Ich bin ein Berliner

The German government spokesman said Merkel is in mourning,  me? I say she's responsible.

What do you say? 

P.S: Yes I intentionally used the Bundeswehr Flag.

 

Not on the Radar

Ahmad Khan Rahami

Multiple trips over the years to Afghanistan and Pakistan to include weeks in Kandahar and in the Taliban stronghold of Quetta.  This was followed by almost a year in Pakistan April 2013 - March 2014.

What do you need to do to get on the Radar? Blow something up?

 

ORLANDO

NEED I SAY MORE?

 

When is an invasion not an invasion?

Photo: Ggia

To quote one of our presidential candidates: 

What difference does it make?

 

Telegraph

Telegraph

Bonus Track

The American Band Eagles of Death Metal were on stage at the Bataclan theater when cowardly Muslims burst in killing over 100 concert goers.  Surprisingly, they're not a Death Metal band. Hopefully, they all got out alive.

The President's Op-Ed

Just the other day (Feb 17th) on the eve of the Islamic Terrorism Conference the President published an Op-Ed column in the LA Times. We'll address a few points here, but feel free to read the article and chime in on anything you want about it.

The United States has made significant gains against terrorism.

Well that's an interesting perspective since it seems to be more out of control than ever as indicated in his following paragraphs:

The al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen actively plots against us. Since 9/11, terrorists have murdered U.S. citizens overseas, including in the attacks in Benghazi, Libya. Here in the United States, Americans have been killed at Ft. Hood and during the Boston Marathon. In Syria and Iraq, the terrorist group we call ISIL has slaughtered innocent civilians and murdered hostages, including Americans, and has spread its barbarism to Libya with the murder of Egyptian Christians. In recent months, we've seen deadly attacks in Ottawa, Sydney, Paris and Copenhagen.  Elsewhere, the Pakistan Taliban massacred more than 100 schoolchildren and their teachers. From Somalia, al-Shabaab has launched attacks across East Africa. In Nigeria and neighboring countries, Boko Haram kills and kidnaps men, women and children.

If the current state of affairs are "significant gains", I'd hate to see what losing looks like.  I'd also like to ask why if the President recognizes (as indicated by its inclusion here) the Fort Hood shootings as terrorism why the DoD continues to categorize it as "workplace violence", a categorization that has allowed Nidal Hasan to continue to draw ($278,000 since Nov 5, 2009... and that figure is almost two years old) salary and denies benefits to the victims of the shooting. Snopes

Efforts to counter violent extremism will only succeed if citizens can address legitimate grievances through the democratic process and express themselves through strong civil societies.

Islamqa  run by Muhammad Al-Munajjid who at least Al Jazeera identifies as "one of the respected scholars of the Salafist movement" (page three of Al Jazeera link) has this to say about democracy:

Democracy is a man-made system, meaning rule by the people for the people. Thus it is contrary to Islam, because rule is for Allaah, the Most High, the Almighty, and it is not permissible to give legislative rights to any human being, no matter who he is. Undoubtedly the democratic system is one of the modern forms of shirk, in terms of obedience and following, or legislation, as it denies the sovereignty of the Creator and His absolute right to issue laws, and ascribes that right to human beings. Islamqa

There are of course additional supporting and opposing viewpoints with the Islamic world.  The President goes on to talk about pluralism:

Finally — with al Qaeda and ISIL peddling the lie that the United States is at war with Islam — all of us have a role to play by upholding the pluralistic values that define us as Americans. 

Of course the falsehood in that statement is the naive belief that Jihadists or Salafists (not all Muslims) accept pluralism.  The Islamic views on pluralism is as divergent as its views on democracy depending on what particular sect one belongs to.  Given the Sunni ISIS treatment of Shia, I don't think you can expect to see pluralism out of them any time soon.  From Libya to Nigeria to Pakistan, Indonesia to the Philippines I dispute anyone that asserts that a lack of tolerance and pluralism is strictly an Arabic problem within Islam.

With this week's summit, we'll show once more that — unlike terrorists who only offer misery and death — it is our free societies and diverse communities that offer the true path to opportunity, justice and dignity. 

Obama's position reminds me of a friend of mine that used to joke that after he retired he was going to start an Amish Internet Dating Site.  So I have to ask, what makes him think they want what he's peddling? 

Dealing with the Devil

Wearing a disabled explosives belt and a white headscarf and wringing her hands as she spoke, an Iraqi woman calmly described how she tried and failed to join her husband in a suicide attack on a hotel wedding party. Millions of viewers across Jordan and the region watched as Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi gave her televised confession.

"My husband detonated [his bomb] and I tried to explode [mine,] but it wouldn't," the 35-year-old al-Rishawi said.  Taipei Times

Islamic State militants announced that a Jordanian pilot would be executed "immediately" if a convicted hotel bomber is not delivered to the Turkish border by sunset Thursday.  Jordan said it was ready to swap al-Rishawi, convicted of a deadly terrorist attack on a hotel, if the Jordanian pilot held by Islamic State militants "is released unharmed,'' Jordan's state-run news agency, Petra, said.  USA Today

Al-Rishawa was convicted and sentenced to death by a Jordanian court for her participation in an attack that killed 38 people and is currently pending appeal. So what do you think?  Do we deal with the devil? 

Where's Obama?

Image: Telegraph

Or Joe Biden, or even Eric Holder who was already in Paris... 

40 heads of state gathered in Paris and attended a rally in support of France, Paris, Charlie Hedbo, and the Freedom of Speech and of the Press and the best we can manage is Jane Hartley? 

Shameful or not?

Who else was there?

Why Recep Erdogan, President of Turkey and alleged NATO ally who had this to say: 


“The duplicity of the west is obvious,” Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at a press conference on Monday evening. “As Muslims we have never sided with terror or massacres: racism, hate speech, Islamophobia are behind these massacres. The culprits are clear: French citizens undertook this massacre and Muslims were blamed for it,” he added.” FT


Need more proof that Constantinople is still full of barbarians?

Melih Gokcek, mayor of Ankara for the ruling AK party, said on Monday that “Mossad [the Israeli intelligence service] is definitely behind such incidents . . . it is boosting enmity towards Islam.”

Unfortunately the secular Turkey of Atatürk that joined the Council of Europe is long gone and now they're as whack as the House of Saud.  Just another reason to deny EU membership and expel them from NATO... their values are incompatible with Western Civilization. We need Turkey in NATO about as much as we need thousands of Syrian refugees.

The United States accepts the majority of all UNHCR referrals from around the world. Last year, we reached our goal of resettling nearly 70,000 refugees from nearly 70 countries. And we plan to lead in resettling Syrians as well. We are reviewing some 9,000 recent UNHCR referrals from Syria. We are receiving roughly a thousand new ones each month, and we expect admissions from Syria to surge in 2015 and beyond. Anne Richard - State Department

Ain't nothing like a good ole case of stupid...eh Anne?

The Religion of Peace

For where two or three have gathered together

in his name, this is usually the result

No, not all Muslims are terrorists, but most terrorists are Muslim these days and since we can't separate the wheat from the chaff, it's time to burn and salt the fields.  Until they get their own house in order they must not be allowed free reign in ours.  Is this discrimination? Yes, but it is a reasonable and rational response, look at the picture above... this is what we get (repeatedly) in turn for amnesty and for our generosity in opening our doors to them. 

Bernard "Tignous" Verlhac. Photo: Georges Seguin

Georges Wolinski, Photo: Alvaro

Jean "Cabu" Cabut, Photo: Georges Seguin

Stéphane "Charb" Charbonnier, Photo: Coyau

How many more good men have to die 

before we stop importing their killers? 

I'd rather die standing than live on my knees.

~ Stéphane Charbonnier

Stéphane Charbonnier didn't have to die... Impose a moratorium on immigration and asylum now, make any terrorism related charge a capital offense.

Je Suis Charlie 

9-11, ISIS, Terrorism

 

 

Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster.

War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.

This war differs from other wars, in this particular. We are not fighting armies but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war.

If the people raise a great howl against my barbarity and cruelty, I will answer that war is war, and not popularity seeking.

My aim, then, was to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us. Fear is the beginning of wisdom.

William Tecumseh Sherman

To Kill a Gnat

Terrorism

In the 70's the US averaged 2.6 terrorist attacks per year.

In the 80's the US averaged  1.8 terrorist attacks per year.  

In the 90's the US averaged 1.4 terrorist attacks per year.

In the 00's the US averaged 2.6 terrorist attacks per year.

So far the 10's are shaping up to be on par with 1990.

Following the September 11th attacks we passed the Patriot Act, created the Department of Homeland Security and the TSA.  The NSA is spying on everyone... and yet, we are no better or worse off now than we were in the 1970's when Nixon was the only one spying. 

Had all the terrorist plots we foiled, succeeded, it wouldn't significantly alter the statistics or the risk.

Why then are we doing this to ourselves?

Why?

The Ends do not Justify the Means

There is a very good interview with former director of the NSA, General Keith Alexander, in the New Yorker.

Metadata is the least intrusive, most efficient way to do it. You don’t want to translate millions and millions of calls; you want to get to the most efficient approach.

I think that statement illustrates the mindset most effectively.  It's not that we don't want to listen in to all your phone calls, it's just not efficient.  So what does that mean?  Will they record and translate millions and millions of calls if the efficiency improves?

To me, the question isn't whether or not these programs work, as they undoubtedly do, and well, the question is it worth it?  Is it worth it sacrificing the foundational principles of our nation for a little safety?  Face it, your chances of being killed by a fellow American are much higher than of being killed by a terrorist, why stop with them?  Seriously, if your goal is safety, we have the technology to assure it.  

Why do you find it tolerable to sacrifice your freedoms, your privacy to eliminate a remote threat but not to eliminate a more probable one? 

But I do think people need to know that we’re at greater risk, and there’s a lot more coming my way. It’s easy to stir up public emotion by saying: They’re listening to your phone calls. They’re reading your e-mails.  

It's also easy to stir up public emotion by saying: The Boogieman is coming.

Think about it. 

 

All Atheists are Terrorists

Apologists take note

Saudi Arabia has introduced a series of new laws which define atheists as terrorists, according to a report from Human Rights Watch.  Article one of the new provisions defines terrorism as "calling for atheist thought in any form, or calling into question the fundamentals of the Islamic religion on which this country is based"

Independent 

European Terror Fallout

Finally. Finally! The Islamaholic left has a horrific rightwing attack as a tu quoque to employ when a conservative Bible-clinging Islamophobe criticizes the next Islam-inspired suicide bombing, decapitation, embassy burning, honor killing or gay slaying.

Tim McVeigh has faded from view, and he wasn’t of much use to the left anyway. Can’t pin Oklahoma City on the Christians, since he was an avowed atheist. It just didn't fit the narrative: The Rush Limbaugh right deplored and condemned the bombing and cheered McVeigh's death. We believe in the rule of law after all; killing people and destroying things is not only inhumane, it's very unconservative.

Back in January, the shooting of Gabriel Giffords re-energized lefty excitement.  They were all over that story like ants on a log, only to see the narrative again wilt under the harsh facts that the shooter was a dope smoking leftist who had never heard of Sarah Palin and who also happened to be an atheist.

At first, the Norway mass murder looked like the work of Muslim terrorists.  Any time something goes boom in the civilized world, there's a better than 95% chance an angry Islamist is behind it, and no sooner was the news out than the Islamic Death Cultists cheered the event and tried to take credit for it.  Even as the facts emerged, it still seemed there could be a Muslim connection.  This is the continent where World Bankers are brought low by devout Muslim prostitutes working as hotel maids after all.  But no, it was a self-described neonazi Christian whose anti-Muslim plan was to get his countrymen on his side by killing a hundred of them.

Tea Partiers, Brace Yourselves
The left will use the popular media to continue to make excuses for every act of Muslim violence, while blaming everyone to the right of Barack Obama for every act of horror great or small committed by any non-Muslim of European descent.  The left that takes pains to separate the millions of good Muslims from the scant few who commit violence will gleefully lump conservative in with the neonazis and violent rightwing extremists, although we have nothing in common.

So do your homework now, and every time an uninformed moron opens his yap to repeat the latest daily kook trope or MSNBC poison gas propaganda attack, shove it back in their faces.  Ask them to show you where Jesus advocated shooting children and blowing up buildings.  Make them explain how Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin have blood on their hands.  Bottom line is they can't.

Probably the best thing you can do is explain how the Norwegian has perverted Christianity and does not represent all Christians.  Libs should understand the argument.  They've been making it for years in excusing violent Islamic extremism.

Atlantic - Why The European Right Can't be Blamed
Inside the Mind of the Oslo Murderer
Douthat - A Rightwing Monster
Guardian - Not Christian but Anti-Islam
NY Times - Norway Attacks
Fox - Norway Suspect
WSJ - Norway Gunman

Brotherhood of the Traveling (and burning) Pants, Part II

What a difference a year makes

Since the "underwear bomber" (or should I say the TSA useful idiot?) tried to roast his huevos rancheros, we've seen the most outrageous infringements of the 4th Amendment ever upon American Citizens. Nude ray scanners. Breasts exposed and fondled in public to laughing TSA thugs. Genitals fondled and women even claiming to have been penetrated. A former Governor suing due to the same.




Not one terrorist arrested in all this time by the TSA - yet more than a few American Citizens blacklisted and/or arrested for standing up for their rights.

Raison d'etre? The damned underwear bomber!

Well, it turns out that two attorneys were on the same flight as this "bomber" - and they firmly believe that the U.S. Government allowed this scum on the plane with the faux bomb. A must see:




YouTube: Kurt Haskell's Damning Testimony

First off, they mention a well-dressed individual in Amsterdam helping the bomber on the flight - without a passport - and this individual was an American. The explosive was most likely a road flare ground up and inserted into the Nigerian's underwear.

Have we forgotten about the suspicious passenger who filmed throughout the entire flight - that stood and continued to film when the flames errupted? Where is that film? In the age of YouTube you would imagine it would be uploaded in a New York Minute. Unless it was taken by some federal operative or confiscated by one.

Follow the Money

In the months following the attempted bombing, lucrative x-ray imagers were installed throughout the United States - hawked by none other than former DHS chief Michael Chertoff. This stinks to high heaven - these tyrants not only strip us of our privacy in the name of a fake terror event, but funnel the Treasury into their own pockets at the same time!

This is what I wrote last year:

I'm completely skeptical about this being a credible terrorist effort. Either the Nigerian was incompetent (quite possible) or something else is afoot...

What can you do?

Have your Representative or Senator pressure the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee to drastically reduce funding for this illegal and unconstitutional agency.

I've been in government acquisitions for some time. In that time I've learned that the lifeblood of a bureaucracy is not red, it is green. That green is your hard-earned tax dollars. If you want to threaten a soviet-style federal department, you must go after it's blood source.

Delicious Resistance

The ironic thing about this post is that I'm publishing it within TSA's secure zone within a major airport. In this day and age of tyranny and terror, one must grab his small joys while he can.

- Hugh Farnham

Editors note:  Apologies to Hugh, Shane and Jersey.  This was posted for about an hour Friday.  I mistakenly thought this was an accidental repost and pulled it down.  Hugh's been traveling and I've been working long hours and we didn't communicate.  Anyway, here it is again, featured on a Sunday.  Enjoy!  --  Silverfiddle