Squaring the Culture

The world continues to pressure Israel for a cease-fire in Lebanon, even while nearly everybody agrees that for Israel to let up for even a few hours benefits nobody but Hezbollah. “We need a cease-fire” seems to be a knee-jerk, the safe thing world politicians fall back on whenever chaotic is happening.

There is a time for peace, and a time for war. Hezbollah has made it clear — in fact, the entire Muslim world has made it clear — that so long as Israel exists, there will not be peace. Whatever respite is granted to Hezbollah, they will use to strengthen their military posture and press the attack against Israel. For Israel, then, no cease-fire makes sense. For Israel, “victory” means dismantling Hezbollah’s ability to make war.

The good news is, Israel’s public seems to understand this.

The bad news is, America’s public does not. We don’t seem to understand — this IS our war. There’s no boundary between Hezbollah activism against Israel and Islamic Jihad activism against American interests; they’re the same activism. The Muslim world needs to get the message loud and clear: whenever you attack Western targets, they take you down completely. This needs to be consistent and immediate.

Coexistence with Islam will be possible when Islam gives up its vision of world domination by conquest. Until then, it’s time for war.

Two months ago, the US Senate voted to build 370 miles of high-tech fence along the US-Mexican border, in response to public pressure to secure the border.

Two weeks ago, the US Senate REJECTED the amendment to the Homeland Security Appropriations Bill that would have funded the fence. (See story here.)

At least one of the opposing votes said he opposed because the funding would have diverted funds from new border patrol agents and illegal immigrant detention space. This may be accurate, but we need to continue to pressure our representatives to take appropriate action until the funding is secured.

Write to your Senators (we’ve each got two), and tell them that you ARE watching, that you DO care, and that you expect funding to secure the border. Go to http://www.senate.gov/, click on “Find Your Senators” by state, and you’ll get links to contact your Senators via the Web.

Something has changed in the Middle East.

For the first time in my adult life — and probably for the first time since the nation of Israel was born –  a summit of Arab nations did not automatically condemn Israel defending itself against aggressors.

In an emergency session of the 18 Arab League nations this past weekend to discuss the Israeli action against Hezbollah in Lebanon, the nations of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan blocked a motion to condemn Israel and approve Lebanon’s defending itself by “all legitimate means” (which usually means by terrorist acts). Saudi Foreign Minister al-Faisal declared that the actions of Hezbollah were “‘unexpected, inappropriate and irresponsible,” and refused to accept them.

Arab nations are, for the first time ever, seeing a possible connection between supporting terrorism and their own safety — an inverse connection. They see that Iraq has been punished. They see that Lebanon is being punished. They understand that they may soon see Iran or Syria punished. They’re afraid of Iran, and of what Iran’s activism might do to their sovereignty. And the Middle East is changing, for the better.

See the article on RealClearPolitics here. See the Wall Street Journal’s discussion of the reasons why these nations are balking at Hezbollah’s actions here.

Short version: the Bush doctrine is working. The deposing of Saddam Hussein produced a major change in the dynamic of violence in the Middle East.

This is for those of us who are not yet aware of what threatens the West:

Islamic law recognizes the legal status of non-Muslims who live in lands conquered by Jihad. Such people are “dhimmi,” meaning “protected.” Sharia law recognizes the right of such people to worship according to their faith; however, they are to be made to “feel themselves subdued,” presumably to encourage them to convert to the One True Religion.

In practice, this turns out to mean that Muslim governments persecute those under them who are non-Muslim. Non-Muslims have inferior status in marriage, custody, and inheritance cases; their testimony is often disbelieved in court; their taxes go to fund the spread of Islam; they can be jailed or executed for even mentioning their beliefs in public; they are excluded from government positions. And in nearly all nations where Muslims rule, Christian or Jewish minorities are subject to violent attacks by extremists, and in some cases official attacks by government forces, as in Nigeria and the Sudan. See the discussion of Muslim persecution of Christians on FrontPageMag.com for details.

From Dhimmi Watch:

Dhimmitude is the status that Islamic law, the Sharia, mandates for non-Muslims, primarily Jews and Christians. Dhimmis, “protected people,” are free to practice their religion in a Sharia regime, but are made subject to a number of humiliating regulations designed to enforce the Qur’an’s command that they “feel themselves subdued” (Sura 9:29). This denial of equality of rights and dignity remains part of the Sharia, and, as such, is part of the law that global jihadists are laboring to impose everywhere, ultimately on the entire human race.

Be on the watch for apologists for Islam insisting that we institute the rules of dhimmitude voluntarily, as was suggested when a Danish cartoonist dared to portray the prophet Muhammed in a political cartoon. Resist appropriately. Your liberties are at stake.

Further reading at Bat Ye’or’s Dhimmitude, and dhimmi.org. Bat Ye’or is a French-speaking Egyptian Jewess living in Switzerland. Also, Persecution.org has long observed that Christians, in particular, fare poorly under governments that are either Muslim or Marxist.

Only July 17 (Monday), Hans Peter Niesward, from the Department of Gravitationsphysik at the ISA in Munich, announced that the earth was at “one of the most fragile points of its orbit in the last 100 years,” and could be moved slightly if 600,000,000 people jumped at the same moment on July 20, at 11:39:13 GMT. According to Herr Professor Niesward, this would cure global warming in one swell leap. Or rather, 600 million tiny ones. Story here. They even had a web site, here.

Of course, it was a hoax. But that didn’t stop a number of … um… shall we say Easily Deceived Individuals With Predictable Political Leanings from either declaring the folly of this potentially earth-shattering plan, or, we presume, jumping naively. 100 million signed up. And others, of course, got the joke, and responded appropriately. Good for them.

Go spend 3 minutes watching Michelle Malkin jumping on their heads (45 minutes if you’re on dial-up).

In case you’re wondering, tests of hydrogen bombs produce 50 times the kinetic energy of the proposed jump, and have never changed the earth’s orbit. Math here. It really was a hoax.

Had to post a link to this article, which expresses my distaste for negotiations with Iran more accurately than I could myself.

Whither the Bush Doctrine?
The nuclear negotiations with Iran: All carrot, no stick … and no mention of terror.

Nobody sane denies Israel’s right to defend itself, and Hezbollah has been asking for a thrashing for some time. But this conflict is not going to address the central issue, which seems clear enough.

Iran has been fighting proxy wars all over the middle east; through the insurgents in Iraq, through Hamas, through Hezbollah. So far, it has not cost them anything. Iran will continue to wage proxy war as long as it’s cheap.

So far, nobody has had the political will to make it expensive for them. President Bush announced the Bush Doctrine in 2002, declaring war against state sponsors of terror. Iran is a state sponsor of terror in the middle east, and Bush knows it. But Bush’s political backing is not strong enough to sustain another war in the middle east.

Now’s the time. Iran is not ready for open war with the US; they’re hurling threats in an attempt to make sure it doesn’t happen.

This is where we will pay for the muddle-headedness of the American Left. With appropriate support at home, Bush might address Iran in time; without it, we’ll wait ’till direct war is forced on us. That could be several years from now, and every month we wait, Iran sponsors yet another round of terror attacks against civilians somewhere else in the world. And God help us if the Democrats succeed in winning Congress and the White House in 2008, or worse, win Congress in 2006 and manage to impeach President Bush. Then, we’ll negotiate with Iran incessantly, giving away diplomatic opportunities in exchange for promises they’ll never keep, and 10 years from now, Iran will dominate the entire middle east.

Perhaps there are reasons for working through internal channels in Iran’s government that I’m unaware of. Perhaps. I can only hope. But from where I sit, war with Iran is inevitable — in fact, it’s already underway — and the sooner we make it official, the better for us, and the worse for them.

Israel is at it again, slapping mosquitos with a cement truck. Of course, there are 10,000 really big mosquitos, and the cement truck has worked before.

A mere two weeks after Hamas guerillas snatched an Israeli soldier in Gaza in the south, Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers in a raid across Israel’s northern border, leaving three others dead.

Israel declared the raid an “act of war,” and retaliated by launching air strikes into southern Lebanon, hunting Hezbollah leaders and launch sites for the missiles that have been hitting northern Israeli communities. Yesterday, extending the attack, Israeli aircraft blew craters in the runways at Beirut’s International Airport, claiming the airport was a hub for the transport of Hezbollah’s weapons and supplies.

Hezbollah wants to trade the two soldiers for prisoners in Israeli jails. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reiterated the oft-heard (and occasionally violated) position that Israel does not negotiate with terrorists. Instead, Olmert warned that Israel’s reprisals against the attacks would be “restrained, but very, very painful.”

This is all wearily familiar, stirring memories of Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon in 1982. The Israelis have been lobbying the Lebanese government to post troops on Lebanon’s southern border to keep Hezbollah in line. Lebanon has refused, admitting that Hezbollah controls southern Lebanon, but denying any foreknowledge of their plans to attack Israel. Israel is holding the Lebanese government responsible for whatever happens in Lebanon, and threatens to “turn the clock back 20 years”. Lebanon has called on the UN to intervene.

The coordination of the Hamas and Hezbollah attacks have led some observers to conclude that they’re cooperating, while others claim they’re competing for attention. Iran is financing both, so it hardly matters.

Source: http://www.intelligence.org.il , www.slate.com

The talk radio circuit is full of discussions about Israel responding to coordinated attacks from Hamas in the south and Hezbollah  in the north. They’re floating the question whether WW III is starting in the middle east.

They’re too late.

The cold war was WW III, and it ended in 1989. WW IV is the west vs Islamic Jihadism, and it’s already started. They declared war on us almost 10 years ago, and some would say much earlier than that. We’re just waking up to the need to declare war back.

We thought the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Sept 2001 woke us up, but we rolled over, whacked the snooze button, and went back to sleep. The US is still dithering over whether the war in Iraq was necessary; nobody here is ready to declare full-scale war on Jihadism. Iran and Syria are funding the Iraqi “insurgents,” Hamas, and Hezbollah (among others); both we and Israel have been fighting surrogate wars against Iran and Syria, but refuse to acknowledge it.

Iranian landing craft are not likely to appear off the Outer Banks next week; but then, German landing craft were never likely to, either. WW IV is underway, and the US public needs to wake up to it and decide to get involved.

A coup d’etat is when unelected agents within a country overthrow the government. But what is it called when unelected agents undermine the government without overthrowing it?

I don’t remember this ever happening in America before, but it appears to be happening now.

Rep Pete Hoekstra (R, MI), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, wrote a letter to President Bush in May complaining about several things; the New York Times reported only the part where he mentioned some unnamed intel operation that the President had not disclosed to Congress. But there was more. Hoekstra complained of an ongoing effort by individuals placed high within the CIA to undermine the Bush administration.

Here’s part of what he wrote:

[...] I have been long concerned that a strong and well-positioned group within the Agency intentionally undermined the Administration and its policies. This argument is supported by the Ambassador Wilson/Valerie Plame events, as well as by the string of unauthorised disclosures from an organization that prides itself with being able to keep secrets. I have come to the belief that, despite his service to the DO, Mr. Kappes may have been part of this group. I must take note when my Democratic colleagues – those who vehemently denounced and publicly attacked the strong choice of Porter Goss as Director – now publicly support Mr. Kappes’s return.

Notice that Rep Hoekstra includes the flap about Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame in his evidence supporting CIA operations to undermine the President.

A quick recap: Plame, a CIA employee, sent her husband Joe Wilson to Niger at their own expense allegedly to report on whether Saddam Hussein was intending to buy uranium for nuclear weapons. Wilson reported verbally to the CIA, then wrote what turned out to be false information in the New York Times criticizing the President’s policy. When the White House tried to set the record straight with the help of some reporters, Wilson complained that Ms. Plame had been a NOC agent (Non Official Cover) and that the White House had deliberately “outed” her to get back at him. The accusation resulted in a 2 1/2-year-long investigation of the Bush administration. There have been no indictments related to what Wilson alleged; however, the Vice President’s Chief of Staff was indicted for lying to the FBI during the course of the investigation.

What Hoekstra is saying is very important. His claim — and I agree completely — is that from the beginning, Wilson’s trip at Plame’s request was a CIA covert operation, the goal of which was to undermine Bush administration policy. In other words, the entire investigation was the result of a planned disinformation campaign.

Of course, the Plame Game is not the whole picture. There have been dozens of leaks of highly classified information from within the Pentagon and the CIA, all aimed at embarrassing the President. John Hinderaker of PowerLineBlog discusses the matter in The Weekly Standard, and here’s an interesting take on Hoekstra’s letter from Never Yet Melted.

Democrats have been charging for years that the various investigations of the Clinton administration were the same thing — Republican attempts to distract the President in order to achieve partisan, political ends. I’ve never seen any evidence that this was so. My own involvement, in those days, and the involvement of everyone I knew, was because it appeared that our liberties were under assault by a gangster-like sociopath. It was never necessary for Republicans to create scandals with the help of CIA planners; Clinton provided the occasions for us, about once a week. We simply responded when it looked like the President had been caught with his pants d…er…his hand in the cookie jar.

But now, partisan differences have spawned activists engaged in undercutting the government from the inside; not only creating scandals, but leaking vital national security information. It’s one thing to take legal action in response to criminal activity in the White House, or to actively campaign for some policy you favor. It’s quite another thing to actively undermine the government. The social contract that holds our nation together and protects our liberties, requires that we accept the government that’s elected, even if we disagree with its policies, and that we limit our opposition to those legal political activities that express and advocate our own favored policies, or enforce the laws of the land.

My title was deliberately provocative; there’s been no coup d’etat, yet. But if opposition from the Democrats has reached such a pitch that they’re launching covert operations to undermine the White House from inside the government, surely a genuine coup cannot be far behind. This needs to stop, and it needs to stop now.