Misleading Sub-related Headline Of The Day

I'll tell you what, I was shocked when I read the headline of this story in The Galveston County Daily News: "USPS Plans New Stamp For USS Texas". I remembered how much of a battle it'd been to get the commemorative stamps issued by the Post Office for the Submarine Centennial in 2000, and thought: "Wow, those Texas politicians have some serious pull". Then I read what the article really meant by "stamp":

The U.S. Postal Service in Galveston issued a special pictorial postmark in tribute to the Sept. 9 commissioning of the USS Texas.
The commissioning of the nuclear submarine is scheduled for 10 a.m. Sept. 9 on Pier 10 in Galveston.
The special stamp, also called a cancellation, depicts a submarine inside the outline of the state of Texas, with a star marking Galveston Island.
It also includes the sub’s name, USS Texas SSN-775, and the date of the commissioning.

For those members of the press who still aren't quite sure of the difference -- This is an example of a cancellation:

And these are examples of stamps:

(Thanks to the NavSource Sub Photo website for the cancellation picture.)

More Pictures Of PCU Texas

One of the guys from SubSim.com was onboard PCU Texas for their recent media availability, and generated a really good report with lots of pictures. My favorite was this one of the SCP:

The traditionalist in me wonders what will happen if they ever lose all AC while underway -- and the submarine Engineer in me knows they've probably got a damned good backup system installed just for that possibility. (For all I know, the whole thing's powered off the battery bus -- no reason it can't be DC).

Music Video: "Submarine" (Bad Word Warning!)

[Intel Source: Rontini's BBS] I figured I should get the "Bad Word Warning" in the title of this post, because this video for the song "Submarine" has lots of bad words.

It comes from the web site for the band "7 Seconds Of Love", who are most famous for their classic song "We Like The Moon". Although the band did the song, the video was put together by some of their fans.

A Conspiracy Theory Even The DUmmies Won't Buy

Check out this explanation of the 2002 Bali bombing from Indonesian Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir:

In an interview tonight on ABC television's Foreign Correspondent, Bashir claims the device that killed most people in the Bali attack was a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) "micro-nuclear" bomb.
"The micro-nuclear bomb that did so much damage was a CIA bomb, not Amrozi's bomb," Bashir told the ABC.
"The Bali bombing was actually masterminded by America. Well, not masterminded, but hijacked. They planned it, but their plan was hijacked by America."
"So the bomb that killed so many Australians, it was an American bomb. It wasn't the bomb made by Amrozi and his friends."

One of the commenters in this DU thread about the article actually picked up on the concept of critical mass, and how that sets a lower limit on the potential yield of a nuclear warhead.

I did mention the article at the blog of Idaho's favorite moonbat, though, so we'll see if he runs with it (like he did with my request that he check out the Jesse MacBeth story earlier this year). And yes, for those who were wondering, that is my picture next to the phrase "easily amused" in the dictionary.

USS Dolphin To Be Decommissioned

As the sub-blogosphere reported back in June, USS Dolphin (AGSS 555) will be decommissioned next month. From a really good article in the San Diego Union-Tribune, here's a picture of the old girl:

Check out the whole article in the U-T; here's an excerpt:

Less than a year after completing a $50 million project to repair and upgrade the San Diego-based research vessel, the Navy will decommission it Sept. 22. It is the country's last diesel-electric sub.
Axing the Dolphin will save the cash-strapped Navy about $18 million annually, said Capt. John Schwering, director of the Navy Range Office in Washington. The Navy's budget this year is $125 billion...
...The Dolphin had other notable firsts: sending the first successful submarine-to-aircraft laser communication and the first sub-to-surface e-mail and making the deepest launch for a torpedo. It has served as the testing platform for numerous sonar systems. As the Navy gradually retired the rest of its diesel-electric fleet, the Dolphin often played the enemy in anti-submarine warfare exercises – an important role because most of the world's navies still field diesel-electric subs.
Pentagon officials say the Dolphin's age and uniqueness caught up with it, making it expensive to operate and maintain. They say it carries obsolete sonar, is too slow and can't be maneuvered well enough to convincingly simulate a modern diesel-electric sub.

The article also has a decent analysis on why the Navy is having to try to cut costs.

As always, the best source for old stories from the Dolphin is from G-man over at the USS Dolphin blog.

Woman On A Submarine!

No, it's not time to perform the quarterly PM of having a discussion on whether or not women should be assigned to submarines -- it's time to look at newly-released pictures of PCU Texas (SSN 775) as she makes her way to Galveston for her commissioning next month. Here's a picture of the Texas' bridge cockpit, which features an example of the title of this post:

If you go here and download the hi-res version, you can get a good look at some of the 21st century stuff the Virginia class boats have on the bridge. (Actually, it looks pretty much like what the 20th century Seawolf-class boats have, except their bridges are bigger. And faster.)

They put out quite a few more pictures from the boat's media availability: here's one of the control room, here's one of the torpedo room, and they have lots of pictures of the outside of the boat: here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Oh, and if you do find yourself being a woman on a submarine, and you have to go to the bridge like the young lady in the picture, remember that you'll be climbing a vertical ladder, with lots of Sailors potentially looking up the ladder from the bottom -- so don't wear a skirt.

♪♪♪ "I Can Change, I Can Change..." ♪♪♪

[Intel Source: Drudge Report] I don't know if this report is accurate or not, but if it is, it shows the absolute brilliance of a group of bored Marines:

Speaking at the Edinburgh International Television Festival, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone said US Marines guarding the former dictator during his trial for genocide were making him watch the movie "repeatedly".

"I have it on pretty good information from the Marines on detail in Iraq that they showed him the movie last year. That's really adding insult to injury. I bet that made him really happy," Stone said.

And speaking of bored Marines, head on over to Ninme's place (or CDR Salamander's) and see what the Marines underway on USS Iwo Jima (LHD 7) are doing with their spare time.

An Open E-mail To The Bill Sali Campaign

Update 2117 04 Sept: I did get a response from the Ada County coordinator in the Sali campaign, saying they'd try to get me some answers. I'll keep you posted if I hear anything.

[Local Idaho politics warning!]

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, I've been thinking about writing an E-mail to the campaign of the Republican nominee for the Idaho 1st Congressional District race, Bill Sali, to see if I could get his comments on some of the issues that have come up during the campaign. Too much modern political discourse involves the supporters of opposing candidates snarking at each other from their respective blogs, without anyone trying to find out what the opposing candidate might actually have to say about the issues. Being a Republican who's supporting Democrat Larry Grant in this race, I figure I have a foot on both sides of the divide, so I decided to try to bridge the gap, and give Mr. Sali's campaign a chance to answer some questions. Here's what I came up with to send to his campaign staff:

I'm Joel Kennedy, a mil-blogger (someone who writes a military-themed web log, or online journal) in Meridian. My website, The Stupid Shall Be Punished, gets about 500 visits per day -- making it, as near as I can tell, the 2nd most-visited blog in the Treasure Valley (behind only Clayton Cramer; notably, I get 2 to 3 times the daily visits of your main defender in the Idaho blogosphere, Adam Graham). I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Sali at the Flag Day event at the Capitol building, where he gave a very good speech. He was very heartfelt in thanking me when we talked afterwards for my 21+ years of service in the Submarine Force, and I could tell he was sincere in doing so. While I've been a Republican my whole life, right now, for various reasons, I'm supporting Larry Grant in the 1st District Congressional race. Even so, I'm very interested in fairness, and would like to give the Sali campaign a chance to answer some questions and concerns that have come up among district bloggers. While bloggers (or "online journalists") are not traditional media, I would urge you not to ignore this potential source of getting your message out to the voters. I assure you that any response you provide to my questions will be reproduced without changes in my blog. (A copy of this E-mail has been posted in my blog here -- I'll put your response in the same post.)

Here are the questions that have been brought up:

1) Your website indicates that Mr. Sali intends to focus on "Supporting our troops" (as the last-listed "important issue"), but contains no additional information on how he intends to do so. Can you provide any specifics at all on how he intends to do this? Will he seek increases in the defense budget? Does he support Secretary Rumsfeld's proposal to reduce the number of active-duty troops?

2) Your website also mentions Mr. Sali's support for using the National Guard to defend the border against illegal immigrants. What Rules Of Engagement (ROE) would Mr. Sali expect for this mission? Does Mr. Sali support changes to the Posse Comitatus laws to actually allow the troops to do anything other than build fences, or does he envision that they'll just stand around and watch illegal immigrants cross the border, hoping that they can contact someone with arrest authority on the radio?

(The rest of the E-mail is in the extended entry)

3) Regarding Mr. Sali's recent vote in favor of Governor Risch's property tax reduction / sales tax increase: How does Mr. Sali reconcile his "yes" vote with his previously stated opposition to any tax increases? While it's true that many Idahoans (and all out-of-state vacation homeowners) will see a net reduction in taxes, non-homeowners (I've seen estimates that these make up 25-30% of the electorate) will end up paying more in taxes. Can Mr. Sali provide a clear explanation of his reasoning?

4) On TV last Friday night, a clip of Rep. Sali was shown where he said that those who opposed the Governor's plan (paraphrasing here) "apparently think it's OK for people to lose their houses because they can't pay property taxes". It was fairly obvious to essentially all interested observers that the opponents of the plan favored an alternate plan that would have similarly reduced property taxes for homeowners (along with no increase in the sales tax). Does Rep. Sali actually believe that those who opposed the Governor's plan really want people to lose their houses because they can't pay the property tax, or was he "fudging" the truth in his floor statement? If he does believe that was the case, is that an indication that Mr. Sali didn't really follow the issue? Can we expect him to do better as a Congressman?

5) Regarding the Vice President's recent fundraising visit to Boise, most media observers estimated that there were 150-200 contributors in the room. The Sali campaign put out a statement saying that there were "approximately 200-250" people there. It's been a couple of weeks now, so I'm guessing you've gotten the final numbers of contributors nailed down. How many people were actually there? Did you count Secret Service agents? Will those numbers be confirmed when you submit your next disclosure of campaign contributions? If not, why?

6) Regarding the recent fund-raising breakfast in Post Falls headlined by the Speaker of the House, Rep. Hastert, media observers said the Sali campaign initially stated that there were 120-140 contributors attending, but later issued a press release indicating that there were 150 contributors there. One person reported on the Spokesman-Review website that he estimated there were only 80 contributors in attendance, outside of the Speaker's group and the Sali campaign staff. How many people who paid the $35 to get in were really there? Will these numbers be reflected in your next campaign contribution disclosure? If not, why? And why aren't there any reports about the event on your website? I know if the Speaker of the House came to an event in my honor, I'd write about it.

7) Also regarding the fund-raising breakfast, there were media reports that your campaign had announced that the event was closed to the press in accordance with the Speaker's normal procedures. At a media availability, Rep. Hastert seemed surprised by this report, indicating that his events are normally not closed to the press. Did the Speaker's staff really ask you to close the event to the press, or did you do it because you were afraid of negative publicity from a 2nd consecutive lower-than-expected turnout for a high-profile guest? If they did ask you to do this, can you provide the name of the staffer that made this request? If they didn't, was the decision to close the event due to bad communications among your staff? If that was the case, do(es) the responsible staffer(s) still work for your campaign?

8) Especially with respect to the last three items, I think you can see that a reasonable observer might conclude that the Sali campaign is systematically over-estimating the number of attendees at fund-raising events. If it turns out, from your next campaign finance report, that the number of contributors were in fact lower than you reported, what will be your explanation? Will you blame poor staff work? If so, will you make a commitment that the staffers who made this mistake will not be part of your Congressional staff in D.C. if you're elected?

I look forward to your response to any or all of the questions I raised. As I said earlier, I will publish, without changes, any response you send in my online journal.

Thanks for your time,
Joel Kennedy -- "Bubblehead"

Marque and Reprisal

The Framers of the Constitution, self-evidently Divinely Inspired, wrote the following into that document:

Article I

Section 8

The Congress shall have Power...To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water; ...

So not only can (and should) Congress make Rules concerning Captures (i.e. jihadists go directly to Gitmo for coercive interrogation, do not pass Go, do not collect 200 ACLU lawyers), but they can also grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal.

That Power has not been revoked.

Though the Declaration of Paris of 1856 outlawed such Letters, the United States was not a signatory to that treaty.

What are these Letters?

A Letter of Marque and Reprisal was is [there, I fixed that for you. --RDS] an official warrant or commission from a national government authorizing the designated agent to search, seize, or destroy specified assets or personnel belonging to a party which had committed some offense under the laws of nations against the assets or citizens of the issuing nation...

The formal statement of the warrant was to authorize the agent to pass beyond the borders of the nation ("marque", meaning frontier), and there to search, seize, or destroy assets or personnel of the hostile foreign party ("reprisal"), not necessarily a nation...It was considered a retaliatory measure short of a full declaration of war...

A private ship and its captain and crew operating under a letter of marque and reprisal was called a privateer.

Outsourcing and privatization are nothing new.

If Congress granted such Letters, for, say, seizing Iran's oil exports or gasoline imports, to be taken and sold at a profit, any number of private ventures would find the best, most efficient way to do it in no time.

It would add real teeth to any weak "sanctions" that the UN will agree to on a nation-state basis.

Also note the target is "not necessarily a nation."

All this tizzy about our inability to deal with "4th gen" warfare and "non-state actors" as something dreadful and new is total nonsense. It's only a problem for people who think the world didn't really begin until around 1968.

We've got problems with cells of "terrorists"? Just commission cadres of "freedom fighters" to go after them.

There are thousands of Nepalese Gurkhas just itching to take such a job, now that the Brits have cut back on recruitment out of that hellhole. They love taking a shortsword to the enemy even more than Abu does.

That's our Congressman and Senators, letting this vastly powerful yet cheap and simple lever of power rust away, unused and forgotten.

We should remind them.

Article I.

Section 8.

And if they grant such Letters, with a simple majority, there's absolutely nothing the Courts, or the President, or the UN can do about it.

Letters of Marque and Reprisal.

Gimme some!

Iran Test-Fires Sub-Launched Missile

Iran reported today that they've successfully tested a "long-range" missile from a submarine. The report came from a televised announcement that also apparently included a video of a missile exiting the water and hitting a target about half a mile away. I haven't been able to find the video yet, but I'm not sure that they were claiming that the video was of the most recent launch -- if so, it seems the Iranians might have a different definition of "long range" than most others.

The Iranians also claim that the missile can be fired from other surface ships. If so, it sounds like it might be their version of the Harpoon missile; they're apparently calling it the "Thaqeb", or "Jupiter" missile.

Getting a torpedo-tube launched missile to actually work is a fairly significant achievement; if the missile is the equivalent of a Harpoon, it would mean the Iranians are only 30 years behind the West in sub-launched anti-surface missile hardware, as opposed to the more than 60 years that they're behind us in uranium enrichment technology.

Staying at PD...

Update 0025 29 August: It looks now like they're translating "Thaqeb" as "Saturn".

Update 0659 30 August: Strategy Page thinks it might have been Russian-designed Klub-S missile. That kind of makes sense.

Nukes Vs. Diesels Over At 'Phib's Place

CDR Salamander crossed off the milblogger quarterly PM of someone hosting the "U.S. should buy diesel subs rather than nukes" debate, so head on over and join in the fun. My take (copied from the comment I just made over there):

It really depends on what you want the submarine to do. I'd still take a Virginia over 3 SSKs in an open ocean scenario. Additionally, I've got a feeling that it would cost us way more to build the subs that it does for the Germans, since our workers have been trained for the higher quality nuclear work and you wouldn't be able to drop their pay just because you don't need them to do as good of a weld. A lot of our sub-building money goes into SubSafe, and we're not going to drop those requirements just because it's a diesel boat.

Not that while I normally give the Virginia-class boats crap because they're so slow, compared to diesel boats they're like sports cars. Still, the case could be made that diesels could be more cost effective in a defensive ASW role, like we might face in Korea or Taiwan, assuming you forward deployed the SSKs to Guam. Still, that's pretty pricey for a one-mission platform.

Malcolm High School Class Of '81

Today my high school graduating class is having their 25th reunion. (I had 39 people in my graduating class, which I think still might be the 2nd biggest class in school history.) While I couldn't think of a better way to spend my birthday, I wasn't able to make it back to Nebraska, so I'll just dig out my old yearbook and think back to all those great old times. Actually, I really didn't like high school, but like submarining, you tend to forget the bad stuff and concentrate on the good.

Update 1026 26 Aug: Found my yearbook; here's a quick scan I was able to get. I don't know what I'm missing more -- my hair or my lack of a belly.

Bill Sali Will Need To Explain This One

The Republican candidate for Idaho's 1st Congressional District has made a big deal about never voting for a tax increase. In today's special session of the Idaho House, though, he did just that for an estimated 25-30% of Idahoans when he voted for a 20% increase in the sales tax. Granted, this is coupled with a reduction in property taxes, so most people will see a small net decrease in their taxes (the big winners, though, will be vacation homeowners from out of state). Non-homeowners, however, will only see the increase in taxes -- despite some lawmakers who apparently live on other planets thinking that landlords will immediately reduce rents because of their reduced property taxes. I look forward to Mr. Sali explaining how this doesn't violate his "pledge" without sounding like Bill Clinton wondering what the definition of "is" is. I should write him and see what he has to say for himself.

New Look USSVI Homepage

Here's a web site you'll want to bookmark -- the newly-designed U.S. Submarine Veterans, Inc., home page. They've got lots of good stuff, including links to a bunch of boat pages. It's a great place to start if you're looking for any kind of historical submarine information.

This Sounds Like A Really Bad Idea

Found this article over at The Sub Report, and at first I thought it was a joke. Maybe I'm too tired, though -- tell me what you think:

Lockheed's Advance Technology Lab in New Jersey is working on a system called T-TIDES (TTWCS-Tool for Interface Design Evaluation with Sensors) that will read the human physiological markers and tip off declines in crew effectiveness...
...T-TIDES will look particularly for signs of sleepiness and stress in the sailors who launch Tomahawks from ships and submarines. The research goes to the assumption that even the most-sophisticated weapons systems require human operators who are at the top of their games.
"A human's physiological markers typically depart from norms during high workload, distraction or drowsiness," Lockheed said in a news release. "As a result, performance may decline, reducing overall effectiveness of the interface."
The system relies on instruments that read vital signs such as brain activity, heart rate, pupil dilation and even the level of oxygen in the bloodstream.

Just what guys on watch need -- being hooked up to a bunch of crap that sounds an alarm or something if they zone out. I'm sorry, but on a boring midwatch, higher brain functions normally drop to zero as the watchteam discusses things like "name all the submarine slang terms that are named after an animal". (Examples: White Rat, Bear Trap, Bull Nuke)

The worst thing is, you just know that NR will buy it for Maneuvering watchstanders if it turns out to work, and then you'd have long detailed procedures about how to hook the machines up. That'd totally be the end of sea stories about guys falling asleep in Maneuvering, like the time I heard about where the EOOW fell asleep, and the CO, XO, and Eng came in and sat at the three panels (with the regular watchstanders kneeling down in front of the EOOW's desk), and then the CO did an RPCP alarm test...

The "Bubbleblogger Brotherhood" Keeps Growing

bothenook found another submarine blogger yesterday, and today I found another one in my comments. Please welcome New Yorker "ex-nuke bubblehead" at Is The Life After Your Boat Gets Scrapped? to the fold. He already has quite a few good stories about his old boat, USS Boston, up in his archives.

Along with Old Gary, who bothenook found last week, welcome to all the newly-found submariners on the 'net! If any of you want to join our team at the group submarine blog Ultraquiet No More, just drop me a note.

Hezbollah Propagandists Stealing Submariners Thunder!

Submariners can never get enough of the series of photos of HMAS Torrens getting sunk by a Mk-48 torpedo. Now, it seems that Hezbollah website operators are trying to horn in on our subpr0n. Via Ninme, the Herald Sun blog reports on a posting on an Iranian-run Hezbollah propaganda site showing one of the famous pictures and claiming it was an Israeli warship getting hit by a terrorist missile. The picture is gone from the jihadi site now, but it just goes to show you -- even idiot terrorsts are submarine wannabes.

What's This Aboot, Eh?

I like our Canadian allies. I really do. Therefore, I link to this story about the difficulties they had during a recent exercise designed to demonstrate their ability to operate in their Arctic regions without comment, and only this brief excerpt:

As part of “Operation Lancaster,” the largest naval operation in the Northwest Passage in a generation, soldiers from the Quebec-based Van Doo regiment were to be deployed from the frigate HMCS Montreal.
They were to set up an observation post on the Borden Peninsula on the south shore of the eastern gate of the passage.
However, getting the soldiers onto a small Zodiac by dangling them from a rope ladder over the side of the ship took hours longer than scheduled.
As well, heavy surf swamped the small boat when it landed on a steep, rocky coastline.
The soldiers were forced to bail out with their helmets and stand waist- and chest-deep in the freezing water to push the craft back out to sea and cut loose ropes that had become entangled in the propeller.
“It was very, very cold,” recalled Capt. Jonathan Hubble.
After climbing up a 20-metre headwall, the soldiers then were forced to set up their post kilometres from where they had planned.
They were moved to the original post by Twin Otter, but the plane’s landing gear got stuck nearly half a metre deep in unexpected mud.
The Twin Otter remains at the observation post and won’t be able to move for weeks until the ground freezes up.
A helicopter finally picked up the soldiers from the peninsula.

Go Canada

This deserves more hailing:

NATO assault leaves scores of Taliban dead

Dozens of Taliban insurgents were killed in fighting that began late Saturday in Panjwaii, about 30 kilometres west of Kandahar, and continued until early Sunday.

Between 60 and 72 Taliban fighters died, NATO said, although the death toll could not be independently confirmed.
...
It was the most significant victory for NATO since it took over control of international forces in southern Afghanistan July 31, killing nearly 10 per cent of the estimated numbers of Taliban insurgents believed to be in the south.

“Ten per cent losses on the enemy insurgent side is a very significant loss of their ability to conduct operations,” Col. Lavoie said.

“It should show the Canadian public the high degree of training that Canadian soldiers have.”

There were no casualties among the Canadians, members of NATO's International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF.

However, sources said as many as seven Afghan police died in the battles.

Bodies and body parts were found scattered throughout the area following the fighting, which was part of a “deliberate operation,” NATO said in a statement.
...
Afghan and Canadian forces deliberately moved into position around three known Taliban locations, making their presence known, hoping for a reaction, Col. Lavoie said.

When the Taliban moved on them, the Canadians and Afghan security forces were ready, he said.

“We were able to engage the enemy through fire and manoeuvre without ever having to have ourselves backed into a corner,” he said.
...
NATO ground forces used artillery and air strikes to subdue the Taliban fighters.
...
In an unusual move, NATO described the fighting as a Taliban defeat.
...
Canada currently has roughly 2,200 soldiers working under the NATO umbrella in the Kandahar region. Twenty-six Canadian soldiers and one diplomat have been killed since Canada deployed to Afghanistan in early 2002. Of those, 19 have died during the past six months.

Step into the killbox!

Managing Savagery

An excerpt from an explanation of the islamist strategy found here.

All that is asked of us is to not lose our will to resist.

That is the whole strategy -- to get us to simply give up from exhaustion and constant negative news.

As Napoleon said, the morale to the physical is as three is to one.

In this case, it's everything!

The Islamic Resistance Movement (IRM), the Jihad, which includes Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and all other like-minded folk, is much smarter about it than we are. It has turned the civility of the US, and Europe, into a weapon and turned it against us. It has weaponized niceness, it has weaponized compassion, it has weaponized the fundamental decency of Western Civilization. It has weaponized our desire for peace. It has recognized that our goodness is no match for its savagery, and will continue to exploit that fact until we lose and they win. However long it takes.

Centuries, generations, decades, years, months.

The soft underbelly of America in particular and Western Civilization in general is that it has become so excessively nice and decent and civilized that it is now loathe to rise to its own self-defense, loathe to kill civilians when necessary, loath to cause "collateral damages," loathe to fight and defeat other countries, even when its own survival is at stake. We have emasculated our will to rise to our own defense, to the defense of our interests, to the defense of our friends and allies, to the defense of our own civilization and its unique freedoms. We would rather die than kill. We are willing to martyr ourselves and our children and their children and our country to the conceit of our own goodness.

[...]

...it has calculated that although it lacks the massed military force to confront the United States directly in battle, by The Management of Savagery it can foment endless incidents of terrorism and theaters of seemingly inexhaustible savagery in many places all over the world, year after year, decade after decade, until the Americans, Aussies, and Brits, are worn down, exhausted, demoralized, and no longer have the political will to keep trying to defend Western Civilization from the savages.

At that point the IRM can begin to take things over with little objection or resistance, since they will promise peace - PEACE - the peace America is psychologically and politically obsessive about. They will offer peace with the right hand, an end to the savagery they have created with the left. And after years or decades of widespread savagery, peace will be welcomed.

The price for peace, of course, will be an Islamic Empire, an empire in which the unique freedoms of Western Civilization, intellectual freedom, religious freedom, political freedom, freedom of speech and freedom of the press, will not exist, an empire in which one can be anything one wishes to be, as long as it is Muslim.

It's all in the mind.

It seems only a spiritual revival will save us. Belmont Club makes the contrast:

The Guardian describes the tide of young Muslim men coming to see an unnamed "prophet" in East London. It recalls if nothing else scenes from Christianity's apostolic age. It features a man discoursing in an exotic language simultaneously translated into many tongues for eager listeners. The gathering is thronged by a crowd from all walks of life, eager to start a pilgrimage about which little is known -- except that salvation lies at the end of it. Men who would never have acknowledged each other socially gather and share a makeshift meal together. This is radical Islam in the heart of the West.

The organisation - influenced by a branch of Saudi Arabian Islam known as Wahhabism - has already been linked to two of the July 7 suicide bombers ... The jailed shoe bomber Richard Reid is also known to have attended Tablighi meetings. ...

one person spoke admiringly about the "main man" ... "We can't call him a prophet," he said. "No one can be a prophet. But when you meet him you'll realize. He's helped a lot of people in Walthamstow to follow the right path, the path of the prophet. He'll talk to you openly this evening and everything will make sense." ...

The largest room was reserved for the main speaker, an elder from Preston who spoke in Urdu. His sermon was relayed through a microphone to five other rooms in which interpreters provided simultaneous translation into English, Arabic, Sinhala, Turkish and Somali.

[...]

Across town in posher part of London, Jenni Murray, presenter of BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour is finalizing plans to kill herself when she gets seriously sick.

She is sealing a pact with two friends that they will assist each other to die if any of them is diagnosed with a debilitating and incurable illness. Methods they might use include injections or smothering with a pillow. This is despite a law outlawing assisted suicide, which Murray says is sustained by a religious minority. ...

Publicity material for the show says that Murray "does not want to look after her sick and aging mother, and plans to end her own life when she becomes a burden to those around her". The network said: "Jenni is angry that, having fought so hard to become liberated and independent, women are now being trapped into caring for dependent parents."

The contrast between the expectant, almost ecstatic Muslim gathering and sour bleakness of a middle-aged BBC presenter arranging her own suicide is striking. Where one sees the glimmer of life even in hardship and death, the other delivers a final judgment on the meaning of postmodern life: a pillow over the face in a musty room after the last glass of wine.

Who thought that radical Islam stood no chance against postmodern glitter did not know Islam. Churchill knew it and said "were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science -- the science against which it had vainly struggled -- the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome."

Science now alone is not enough.

We must have the will to use our weapons.

Bayesian Probabilities

hans ze beeman at LGF provides some mathematical calculations using Bayes' theorem.

He shows, using rough prior probabilities, that it's sixteen hundred times more likely that you are a terrorist if you are a muslim than if you are a Christian!

That's the math of rational profiling (I've corrected a factor of ten in the quotation below from the original text):

Screen all persons that appear suspect. And yes, unfortunately, most terrorists these days are Muslims.

/Starting statistical reasoning module (using Bayes' theorem)

Priors (rounded):
P(Muslim) = .20 (Probability that you are a Muslim, regarding world population)
p(Christian) = .40
P(Buddhist) = .10
P(terrorist) = .0001

Conditional probabilities:
P(Buddhist ¦ terrorist) = .001 (Probability that you are a Buddhist given you are a terrorist, regarding world population)
P(Christian ¦ terrorist) = .001
P(Muslim ¦ terrorist) = .80

--

P(terrorist ¦ religion) = [P(religion ¦ terrorist) x P(terrorist)] / P(religion)

(Probability you have a certain religion, given you are a terrorist)

--

P(terrorist ¦ Muslim) = .80 x .0001 / .20 = .0004
P(terrorist ¦ Christian) = .001 x .0001 / .40 = .00000025
P(terrorist ¦ Buddhist) = .001 x .0001 / .10 = .000001

--

P(terrorist ¦ Muslim) / P(terrorist ¦ Christian) = 1600

/end statistical reasoning module

Using the mentioned priors, the probability that you are a terrorist if you are a Muslim is 1600 times higher than if you are a Christian. The priors are assumptions in this case (e.g., 80% of terrorists are Muslim); it could be easily researched how many terrorists were Muslim, Christian or Buddhist (same goes for religious affiliation). If someone has the data, it could be recalculated.

Just think about it. And profiling.

Pork BBQ at Mo's!

Mmmm, ribs!

(no, it's not real... Yet...)

Iraq = Gallipoli?

CDR Salamander has a thought-provoking post up discussing grand strategy in the Global War On Terror; I recommend it highly. I recently finished one of the books he mentioned -- Cobra II. While the book tends to focus on what went wrong with Iraq rather than what went right (which, to be honest, is the submariner way of doing things -- anyone who's ever been to a drill debrief can tell you that), I think that it is probably the most accurate of any book I've read in detailing the problems that went into pre-war decision making and planning (based on what I saw when I was a CENTCOM staff weenie). Basically, the idea was good, the people executing the plan did the best they could, but the plan, in hindsight, just didn't work.

This reminds me of another campaign of the last century -- Gallipoli. This campaign gets a bad rap from history, but in actuality it came pretty close to being a great success that could have shortened the war; in addition, an unforeseen benefit was the subsequent liberalization of Turkey under Ataturk. The Gallipoli campaign was born from an Allied desire to look for a better way to break the deadlock on the Western Front that sending men against prepared German positions. Had the invasion been better planned, the Allies could have knocked the Ottoman Empire out of the war fairly easily, freeing up Russian troops to attack the Germans and Austrians, which would have forced the Germans to pull troops out of the Western Front. As it was, the initial invasion wasn't strong enough to destroy the Ottoman resistance, which allowed the Turks time to find a way to fight the Allies on roughly equal terms; for the rest of the campaign, the Allies basically threw brave soldiers into the fray without a real hope of making a strategic difference in the war. Eventually, they realized they needed to pull out and look for another place to fight the war from -- this re-deployment required skill, though, and wouldn't have worked had it been done haphazardly.

Is Iraq the Gallipoli of the GWOT? I don't know. While I'm convinced that we just can't pull out -- or set ourselves up with a "deadline" to withdraw, which will lead to increased attacks against our forces so the terrorists will be able to claim that they "forced" us out -- I'm starting to think that we need to start looking beyond Iraq, and maybe find a better place for our forces to fight the war. CDR Salamander makes a good case about the dangers of the Balkanization of Iraq, but I'm starting to think that might be our best of several bad options. In Gallipoli, the Allied forces lacked the physical ability to overcome their opponents. In Iraq, we as a society lack the moral mindset to allow our troops to do what they need to do to "win" militarily -- I think it's a good thing we're not there yet. We can still win this war without using the tactics of our enemies. A partitioned Iraq won't be the "shining beacon" of democracy we might have hoped for when we went in, but at this point I don't think it turn into that no matter what we do. Sometimes, in a long war, the smart move is to end one unprofitable battle and get ready for the next one.

This doesn't mean that the brave men and women who were lost in that battle gave their lives for nothing; it means that we're doing our best to win the war as a whole, to honor their sacrifice. In WWI, the final victories were won in the easternmost portions of France, where the Allies really hadn't expended much offensive effort after 1914 -- (Verdun was defensive). In the GWOT, the climatic battle may be well be in some other country, or it may be an economic victory, or even us just standing aside and watching our enemies implode. No matter how it happens, though, our inevitable victory will justify the efforts of our dedicated men and women in Iraq. Then, we can hope that some future leader of whatever Iraq becomes will be able to echo the words of Ataturk to veterans from Britain, Australian and New Zealand in 1934, at Gallipoli:

Those heroes that shed their blood
And lost their lives...
You are now lying in the soil of a friendly Country.
Therefore rest in peace.
There is no difference between the Johnnies
And the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side
Here in this country of ours...
You, the mothers,
Who sent their sons front far away countries
Wipe away your tears,
Your sons are now lying in our bosom
And are in peace
After having lost their lives on this land
They have become our sons as well

August 22

August 22 is supposed to be significant to islamic twelvers?

It's also significant to Crusading Christians.

On August 22, 725 AD, the Bishop of Nantes became the martyred St. Emilian while leading the French against the invading muslims:

St. Emilian of Autun, August 22

Muslim invasions, which began taking over Spain in 711, soon began to spread across the Pyrenees into various regions of France. In 725, an attack was planned against the city of Autun, rich in abbeys and monasteries. A reaction of the French Catholics rose in Bretagne, led by St. Emilian, Bishop of Nantes.

Born in a noble family of Armonica, he was famous for his courage and honor. Magnanimous, with keen discernment and a noble character, he had great intelligence as well as a faith worthy of a martyr and an ardent zeal for the interests of the Church. So, when he heard the news that the Muslims would invade Autun, the Bishop considered it his duty to take up the sword. He judged that it was necessary to fight rather than flee and see the things he loved the most destroyed: Catholicism and France.

He called the people to the Cathedral and made this appeal, which became legendary in the Middle Ages:

“O! All you strong men of war who are still stronger in the faith: take into your hands the shield of this divine Faith, mark on your foreheads the sign of the Cross, cover your heads with the helmet of salvation, and protect your chests with the armor of the Lord. Then after taking up this religious armor, soldiers of Jesus Christ, do yet more.

“Take your strongest weapons of war, your sharpest swords of the best steel, and come together to combat and smash the miserable enemies who like furious beasts slaughter our Catholic brothers. It is the moment to say with Judas Macabeus: 'Be strong and make you ready that you may fight with these people, which are agreed together to destroy us and our sanctuary. Better is it for us to die in battle, than to see our people and our sanctuary in such a miserable state.'”

Touched by the Holy Ghost and filled with enthusiasm, the crowd shouted: “Lord and Venerable Pastor, give the order and command, and where you go, we will follow.”

The Saint answered: “On this spot we shall gather and from the foot of this altar we will start out against the enemy. And I will have the honor to march at the head of the soldiers of Jesus Christ.”

On the arranged date, wearing his sacred vestments the Bishop said Holy Mass and gave Communion to the men who would fight with him. Then, they started their march to Autun. A series of marvelous victories followed the Breton army. They saved Autun at the great battle of Saint Forjand, and defeated the infidel army at the pass of Crès d’Aussi.

The enemy made another attack but was defeated at the battle of St. Jean de Louis. The Muslim chief, however, made another maneuver to reconquer Autun. To cut off his path, St. Emilian gathered a number of his subjects and said: “Dear and brave companions, I congratulate you for your great faith. The number of combatants is not important; the victory comes from Heaven.”

Then, making a sign of the Cross, he said, “Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit,” and entered into the thick of the fight.

Tradition says that St. Emilian severely wounded the Muslim chief during the fight. When the Saracens saw their chief so near to death, many rallied to help him. The Saint Bishop fell to the ground, fatally wounded by many sword thrusts. He continued to shout encouraging his soldiers, but finally expired. It was August 22, 725.

The Muslim chief ordered St. Emilian beheaded. Later the Catholics gathered his relics, which were treasured as objects of great veneration. His cult was confirmed by Pope Pius IX.

[Seven years after the sack of Autun in 725, Charles Martel met Abd-er-Rahman outside of Tours and defeated and slew him. The Battle of Poitiers of 732 is considered one of the great turning points in History, which stopped the Islamic advance into Western Europe.]

Submarine Memorials For Every State

The Des Moines Register has a good article today on the successful efforts of submarine veterans in Iowa to get approval for an official monument to USS S-36, one of the 52 U.S. submarines lost during WWII, to be put up on the grounds of the Iowa Capitol. Excerpt:

A state commission has approved a monument featuring a slab of black granite that will remind Iowans of the pivotal role played by the U.S. Navy's submarine force during World War II, as well as the large sacrifice in lives and vessels.
The back of the stone will bear the message that American submarines suffered the highest loss rate among the nation's armed forces during the war: "Of the 16,000 officers and enlisted men that served on submarines during the war, 3,506 (22 percent) were lost. Although only 1.6 percent of the U.S. Navy, the Submarine Force sank 30 percent of the Japanese Imperial Navy and 60 percent of the Japanese Merchant Marine, choking off the Japanese economy. This victory came at a heavy price."...
...The impetus for the project comes from a nationwide effort to have each state establish a memorial for one of the 52 submarines lost during World War II.
The submarine assigned to Iowa was the S-36. While the sub survived an enemy destroyer's attack, its crew had to abandon the vessel after it ran aground on a reef on Jan. 20, 1942.

This nationwide effort for the 52 monuments comes from the U.S. Submarine Veterans of WWII. The list of boats "assigned" to each state (California and New York have two each) can be found here. I'm not sure how many states have gotten as far as Iowa has, but here's a list that seems pretty complete of all submarine memorials listed by state. Check out your state to see what's there.

Satan's Tactics

Jihad thrives on ignorance and brutal ideological enforcement.

In Afghanistan,

Militants have targeted schools, burning 144 to the ground over the past year and forcing another 200 to close following threats against teachers and students, according to officials. More than 200,000 children have been unable to continue their education as a result.

The insurgents claim that educating girls is against Islam and oppose government-funded schools for boys because they teach secular subjects besides religion.

Found via Belmont Club, according to Die Welt,

Hezbollah’s barbarism is legendary. Gen. Effe Eytam, an Israeli veteran of that first Lebanon war, tells of how--after Israel had helped bring "Doctors without Borders" into a village in the 1980s to treat children--local villagers lined up 50 kids the next day to show Eytam the price they pay for cooperating with the West.

"Each of the children had had their pinky finger cut off."

None of the weapons in the IDF arsenal could level this disparity in will.

Children's TV is a source of indoctrination, according to translators at memri.org. Here are collected examples from tv for kids in middle eastern culture.

The videoclips have titles such as:

Mothers of Hizbullah Martyrs: 'We Are Very Happy And Want to Sacrifice More Children'

Jews Turn into Apes and Pigs in Claymation Film for children

Iranian Animated Film for Children Promotes Suicide Bombings

Egyption Cleric Tells Group of Children about Child Martyrdom

Tehran Children: 'We Came to Say Death to Israel, Death to America'

TV Special on the Culture of Martyrdom

Man of Peace

Cleric walks free:

An Islamic cleric who influenced at least one of the 7 July bombers and whose videos may have been seen by several of the terror suspects arrested earlier this month, is to be freed from prison in weeks.

Sheikh Abdullah el-Faisal encouraged Muslims to attend training camps so they could wage jihad on the West. He was jailed in February 2003 for nine years, reduced to seven on appeal, after being convicted of soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred. Hundreds of Muslims attended his lectures in mosques across Britain, including Birmingham, London and Dewsbury in West Yorkshire.
...
'You have to learn how to shoot and fly planes and drive tanks,' el-Faisal told those who attended his lectures. 'Jews,' el-Faisal said, 'should be killed... as by Hitler.'

He encouraged the use of chemical weapons to 'exterminate non-believers', and exhorted Muslim women to buy toy guns for their children to train them for jihad. He also suggested that nuclear power stations could be fuelled with bodies of Hindus, slaughtered for their 'oppression' of Muslims in Kashmir.

This Month in Jihad

Here is a collection of headline snippets concerning the global jihad, culled from LGF, just from the last 3 weeks of August alone!

To understand my views, imagine following such headlines (not even considering the commentaries and essays that "connect the dots") for five years...

And notice the odd reports of middle eastern men purchasing hundreds of cellphones recently in Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, and Ohio.

BRITAIN - Baby and Bottle used for Bomb: A husband and wife arrested in the British terror raids allegedly planned to take their six-month-old baby on a mid-air suicide mission.

Scotland Yard police are quizzing Abdula Ahmed Ali, 25, and his 23-year-old wife Cossor over suspicions they were to use their baby’s bottle to hide a liquid bomb.

------------------
BRITAIN - A five-year-old girl’s passport application was rejected because her photograph showed her bare shoulders.

Hannah Edwards’s mother, Jane, was told that the exposed skin might be considered offensive in a Muslim country.

[they were travelling to France. - ed.]

---------------
BRITAIN - Muslim leaders summoned to talks with the Government on tackling extremism in their midst called for public holidays to mark their religious festivals [and for Sharia law for family matters].

The Whitehall meeting was set up in response to last week’s airline bomb plot discovery.

Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly had prepared an uncompromising message on the need to tackle dangerous radicalism.

But, in what she admitted were ‘sharp’ exchanges, some senior Muslim figures turned the tables yesterday and made a series of demands which also included the introduction of Sharia law for family matters.

Dr Syed Aziz Pasha, secretary general of the Union of Muslim Organisations of the UK and Ireland, said: ‘We told her if you give us religious rights, we will be in a better position to convince young people that they are being treated equally along with other citizens.’

---------------
TEHERAN - Iranian madman Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuelan thug Hugo Chavez have formed a mutual admiration society in Tehran, bonding over their hatred for Israel and America.

Chavez: "I say today, “God, if there is any justice, send bolts of lightning from Your hands upon the monsters.” Allah willing."

Ahmadinejad: "Allah willing. [applause] [...]

America and England must answer for these crimes. [...]

Allah willing, the hand of divine power will emerge from the sleeve of the peoples and will avenge the blood that has been unjustly shed. It has become clear once again that all the slogans of human rights, peace, and democracy are nothing but a lie. [...]

They should know that they are nearing the last days of their lives. These crimes have disturbed the conscience of mankind. We too repeat the prayer of Simon Bolivar. We ask God to give the free peoples such power that will enable them to erase the rule of hegemony from the face of the earth.

That day is near. Allah willing."

---------------------------
BANGKOK, Thailand - Assailants carried out at least 40 bomb and arson attacks Tuesday night in Thailand’s three Muslim-dominated southernmost provinces, police said.

More than 1,500 people have been killed in sectarian violence since a resurgence in January 2004 of a violent Islamic separatist movement in Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat, the only provinces with Muslim majorities in Buddhist-dominated Thailand.

[Thailand does not support Israel and is not in Iraq; what is the "root cause"??? -- ed.]

--------------------------------------
BRITAIN - A British-based Muslim radical appeared to back suicide bombing yesterday when he claimed that dying for your beliefs was ‘just’.

Dr Azzam Tamimi told an 8,000-strong crowd that standing up for your principles was the ‘greatest act of martyrdom’. The 51-year-old was speaking at the ExpoIslamia convention in Manchester. The Palestinian-born academic - who previously boasted he would carry out a suicide bombing in Israel - also repeated his public backing for Hamas, which remains banned in the UK.
...
Dr Tamimi claimed the war on terrorism was a war on Islam. “We are Muslims in Europe, not European Muslims,” he added.

------------------------
JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (AFP) - Saudi Arabia warned against accusing Muslims of terrorism and fascism, in an apparent reference to US President George W. Bush’s claim that the United States is at war with “Islamic fascists”.

It “warned against hurling charges of terrorism and fascism at Muslims without regard to the spotless history of Islamic civilization”, the statement said.

---------------------
LONDON’S most influential former police chief has rounded on Britain’s Muslims, blaming them for the terrorist networks in the country.

“When will the Muslim community in this country accept an absolute, undeniable, total truth: that Islamic terrorism is their problem?” wrote John Stevens, former commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, in a Sunday newspaper.

In an inflammatory opinion column, he called on Muslims to “stop the denial, endless fudging and constant wailing that somehow it is everyone else’s problem and, if Islamic terrorism exists at all, they are somehow the main victims”.

-----------
CENTENNIAL, Colorado - A woman was sentenced to two months in jail Tuesday for effectively stealing the services of an Indonesian woman who prosecutors said was held as a virtual slave for four years.

Sarah Khonaizan, 35, a Saudi citizen who lives in suburban Denver, also was ordered on the theft charge to pay $90,000 in restitution and was ordered not to have any contact with the 24-year-old woman.

----------------------------
MONTREAL - (report) After having heard countless cries of “death to Israel”, “vive le Hezbollah” and once in Arabic “death to the Jews”, I addressed some of the protesters by shouting back “am Yisrael chai” (the people of Israel live) and “shalom aleichem” (peace to all). The incident then turned violent when a fanatic ran up to me suddenly, punching and strangling me quickly as I fell onto a parked car on Ste. Catherine St.

As the attacker was restrained and ushered away I then yelled “Are you crazy? This is Canada, so act civilized like everyone else watching you.” The unknown assailant was then reintroduced by protest-organizers into the crowd to avoid detection by the numerous members of the media and policemen who had witnessed the assault.

Other disgruntled anti-Israel protesters then attempted to enter my place of work where I sought refuge yelling “Jewish pig” and “down, down Israel” as police and bystanders sealed the entrance briefly, preventing the mob from breaking the storefront.

-------------------------------
AUSTRALIA -- The Government was on a collision course with its Muslim advisory group over its claim that Hezbollah should not be considered a terrorist organisation.

Mr Howard made it clear today the government had no intention of removing the militant arm of Hezbollah from its official list of terrorist organisations. “No chance, full stop. No chance at all (of removing Hezbollah from the list),” Mr Howard said. ...

Ameer Ali, chairman of the Muslim advisory group set up last year in the wake of the London terrorist bombings, says Hezbollah should not be lumped in with groups like al-Qaeda.

“They should not condemn Hezbollah as a terrorist group,” he said. “I don’t think they should judge that they are simply a terrorist organisation like al-Qaeda. It is part of Lebanese politics.” ...

--------------------
BOSTON -- Observer at "Justice for Lebanon" rally assaulted and spat upon when found to be Jewish in Coply Square.

-------------------
SEATTLE -- Naveed Afzal Haq is charged with aggravated first-degree murder in the death of Pamela Waechter, 58, director of the Jewish charity’s annual fundraising campaign. Five other women were wounded.

According to court documents, Haq talked to 911 operators from the office, identified himself by name and said: “This is a hostage situation and I want
these Jews to get out.”

He later added: “These are Jews and I’m tired of getting pushed around and our people getting pushed around by the situation in the Middle East.”

--------------
BRUSSELS (EJP)—- The Brussels Jewish Memorial for Holocaust victims has been vandalized, in an attack described as “devastating” by the head of a Belgian Jewish association.

The gate of the Memorial’s crypt was pulled out, documents were destroyed, windows broken and an urn containing ashes from the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camp was desecrated and emptied.

Condoms and excrements were also found on the floor of the Memorial which is located in Anderlecht, a Brussels district with an important Arab population.

------------------
TEHRAN (AFP) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has [said] the answer to the conflict in south Lebanon was the “elimination of the Zionist regime,” slamming
Israel’s “war against humanity”.

------------------
BANGKOK (AHN) - Four people are killed in two bomb attacks in southern Thailand, a stronghold of Muslim separatists.

-------------------
SYDNEY (AFP) - The Australian government said it was investigating a claim that hundreds of Southeast Asian suicide bombers had been deployed to attack Jewish interests in countries that support Israel.

The claim was made by the leader of the radical Jakarta-based Asian Muslim Youth Movement (AMYM), Suaib Bidu, The Australian newspaper reported.

-----------------------
ITALY - One of Italy’s most popular Adriatic Sea resorts, Riccione, is set to open the country’s first beach exclusively for Muslim women.

The city administration has approved an unprecedented measure this week providing for a beach from which men will be banned and fitted with tents to safeguard the privacy of Muslim women who want to sunbathe and swim without having to do so fully clothed as Islamic custom prescribes. Female lifeguards will also be provided.

------------------------
EGYPT -- Judges in Egypt called upon the government to dissolve its peace agreement with Israel, on the grounds that it is inconceivable for Egypt to coexist peaceably with Israel while the IDF operates in Lebanon. The judges expressed support of popular resistance against Israeli advances, which, in their eyes, is the only way to protect the Arab ummah (greater nation).

The Egyptian judges called upon judges from around the world to do their duty and aid in imposing [islamic] values of justice and equality between human beings.

[we give $2 billion in aid to Egypt per year -- ed.]

--------
LONDON (AFP) - Iran will supply Hezbollah with surface-to-air missile systems in the coming months, boosting the guerrillas’ defences against Israeli aircraft, according to a report by specialist magazine Jane’s Defence Weekly, citing unnamed Western
diplomatic sources.

----------
PAKISTAN - A girl participates in an anti-Israel protest with slogans painted on her face in Karachi, Pakistan August 4, 2006. The rally was organised by Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) to condemn Israel’s air strikes on Lebanon and Gaza. The words on
the black headscarf reads ‘There is no one, only Allah is there and Mohammad is Allah’s messenger’.

[the photo also shows the words "Hate Israel" on her face in English -- ed.]

--------------
TORONTO - A special multi-agency police team has arrested an 18th suspect on terrorism-related charges, two months after 17 other suspects were arrested on charges that included plotting to bomb targets in Ontario.

And police are still looking at “other individuals” in the case, an RCMP spokeswoman said.

UPDATE: HOUSTON and TORONTO - Today the Globe and Mail reports that at least two of the suspects accused of plotting massive terror attacks in Canada were regular posters at ClearGuidance, self-described as “a resource guide for Muslim American teenagers,” where Muslim kids traded decapitation videos and jihad talk.

This was the first announcement at ClearGuidance from the administrators:

"We need youth to fight in the way of ALLAH in Kashmir, India, Chechniyah, Afghanistan, Philistine, and wherever we are being oppressed. Leave your plans of al wahn and adopt a new plan which will help the ummah, do not be selfish, this life is cheap, whereas the life of islam, will grant you your desires in this life and the next life."

-----------------
ISTANBUL - Thousands of Turkish Islamists gathered in an Istanbul square to protest Israeli attacks on Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. The banner on the right that reads: ‘Everywhere Lebanon. We are all Hezbollah.’

-----------
GERMANY - A leak from the investigation into a pair of unexploded bombs found on trains in Germany this week has produced a strange detail — a bag printed in Arabic. German officials won’t confirm anything, but the case has ignited a national debate about rail security.

Two suitcase bombs found in German trains early this week have set off a debate on the safety of the German rail system.
[...]
The gas-canister bombs in both cases were professionally-built, according to Jürgen Kleis, head of the team of detectives on the case;

----------------
IRAN is seeking to import large consignments of bomb-making uranium from the African mining area that produced the Hiroshima bomb, an investigation has revealed.

A United Nations report, dated July 18, said there was “no doubt” that a huge shipment of smuggled uranium 238, uncovered by customs officials in Tanzania, was transported from the Lubumbashi mines in the Congo.

---------
LONDON, Aug 7 (Reuters) - Reuters withdrew all 920 photographs by a freelance Lebanese photographer from its database on Monday after an urgent review of his work showed he had altered two images from the conflict between Israel and the armed group Hizbollah.

------------
LOS ANGELES - Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has apologized to Muslim leaders who accused him of taking Israel’s side in the violence in Lebanon by going to a pro-Israel rally and ignoring their invitations to interfaith peace vigils.

----------
LEBANON - Time magazine stringer Christopher Allbritton, writing on his blog while reporting from southern Lebanon: “To the south, along the curve of the coast, Hezbollah is launching Katyushas, but I’m loathe to say too much about them. The Party of God has a copy of every journalist’s passport, and they’ve already hassled a number of us and threatened one.”

------------
BRITAIN - Almost a quarter of British Muslims say the 7/7 bombings can be justified because of the Government’s support for the war on terror, according to an opinion poll.

And nearly half of those polled, or 45 per cent, believe the 9/11 attacks on New York were a conspiracy between the United States and Israel.

A third of those questioned said they would rather live under Sharia law in the UK than British law.

The survey also reveals concerns among Muslims about Britain’s moral standards, with 40 per cent saying it is a country of bad moral behaviour.

-----------------
WASHINGTON, DC - a protest observer was physically assaulted by CAIR’s National Vice-Chairman, Dr. Ahmad Al-Akhras.

[CAIR is the Council on American Islamic Relations, a powerful jihad lobby. The D.A. will not prosecute in spite of video evidence. -- ed.]

---------------
BRITAIN - As they launched raids on the alleged Islamic terrorists plotting to blow up a dozen airplanes with explosives hidden in baggage, British authorities reached out to the Muslim Council of Britain and other radical Islamic front groups to make
sure the police would be sufficiently sensitive to the needs of the Muslim community.

Mr Ahmed said that he felt the operation had been handled well but he warned that if the police failed to find any evidence to incriminate the people concerned then relations between the government and the Muslim community would deteriorate further.

------------
OHIO — Investigators in southeast Ohio said they were working to unravel how two Michigan men charged with supporting terrorism came to have airplane passenger lists and airport security information.

Osama Sabhi Abulhassan, 20, and Ali Houssaiky, 20, both of the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, were being held at the Washington County Jail on $200,000 bond each, which could be raised at a Thursday afternoon court hearing. Each was charged Wednesday with money laundering in support of terrorism.

Deputies stopped the two on a traffic violation Tuesday and found the flight documents along with $11,000 cash and 12 phones in their car, Sheriff Larry Mincks said.
...
Abulhassan and Houssaiky admitted buying about 600 phones in recent months at stores in southeast Ohio, said sheriff’s Maj. John Winstanley. They sold the phones to someone in Dearborn, Winstanley said. Vessels declined to say how the phones, cash or flight information involved terrorism.

UPDATE, MICHIGAN:

both are graduates of Dearborn’s Fordson High School a/k/a “Hezbollah High.” Houssaiky was the star running back and co-captain of Fordson’s football team.

The school’s principal, Imad Fadlallah, is a relative of Hezbollah spiritual leader Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, a Specially Designated Terrorist (SDT) on the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control terrorist list, used by the State Department. Imad Fadlallah’s wife, Susan, is the daughter of Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who was Hezbollah’s negotiator during the 1985 TWA flight 847 hijacking during which Hezbollah tortured to death Navy Diver Robert Dean Stethem. Before that, he was the head of the Shi’ite Amal Militia, which has been absorbed into Hezbollah.

Another cousin, Majed Fadlallah, is Fordson’s Assistant Principal. And the school is a virtual one-stop employment shack for many of the cousins of Hezbollah’s Sheikh Mohammed Fadlallah.

--------------
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Muslim groups criticized President George W. Bush on Thursday for calling a foiled plot to blow up airplanes part of a “war with Islamic fascists,” saying the term could inflame anti-Muslim tensions.

--------------
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard have been found among Hizbollah guerrillas slain by Israeli forces in southern Lebanon, Israel’s Channel 10 television reported on Wednesday citing diplomatic sources.

---------
MICHIGAN - Around 1:00am August 11th three men purchased cell phones from the Wal-Mart store on M-81 near the corner of M-24 in Caro. Wal-Mart places a limit on the number of cell phones that can be purchased at once, that number is three. The three men allegedly bought 80 by purchasing them three at time so that an alert wouldn’t be triggered by the cash register. They also paid cash.

An alert clerk grew suspicious and called Tuscola County central dispatch. The Caro Police Department sent a unit and stopped the rented van on M-81 just east of Caro.

The three men were described as being of Pakistani descent but live in Texas. Police say the three, ages 19, 22, and 23 appear to be naturalized citizens.

UPDATE 1: Authorities say the men had about 1,000 cell phones in their van.

Tuscola County Prosecutor Mark Reene said that investigators believe the men were targeting the Mackinac Bridge.

UPDATE 2: Sources tell DebbieSchlussel.com that the men are from Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the group that works in concert with HAMAS in performing homicide bombings in Israel. The group once even considered merging with HAMAS, at the time that it was headed by University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian, a founder of the group.

UPDATE 3: Tucson - Law enforcement sources confirm to News 4 that Tucson Police have issued an “attempt to locate” on two Middle Eastern men in their 20’s who purchased nearly 50 phones from Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart in Tucson.

Sources say the men made the purchases on Saturday and Sunday.

There’s been a number of arrests nationwide with very similar circumstances.

Arrests have been made in Michigan and Ohio and there are reports of large numbers of cell phones being sold to young men fitting the same description in Wisconsin.

------------
BRITAIN - British police claim to have found a “martyrdom video” in which one of the 24 British Muslims arrested over an alleged plot to destroy up to a dozen passenger aircraft sets out his reasons for joining the planned suicide attack.

British officials said the damning evidence had been found in the home of one of the suspects, who include a 23-year-old biochemistry student and a Heathrow security guard with an all-areas access pass.

The suspects are mostly of Pakistani origin but two are white converts to Islam.

------------
SYRIA - Syrian President Bashar Assad said his country is prepared for any war that may break out with Israel, adding that he is convinced that the chances for peace have decreased and that “the Golan Heights will be liberated by Syria.”

------------
JAKARTA, Indonesia — An Islamic militant jailed for the Bali bombings that killed 202 people was released from prison Thursday as part of Indonesia’s independence day celebrations, and 11 others linked to the blasts had their sentences reduced.

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LOS ANGELES - Nicole Kidman has made a public stand against terrorism.

The actress, joined by 84 other high-profile Hollywood stars, directors, studio bosses and media moguls, has taken out a powerfully-worded full page advertisement in today’s Los Angeles Times newspaper.

It specifically targets “terrorist organisations” such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine.

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NORTH KOREA - There is new evidence that North Korea may be preparing for an underground test of a nuclear bomb, U.S. officials tell ABC News.

“It is the view of the intelligence community that a test is real possibility,” says a senior State Department official.

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DETROIT - A federal judge ruled Thursday that the government’s warrantless surveillance program is unconstitutional and ordered an immediate halt to it.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of journalists, scholars and lawyers who say the program has made it difficult for them to do their jobs. They believe many of their overseas contacts are likely targets of the program, monitoring phone calls and e-mails between people in the U.S. and people in other countries when a link to terrorism is suspected.

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LONDON - A Suitcase filled with bomb-making material has been found by police teams investigating the alleged plot to blow up aircraft over the Atlantic.

The suitcase, containing chemicals and other equipment for a home-made bomb, was found in woods in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, close to addresses at which suspects were arrested last week.

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BRITAIN - The UK’s Muslim Public Affairs Committee saw nothing wrong when a Reuters employee sent a death threat to [website] Little Green Footballs in May. In fact, MPACUK invented a bizarre conspiracy plot to justify it, calling LGF “the most powerful enemies Muslims have faced in a thousand years.”

But when British blogger Inigo Wilson wrote some satirical comments critical of Islamic terrorism, MPACUK launched a successful drive to have him suspended from his job with British mobile phone company Orange.

How Many More?

Why does the West keep letting in these profoundly imcompatible cultures?

How many more women must die?

Notice it's almost always not just a lone nut, but a conspiracy within a family, with the support of the community.

Hina Saleem tried to get help from the Italian authorities for nearly 4 years, from the age of 17. Sharia law is apparently unofficially recognized out of deference to the noble 3rd worlders.

It can only get worse with muslim leaders in Britain now calling for official recognition of sharia law!

Sbai, who has studied the problems of Muslim women in Italy, asked how many more women would die in the name of Islam.

"We have seen from the episode of the young Pakistani woman murdered in Brescia how religion can become a state within a state and Islamic law be inculcated in the minds of many Muslim parents who live in our country by self-styled, uneducated preachers (imams), " Sbai stated.

Hina's father, Mohammad, apparently cut her throat last week in Sarezzo after she repeatedly refused an arranged marriage to a cousin in Pakistan. The 20-year-old woman was romantically involved with an Italian, had gone to live with him, worked in a pizzeria and wanted to become an actress.

"These imams are religious extremists who accord women no rights," Sbai stressed. For years, they have been operating from makeshift mosques in garages or Halal butchers' shops, have fanned misogyny, have terrorised immigrant Muslim communities and have retarded their integration, she said.
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She claimed Muslim women's documents are being confiscated by their husbands or fathers when they get to Italy, which forces them to live clandestinely and prevents them from being able to bring domestic violence charges against male relatives. Sbai denounced the forced return of Muslim girls at 14 or 15 years of age to their countries of origin to become victims of arranged marriages.

"The objective is to prevent these girls from becoming Westerners, not just through gaining citizenship but above all through embracing Western societies's shared values of liberty and democaracy. These girls have no country that protects them: they are immigrants in Italy and foreigners in their countries of origin," Sbai stressed.
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Hina disappeared last Thursday and last Saturday was found buried beneath the family home in Sarezzo, facing Mecca with her throat cut. Muhammad has been arrested in connection with her murder and has reportedly confessed to killing his daughter.

Police investigating Hina's killing are searching for her-brother-in-law and have also detained her uncle. They suspect Hina her father may not have acted alone in planning and carrying out her murder.
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Hina's boyfriend, Giuseppe Tempini, a carpenter has reportedly tried to commit suicide since her death.

Speaking of cousin marriage, the degree of first-cousin marriage (consanguinity) in some of these countries is astounding (usually 40-50% in many Arab countries, and 60% in Pakistan, for example), and such inbreeding is not only detrimental to genetic development, but leads to intense tribalism to the detriment of national identity, which is why our ideas of free melting-pot republics may never fly in a primitive clan system:

Life in the Muslim Middle East has long revolved around family and tribe. In fact, that's what a tribe is — your family in its most extended form. For much of Middle Eastern history, tribal networks of kin functioned as governments in miniature. In the absence of state power, it was the kin group that protected an individual from attack, secured his wealth, and performed a thousand other functions. No one could flourish whose kin group was not strong, respected, and unified.

In the modern Middle East, networks of kin are still the foundation of wealth, security, and personal happiness. That, in a sense, is the problem.
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Cousin marriage solves the problem of lineage solidarity. If, instead of marrying a woman from a strange lineage, a man marries his cousin, then his wife will not be an alien, but a trusted member of his own kin group. Not only will this reduce a man's likelihood of being pulled away from his brothers by his wife, a woman of the lineage is less likely to be divorced by her husband, and more likely to be protected by her own extended kin in case of a rupture in the marriage. Somewhere around a third of all marriages in the Muslim Middle East are between members of the same lineage, and in some places the figure can reach as high as 80 percent.

A chart with consanguinity rates in the arab world is at the Center for Arab Genomic Studies.

Europe's Guilt

Don't let it become ours!

Responding to a capitulatory article in the British press, wretchard of Belmont Club responds,

Max Hasting's striking phrase "yet we shall defeat them only when our Muslim community at large perceives that its interests are identified with Britain's polity" is as clever a case for surrender as I've ever heard. What of Britain's interests, the ones which presumably include Hindus, ethnic Europeans, Chinese and Jews. Might one not make an equal argument for saying that Britain's policy should never rest easy until it satisfies them too? And should those conflict with the interests of "our Muslim community" then is it simply a matter of satisfying the most violent petitioners?
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Max Hastings is a brilliant writer but he's a European and as such he's acutely aware of how much of the Middle Eastern mess is Britain and France's fault. They created Syria and Iraq from maps. They promised the Arabs nationhood yet strove to subjugate them. Western Europe nearly exterminated the Jews then gave them a homeland in Palestine in recompense. France helped build Dimona and armed Israel. Then it went and helpled build Osirak. Hasting's weakness is to see the world through Europe's prism -- that supposedly sophisticated and moral vantage which poseurs adopt in lieu of thinking things out for themselves.

What he doesn't realize is that we are past Europe now; beyond both its sins and its conceits. Sam Huntington understood that the world had its own beefs against radical Islam independent of Europe's guilts. Israel, for example, wants to live. And they are a nuclear armed country with a population larger than Australia which is going to live, going to survive, whatever Britain and its "polity" make up their minds to do.

So when Osama Bin Laden swears he will convert the whole world to Islam, its wrong to regard it from the perspective of some world weary Briton. The Third World Christian, Hindu or Buddhist will not so gently go into this good night. If that creates problems for Britain, too bad. If America is not careful it will let Europe conn it into taking on the mantle of its guilt. That's the "We the West" part. When it comes to paying the bill for their folly let it not be the "You Americans" part.

Indeed!

Tonight at the gym I saw a small segment on CNN where they went into the street (in America) to find out about "muslim rage" and its roots.

Some expert or other told them that's where the problem was, in the streets.

Without much trouble they found a group of angry muslims standing on a corner, listening to a bearded American-born muslim whose name we are told translates as "father of the holy war" -- and that "he takes his name seriously."

The newsman asks why they are angry. I don't have a transcript but this is essentially how the exchange went:

[CNN]: Why are you angry?

[Mr. Jihad]: We are angry! We are tired of the media blaming all problems on the muslims! You are attacking islam! We will not turn the other cheek; we are not Christians!

[CNN, a little shocked]: Doesn't islam mean peace???

[Mr. Jihad]: Peace? Uh...oh yes! Islam is peace! Peace!

[martyrs-in-waiting chime in]: Peace! Peace!

[Mr. Jihad]: Islam teaches that when someone is laying their hands on you, you...(catches self from saying "strike off their heads")...uh, Islam teaches peace, but we are defending ourselves!

[human bombs]: Defending ourselves!

Interesting, isn't it, that an American-born person would identify as being personally attacked by our "policies" in the Middle East?

One wonders what justification there was for all the terror attacks -- including 9/11 -- prior to the Iraq war of 2003, which is apparently the current grievance. Rest assured some false grievance or other would be manufactured no matter what we do.

That's been the whole shakedown strategy of jihad for 1400 years.

Clearly, their identification is not at all with America, but with a pan-islamic transnationalism.

Such allegiances are antithetical to our whole way of life and system of values and government.

And must not be tolerated.

Stop mohammedan immigration now.

Religion of Peace

This fantastic article organizes every bit of evidence concerning the nature of islam, asking the tough question, is it really a religion of peace?

Or just the opposite?

It is thorough and comprehensive and covers all the angles, from the koran itself, to the "exemplary" life of the murderous mohammed, to the doctrinal abrogation of the "peaceful" verses in favor of the later "Sword" verses, to the deeds of the ideology, to the opinions of widely diverse thinkers such as John Quincy Adams, Salman Rushdie, and Winston Churchill.

Read it all. Study it, and disseminate it widely.

The author of the piece makes the following addendum to short-circuit the stupid (and common) counterargument to the effect that "well, the Bible is violent/repressive/whatever!"

Note also that my analysis in my article is not dependent on a comparative analysis to the Bible. I am not a Biblical scholar and leave that definitive analysis to others. However, the argument that Islam is a religion of peace because it allegedly contains verses that are no more violent than Biblical passages is not persuasive to me as that is not a valid defense. Would we say that the Nightstalker was peaceful because Ted Bundy was just as violent? When large numbers of people worldwide start committing acts of terrorism that they claim are mandated by the Bible, I will address that issue. Until then, we should focus on the problem at hand.

Besides, as noted above, while I am no Biblical scholar, I have read it and while there are passages in the Old Testament that are inconsitent with modern Western values, those passages seem limited to a certain time and place and are not open-ended commandments to make war until everyone submits to God. Moreover, the New Testament, and especially what is attributed to Jesus, is as peaceful as one could ever hope for. In fact, a strong argument can be made that Jesus was a pacifist and violence committed by Christians or Western societies is done in spite of Christian Doctrine, not because of it.

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In any event, regardless as to one's opinion of Christianity, that opinion should not justify a failure to recognize the reality of Islam.