Islamic Evil

Today's Update

There they go again.  Ugly inside and out.

After devoting three to four hours almost every day for more than six months to assemble lists of recommended links I took some time off to recharge my very much depleted level of motivation.  Blogging should feel less like work and more like play.  I will therefore be spending less time each day preparing a post and try to have more fun doing so.

It didn't take much time to catch up on the latest Muslim nastiness.  Little Green Footballs, Western Resistance, Jawa Report, Clarity and Resolve, Atlas Shrugs, Dhimmi Watch, Jihad Watch, Michelle Malkin and Hot Air together don't miss much of anything that most of us would be disappointed at missing.  There is no lack of first class information resources pertaining to Islamic evil available on the Web.

Returning to the fray after nearly two weeks off a number of things came to mind in the course of reviewing the news.  The first is the increasing self-confidence of the orthodox Muslim clergy.  Thirty or forty years ago a comment by the Pope or cartoons in a Danish newspaper wouldn't have caused much of a stir in the Muslim world.  Arabs had been thoroughly although temporarily cowed by Israel's triumph in the Six Days War.  Muslims living in infidel lands were small minorities with a sense of vulnerability and a desire to quietly pursue material well-being.  The orthodox Muslim clergy had largely turned its back to the infidel world during a long period of quietism.  What changed?

The Western world increasingly intruded on the Muslim world through a natural process of cultural diffusion that was greatly accelerated by revolutionary changes in communications technology.  Western cultural products were particularly threatening to the extraordinary power of the orthodox Muslim clergy.  Books, movies, TV programs, music, fashions in clothing and values and attitudes they convey immediately come to mind.   A thousand-year-old traditional system of clerical power and authority was being eroded by an increasingly Westernized Muslim laity.

One needs to bear in mind that Sharia law is all or nothing.  Either the Muslim clergy enforces it all through coercion or it is powerless to enforce it.  There is no middle ground.  Therefore we see everywhere demands by the Muslim clergy that Sharia law supersede civil law.  Sharia is the domain of traditional Muslim clerical power and the Muslim clergy wants the restoration of that power in full wherever it has lost ground.  This provides the motivation for the clerical struggle against secular authority in Muslim lands and against the infidel world in general.  Motivation is not enough.  One must also have the means to achieve one's ends.

The Islamic revolution in Iran provided both local and international models of success.  It proved that the Muslim clergy working in concert could overthrow a secular government and establish an Islamic theocracy which in turn could humiliate America by storming its embassy and holding its workers hostage without retribution.  Jimmy Carter might have favorably altered the course of history by going to war but instead chose appeasement.  One of the world's two superpowers was thus shown to be a paper tiger.

The defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan by Islamic irregulars provided the finishing touch.  The remaining superpower turned tail and ran after a decade of Muslim asymmetrical warfare.  If Gorbachev had staid the course history may have taken a more favorable turn.  In any case, the Muslim clergy concluded that, in time, all secular Muslim governments could either be overthrown or coerced into giving the Muslim clergy its due and that no Muslim land could be conquered by infidel nations.  The era of quietism was over and it was time again for business as usual.

I have been very much heartened by the evil utterances of leading lights of the Muslim clergy in regard to the Pope's very indirect criticism of Islam.  Orthodox Islam is a violent, oppressive creed and the more Muslims do to advertise that fact the better off we will be.  Of particular interest is the fact that no recognized member of the Muslim clergy has made a public statement in opposition to the murderous and intolerant statements of their co-religionists.  I look forward to the day that 70% or more of infidels polled indicate that they regard Islam and Muslims as a threat to their lives and liberty.  This is politically incorrect and the mainstream media will continue to spin the "small minority of extremist" meme.  Nevertheless, word is getting out.

The war we are in cannot be won.  However, the Muslim threat can be contained.  That would entail expelling from infidel nations most of the Muslim clergy and as much of its laity as makes sense.  The Muslim world should then be effectively quarantined and allowed to rot on the vine.  We need clear and defensible borders. 

Today's Update

Hot Air offers a two part audio/visual report on Hezbollah in Latin America.  I found it to be a good detective story.  A graduate student at Stanford University gets an email inviting him to support Hezbollah in Latin America.  At first he thinks it a joke but later investigates and finds Islamic evil at work in unlikely places.  This is a fine example of Web-based citizen journalism.

You can learn more about Hezbollah's Canadian and American criminal enterprises by reading this article in the Globe and Mail.

James Lileks offers another hilarious piece of satire in which he imagines how things would have worked out if America had responded to 9/11 with diplomacy and restraint.

I have of late seen an upsurge in Bolshevik agitation and propaganda in the online Middle Eastern press.  Shooting the Messenger by Gareth Porter in the Asia Times Online provides an excellent example.  Porter has had an interesting career.  He is the proud member of a small group of Leftist public intellectuals who were enthusiastic supporters of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.  Porter went further than most by denying the Cambodian holocaust in which approximately one out of four Cambodians died.  He is also known for denying the Communist massacre of civilians in Hue during the Viet Nam War.  He is a former member of the Institute for Policy Studies, a hard Left organization founded by Communists and heavily involved in a host of projects aimed at advancing Socialism and bringing America low.  Both the Asia Times Online and Middle East Online increasingly resemble Bolshevik propaganda organs.  Will we never be rid of these people?

Robert Kaplan in the Wall Street Journal reviews the situation in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East with 20/20 hindsight.  In criticizing America's conduct in the aftermath of the war Kaplan tacitly assumes that we could easily have figured out beforehand how messy the occupation could prove to be.  Notably absent from the public record are dire warnings of what lay ahead.

Seventy-five barking mad moonbats have at least two things in common:  they are current or former university professors and they claim that 9/11 was a neoconservative operation.  Read more in the Daily Mail.

The evil Palestinians are feeling the financial squeeze and looking askance at Hamas.  What to do?  Stop blowing people up while preaching and teaching hatred.  Work to build a viable economy and respectable rump state in Gaza and infidel largesse will once again gush forth.  That is, of course, asking too much.  The Christian Science Monitor has more.

J.R. Dunn in The American Thinker provides a list of things America can do to intimidate Iran.  Some make sense while others are absurd.  Armchair generals whose intelligence consists of news reports and who have no grasp of domestic and international political constraints are prone to fantasy.

John Podhoretz examines Bush's last major public speech and finds in it reason to believe that war with Iran is inevitable.  The New York Post has his analysis.

Tony Blankley examines the history of appeasement and finds it is sometimes a useful tool.  It is also a recipe for disaster when used to deal with imperialist ambitions.  Read more here.

Peter Worthington in the Toronto Sun delivers a sound thrashing to the Canadian cut-and-run crowd.

Democrats have their panties in a bunch over a forthcoming TV 9/11 docudrama.   It portrays the Clinton administration in an unfavorable light.  Clinton has demanded that it not be aired until edited to his satisfaction.  Noel Sheppard in The American Thinker defends the miniseries.  LGF has much more.

Michael Medved at Townhall.com thoroughly discredits the bizarre notion of "proportional" warfare.

One in six Londoners prefer Muslim-free public transportation.  No surprise there.  AFP has the story.  Who in his right mind would want to sit next to someone who looks like a Muslim and has a backpack on his lap?

A Sudanese newspaper editor has lost his head over a bit of blasphemy.  Allah be praised!

Finally, from the Onion a satirical piece that has worn well.

The Origins of Modernity

What is he doing here?

The Christian world in 600 A.D. resembled in significant measure much of the Muslim world today.  Arranged consanguine marriages were the norm and most Christians in Europe retained a tribal identity.  Society was then, as in the Muslim world now, collectivist.  Family, clan, tribal, ethnic, community and religious identities and the obligations derived from them were every bit as oppressive as those that  currently prevail in Arab, Afghan and Pakistani domains.  The individual, as such, did not exist.  There was no personal freedom in any meaningful sense of the word.  Every person was expected to subordinate him or herself to the common interests of a hierarchy of kinship groups and civil and religious authorities with stiff punishments delivered to those who transgressed.  Both Catholic and Orthodox religious authorities cruelly persecuted those who deviated from the official, state-sanctioned form of Christianity and saw no evil in spreading the faith through coercion.  Sound familiar?

Three key events reshaped the Christian world and laid the foundation for modern secular societies.  The first of those was the rejection of marriage between first or second cousins by the Orthodox clergy in 623 A.D. and incrementally by the Catholic church until the practice was universally forbidden by 1100.  The Catholic church dallied because mass conversions to the faith ordered by rulers entailed legitimizing previous consanguine marriages that were forbidden in other Catholic realms.  As there is absolutely no scriptural basis for banning consanguine marriages, what motivated the Orthodox and Catholic clergy to do so?  Christian religious leaders correctly surmised that familism and its clan and tribal manifestations served to undermine both civil and religious authority.

Centuries of exogamy created for different families common interests in the welfare of their newly married children.  People who would have once been fierce competitors under the old system of marriage found good reason to cooperate in the new system.  Interfamilial marriages bind people together while consanguine marriages drive them apart.  This change in social structure over time utterly destroyed the European institutions of clan and tribe although the Scots, late to the party, retain superficial clan identities.  If your ancestry is European rest assured that at one time your ancestors organized themselves into clans and tribes and marriage between cousins in your family was the normal state of affairs.

This profound change in marriage customs laid the foundation for the modern nation-state based on ethnic identity.  By releasing people from the binding obligations of family, clan and tribe it also created wiggle room for the emergence of the West's greatest innovation, the Italian Renaissance.  When we think of the Renaissance we too often regard Humanism, interest in classical antiquity, pictorial art, literature and scientific progress as its hallmarks.  They were instead the products of something very new.  This was an assertive and expansive individualism that made the cultural products of the Renaissance possible.  This second, major transformation of European culture laid the foundation for the next.  That was the Protestant Reformation.

The advent of individualism necessarily led to challenges to both civil and religious authority which had in the past combined to serve the interests of both of those parties.  The state supported the authority of the official religion and the official religion in turn supported the state that empowered it.  Sound familiar?  Welcome to Europe's most devastating war in terms of the percentage of civilian casualties suffered.  That is the 30 Years War.  The cruelty involved was just as bad as Muslim depredations during times of jihad.  In the end, the war was a stalemate concluded with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.  Wars between Christians would never again be fought in the name of the "True Faith".  This weakened the power of the state in matters of religion and religion in mobilizing state power on its behalf.  And so the modern Western secular state was born in the aftermath of incredible, barbarous Christian religious violence.

There are, of course, other Western political and cultural innovations that in time fostered the further development of individualism and the freedom it demands.  Delicious though they may be they are  frosting on the cake.  The development of a shameless desire for individual liberty entailed circumscribing the power of family, clan, tribal, civil and religious authorities.  Authoritarian regimes based on inherited privilege would in the Western world be brought low in time.  Political disputes in the West are now largely confined to matters of economic collectivism versus individualism seasoned by miscellaneous single-issue grievances.

I have in general described three major events that re-shaped the Western world:  the destruction of tribalism and the resultant advent of individualism that in the end triumphed over the combined power of church and traditional state.  This interpretation of history is uniquely my own.  Bearing that in mind what can we make of events in the Muslim world?

As long as Muslims are more loyal to family, clan, tribe and faith than they are to any other cause modernity is beyond their grasp.  Individualism is at the very heart of modernity and is its driving force.  There is no practical way that Muslims can free themselves from the cultural shackles long abandoned by the Western world until they do what the West has done.  I will not live long enough to see that day and it is likely that your children will fail to do so as well.

Today's Update

A sentiment that infidel Leftists and Muslims have in common.  The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Fjordman in his latest essay published in the Brussels Journal provides a critique of radical feminism's role in weakening infidel resolve to combat Muslim aggression.  He belabors his argument to the point of boredom.

The clueless Washington Post attempts to characterize Salafi or Wahhabi Islam by relying entirely on information provided by spokesmen for those sects.  Notably absent is testimony from anyone critical of Islam in general or of those sects in particular.  It is unclear whether the reporters merely served as useful idiots or were deliberately advancing an Islamist agenda.

Danish police have arrested 9 Muslim terrorist wannabes before they could do their evil deeds.  The preliminary report lacks details.  Bloomberg has more.  Additional details will emerge in time.

Melanie Phillips in the Daily Mail(UK) does a splendid job of describing the UK's spasmodic and ineffectual attempts to contain the growing threat of Muslim terrorism.  Like other commentators she has noticed the Left's newfound love for Islam.

Front Page Magazine has a report that indicates that some Leftist university campus organizations in Australia are more violently anti-Semitic than Muslims.  This is a major trend in academia and in mainstream news organizations.  European anti-Semitism didn't vanish in the aftermath of the Holocaust.  Instead it dared not express itself publicly until the time was once again right.

The most influential promoter of anti-Semitism in the UK is the evil BBC.  James Lewis in The American Thinker explains why.

Democratiya is the leading online journal by and for the tiny minority of Leftists who are both decent and honorable.  Its current edition offers an objective analysis of the current state of politics in Lebanon that is discouraging.

Nibras Kazimi in the New York Sun offers an analysis of the Lebanese situation that is even more bleak than the one in Democratiya.

A coalition of 300 Iraqi tribal leaders has threatened civil war if Saddam Hussein is not released and returned to power.  The Sydney Morning Herald and Buffalo News have that story.  It is time to take the gloves off in dealing with Iraqi Sunnis.  Arabs know how to control Arabs through terror and the Sunnis appear to understand no other language.  America needs to step back and let the Iraqi government do what needs to be done horrible though it may be.  Some exemplary massacres are long overdue.  Families need to be punished for the crimes perpetrated by their members.  Arabs were as docile as lambs for the better part of 400 years under Ottoman rule once it became clear to them what price they would pay for insurrection.

There is another solution that might in the end entail less bloodshed.  That would be the partition of Iraq into Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish states.  A bit of ethnic cleansing would be needed to tidy things up and final borders would always be a bone of contention.  The process would be messy as Shiite and Sunni militias would increase their levels of violence in attempts to secure the best terms of separation through intimidation.  Finding an honest broker to mediate terms of separation would be extraordinarily difficult if not impossible.  Brazil is energy independent and doesn't have a dog in this fight.

The Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani is a nasty piece of work like all leading Muslim clerics.  His only virtue has been an aversion to sectarian and internecine violence in the pursuit of theocracy.  His influence has waned to the point where he has now washed his hands of the matter according to the Telegraph(UK).

Iraqi Kurds are increasingly restive. Their leaders see in disorder an opportunity for secession as the Iraqi government fights both Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias. Kirkuk will be the flashpoint of contention.  The Scotsman has more.

Good news from the dark world of Islam is rare and every tidbit should be savored.  Steven Knipp in the WaPo provides some warm local color from Iran.

Muslim terrorists continue to probe airline security.  The Washington Times has that story.

Ron Dreher writing about the influence of Sayyid Qutb in the Dallas Morning News has done some of his homework.  However, Qutb did not invent a new form of Islam.  He offered instead a rationale for the failure of Muslims to achieve modernity and the prosperity that comes with it.  This provided a powerful antidote to Arab shame that also complements orthodox Islam.

The Conservative Voice has more on the Australian government's failure to embrace cultural relativism and the angry response from self-styled Muslim leaders.  Particulary upset was the Grand Mufti of Australia.  The Australian has that story.

Rulers of Muslim lands are concerned about the recent flood of fatwas some of which incite Muslims to murder others or declare other Muslims to be apostates.  There is not much they can do about that.  Their solution is to work harder at public relations aimed at counteracting the strange infidel notion that Muslim violence is the product of Islam.  Asia News has much more.

The evil BBC has a story and picture of a new "modesty" hospital gown for Muslim women.   Women who want to wear one should be given one free along with a one-way airline ticket to Saudi Arabia.

Defining the Enemy

What does this man want?

In my personal attempt to understand the origins, nature and probable future of Islamic evil I find myself returning to the question of qui bono.  Who benefits?  The answer is the same as always.  It is the Muslim clergy that benefits.  The imposition of Sharia law entails vesting in the Muslim clergy  the authority to impose by force its rule system on others.  This is a traditional role demanded by the orthodox Muslim clergy worldwide.

The current major upheaval in Islam centers on one principle issue:  is compliance with Sharia law to be voluntary or mandatory.  For more than a thousand years compliance amongst Muslims has been mandatory.  The advent of more or less secular modern states in the Muslim world has in many cases deprived the Muslim clergy of its traditional coercive authority thereby making compliance with Sharia law increasingly voluntary.  What we have then is a power struggle in almost every Muslim nation that pits clergy against secular state authority.

This struggle for power has become internationalized for a number of reasons.  Foremost amongst them is the orthodox Muslim clergy's perception that modern civilization, most powerfully exemplified by America, is the primary external threat to its authority.  The tools used by the orthodox Muslim clergy to secure its objectives at home and abroad are subversion, insurgency and international terrorism. 

When viewed in this context terms like "Islamic fascism", "fundamentalist Islam", "radical Islam", "militant Islam", "political Islam" and the like appear misbegotten.  They are abstractions that fail to capture the underlying reality of the situation.  We are not dealing with aberrant variants of orthodox Islam.  Members of the Muslim laity have not gone to war with us on their own.  They fight us on behalf of their clerical masters.

How well are our enemies doing?  They are doing very well in most Muslim lands through subversion. Indonesia, Malaysia and Bangladesh are good examples. They lost the civil war in Algeria while leaving more than 100,000 dead in the course of defeat.  They are fairly well contained for now in police states like Syria and Egypt.  They are losing ground in Morocco and Tunisia.  Their one clear win is in Somalia. They have thus far caused themselves more harm than good through international terrorism.

What can we expect in the near future?  In order to avoid civil war relatively weak governments in Muslim lands will attempt to find power-sharing compromises that grant more civil power to the Muslim clergy while safe-guarding the vital interests of ruling cliques.  We can expect insurgencies to materialize or gain strength in Central Asia.  Local and international terrorism will continue unabated for the foreseeable future.  Muslim minorities in infidel nations will continue to grow and become more assertive and much of Europe will yield to their demands.  The insurgency in Afghanistan will continue indefinitely.  The Sunni insurgency in Iraq will eventually be suppressed and will be followed by a civil war between Shiite militia leaders and the Iraqi government.  Not a pleasant picture but a likely one in terms of current trends.

A long article in SFGate deplores stereotyping American Muslims.  Every last piece of evidence it offers is anecdotal and cherry-picked to support its thesis.  Another Op-Ed piece masquerading as journalism.

The Washington Post in this report argues that America is too harsh in its treatment of those associated with Muslim terrorism.  My attitude towards American Muslims can be described as no carrots and a very big stick.  You don't need an exit visa to relocate to a Muslim land.  Shape up or ship out.

The Daily Mail(UK) has a bit more about the recent arrests of the latest batch of terrorist wannabes as does the Telegraph(UK).

The most recent Muslim bomb plot in Germany appears to have been a late reaction to the infamous Muhammad cartoons.  Read more in The Australian.

Niall Ferguson in Time magazine imagines how a history written 30 years from now might interpret recent events.  I think he fell well short of his mark.

Joshua Muravchik in The Weekly Standard gives Human Rights Watch a well-deserved beating.

Mark Steyn in yet another marvelously clever piece in the Chicago Sun-Times has his way with journalist pretenders intent on making sure we see things the way they want us to see them rather than the way they really are.

Caroline Glick in the Jerusalem Post examines the current defense situation of Israel and finds a great deal to worry about.

According to the Times Online Israel is preparing contingency plans for a future war against Syria and Iraq.  One of the Israeli brigades that recently fought with distinction in Lebanon against Hezbollah consists of Druse Muslims.  It earned for itself elevation to elite status. 

Paul Marshall in The Weekly Standard takes a close look at how the press covered the recent forced conversion to Islam of two Fox News journalists.  He provides that which was deliberately overlooked.

Michael Coren in a spasm of wishful thinking argues that dropping a nuke or two on Iran might be useful in demonstrating how bad things could get if it doesn't clean up its act.  The Toronto Sun provided the ink for his piece.

Today's Update

A major violation of Sharia law.  Must the sentence be death or will caning be sufficient?

Reasonable people are increasingly perplexed by what seems to be the anti-American agenda of America's Left and its representatives in the Democrat Party. 

Tom Witengier in The American Thinker examines the Left/Islamic alliance and concludes that the Left hates Republicans more than it fears Islamic terrorism and subversion.

Rich Lowry in the National Review Online argues that Democrat defeatism serves Democrat political interests.  If America loses in Iraq Democrats expect to be the political beneficiaries of that loss.

David Limbaugh reviews Democrat lies large and small aimed at discrediting our fight against Muslim terror.

John Burtis in Canada Free Press reviews the evidence that we are in a major struggle with Muslim fanatics that we simply cannot walk away from.  Our enemies are made bolder by success and intent on destroying the Great Satan wherever it may choose to hide.  Blinded by hatred the Left and its useful idiots in the Democrat Party cannot see the obvious.

I think there are elements of truth in the essays listed above.  At the heart of the matter, I suspect, is an unwholesome, obsessive lust for political power shared by the rag-tag assortment of single-issue special interest groups that constitute the Democrat Party's base.  Each of those groups regards its narrow objective as more important than any other.  For them the end justifies the means.  Nothing else matters.

Meanwhile, UK police have arrested yet another group of terrorist wannabes.  It was a group of 14 this time.  The evil BBC has an early report.  Details are sadly lacking.

Those arrests didn't make much of a dent in the opposition.  According to the Times Online MI5 and police are currently monitoring thousands more Muslims that might like to blow themselves and others up.

Jews in the UK had better start thinking of finding another country to live in.  Attacks against them have dramatically increased of late and there is no reason to believe their condition will improve in the future.  The Times Online has that disgusting story.

Perhaps even more disgusting are Jews who hate Israel.  Front Page Magazine describes their particular brand of evil in detail.

Can you be both an ethical anthropologist and a patriotic American at the same time?   Inside Higher Education grapples with that problem.  You might guess the politically correct answer to that question.  Maybe its time to bring back the old-fashioned loyalty oath for those paid for their services by government.

The tentacles of Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda reach deep into Africa.  Business Day in South Africa has that story.

Selim Nassib in Sign and Sight provides a clear, concise and useful history of modern Lebanon.

Civil servants in Gaza and the West Bank have gone on strike to demand payment for their services.  The evil EU will soon come the rescue.  Asharq Alawsat has the story.

Palestinian "militants" are pleased with their recent kidnap, forced conversion and release of two Fox News journalists.  They intend to do the same to other infidels who dare enter Gaza according to this report from AP.

Amir Taheri also in Asharq Alawsat describes the one and only legimate government on the face of the Earth.  That is, of course, Iran.  Once again, an ignorant ayatollah at work.

Time magazine in this report makes the case that Iranians are for the most part deeply resentful of their government's corruption and its financial generosity towards Lebanon.

What do we really know about Muhammad?  Entirely too much if we are to believe the literal truth of the Islamic Sunna.  Very little if we take an objective, scholarly, analytical look at the evidence available to us.  Patricia Crone (an unfortunate last name for a woman) reviews at Open Democracy what we know thus far and it isn't what you think it might be.

That's enough for a lazy Saturday.  More tomorrow.

Today's Update

Fjordman has a new essay in the Brussels Journal entitled The Failure of Western Universities.  Although this is a book-length subject Fjordman provides a useful overview.

Russians are today marking the anniversary of the Beslan school massacre.  AP has that story. One of the most powerful written accounts of that Muslim atrocity is entitled The School.  According to Radio Free Europe a motion picture based on the tragedy is in the works.  You can watch a 9 minute memorial to the victims of Beslan by clicking here.

The Christian Science Monitor has an excellent roundup of stories concerning the debate over the term "Islamic fascism".  According to Leftist Moonbat Jim Lobe in the Asia Times Online this term is a right-wing propaganda ploy.  Meanwhile Muslim riots have broken out worldwide to protest comparing Bush to Hitler.

Gerard Baker in the Times Online takes strong exception to Muslim claims of victimhood reinforced by post-colonial white guilt.

Theodore Dalrymple, a British psychiatrist, does a bit of soul-searching in an essay at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.  He concludes that prejudice towards Muslims is a very natural response to the violence Muslims perpetrate against infidels.

Victor Hanson in the National Review Online argues that it is only a matter of time before Muslims improve on their 9/11 record massacre of infidels.

While almost all Muslim nations are clearly moving in the wrong direction Morocco appears to be moving in the right direction.  Read more in the St. Paul Pioneer Press.  Benevolent despotism yields dividends in the Arab world.  Evil Moroccan Muslims are, of course, displeased.  56 of them were caught today before they could engage in acts of mass murder.  AP has the story.

Diana West in an Op-Ed in the Washington Times deplores the forced conversions to Islam of two Fox News reporters.  She cites articles that appeared in Front Page Magazine and The American Thinker.  The MSM is increasingly looking to Internet publications for commentary and analysis.  This is a good thing.

The Miami Herald provides an overview of the Western news media's propaganda war against Israel. 

Tensions are growing between Turkey's Kemalist military and its Islamist government.  The Middle East Times has that story.

There is evidence that the Pakistani government has lost what little control it had over the violent and barbaric Pashtuns who inhabit its Northwest Frontier Territory while the Taleban has won the day.  Read more in the Asia Times Online.

You may recall the stampede to judgement that trumpeted Israel's defeat in the Israel/Hezbollah war.  The most optimistic commentators called it a draw.  The commentariate has reversed course and now claim Hezbollah lost.  Charles Krauthammer in the WaPo describes the latest conventional wisdom on the subject.  Austin Bay at TCS Daily does so as well.

Given my druthers I'd swap George Bush for Australia's John Howard in a heartbeat.  This report in The Australian is a tribute to Howard's integrity, common sense and plain speaking on the subject of Muslim integration.  The Herald Sun(AU) reports that the head of the Australian government's Islamic advisory committee has advised Howard to back off -- or else.

A Saudi resident in America has been sentenced to 27 years in prison for practicing slavery on American soil.  The Arab News struggles mightily to tell both sides of a story for which there is only one side.

The IDF has dispatched yet another evil Palestinian terrorist to Jannah.  The Jerusalem Post describes how his death settled an outstanding account.

Let us not forget the plight of loathsome Palestinians denied their usual generous infidel handouts.  Reuters has more on that continuing story.

Today's Update

Muslim hate comments have picked up of late.  However their quality leaves much to be desired.  For example,

"Really how much stupid u 're, yes we 're truth, our prophet ( salla alah 3leih we sallam) is the last prohet on this world and u and ur monkey isralien killers will never live on this world, theim and ur end is so soon stupid". 

I have high standards when it comes to Muslim hate mail and hate comments and I expect much better than this in the future.

The Koran asserts that Muhammad is the last prophet Allah will authorize to convey his message.  Doesn't Allah get to change his mind over time as he did in other parts of the Koran?  There is one verse in the Koran that nullifies 122 others because it came later and contradicts earlier ones.  What do Muslims use for brains?

I have added Neocon Express to my list of pertinent blogs.  Another conservative has found that there is something far more evil than liberals.  Liberals at least don't want to murder us in large numbers.

Donald Rumsfeld recently gave a very thoughtful speech before the American Legion that made clear that we cannot be defeated by jihadists as long as we maintain our resolve to win.  This, of course, infuriated the more infantile elements of the Democrat Party.  AP Wire has that story.  Emmett Tyrrell strikes back at Townhall.com.

Don Feder at ChronWatch has a clever piece entitled Top 10 Reasons Islam Might Not Be Religion of Peace.

Eric Margolis wins today's Tinfoil Hat Award for this piece of paranoid idiocy.  An occasional visit to the fever swamps of the Left is edifying.

Ben Johnson in Front Page Magazine describes in detail how some of Margolis' ideological compatriots have actively assisted those determined to kill Americans.

Patrick Poole offers in The American Thinker a first-class critique of the evil Council on American-Islamic Relations' propaganda effort.  CAIR appears to be a front group for the Muslim Brotherhood and has in the past employed those associated with terrorist groups.

Omran Salman, a Bahraini journalist, completely agrees with Poole in this piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Mark Steyn treats 9/11 conspiracy theorists with the proper amount of scorn in MacLeans.  The infidel tinfoil hat brigade does a great deal of harm by reinforcing the paranoid delusions of the Muslim tinfoil hat majority.

Christopher Orlet in the American Spectator makes a convincing case that most Muslims like the idea of democracy.  They might not be very good at it but they are eager to give it a try.

John Lehman in the WaPo argues that we are not winning the war against Muslim global jihad.  I agree.  But I find nothing remarkable about that.  The first phase of the war is a struggle contain the threat.  That accomplished, we can then pursue victory if we so please.  This is going to be a very long war.  The first Islamic campaign against the West lasted for 1,000 years. 

Alan Caruba in Human Events Online offers a Middle East Quiz that demonstrates why Israel is important to us all and Arabs are amongst the world's most dispensable people.  Alan could have gone a great deal further in contrasting Israel's achievements and the Arab lack of achievement.  Nevertheless, he went more than far enough to make an important point.

Daniel Johnson in the New York Sun does a masterful job of explaining the Islamic threat in a way that ordinary infidels can understand.

Stupid Muslim clergy's stunt of the day is declaring life insurance anti-Islamic.  Chron.com has more on that bit of orthodox Islamic imbecility.

Finally, a note on the discrepancies between my various visit counters.  Neocounter only counts unique hosts per unit time.  Earlier today I had 6 visitors from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on at the same time via the same host.  Neocounter considered that to be one visit from that host.