The Middle-East!

There really are no good guys and bad guys when it comes to the Middle-East kids!

Nooooo!

All we have are shades of grey. I admit that some are greyer than others but there is nothing black and white for sure!

When we look at the different players, some might be leaning more toward the lighter shades and some more towards the "dark side" [sic] but they are all the same as we ourselves are.

By that I mean that each and every one of us can recall all the good guys and the bad guys that we've been, all the hero's and the villains, and the people in between.

So let no one claim the moral high ground bunky, because that would be casting the first stone!

With that in mind lets notice a few exceptions or anomalies, if you will!

Yasssar Arafat was leader of the PLO and seen by many as a hero of the Palestinian cause but it is generally accepted that Camp David would have succeeded if not for Yassar's intransigence. (Yassar always said No-ssar!) And while we are on the subject, where in the hell did he get almost a Billion dollars which he squirreled away in banks around Europe!

Yassar........ the guy was filthy rich while most Palestinians lived in poverty!

'Splain that one to me!

Now, let's get around to the big picture in the Middle-East and tackled a subject that is much more important than the Palestinian one!

A top Israeli official said today that if Iran continues with its alleged nuclear arms programme, Israel will attack it.

Speaking to Yediot Ahronot newspaper, Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz said sanctions on Iran were ineffective.

Earlier this week, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Iran's nuclear programme must be stopped by what he termed all possible means.

"The international community has a duty and responsibility to clarify to Iran, through drastic measures, that the repercussions of their continued pursuit of nuclear weapons will be devastating," Mr Olmert said.

Iran insists that its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes but it is defying a demand from the UN Security Council to stop the enrichment of uranium.

"If Iran continues with its programme for developing nuclear weapons, we will attack it. The sanctions are ineffective," Mr Mofaz told Yediot Ahronot.

"Attacking Iran, in order to stop its nuclear plans, will be unavoidable," he said.

To this argument there are loud cries that Israel has up to 150 nuclear weapons so why are they so paranoid about Iran?

It's quite simple my friend. Although not running around with the white hat and riding a white horse, Israel is at least rational and responsible, while Iran and many other countries in the Middle-East are unstable, subject to religious uprisings and generally are considered lose cannons by World wide diplomatic circles!

In other words Israel isn't likely to use it's nuclear weapons, and especially not for a first strike.

With the Iranians it's a different matter entirely!

We don't know, and certainly can't take that chance!

Your "tell it like it is" scribe;
Allan W Janssen

Allan W Janssen is the author of the book The Plain Truth About God (What the mainstream religions don't want you to know!) and is available at the web site www.God-101.com

Visit the blog "Perspective" at http://Allans-Perspective.blogspot.com

BORG!

A few weeks ago we told you about the Borg and how they had infiltrated Terran defenses and started assimilating everyone.

Through the "Freedom of Information" act we here at Perspective have managed to get a hold of some photographs that were until now highly classified.

This photo shows the initial scout ship approaching Terra in preparation for the Borg invasion.

They seem to have landed in the Middle-East to establish a beach-head and organize their ground assault.
Although heavily denied by Western governments, the process of conquest seems to have started as this photo of large crowds of Muslims waiting to be assimilated shows!We will endevour to keep you up to date on the latest developments and remember: You heard it here first!

Allan W Janssen is the author of the book The Plain Truth About God (What the mainstream religions don't want you to know!) and is available at the web site www.God-101.com

Visit the blog "Perspective" at http://Allans-Perspective.blogspot.com

Get with the program or get out!

There is an article here that I think bears repeating in full and to a larger audience than just San Francisco. If you can take the time to read the whole thing I would like to make a comment at the end.

Guest Post by Cinnamon Stillwell; San Francisco Chronicle.

Throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe, young Muslim women are being targeted for violence. Lest it be thought hate crimes are to blame, it is, in fact, their own relatives who are the perpetrators. So-called honor killings, whereby a Muslim male family member, typically the father, murders his daughter in order to defend the family’s honor, is a growing problem.

While statistics are notoriously hard to come by due to the private nature of such crimes and the fact that very few are reported, the United Nations Population Fund approximates that as many as 5,000 women are murdered in this manner each year worldwide.

Undoubtedly that’s a low estimate, as reports from Turkey, Jordan, Pakistan and the Palestinian territories, among other locales, are filtering in at an alarming rate. Add to the list Germany, Sweden, other parts of Europe, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States, and it’s clear that young Muslim women in the West are becoming increasingly vulnerable.

While fathers are commonly responsible for honor killings, they often act in concert with their daughters’ brothers, uncles, and even female relatives. For infringements upon a Muslim daughter’s “honor” constitute the greatest humiliation possible to the religious and tribal tradition from which many such immigrant families emerged.

Acts that demand “punishment” include refusing to wear a hijab (or headscarf), having non-Muslim boyfriends or male friends of any origin, being sexually active, rejecting arranged marriages, aggressively seeking employment and education, and, more than anything else, attempting to assimilate into Western culture.

Trying to balance a tightrope between the demands of competing and in some cases incompatible cultures, young Muslim women in the West are caught between two worlds. And all too often they pay the ultimate price. Indeed, two such cases have rocked the United States and Canada in recent months, bringing the specter of honor killings much closer to home.

On New Year’s Day, residents of Lewisville, Texas were shocked to hear about the brutal murder of teenage sisters Sarah and Amina Said. The two were found shot to death in a taxi after having made a last phone call to a police dispatcher asking for help. The police immediately issued an arrest warrant for the girls’ father, Egyptian-born cab driver Yaser Abdel Said, who remains at large to this day.

A Muslim married to a Christian woman, the elder Said had a history of physical and sexual abuse toward his daughters. This past Christmas, his wife, Patricia, finally fled the state with the girls and set up residence in Tulsa, Okla., under an assumed name.

Said’s violent and domineering behavior was apparently motivated by his concern that, as the Dallas Morning News describes it, “Western culture was corrupting the chastity of his daughters.”

Honor students and athletes at Lewisville High School, Sarah and Amina were the quintessential American teenagers. Amina had been awarded a $20,000 college scholarship and Sarah planned to study medicine. Photos of the two young women demonstrate a vibrancy and attractiveness that undoubtedly induced fear in their controlling father.

The emergence of non-Muslim boyfriends was the final straw.

Although the girls’ mother denied that Said was motivated by religion or culture and their brother, Islam, claimed it was not an honor killing, all evidence points to the contrary.

While, reportedly, the family was not terribly observant, Said, as described by the Dallas Morning News, “often espoused his version of traditional Middle Eastern values,” including marrying his then 15-year-old wife when he was 30, threatening to take one of his daughters “back to Egypt and have her killed,” where, as he put it, “it’s OK to do that … if you dishonor your family,” trying to break up one of his daughters and her non-Muslim boyfriend, and threatening to kill both his daughters on multiple occasions over disputes surrounding their social lives.

Summing it all up, the sisters’ great-aunt Gail Gartrell stated unequivocally, “This was an honor killing.”

The slayings of Sarah and Amina Said came on the heels of another apparent honor killing, that of 16-year-old Aqsa Parvez in Mississauga, Ontario, last December. Aqsa was a vivacious and popular young woman whose attempts at a normal, Western teenage social life angered her Pakistani father, Muhammad Parvez.

Aqsa, who was opposed to wearing a hijab and sometimes changed her outfit once she got to school, often clashed with her father and had left the family home a week before the attack out of fear. But she eventually returned, only to be met with strangulation at the hands of her own father. She died later in the hospital and the elder Parvez, who initially called the police, was charged with her murder. Aqsa’s 26-year-old brother, Waqas, was charged with obstructing police.

Like the Said sisters, Aqsa had long suffered abuse at the hands of her father, reports of which were never adequately pursued by Canadian authorities. But Aqsa’s friends saw trouble brewing and, according to the National Post, noted that “she had been threatened by her strictly religious family before.” According to one of them, Ebonie Mitchell, Aqsa held conflicting opinions with her family on wearing a hijab.

As she put it, Aqsa “just wanted to dress like we do. Last year, she wore like the Islamic stuff and everything, the hijab, and this year she’s all western. She just wanted to look like everyone else.”

As another friend, Krista Garbhet, noted, “She just wanted to be herself; honestly, she just wanted to show her beauty.” However, as Aqsa was to discover, the latter desire can have dangerous consequences for young Muslim women in the West.

In the wake of Parvez’s murder, one would hope for moral clarity from the Canadian Muslim community. But with a few exceptions, the usual suspects issued the usual apologetics.

Following Parvez’s funeral, an anti-violence vigil was held at the Mississauga Civic Centre and organized by the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Unfortunately, CAIR-CAN, like its American counterpart and the Cadaian Islamic Congress,(CIC) is part of the problem, not the solution.

Working to further acceptance of Sharia (or Islamic) law in the United States and Canada and trying to silence — either through accusations of “Islamophobia,” libel lawsuits or boycotts — voices of criticism and reform, CAIR’s agenda would seem to be working against the advancement of Muslim women’s rights.

Accordingly, representatives of other allegedly mainstream Muslim groups, instead of taking the opportunity to address the scourge of honor killings, downplayed the religious and cultural angle.

Shahina Siddiqui, president of the Islamic Social Services Association, claimed that “The strangulation death of Ms. Parvez was the result of domestic violence, a problem that cuts across Canadian society and is blind to color or creed,” while Sheikh Alaa El-Sayyed, imam of the Islamic Society of North America in Mississauga, came to the following conclusion: “The bottom line is, it’s a domestic violence issue.”

In contrast, Canadian Muslim reformer Irshad Manji, in addressing Aqsa Parvez’s murder, put it like so:

Moderate Muslims have warned that we shouldn’t leap to conclusions. Who knows what other dynamics infected her family, spout hijab-hooded mouthpieces on Canadian TV.

Not once have I heard these upstanding Muslims say that whatever the ‘family dynamics,’ killing is not a solution. Ever. How’s that for basic morality?

Similarly, Tarek Fatah, founder of the Canadian Muslim Congress, (CMC) labeled Parvez’s murder “a blight on Islam.” “In my mind,” he added, “this was an honor killing.”

Until this kind of self-reflection and self-criticism become the norm in the Muslim community, much-needed reform will remain elusive.

This includes addressing the root causes of honor killings and sanctioned violence against Muslim women.

Although the Koran does not authorize honor killings, Quran 4:34 instructs men to beat disobedient wives and send them to sleep in separate beds.

Then there are tribal leaders such as Jordanian Tarrad Fayiz, who tells followers that “A woman is like an olive tree. When its branch catches woodworm, it has to be chopped off so that society stays clean and pure.” Op-eds such as the one in the Yemen Times earlier this month recommending violence against women and clerics delivering sermons and speeches doing the same further muddy the waters.

Also at question are the vagaries of the Arab honor/shame culture, in which men’s “shame” (or that of the family or tribe) at the prospect of women’s sullied “honor” (or chastity) must be avoided at all costs.

Honor killings are not, as the apologists would have us believe, simple acts of domestic violence akin to those that take place in all communities. They are specific to Muslim religion and culture and must be addressed as such if ever honest debate about the matter is to ensue.

Regrettably, silence is the more typical reaction to these crimes. Fearful of giving offense or being branded with the ubiquitous “Islamophobia” label, law enforcement, journalists, social workers, government officials and, most of all, Western feminists are allowing a grave threat to women’s rights go unaddressed.

The misguided purveyors of multiculturalism — an ideology that holds that all cultures or religions are equivalent and none (save for the dominant, or Western, culture) worthy of condemnation — have rendered the West incapable of addressing evils where Third World cultures are to blame.

But the truth is Western culture offers the greatest boon to women’s rights and must therefore be vigorously defended, even if that means stepping into the realm of the politically incorrect.

Feminist groups such as the National Organization for Women, which put out an occasional press release decrying honor killings, need to make combating this practice as high a priority as defending choice and railing against “glass ceilings.” Instead, it is a precious few who are telling it like it is when it comes to the oppression of women in Muslim culture.

Ironically, many of them are on the right side of the political spectrum or, like author, blogger and activist Phyllis Chesler, have been cast out of the leftist-dominated feminist movement for speaking the uncomfortable truth.

As I have noted previously, the challenges posed by the Muslim world are the next frontier for women’s rights and all those interested in advancing such goals will have the occasion. It is up to every one of us to speak out where, not only women’s, but human rights are in question. Young women’s lives are at stake.

Now here is the point I would like to make, ladies and gentlemen; Let's start with this quote from the article...... Acts that demand “punishment” include refusing to wear a hijab (or headscarf), having non-Muslim boyfriends or male friends of any origin, being sexually active, rejecting arranged marriages, aggressively seeking employment and education, and, more than anything else, attempting to assimilate into Western culture.

If "Honor Killings" are a part of this problem it doesn't matter whether it's from religious reasons, cultural reasons, domestic violence, anger management, mental health issues, (nuts!) or tribal leaders such as Jordanian Tarrad Fayiz, who tells followers that “A woman is like an olive tree. When its branch catches woodworm, it has to be chopped off so that society stays clean and pure.” No, my friends, it doesn't matter at all who or what is at fault, what matters is "Attempting to assimilate into Western culture!"

So.....my point? Plain and simple! If you don't want to assimilate into Western culture, WHY THE HELL DID YOU COME HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!!!!!!!!!

In North America there is a strong tradition of immigrants comming over from far away lands and they have all assimilated, conformed and settled in to make us what we are today. The Ukrainians, the Brits, the Irish, the Scotish, the French, (sort of!) the Italians, the Spanish, the Africans, the Jamaicans, the Spanish, the Russians the Orientals and anyone else you might want to name.

They have all become part of the North American mosaic with a "minimum" of trouble and adjustment because they might come from different cultures but still lived in the modern world.

This is a lesson that people who are staunch Muslims should heed! Bringing seventh century religion and customs into twenty first century countries ain't gonna work baby, no way!

Allan W Janssen is the author of the book The Plain Truth About God (What the mainstream religions don't want you to know!) and is available at the web site www.God-101.com

Visit the blog "Perspective" at http://God-101.blogspot.com

Mid-East Justice!

Still don't believe that most of the Middle-East is still living in the Dark Ages?

Read this from "The Times" of London: (WARNING, graphic violence!)

The horrific final hours of a Kurdish woman murdered on the instructions of her father and uncle because she had brought “shame” on her family were revealed to a court yesterday.

A series of secret prison recordings showed that Banaz Mahmod’s killers had laughed as they raped and tortured her, before Mohamad Hama, a hired thug, stamped on her neck while strangling her with a ligature to “force out her soul”.

For two hours Miss Mahmod, 20, endured the ritualistic “honour killing” at the hands of a gang hired by her father, Mahmod Mahmod, 52, and uncle Ari Mahmod, 50. The men, who had fled to Britain from Iraq more than ten years ago, were enraged with Miss Mahmod because she had begun a relationship with someone of whom they did not approve.

In conversations with visitors to Belmarsh prison, Hama, 31, revelled in the sadistic attacks he launched on Miss Mahmod before cramming her body into a suitcase and burying it in Birmingham, 150 miles from her home.

The jury, which convicted Miss Mahmod’s father and uncle of her murder, were never played the tapes because they were thought too explicit and prejudicial.

The gang of at least four men went to her family home in Morden, southwest London, in January last year to kill her. After she disappeared Hama was arrested as a prime suspect and police taped his conversations secretly to try to establish whether Miss Mahmod was dead or alive. The tapes helped officers to discover her body three months later.

The transcripts, read out at a pre-sentence hearing at the Old Bailey, revealed that Hama, who admitted murder, had boasted of how the gang performed a series of degrading and violent sexual acts on Miss Mahmod in the final hours of her life.

He added that it took 30 minutes to strangle her with the bootlace ligature. “The soul wouldn’t leave her body. It took over half an hour. I swear to God, my leg or my foot was on her back. Mohammed [a gang member] made the cord like a hook.”

He added that when she vomited the men tried to “shut her up”. “I was kicking and stamping on her neck to get the soul out. I saw her stark naked, only wearing pants and underwear.”

Laughing uncontrollably, he described to one visitor how – after the murder – the killers accompanied the uncle as he carried the suitcase containing the body to a car.

Hama said: “The road was crowded and a police car came by. The handle broke off. I swear to God I was standing there. I almost ran away. We were around him, each side of him, as God is my witness. Her hair was sticking out. Her elbow was sticking out. It was a stupid, silly thing. We put the bag on our shoulders to take it away.”

He went on to boast how he carried out the killing with his “bare hands”. He also claimed that because of the respect the uncle wielded within the Kurdish community, he would serve 100 years in jail before turning him in.

Victor Temple, QC, for the prosecution, said: “None of these defendants in the case have expressed the slightest remorse over what happened to that girl. Uncle Ari wielded very considerable influence within the family and the wider Kurdish community in South London.

“Effectively what occurred was the uncle taking the leading role contacting other younger members of the Kurdish community who would look up to him, respect him and wished to do his bidding. They were only too conscious of what their participation was going to involve – namely cold-blooded murder.”

Hama, from West Norwood, Mahmod, and Ari Mahmod, both from Mitcham, will be sentenced today. At least two of the gang of killers have since fled to Iraq.

During the three-month trial in which the father and uncle were tried for murder, the jury was told that Miss Mahmod had approached police on four separate occasions saying she feared for her life.

At one point she gave officers at Mitcham police station a list of five names of those she feared would one day kill her, including the name of Hama. A month before her murder, she told a police officer that her father had plied her with drink before trying to kill her.

An Independent Police Complaints Commission investigation and an internal Metropolitan Police inquiry were set up after the convictions to try to establish why further steps were not taken to save Miss Mahmod’s life.

An officer who dealt with the case believed she was seeking attention and was drunk, despite needing treatment for cuts to her wrist.

And we sit here in our complacency and wonder what's the matter with those people over there!!!!

The Iraqi's claim to have to oldest civilization in that part of the world but they sure as Hell don't act like it!

At all!

Allan W Janssen is the author of The Plain Truth About God-101 at www.God-101.com

Stupid is as stupid does!

Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza are all in a state of virtual civil war.
Aided by Syria/Iran on one side and the United States on the other, Hamas and Fatah have escalated their sectarian fighting to unprecedented levels and the conflict has the potential to spread to other parts of the Middle-East as well.

Israel has been on high alert for the last 60 years or so against Arab aggression and repeated calls to wipe them off the map.

But, if things continue the way they are going, all the Israeli's will have to do in the next little while is sit back and laugh their asses off while the Arabs self-destruct!!!

Not much from that area can surprise me anymore!



Your "live from the front" scribe;
Allan W Janssen

Allan W Janssen is the author of The Plain Truth About God-101 (what the church doesn't want you to know!) www.God-101.com

Bush is up to something!

Georgie Porgie is up to something!!!!!!

He now has the problem of Saddam solved by killing him before he could spill the beans on the CIA. Any of the other trials he was scheduled to "attend" would have afforded him too much of an opportunity to do damage to the Administration!

What he has planned next is not entirely clear, but he will definitely have to do something as time is against him. A good war is always a sure-fire (no pun intended this time!) way to divert attention from domestic problems!

The Pentagon is sending a second aircraft carrier and its escort ships to the Gulf, defense officials said Today. This is supposedly as a warning to Syria and Iran.

With this in mind we can expect some sort of manufactured "crisis" in the Middle-East some time in the next few weeks!

Officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the USS John C. Stennis strike group would deploy this month. It will put 5,000 more U.S. sailors in the region, bringing the total to 16,000. (The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier group entered the Gulf in December.)

Pentagon representative Bryan Whitman declined to comment, saying the Defense Department would not discuss future deployments, ship movements, or reasons behind them!

However, military analysts said the move was intended to demonstrate U.S. resolve in the face of acts by Iran and Syria that it sees as provocative, such as Tehran's pursuit of its nuclear program.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates previously said the increased American presence in the Gulf was a message to the region as a whole and not a response to any specific action by Iran.

"I think the message that we are sending to everyone, not just Iran, is that the United States is an enduring presence in this part of the world," Gates told reporters on a December visit to Baghdad. "We will be here for a long time and everybody needs to remember that -- both our friends and those who might consider themselves our adversaries."

As if the civil war in Iraq is not enough, God only knows what is in store for us next!

Your "war analyst" scribe;
Allan W Janssen

Also spoke Ayn Rand!

I will let this piece speak for itself!!! But it will be referred to in our next look at the Middle East.

The Terrorists' Motivation: Islam - Their attempt to practice religion consistently explains the terrorists' actions. By: Edwin A. Locke and Alex Epstein
It is now five years since September 11, 2001--and since that horrific day we have witnessed numerous additional attacks by Islamic terrorists against the West. In the face of a seemingly never-ending supply of suicidal killers, many still do not understand the motivation of the terrorists. Commentators are eager to offer a bevy of pseudo-explanations--poverty, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, etc.--while ignoring the motivation the terrorists themselves openly proclaim: Islam.

The near silence about the true role of Islam in motivating Islamic terrorists has two main causes: multiculturalism and religion. Multiculturalism asserts that all cultures are equal and therefore none may criticize another; intellectuals and politicians are therefore reluctant to declare the obvious superiority of Western culture to Islamic culture. And the strong commitment to religion of many Americans, especially conservatives, makes them reluctant to indict a religion as the cause of a massive evil. But if we are to identify the fundamental cause of the terrorists' actions, we must understand at least two fundamental premises of the religion they kill for.

First, Islam, like all religions, rejects reason as a means of gaining knowledge and guiding action; it holds that all important truths are grasped by faith in supernatural beings and sacred texts. The Koran explicitly states that knowledge comes from revelation, not thinking. (Christianity in pure form entails a similar rejection of reason, but it has been heavily diluted and secularized since the Renaissance.)

Islam advocates the subordination of every sphere of life to religious dogma, including the legal system, politics, economics, and family life; the word "Islam" means literally: submission. The individual is not supposed to think independently but to selflessly subordinate himself to the dictates of his religion and its theocratic representatives.

We have seen this before in the West--it was called the Dark Ages.

Second, as with any religion that seeks converts, a derivative tenet of Islam is that it should be imposed by force (you cannot convince someone of the non-rational). The Koran is replete with calls to take up arms in its name: "fight and slay the Pagans wherever you find them . . . those who reject our signs we shall soon cast into the fire . . . those who disbelieve, garments of fire will be cut out for them; boiling fluid will be poured down on their heads . . . as to the deviators, they are the fuel of hell."

These ideas easily lead to fanaticism and terrorism. In fact, what is often referred to as the "fanaticism" of many Muslims is explicitly endorsed by their religion. Consider the following characteristics of religious fanatics. The fanatic demands unquestioning obedience to religious dogma--so does Islam. The fanatic cannot be reasoned with, because he rejects reason--so does Islam. The fanatic eagerly embraces any call to impose his dogma by force on those who will not adopt it voluntarily--so does Islam.

The terrorists are not "un-Islamic" bandits who have "hijacked a great religion"; they are consistent and serious followers of their religion.

It is true that many Muslims who live in the West (like most Christians) reject religious fanaticism and are law-abiding and even loyal citizens, but this is because they have accepted some Western values, including respect for reason, a belief in individual rights, and the need for a separation between church and state. It is only to the extent that they depart from their religion--and from a society that imposes it--that they achieve prosperity, freedom, and peace.

In the last year, there has been more and more of a call for a "War of Ideas"--an intellectual campaign to win the "hearts and minds" of the Arab world that will discourage and discredit Islamic terrorism. Unfortunately, the centerpiece of this campaign so far has been to appeal to Muslims with claims that Islam is perfectly consistent with Western ideals, and inconsistent with terrorism.

America has,with little success, groveled to so-called moderate Muslim leaders to strongly repudiate terrorism. (Those leaders have focused little energy on damning Islamic fanaticism, and much on the alleged sins of the U.S. government.) Such a campaign cannot work, since insofar as these "moderates" accept Islam, they cannot convincingly oppose violence in its name. A true "War of Ideas" would be one in which we proclaim loudly and with moral certainty the secular values we stand for: reason, rights, freedom, material prosperity, and personal happiness on this earth.

Why We Are Losing Hearts and Minds
By: Keith Lockitch

Our leaders have failed to answer the evil moral ideal of Islamic totalitarianism with a rational ideal of our own. Five years into our "war on terror," the Iraqi insurgency is raging, with no apparent end to the new recruits eager to wage jihad against the West. Support for offensive action has faded among a disheartened American public, while the terrorists are growing in number and in boldness.

Where have our leaders gone wrong? What kind of leadership failure can demoralize a whole nation of honest, productive citizens, while leaving suicide murderers stirred to righteous action?

The power that inspires righteous action--and which, by its absence, breeds discouragement--is the power of moral idealism. What has brought us to our present state is our leaders' moral weakness in response to the jihadists' moral zeal.

Observe that what draws the recruits to terrorist cells is a powerful ideal: the advancement of their religion. The jihadists believe fervently that Islam is the revealed word of Allah, that selfless submission to Allah is the purpose of life, and that all individuals should be subjugated to Islamic law under a theocracy. They believe in spreading the rule of Islam worldwide, and killing any "infidels" who stand in their way. They are morally outraged by the American ideal of individual liberty and regard our this-worldly, capitalistic culture as an evil that must be destroyed.

America can only defend itself against such a zealous, militant movement if we have moral confidence in our own ideals--and fight for them. We must repudiate the Islamists' "ideals" of other-worldliness, of blind faith, of renunciation and suffering, of theocracy, and proudly uphold the superior, American ideals of reason, freedom, and the pursuit of worldly happiness.

But our leaders have not shown such moral confidence.

When the terrorists of Sept. 11 struck in the name of Islam, President Bush did not identify them as Islamic totalitarians and condemn their murderous ideology and its supporters. Instead, he painted the hijackers as a band of isolated lunatics who had "hijacked a great religion." (Only recently has President Bush even acknowledged that our enemy is Islamic, with his use of the term "Islamic fascism.")

In response to Muslim denunciations of America’s secularism, our leaders did not defend this attribute of America, but instead stressed Americans' religiosity. A mere two weeks after Sept. 11, with the ruins of the World Trade Towers still smoldering, our planned Afghanistan campaign, "Operation Infinite Justice," was renamed to appease Muslims protesting that only Allah can dispense "infinite justice."

Unable to defend America intellectually, our leaders are unable to defend her militarily.

Have our leaders acted consistently against terrorist regimes? Consider our policy toward Iran, the primary state sponsor of terrorism. Refusing to identify Iran as the fatherland of Islamic totalitarianism, our president initially beseeched its Mullahs to join our "war on terror." And he has consistently answered their chants of "Death to America" and their quest for nuclear weapons with negotiation and spineless diplomacy.

Have our leaders asserted that they will use America’s formidable military to secure our way of life by whatever means necessary? No. Lacking the moral confidence to defeat our enemies, they have instead squandered our military resources and sacrificed our brave soldiers in a futile quest to spread "democracy" around the globe--as though bringing the vote to Muslim mobs sympathetic to Islamic totalitarianism will somehow end the terrorist threat.

The reason the terrorists and their state sponsors are not demoralized is that our leaders have failed to demoralize them. Our leaders' words and actions have signaled that we are not as morally committed to our lives and freedom as the terrorists are to our destruction.

We must make it clear to the jihadists that we will destroy anyone who takes up arms for Islamic totalitarianism. No one wants to fight and die for a hopeless cause. The jihadists will continue to be emboldened and to attract new recruits until they are convinced their goal is unachievable. They must see that we have the moral confidence to defend our lives--to answer their violence with an overwhelming military response, without pulling punches. They must see us willing to visit such crushing devastation on them that they fear us more than they fear Allah.

It is often said that we must win the "hearts and minds" of supporters of totalitarian Islam. Indeed we must: their hearts must be made to despair at the futility of their cause, and their minds must be convinced that any threat to our lives and freedom will bring them swift and certain doom.

The ideologues of totalitarian Islam have seized the power of moral idealism in the service of our destruction. It is time we reclaimed that power in defense of our freedom.

Keith Lockitch, Ph.D. in physics, is a fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, CA. The Institute promotes the ideas of Ayn Rand--best-selling author of “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead” and originator of the philosophy of Objectivism.

Copyright © 2006 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.

Allan W Janssen is the author of The Plain Truth About God-101 (what the church doesn't want you to know!) at; www.God-101.com
And the petition to have people mind their own business instead of yours at; http://www.petitiononline.com/moses/petition.html

The Truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me Howard!

This goes to show how you can never trust reports out of the Middle East or find out the truth and who is right and who is wrong. .............Verrrry Interesting!

Why the Israelis are so sceptical about Qana

If you are wondering why Israelis are so sceptical about what really occurred at Qana, the answer is quite simple:

The Massacre at Jenin (that wasn't). From wikepedia "The battle attracted widespread international attention because journalists, particularly in the UK, falsely reported that a massacre of Palestinians had taken place during the fighting, and that hundreds, or even thousands, of bodies had been secretly buried in mass graves by the IDF, allegations that were later shown to be baseless."

For weeks there was a media frenzy with grieving relatives interviewed, coverage of funerals, and claim after claim of atrocities, each worse than the last, that Israel supposedly committed.

The media continued to report as fact that hundreds of innocent people, mainly women and children, had been brutally, cold-bloodly murdered despite being shown evidence that funerals were being faked such as being shown this video caught by a drone flying overhead.

This clip would be funny if the accusations being thrust at us had not been so serious: the supposedly dead person keeps falling out of the funeral shroud he's being carried in --and then getting up to climb back in again so they can proceed along. He falls out again and again.

It took some 6 months for the independent investigations by human rights organizations to make clear that no massacre had occurred. Of course, by then the damage was done in the media.

No one was covering the story of the "massacre that didn't happen" --the "massacre that didn't happen" didn't get weeks of airplay, it got a small mention if it got any mention at all. You can still hear many people in the U.S., Germany and elsewhere talking about the horrible Israelis and how they cold-bloodly mowed down hundreds of innocent children in Jenin a few years ago.

More recently we had the Hamas accusations that Israel bombed a rally and killed and injured nearly two-scores of people, including many children. We claimed it wasn't so.

In this instance, the Palestinian Authority came out and supported Israel and stated very clearly that it was a Hamas car at the Hamas rally that was filled with rockets and weapons that exploded due to Hamas negligence, thus killing the children and adults who were gathered around it.

In fact, over this two week period of time Hamas claimed we bombed a house and several other targets and Fatah came out and said nooooooo those were additional accidents in which bomb-makers accidentally exploded themselves and their family members.

Why did Fatah suddenly become so honest? Well you see, this was right before the Palestinian elections...you know, Hamas vs. Fatah...

A lot of the news clips that make it onto the nightly news of reputable news channels such as CNN, NBC, BBC, and so forth, showing theoretical Israeli aggressions and horrible activities against the Palestinians have also been shown to be....fabricated.

The supposed massacre caused a major turnabout in world diplomacy. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice suddenly canceled her plans to fly to Beirut, saying "my work towards a ceasefire is really here [in Jerusalem] today." The implication was clearly that the onus was now upon Israel. French President Jacques Chirac condemned Israel's "unjustified action which demonstrates more than ever the need for an immediate ceasefire," Jordan's King Abdullah called it an "ugly crime," and other world leaders echoed these sentiments.

Though Israel emphasized that Hizbullah was to blame for waging its rocket war against Israel from within a civilian population, Foreign Ministry officials repeated their "deep regret at the loss of innocent life in the campaign against Hizbullah," and were forced to promise a "thorough and comprehensive examination."

However, the incident may have been all one big fraud, staged by Arab elements for the world media in order to lead precisely to the situation described above.

The central piece of evidence leading to this conclusion is the fact, mentioned by IDF officials from the very beginning, that the building collapsed a full seven hours after the Israel Air Force bombing. Why, then, would the residents inside not have been evacuated in the meantime? As Brig.-Gen. Amir Eshel of the Israeli Air Force told reporters Sunday night, “It is difficult for me to believe that they waited eight hours to evacuate it.” Without additional evidence, Eshel merely left open the possibility that Hizbullah terrorists, or explosives they left behind, caused the explosion.

"Indeed," writes Robert Spencer for Front Page Magazine, "it strains credulity that not only did these Lebanese civilians remain in a house that had been bombed for eight hours, but peacefully went to sleep in it after the bombing – since the victims were all apparently sleeping, despite continuing Israeli air bombardment in the area, when the building collapsed."

Gen. Eshel also said that the building was used by Hizbullah to store explosives. This was supported by a letter by Dr. Mounir Herzallah, a southern Lebanese Shiite, who wrote that Hizbullah terrorists came to his town, dug a munitions depot and then built a school and a residence directly over it.

In addition, as Reuven Koret writes for Israel Insider, the bombing of the area occurred in three waves. The first bombs, according to CNN correspondent Brent Sadler, did not hit the building in question, but rather landed "20 or 30 meters" away. The second strike hit targets further away, and the third strike, around 7:30 in the morning, landed over 400 meters away. The first reports of a collapsed building arrived a half-hour later.

Another CNN correspondent, Ben Wedeman, noted that there was a larger crater next to the building. He observed that the roof of the building was intact and that the building appeared not to have collapsed as a result of the Israeli strike.

Thus, the building was used to store explosives, was apparently not destroyed by the bombing, and sheltered dozens of women and children throughout a night of bombing. The identity of the victims was also not clear, except that they were not the original occupants of the building; a National Public Radio correspondent reported that they had left. "The victims were non-residents who chose to shelter in the building that night," Koret writes, and who were "'too poor' to leave the town, one resident told CNN's Wedeman. Who were these people?"

Hear Koret speak about the Hizbullah manipulation on IsraelNationalRadio.com.

As an aside, the hospital in Tyre, Lebanon, and Human Rights Watch both reported today that 28 people were killed in the Kafr Kana bombing, and not twice that number, as originally reported.

Other facts brought by Koret and Spencer:

* Sometime after dawn a call went out to journalists and rescue workers to come to the scene. Though Hizbullah has been claiming that civilians could not freely flee the scene due to Israeli destruction of bridges and roads, the journalists and rescue teams from nearby Tyre had no problem getting there.

* Lebanese rescue teams did not start evacuating the building until after the camera crews came. The absence of a real rescue effort was explained by saying that equipment was lacking. There were no scenes of live or injured people being extracted.

* There was little blood, CNN's Wedeman noted, concluding that the victims appeared to have died while they were sleeping - despite the thunderous Israeli air attacks. Rescue workers equipped with cameras were removing the bodies from one opening in the collapsed structure, and journalists were not allowed near it.

* Rescue workers carrying the victims on stretchers occasionally flipped up the blankets so that cameras could show the faces and bodies of the dead. But, Koret noted, the ashen-gray faces of the victims gave cause to think that the bodies looked like they had been dead for days.

* Photos of the rescue operation transmitted all over the world are "extremely suspicious," Spencer writes, citing work by EU Referendum showing numerous anomalies in the photos. "Most notably," he writes, "the dating of the various photos suggests that the same bodies were paraded before reporters on different occasions, each time as if they had just been pulled from the rubble. [In addition], some workers are wearing different gear in different photos, yet clearly carrying the same corpse."

* The Christian Lebanese (French-language) website LIBANOSCOPIE has charged that Hizbullah staged the entire incident in order to stimulate calls for a ceasefire, thereby staving off its destruction by Israel and Lebanese plans to rid themselves of this terrorist plague.

Spencer concludes, "Americans and Westerners are not used to dealing with carefully orchestrated and large-scale deception of this kind. It is time that it be recognized as a weapon of warfare, and an extremely potent one at that."

So this is why we scrutinize and ask a lot of questions when claims of mass deaths are reported...
posted by Yael K

Let's get the Middle East back into perspective here!

I actually had a lot to say about the situation in the Middle East and have been compiling notes for the last several days.

One of my main bitches is that Israel withdrew from Lebanon 18 years ago and during this whole time Hezbollah etc. etc. have been digging in amongst the general population of South Lebanon with the co-operation and support of Iran and Syria and the indifference or inability of the Lebanese Government to stop them, and EVERYONE knew what was coming!

Another assault on Israel

Then I ran across this piece and it basicaly speaks for itself!

An Israeli Defense – A Letter to the Leaders of the World

Ladies and Gentlemen, leaders of the world. I carry these words from Jerusalem, as a response to the difficult scenes displayed from Kana. Every human heart contracts when viewing these scenes. There are no words powerful enough to provide comfort with this type of a disaster. And still, I look you straight in the eye and say loud and clear: Israel will continue its military operation in Lebanon.

The Israeli Defense Forces will continue to attack targets from which missiles and Katyusha rockets are being fired at hospitals, old-age homes, and kindergartens in Israel. The IDF has been instructed to continue to hunt down Katyusha reserves, launching pads, and gun barrels through which these savages bomb and attack Israel.

We will not hesitate, we will not apologize, and we will not be weakened. If Katyushas continue to be launched into Israel from Kana, we will continue to bomb Kana. Today, tomorrow, and the following day. Here, there, and everywhere. The children of Kana could have been sleeping peacefully in their homes, uninterrupted, had the demonic messengers not taken over their land and turned our children’s lives into hell on earth.

Ladies and Gentlemen, it is time you understand: The Israeli State will not longer be stomped on. We will no longer allow anyone to take advantage of highly-populated areas as a front to bomb our citizens. No man will be able to hide behind women and children with the sole purpose of murdering our women and children any longer. This anarchy and irresponsibility is over. You can denounce us, you can boycott us, you can stop traveling to Israel, and if it will be necessary we will stop traveling to your country.

I am the voice of six million Israeli citizens who are being bombed, symbolic of the six million Jews who were exterminated and cremated into ashes and dust by savages in Europe. In both cases, those responsible for these atrocious and sinful acts were barbarians lacking in any human decency who had one simple goal: To obliterate the Jewish race off the face of the earth, in the words of Adolf Hitler, or to erase the State of Israel off the world map, in the words of Mahmud Ahmadinijad.

And just like you didn’t take things seriously then, you are ignoring them now. That, Ladies and Gentlemen, leaders of the world, will not happen. Never again. We will never again wait for the world to rescue us from the gas chambers. We will never again wait for a salvation that will not come. We now have our own air force. Israel can now stand up to those who want to kill us.

They will no longer be able to hide behind their women and children. They will no longer be absolved of all responsibilities.

Every place from which missiles are fired into the State of Israel will be a legitimate target for our attacks. It needs to be said clearly, one time, to the entire world. You are welcome to judge us, ostracize us, boycott us, and defame us. But kill us? Absolutely not.

Four months ago, Ehud Olmert was elected by hundreds of thousands of citizens to the post of Prime Minister, based on his plan to unilaterally withdraw from 90% of the occupied territories, which are part of the heart and soul of the Jewish people, with the sole purpose of ending most of the occupation and allowing the Palestinian people to turn over a new leaf and pacify the tensions until the conditions for a permanent settlement between us would be ready.

Former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza Strip to the internationally recognized border and gave the Palestinians an opportunity to build themselves a new reality. His predecessor, Edud Barak, ended the long-term Israeli presence in Lebanon and withdrew the IDF to international lines, allowing Lebanon to flourish, develop, and base itself as a democratic country with a strong economy.

What did the State of Israel receive in return for these? Did we have one moment of peace and quiet? Was our outstretched hand greeted with an encouraging handshake? Ehud Barak’s peace initiative at Camp David released upon us a wave of suicide bombers who shattered and blew up more than 1,000 citizens, women and children, into pieces.

I don’t remember any of you this enraged back then. Could it be because we didn’t allow close-ups of the dismembered teenagers at the Dolphinarium? Or the broken lives of those celebrating Passover who were butchered at Park Hotel in Netanya? There’s nothing we can do, that’s how it is here. We don’t display dead bodies in front of TV cameras. We mourn quietly.

We don’t dance on the rooftops when the children of our enemies are killed. We express true sorrow and remorse. All these are the animalistic rituals of our enemies. Today they are our enemies. Tomorrow, they will be yours. You’re already acquainted with the murderous flavor of this terror. You’ve tasted it. You will taste it again.

And look at Ariel Sharon’s disengagement from the Gaza Strip. What we get for it? A shower of Kasam missiles on otherwise-peaceful towns, suicide bombings and attacks, and the kidnapping of a soldier.

I don’t remember you reacting with such panic and fear at that time either. And here, for the past six years the withdrawal from Lebanon has been struck with the words and crimes of a dangerous Iranian messenger; an extremist who has taken over an entire country in the name of religious fanaticism and is trying to take Israel hostage on his way to Jerusalem and ultimately Paris and London.

An enormous infrastructure of terror has been established by Iran on our borders, threatening our citizens, getting stronger in front of our eyes, waiting for the moment when Iran becomes a nuclear stronghold, waiting to bring us to our knees. Don’t get me wrong: we are not going down alone. You, the leaders of the free world, the enlightened world, are going down with us.

So today I would like to put an end to this hypocrisy. I can’t remember such a reaction to 100 citizens being killed each day in Iraq. Sunnis killing Shi’ites who kill Sunnis, all of whom are killing Americans, and the world is silent. And I am having a difficult time remembering a similar reaction when the Russians wiped out entire villages and set fire to large cities in order to depress the mutiny in Chechnya.

And when NATO bombed Kosovo for nearly 3 months, and crushed a civilian population, you all looked away. What is it about us, the Jews, the few, the persecuted, that awakens all of this cosmic justice? What is it that we have that the others don’t?

I stand here before you today, loud and clear, with my head held high, looking you straight in the eye, not apologizing. Not giving in. Not whining. This struggle is for our freedom. For our image.

For our right to have a normal life within our recognized and legitimate borders. This is also your struggle. I pray and believe that you will understand it now. Because if you don’t, you might regret it later. When it is too late.

Ben Caspit

God Almighty, a sane person in the Middle East!

Please, please watch this. Here is where the future of Islam lies, not in what's going on now. This fine woman is doing what the Christians had to do five hundred years ago. Her name is Wafa Sultan and she has the guts to speak out!