Iran at this time but his links to al Qaeda and reasons for being in Iraq have been contested."

"As I explained in a previous American Thinker article, he was indeed al Qaeda and he was in Iraq to fight Americans instead of Saddam. In that article I detailed how the Jordanian population had become more radicalized by a “jihad stream” of Palestinian refugees who were kicked out of Kuwait by that government for collaborating with Saddam when Iraq invaded in 1990. Those Jordanians, like Zarqawi, were directed by an al Qaeda associate named al Barqawi."

"Zarqawi’s mentor Barqawi was a Saddam sympathizer and al Qaeda affiliate who sent these Jordanian-Palestinians to Iraq to fight the Americans. Clearly these Jordanian-Palestinians were not in Iraq to impose their own brand of regime change on Saddam; they were there to kill US forces."

"Now a man named Hamid Mir, who is an Executive Editor for Geo TV in Islamabad, Pakistan, writing for the popular India news website rediff.com, reveals his inside knowledge ... >>>

Of the Missing Link and other News Stories

Here's this weekend's news and blogs digest:

- Civilian Irregular Information Defense Group: "The Unorganized Cyber Militia of the United States" - "... Some of us did indeed refuse to accept defeat. Some of that was plain old Jacksonian stubborness, and some of it was faith. We kept the faith with our nation’s warriors. We knew deep down that what we were being told was not the whole story. And we believed that our nation was a force for good in this world, and that the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines sent forth to break militant Islamicists of their homocidal habits were the best human beings this Republic had to offer ... We have all been the victims of a massive psychological operation. Even those of us who resisted. Our faith in our armed forces remains unshaken >>>


- In From the Cold: "Behind the Numbers (September Edition)" - "Call it Spook's Inverse Law of Iraq War Reporting: if you don't see a spate of stories on U.S. casualties at the end of the month, then there must be some good news the MSM is ignoring.If you want proof of that, consider the latest numbers from Iraq. With only two days remaining in September, U.S. forces are on pace for the lowest number of monthly fatalities in more than a year. According to ... >>>

- American Thinker: "Another Saddam guy linked to al Qaeda" - "Another member of Saddam Hussein's Baath party has been arrested for links to al Qaeda, this time in Italy for attempting to assist in a terror attack using aircraft, suicide bombers and anti tank weaponry. >>>

- Real Clear Politics: "Ahmadinejad's Overlooked Message" - "The Free World today finds itself embroiled in an ideological war for its very survival. Our enemies - whether Shi'ite or Sunni - are followers of a totalitarian ideology based on Islam which tells them that Allah wishes to rule the world through them. Israel is a central front in this war. Given the weakness of Western support for the Jews, jihadists see attacking Israel as a strategic tool for eroding the West's ideological defenses and shoring up their supporters throughout the world. >>>

- National Geographic: "Violence in Myanmar Exposed By Satellite Images" - "A detailed analysis of images spanning several years pinpoints locations where villages have been burned, settlements have been relocated, and military forces have expanded their camps. >>>

- Catholic World News: "Vatican greets Muslims, asks cooperation for peace" - "As the Islamic observance of Ramadan comes to an end, the president of the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue has sent a message to the world's Muslims stressing ... that all believers, regardless of their faith, should share in "work in favor of peace, by showing respect for the convictions of individuals and communities everywhere through freedom of religious practice ... doing everything one can to reject, denounce and refuse every recourse to violence which can never be motivated by religion ... >>>

- Jotman.com blogging Burma live from Bangkok: "Vigil at the Myanmar Embassy in Bangkok" - "There was a organized protest at the Myanmar Embassy in Bangkok earlier tonight. There were about 100 present for a prayer and meditation vigil. This Embassy is located on a busy street under the skytrain tracks two blocks from Sathorn Station. I'll try to get my video up tomorrow. Bangkok religious groups were well represented, as were expatriots. >>>

- Stop Islamization of Europe: Press Release - "Stop Kuffarphobia and Kalifascism! London demo 26th October 2007 - To coincide with Islamo-fascism Awareness week in which events are being held across the USA highlighting the bullying by Islamists against non-Muslims throughout the world. To protest against Kuffarphobia – the irrational fear and loathing of non-Muslims by Islamists. To protest against the persecution of non-Muslims via Sharia law in Islamic countries. To protest against the under-reporting or even total lack of reporting about such persecution in Western media. >>>

- Flanders Fields: "On Break" - "Please add your vote for a Free Europe at the link on the right. You don't have to be European to vote. >>>

Hopefully back tomorrow with some original work.

"Muslims Against Sharia" issue Counter Bounty

~ Urgent Blog Burst Request ~

In reply to yesterday's crosspost from Gates of Vienna on the Lars Vilks Modoggies Art Project, we received following message from "Muslims Against Sharia":

"Muslims Against Sharia" praise the courage of Lars Vilks, Ulf Johansson, Thorbjorn Larsson and the staff of Nerikes Allehanda and Dagens Nyheter and condemn threats issued by Abu Omar Al Baghdadi and the Islamic State of Iraq.

Muslims Against Sharia will provide a payment of 100,000kr (about $15,000) for the information leading to capture or neutralization of Abu Omar Al Baghdadi.

Muslimer mot Sharia berömmer Lars Vilks, Ulf Johansson, Torbjörn Larsson och övriga anställda på Nerikes Allehanda och Dagens Nyheter för deras tapperhet och fördömer hotet från Abu Omar Al Baghdadi och Islamistiska Iraq.

Muslimer mot Sharia betalar 100 000 SEK (ca 15 000$) för information som leder till gripande eller oskadligörande av Abu Omar Al Baghdadi.

Muslims Against Sharia - Defend Freedom of Speech - Support Sweden!"

Update: On Gateway Pundit funds are pouring in! Muslims against Sharia says ... "If someone wants to donate money for the bounty, please visit http://www.reformislam.org/support/. When making a donation, please make a note: for Al Baghdadi bounty. We will add the amount on top of 100,000kr. If the bounty is not paid for any reason, you will have an option of a refund." Let's not let Al Baghadadi down! Who's next?

Blurring the Border between Reality and Perception (2)

~ Continued from Part 1 ~

This is the second instalment in a series of posts on the effects of Postmodernism (Pomo, or cultural Marxism, or subjectivism, or relativism) on journalism and the MSM. To remind ourselves of the essence of the trouble: the deliberate fallacy of their pet philosophy that objective reality does not exist. This causes a blurring of the border between what's real, and what is perception: the recipe for a global nut-house!

One pernicious consequence of this fallacy is a moral one: the denial of good and bad, right of wrong, truth or lie, or to put it in another way: everybody's 'right' from his or her own particular point of view, and everything 'bad' is only called 'bad' because it doesn't fit into the present idea of what constitutes society (once the egalitarian collectivism is established even pedophilia will become a 'good' thing).

Read here that "Julien Benda, in his 1928 classic "La Trahison de Clercs", decried with prophetic accuracy how the abandonment of objective truths abetted (my emphasis) totalitarian ideologies, which led to the cataclysmic destruction of World War II. The author (Diana West in her new book "The Death of the Grown-Up") identifies the "Trahison de Clercs" of our time: The complete failure of Western intellectuals to acknowledge the heinous consequences of the living Islamic institutions of jihad war and dhimmitude." Actually I can go much further than that: the abandonment of objective truth is the essence of the philosophy that underpins totalitarian ideologies!

Another catastrophic consequence of this deliberate fallacy is, that fact - which is rooted in objective reality - does not exist either. That, is a tough conclusion if your occupation is, observation and description of facts on a daily basis, as is the case in journalism.

So what we see reported lately, aren't so much cool, detached descriptions of the real world, as much as the reporter's personal opinion, the 'narrative' from his perspective, which, as is often the case, happens to be multicultural and Leftist - or he wouldn't be a Pomo in the first place.

Aside ... unconsciously society at large has picked up much of Pomo's faulty thought processes. If in fear of being infected, the PMF offers help in finding out to what extent you've been affected: the list provides a number of eye-openers to get you back on orthologica. But a sure sign of trouble is "... in my view this colour is red, perhaps ...", instead of "... this, is red".

News reports from the Middle East have become synonymous with subjectivity: laced with personal (emotional) involvement (the BBC has become practically a party in Gaza!), spin and counterspin, political bias, censoring, selective emphasizing, etc., etc. Each and every death that occurs within Iraq's borders is brought to me personally, 'as it happens' by CNN's and the BBC's Breaking News Email Service, a lame effort in emphasizing the frequency and the number of casualties.

Lately we are informed that a 'paradigm shift' in the press' attitude towards Iraq may be in the making, reflecting a shift in public opinion (lies don't endure) and in the attitude of the Iraqis themselves.

There's hope yet, but it will be next to impossible to ween the lost souls of the anti-war crowd of their immature psychological coping devices. They much rather see all-out fratricide develop in Iraq resulting in another few million hecatombs on the sacrificial alter of collectivism (Vietnam is a case in point), than to accept a BusHitler victory for democracy and the advancement of freedom. At this point I'd like to venture a qualification of this mentality: pathologically malicious.

While that is going on, the editor of The New Republic had the gall to respond to the first questioning of the 'Baghdad Diarist's plausibility, by attacking the skeptics' motives, complaining that "some Conservatives make 'a living, denying any bad news that emanates from Iraq'", a chutzpah if there ever was one in light of the above, and as is made clear by Winds of Change's post "Man, People Are So Gullible...".

The shrink says it's a natural consequence of projection: if you think of yourself as a nice and peaceful person, while actually you are full of wrath and hatred, the psychological coping device of projection makes the object of your wrath the one that's hateful, divisive, full of vitriol and bile, bigotted, intolerant and hatemongering ... something like ... this! Hat tip Atlas Shrugs.

Sorry to disappoint those expecting neat little lists: it so happens they're all in Part 1 and 3.

~ Continued in Part 3: ... rummaging through my own recent archive yields not only ... the Beauchamp Affair, but also throws some other light on the Abu Graib affair, (a) "high quality disinformation operation" ~

Of Real Art and Excerpts from "Welcome to Baghdad"

Military planes leave Kuwait every couple of hours for Baghdad International Airport (or BIAP, pronounced BIE-op). The United States Army’s media liaison in Kuwait dropped me off at the airfield so I could take a flight “up.” ...

All night I waited for a flight and was bumped again and again by soldiers on their way to places like War Eagle, Victory, and Fallujah. Finally I got on a manifest and gathered around a gruff barking sergeant with everyone else. “I want you all back here in 20 minutes,” he bellowed. “First, I want you to go to the bathroom. Then I want to see you standing in front of me with a bottle of water.” ...

The plane was windowless and loud as 100 lawnmowers. ...

“Don’t fall asleep,” said the soldier next to me. “When you see the rest of us grab our helmets, put yours on, too. We’ll be beginning the spiral dive into Baghdad.” ...

We dismounted the plane and I stepped into harsh blazing sunshine. ... Sunlight burns like a blowtorch. If you don’t wear a helmet or soft cap the sun will cook your brain. ...

I watched helicopters fly over the city in the distance and launch burning white countermeasure flares to confuse heat-seeking missiles as the pilots flew over hostile parts of the city. This was the only evidence I saw that I was in a war zone. I heard no shots fired, and I heard no explosions.

After having spent several days in Baghdad’s Green Zone and Red Zone, I still haven’t heard or seen any explosions. It’s a peculiar war. It is almost a not-war. Last July’s war in Northern Israel and Southern Lebanon was hundreds of times more violent and terrifying than this one. Explosions on both sides of the Lebanese-Israeli border were constant when I was there.

You’d think explosions and gunfire define Iraq if you look at this country from far away on the news. They do not. The media is a total distortion machine. Certain areas are still extremely violent, but the country as a whole is defined by heat, not war, at least in the summer. It is Iraq’s most singular characteristic. ...

Baghdad is gigantic and sprawling. ... The sheer enormity of the place puts the almost daily car bomb attacks into perspective. The odds that you personally will be anywhere near the next car bomb or IED are microscopic. ...


For only the second time in a week, I got to sleep in a bed. And I was one lucky bastard. The embassy annex, and the bed I got to sleep in, was at the grandest downtown palace built by Saddam Hussein. The tyrant is dead, and I got to sleep at his house on my very first night in his capital. What better welcome to Baghdad could anyone possibly ask for?

The entire article, in its full independent glory, can be read here >>>

Up next on Michael J. Totten's blog: Night patrols on foot with the 82nd Airborne in a Sunni-majority neighborhood of Baghdad’s Red Zone.

German cultural English language site Signandsite (yes, the veritable treasure trove of postmodern madness!)report there's quite a bit of cultural activity developing in Iraq as well. Those of us naive enough to take that as a positive sign are quickly cured of this deception by author Najem Wali, warning us in Neue Zurcher Zeitung "not to confuse the state support of culture in Iraq with a renaissance in cultural life. What's really going on: artists are being paid to glorify their patrons. "Unfortunately, politicians find their equivalent in precisely those groups of artists who were trained under Saddam to deal opportunistically with the power structure and learned the advantages of satisfying the needs of their 'patrons'. One needn't be too surprised that no cultural renaissance has taken place since the American invasion – but rather an extraordinary explosion in the number of festivals and new 'cultural advisory boards'." Read a feature by Wali on the Arab Writers Union in "The Dictator's Orphans"."

I could of course add that the great artists of the past were almost exclusively working in commission, which produced true master pieces of human endeavour. These were technical expressions led by love of beauty, rather than politically driven incarnations of man's most basic instincts. But that would be 1. spoiling the free flow of American Derangement Syndrome, and 2. you cannot possibly expect postmoderns to consider that art in any real sense, which - as proof of Marxist intellectual activity - must involve at least one human bodily function or one platitude.

Atlas Shrugs has more insights on "Iraq and Media Deception".

Building the Case of the Left's Culpability

When posting "Of Political Entertainment and Slumber" a few days ago, on the ludicrous dithers and slithers taken by the U.S. Democrats, so as to convince the anti-war grassroots of the Democrat defeatist credentials, in an update I linked to the latest Works and Days article by Victor Davis Hanson "Defeat and Flight from Iraq". His comments and outline of the inevitable, long term, geopolitical consequences of white-flagging the Iraq war, are very ominous indeed.

Going through the entire article again I stumbled upon two 'angry' letters he received - otherwise known as hate mail - that are quite revealing. One is from a 23 year old postmodern who in a quite unreasonable tone, based on his exploits in Chinese, claims to be more capable of reasoning than the accomplished writer himself: it is of course typical of people in certain stage of development to make such miscalculations.

Both letters are from recent arrivals in the United States. In the one case his parents probably took considerable risk to illegally move from Mexico, so that their children would have better opportunities in the U.S. He's now a orthopedic who cannot spell, so that was probably the right career move on his part.

The 23 year old postmodern with Bush Derangement Syndrome, apart from the mastery of Chinese and his obvious accomplishments in Marxist Critical Theory, suffers from a whole lot besides, but that is not the point I'd like to make.

Both letters simply ooze envious hatred, for the author, towards white culture, for America in general, and by extension towards - what I would like to term by now, The White Patriarch paradigm: the archetypal Counter-Enlightenment Oppressor, the litany well known by regular readers of present pages: white, rich, powerful, Christian males and all they stand for.

That's when it hit me that - while these two crass examples are probably new Americans of Hispanic descent, and Europe has similar experiences with Muslims of any part of the Dar-al-Islam - these immigrants don't come to their adoptive country out of admiration for customs, people or culture, but out of sheer hatred with a view of milking it for what it is worth.

Their objective isn't integration into these societies as proud new citizens, taking thankful advantage of all the opportunities that free, liberal, Western societies have to offer, they come as conquerors who hate the people that made the West what it is today. If they didn't set out as such, I'm sure there are quite a few indigenous, postmodern adherents to Marx' and Rousseau's narratives of Oppressed versus Oppressor, to brief them on the subject.

If all this sounds like stating the politically incorrect obvious, then why - for crying out loud - are we pretending it isn't the case, convincing ourselves instead that immigrants come with all the good intentions? This, with the usual caveats and disclaimers about obvious heaps of well intentioned, sincere ...... etc.

Frontpage relays an article by Ed West in The Catholic Herald of 18th July, "Jihad Will Destroy Us If We Don't Act Now". It is an interview West had with Robert Spencer, author of "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (And the Crusades)" and blogger on the recently censored Jihad Watch.

Contrary to the predictable prejudice from the multicultural Left, the author has a broad and thorough background studying Christian heritage, as well as Islamic scripture. He too noticed the reasons why the cooperation of broadly The Left and Radical Islamism in the Unholy Alliance isn't strange or even a coincidence!

While I call my argument of the Straight Red Line, based on the brilliant analysis of Stephen Hicks into recollection (here's the chart and here's a link to the first part of the series), in Spencer's words:

"There is a deep ideological affinity between the Left and the jihadists. Whenever the hard Left gained power they instituted a reign of terror in order to create what they envisage as a just society, brought about by force. Islamic law works in much the same way: utopia created by force."

What they share is of course - for starters - the subjectivist, primacy of consciousness base [1] of the Counter-Enlightenment, which basks in the cruel sun of Rousseau's and Marx' political justification of violence to bring about social change.

Spencer too mentions the numbers game - the disastrous demographics which the Left has reframed into the tired 'advancing geriatrics' excuse instead of facing the truth, viz. the exceedingly low birthrates, the result of problems created by Socialist policies: the gradual and deliberate destruction of the family as the operative unit, and other advancing forms of social engineering (see also Neo Totalitarianism (6): Liberty for Social Security and Chart II: The Subversion Program).

Spencer is spot on in his perception of the widening gap between on the one hand the persistent push of the postmodern multicultural elite for Western society's integration into an "Eurabian" culture (see recent remarks by a Dutch senior government minister to that avail), a goal shared and propagated by both the mainstream national political parties and the boys in Brussels, and on the other hand the actual situation in the streets of cities and towns all over the West, the growing discontent of the voters.

Any attempt of as much as naming the taboo, causes the mainstream to break out in knee-jerk apoplectic shock, recalling visions of Nazi Germany and pictures of the holocaust - which by the way doesn't keep the Left from currently developing nasty cases of unadulterated antisemitism, a reminder of the Collectivist common necessity of a scapegoat, to blame the negative effects of otherwise picture perfect policies on.

Psychologist Dr Sanity is also at work on above article by Victor Davis Hanson, but leaves the hate mail for what it is and moves on to a similar case of the Left's responsibility for Spenser's cataclysmic vista of civil war: in "Without a Blink" she observes correctly:

"Interesting to note that what 'gives the pre-modern fascist killers a pass' is the post-modern rhetoric and dogma of the left. It is precisely this inherently psychologically dysfunctional cognitive strategy that is able to shift, 'without a blink' from one subjective conviction to its exact opposite without a shred of self-awareness or mental dissonance."

She draws a comparison of Radical Islam with a malicious physical condition: likewise it "has manifested itself today and is spreading rapidly for pretty much the same reason, having been given an ideological carte blanche by the political Left ... with its political correctness and relativistic multicultural fantasies have managed to suppress and otherwise short-circuit the natural defense mechanisms of Western civilization."

"Radical Islamic ideology is itself an unexpected combination of several toxic memes ... which has been carefully synchronized with the failed totalitarian ideologies of the last century ... the remaining outposts of communism and socialism in the world are thriving in academic and "intellectual" circles in the West; together with the Islamic fanatics of the world, they have created a postmodern symphony whose cacophonous music only facilitates the descent into emotionalism, hysteria and murderous suicidality. Without a blink, the left switched from their lip-service championing human life and liberty to championing those whose main desire is to suppress it and bring all of humanity into submission."

A truly ugly picture is gradually emerging of how the role of Bezmenev's de-moral-ized generations that are currently in power, is costing the West its future, its culture and its freedom. The totalitarian Left to date has got away with 110 million victims. I - for one - have no intention of letting them add to that - Liberal moral hatred laws or not.

Of Political Entertainment and Slumber

The surrender party have now resorted to overnight theatricals in the hope of averting a victory for democracy in Iraq, pushing instead to open up the way for a victory of the forces of darkness, thereby completing the long and slow process to complete moral bankruptcy.

My personalized version of Google News has been announcing it since Saturday, ominously threatening that "Democrats will pull an all-nighter" ... "Senate debates Iraq pullout in marathon session" ... "Slumber Party in the Senate" ... "Senate Burning Midnight Oil", etc., etc., culminating this morning in "Senate Republicans scuttled troop withdrawal bill" and "Republicans Deride All-Night Senate Debate on Iraq", the White House classifying the amusement as 'a spectator event'.

What a to-do just to show how much the capitulators are out of touch with reality. Subject matter is the central theme of this decade, the geopolitical future hangs in the balance, and the hapless donks turn it into a piece of bad amateur operatics! These immature dilettantes are the party that is to supply the free world with a new leader come 2008?! Give me British entertainment any time (see next items).

- Update 20th June 01:25 l.t.: Democratic Senate leaders knew going into Wednesday's procedural roll call on their proposal to withdraw most U.S. forces from Iraq that they didn't have the votes to win, but victory wasn't their goal; it was stand-up comedy to draw attention to the Cause, which - as we know - justifies any means, which includes improper use of resources >>>

- Update 20th June 02:15 l.t.: I don't consider it my duty to provide the donks with a list of the consequences of their irresponsible demogoguery, but one person who did was Victor Davis Hanson. I hope somebody there takes notice and reaps some benefit from his wise insights, but regretfully we know better! Read "Defeat and Flight from Iraq" >>>


Remember ghastly George ... Galloway, Saddam's old buddy? Parliament's anti-sleaze watchdog, the Standards and Privileges Committee has found strong circumstantial evidence that the U.N.'s discredited oil-for-food program was used by the Saddam regime, with Mr Galloway's connivance, to fund his Mariam Appeal that he set up to campaign against sanctions imposed on Iraq.

The old windbag got off much too light, as usual: suspended from the Commons for 18 days during which time he is supposed to be contemplating his past sins. Knowing George, he'll probably be pondering whose interests to further next: the insatiable Satrap's in Tehran, or ride the wave of the emerging neo Marxists in South America instead?


On a happier note, we'll be in for a political treat as beastly Boris has officially announced he'll be running against erratic Red Ken! "I have a stock speech in which I berate the British - and especially British politicians - for being altogether too namby-pamby, mollycoddled and risk-averse; and I think of that speech now as I contemplate the challenge of running for Mayor of London."

"I am happy to confirm that I have today put my name forward to be the Conservative Candidate for London Mayor". Exchange of postmodern invective is already proliferating!


Back at the real war front, whence independent reporter Michael Totten has let it be known he's made it from Kuwait City to Baghdad. Noah Pollak has posted a report in re of Al Qaeda in Iran and reveals:

"It is long past time that one important piece of fantastical rubbish be finally sent on its way: this is the idea that Islamists maintain some kind of fastidious ethnic and theological separatism when it comes to who they're willing to work with on killing people. The co-option of Hamas and Islamic Jihad (Sunni Arab) by Iran (Shia Persian) is one piece of reality that intrudes on this comforting notion; so is the Iran-Syria alliance, along with the reality of Iranian support for both Shia and Sunni insurgents in Iraq."
Here's the rest of the revealing article >>>

While on the subject of debunking Islamic myth, most people think of Syria as a Sunni Arab country. The owners of this family estate however, the Assad dynasty, are Alawites or Alevites, a sect of Shi'ite Islam that is rather prominent in Syria. Hence the intimate connection with the satraps in Tehran, Southern Lebanon and Gaza City.

Public Opinion and Victory: a Contradiction?

With the nestling of Postmodern crypto Marxists in the Liberal Left parties the traditional Left has become a far cry from what it was, say ten years ago. The invective at the expense of the nation's common good is taking its toll. I am singling out the United States here, but I might as well be writing about The Netherlands, Britain or Spain. The Postmodern rhetorical rage is everywhere.

Dr Sanity has gone into the psychology and has come up with some serious pathological issues pertaining to Narcissism, the denial over the Socialist shipwreck on the cliffs of economic theory, and heaps of projection and other immature coping strategies.

It can be argued that the Left perhaps had a fatally flawed ideal, going against the very essence of human nature, but that at least their intentions were morally superior. Nick Cohen, author of "What's Left?" and signatory of the Euston Manifesto - an effort to claim the Left's traditional mainstream back from the Postmodern crypto Marxists but committing identical errors - in a recent Pajamas interview paraphrased that image like this:

"More broadly, Cohen laments the loss ... of the core principle of the left, international solidarity with the oppressed ... he regrets that once upon a time amidst the wreckage of the failure of Marxism-Leninism and even mild socialism, the great consoling claim of the left was that it had once squarely opposed fascism. Now, he isn’t so sure ...

"... as ... British leftists in the antiwar movement (are) making common cause with the far right Muslim Brotherhood; Iraqi socialists and trade unionists abandoned or ignored after the fall of Saddam; leftist intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky either denying or playing down ethnic cleansing of nationalists in the Balkans; the socialist Mayor of London hosting and defending preacher Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who had called for the killing of apostates and homosexuals; in parts of the academy, the onset of an extreme relativism which taught that it was racist to oppose sexism in different cultures; the growth of anti-semitism of varying intensity ...

"Cohen tries to balance two arguments ... anger with the flawed policies and incompetence of the Bush and Blair governments, but solidarity with Iraqis as they tried to build something better after decades of tyranny".

But Nick Cohen is a dissenter. It was obvious from the start that - given half the chance - the Left would choose to lose Bush the war: Democrats have been waving white flags from the get go and played the demoralization card more than once, right into the hands of the enemy. Out of spite for Bush which is bad enough, but more importantly, at the expense of American global interest and by extension the free West as a whole, and eventually also at the loss of the spread of democracy in the Middle East, the only political and peaceful means of beating Islamic fundamentalism at home.

Yankee Wombat yesterday had an interested uptake on an article on Tech Central Station Daily, "How Al Qaeda is Winning Even as it is Losing". It's a bit of a technical story, but what it boils down to is this:

"The Coalition and al Qaeda are fighting two different wars. While General Petraeus strangles the insurgent hydra head-by-head, al Qaeda's message of slaughter and despair saps the American public of its will ... A congressionally-imposed defeat in Iraq may be averted by a swing in the polls ... in a hostile media environment ... (this) is difficult, but not impossible, given the substantial American center - Citizens who would prefer victory if given reason to hope. Alternately, Congress could defy the polls. Al Qaeda is running its war on ... bytes of sound and sight. Congress could act on General Petraeus' reports from the ground, rather than broadcasts generated by insurgents."

The West is hampered in fighting a conflict of 4th generation warfare - directed at public opinion - while that public is not led by rationality and common sense, but rather by Counter-Enlightenment anti-reason and anti-Libertarian ideology. As a result emotion, sentiment, impulsive rage, fear and suggestibility have free reign while the old grey mass is having a leave of synapses.

And so the cooperation in the Unholy Alliance, of Western Left Collectivism and Eastern Right Collectivism, are shaping the new world in their totalitarian image at the expense of Liberty, human autonomy and hope for a democratic and peaceful Middle East.

In Iraq meanwhile, just when the surge led by General Petraeus is making substantial progress and the U.S. polls are sliding further, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has had it with the Democrat imposed arbitrary deadlines, a feature entirely alien to Middle Eastern culture.

The whole enterprise suggests as well that on the whole, democracies are peaceful countries simply because it is impossible to properly run a war against ruthless terrorists on public opinion polls and persistent common error. This cynicism begs the next question: who's to reign in the world's bullies?

"Yes my Friends, I will Call for War ..."

"Yes my friends, I will call for war just as powerfully as the bad guys do and I must show them that I'm stronger than they are, because they do not understand the language of civilization and reason. They understand only power ... everything they accomplished was through absolute control over the assets of their nations through murder, torture, repression and intimidation."

The above is a paragraph from the 7th May's post on blog "Iraq the Model". To those whose political affiliation leads them to the denial of reality, here's a contribution from Bernard Lewis, a breed of scholar on the brink of extinction thanks to dumbing down to ensure equal dumb outcome and the onslaught of relativism. Lewis' lecture deals with recent historical backgrounds in the Middle East, pertinent to the above:

"In 1940, the government of France decided to surrender and, in effect, changed sides in the war. The greater part of the colonial empire was beyond the reach of the Axis, and the governors therefore had a free choice: Vichy or de Gaulle. The overwhelming majority chose Vichy, including - and this is what concerns us specifically - the governor, high commissioner, he was called, of the French-mandated territory of Syria-Lebanon. So, Syria-Lebanon was wide open to the Nazis, and they moved in on a large scale, not with troops, because that would have been too noticeable, but with propaganda of every kind."

"It was then that the roots of Ba'athism were laid and the first organizations were formed, which ultimately developed into the Ba'ath Party. It was then that the Nazi style of ideology and government became known, eagerly embraced simply because it was anti-Western rather than because of inherent attraction."

"From Syria, they succeeded in spreading it to Iraq, where they even set up a Nazi-style government for a while, headed by Rashid Ali. It was possible to deal with that, and they were driven out of the Middle East. But after the war, the Western allies also left and the Soviets moved in, taking the place of the Nazis as a champion against the West. To switch from the Nazi to the communist model required only minor adjustments".

The communists may have gone as well with the demise of the Soviet Union, but a system and a mentality aren't shaken that easily. In any case the Ba'athist regimes in Iraq and Syria remained, until Saddam was thrown out of Iraq by 'the neocon Coalition'. Here's Iraq The Model's blogger again with another excerpt from "Don't bury your heads in the sand":

"I have said it over and over again that some of us in Iraq and America are sending wrong messages to the terrorists and the dictators behind them; in fact I wasn't surprised when I saw Zawahiri appear on al-Jazeera to announce America's defeat, not long after Reid did. Zawahiri claims al-Qaeda has won and Reid claims America has lost but I see only a war that's still ongoing and I see ... that al-Qaeda has the shortest stick."

"We are going through a fierce war and sending more wrong messages could only further complicate an already complicated situation and create more mess that would be exploited by Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia for their own purposes - more iron-fist control on the peoples and treasures of the region and pushing the Middle East to crises and confrontations with the world, not forgetting spreading their dark, backward ideologies."

Need I go on? So much for the real world. And this is while American and Coalition soldiers bite the dust in Iraq, risking life and limb for a cause bigger than themselves, that Democrats are willfully endangering the soldiers' lives through petty party politics, and European and American brats that are spoiled to the bone, display their mindless message of No To Fascism! to the wrong party, the ones that are fighting it!

How stupid can a human being get! In France and Greece cars are set alight night after night as they play "anarchist". Here are the figures from France's blasé anti Sarko lot, to whose youthful cynicism

"(to the) persecuted by the tyrannies and by the dictators, to all the children and to all the martyrized women in the world to say to them that the pride, the duty of France will be at their sides"

has no meaning at all because "he's a neocon, isn't he?" Blister their little bourgeois buttocks with .... censored for legal reasons.

In Greece they got out the heavy weaponry and are attacking entire police stations. In fact, the latter might be of another order altogether, more inspired by 19th century Russian nihilism. As we have seen in "History Class: of Agit-prop, Revolution and Terror this was the pet project of their variety of bourgeois brats, the children of the new Russian middle classes: they took up terror as a weapon to create an atmosphere that fostered repression, war and revolution, clearing the ground for their Marxist worker's paradise.

All that romantic quasi heroism might appeal to the average postmodern, suburban, middle class, ignoramus, bored to death as he is with his own lack of spirit and character; but in consideration of the present state of affairs, reliving their romanticized versions of history amounts to handing a Daisy Cutter to a baby.

Alternatively they might find it in themselves to pick up a book and learn the first things about democracy and liberty: that it requires a rational population with a sense of responsibility and respect for each other's rights, possessions and opinions! Apart from it looking a bit moronic to blindly keep on fighting the wrong parties, how else are we to deal with the assimilating aspirations of The Borg, like the ravings of this particular Muzzleman:

"Western 'civilization' is in its death throes. It is collapsing around you as every day the blasphemous lies upon which it is based are exposed. Every day the descent into degeneracy accelerates. You recognise this and have become quite irrational as you contemplate your future. But there is no reason to fear. Just open your eyes and look around you. Everywhere you look you will see the advance of Islam. You must realise that Islam is not just a "religion" in the sense that Westerners understand that term. In fact, Islam is a complete way of life and provides the answers to all questions. Open your eyes, embrace Islam, and live in peace in submission to the will of Almighty Allah (swt). Your grandchildren will be Muslim. Allahu akbar!"

Bees pee upon them all! (Thanks for the loan, Skipper!).

Tony's Canard, Bunkers and some darned thing in the Balkans

"I did what I thought was right". The end of an era. Tony Blair today announced he will tender his resignation to the Queen on 27th June after ten years in office. His Labour economic legacy is debatable. I haven't had the pleasure of seeing the U.K. up close for a while, and cannot really judge the fairness of statements like "whole towns are on the state's payroll: we have no one on the dole, we only have civil servants". What I do admire is the man's core decency, his patience and power of persuasion - at least, his efforts in casu the Iraq War, which I still consider to be a Liberation.

I still see him endlessly debating TV studios filled to the brink with hysterical anti war activists.Teenagers, some moved to tears with frustration over their incapacity to understand that removing a murderous tyrant from one of the world's strategic hot spots, is of a higher moral order than letting the bastard sit out his time at the rate of hundreds tortured to death on any given day, only to be succeeded by a dynasty of recreational serial rapists. Tony, you did the right thing!

There's no debating postmodern sentimentality and irrationality, is there? The time of great statesmen is definitely over as baby-boomers hold the reigns of power. Since postmoderns have done away with the concept of objective truth, it is consequently not something they aspire to. So we don't have seekers for truth, we have activists whose opinion is formed by blurting out the very opposite of what they deem to be "the enemy's".

For instance, if U.S. President George W. Bush seeks to disseminate democracy in the Middle East, if only because democracies are on the whole more peaceful nations than Islamic versions of Nazi-Germany - the concept of democracy is vilified and its virtues relativised out of existence: suddenly "so overrated!"

Similarly, if author Melanie Phillips "is a British neoconservative" (no need to ask any less shallow questions: she's a neocon, isn't she?) "who has devoted herself to warning England that Muslims are taking over and destroying its culture" , as stated in her "oh-so-cleverly titled book, Londonistan", this is considered a hype and a gross exaggeration (or something). Let me not fall into the trap of retaliating at the italics at this point with a list of laughable Leftist book titles, their particular fruits of cerebral ravings!

The point is that if someone finally unearths Marshall Tito's Iraqi bunkers, an obvious WMD storage facility and hiding space as there ever was (one that was destroyed is described here), these reports are consigned to the muck-heap as "drooling, deranged, self-evidently moronic conspiracy dribble" ... have you quite finished? Let me ask the reader in all honesty: what age do you suppose the producer of this infantile graffiti is?

This champion linguistic distance urinating is Glenn Greenwald, blogger at Salon.com. His juvenile invective is condensed in an article with the brilliant title "Right-wing blogs discover massive conspiracy to hide WMDs in Iraq", together with updates II, III and IV. Here are links to Melanie Phillips' article "I found Saddam’s WMD bunkers" and to Front Page Magazine's item "The Iraqi WMDs That Slipped Through Our Fingers".

Let's remind ourselves at this point that the WMD as a casus belli was a British canard, initiated by Tony Blair to make his task at home a little easier - and fat lot of good it did him! Factual reason was that Saddam had been violating the terms for ending the 1st Gulf War for twelve long years, an offence the Security Council for economic reasons best known to themselves, failed to enforce.

This item warrants much more in-depth coverage, which I will certainly do, but early awareness - if not hot-blooded activism - is important on this point. Michelle Malkin yesterday in "Jihadists Exploit Our Hospitality and Open Borders ... Again" describes a 'plot' in CNN inverted commas to massacre U.S. soldiers at Fort Dix. One of the suspects, "Abdullahu was familiar with the base because it was the first place he landed when arriving in the United States as a refugee from Kosovo ... Abdullahu arrived at Fort Dix as a teenager in 1999 as part of a group of about 4,400 refugees from Kosovo, officials said".

Thanks, says Michelle Malkin. Thanks, says I, after the U.N. and the E.U. with U.S. endorsement - are saying Yes to a potentially Muslim state in Europe's heartland. "As said by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos at a recent Kosovo hearing "Here is yet another example that the United States ... stands foursquare for the creation of an overwhelmingly Muslim country in the very heart of Europe."

Diana West's Townhall article "The 'limited' war for 'hearts and minds'" from which the above is an excerpt, carries an icon at the top: "Take Action"; please hit it!

As Europe, the U.N. and America console themselves with the thought that, since "we're all interconnected now" which seems to warrant "peace at any price", and the Balkan's Muslims moreover are a far cry from the Saudi desert, the signs are there - if suppressed by the MSM - that things are already starting to go very wrong indeed! Try that ... and this, for an appetizer of some darned thing in the Balkans ...

Of Hypocrisy, burqas, Blair and bummers.

While yesterday I had a bit of a breather thanks to Danny Carlton's new CrossPosted initiative, things are now piling up quite heavily and the back-log is becoming apparent all over the house. The relativist treasure trove Signandsight has posted a reply from Professor Stuart Sim (if it isn't relativst, it's fundamentalist!) to Paul Cliteur's Falling Prey to Relativism. (See posts A Failed State on a World-wide Scale and Leviathan.) If that's not enough multiculturalism, our Muslim brothers are also at it, again. Let's take one at a time:

The new Dutch government has officially been installed, and truth be told, it doesn't look good. While I have no intention of getting into matters of taxation and just who is going to pay up - any post 1945 government of whatever colour or description has been equally expert at this form of daylight robbery - it is at once apparent that the Labour Party has returned to power, judging by appointments that basically come down to, on the one hand employing the fox to run the hen-house and on the other, letting the flea circus run itself. While the previous message to immigrants was, assimilate or do - whatever it is you are doing - elsewhere, the new tenure has unearthed the old multiculturalist adagium, by all means celebrate your own culture in your own ghetto. Back to square one. Long live the burqa! Go ahead, draw a bag over your head and call it personal choice and respect for women! Multiculture wins, society looses.

Meanwhile in Iraq it's Hypocrisy Revealed: "Sunni insurgent groups including al-Qaida in Iraq have called for revenge attacks after a second rape allegation against the Shiite-dominated security forces." While it is too sad of words that a chance of civilised government is being squandered in this way, it must be stated that under the old regime nobody ever talked about it, but this was regretfully the norm. And that was just rape in the name of law enforcement. Saddam's boys had made it a habit to commit - how did Ann Coulter describe it? - recreational serial rape! Now the shoe is on the other foot, but at least at present Sunnis are in a position to cry foul!

In the U.S. justice has its course - at least, that is what we must assume (if it doesn't mirror the case of Eric O. in the Netherlands). A soldier of the U.S. army, who has been accused of being part of a group, which raped and murdered an Iraqi girl and killed members of her family, has been given a sentence of 100 years in a military prison.

The Daily Telegraph has Tony Blair on the couch: in an article "The Unspoken Truth Behind Blair Interview" it alleges the U.K. Prime Minister is in denial in his Today interview, insisting that the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq was not an admission of failure but a sign that its fledgling democracy was growing stronger. While this may be the obvious conclusion of the neutral observer, to the anti-war activist it is the umpteenth sign of lies, more lies, giving raise to rage, and more rage! Although my time is scarce and bathroom chores await, I don't mind throwing caution to the wind and fisk this article to shreds for a while. Let's see:

Q: What he did not say: It's not the British but the US forces who are patrolling Baghdad who are much more unpopular.
A. Yes, perhaps ... but what has that got to do with 80-90 percent of the violence being caused by terrorism? Even if it were penguins it wouldn't make a difference. The terrorists don't throw bombs at the troops because of their unpopularity, but because they cannot let go of total power and because their interests are best served under chaotic and hopeless conditions. (Unpopular indeed, as if it were Top of the Pops which is no longer attainable!)

Q: What he did not say: The militias carrying out the killings could not have existed under Saddam.
A. Indeed. In the time of Saddam it was Saddam doing the killing. It has been calculated that the rate of deaths per 24 hours stood at 240, a figure - in spite of all the terrorism and revenge killings going on - not matched till this day.

Q: What he did not say: Estimates of Iraqi casualties range from 150,000 to 650,000 with more than two million people fleeing the country.
A. Yes, my aunt may have 1 million in the bank, but it may actually be six! It so happens that it is not the allied troops that torture people to death each God-given night, dumping their bodies in the streets. Neither do they plant IEDs, nor as a rule do they commit kidnappings and hostage takings. Moreover, as per above.

Q: What he did not say: It took far too long to replace them (the Ba'athist Iraqi police force and army).
Yes, it takes a bit of time to replace the entire police and army of a country going 27 million inhabitants. The quicker you do it, the less you're able to do the proper screening so as to avoid infiltration by general bad hats and re-hire former rapists (see above rape allegation), etcetera.

Q: What he did not say: An opinion poll cited by senior Democrat and Republicans in Washington showed 61 per cent of Iraqis favoured armed attacks on coalition forces.
A: While it is quite an achievement to conduct an opinion poll under the circumstances, armed attacks are not carried out by the respondents, but by different lots. These, we must assume, weren't voluntarily participating in the poll.

Q: What he could not say: It would be political disaster to even countenance it (after withdrawing troops, having to redeploy because of adverse circumstances).
A: No, sunny side up.

Q: What he did not say: His own focus groups show that most voters think suicide bombers have come to Britain because of Iraq.
A: This is a peculiar way of reframing "extremists previously used Kosovo, Palestine and Kashmir as justification for terrorism". And, as we know, opinion shouldn't be confused with fact. Roger Bacon, English philosopher (1214-1292) identified several obstacles to truth, among them uninstructed popular opinion and long-standing but erroneous custom.

Q: What he did not say: How does this (interventions in removing dictatorships from Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and Iraq) square with my prediction after one month as Prime Minister: "Mine is the first generation able to contemplate the possibility that we may live without going to war or sending our children to war."
A: It doesn't. Ah, live can be a bummer, can't it?

The rest is too much innuendo and drawing on sentiment, to be worthy of my time. Time for the weekly cat litter.