What’s next from our Imperial Judicial overlords? A decree that we have to house released jihadis in our own homes?:

A federal judge today ordered that seventeen Chinese Muslims held at the Guantanamo Bay military prison be released into the United States by Friday, agreeing with the detainees’ attorneys that the Constitution bars holding the men indefinitely without cause. …

Justice Department lawyer John O’Quinn asked Urbina to stay the order for a week, giving the government time to evaluate its options and file an appeal. Urbina rejected that request and ordered the Uighurs to appear in his courtroom for a hearing on Friday. He said he would then release them into the custody of seventeen Uighur families living in the Washington area.

O’Quinn said the legal ramifications from the order are complex and that he wants time to consult with officials from the Department of Homeland Security. Under existing U.S. law, immigration authorities may be forced to take the Uighurs into custody shortly after they arrive in the United States, O’Quinn said. The Justice Department alleges they have ties to a group that has been designated a terrorist organization by the government.

Urbina chastised O’Quinn for suggesting that the government might take the Uighurs into custody for a second time.

Well of COURSE he did. Hey, I know, maybe Mr. O’Quinn could offer to put them up at the Pentagon instead! Or maybe at the White House - yeah, that’s the ticket! They can take turns trying to assassinate President and Mrs. Bush from the Lincoln bedroom, to which Judge Urbina will deny the Secret Service access. Maybe that’ll compensate them for their unconscionable six years at Gitmo for the inconsequential infraction of fighting on the side of al Qaeda and the Taliban against U.S. forces during Operation Enduring Freedom.

The War Against Islamic Fundamentalism will be effectively lost on November 4th, officially lost next January 20th, and lost for every American to see when that big Iranian nuclear flash goes off three hundred miles above Kansas, or maybe just in an Ameican city near you if we’re lucky. Judicial pronouncements like those of Judge Urbina serve as a depressing reminder that we were beaten long before We, The People, voted to defeat ourselves.

[cross-posted at ]

Two words, three letters - Iran and EMP:

Iran is on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon that could cripple the United States “in a blink of an eye,” says Frank Gaffney, a leading expert on U.S. national security….

In an exclusive interview with Newsmax TV, Gaffney warned that Iran’s nuclear program has progressed much further than most officials believe. The Islamic republic could attain a nuclear weapon “any day,” he said.

A single nuclear weapon exploded at the proper altitude would create a wave of energy sufficient to wipe out the entire U.S. electrical grid, causing “catastrophic disaster,” Gaffney said.

In September, the International Atomic Energy Agency that monitors global nuclear activities provided intelligence to diplomats indicating that Iran is trying to refit a long-distance missile so that it can carry a nuclear warhead.

“The missing piece as far as we know is the nuclear weapon, and they’re busily working to acquire that,” Gaffney told Newsmax. “And I am afraid they could at any day have the ability not only to obtain that nuclear weapon, but to mate it with a ballistic missile, and God forbid, use it.”

Experts agree that a nuclear detonation at a high altitude would generate an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, that would destroy most electrical systems. Gaffney predicts it would plunge the entire country into conditions similar to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The resulting social breakdown could ultimately lead to millions of American deaths from various causes, he said.

“Such an attack could really cripple our 21st-century society, and I would suggest sort of push us back into preindustrial society in the blink of an eye,” Gaffney said. “It would translate over time — not immediately but over time — into the deaths of perhaps as many as nine out of ten Americans, because our society simply can’t be sustained without electricity and all of the infrastructure that supports our urban settings.” [emphases added]

I was trying to explain this to my daughter yesterday, not because I thought I’d be able to convey the true horror of the implications, but as a test of a psychology theory I have of the uncommunicability of mortal national security threats. My theory was borne out, not surprisingly. But then it is difficult for even me to imagine the immensity of a successful EMP attack on the United States.

The best I can do is to ask you to imagine all the ways your life would change if there were no electricity. All the applicances in your home, the lights, the heat, would be gone. All the food in your fridge would spoil. You couldn’t go to the grocery store to replace it because your car wouldn’t start, and even if it did, you couldn’t refill the gas tank because the pumps at the local filling station wouldn’t run, and the tanker trucks couldn’t get to the filling station to delivery more gasoline - nor could eighteen wheelers deliver more groceries to the grocery store. You might have a home generator for just such emergencies, except that they run on gas or kerosene or diesel fuel and that would dry up just like the gas for your car.

Freezing to death. Starvation. Chaos. Let your imagination run wild from there.

The end result? America would cease to exist as a coherent continental nation because it is simply too big to remain intact without an interconnected modern infrastructure to sustain it. Civil order would break down. The law of the jungle would return. Most of us, rendered decedantly fat, dumb, and happy as the citizens of the late, great global hegomon, wouldn’t have a clue as to what to do so survive in such dire circumstances. Maybe the “over time” death toll wouldn’t be quite as high as 90%, but it would be staggering nonetheless. And there would be no FEMA to ride to the rescue, competently or otherwise, and certainly no international assistance coming our way.

That, of course, assumes that there wouldn’t be any follow up from our enemies, whether that was via land invasion or simply nuking our crippled, defenseless homeland to irradiated oblivion.

But again, that hasn’t happened - yet. And because it hasn’t happened, it’s difficult to see through the prosperous normalcy of life in these United States to recognize the danger of it happening in the very near future.

It’s base human nature. People don’t want to confront threats if doing so involves a signficant cost, even if the cost of not confronting them will be inestimably worse. Far easier to convince yourself that gambling on the latter is the safer bet. A psychological phenomenon colloquially known as “wishful thinking.”

Wishful thinking dominated the foreign policy of the Western democracies in the 1930s even as Adolph Hitler was following his published blueprint for anti-Semitic genocide and world conquest to the letter. There is arguably no war in human history that was more preventable than World War II, and yet Western leaders refused to believe the evidence of their eyes and ears and instead took comfort in self-generated pacifistic myths and delusions, no more infamously exemplified than the “tough direct diplomacy” that Neville Chamberlain and Édouard Daladier undertook at Munich with Herr Hitler. Until, of course, the German tanks rolled across Poland, and then France and Holland and Belgium, and then German bombers started raining fire down on London, six million Jews perished, and fifty-four million other human lives joined them, all because Western leaders didn’t have the courage to recognize the futility of “diplomacy” and act pre-emptively against Hitler while they had the opportunity.

Happily for the world, the United States was there to (belatedly) intervene and eventually turn the tide against the Nazis. Which, of course, leads inexorably to the question of who is going to bail out America after it has been decimated by a long-proclaimed EMP attack from the Islamist theocrats in Tehran whose enmity against the United States has been proclaimed non-stop for the past thirty years. Once again we face an enemy that has told us they are going to bring us to our knees, told us how they’re going to do it, and that they will not and cannot be talked out of doing it. And once again we - and I mean the bipartisan “we” - are refusing to believe the evidence of our eyes and ears and instead are taking comfort in self-generated pacifistic myths and delusions, so much as that we are about to elect as our next president a man who makes Neville Chamberlain look like Winston Churchill.

I have said throughout this campaign that the reason above all others why I deathly fear a Barack Obama presidency is that he is going to get us all killed. Frank Gaffney says B.O. won’t get ALL of us killed, just “as many as ninety percent” of us. Who’d have thought that the former Reagan Administration official would have become such a wild-eyed optimist?

[cross-posted at ]

William Russell is an Iraq veteran running for the United States House of Representatives in Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District. The Russell Campaign has outraised Murtha almost 6 to 1 in the second quarter reporting period, and has raised another $600,000 since early July. This money has come from over 20,000 donors, 75% of whom gave $50 or less. Among the most notable donors are Fred Thompson and Donald Rumsfeld.  Lt. Col. Russell, USA (Retired) joined Political Pistachio Radio on Wednesday Night for his fifth visit to Political Pistachio.

On Thursday, Major General Jerry R. Curry will join Political Pistachio Radio to discuss the Russian invasion of Georgia, and how that conflict is connected to Ahmadinejad’s Iran.

Obama Nation Book by Jerome Corsi Draws Criticism - Corsi is my guest tonight on BTR

Tonight on Political Pistachio Radio Dr. Jerome Corsi must meet controversy head on!

Dr. Jerome Corsi, staff writer for World Net Daily, has suddenly found himself in the midst of a violent storm of controversy. The WND writer, this week alone, has been the object of numerous television and radio shows as the media tries to wade through the information contained in the book, and determine if the book is truly filled with falsehoods, or is a well researched piece of literature that takes a close and hard look at the Democratic Presidential front-runner, Barack Obama.

The book at the center of the controversy is, The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality. The Huffington Post calls the book, “…one of the worst political books ever written. Corsi piles distortion upon innuendo to create a gigantic heap of right-wing garbage, with a seemingly endless parade of basic factual errors running through the text like rats. Corsi’s book is an embarrassment to the craft of journalism, and any of the conservatives who have praised and promoted it should feel humiliated at how bad it truly is.” Media Matters writes that The Obama Nation “contains numerous falsehoods about Sen. Barack Obama.” Even Conservative talk show host and Townhall writer Hugh Hewitt exclaims about the book, “Corsi’s from the fringe. . . the book contains errors.”

Hugh Hewitt, however, also points out that the Obama Campaign has given us an “absurd set of non-responsive responses,” and that, “Now they botch a gimmie — defining Corsi as a nut while not putting attention on the charges he leveled.”

Sean Hannity has stated that The Obama Nation “may have made his [Obama’s] campaign a bit nervous.”

Joseph Farah, founder of World Net Daily, says about the controversy surrounding the book, and Jerome Corsi, “Unlike most of the critics of The Obama Nation, I have actually read the book from cover to cover. It is a thoroughly well-documented piece of first-rate journalism. Are there mistakes in it? Show me a first edition that doesn’t have some – other than the Bible. But is it truthful? Does it add considerably to the public’s knowledge of the front-running candidate for the presidency? Do we know much more about Obama than we would had we relied exclusively for our information from the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post and the Associated Press? I offer a resounding ‘yes’ to all three of those questions. I am privileged to call him my friend, colleague and co-worker. I stand with Jerry Corsi today as he is viciously maligned by an attack media that would prefer to aim its potent artillery at a man who dared to do their job when they refused, when they laid down, when they sucked up, when they failed to ask the tough questions, when they took sides.”

In response, Barack Obama’s advisers have been tracking Corsi’s media appearances, quickly telephoning producers to react to the book’s charges, and last night, the Democratic presidential candidate’s campaign issued a 40-page response to the book.

The Democratic National Committee has its own rapid response team to take aim at Corsi’s book, saying, “One of the most vile smear peddlers of the 2004 election has found a new target. We cannot afford to let Corsi get away with the same dirty tricks that fooled so many people in 2004. We can’t rely on the media to hold him accountable – in fact, the sheer brazenness of the lies is attracting even more coverage. The media have shown that they aren’t going to stop him. It’s up to you to spread the truth.”

So, what is the truth? Is this book a classic smear job? Or is Corsi’s book simply caught up in the crosshairs of the leftists because it hits a chord? Is Dr. Jerome Corsi a discredited liar peddling garbage in order to help continue Bush-Cheney politics? Or is he a simply being lynched by the mainstream media and Democratic Party for daring to write the truth? Be the judge yourself. Read the book, and listen to what Dr. Jerome Corsi has to say tonight on Political Pistachio Radio.
The show airs live at 10:00 pm Eastern Time, but will be archived for later listening for those unable to listen live. Access the program HERE.

www.blogtalkradio.com/politicalpistachio

DURING HITLER’S REIGN, there was a man who during World War II was called “the Fuhrer of the Arab world” and whose dangerous legacy lives on today.

It is said that an understanding of history is a critical predicate to the future. It applies here.

In 1921, the British appointed the most eminent and influential Islamic leader in the middle East to be the mufti of Jerusalem.

His name is Haj Amin al-Husseini and he was a vicious anti-Semite who incited riots against Jewish settlers. He was eventually forced out, only to make his way to the country whose legions he desperately wanted to join: Nazi Germany. He ingratiated himself with Hitler, and encouraged the “Final Solution”.

After the war, al-Husseini escaped charges of war crimes and fled to Egypt. His standing rose and he became mentor to a new generation of radical Islamic leaders. Foremost among them — Yasser Arafat.

Tonight we’ll hear the fascinating story that connects us to the Islamic Jihadists we now face. John Rothmann, co-author of ICON OF EVIL, Hitler’s Mufti and the Rise of Radical Islam will tell us of the link between al-Husseini and current contemporary events — notably the execution of journalist Daniel Pearl.

We’ll get underway at 9 p.m. ET, and you’re invited to join us. Come, get smarter. Just hit the button below.

*****

Walid Shoebat Returns to Political Pistachio Radio

Walid’s new book, God’s War on Terror will be out after July 11, 2008

Walid Shoebat tonight returns to Political Pistachio Radio, this time to talk about the new book.

Walid has been a returning guest on Political Pistachio Radio since his first visit in September 1, 2007. He is a former Palestinian terrorist who became a Christian. After marrying his American wife, Walid tried to convert her to Islam. He bought a Bible and read it in hopes to disprove his wife’s religion. This actually backfired and then Walid learned the truth about God, and Christ’s promise of salvation. Walid has re-dedicated his life to speaking internationally about the lies of Islam, the treachery of child indoctrination in Israel of the Palestinian children by Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, and Hezbollah. He teaches that Israel is a land God gave wholly to the Jews. He had to give up family and his homeland to take this position.

His first book, Why We Want to Kill You, reveals:

- How the Muslim Terrorists invaded America 30 years ago

- What their plan was and how patience was key

- How perseverence, recruitment, and hate fueled attacks in the U.S. and U.S. interests worldwide

- The similarities between radical Muslims and Nazi Germany

- Why Hitler failed so early and the Muslims, through patience, have increased their stronghold

This is information you will NOT get on CNN, MSNBC, or FoxNews or any other major television or Radio station as the Muslims have taken over financial controlling interests and will not allow the TRUTH to be aired.

Why We Want to Kill You: The Jihadist Mindset and How to Defeat It is part autobiographical, part confessional. Why We Want to Kill You helps readers in the West understand the Islamic mindset, what drives Islamic hatred and violence, and how to become more aware of the dangers to which many Americans and Europeans have become overly complacent.

Now we are seeing the world shape into what is really going on, and Walid Shoebat recognizes the signs at the center of the growing Islamization of the world.

In the news now are stories about Hamas and other radical Muslims and their attempts to continue their agenda to destroy Israel, the U.S., and other western countries.

Walid has continuously proclaimed that the only way to stop this is for Christians and Jews to stick together and fight.

Why should we join together against the Islamization of the world? Because we must realize that the invasion by Muslims worldwide creates a stronghold we should be concerned about, and if left alone, may become so large that it cannot be stoppeed.

Walid’s latest book, God’s War on Terror, is a deep comparison of Islam with the AntiChrist. Walid shows how the prophecy of the Koran lines up with the end times prophecy of the AntiChrist and how it will effect Christians and Jews. Walid also outlines how important the relationship is between Christians and Jews to protect the Jews and Israel from the evil surrounding it.

Tonight, Walid joins us to discuss his latest book. Go to Political Pistachio Radio to listen at 10:00 PM Eastern, or check out the archive later!

Today at 10AM Eastern (special time) we continue our series on Israel, the Middle East, and media propaganda with Dr Richard Landes and Yaacov Ben Moshe of Second Draft.

Chat’s open at 9:45AM and the call-in number is 646 652-2539. Join us!

Please note that http://faustasblog.com is moving to a new server and can be found temporarily at http://wfaustasblog.blogspot.com/ for the time being. Thank you for your patience.

And just what are we to make of this?:

Iran’s foreign minister told NBC Nightly News Wednesday that the United States has “exponentially” stepped up its “psychological warfare” against Iran.

The foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, told NBC’s Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel that the U.S. has been feeding Iranian sources with false claims that an attack is “imminent.” He said such information has been complete with plans, maps, and even dates of attacks that never take place.

Mottaki said in the past “month or two this propaganda has increased exponentially.”

The first question, I suppose, is is this claim true?  The mullahs know, just as every U.S. enemy has known ever since General Giap pronounced it, that the most effective way to defeat the Americans is in the streets, and on the airwaves, of their own country.  The Bush Administration continues to insist that it wants a diplomatic solution to the threat of Iranian nuclear weapons, though they also maintain that “all options are on the table.”  Tehran sending its chief diplomat to tell the friendly American media what its itching ears want to hear about the Bushkin “warmongers” plotting their long-planned attack on the ”peace-loving” mullahgarchy is itself a very effective psychological warfare ploy.

For this reason I tend to think Mottaki’s claim is BS, designed to douse any possibility there might be of a U.S. strike and deter the Israelis from launching one of their own.

I hope and pray I’m wrong.  I don’t see much psychological value to feeding the mullahs a barrage of bluffs - sooner or later they lose their effectiveness, and they already hold us in contempt as it is - but there is tactical value in sewing confusion about the who, how, and when of an attack, if not the where.  It’s difficult to remain at full alert indefinitely.  The temptation to relax, and the likelihood of getting careless and making mistakes, multiplies exponentially as time goes on.  Fatigue becomes the attackers’ ally as it inexorably erodes vigilence.  And when the attack does come, the fulfillment of the original bluff is almost its own misdirection.

Perhaps we’re lending “psychological” support to an eventual Israeli assault.  But take note of Mottaki’s warning:

In an ominous tone, he said Tehran would not show any distinction between an attack by Israel and the U.S., suggesting both will be targets of retribution by Iran.

Could we be using an Israeli attack as bait for a strategic trap the mullahs will be unable to escape?  After all, retaliation against us would constitute shooting first on their part.  Actually, the first shot was taken when they seized our embassy thirty years ago, and when Hezbollah blew up 241 of our Marines in Beirut twenty-five years ago, and when they blew up the Khobar Towers twelve years ago, and the proxy war they’ve been waging against us in Iraq over the past five years, but you get the idea.  Point being, military engagement on our part would constitute response and self-defense, not “pre-emption.”

Yeah, and tomorrow I’m going to start pooping IPods.  But if there’s any possibility of something concrete being done to avert the nightmare spectre of a nuclear-armed Iran, it better have like dispatch.  That particular window of opportunity has, at most, only four months of life left to it before it, and the fate of America, the West, and Israel, slam shut permanently.

[cross-posted at ]

Left wingnuts are forever trying to play down the distinct possibility that our intelligence estimates of when Iran will cross the nuclear weapons threshold are vastly, complacently overstated.  Ditto the possibility that al Qaeda may in fact have some manner of nuclear weapons capability.  Recall Barack Hussein Obama’s “Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, et al are ‘tiny countries’ that don’t pose a ’serious threat’” speech.  As though erring on the side of caution is criminal, but taking whimsical chances with the lives of millions is perfectly okay.

Well, guess what, gentles - things are worse than we thought:

An international smuggling ring that sold bomb-related parts to Libya, Iran and North Korea also managed to acquire blueprints for an advanced nuclear weapon, according to a draft report by a former top U.N. arms inspector that suggests the plans could have been shared secretly with any number of countries or rogue groups.

The drawings, discovered in 2006 on computers owned by Swiss businessmen, included essential details for building a compact nuclear device that could be fitted on a type of ballistic missile used by Iran and more than a dozen developing countries, the report states.

The computer contents — among more than [a tera]byte of data seized — were recently destroyed by Swiss authorities under the supervision of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, which is investigating the now-defunct smuggling ring previously led by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.

But U.N. officials cannot rule out the possibility that the blueprints were shared with others before their discovery, said the report’s author, David Albright, a prominent nuclear weapons expert who spent four years researching the smuggling network.

So.  Not only will Iran have the capability of churning out nukes within as little as two months, but they probably already possess the means of deploying them as soon as they come off the assembly line.

And, evidently, nobody cares.  Nobody realizes, nobody is willing to face the sober fact, that the “international community,” but especially Europe, Israel, and the United States, are teetering on the edge of the unthinkable abyss.  All they still are capable of is chest-puffing about yet another round of useless, toothless “sanctions” that will be irrelevant at best, just like all their predecessors (see the twelve years of sanctions that didn’t slow down Saddam Hussein’s WMD programs one jot or tittle), or at worst will encourage Iran, convinced time is no longer on their side, to strike us like Imperial Japan sixty-seven years ago - only with a much bigger “stick”.

As if to pointedly highlight their oceanic contempt for our galloping impotence, Iran bellicosely reiterated - again - the facts of mullahgarchic life:

Iran said on Tuesday uranium enrichment was its “red line” and would continue, despite an enhanced offer of incentives from big powers to stop activity the West fears could yield nuclear bombs…

The incentive package agreed by the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany last month and delivered by Solana is a revised version of one rejected by Iran in 2006…

The incentives package offers Iran the chance to develop a civilian nuclear program with light water reactors — seen as harder to divert into bomb-making than the technology Tehran is now developing — and legally binding fuel supply guarantees.

It also offers trade and other benefits, including the possibility of Iran buying civil aircraft from the West.

You know, I read things like this and the absurdity of it makes me want to gag.  The fact that this morony is putting my life and the lives of my family in potentially mortal danger is something I know intellectually, but even I have difficulty wrapping my mind around the reality of what it would mean in practical terms.  Not, I suspect, unlike those who were beholding world events in 1939, 1940, and 1941.  “Oh, no, the Japs will NEVER attack US; they know better than to commit national suicide.”  “C’mon, all Hitler wants is the Sudetenland - he explicitly said so!  If we give it to him, he’ll be satisfied and we can maintain the peace.”  Almost nobody in the West had any grasp of the possibility that maybe, just maybe, Adolph Hitler DID want to conquer the world and WAS willing to wage total war to do it, and the Japanese WOULD attack us believing that we were (drumroll) soft and would quickly tire of any attempt at resisting their conquest of the Pacific once we encountered the savagery of their warriors and sue for peace instead.

Thus did our grandfathers go from sitting at home listening to our politicians drone about “peace in our time” to flying bomber fleets firebombing German cities and cutting their way across one jungle-covered Pacific island after another within the space of three years.  Thus did sixty million human beings - including, of course, six million Jews - needlessly perish in a planetary conflagration that could so easily have been pre-empted with a little military action applied early enough to make a difference.

Do we learn from this lamentable history?  Of course not.  It’s not in human nature to learn from past mistakes.  Why else do they get endlessly repeated?  And so we keep offering the rabid theocrats in Tehran bigger and bigger dollops of appeasement to cease developing nuclear weapons that they see as the ticket to the return of their Messiah and the Global Islamic Caliphate, and they keep telling us to shove it.  A literally vicious cycle that will continue right up until the the nuclear-tipped Shahab-3s and Shahab-5s and 6’s fly for Israel, Europe, and the US, respectively.  And, I imagine, the appeasement dollops grow proportionately.

Well, boys and girls, at least one group in this crisis isn’t paralyzed by historical amnesia:

A large Israeli military exercise this month may have been aimed at showing Jerusalem’s abilities to attack Iranian nuclear facilities.

In a substantial show of force, Israel sent warplanes and other aircraft on a major exercise in the Eastern Mediterranean early this month, Pentagon officials said Friday.

Israel’s military refused to confirm or deny that the maneuvers were practice for a strike in Iran….

The big exercise the first week of June was impossible to miss and may have been meant as a show of force as well as a practice on skills needed to execute a long-range strike mission, one U.S. official said.

The New York Times quoted officials Friday as saying that more than 100 Israeli F-16s and F-15s staged the maneuver, flying more than 900 miles, roughly the distance from Israel to Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment facility, and that the exercise included refueling tankers and helicopters capable of rescuing downed pilots.

You have to love Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s scolding the Israelis against attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities on the grounds that there’s “no proof” that the mullahs are building nukes.  That’s a hoot considering that his implied threshold of “proof” would be mushroom clouds rising above the atomized remains of Tel Aviv and Haifa - after which he would be quick, I’m sure, to extend Russia’s “condolances” for the Second Holocaust that his intereference-running for the mullahs had helped to fruition.

The Jews are not going to sit there like a potted plant and let their enemies gain, mount, and deploy the means of their annihilation against them.  If nothing else, they will ensure that if they do go down, so will the mullahs.

Meanwhile, we were generously given another reminder of Iran’s other ability to strike the U.S. homeland, and what, aside from the alleged absence of nuclear ordnance, is holding them back:

Intelligence officials tell ABC News [Hezbollah] has activated suspected “sleeper cells” in Canada and key operatives have been tracked moving outside the group’s Lebanon base to Canada, Europe and Africa…

Suspected Hezbollah operatives have conducted recent surveillance on the Israeli embassy in Ottawa, Canada and on several synagogues in Toronto, according to the officials.

Latin American is also considered a possible target by officials following Hezbollah’s planning…

Officials say the CIA, the NSA, and British and Canadian intelligence agencies began to pick up a steady stream of information - from electronic intercepts, human sources and surveillance - about a possible Hezbollah attack on February 17, just days after the Beirut funeral of Mugniyah where Hezbollah leaders publicly declared they would seek revenge…

[Former CIA intelligence officer Bob] Baer says his Hezbollah contacts told him an attack against the US was unlikely because Iran and Hezbollah did not want to give the Bush Administration an excuse to attack.]

But next year, when the Winnie the Pooh Doctrine is firmly in place?  The sky’s the limit, baby.

Thus does Yates’ question arise anew: “What rough beast, its hour come round [again], slouches towards Bethlehem to be [re]born?”

The rough beast is on its way.  The Hundred Acre Wood won’t know what hit it.

[cross-posted at ]

Further insight into the pacifist sewer that is Barack Hussein Obama’s “strategic thinking”:

Barack Obama says if Osama bin Laden were captured on his watch, he’d want to ensure he doesn’t become a martyr if he were prosecuted. Obama said he’s not sure that the terrorist mastermind would be captured alive.

But if he were, Obama said he would want to bring him to justice “in a way that allows the entire world to understand the murderous acts that he’s engaged in and not to make him into a martyr.”

Uh, don’t you have to be killed in order to become a “martyr”?  If you’re captured alive, that doesn’t fit within that definition, right?

And why would it require a “way of bringing him to justice” for “the entire world” to understand his murderous acts?  Didn’t “the entire world” spend the morning of September 11, 2001 sitting in either shock or racous celebration (you know in which part of the world) before their televisions as passenger jets flew into both towers of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and, but for the heroism of four passengers on the fourth one, the White House or the U.S. Capitol?  And how much of a “martyr” would bin Laden really be if he got captured after the meat-grinder through which al Qaeda has been fed by the U.S. military over the past six years at the Bush Administration’s direction?

No, Senator, the danger isn’t that he’d become a martyr, even by your misdefinition; it’s that he’d become a hero, as his trial would take place in a U.S. civilian court, with bin Laden accorded full constitutional rights, including the right of discovery into every intelligence secret on al Qaeda the U.S. government has, and the ability to turn his trial into an O.J. Simpson-like media circus and ultimate mockery of justice.  That IS what the U.S. Supreme Court decreed last week.  Which makes it far more likely that he would be killed on the battlefield - martyred in actuality, and in the anonymity he doubtless fears - an anonymity to which you would doubtless contribute as you wouldn’t want to be known as the man who “murdered” George W. Bush’s “public enemy #1″ without due process and all that rotgut.

Given that Senator Obama did, almost by rote, praise that oligarchical atrocity, it’s all the more emblematic of his candidacy that he exposed his off-the-cuff ignorance yet again in butchering his “don’t make bin Laden a martyr” metaphor:

Obama, a former senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School, cited “that principle of habeas corpus, that a state can’t just hold you for any reason without charging you and without giving you any kind of due process — that’s the essence of who we are. I mean, you remember during the Nuremberg trials, part of what made us different was even after these Nazis had performed atrocities that no one had ever seen before, we still gave them a day in court and that taught the entire world about who we are but also the basic principles of rule of law. Now the Supreme Court upheld that principle yesterday.”

(Though Obama was clearly referring to the principle of giving criminals a day in court, it’s worth pointing out the distinction here, that the Nuremberg trials did not give Nazi war criminals access to U.S. courts, but to a special international military tribunal created by the U.S., USSR, France and the U.K. Though Nuremberg currently is considered a model for international law, it’s not as if Rudolph Hess had access to challenge his detention in U.S. federal court.)

Ensign Ed piles on with further clarification:

It’s not as if the military tribunals offered by Congress and the Bush Administration fell below Nuremberg standards, either. They allowed for even more rights for the defendants than Nuremberg, or would have if the Supreme Court hadn’t twice stopped them before determining whether they worked. In fact, the tribunals as conceived in the last iteration closely match what American soldiers receive for their own trials under the UCMJ.

And just imagine: under traditional international law and rules of war, it is entirely within a country’s rights and privileges to summarily execute, without trial OR due process, captured un-uniformed, illegal enemy combatants.  The Bushies bent over backwards for the terrorists even before they came under relentless pro-jihadi harassment by congressional Democrats and their counterparts on Olympus, who have now added the powers of commander-in-chief of the armed forces to their trophy case.  And now Barack Hussein Obama is either blantantly lying about de facto American citizenship for al Qaedastanis being analogous to the Nuremberg war crime tribunal, or he really is too chowder-headed to understand the difference.

Or, to put it in Ace-ian terms:

Apparently Obama is to be praised for doing the simplest and easiest things, like he’s a [bleep]ing retard who needs to be unduly complimented for making it through a tapioca break without [bleep]ing himself too much.

Maybe the MSM knows something about Barack Obama’s cognitive powers we don’t. Maybe he should be lavishly praised for a [bleep]-free tapioca.

And this man is going to be the next president of the United States?

UPDATE: Here’s how Khalid Sheikh Mohammed expressed his appreciation to Justices Kennedy, Stevens, Souter, Ginsberg, and Breyer:

“I cannot accept any attorney who is not governed by sharia [Islamic] law. I will represent myself. I will not be represented by anybody even if he is a Muslim, because he will be sworn to your American Constitution. I consider all the U.S. Constitution and laws evil. They are allowing for same-sexual marriages and many things that are very bad … Do you understand what I said?”

You can see where this is headed, cantcha?

[cross-posted at ]

A tripartite follow-up on Barack’s ballsy, bellowing bellicosity….

First, from Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari on Barry’s “nebulous” commitment to stage an Iraq “publicity stunt”:

Mr. Zebari, who has served as foreign minister in every Iraqi government since 2003, finds Mr. Obama’s proposal worrying. In a meeting with Post editors and reporters Tuesday, he said that after all the pain and sacrifices of the past five years, “we are just turning the corner in Iraq.” A precipitous withdrawal, he said, “would create a huge vacuum and undo all the gains and achievements. And the others” — enemies of the United States — “would celebrate.”

Mr. Zebari said he told Mr. Obama that “Iraq is not an island.” In other words, an American withdrawal that destabilized the country would also roil the region around it and embolden U.S. adversaries such as al-Qaeda and Iran. “We have a deadly enemy,” Mr. Zebari said. “When he sees that you commit yourself to a certain timetable, he will use this to increase pressure and attacks, to make it look as though he is forcing you out. We have many actors who would love to take advantage of that opportunity.” Mr. Zebari says he believes U.S. forces can and should be drawn down. His point is that reductions should be made gradually, as the Iraqi army becomes stronger.

Sounds like BO was doing more listening than talking, doesn’t it?  And that Minister Zebari was telling him what he didn’t want to hear.

So, in keeping with False Messiah’s neurotic conflict aversion, he evidently told the Iraqi poobah what he thought the man wanted to hear - nebulously, of course:

The foreign minister said “my message” to Mr. Obama “was very clear. . . . Really, we are making progress. I hope any actions you will take will not endanger this progress.” He said he was reassured by the candidate’s response, which caused him to think that Mr. Obama might not differ all that much from Mr. McCain. Mr. Zebari said that in addition to promising a visit, Mr. Obama said that “if there would be a Democratic administration, it will not take any irresponsible, reckless, sudden decisions or action to endanger your gains, your achievements, your stability or security. Whatever decision he will reach will be made through close consultation with the Iraqi government and U.S. military commanders in the field.”

This is, of course, diametrically the opposite of what he has said pretty much forever on this subject, while still leaving enough wiggle room (It depends on what the definition of the words “irresponsible,” “reckless,” and “sudden” are….) to pursue an immediate retreat as quickly after noon next January 20th as humanly possible.  Besides, who’ll ever know what Lucifer promised a nameless, faceless Iraqi official who’ll be among the first executed by the Iranian/al Qaeda terror regime that conquers Iraq after we leave?

Next, behind Door #2, we have this nicely done RNC reminder of St. Barack’s anti-terrorism instincts from a Donk primary debate last summer:

Q: Senator Obama, if, God forbid a thousand times, while we were gathered here tonight we learned that two American cities had been hit simultaneously by terrorists, and we further learned beyond the shadow of a doubt that it had been the work of al-Qaeda, how would you change the US military stance overseas as a result?

A: Well, the first thing we’d have to do is make sure that we’ve got an effective emergency response, something that this administration failed to do when we had a hurricane in New Orleans. And I think that we have to review how we operate in the event of not only a natural disaster, but also a terrorist attack.

The second thing is to make sure that we’ve got good intelligence, a., to find out that we don’t have other threats and attacks potentially out there, and b., to find out, do we have any intelligence on who might have carried it out so that we can take potentially some action to dismantle that network. But what we can’t do is then alienate the world community based on faulty intelligence, based on bluster and bombast. Instead, the next thing we would have to do, in addition to talking to the American people, is making sure that we are talking to the international community.

Because as already been stated, we’re not going to defeat terrorists on our own. We’ve got to strengthen our intelligence relationships with them, and they’ve got to feel a stake in our security by recognizing that we have mutual security interests at stake.

That the perps of this hypothetical attack were al Qaeda was explicitly stated in the question.  But apart from it is where His Eminence’s emphasis falls: maybe he’d take some potential action if he’s ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY SURE that it’s al Qaeda, but only if he gets undisputed permission from the “international community,” because “we can’t defeat terrorists on our own.”  After the way he’ll gut what’s left of the military after Bill Clinton disembowled it, that’ll probably be correct.

Senator Obama forgets that, for the time being, no other member of “the international community” has anywhere near the multi-faceted military capabilities we do.  So if we “can’t defeat the terrorists on our own,” the “international community” won’t be any help, even if they were inclined to view the war on terror as anything but the “law enforcement operation” that Ba-ROCK sees it as.  Which they’re not.

And leave us not forget that in the intelligence game, there’s no such thing as having all the facts.  There aren’t any sure things.  There are only educated guesses.  No president EVER has complete knowledge of a crisis situation, and he can’t afford to sit on his thumb and wait indefinitely in the forlorn hope that he will, or countless more Americans and allies will die.

Do you even want to contemplate this man facing an Iranian nuclear ultimatum?

Which brings us to Door #3:

Richard Danzig, who served as Navy Secretary under President Clinton and is tipped to become National Security Adviser in an Obama White House, told a major foreign policy conference in Washington that the future of US strategy in the war on terrorism should follow a lesson from the pages of Winnie the Pooh, which can be shortened to: if it is causing you too much pain, try something else.

Mr Danzig told the Centre for New American Security: “Winnie the Pooh seems to me to be a fundamental text on national security.”

I swear I’m not making that up.  Or, at the very least, if somebody is, it’s way up the cyberstream from me.

But there’s more:

Mr Danzig spelt out the need to change by reading a paragraph from chapter one of the children’s classic, which says: “Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump on the back of his head behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming down stairs. But sometimes he thinks there really is another way if only he could stop bumping a minute and think about it.”

This man is actually saying that the national security policy of the most powerful nation on the planet should be patterned after the whimsical antics of a miniature, taxidermized, exhibitionist, bulemic ursine mammal named after excrement.  And he’s going to be the next National Security Advisor of the United States.

But leave aside the puerile, mentally unbalanced metaphorical imagery, and focus in on the guiding principle underlying it: “If it” - our national security strategy - “is causing you too much pain, try something else.”  This, by implication, is a reference to the insurgency we’ve been fighting for the past five years in Iraq.  Or, rather, the fact that we’ve been fighting it instead of just running away, abandoning the Iraqis to get slaughtered (again), providing our enemies with a huge strategic victory, and encouraging them to further escalate their already existing war against us.  The last time the Pooh Doctrine guided our national security decisions, the result was an escalating series of al Qaeda and Hezbollah attacks culminating in “Holy Tuesday” six years, nine months, and seven days ago.  It seems to me that losing three thousand American civilians in the space of forty-five minutes was all kinds of “too much pain,” and fleeing the Islamic Fundies now would cause us a grievously huger load of it.

One can, of course, more succinctly and candidly rephrase Danzig’s slogan: Take the easy way out.  Cut & run.  Wave a worthless piece of paper around, crow that “it is peace in our time,” and watch the world - or at least Israel, Europe, and our own homeland - go up in atomic flames, one city at a time.

These are the people on whose judgment the lives of you and your loved ones will depend for at least the four years beginning next January 20th, gentlebeings.  My only questions are two:

1) Now are we expected to trot off into bovine obedience by Barry’s manly swagger or just moo?

2) You don’t really think you’re going to get any sleep tonight, do ya?

[cross-posted at ]

They say that where Europe is today, America will be twenty or thirty years from now.  Given the massive turn to the left we’re in the process of making, starting in 2006 and culminating this November, that axiom certainly seems to be panning out.

Memorial Day Tribute to Heroes, and Audio of Interviews with attendees of Anti-Illegal Immigration Rally in California

Memorial Day means more than bar-b-qued hamburgers and hot dogs. It is more than just a day off from work. Memorial Day is a time to thank those who have sacrificed their lives for this nation, and a time to thank those who are currently laying it all on the line everyday to keep this nation safe. These men and women are most deserving of our deepest respect and gratitude for all they have done on behalf of our great country.

It is my sincere hope that everybody takes the time to pay tribute to those heroes who have paid the ultimate sacrifice while protecting our freedom, and also recognize the tremendous sacrifices that our Veterans have made and our active duty troops are making everyday.

Simple words cannot convey my gratitude. As a veteran myself I understand the oath, and I understand the difficult journey. However, as a peace-time veteran, I will never fully understand the taste of freedom that graces the hearts and souls of our war-time veterans, and the brave men and women currently serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In fact, there are only two words that I can say that truly relay how I feel. They are simple words, insignificant by themselves, but filled with emotion and honor when placed together and delivered to a member of the United States Military.

Thank You.

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Tonight on Political Pistachio Radio we will pay tribute to those fine members of the military, past and present, living and dead. I encourage the veterans that read this site and listen to the show to call in so that we may thank you personally.

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The men and women that protect this nation serve in many more ways other than the military. Our Border Patrol is also an agency tasked with keeping us as a nation safe, not only from illegal immigrants who have broken the law to be here and are tapping into a system they have neither contributed to, nor have the legal right to access, but the Border Patrol also protects us from members of enemy Islamic factions and Mexican drug cartels. One out of three persons crossing the border along the San Diego county line are of Middle Eastern descent. The Drug Cartels in Mexico are at war with the government and each other, and that war is attempting to spill over into this country. The Border Patrol is our line of defense against both of these dangers. Unfortunately, our government, which is fast becoming a judicial oligarchy, has determined that if Border Patrol Agents do their job, their actions are punishable by prison.

Two Border Patrol agents, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, attempting to interrupt a cross-border drug smuggling operation, fired their weapons in self-defense at an admitted illegal alien, drug smuggler, Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila. The smuggler managed to escape across the border into Mexico, but he left his vehicle, loaded with more than 700 pounds of marijuana. It was another good bust. Rather than be congratulated for doing their job, the Border Patrol agents were charged with attempted murder, indicted, placed under house arrest for eight long months. The two agents were later sentenced to 11 and 12 years in federal prison, respectively, on charges of assault with a deadly weapon and for violation of the drug smuggler’s civil rights. They remain in prison serving their unfair sentence that President George W. Bush could pardon, but won’t because of his globalistic position, and lack of cajones against the liberal left which would lambaste him if he so dared.

Last Friday I attended a Free Ramos and Compean Sidewalk Rally in Irvine, California near where First Lady Laura Bush was autographing copies of the book she authored with Jenna Bush, “Read All About It!” While I was there I interviewed a number of the folks holding up signs and waving American Flags in support of our unjustly jailed Border Patrol Agents, Ramos and Compean. Tonight on Political Pistachio Radio, after the tribute to our American Military Heroes, past and present, I will play for you the audio of those interviews. Don’t miss this broadcast! This will be a show you will remember for a lifetime.

Join us tonight at 10:00 PM Eastern Time on Political Pistachio Radio.

Below are photos I took from the Rally. The first is of the line waiting to meet Laura Bush. The last picture is of a woman born in South America who declares proudly she is an American, and she is the final, stirring interview you will hear tonight.

James Hutchins and the Jerusalem Connection

The United States provides assistance to the Palestinian Authority in the hopes of helping the people. However, there is evidence that this aid is not being used as the U.S. intends, but actually funds the Palestinian Authority with weapons, money, and training, meaning that the U.S. is actually funding terrorism. Israel is constantly bombarded by Hamas and Hezbollah, but former president Jimmy Carter claims that Hamas only wants peace. However, after denouncing the recent Israeli seminary school shooting, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’ official Palestinian Authority daily newspaper is holding the terrorist up as a hero, calling him a martyr who died while fighting jihad.

James Hutchens, PhD, a former U.S. Military Chaplain who retired with the rank of Brigadier General says that our aid to the Palestinians is in violation of our laws, and states that Jimmy Carter’s so-called peace-seeking friends have a charter calling for the total annihilation of Israel.

But why should we defend Israel? Why is our alliance with Israel so important?

James Hutchens is also the President of the JerUSAlem Connection, the foremost Christian Zionist magazine in America, and he is on a mission for Israel. He is on the battle front in the area of informing, educating, and activating America’s Christian community on issues related to Israel from a Biblical perspective. His military experience also makes him well acquainted with the concept of “Mission,” decorated with a Purple Heart as a result of his time as a battle chaplain in Viet Nam.

He joins us tonight on Political Pistachio Radio at 10pm Eastern Time. Please Join Us.

cross-posted at various sites in the Political Pistachio Family of Sites

The Mindset of the Islamic Jihad, and How To Defeat It

Walid Shoebat was born in Bethlehem of Judea, Israel. As a young man, he became a member of the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization), and participated in acts of terror and violence against Israel. He was later imprisoned in the Russian Compound, Jerusalem’s central prison for incitement and violence against Israel.

After his release from the Russian Compound, Walid Shoebat continued his life of terrorism, violence, and rioting in Bethlehem and on the Temple Mount. After entering the United States, he worked as a counselor for the Arab Student Organization at Loop College in Chicago while continuing his anti-Israel activities. During that time he became disenchanted with the PLO as being to moderate, and joined the Muslim Brotherhood (forerunner of the terrorist organization Hamas) and was trained for the expected coming Islamic Jihad in America.

In 1993 Walid experienced a spiritual journey after a challenge from his Christian wife. While studying both the Holy Bible and secular history he came to the realization that all he had been taught about Jews and Christians was a lie. Convinced he had been on the side of evil, he became an advocate for his former enemy, and against terrorism.

After speaking around the world and in the media about his life and experiences, as well as his unique position and insight as someone who was part of the Jihadist movements, there are forces challenging his credibility in an attempt to silence him. Tonight Walid Shoebat joins Political Pistachio to discuss these recent attacks against his credibility. Join us at 10pm Eastern, 7pm Pacific on Political Pistachio Radio.