What a shock. This President will send troops into Uganda, drop bombs into Libya, back fanatical Muslims in Egypt, but when it comes to Iran….and our top secret technology, he’s a bit timid:

With early knowledge that the aircraft had likely remained intact, the senior U.S. official also told Fox News that President Obama was presented with three separate options for retrieving or destroying the drone. The president ultimately decided not to proceed with any of the plans because it could have been seen as an act of war.

…One official told Fox News on Thursday that the incident is a huge loss and makes the top-secret helicopter tail lost during the Usama bin Laden raid in Pakistan “look like a pittance.” The official said there are real fears the Iranians will share this technology with the Russians and the Chinese, in addition to using it themselves.

What a pansy.

And then he brags about bin-Laden but allows the Muslim Brotherhood to come ever so closer to their dreamed about sixth Caliphate.

The destruction he has done to this country, and it’s future security is breathtaking to behold.

With popular sovereignty and populist revolution bringing Islamofascism (or orthodox Islam) to power across the Arab world, it is important to remember that democracy is not the criterion of legitimacy. To be legitimate, government must be republican. That is, it must serve to establish a system of liberty under law. If the majority use democracy to violate the natural liberty rights of the minority, that “tyranny of the majority” is no more legitimate than the “tyranny of the minority” that is exercised by unelected dictators. Such, at least, is the founding ideology of the United States.

The framers of our Constitution were highly suspicious of democracy, which they often denigrated as “mob rule.” To them democracy was a necessary evil. If we must be ruled, let it be by ourselves. But there are many ways in which we are not supposed to be ruled at all, but are supposed to be free, according to natural law (i.e. according to what can be understood about right and wrong on the basis of moral reason, regardless of whether our capacity for moral reason comes from God or from godless nature).

Hence the enumeration of limited federal powers in Article I of our Constitution, and the enumeration of individual rights in the Bill of Rights (explicitly incomplete). Unfortunately, our Democratic Party seems to take its name literally. They have been systematically breaking down constitutional limits on majority power since the New Deal, when FDR tore down the Constitution’s system of limited federal power.

With the Democrats in control of all of our information industries (academia, news and entertainment media, all of our biggest philanthropies, all of our professional organizations), the priority of liberty is no longer widely understood. As a result, democracy is often held up as a first principle, when in our system it’s value is purely instrumental. It is valued as a way to secure liberty, and it is without value if it fails to be advantageous for that purpose.

Our loss of understanding of the priority of liberty leaves the nation standing perplexed as the Arab world falls in a single sweep to popular tyranny. Democracy—our supposed criterion of right—is leading to the most evil outcome: the empowerment of al Qaeda and Iran in country after Middle Eastern country, while America mumbles half a cheer and a lot of quiet fretting.

Daniel Pipes on the disastrous consequences of regarding democracy as principle in the Middle East

Pipes has a nice piece on our state of impotent discombulation. He does not say anything about democracy not being the correct criterion of legitimacy—very likely he does not understand this point himself—but he nicely sums up the confusion that is created when U.S. policy-makers treat democracy as principle in the Arab-Muslim world:

•Democracy pleases us but brings hostile elements to power.
•Tyranny betrays our principles but leaves pliable rulers in power.

“As interest conflicts with principle,” says Pipes, “consistency goes out the window.”

But is inconsistency really the problem? Obama has actually been perfectly consistent. Where dictators are friendly or pliable, he throws them to the wolves (demanding that Ghaddafi and Mubarak leave). Where they are hostile to the U.S. and not at all pliable, he is silent and unmoved when protesters are slaughtered en masse (Iran and Syria).

The obvious explanation is that Obama himself is not just a Muslim, but is an Islamofascist. (The evidence for both is overwhelming.) He skillfully uses the Democratic Party’s immoral priority of democracy over republicanism to advance democracy where the outcome will be anti-republican, and suppress it where republicanism is likely to prevail.

The key is Iran. A democratic Iran would almost certainly embrace liberty/republicanism, but so long as it remains in the hands of the Islamofascists, it can usurp every populist movement in the area to the Islamofascist side. Hence Obama’s determination to see that Iran gets The Bomb.

Assert republicanism over democracy

Faced with a president who is actively making use of the errant principle of democracy to undermine the national interest, it is not enough to advocate some wise balancing of democracy and interest. Instead, it is necessary to clarify and insist that republicanism, not democracy, is our principle, and that democracy should only be advanced where doing so advances the cause of liberty. Until we get regime change in Iran, that means no-where else in the Islamic world should we be pressing yet for democracy. Iran has to come first, or it will usurp every other attempt at democratic reform.

This strategy would expose Obama for what he in fact is doing, using a false principle to advance the Islamofascist cause. Pipes, in contrast, casts Obama as a bumbler, presumably well intentioned. Would that it were the case. Pipes’ suggestions for how to deal with the conflict between democracy and interest are fine as far as they go:

Aim to improve the behavior of tyrants whose lack of ideology or ambition makes them pliable. They will take the easiest road, so join together to pressure them to open up.

Always oppose Islamists, whether Al-Qaeda types as in Yemen or the suave and “moderate” ones in Tunisia. They represent the enemy. When tempted otherwise, ask yourself whether cooperation with “moderate” Nazis in the 1930s would have been a good idea.

Help the liberal, secular, and modern elements, those who in the first place stirred up the upheavals of 2011. Assist them eventually to come to power, so that they can salvage the politically sick Middle East from its predicament and move it in a democratic and free direction.

If Obama was merely a bumbler, he could learn from this advice. Since he is actually an Islamofascist, the only counter is to assert correct moral principle: that our goal is to advance liberty, and that democracy is only on the side of principle where it serves to promote liberty. Otherwise Obama can just continue to pretend to be acting on American values as he helps elevate Islamofascists to power across the Middle East.

Addendum: the New Deal actually ushered in a new (and un-ratified) Constitution

Since everything affects interstate commerce in some way, post-New-Deal Supreme Courts have held that Congress is empowered to regulate anything and everything under its power to regulate interstate commerce. Pre-New-Deal Courts had rejected that interpretation on the grounds that it violated Justice Marshall’s first principle of constitutional interpretation:

It cannot be presumed that any clause in the Constitution is intended to be without effect; and, therefore, such a construction is inadmissible unless the words require it. [5 U.S. 137, 174 (1803).]

Allowing everything to be regulated under the commerce clause did not just render one clause of the Constitution without effect, it vitiated the entire system of limited enumerated powers.

That system of limited enumerated powers stood in the way of FDR’s desire to implement a Soviet-style command economy, where the government dictates to industry the quantities that it will produce and the prices it will charge. Yes, Roosevelt did actually try to implement such a system, dictating prices and quantities to every major industry in America. That was the job of the NRA (the National Recovery Administration), created by the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 (NIRA). (See FDR’s Folly, by Jim Powell, chapter 9.)

NIRA was struck down by the Supreme Court, prompting FDR’s infamous court-packing scheme and “the switch in time that saved nine.” Intimidated by a popular president during a time of national agony, the Supremes agreed to abandon the Constitution, and we have never gotten it back.

Crossposted at Error Theory

Sure doesn’t sound like the “rebels” have won

A nervous limbo, punctuated by gunfire, took hold of Libya’s capital Monday, one day after opponents of Col. Moammar Gadhafi rolled triumphantly into the central square here—damping hopes by rebels and their international allies that the strongman’s supporters would melt away.

Machine-gun and antiaircraft fire could be heard throughout the day in Tripoli, as residents said loyalist gunmen had taken up positions in several neighborhoods. Rebels who attempted to turn an old police academy into their military headquarters quickly came under heavy fire, sending a stream of casualties to a makeshift clinic.

Green Square, where rebel troops had celebrated Sunday after marching largely unopposed into Col. Gadhafi’s stronghold capital, appeared to be a no man’s land. Roads leading to the square were made impassable by what locals said were loyalist snipers.

Amid the uncertainty, one of Col. Gadhafi’s sons, thought to have been captured by the rebels a day earlier, showed up at a Tripoli hotel and invited foreign journalists on a tour of the city.

The scenes in Tripoli bucked the day’s widening international sentiment that forces loyal to Col. Gadhafi, who has ruled the oil-rich Mediterranean country for nearly 42 years, had been all but neutralized. Instead, the leader remained unaccounted for as fighting continued. The unease suggested instead that the regime’s end, while broadly expected, may bring more bloodshed, this time in a densely populated urban theater.

As I write this reports are that Gadhafi has given a speech on the radio….looks like civil war is not too far behind:

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said on Wednesday that his withdrawal from his Bab al-Aziziya headquarters was a “tactical move” after the compound was leveled by 64 NATO air strikes.

Speaking in an address on a local Tripoli radio station, which was reported by Al-Orouba TV, broadcasting in conjunction with Al-Rai TV, Gaddafi also vowed “martyrdom” or victory in his fight against NATO.

I’m hoping the scumbag is killed sooner rather than later, but I also have a feeling that the wake left after his death will be something other then rosy. These so called “Rebels” aren’t prepared for this, nor is NATO:

Six months after their revolt broke out, the day-to-day leadership of the anti-Qaddafi movement remains an unanswered question, with no figure emerging as the rebellion’s undisputed leader. Even the common struggle against Colonel Qaddafi never masked latent divisions between east and west, between political leaders and fractious militias, and, some say, between liberal public faces and Islamists in the rebel ranks.

The rebels from the western mountains who stormed into Tripoli on Sunday night often roll their eyes at their ostensible political leadership, the Transitional National Council, which is based in the eastern city of Benghazi…

…Even so, rivalries began emerging on Monday well before Tripoli was fully subdued, along with questions about the rebels’ credibility. Officials of the Transitional National Council in Benghazi said Sunday that their forces had captured Colonel Qaddafi’s son and would-be successor, Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi. But then on Tuesday he appeared at a Tripoli hotel housing foreign journalists — moving freely around the city — and even before then some in Tripoli appeared not to trust their Benghazi leadership to handle him.

And if and when these “rebels” do take over…who are they loyal to?

Less than four years before Libya’s popular opposition movement took up arms and revolted against Moammar Gadhafi with enthusiastic U.S. backing, anti-Gadhafi fighters chose another tactic to hit back at the hated dictator: they joined al Qaeda and tried to kill American soldiers in Iraq, according to U.S. documents.

In 2007 the U.S. Department of Defense snatched more than 600 records of al Qaeda’s foreign fighters in Iraq and discovered nearly a fifth of the foreigners were from Libya, according to a report by West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center released later that year. Within those records, the total put Libya second only to Saudi Arabia in total fighters and “far and away” the largest provider of foreign fighters per capita to the terrorist organization.

Almost all of the Libyan fighters hailed from the east — cities like Benghazi, effectively the current opposition headquarters; Ajdabiya, which was the site of intense fighting overnight; and Derna, a city currently held by the rebels.

“The Libyan pipeline to Iraq,” the report says, “is firmly established.”

The report ties the surge of Libyan recruits to a formal pledge of allegiance to al Qaeda by a major anti-Gadhafi group in 2007.

And now they have a mass supply of weapons:

No one can be sure who controls the Libyan government’s weapons stockpiles, a stew of deadly chemicals, raw nuclear material and some 30,000 shoulder-fired rockets that officials fear could fall into terrorists’ hands in the chaos of Muammar al-Qaddafi’s downfall or afterward.

One immediate worry, U.S. intelligence and military officials say, is that Qaddafi might use the weapons to make a last stand. But officials also face the troubling prospect that the material, which was left under Qaddafi’s control by a U.S.-backed disarmament pact, could be obtained by Al Qaeda or other militants even after a rebel victory is secured.

…A cache of hundreds of tons of raw uranium yellowcake is stored at a small nuclear facility east of the capital.

As I wrote earlier, I’m hoping that Gadhafi’s reign is over….but worried at what will take its place. That worry was well placed in Egypt and Pakistan. And now it’s Libya’s turn.

As far as the war itself, I will leave you with a quote from Mata:

all the Arab nations of the world have made note that to be friends with Obama’s US is to mean they invade your sovereign territory (Pakistan), he will throw you over the side to the sharks (Egypt, Yemen, Israel, and attempted in Bahran). But if you remain our enemy he will leave you alone (Syria, Iran, Somalia etal)

A very sad for our country. 31 members of our country’s best were killed last night after they had assaulted a Taliban stronghold. It’s the single biggest lost of life, in one incident, in the 10 years we have been in Afghanistan.

In the deadliest day for American forces in the nearly decade-long war in Afghanistan, insurgents shot down a Chinook transport helicopter on Saturday, killing 31 Americans and 7 Afghan commandos on board, American and Afghan officials said. American officials said later Saturday that 22 of the dead were members of a Navy SEAL unit, along with other American servicemembers and the Afghan unit. The helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade in the Tangi Valley of Wardak Province to the west of Kabul, one coalition official said, though others said the exact weapon remained in question.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, which punctuated a surge of violence across the country, even as American and NATO forces begin a modest drawdown of troops. It occurred after a night raid, a tool that has been praised by American commanders as one of the most effective in the recent military offensive, though the raids have been heavily criticized by Afghan officials and civilians.

…There were conflicting accounts about when the helicopter went down. A spokesman for the Taliban, Zabiullah Mujahid, said insurgents shot down the helicopter around 11 p.m. Friday as it was starting an operation on a house where the militants were gathering in the Tangi Joyee region of the district of Saidabad in the eastern part of the province. Eight militants were killed in the fight, which continued after the helicopter fell, Mr. Mujahid said…

Gen. Abdul Qayum Baqizoy, police chief of Wardak, said the operation began around 1 a.m. Saturday as NATO and Afghan forces attacked a Taliban compound in Jaw-e-mekh Zareen village in the Tangi Valley. The firefight lasted at least two hours, the general said.

It appears that the Seal unit involved was Seal Team Six. The same unit that took down bin-Laden.

U.S. officials tell The Associated Press that they believe that none of the Navy SEALs who died in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan had participated in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, although they were from the same unit that carried out the bin Laden mission.

Sources say that more than 20 Navy SEALs were among those lost in the crash in Afghanistan.

The operators from SEAL Team Six were flown by a regular Army crew. That’s according to AP military sources.

Another source says the team was thought to include 22 SEALs, three Air Force air controllers, seven Afghan Army troops, a dog and his handler, and a civilian interpreter, plus the helicopter crew.

My question is how the Taliban knew to hit this specific helicopter? Apparently there were up to half a dozen helicopters used during the raid. Were they all from Seal Team Six or were they tipped off on which chopper to bring down? It seems too coincidental that this would happen soon after taking out bin-Laden.

It was 19 Islamic terrorists. That makes the broken-circle memorial to Flight 93 a memorial to the terrorists, who are depicted not only as smashing our circle of peace, but as leaving a giant Islamic crescent-and-star flag in its place:

They call it a broken circle now, but the unbroken part of the circle, what symbolically remains standing in the wake of 9/11, is just the original Crescent of Embrace: a giant Islamic-shaped crescent, pointing to Mecca.

The damned thing is actually an al Qaeda victory mosque, with the Mecca-oriented crescent as its mihrab: the Mecca-direction indicator around which every mosque is built.

That is the short version of an advertisement that started running in western Pennsylvania newspapers last week. Alec Rawls sends along this update on the effort to stop the crescent mosque.

10th anniversary ad campaign now underway

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review recently solicited Tom Burnett Senior’s response to some new design images for the Flight 93 memorial. When he said that the so-called redesign leaves all of the terrorist memorializing features intact, editors instructed reporter Kari Andren to leave his remarks out. They preferred un-interrupted praise from the same few family members who always speak up for the broken-circle design.

The people of Pennsylvania deserve to see what their information gate-keepers don’t want them to know, so Mr. Burnett and his backers decided to begin their 10th anniversary ad campaign a few weeks early. The first full-page color ad just ran in the Somerset Daily American and will appear in two other local papers next week.

For a PDF of the ad copy, click on the thumbnail below, or scroll down for the same content formatted for browsing. If anyone wants to help fund additional advertising, a very generous soul has offered to match all donations up to a total of $5000.

More explicit than a giant Islamic crescent-and-star flag?

As the ad-headline notes, the Circle of Embrace “redesign” only accentuates the circle-breaking crescent-creating theme of the original Crescent of Embrace. Mr. Burnett’s full remarks explain:

The only visible change is the addition of an extra arc of trees that explicitly represents a broken off part of the circle. The unbroken part of the circle, what symbolically remains standing in the wake of 9/11, is just the original Crescent of Embrace: a giant Islamic shaped crescent, still pointing to Mecca.

People also need to know that a Mecca-direction indicator is the central feature around which every mosque is built. It is called a “mihrab,” and the classic mihrab is crescent shaped.

So the terrorists broke our circle of peace on 9/11, and all that remains standing is the central feature of a mosque. The inclusion of a broken-off part of the circle only accentuates this terrorist-memorializing symbolism. It bastardizes what my son Tom and the other heroes of Flight 93 accomplished. The crescent/broken-circle design is a desecration of sacred ground.

Tom Burnett Sr. Northfield MN

Park Service calls the circle “broken”

A proper newspaper would ask the Park Service if the extra arc of trees really does represent a broken-off part of the circle. Still, people can easily verify this crucial fact for themselves. It is right on the Park Service’s own website. Their “questions about the design” page asks “Is this circle ‘broken’ at all?” Their answer is yes:

… the circle is symbolically “broken” or missing trees in two places, depicting the flight path of the plane, and the crash site.

The locations of these two breaks in the “circle of embrace” are spelled out:

…first, where the flight path of the plane went overhead (which is the location of the planned memorial overlook and visitor center), and second, where the plane crashed at the Sacred Ground (depicted by a ceremonial gate and pathway into the Sacred Ground).

These are the two ends of the extra arc of trees, which starts near the original upper crescent tip and continues down to the crash site. So Mr. Burnett is right. Both ends of the new arc of trees are explicitly broken off. The unbroken part of the circle—what symbolically remains standing in the wake of 9/11—is just the original Islamic-shaped Crescent of Embrace that the Park Service promised to change.

To illustrate, the ad includes a side-bar of graphics, showing just what is changed and what is not changed in the memorial. This is slightly complicated by the fact that the Park Service pretended that they were going to make one very big cosmetic change that they are not actually making, but a few pictures easily tell the tale.

The Park Service pretended the outside of the crescent would be filled in with a forest of trees

A publicity shot of the original Crescent of Embrace design shows what appears to be a bare-naked Islamic crescent-and-star flag planted atop the crash site:

When this blatant Islamic symbolism caused an uproar, architect Paul Murdoch re-worked his mock-up to show a forest of additional trees surrounding the outside of the original Crescent:

Only the inner arc of the crescent remains visible, making the new Circle of Embrace name seem reasonable. But none of these surrounding trees made it into the actual Circle of Embrace design drawings. (The “Stage 1″ drawings, encompassing the area seen in these images, were released in 2009.)

The Park Service may eventually let the bare field grow in with trees, but this is not a change in the design. The only actual change is the extra arc of trees, seen below in orange. It explicitly represents a broken off part of the circle:

What the Circle of Embrace actually looks like. The original giant crescent still sits naked on an open field and the flight path still “breaks the circle” at the upper crescent tip.

Remove the explicitly broken off part of the circle (in orange), and what symbolically remains standing in the wake of 9/11 is the same giant Mecca-oriented crescent the Park Service promised to change. It constitutes a classic “mihrab,” the Mecca-direction indicator around which every mosque is built, and will form the centerpiece for the world’s largest mosque.

Who broke the circle of peace on 9/11?

When the “Crescent of Embrace” was unveiled as the winning design, architect Paul Murdoch explained the crescent name and the crescent shape by saying that the circle was broken on 9/11, leaving only a part of the circle still standing: the giant crescent. The fact that this circle-breaking crescent-creating theme remains completely intact in the broken-circle design demands the question of WHO is being depicted as breaking the circle of peace on 9/11.

The final section of the ad points out that there can only be one answer. We all know who broke the peace on 9/11. Thus the memorial can only be depicting the actions of the terrorists, who are seen not only as smashing our circle of peace, but as replacing it with their own crescent and star flag.

With the media censoring all criticism, people who don’t like all this blatant Islamic symbolism need a way to signal each other directly, so the ad finishes with a handy dandy flyer that readers can post on windows, walls, bulletin boards etcetera:

If you want to put a few up yourself, click the image above for a printable PDF, complete with urls for our petition to stop the memorial and for more information. And here is an ad-copy version that anyone can run in their own local paper (the free weeklies can be pretty reasonable).

As Flight 93 showed, just because the hijacker has control of the cockpit doesn’t mean he can’t still be stopped.

Bigotry. Hatred. Murderous intolerance.

Blake Hounshell at Foreign Policy’s Passport writes that he read through Breivik’s 1500 page Manifesto, “2083: A European Declaration of Independence”, which was posted at Stormfront.org.

Al Qaeda and its affiliates along with militant Islamists in general are the biggest killers of their own fellow Muslims who aren’t radically Islamist enough for them. And Breivik, rather than attacking Muslims, goes after “his own”, who he deems to be enablers and polluters of his white, European race and culture:

In grim, apocalyptic language, it advocates attacks on “traitors” across Europe who are supposedly enabling a Muslim takeover of the continent.

“[W]e should… not exceed (per 2010) aprox. 45 000 dead and 1 million wounded cultural Marxists/multiculturalists in Western Europe,” the author writes. “The time for dialogue is over. We gave peace a chance. The time for armed resistance has come.”

The manifesto also provides detailed instructions for everything from making a bomb to raising funds to preparing physically and mentally for what the author describes as a coming three-stage “civil war” between patriotic nationalists and “multiculturalists” who are, wittingly or not, destroying European civilization.

Although he targeted his fellow Norwegians for slaughter, make no mistake about the scope of his hatred:

Filled with hateful rantings against Muslims — whom the author claims are on a trajectory to take over Europe and erase its culture patrimony — the writing bears a great resemblence to online comments attributed to Anders Breivik, 32, the confessed architect of a massacre that has so far claimed nearly 100 lives.

A massacre that shortly after, jihadis cheered and praised, to the extent that some, including themselves, jumped to the conclusion (not entirely illogical and unwarranted) that this was the handiwork of Islamic terrorists.

I’m sure their feelings toward Breivik are probably mutual:

Oddly, despite his evident hatred of Muslims and Arabs, “Berwick” professes admiration for al Qaeda, which he lists as one of only two “successful militant organisations” due to its “superior structural adaptation.”

“If Muhammad was alive today,” he writes, “Usama Bin Laden would have been his second in command.”

Elsewhere, he cites al Qaeda’s training manual as a reference, and declares, “Just like Jihadi warriors are the plum tree of the Ummah, we will be the plum tree for Europe and for Christianity.”

In another eerie parallel, he also calls for suicidal operations in service of the larger cause: “Let us be perfectly clear; if you are unwilling to martyr yourself for the cause, then the PCCTS, Knights Templar is not for you.”

He is no different than those murderous religious fanatics he claims to hate. He is the kind of infidel al-Qaeda and its affiliated network are begging for on the opposite side of the fence: Someone willing to engage with them in a clash of civilizations.

Something that the majority of Muslims in the Islamic world have rejected.

The moral equivalence apologists (and Chris Matthews) for Islamic terrorism who have long cited Timothy McVeigh, Jared Loughner, abortion bombers, the Spanish Inquisition, Crusaders, Nazis as somehow examples of right-wing Christian fanaticism and hate-mongering have finally got an actual real example of it:

“What we know is that he is right wing and he is Christian fundamentalist,” deputy police chief Roger Andresen said Saturday morning at a televised news conference. “We have not been able to link him up to an anti-Islamic group.” He said that the suspect had not been arrested before, and that police were unsure if he had acted alone.

“We find him responsible for both of the attacks,” Andresen said. “At the moment we have no other people to arrest.”

Norwegian media identified the suspect as Anders Behring Breivik and posted pictures of the blond and blue-eyed Norwegian. A security official speaking on the condition of anonymity because the official was not allowed to release the name publicly said that the name was correct.

~~~

He said that police were still trying to piece together the suspect’s motives.

“The politically motivated violence that Norway has seen in the modern age has come from the extreme rightist side,” Stoere said. “This is a phenomenon that we have addressed very seriously.”

So not all the facts are in, yet there’s no apparent rush to judgment here is there? I’m not questioning that the facts thus far are wrong here- just the double-standard in how whenever it is an Islamic extremist or homegrown terrorist involved, we are cautioned not to jump to conclusions.

For those who initially suspected Islamic terror and “Norway’s 9/11″, it sounds as though they weren’t alone: Jihadi forums also jumped at the thought of claiming attaboy responsibility, in glee:

But many residents of Oslo said the attacks would probably have a deep impact. For years, the most fortified building in town has been the U.S. Embassy — the subject of eye-rolling from those who thought the security measures were unnecessary.

“This is one of those events that will change everything,” Christopher Wright, 35, of Oslo said by telephone. He was at a bakery a thousand feet from the government buildings when the explosion happened.

Several analysts said a coordinated attack of such a caliber would have required sophistication and preparation.

Chatter on online jihadist forums praising the attacks started almost immediately afterward, terrorism analysts said, but claims of responsibility were soon retracted.

Ansar al-Jihad al-Alami praised the bombing. But instead of Norway’s 9/11, what we have is their version of an Oklahoma City Bombing.

Norway seems woefully ill-prepared to prevent and handle terror attacks:

A memo written in 2009, describes the country’s security service as “in over its head” and adds “it simply cannot keep up.”

Separate cables state that the country felt “immune” from terrorism and that groups such as Al Qaeda were “not a direct threat”.

One memo describes how US authorities had to “press” their Norwegian counterparts to take terrorism seriously and says there was a feeling “that terrorism happens elsewhere, not in peaceful Norway.”

Talking about an attempt by the Police Security Service (PST) to track one particular suspected Al Qaeda terror cell, a cable written by the US Ambassador to Norway, Barry White, describes investigators as “committed, competent and co-operative, generally”.

But he goes on to describe how they refused the help of the UK authorities to put surveillance on a potential suspect and adds: “Not only will they not put their own resources on him…but they also just turned down the visiting UK intel service’s offer of two twelve-person surveillance teams.”

~~~

A memo written in 2008 shows how the US felt that Norway was not awake to the possibility of a potential terrorist attack. The cable reads: “We repeatedly press Norwegian authorities to take terrorism seriously.

“We will seek to build on this momentum to fight the still-prevalent feeling that terrorism happens elsewhere, not in peaceful Norway.”

And a cable written just last year adds: “The PST still viewed Denmark as more of a target than Norway, for reasons very specific to the cartoon controversy.”

While Islamists and jihadis are probably celebrating, what Christian right-wingers are out there, celebrating this senseless loss of life?

Prayers and condolences for Norway and the family of the victims of this horrible attack.

Also blogging:
The Anchoress
Brutally Honest/Wizbang
The Jawa Report

The thin skinned Candidate Obama…er, I mean President Obama…is back.

As if he ever left:

Click here to view the embedded video.

And the sniveling didn’t end there for our “leader”

Drudge also notes the difference between his refusal to meet with the Republicans to his acceptance of this:

This is what leadership looks like in the Obama age I suppose. He is like a little kid who sulks and gives people the silent treatment if not given his way.

This Presidency is the epitome of how NOT to lead a nation.

The Brotherhood is the world’s most important Islamist organization. It is openly, unabashedly committed to the destruction of the United States and the West. In typical Obama fashion, this disastrous decision to engage America’s avowed enemies has been couched as the mere continuation of prior policy: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is reported to have confirmed that the U.S. would “resume” contacts which had “occurred in recent years.” But make no mistake about it, this is a new policy.

The contacts that have occurred in recent years have been outside of U.S. policy — at the urging of leftists in the State Department, the intelligence community, the commentariat, and, in particular, the Obama White House. They have long campaigned for a policy of “engagement” with the Muslim Brotherhood (including Hamas, the terrorist organization that is the Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch). They’ve needed to do this campaigning because it was American policy not to deal with the Brotherhood — dealing with the Brothers empowers them, bolstering their status as leaders of mainstream Islam and legitimizing their agenda, which calls for Islamicizing societies, ultimately establishing a global caliphate, destroying Israel, and incrementally expanding sharia throughout the West.

…Only a few months before Clapper’s testimony, the Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide, Muhammad Badi, called for “jihad and sacrifice” in confronting the United States and Israel. He proclaimed that America is “experiencing the beginning of its end and is heading toward its demise.” The enthusiastic endorsement of violence, particularly against Israel, would be surprising only to those who drink the Obama Kool-Aid that claims the Brotherhood has renounced violence.

As I have repeatedly pointed out — and as Barry Rubin argues in this excellent analysis of the new Obama policy — the Brotherhood has always favored violence where it would advance the Islamist cause; it tactically renounced violence against the Egyptian regime because it would have prompted ruinous retaliation from Mubarak and because the Brotherhood was making progress through the political process and influence over Egyptian institutions.

Quite apart from its long history of violence, the Brotherhood has long endorsed terrorism (which it calls “resistance”) against Israel and against Western forces operating in Islamic countries.

Halperin said it best….this man is a dick.

Hillary views Huma "As A Daughter" Yea Right!

Is Weiner’s ignoble retirement a Conservative victory? No, not really, it is a victory for traditional American values. Weiner is a borderline pervert, who will either straighten up his life or fall deeper into more dangerous perversions, for his sake, I hope he gets ahold of himself before it is too late.

We as Americans have a share in the shame of his lying and false criminal accusations, because we have been lenient in dealing with lies and corruption from our leaders in Washington. Even now, Weiner will have an attractive retirement plan when he turns 62 of $48,000 a year. Presumably, the looming inflation he has helped promote will wipe that out and make it a trivial amount, but we will be supporting his perversions for the rest of his life, once he is officially retired. This is a stain on America that will be with us for a while.

Weiner has only been a symptom of a much larger problem; hopefully, he will ride into the sunset and disappear forever. Unfortunately, there is the question of whether his wife, Huma, is an agent for the Muslim Brotherhood, the connections are there with her mother being a member of the “sisterhood”. It is a fact that her family is Fundamentalist islam and deep within the Muslim Brotherhood. Unless Huma is a Fifth Columnist, Fundamentalist Isamists kill their women for speaking to a non-Muslim. The information will undoubtably be coming out in the near future, but the fact that hillary Clinton has an Islamic Fundamentalist as a confidant within her State Department will dwarf the Weinergate story. In the tradition of FDR and the Soviet spies he kept for confidantes, while steadfastly refusing to believe the FBI reports that they were spies, history is repeating itself.

Was Huma Abedin — wife of Anthony Weiner and deputy chief of staff to Hillary Clinton — unaware that her mother was reported as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood? Did Western media miss what has been revealed in several Arab newspapers and left secret in American government circles?

Al-Liwa Al-Arabi (translated here) claims to have leaked an extensive list, partially published by Al-Jazeera and several other major Arab newspapers, that includes Huma’s mother, Saleha Abedin, in the Brotherhood’s secret women’s division — known as the Muslim Sisterhood or International Women’s Organization (IWO).

Information about the IWO can readily be found at the Muslim Brotherhood’s official website. An excerpt from its goal, translated from the Arabic, states:

“The Women Organization’s goal, in accordance with the Muslim Brotherhood rules, is to gain and acquire a unified global perception in every nation in the world regarding the position of women, and the necessity of advocacy work at all levels in accordance with the message of the Brotherhood, as written in Women in Muslim Society, and the rearing of women throughout the different stages of life”.

The Egyptian paper Al-Dostor revealed that the Sisterhood includes 63 international members across 16 different countries — a claim confirmed by the Arab Center for Studies, headed by researcher Abdul Rahim Ali.

Neither Huma nor any major Western media outlets even mention this bit of common knowledge in the Arab world.

But there is more. Also confirmed by Arab sources is that Huma Abedin has a brother who works at Oxford University named Hassan Abedin. Oxford, which has long been infiltrated by Islamists who founded the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (OCIS), has Huma’s brother listed as a fellow and partner with a number of Muslim Brotherhood members on the Board — including al-Qaeda associate Omar Naseef and the notorious Muslim Brotherhood leader Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi. Both have been listed as OCIS trustees. Naseef continues to serve as Board chairman.

In 2009, Qaradawi’s role within Oxford and the Muslim Brotherhood was championed by the notorious Sheikh Rached Ghannouchi of Al-Nahda – a Muslim Brotherhood affiliate now active in Tunisia. OCIS has even presented an award for great scholarly achievement to Brotherhood member Shaykh Abd Al-Fattah Abu Gudda, whose personal history goes back to the Brotherhood’s founder, Hasan al-Banna.

Even the Sunday Times acknowledges that the cradle of Islamic jihad — Al-Azhar University — actively attempts to establish links with OCIS, where Huma’s brother serves.

Was Huma unaware of all this as she accompanied Hillary Clinton to the Dar El-Hekma women’s college in Saudi Arabia? Huma’s mother is co-founder and vice dean at the college and an active missionary on issues regarding Muslim women.

Another member listed as belonging to the Sisterhood mentioned by Al-Jazeera is Suheir Qureshi. Alongside Huma’s mother, Saleha Abedin, as well as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was brought in due to her connection with Huma, Qureshi spoke on issues of women in Muslim society. An Arabic news report of what happened during Hillary’s visit stated that:

Suheir Qureshi spoke of how elated she was of Hillary’s historic visit…. Saleha Abedin spoke after Suheir Qureshi and beamed in the presence of Secretary Clinton. Saleha’s speech preceded the former first lady’s. Then Hillary stood. She donned a broad smile as she approached the podium….Clinton started with a strong word and she spent a long time complimenting Dr. Saleha Abedin regarding her daughter. Hillary explained that Huma holds an important and sensitive position in her office. She ended her speech by speaking of Saleha Abedin’s daughter (Huma), that a person must be happy if mentioned in a positive light but there is no happiness that equals the compliment given to children in front of a parent.

It is sacrilege in Islam for Huma’s mother to accept the reality that her daughter is married to a Jew. Yet neither Saleha nor Huma’s brother Hassan denounces her marriage to Weiner, especially when it was considered null and void by some of the highest authorities on Islamic Sharia rulings.

Hillary Clinton signed a document less than one month prior to her trip to Saudi Arabia with Huma that lifted the ban on Tariq Ramadan, allowing him entry into the United States. (Ramadan is the grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hasan al-Banna, and has ties to Islamic terrorist groups.) The Clinton family played a key role in promoting Fethullah Gülen, the extremely powerful Turkish imam and notorious Islamist conspirator, as he fled Turkey for the United States after attempting to overthrow Turkey’s secular government. (He was indicted on this charge in 2000.) In 2008, the former president heaped praise on Gülen, giving him a clean slate. Gülen has been given refuge and has even had sermons aired on Turkish television during which he explained to his followers how to best seize power from the Turkish government:

You must move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing your existence until you reach all the power centers… until the conditions are ripe….Until that time, any step taken would be too early — like breaking an egg without waiting the full forty days for it to hatch. It would be like killing the chick inside.

Americans have so little faith in the politicians of Washington and Weiner has lowered that level of trust even more, but it has become a group effort. Our president is intent on being able to use missiles and rockets against nations indefinitely, after consulting with the UN, NATO, and the Arab League, while ignoring our congress and its authority. The president being called the most powerful man in the world has taken on a new meaning. Pelosi’s wealth increasing by 62% during the last two years only adds to the mistrust Americans have for our government. In the mean time, Obama has pledged $2 Billion to Palestine, $2 Billion to Egypt, $20 Billion to Arab Spring, offered $1 Billion ‘loan guarantee’ to Egypt to back their faulty credit standing. President Obama seems willing to give the shirt off his back to those in need; except, for one minor detail, it’s not his money: it is the money and future of the US taxpayer being given to the Muslim Brotherhood and to those we have been at war with and will likely be at war with for decades to come. He can justify the “Loans” by borrowing from China, thus helping their economy and giving the money to the Muslim Brotherhood and when Hyper Inflation kicks in, the money wont be worth anything and will be much easier for our children and grandchildren to pay off his profligate generosity among his Arab friends.

Hopefully, Weiner will be able to live off his wife’s double income, (assuming she has a handsome salary as a Fifth Columnist for the Muslim Brotherhood, a group now being subsidized by the US taxpayer courtesy of President Obama) until he can find a job and drift into obscurity. Another Progressive Socialist will be elected from his district and the wheels will keep turning; hopefully, the new Progressive wheel from Queens will be quieter and have more integrity. But we would be considered to be naive to think that the corruption and dishonesty is over with Weiner’s resignation.

Like most American’s, I believe Weiner is only a symptom of a large problem afflicting politicians who view themselves above the law and immune to the laws of governance that most of us respect. Congressmen like Rangel and Waters stand out as corruption that is excused and swept under the carpet. We can no longer tolerate these abuses. We must clean up Washinton and make it function according to the Rule of Law and the Constitution. Insisting that Clinton as Secretary of State purge her department of potential spies is a first step toward establishing trust: if her relationship is too close to Huma to fire her, Hillary should resign her position.

I shot an elephant in my pajamas. I don't know how he got in my pajamas.

We have all wondered why the Department of Homeland Security prefers to fondle underage girls and attractive women instead of profiling single young Muslim men. So far, there have been no attempted terrorist attacks on airplanes by adolescent girls, grandmothers, women with children, women, or non-Muslim men; Napolitano carefully and concisely explains why profiling is politically incorrect and an affront to Muslims who might be terrorists, around the world. Napolitano’s illogic, a system of thought that is similar to our president’s own reasoning ability when he speaks without his teleprompter, could be an excellent comedic dialogue for Groucho Marx.

One of my favorite Groucho stories is about an incident that involved his daughter swimming at a private beach. He was told his daughter couldn’t swim at the beach because she was Jewish. He then asked if she could wade in up to her waist, since she was only half Jewish.

Humor is reason gone mad.

Click here to view the embedded video.

“You’re not using good logic there. You’ve got to use actual intelligence that you received. And, so, you might — all you’ve given me is a kind of status. You have not given me a technique for tactic or behavior. Something that would suggest somebody is not Muslim, but Islamic, that has actually moved into the category of violent extremists,” Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said at a forum on U.S. security and preventing terrorist attacks.

“We have ways to make some of those cuts. And they involve the intel that comes in, the analysis that goes on. For example, we often times, for travelers entering the United States, we won’t not do what is called a secondary inspection just because they are a 35-year- old male who appears to be Muslim, whatever that means. But we know from intelligence that if they have a certain travel pattern over a certain period of time, that should cause us to ask some more significant questions than if we don’t.”

Obviously, the reporter didn’t ask the question correctly; so, Napolitano is justified in answering a simple question like a moron.

On second thought, let me restate my basic premise: Napolitano is clueless and a blithering idiot: Groucho was a comedic genius.

Groucho Quotes:

A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.
Groucho Marx

A hospital bed is a parked taxi with the meter running.

A man is only as old as the woman he feels.

A woman is an occasional pleasure but a cigar is always a smoke.

Alimony is like buying hay for a dead horse.

All people are born alike – except Republicans and Democrats.

Anyone who says he can see through women is missing a lot.

Before I speak, I have something important to say

Behind every successful man is a woman, behind her is his wife.

Either he’s dead or my watch has stopped.

From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend reading it.

Getting older is no problem. You just have to live long enough.

Go, and never darken my towels again.

Humor is reason gone mad.

I didn’t like the play, but then I saw it under adverse conditions – the curtain was up.

I don’t care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.

I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.

I have a mind to join a club and beat you over the head with it.

I have had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it.

Groucho Marx