Bhutto's return and her assassination has once again dredged up the question of democracy in the third world. Her assassination though should be a reminder yet again that politics is played by different rules outside the West. Bhutto was no martyr or saint, she was the daughter of a man who though "democratically" elected had authorized the execution of a political opponent. Bhutto herself has been accused of numerous murders and ethnic cleansing, including the murder of her own brother by her niece. If Musharraf did indeed order the death of Bhutto or at least turn a blind eye to it, he would have acted no differently than Bhutto herself had.

With Bhutto, Americans embraced not a record but a message, the articulate Oxford educated tone of a woman whose rhetoric was Westernized but her approach was the usual Third World combination of kleptocracy, brutality and deceit. Beginning with her father Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan sponsored Islamic terrorism in Kashmir and supported terrorism in the Middle East, including Arafat. Bhutto's father groomed the fundamentalist Islamic general who would overthrow him and Bhutto groomed the Taliban who would provide a warm home to the Islamic terrorists who would eventually kill her.

While Bhutto was adept at delivering one message to the West, the reality was otherwise. Those mourning Bhutto's death as the murder of a woman by Islamists might do well to remember just how many women Bhutto had been responsible for killing, both in her failure to repeal the Hudood laws, which made rape prosecutions virtually impossible while making adultery prosecutions on behalf of those rapists absurdly easy, and her promotion of the Kashmiri Jihad, particularly against the Hindu Pandits of Kashmir.

In Bhutto's desire to seize Kashmir from India, Pakistan backed and trained Islamic terrorist groups who engaged in a brutal campaign of atrocities against the Pandit reminiscent of Sudan that all but eliminated their population. This campaign included murders, gang rapes, arson, kidnapping and torture. Rather than being some sort of patron saint of Democracy in Pakistan, Bhutto backed and armed Islamic fundamentalists in Kashir and Afghanistan, those same Jihadist thugs who committed numberless atrocities against women.

While Westerns remain eager to find sources of moderation and friends of democracy in Pakistan, the country is a boiling pot. Musharraf is simply the man with his hand on top of the pot trying to keep it from boiling over. Most of the third world does not consist of democracies, it consists of oligarchies and kleptocracies. Democracy in the third world is simply an unstable oligarchy.

The philosophical belief that all it takes to remedy a dictatorship is to give the people freedom and a chance to vote ignores the troubling result that such elections inevitably mirror the unstable hatreds and rivalries of the country itself. No ruler could stay in power unless he reflects the wills and wishes of a sizable portion of the population. That is a reality that we repeatedly ignore at our own peril because it forces us to acknowledge that these countries have cultures that substantially diverge in morals and preferences from our own.

The United States would not be a democracy unless Americans wished it so. If we were incapable of handling Democracy and backed radicals and settled disputes with guns and fists, we wouldn't have a democracy. If Pakistan's population really were ready for a democracy, they would have one. They instead have a system of government that accurately reflects their culture, it's an ugly truth but an inescapable one.

Democracy is the virtue of a culture, not something inherent in mankind. Elections become the Rorschach blot of a nation reflecting its values and its leaders, elected or unelected, reflect its deepest heart. Stalin was the Russian Father-God made flesh, a dread beloved tyrant by a nation of slaves. Hitler was the Burgher-agitator, the worst of Germany wearing sane clothing over its insane mad nakedness. Saddam was the Father-Sheikh, the ultimate tribal paternalistic figure doling out favors to his family and brutal death to his enemies.

To become a democracy takes more than a ballot box, it requires that a culture, a people and a nation become ready for democracy. Without first growing up, democracy in the third world runs into a dead end.

Bellevue Hospital - Crazy racist Presidential candidate Ron Paul while appearing on Meet the Press criticized God for bringing a violent end to the Egyptian enslavement of the Israelites.

"You know I'm a great believer in the ummm Constitution and private property and that was just wrong. The Egyptians paid in honest Gold backed currency for their Israelite slaves and I don't agree with slavery but it was manifestly unconstitutional for God to interfere with the system," Ron Paul mumbled. "Why couldn't he have just paid fair value for them?"

When asked to elaborate on this, Ron Paul explained that had God simply paid the Egyptians fair value for every Jew, the whole Exodus thing could have been avoided.

"I mean if he had just paid the Egyptians ummm fair value instead of rivers turning to blood and rains of frogs and those other things, just seemed completely unnecessary," Ron Paul continued, "this is not a race issue again, I would feel the same way about the enslavement of every other race but my own."

On a related note the Ron Paul for Pharaoh in -2288 campaign has refused to return a donation of 300 gold dinars from the Committee to Restore Hebrew Slavery claiming that everyone has the right to their opinion, so long as it's pro-slavery.

A few centuries after a man living in Ur Kasdim rediscovered what mankind had forgotten, that the world had a Creator, his descendants had become mired in slavery, degraded and finally subjected to selective genocide within the bowels of the mightiest empire on earth. Egypt had enslaved the Jews so thoroughly that only one man escaped from it.

Sentenced to death at birth, thrown in an act of desperation by his mother into a basket, left to float on the Nile to a seemingly hopeless fate, raised in the royal court, banished into exile, intermarried in a foreign land and distanced far from his people, Moshe was chosen by G-d to rediscover him and redeem his people.

A great-grandson of Yaakov, the last of the patriarchs, it would seem that Moshe had little to recommend him. Raised by his people's slavemasters he was far removed from his people's heritage. He spoke like an Egyptian and dressed like one, so that Yitro's daughters identified him as one.

When Moshe sees the burning bush, what follows is as much an introduction to G-d as a call to his destiny. Before Moshe can go to Egypt to confront the might of an empire to redeem the Jews, he must know who G-d is. Much as Pharaoh goes on to do, Moshe asks who G-d is and by what name he should call him. G-d responds by stating that he is self-defined, unlike the idols who are the projections of the human ego, G-d is an entity apart and above from man who is unique and self-defined as the essence of life and as the force that powers the future.

With Shemos the beginning of the process of Exodus gets under way and at every step Moshe appears to question G-d, this is impertinent on the one hand, yet understandable on the other. If the simple purpose of Exodus was to free the Jews from Egypt and deliver them to Israel, it could have been done in the wink of an eye by an omnipotent G-d. But Exodus was ultimately about a showdown between human oppression and divine power.

From the first murder as Kayin struck down his brother, human force had been used to defy G-d, to pervert, to enslave and to abuse. The flood had ended one such era in human history but the Tower of Babel had begun another, under the rule of tyranny from which Avraham escaped. That too had been broken but a third tyranny had now risen under the Pharaohs, an empire built on slavery and directed at idolatry, at the cult of personality of the Pharaohs and the material constructions of their cities. Exodus would confront Pharaoh, all of Egypt and the Jews with the reality of divine supremacy over the world and the fates of men.

The plagues that would follow were not simple shows of force or intimidation, like the miracles that G-d gifted Moshe with such as the leprous hand and the serpent staff, they were specific demonstrations of G-d's power over all facets of life, from the river to the sky, from animal and plant life to insects and even the dust, from the great calamities to the small irritations and finally to the life and death of Egypt's future and its armies, by the time Exodus was concluded, Egypt would know G-d.

With Joseph's arrival, Egypt had been given the chance to know G-d in a benign manner, as the architect of the world and human destiny. Instead Egypt squandered that gift to build a slave empire, just as Babylon and the generation of flood had done before. Egypt chose power and so G-d communicated with it in the language of power, beginning with the humble request of an exile for a mere three days to worship G-d and ending with the annihilation of Egypt's power, at each point Pharaoh was given the chance to turn back from the abyss of power and at each point he rejected it.

Ultimately Exodus would serve to answer both Pharaoh's denial of G-d and Moshe's question of who G-d was, for Moshe had been chosen because he had struck the Egyptian beating the Jew and Pharaoh had been chosen because he commanded the beatings that the Egyptians meted out to their Hebrew slaves. Both men would learn who G-d was and one would lead a nation to return and another to Mount Sinai.

Benazir Bhutto is dead and the world mourns. On the next day two teenage hikers were murdered in Israel by terrorists backed by Abbas. As expected no one mourns for them. Plenty of people have done a good job of documenting Bhutto's support for terrorism and her father's close ties to Arafat, ties so close that his son promptly went to Arafat to amass weapons for an attack to retake power.

Lemon Lime Moon writes about Huckabee apologizing for the assassination, shades of Jimmy Carter

Debbie Schlussel has collected a lot ofinformation on it here including Bhutto's ties to the Taliban and Arafat

"Disregard the fact that this faux "moderate" Bhutto supported the Taliban and helped it take over Afghanistan. Not only did her Paki government recognize the Taliban, she was only one of three governments to do so (a fact acknowledged by Bhutto's niece). Awesome. Our soldiers are dying there fighting the Taliban, and Bush tried to re-insert upon Pakistan the woman who enabled the Taliban in the first place.

The "moderate" Bhutto was actually a Saudi-backed, anti-Semitic, pro-Palestinian-terrorism force of instability, anarchy, and protest in Pakistan. Her return to Paki politics would only divide and conquer pro-U.S. forces in the country, allowing the more popular Islamists to dominate. That she was assassinated was not a good thing, especially since the U.S. made the mistake of backing her and forcing her on Musharraf. But that she is now gone from Pakistani politics is a positive development in a myriad of ways.

The George W. Bush-orchestrated move of returning Bhutto to Pakistan from exile in the Gulf was a bad move on so many levels. It echoes the Jimmy Carter era of ushering out the pro-U.S. Shah of Iran and ushering in the never-ending Ayatollah Khomeini/Mahmoud Ahmadinejad era. This time around, Bhutto's opposition to Musharraf would have ushered out a pro-U.S. dictator, Pervez Musharraf, and ushered in Islamist chaos, HAMASastan-style."


"Mike Hucksterbee apologized to Pakistan for the death of Benazir Bhutto. Mike spoke of “our sincere concern and apologies for what has happened in Pakistan.” What DID you do Mike??"

Via LGF, it appears that Bhutto actually died of a skull fracture

Over at the Anti-Racist blog we have updates on developments in the Office for Civil Rights investigation of left wing and muslim anti-semitism at the UC Urvine campus

Daled Amos posts on Bush signing a bill to limit contributions to the UN

"The bill has been passed by both chambers of Congress and has been signed by the President. It will become law once administrative actions are complete.

This comes out to about $3 million, but it is a start in showing our disapproval of the UN oil-for-food scandal, various reports of abuse by UN peacekeepers--including prostitution, the failure of the UN to act against genocide in Darfur and Rwanda and allowing Iran to continue its nuclear program unimpeded."

What is being reported

Two Jewish hikers in their 20's were murdered in a terror attack at Telem Spring, near Adora, south of Jerusalem.

Two Jewish boys and a girl departed on a hike from Kiryat Arba to the spring, a secluded nature spot.

An all-terrain vehicle drove up next to them, and two terrorists inside opened fire. The two youths were armed and returned fire killing one terrorist and wounding the second. The youth died from their wounds.

The girl managed to hide and phone Kiryat Arba's Magen David Adom emergency services at about 12:00 noon Friday. Despite her traumatized state, she guided the emergency crews and IDF forces to the location of the attack. Since she was unable to give the precise location on the trail, it took the forces a long while to locate her.

The bodies of the two Jewish victims and one Arab terrorist were found. The Red Crescent emergency services reportedly evacuated the second terrorist to a hospital in Hevron.

What isn't being reported

-- The terrorists used a vehicle belonging to a bodyguard of Abbas.

-- It was not the girl's directions that were at issue, numerous shootings involving Arab on Arab violence were being reported and priority was given to the Arabs rather than the dying Jewish hikers.

-- Look for probable revelations that the terrorists were members of the PA security forces unless that winds up going unreported

Alliances between Neo-Nazis and Islamofascist Muslims are nothing new but there is one thing that both seem to have in common lately and that's Ron Paul. Case in point, Anisa Abd El Fattah aka Carolyn F. Keeble, a founding board member of CAIR and a Hamas supporter.

Despite being black, Anisa Abd El Fattah appears to have both ties and sympathies with Neo-Nazi movements. Her petition and letter appears on the site of the Vanguard News Network while another congratulating Iran on the Holocaust cartoon contest appears on Stormfront, both Neo-Nazi sites. Anisa Abd El Fattah had previously included White Nationalists along with Muslims as groups "persecuted" by the Jewish lobby writing, "We also believe that the Jewish Lobby has acted to create an environment in the US that is hostile to Muslims, Arabs, and others, including White nationalists"

Her complaints and statements have repeatedly included defenses of neo-nazis. e.g. "1. Jewish organizations and activists have created an “enemies” list that includes Muslims, Arabs and white nationalists’ organizations here in the US."

ending with this ringing defense of Neo-Nazi groups

"That aspect of White nationalist behavior that includes fear mongering, name calling, and intimidation is wrong, yet they argue that their actions result from their frustration that they are stereotyped, and misrepresented by the media and made to appear as enemies of blacks and Jews, and others, when they simply want to preserve the white race, and its majority status. They feel that Jewish supremacism threatens their existence, and that Jewish activism is aimed at limiting their rights,"

Anisa Abd El Fattah has extensive ties to Hamas, she praised Hamas leader Yassin, co-wrote a book with Ahmed Yousef who serves as the political advisor to Ismail Haniyeh, the defacto leader of Hamas in Gaza. And was "the Director of Public Affairs for the United Association for Studies and Research (UASR), which one convicted terrorist leader described as "the political command for HAMAS in the United States".

Now Anisa Abd El Fattah is also a Ron Paul supporter and a member of the Muslims for Ron Paul group where she writes in defense of Stormfront

We attempted to circulate a petition asking Muslims and Arabs to sign onto the request for an investigation, to demonstrate to the DOJ that this was a serious initiative, and an issue of importance to nearly 8 million American citizens. We got 98 signatures, and so the Lobby continues with these tactics because they feel emboldened by Muslim and Arab apprehension about speaking up and pushing back. I pray that the people of Stormfront and their followers will have better luck with their people than we did with ours.

With the Nazis and Muslim Nazis back together and good feelings all around, it's almost like 1939 all over again.

Even as Al Sharpton was being served subpoenas by Federal investigators, the leading Democratic Party Presidential candidates spared no time in courting him. Sharpton has had lunch with Obama and a planned meeting with Bill Clinton and is still indicating that his endorsement is up for grabs. If Sharpton's presence on stage at the 2004 Democratic Party convention or the statement by the head of the New York State Democratic Party during the 2000 election that anyone who had a problem with Sharpton has no place in the Democratic party, his courtship by the two top Democratic party candidates for the Presidency is eloquent testimony of the relationship between the Democratic Party and Jews.

Despite leading racist attacks against Jews that led to several murders, Al Sharpton has only become more powerful within the Democratic party. Despite being caught on video tape discussing a drug deal, despite a history of lies, blackmail and racial intimidation, the Democratic Party has chosen to mainstream a known racist and hatemonger. The same media that jumped over any Conservative Christian criticizing Romney's religion, gave Sharpton a free pass. After all Al Sharpton brought mobs to Crown Heights that stoned and beat a Jewish community in a replay of Kristalnacht, what is a little bigotry circa 2004 between media friends?

Al Shaprton's presence in the Presidential race is a powerful reminder that the Democratic Party and Liberalism had sold out Jews even before Israel was on the table. But then again this was the party of FDR who was happy to have Jewish support for his domestic agenda and was equally happy to watch six millions Jews die abroad, his administration even going so far as to work to keep Jewish refugees not only out of American territory, but out of any adjoining territories. Nothing has changed today when it comes to the millions of Jews who survived the Holocaust and who along with their children and grandchildren live in Israel.

Jewish support for the Democratic Party was rooted in the habituation of arriving immigrants by Tammany Hall party bosses and is rooted today in the voting habits of the secular liberal Northeast suburban upper to upper middle class population to which they belong. There is no Jewish vote, there is a pattern of Jewish voting and that pattern has little to do with Israel or Jewish issues.

Beginning in the 60's the Jewish population split between an upper to upper middle class that moved on to the suburbs and to expensive urban neighborhoods in a paroxysm of white flight and a working class and often religious Jewish population that remained behind. Call it High Jewish and Low Jewish. The High Jewish population is determinedly assimilationist boasting the highest rate of intermarriage, the greatest knee jerk liberalism and is often uncomfortable with or outrightly hostile to the Low Jewish populations in the same way that German-American Jews reacted to the wave of incoming Russian-Jewish immigrants at the turn of the century. The High Jewish population is more likely to vote against Israel and Jewish issues, most likely to oppose everything from school vouchers to a the War on Terror.

The Low Jewish population, often Orthodox Jewish and immigrant Russian, left behind in the abandoned inner cities is most likely to be conservative and vote Republican, within the political realities of New York City in which Republican candidates rarely even bother to show up. It is this population that suffered from the depredations of Al Sharpton while the High Jewish populations continued embracing Al Sharpton and argued furiously that using the word "Pogrom" to describe the Crown Heights Pogrom was wrong. But in the end it was the Low Jewish population that voted Dinkins out of office and voted Giuliani in. It is the Low Jewish population that has supported Bush and the High Jewish population that supported Kerry and now Obama and Hillary.

These make up the bulk of the NJDC and the various liberal groups. They also are on the road to extinction. Between low birth rates and high intermarriage rates, the same people who have backed every Judeophobic Democratic President from FDR to Truman to Carter to Clinton are wiping themselves out of the equation and the Democratic Party knows it. Between their doglike loyalty to the Party and their own diminishing demographics, the Democratic party is completing a process that began in the 70's when it began casting off its Jewish supporters.

From La Raza to Sharpton to CAIR, the Democratic Party remains a safe home for every bigot. In the process the Democratic Party has become a party of Anti-Semites and self-hating Jews drawn. While the Republican party has plenty of flaws, no person of integrity and no Jew who can call himself by that name can any longer proudly identify himself as a Democrat. The party today stands for Anti-Semitism at home and Anti-Israelism abroad. It is a hollow sham, a nanny state party built on giveaways and fostering a racist dependency, its values are hostile to America and hostile to freedom. It comes with a group mind and that group mind has no place for individuality or success, only for a culture of failure and for group-think.

When the Democratic Party finally nominates its Presidential candidate, whether it be Obama or Hillary, for the first time since Carter it will be a candidate with a history of supporting terrorism and an open contempt for Jews.

Democracy was upheld in Thailand when the Democrats, a left wing party backing a coup by a Muslim General, were defeated at the polls.

The Thailand Democrat party is a left wing royalist party which staged the overthrew of Prime Minister Thaskin by Muslim General Sonthi Boonyaratglin. Where Prime Minister Thaskin had followed a policy of stamping out the Muslim insurgency, however General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, a Muslim with two wives, was in retrospect a terrible choice for fighting a Muslim insurgency. General Sonthi Boonyaratglin engaged in all sorts of delaying tactics to obstruct the fight, claiming that the Muslim terrorists who were engaging in a bloody campaign of atrocities, including beheading Buddhist teachers, were actually Communists.

As the Muslim terrorists stepped up their bombing campaign, General Sonthi Boonyaratglin called for negotiating with the terrorists over the protests of the elected government. The following sums up his collaboration with his co-religionists well enough.

On August 2006 after 22 commercial banks were simultaneously bombed in Yala province, Sonthi announced that he would break with government policy and negotiate with the leaders of the insurgency. In a press conference the next day, he attacked the government for criticizing him for trying to negotiate with the anonymous insurgents, and demanded that the government "Free the military and let it do the job." Afterwards, insurgents bombed 6 department stores in Hat Yai city, which up until then had been free of insurgent activities. As always, the identity of the insurgents was not revealed.

Three days later, Sonthi led a coup against the government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Sonthi's former superiors, Deputy Prime Minister for national security Chidchai Vanasatidya and Defense Minister Thammarak Isaragura na Ayuthaya were immediately arrested and have been detained ever since.

Despite escalating violence, in May 2007 Sonthi started withdrawing troops from the South, replacing them with territorial defence volunteers. He did not say why the regular army was to be reduced in the South

Following the coup the ruling party was dissolved and made illegal. As the Muslim violence increased, the Thai army did nothing. Now the votes have been cast and Thaskin's party has won 228 seats out of 480 seats in the Thai parliament, their support coming from the rural areas that have suffered the most from the Muslim terrorism and benefited the most from Thaskin's programs. While support for the Democrat party has come mainly from Bangkok and its political elites.

The same media that has spent so much outrage over coups against left wing governments has had little to say about the coup in Thailand and printed stories actually justifying it and legitimizing it. Now the attempt to seize power has failed and Thaskin is likely to return. Where Thaskin's programs benefited Thailand's rural areas, the Bangkok elite attempted to sell out their country much as the political elite in America, Israel, England and the Philippines has done. In all these countries it is often the rural areas that hold the true heart of the nation.

The struggles between the urban cultures and the rural, whether one calls them Blue State vs Red State or Tel Aviv vs the Settlers or Londonistan vs England breaks down the heart of the problem as the sophisticated elites promote the dissolution of the country's values while the rural populations struggle to preserve them.

If there is one fundamental difference between conservatives and liberals, it's that conservatives believes in self-sufficiency while liberals prefer government control and social management. While many conservatives recognize this phenomenon on the individual and community level, fewer realize that this is the case on the national and global level.

The conservative vision of the world is rooted in the democratic stability of a prosperous middle class. The political worldview of liberals is by contrast rooted in an impoverished world, the world of the deprived and the oppressed. The fundamental split in the second half of the 20th century between liberals and conservatives is rooted in the liberal rejection of a democratic society's ability to address social inequities. The fundamental liberal mantra that has inspired every form of government social control through legislation is the belief that Western societies are fundamentally unjust and incapable of reforming their racist, sexist and oppressive tendencies without government intervention.

This worldview underpins the Anti-Americanism of American Liberals as well as the anti-nationalistic sentiments of liberals in many Western countries. By rejecting democracy, liberals also rejected faith in the character of those nations. The inevitable result of such an attitude is the accompanying rejection of the nation as a whole and eventually a growing distaste and even hatred for the country itself.

By the 19th century the growing secularism of liberal Christian churches had led many to equate morality and social justice as an absolute equation. By the late 20th century, both among liberal Jewish and Christian denominations and their secular counterparts, morality had virtually ceased to exist apart from social justice. As social justice became the sum total of morality and ethics, political correctness became the dogma and scripture of liberal societies. When confronted with the test of historical adherence to standards of social justice, Western nations inevitably failed the test and in liberal eyes emerged as immoral systems that had to be reformed or rejected.

The morality of social justice differs from conventional morals and ethics by its single minded search to identify the oppressor and the oppressed in any given issue. Hard core political correctness breaks down every issue by locating an oppressed party, a member of an officially oppressed group, and the oppressor, typically economically prosperous and successful. Such a single minded approach has functioned like a stopped clock, right on occasion but quite often deeply wrong. Devoid of any larger ethical structure, this purely situational morality allows liberals to compartmentalize their reactions to any issue allowing them to support both gay rights and Iran which executes gays.

Devoid of faith in a nation's ability to care for its own and reform its own errors, Liberals view a free society as fundamentally exploitative and see the purpose of government as being the defense of those oppressed by the free market. The modern Nanny State is the child of a mindset that does not see a thriving middle class in Western nations but the impoverished masses perpetually in peril of being enslaved by the greed of the rich. That same mindset replicated on a global level sees Western nations in the role of the greedy rich and the third world in the place of the impoverished masses.

The more prosperity Western nations achieved and the better off the poor became, the more liberalism felt the driving need to play out that same role, not on a national level but on a global scale. Class warfare, so fundamental to Marxism and Socialism, became no longer defined as taking place within a nation but globally. Globalism became the new Capitalism and the terrorists of the third world took the place of the anarchists and Marxist terrorists who had come before. Time and time again we are told that the rioters in Paris, Brussels and Malmo, the Jihadis in Pakistan, Cairo and London and the terrorists in Riyadh, Gaza and Mogadishu are all motivated by poverty, oppression and racism. We are told that the problem can be resolved in the same way that it was resolved domestically in the 19th and 20th centuries, with an expanded government and expanded government giveaways, no longer only at home but now also abroad.

As a result of this we have gone from a nation on the dole to a world on the dole. Billions are pumped annually into failing third world dictatorships and medical clinics are being built and maintained across the Middle East, at taxpayer expense. While this is presented as charity, in actuality it is socialism on a global scale. Whether it is the UN or the EU, liberals have more faith in global organizations to resolve social problems than the old "discredited" nation states. The result is a decay of national sovereignty and individual rights and the embrace of multilateralism and international alliances.

The dreadful bill of a world on the dole coming due is the same one as that of any socialistic solution to social problems, impoverishment followed by anarchy or tyranny. By projecting class warfare on a global scale, liberals have determinedly ignored the real threat in favor of the same old prescription, global socialism. The problem however is not one of social or economic inequity but of a threat aimed at the Western nations themselves. But the liberal worldview that has rejected those same Western nations as immoral and the cause of the world's problems is incapable of making the great ideological leap, that has only been made by a handful of those on the left such as Christopher Hitchens or Nick Cohen, that the bully is actually the victim and the victims they have been coddling are the new bullies of the world.

-------------------This article previously appeared at the Canada Free Press ----------------

Sharon like Rabin in the decaying years of his life, decided to embrace a single undemocratic policy and to see it through the end. Like Rabin, he never did see it through to the end but the damage he did would continue to wreak havoc across the nation.

When Ariel Sharon passed out of the world of the living he left behind to his unintended successor, Ehud Olmert, a party and a government that had been built around him. Ariel Sharon had been known as the bulldozer and when he was thwarted by his own party in his plans, he decided to set up a new party built around himself. Sharon jotted down over a hundred proposed names for the party and the one that he picked, Kadima, had no political ideology attached to it.

In imitation of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia (Go Italy), Kadima (Go Forward) was created, except unlike Forza Italia, Kadima tellingly stripped away any mention of country. Like Berlusconi, Sharon founded Kadima as a coalition of complete opposites, a rag tag coalition of parliamentarians motivated by political adventurism and ambition.

Before each member was approved for the coalition and the list, Sharon personally conducted a private interview with each one of them. The goal of the interviews was to gauge independence as the critical notes on one potential candidate who displayed too much independence testify. The final Kadima coalition that emerged consisted of morally bankrupt MK's willing to betray their parties and allegiances to be in the ruling party. Kadima stood for nothing. Devoid of ideology and purpose it was meant as a rubber stamp coalition to allow Sharon to maintain power. The final undemocratic stamp came when Sharon was illegally allowed to hold office after resigning from the Likud, the party which had in fact won the election.

The damage that Sharon did to the IDF was far worse than even the damage that he did to the Knesset. Sharon dismissed some generals and promoted others purely based on their perceived loyalty to him. He purged able generals and replaced them with men completely inadequate for the job, such as Dan Halutz. He conducted surveillance on generals to determine which were loyal to him and which were not. The IDF in the Second Lebanon War was a broken machine because its hierarchy had been undermined in a Stalinist fashion and the crucial piece that had been intended to operate it, the presence of Sharon himself who expected to the one in complete control of all military operations, was missing.

Ehud Olmert had been chosen for his role not because of his capability, but because of his craven obeisance to anyone in power. Like the rest of Kadima, Olmert was devoid of any real ideology or morals and ethics. But he had set himself apart early on as a hatchet man willing to do anything for the party boss. Consider this chilling anecdote from Shmuel Tamir, the man who had briefly attempted to set up a political party together with Sharon premised on a Palestinian state, before Sharon stabbed him in the back.

"Olmert’s father was the secretary-general of the Free Center party. He was hard to deal with but was honest, diligent and very experienced. People were hesitant to appoint him as secretary-general because they knew he was hard to work with. Indeed it turned out that it was impossible to work with him. There was always friction with him and I had to be the one to straighten matters out. Although I respected him I realized that he is not capable of working with others. One morning after I met with him in the Knesset, Ehud walked into my room. I sighed deeply and said: “Your father, may he be well, is not an easy person to deal with.” His response stunned me. “Shmuel [Olmert said], if you want to get rid of him I’ll arrange it within 24 hours.” I said, “I am not suggesting to get rid of him. I just think that it’s hard to deal with him, maybe you can persuade him to become more flexible.” “OK,” said Ehud Olmert, “as you wish, but if you want that he leave his job I’ll arrange it within 24 hours.” I was appalled. This aspect of his personality gave me the chills and a hard feeling."

It is easy to see why Sharon would have wanted Olmert as his number two, a man so devoid of any human feeling beyond greed and ambition, that he was casually prepared to dispose of his father simply to curry favor with the party leader. When contemplated in this light, the rest of Olmert's crimes and actions become easily comprehensible.

With Sharon's virtual death, Olmert, who like the rest of Sharon's stooges had never been meant to rule found himself in power and in charge of a coalition of traitors and liars who had nothing in common except having burned their bridges with their old parties and having nowhere left to go.

Sharon had built Kadima out of men and women from every part of the political spectrum, a government of rabble. Now the rabble had lost their whip and Olmert was forced to improvise in order to stay in power. Every disastrous course of action Olmert has taken, from Amona (a bloody deed to clinch the deal) to Lebanon (an attempt at a war) to Annapolis (an attempt at a peace) has not been the product of a well thought out policy or plan, but the frantic attempts of a low level political criminal made king to try and hang on to the throne.

Olmert's Kadima is a true Erev Rav government, a government of rabble bound together by treason, ambition and desperation. It came to power illegally, it is manifestly undemocratic and in opposition to the principles and values of the nation and opposed by the majority of the nation. It has no more legitimacy or right to rule than the Herodian dynasty did. Now it has barricaded itself in the machinery of government flitting from one failed policy to another and tossing money at the religious sector in the hopes of keeping the people of Israel from throwing them out.

Now a special bunker is being built for the government with a tunnel directly to the airport. The rabble are preparing to run away if things get too hot for them, along with their ill gotten gains. They cannot be protested or legislated out, only thrown out.

The story of the end of Yaakov's life takes place in Parshas Vayechi, the word "Vayechi" meaning "and he lived". It seems paradoxical that the story of Yaakov's death should be titled with the beginning "and he lived", yet that is the true approach to both life and death. Yaakov's life was truly worthwhile and meaningful because he lived it. His legacy was in the sons he left behind and the nation he built. While Yaakov dies in Vayechi, he lives on in the birth of the Jewish nation.

Before Yaakov Avinu passes away he insists that his son Yosef swear an oath to bury him in Caanan, within Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel. He insists on an oath, Tahat Yirechi, something that only Avraham had insisted on, when it came to finding a wife for his son Yitzchak not from the people of Caanan. What is the connection between the two? The answer is that both are fundamental to the question of Jewish identity. Avraham's oath insisted on a rejection of intermarriage and Yaakov's oath insisted that the rightful place even in death of a Jew was to be in the land of Israel. The "Tahat Yirechi" nature of the oath linked it to the Brit Milah, the covenant that defined Jewish identity through generation and progeneration.

Both Avraham and Yaakov expected that they would be dead before the oath could be fulfilled and their oath rested on the future and the future of their descendants. Avraham understood that the Jewish people could not exist if Yitzchak intermarried and Yaakov understood that if he 'Yisrael' were to be buried in Egypt, the life of Am Yisrael too would be rooted in Egypt. It would have been easy for Avraham and Yaakov to choose the easy way, to assimilate and mingle with the cultures and peoples they found themselves among. The oaths of Avraham and Yaakov were meant to preserve a unique Jewish identity.

Had Yaakov/Yisrael been buried in Egypt, there would have been little reason for his descendants to think that Egypt and slavery was not their place. Yet though Yaakov descended to Egypt, he was determined that at least his body should return to his native land. And though his grandchildren and great-grandchildren remained as hostages in Egypt, he was buried as a free man besides his forefathers. As Yosef had led the way into Egypt, Yaakov in his mission as Yisrael led the way out of it, his burial serving as a symbol that it was better to be buried in the humble ground of Israel than to rest in honor in the pyramids of Egypt.

Rashi tells us that with Yaakov's death, Nistemu Einom VeLibom Shel Yisrael, the Eyes and Hearts of the People of Israel Became Closed. Why did their eyes and hearts become closed? Without his guidance, their sensibilities became dulled. Before the actual slavery took place, their sensibilities became enslaved to the culture and values of Egypt. Their eyes were unable to see the wrongness around them and their hearts lacked the sensitivity to feel distaste for an immoral culture. Al Tatiru Aharei Levachem Veaharei Einechem Asher Atem Zonim Ahareichem, we are warned. First the heart lusts and then the eyes see objects in the world that can satisfy those lusts. The eyes of the descendants of Yaakov had become closed to higher things because they were focused on the materialism to be found in the fleshpots of Egypt.

Yaakov's oath to Yosef created the first breach with Pharaoh, a breach that likely set the pace for the distrust, hostility and outright anti-semitism that paved the way for slavery and genocide. Yet despite Yosef's latter attempts to repair by distancing himself from his brothers, he could not maintain this distance against their heartfelt pleas. Yaakov's oath to Yosef, as Eliezer's oath to Avraham, served as a fundamental reminder of national identity.

On his deathbed Yaakov surveyed the future of his sons not only as men but as nations, each one set to go forth and build a nation that would both rise and fall and be rich in triumphs and defeats. Yaakov saw it all, from slavery to exodus, from the conquest to the exile, from victory to holocaust and from the chains of Egypt to the coming of the Messiah and blessed each and every one of them before he died with the future that G-d had bequeathed to him unfolding all around him.

Cairo, September 1st, 2006

Outside traffic noises blare mingling with the cries and shouts of merchants and drivers. A humid muggy stench rises from the street, the smell of factory pollution mingled with gasoline, oil, steaming piles of refuse, dung and broiling meat.

On a rickety wooden table are a great pile of books. Abdul Hamid who in his days of living in Paris had called himself Pierre, sits leafing through them one by one.

"Well," the other man prompts him. Unlike Abdul he is lean with the cold predatory eyes of a fanatic on a perpetual rampage. His name is Sheikh Salafah and he is a leading instructor at Al-Azhar University.

"It can be done," Abdul says breaking his reverie. For a moment the books had taken him back to his student days in Paris, the cafes, the boat rides, the women. All gone now. "Yes," he repeats, "it can be done."

"It must be done!" Sheikh Salafah says. "As the triumph of Islam approaches that victory must be complete even over the infidel Western literature. As we destroy or convert the bodies of the Western infidels, so too we must convert their literature making it Islamic."

Abdul nods putting down the copy of Victor Hugo's 'Les Miserables.' "I will begin immediately he says.


Cairo, October 12th 2006

"And so Peter Rabbit came hopping, hopping down the bunny trail. He hopped, hopped full of fury at the Zionist oppressor which had overtaken his homeland, planted settlements on his meadows and demeaned his women. Hop, hop, Peter Rabbit hopped until he reached a Zionist city and proclaiming in a loud voice, 'Allah Akbar' detonated the Semtex belt around his fluffy tail killing many of the Zionist enemy as he ascended to bunny paradise where bunny virgins would feed him grapes and give him all manners of pleasure. Allah is great. Peace be upon him."

Abdul put down the manuscript and Sheikh Salafah nodded approvingly.

"And what of this Snow White and Cinderella?" the Sheikh asked.

"They are beheaded by their fathers for disobeying their stepmothers," Abdul said. "Gretel starves to death in the forest. Hans manages to redeem himself by blowing himself up in front of the White House. Christopher Robin and Pooh drive piglet away from the Hundred Acre Wood because she is a disgusting unclean animal where she dies soon and everyone rejoices that her uncleanliness has been purged from their midst."

"Excellent, excellent," Sheikh Salafah said, steeping his bony fingers under his chin. "The children must learn proper Islamic values from an early age. And what of the larger adult novels?"

"Robinson Crusoe is stranded on an island when his ship is attacked by an American fighter plane. There on the island he repents and embraces Allah and then encounters a friendly Arab slaver ship which returns him home where he opens a mosque and begins teaching of the wonders of Islam."

Outside car horns blared. Winter was coming but it would not be felt for some time in Cairo yet.

"The three Musketeers die valiantly together storming Jerusalem together with Saladin against the Crusaders. Captain Nemo is the son of a Palestinian whose father was murdered by Israelis and preys on American vessels carrying arms to Israel. Ben Hur's new name is Ibn Hur and he aids the Palestinians in the recapture of their land under the leadership of Al-Yasoos against the evil Jews who have stolen it from them."

"You are truly doing Allah's work," Sheikh Salafah says approvingly. "What will your next project be?"

"Pride and Prejudice," Abdul says. Outside the noise grows.


Cairo, November 16th 2006

"Elizabeth watched Mr. Darcy approach modestly from underneath her Niqab. She had nothing to say to him for it was not proper for a woman to speak. As her father's third wife scurried into the kitchen limping. Clearly her father had found it exceedingly necessary to beat her forewtith again. Sally was young. She had been become her father's third wife at only eleven years of age and had yet to properly adjust to the household or her marital duties but Elizabeth was confident she would be broken in soon enough. Daily Lizzie studied the Quran with her teaching her the words of Allah's Prophet (pbuh) who teaches that women are inferiors who must be subservient to their husbands.

Mr. Darcy's carriage comes to a halt by the carriage house and he dismounts, his long beard brushing against his fine coat. His two wives follow behind him bending their eyes obediently to the earth. Such is proper for a woman to do. Elizabeth with her own eyes on the ground somberly watched his boots grow nearer to her. He had only two wives and perhaps if he was lucky he would choose her as his third."

Abdul finished reading and once again Sheikh Salafah nodded approvingly.

"It is crucial to teach their whores, that is their women proper values and manners," the Sheikh said. "There will be a bonus for you for this body of work."

"I do it but for Allah," Abdul said, while inwardly contemplating what he would do with the bonus. A satellite dish was appealing. Many of his neighbors had them already and it would allow him access to the uncensored channels and programming of the decadent west.

"Indeed," the Sheikh said. "There are many working on this project but you are among our best. What we are striving for is not to merely make Arabic translations of Western workers as has been done to corrupt our youth in the past but to remake even the culture of the infidel in our own image. While the martyrs conquer their forces with bombs and our immigrants raise the flag of Islam over their cities, we conquer even their Western canon which they take so much pride in."

"Truly it is a master stroke, a victory for Islam," Abdul agreed. Somewhere in his mind he heard the cafe music playing again, the gaily laughing Parisian students playing instruments in the corner.

"A great victory, do not underestimate it," Sheikh Salafah said, leaning forward, his eyes so earnest they verged on madness. "Islam's empire is not merely one of armies and territories. As the West is showing to us now, such empires quickly totter and fall without a culture behind them. The culture of Islam will create an empire that is utterly absolute in which every vestige and detail of life is completely and thoroughly subjected to Islam. In which not only will nothing remain or survive that is in disagreement with Islam but in which every word, every book, every song, even thought will serve Islam or be eradicated.

"This is a war. Not merely a war against men but a war against ideas. The cartoons of our Prophet showed them that we would not tolerate their so-called freedom of speech when that speech is against Islam. Soon we will show them that we will not tolerate any speech that is not actively for Islam and as the Prophet predicted they will bow their necks to our boot."

Abdul bowed his head humbly in the face of the Sheikh's vision trying to drown out the merry cafe music playing somewhere in the dim recesses of his memories. The Sheikh stood to go wearily leaning on his cane.

"What is your next project?" The Sheikh asked, as he stood at the door waiting for the young boy whose shoulder he would lean on to come. There were rumors that the Sheikh used that young boy for other things as well but no devout Muslim would credit such rumors of course.

"Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage," Abdul said quickly.

The Sheikh frowned. "A good title. It speaks of submission. Is it already about Islam?"

"No," Abdul said, "but it will be."

Outside the darkness grew and the music died.

Re: Pinocchio and friends converted to Islam

The current phase of the struggle between the Muslim World and the West began as a clash of civilizations. That clash itself however is driven by a more subtle and yet overwhelmingly destructive problem, the demographics of Muslim nations.

The demographic problem of Islam is the product of Western medicine, Western agriculture and Western charity propping up the Muslim birth rate. Under normal conditions a culture's ability to expand its population is controlled by factors such as infant mortality rates, food supply and resources. The Muslim world has benefited from Western revolutions in agriculture and medicine along with Western social welfare allowing for an uncontrolled birth rate.

People often wonder why Palestinian Arabs live in such misery and the usual answer given involves Israeli oppression. The real answer is that Palestinian Arabs have access to Israeli medicine and agriculture without possessing a society or culture mature enough to deal with their benefits. The result is a population in a state of uncontrolled demographic expansion. As much as half the Palestinian Arab population is under 14 while living in a society which is incapable of providing for them.

Israeli hospitals and food along with Western aid prevent the inevitable famine and mass death, but that only builds up the pressure of a ballooning population dependent on the charity of others and devoid of any useful function. The picture looks nearly as bad across the Muslim world. Iran has its own demographic population explosion which is driving its own expansionism, while Egypt faces a swelling population and swelling poverty, driving the popularity of the Muslim brotherhood.

The well meaning Western aims for the Muslim world ran into the law of unintended consequences, because not only does the Muslim world suffer from a growth spurt but much of that growth spurt is single sex. Sex screening via ultrasound machines before birth in the areas that have access to them and infanticide and honor killings in the areas that don't have them, repeatedly target girls... creating an even greater surplus of males. Combine that with the propensity for older men to marry younger women and wealthier men marrying multiple wives, not only does the Muslim world have a population boom but that population boom quickly becomes a population of angry and dissatisfied young men. A population that has to be burned off somehow.

The engine of Islamist Jihad is that surplus of young men. Most Arab Muslim societies are static and slow to adapt to changing times. That means far fewer conventional opportunities for the newest generation of men which leads them naturally into armed gangs, militias, terrorist organization and madrassas. The dissatisfied populations of the Muslim world cannot be appeased with democracy or foreign policy changes. Their core problem is that they are members of societies incapable of coping with their own problems. Instead of addressing those problems, the Arab Muslim world exports them through immigration.

Immigration allows the Muslim world to unburden itself of a dangerous surplus male population. Those same males move on to Europe, America and Australia and become those countries problems. To compensate for the shortfall of Muslim women, they marry Western women. They send money back to the home country and support Jihad in their home countries, either financially or by actively enlisting in terrorist cells. This neatly exports the Jihad from Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia to the West and makes it our problem.

The simpleminded answers offered by everyone from Michael Moore to Ron Paul arguing that our foreign policy is to blame, ignores that terrorism is just another one in a card deck of problems generated by Muslim immigration and Islam's demographic problem. The same surplus of males that is set to destabilize China is already badly destabilizing the Middle East and the West. The difference is that where China is actively dealing with the problem, the Middle East is simply exporting it.

Islam's Demographic problem is the result of a meeting between two civilizations, with the superior civilization generously bestowing some of its humanitarian gifts on the more backward civilization without realizing the price that would be paid for it.

The Jihad, the Clash of Civilizations, the campaign of terrorism and violence that we have seen is the product of that same demographic expansion sweeping across the West and purging the way in the name of their own brand of Lebensraum, crying "Make Room. Make Room!"

As Western birth rates drop to "make room", Muslim birth rates continue rising, parasitic on the technology and charity of the West. Like a virus devouring the body that sustains it, Islam's Jihad would never survive its own success. Were that same agricultural and medical infrastructure to collapse, Muslims would wake to find themselves in a strictly Malthusian world devoid of charity or compassion in which they would have to face the consequences of their own destructiveness.

Democracy is not the solution to the Muslim world's problems, civilization is and civilization requires maturity. The West has provided the Arab Muslim world with just enough of a taste of civilization to infuriate it and to cause a variety of social and political problems. Democracy in the Muslim world just turns the violence, the irresponsibility and the frustration into the electoral platforms of Islamist parties. Civilization is what is needed, but a people must choose civilization, they must choose to grow and learn. Instead the Jihad is the Muslim world's reply to the West's offer of civilization.

All it took was a peace conference and the nations of the world are ready to shower Abbas' government and the Palestinian Arabs with billions of dollars again. Neither a record of 15 years of lies, broken promises and terrorism nor a still ongoing campaign of terrorism has dampened their enthusiasm in the least.

As of now the United States has committed 555 million dollars, over half a billion dollars, the European Union has kicked in 650 million dollars and France alone will be giving 300 million dollars and so will Germany and England. This of course is not nearly enough for the PA which has its hand held out to the tune of 5.6 billion dollars.

Considering that the PA barely has any infrastructure, gets its power from Israel and has lost control and responsibility for the 1.5 million Arabs in Gaza leaving it with only half the population-- what exactly does Abbas need all that money for?

In 2007 the Palestinian Authority took home nearly 1.5 billion dollars from the EU. In 2007 the White House earmarked 150 million dollars in direct cash for Abbas as part of a 512 million dollar aid package. The PA's population has now shrunk by half yet its budgetary demand have only increased.

Where is all that money going? It's telling to look at the 2007 budget justification.

The budget justification said the $150 million cash transfer would help the Palestinian government avert "an immediate fiscal crisis," while $130 million more in project assistance would help create "immediate employment opportunities" An additional $40 million would be devoted to improving the administration of Palestinian ministries, $10 million would be used to provide security for experts overseeing the project assistance, $25 million is aimed at narcotics enforcement, and $25 million would be devoted to training Palestinian forces loyal to Abbas. Also, $20 million would be used to make "immediate improvements" in delivering health care at government clinics. The remaining $35 million would help refugees.

Weed out the rhetoric and the lion's share of the money is going into the same old money pit, the PA Ministries, a nepotistic network of family organizations and militias that do absolutely nothing but employ a staggering number of people.

150 million is just being given away as a blank check. Another 130 million is going into "job creation" and like all the billions advanced toward job creation is simply going to go toward Fatah's payments to the huge number of people it keeps on its payroll, including the militias attacking Israel and killing Israeli citizens. Another 40 million is being given away to the ministries directly to "improve their administration". 10 million will cover security for the American experts who will take a tour of the area because Abbas in reality controls nothing, including Fatah militias.

Back in 2006 I wrote in Where is the Palestinian Money Really Going

"Since the Palestinian government was never providing much in the way of services to begin with, actual services like electricity and water all coming from the Israeli side, the real issue is the 165,000 government workers. But why does the PA which has little in the way of an infrastructure need 165,000 government workers?

Even the largest estimates of the Palestinian population clock in at around 3 million. That's one government worker per 18 Palestinians.

42.9 percent or 1.06 million of the overall population is under 14 and so wouldn't hold down government jobs either. An additional 73,000 is over 65. Of the remainder in the 15-64 year category 676,427 are male and 644,347 female. The female half can be eliminated as women generally don't hold down jobs in the PA.

That means the actual ratio of Palestinian adult men is 676,427 to government workers at 165,000. In other words every 1 in 4 or 25 percent of Palestinian men would be government employees. On wages subsidized by America and Europe.

With the loss of Gaza, the PA's numbers have only gotten worse. Even after the Hamas takeover of Gaza, the PA's government employees figure was still set at 165,000 as of July 2nd 2007. The PA's own website however pegs the number at 200,000 back in 2006.

What that means now is that it's no longer 1 in 4 Palestinian men who are government employees. It's now as much as 1 in 2 or 50 percent of the adult Palestinian men who are government employees. If you can factor that in, it means that every other Palestinian male works for the PA. Obviously something is seriously wrong here. The 165,000 number is both inflated and so is the payroll for the PA. But in fact the The bulk of aid to the PA goes to fund government employees, many of whom likely don't even exist.

Where the money is really going is anyone's guess, but much of it does indeed go to salaries just not of civil service workers, but of the terrorist and thug militias that make up the real backbone of the PA. Much of that money goes into foreign bank accounts for leading PA figures and funds their lavish mansions and luxury automobiles.

The Washington Post lists the 5.6 billion giveaway as follows; "Seventy percent of the aid is to go for budget support, including $120 million a month to pay wages for the bloated public sector, and 30 percent is to be spent on development projects."

In other words the PA salaries are listed at 120 million dollars a month! Even if we assume that this only covers the 165,000 government employees, that's 727 dollars per employee. That is of course not the average monthly salary for a PA government employee which is somewhere in the range of 300 dollars. In fact the Guardian has claimed that 60 percent of the PA is living on a pound a day. That obviously does not include PA employees.

The PA "security forces" themselves range in the tens of thousands. The bulk of the PA's employees are really terrorists drawn from the Fatah and even the Hamas ranks. Local militias who enforce PA rule outside its base of power and Fatah loyalists in Gaza still being paid. The money being sent to the PA really consists of salary checks for an army of murderous thugs responsible for the ongoing reign of terror against both Israelis and Arabs.

The 5.6 billion covers the massive bribes and the graft that has enriched the PA leadership all throughout the years even as the PA's infrastructure has collapsed. The one true employer in the West Bank is the Palestinian Authority itself funded by foreign aid, followed closely by international relief organizations such as the UNRWA which alone employs thousands of Palestinian employees and has virtually no actual outside UNRWA employees there anymore. Whatever remains of the Palestinian economy is parasitic on these.

Like the Palestinian state, the Palestinian economy is a corrupt and bloody fiction. Its real economy is underground, it is rooted in drugs and weapons smuggling and theft, particularly car theft from Israel.

While the international community pledges billions to keep on paying the terrorists to stay loyal to Abbas, that same community is insisting that Israel dismantle the checkpoints that keep those same terrorists from murdering Israelis.

Having rearmed Fatah's terrorists with assault rifles and ammunition, poured billions into their war chest, the world is now eagerly demanding that Israel lower the gates so they can put their new toys to use.

Sometimes there is an article that frames a topic in a crystal clear lens. Barbara Kay's piece in the National Post does that when it comes to the dehumanization inherent in the liberal silence on the abuse of women by non-western cultures referring to a caste in which an Australian judge freed the rapists of a 10 year old girl.

How could any woman get it so wrong? It’s like this: Indoctrinated in multicultural feminism, Judge Bradley is a moral and cultural relativist. Any sexual aggression against her own daughter would be anathema, but the cultural values of the Other are sacrosanct, and must be respected.

Thus, that judge didn’t see a 10-year old girl. She didn’t see an individual. She saw aboriginal Others engaged in behaviours particular to their culture, and she assumed it would be wrong to impose her standards on them.

Liberalism's Fear of its Own Racism

Liberalism's greatest problem in dealing with Islam is a fear of its own racism. That racism leads to the constant campaign by liberals against any criticism of Islam, after all just as the greatest puritans are also the greatest perverts, the greatest campaigners against bigotry also tend to be the biggest bigots. Hypocrisy and self-hatred are the driving mechanisms of true fanaticism.

But the rotten heart of liberalism is its own racism and its own dehumanization of individual members of minority groups. As Barbara Kay rightly writes, the judge did not see a 10 year old girl, she saw a member of another culture. She did not see a little girl to be compassionate too, she saw an alien creature.

Liberals insist they want us to relate to Muslims as individuals, yet when Muslims do emerge as individuals and leave behind their beliefs, the way Wafa Sultan or Hirsi Ali have, liberals are desperate to look away because of their terror of individualism. When one of the Others takes on an identity is the exact moment they choose to look away.


The Status of Women Within Group Rights

And that is at the heart of the problem we face. The clash between individual rights and group rights. Individual rights are premised on the sacrosanct status of My body, My Home, My Property. Group rights are based instead on the sacrosanct status of the group's needs and identity. And the thing about group rights, is that the bigger group always wins.

Think of liberalism as a collection of Russian dolls that fit one inside the other. To liberals, a woman has rights as a member of the larger group of 'women' but a Pakistani-Canadian woman falls into a larger group that of a Muslim-Minority-Woman and as Muslims are the larger group, they take precedence over her identity as a woman.

So too similarly class trumped the rights of women in the 30's and 40's and race trumped the rights of women in the 60's and 70's. Like Jews and Gays, Liberals pretends to care about Women's Rights but primarily when it allows them to combat Conservatives. When it comes to staking out a claim for rights within Liberalism's Utopian Big Tent of Multiculturalism, they all get thrown under the wheels of the rainbow bus.



Group Rights vs Individual Rights
Liberalism's emphasis on Group Rights over Individual Rights has created a dehumanization of the individual and replaced civil rights with a caste system in which the group you belong to determines your rights. It also determines what moral values, if any, apply to you.

The Dehumanization of the Individual has paved the way for Islam's Long March through Western Civilization. When liberals create legal ghettos for Muslims, remaining silent on the abuse of women and children and even legitimizing those abuses as 'civil rights', what they are really creating are sanctuary zones for the spread of radical Islam across North America and Europe.

When the Hijab and even the Burka are treated as something positive that we must strive to understand. When the Islamic support of terrorism is treated as a grievance requiring understanding. When the hatred and bigotry inherent in the contact between Muslims and non-Muslims is either ignored or whitewashed, the way is paved for those sanctuary zones to spill over into armed warfare against the rest of society. That has already happened in France and Sweden and will continue happening all across Europe.

First up Nasrallah has been apparently been demoted by Iran's supreme leader from command over Hizbollah. This nakedly shows that Hizbollah is nothing more than an Iranian puppet and that Hizbollah's attacks on Israel are actually Iranian attacks on Israel and are a legitimate justification for Israel declaring War on Iran as Iran has committed acts of War against Israel.

Report: Nasrallah demoted by Khamenei

Some of Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah's responsibilities have been taken away by the organization's backer Iran, the pan-Arabic daily Asharq Alawsat claimed Thursday.

Reportedly, Nasrallah is no longer in control of the organization's military wing, which is now headed by Nasrallah's deputy Sheikh Na'im Kassem.

The Iranian official Asharq Alawsat cites as the one who demoted Nasrallah is none other than Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The report follows a similar report by Israeli daily Ma'ariv Wednesday, but none of the reports have been officially confirmed by Iran.

Western intelligence sources cited by Asharq reported that Teheran was furious over Nasrallah's conduct during the Second Lebanon War and that was the reasoning behind the decision to diminish Nasrallah's authority.

Sources close to Iran's Revolutionary Guards quoted an officer in the Iranian elite force as saying Kassem was chosen after he and Nasrallah had disagreements regarding the organization of Hizbullah's military wing. Khamenei's representative in Lebanon.

"Kassem isn't only Hizbullah's second-in-command but also Khamenei's representative in Lebanon and Palestine."

Hizbullah's budget in the last 18 months has been $1 billion, to compensate the organization for the losses it suffered during the war. Hizbullah's yearly Iranian budget stands on $400 million, the officer added.

Reportedly, Khamenei appointed a committee of top Revolutionary Guards commanders and entrusted them with restructuring Hizbullah's military and intelligence wings. Among the commanders in the committee is the Kuds Brigade commander Kassem Suleimani and the former head of Hizbullah's intelligence wing Imad Mughnia, who is one of the top names on the US's most wanted terrorists list

Meanwhile John Trenchard has a fascinating piece on Guess who funds the Sudanese Junta. It turns out to come from the British government itself.

So what does wee Dougie do? Well apart from his State visit to Sudan , pledging a further £6 million to support “peace” in Darfur and helping out with the Muslim Live 8 it seems that the ‘Sudanese people’ have been recieving quite a bit of cash from Gordon and Co, not as though they have noticed:

Common Humanitarian Fund Contributions- £35.0m
Contribution to ICRC and NGOs- £30.0m
Support to the humanitarian response in Chad- £6.0m
Multi-Donor Trust Fund Contributions -£17.0m
Basic Services Fund (South Sudan) -£4.0m
Capacity Building in Southern Sudan -£2.3m
Governance Support through UNDP -£5.7m
Promoting Safety, Security and Access to Justice- £4.9m
DDR/SSR -£0.12m
Support to the Darfur Peace Agreement -£1.4m
Fighting Malaria -£1.5m
Support to UNICEF on Water and Child Rights -£0.8m
Support to local recovery processes- £1.0m

Total DFID £109.72m
Africa Conflict Prevention Pool £3.6m

Total £113.32m

(Source:DFID)

Meanwhile Jihad Watch has a great piece on

Fitzgerald: Start with Shakespeare. Go from there.

Then there is the Muslim propaganda of the "aren't Muslims just like us" variety. These "Muslims-are-just-like-us" heartwarming articles are always about the same two or three things: the observance of Ramadan and then the Iftar dinner, and then Muslims "integrating" into American society, trying so hard, so very very hard if only we would let them (what utter nonsense), as in that story in The Times a week ago about "Muslim Girl Scouts" in America (all 1,500 of them, which given the Muslim population is very few). The Times journalist made certain we would be led to believe that these "scouts" are emblematic of the touching Muslim desire to be just like us, when in fact the story ignores entirely not the Girl Scout uniforms, or the Girl Scout cookies, but what those little girls are taught to believe, taught to believe as Muslims, the attitudes and tenets of Islam that arise naturally from the texts, Qur'an and Hadith and Sira.

Islam, like other ruthless totalitarian belief-systems, demands of its adherents that they be willing to sacrifice everything if need be, for the Good of Islam. And that includes the willingness to overcome what, we have been led to believe, are the natural ties that bind children and parents with ties of affection and loyalty and love. The ties may not always bind in the Infidel world, but no other faith teaches its adherents to think or behave toward relatives as Islam does

.Daled Amos rounds up a number of stories involving Terrorism and Facebook

Eric Dondero has a look at Ron Paul's hypocrisy, putting out pro-war mailers for his district while running on an anti-war platform nationally

As a constituent of Ron Paul's living in the heart of his District, I get every mailing from the Congressional office. Around election time, the mailings become more and more Pro-Military, Pro-Veterans and loaded with "Support the Troops" rhetoric. One taxpayer-funded mailing I received from Ron Paul's Congressional office last August, had headlines like "Ron Paul supports legislation to get tough on Terrorists," and "Ron Paul shows support for our Troops in Iraq." Not a single mention in the entire mailing of his opposition to the War.

Recently I was at a community function and seated next to a local beggar who usually hangs around the neighborhood with his hand out always asking for spare change. I can't say the food was particularly good but most people took it in stride, he however lashed out and began shouting that the soda was poison, the food was disgusting and the particular food that he wanted and had been promised wasn't available. Eventually after eating some more, he left angrily.

On a scale of civilizations, Islam is the beggar at the feast. The modern world has birthed an incredible wealth of technologies and products, economic prosperity, human rights and freedoms. Knowledge and communication have been expanded as never before and mankind has gone from the depths of the ocean to set foot on the surface of the moon and within a decade Mars.

Liberal dogma has it that this 'feast' is one that excludes the developing nations and takes place at their expense, but it is not. Israel and Singapore are radically different countries but they are examples of how even small countries can harness technological and commercial energies to become players in the arena. Japan rebuilt itself after the devastation of WW2, two atomic bombs and American occupation to become a technological and economic superpower. Even in the 50's when Israel was less than a decade old and poor, an Israeli university was already running a supercomputer.

Anyone can join the feast, any country genuinely committed to

1. Educating its citizens

2. Progress

(Note that I didn't even include freedom on the list, because Singapore manages to do without it. But even these two terms scare Arab Muslim countries badly enough because they make it difficult to control the population.)

When the 21st century dawned, the Arab Muslim world's response to it in 2001 was the most brutal terrorist attack on a major civilian target in history. A target specifically associated with commerce and prosperity. Since then Islam has brought a new wave of terrorism across the world from Bali to Istanbul to London to Madrid. The bloody tide is supposed to usher in a Caliphate but all it is ushering in is the growing awareness by millions of Americans and Europeans that Islam is incompatible with a 21st century civilization.

Why does the beggar get angry at the feast? It isn't because he doesn't have enough, it's because he chooses not to have enough. There are plenty of people who are deprived, but the professional beggar is an entirely separate category, he transforms his inadequacy into his identity. This is the nature of Islam.

The new Islamic identity celebrates the inadequacies of the Muslim world as virtues. Muslim men can't look at women dressed normally without wanting to rape them, this their Imams transform into a virtue and a reflection of the "immoral women". Muslims can't get along with Non-Muslims, this the Imams claims is proof that Muslims are oppressed. Muslims display intolerance for the everyday practices of the people they live among, including their wine and their pork products, their Imams claim this represents a lack of respect for Muslims rather than the other way around.

Arab Muslim tyrannies can't participate in the 21st century and rather than changing their countries, they funnel dissatisfaction into terrorism against America and Israel and blame the whole thing on "outside interference". The beggar at the feast strikes again.

Islam has made such a natural ally for the left because both reject the idea of progress as immoral. The left has chosen to embrace global warming's call for "Back to the Caves" and the Arab Muslim world is already living there. Both piggyback on 21st century technologies like the internet while furiously employing it to denounce technology and the civilization that generates it. If the left represents the disgruntled epicurean and the Islamic hordes are the barbarians at the gate, their commonality is based on a need to overturn the social, moral and political order of the nation.

The endless Western aid that pours into the Muslim world represents welfare. The Marshall Plan funded the ability of devastated nations to get back on their feet (perhaps excessively so) while the US and the UN's programs continue to pour money in to nations that cannot productively use it and that choose to remain backward. No matter what you give the beggar at the feast, he will stay angry because anger is his identity. It is in the end humiliating to be a beggar, even if one chooses it, and humiliation spawns anger. And that anger burns the keenest and must be directed outward when that humiliation is the product of your own choices.

Islam has chosen to be the beggar of the new millennium and engaged in an orgy of violence to overturn civilization and become its master, building a caliphate of ignorance on the ruins of the civilized world.

(Due to technical difficulties, the blogger known as Sultan Knish will not be able to post today. Instead for the benefit of our readers we present this week's column of Ask Imam Abdul Moderate, moderated by Imam Abdul Moderate)

Asalaam Aleikum Brothers and Sisters of the Ummah and Assorted Unclean Infidels

While certain extremists continue their attempts to present Islam as a violent religion, I Imam Abdul Moderate am dedicated to presenting the true moderate face of Islam, the religion of peace.

This week as every week we cover the grave issues presented to Muslims living in the unclean Dar Al Harb of the West where homosexuals and unclad women parade themselves on every corner and the heathen government stuffs ham sandwiches in the mouths of the devout.

I will now reply to your questions.




Dear Imam Abdul Moderate,

My daughter has lately ceased to wear her Hijab and has been seen conversing with boys. Tell me what should I do?

Manchester
Kaleak Zoombuboz


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kaleak,

You should strangle her immediately by fastening the Hijab around her neck and pulling tight until she is dead. Then you must claim a black man did it. This is the will of Allah.

Imam Abdul Moderate


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Imam Abdul Moderate,

Lately the shameless clothing of the Western women has begun filling my head with sinful thoughts. I have tried prayer and fasting and abstaining from both kite flying and chess, but it does no good. Tell me what must I do?

Los Angeles
Muhembud Zabeedoob


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Muhmbud,

It is a sin for a man to lust after infidel women. The proper solution is to abduct them all and then marry them and convert them to Islam. Then lusting after them is no longer a sin. If this is not possible, do your best to kill them. If this too is not possible complain to your local civil rights center that their clothing is a violation of your culture and demand that they cover up. Then bomb the civil rights center to put the fear of Allah in them for Islam is a religion of peace.

Also switch to dominoes. Chess is sinful.

Imam Abdul Moderate


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Dear Imam,

I am conflicted over the question of Jihad. I know that Islam is the religion of peace, so should I go to join the Mujahadeen fighting the enemy in Afghanistan, the lions fighting the blasphemous infidels in Iraq, the martyrs fighting the Zionist enemy in Fallahstin, the brave heroes beheading Buddhist teachers of idolatry in Thailand, the glorious avengers of the conquest of our lands in Madrid and the righteous brethren fighting in the Philippines, Pakistan, Detroit and Somalia.

In short Imam Abdul Moderate, there are so many Jihads and I am only one man. Life is short, tell me which one should I pick?

Leiloo Kazoomi


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Leiloo,

It used to be that finding a Jihad to fight in was difficult and took a long journey. I remember when my grandfather wanted to fight a Jihad, he had to go to Japan and it turned out there were no Muslims in Japan to fight with or against, so he had to settle for washing dishes in an infidel eatery for three years until he had the yen for passage back home to Riyadh.

Today with so many Jihads around the world it is truly a glorious time to be a Muslim. However Jihad is a serious duty for a Muslim and requires much forethought. This forethought should focus primarily on all the blue skinned demon virgins awaiting you in Paradise and how much prettier they are than your wife. Also you should preferably do Jihad while on vacation so it does not interfere with your work.

Imam Abdul Moderate


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Until next week, this is Imam Abdul Moderate with an important message for our communities. Lately we have been experiencing a problem with many good Muslim boys and girls getting into trouble by listening to rock and roll music (which is Haram), shaving their mustaches and beards and disrespecting their parents when they order them to kill their immoral and licentious sisters. We must band together as a community by encouraging and compelling our children to leave this wicked sinful path and go blow up some American soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Asalaam Aleikum, Peace Unto You

Looking over his September speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, I have to wonder where his rhetoric really diverges from Hillary Clinton's or Obama's on foreign policy. Just some choice quotes to begin with.

"Well, let me begin by saying that to say that American foreign policy needs a change in tone or attitude, or an opening up and reaching out, is obviously saying that O.J. Simpson might’ve had a bad month. This administration’s bunker mentality has been counterproductive, both at home and abroad. They’ve done a poor job of communicating and consulting with other countries, just as they have, frankly, with the American people."

Which is more of the multilateralist rhetoric we've been hearing from Democrats since Day 1. It's less clear which countries we were supposed to be communicating with and how. It's also nice to see Huckabee start out by comparing US Foreign Policy to O.J. Simpson. It's just a throwaway line but it's an ugly one and one that conservatives would have jumped all over if it had come from Obama or Edwards.

"There’s a sense in which our situation with prestige in the world in a great deal like many of us experienced as a child, growing up in a neighborhood where there was one kid, one kid who was just exceptional at everything he did. He made A’s, and never anything else; he could run faster; he could jump higher; he could throw the ball further; he never struck out..."

"Now, remember when that kid was braggadocios about it, and every time he did something exceptional he’d just rub your face in it? Now, when that was the case, what was your attitude toward that other kid in the neighborhood? What did you think about him? You were hoping that, just once, he’d strike out; maybe that he would miss the catch that would save the day, or that he would miss the easy slam dunk, or that he would just get a C on a spelling test...I know that’s an oversimplification, but I do believe that it explains, somewhat, of the situation that we face as a nation."

I don't think this even needs commenting on, it's the same ugly routine liberals have been pulling for years, teaching Americans to feel guilty about what America has accomplished and trying to package it as a down home metaphor. The United States pours a sizable amount of money into the UN and into foreign aid, into a variety of programs to aid agriculture and farming abroad, even when it competes with American agriculture. When the tsunami struck, we raised hundreds of millions for our worst enemies.

Yet in Huckabee's mind, America is the Golden Boy who deservedly needs to be taken down a peg.

Huckabee goes on into a decent recapitulation of the Muslim Brotherhood accompanied by the usual buzzwords about diversity. And then he takes a left turn into Liberalsville with a whitewashing of Islamic terrorism by blaming Europe for "persecuting" Muslims. Yes Europe which is currently bending over so far backward for Muslims that it could be a circus contortionist.

"And it’s also difficult for us, with our culture of assimilation, to understand that life for European Muslims is different from life for American Muslims. Muslims in Britain, or the Netherlands or Germany, are second-class citizens because those countries have more homogenous populations that don’t as readily integrate the insiders. Instead of melting pots, Europe has separate pots boiling over with alienation and despair. And in some countries, like France, it’s more a lack of economic integration while in others, like Britain, it’s more a lack of cultural integration. But whatever the reason, Europe is a much more fertile breeding ground for terror than even is the United States."

"Unintentionally, some of our closest allies are producing some of our clearest threats. Because of our special relationship with Britain, and all of our similarities with them, most Americans don’t realize that it’s very different to be a Muslim citizen of Britain than a Muslim citizen of the United States."

Yes, it is very different. A Muslim citizen of Britain finds it socially acceptable to call for the murder of his own government's soldiers and anyone who protests that will be arrested. A Muslim citizen in Britain can expect that banks will remove piggy banks and stores will remove hamburgers on his behalf. He can expect to build a massive mosque, to assault Jews and Sikhs and drive out native Britons from their homes. Pity the poor British Muslim.

"And we have to understand that while educated Muslims in Europe may not be materially deprived, many of them feel socially and emotionally deprived by a lack of acceptance."

What's that? It's the sound of the world's smallest violin playing for the emotionally deprived Muslims of Europe. Maybe Huckabee can airlift therapists to them?

Besides the threat of small groups of educated people launching isolated attacks, we face the danger of mass movements of the dispossessed and discontented rising up in the Islamic world and overthrowing their governments, movements like those that led to the current government in Iran, when the shah was overthrown, and the Palestinians’ election of Hamas, and then their takeover of Gaza.

The dispossessed? Are you kidding me?

My goal in the Muslim world would be to correctly calibrate a course between maintaining stability and promoting democracy... Our best challenge in the Arab and Muslim worlds is a lack of a viable, moderate alternative. On the one hand, we have existing repressive governments that stay in power by force and suppression of basic human rights; many of which we support, either with our oil money, like the Saudis, or with our foreign aid, like the Egyptians, who are our second-largest recipient. On the other hand we have radical Islamists, who are willing to fight dictators with terror tactics that moderates are too humane to use.

We can’t export democracy as if it were Coca-Cola or KFC, but we can nurture moderate forces in all over these countries where al Qaeda seeks to replace modern evil with medieval evil. This moderation may not look like, and it may not function exactly like our system; it may be more like a benevolent oligarchy; it may be more tribal than individualistic. But both for us and the people of those countries, it’ll be far better than the dictatorships than they now have or the theocracy that they would have under the radical Islamists.

How very... well moderate. But if we're not supporting the current dictatorships or the Islamic revolutions, who are these moderates whom we're going to support? No don't wait for Huckabee to answer that question in his speech, he never does.

Hello Sir, would you like to buy Mike Huckabee's foreign policy in a bag? No you can't look inside the bag to find out who these moderates are that we'll be supporting. That's a surprise for later.

Really this is fantastically meaningless, we've got a foreign policy of supporting some phantom moderates, somewhere. But luckily at least we're going to solve the oil problem under Huckabee.

These folks have had us over a barrel, literally, for way too long. Saudi Arabia funds madrassas all over the world that teach extremism. The first thing I’d like to do as president is to send Congress a comprehensive plan for energy independence, which we will achieve by the end of my second term

Okay what's this magic plan for energy independence in 6 years or so?

Now, I know there are those who will say, that’ll take 20 years. Well, I compare the lackadaisical pace of work similar to when you bring your car in for service, with the urgent, concentrated effort made when a NASCAR driver pulls up for a pit stop. We’ve got to view becoming energy independent like a pit stop, where every second counts. Not like dropping off the family station wagon for Gomer and Goober to work on when they can get around to it.

Oh spare us the hot air and the condescending down home metaphors and lay out a &%%$@ energy policy.

We need to explore, to conserve, and pursue all avenues of alternative energy, whether it’s nuclear, wind, solar, hydrogen, clean coal, ethanol, and other biomass and biodiesel.

Great. So the Huckabee energy independence plan consists of the same rhetoric we've had since the Carter administration. The only difference is that Huckabee mentioned nuclear, though I believe GW Bush has too.

So he's got an energy independence plan, minus the actual plan part (and that's the most important part of the plan, you can't have a plan without a plan) which consists of talking about "exploring" alternative energy. Of course exploring is PolitSpeak for "Let's throw a hundred million dollars in grants at it to make everyone feel better and not accomplish anything."

This is not a plan. A plan involves the specific funding and use of specific technologies. Not more tripe about solar and wind power, which is about as feasible and economical as harnessing a thousand bats to your generator and waving a broom at them to make them fly. (See I can do down home metaphors too)

The administration has quite properly said that it will not take the military option for Iran off the table. Neither would I. But if we don’t put some other options on the table, eventually the military option becomes the only viable one. Right now, we’re proceeding down only one track with Iran: armed confrontation. Nothing would make Osama bin Laden happier. He would welcome war between the United States and Iran, his two biggest enemies. I’d try to do anything that would avoid brightening bin Laden’s day.

So basically let's cut a deal with Iran to make Osama bin Laden unhappy. Lovely. Actually Al Queda has worked with Shiite terrorists. Osama Bin Laden has had documented contacts with Iran and he's on record as opposing AQI's attempts to stir up a Shiite-Sunni civil war.

In fact the 9/11 Commission Report has quite a bit on contacts between Hezbollah, Iran and Al Queda, Page 240.

While in Sudan, senior managers in al Qaeda maintained contacts with Iran and the Iranian-supported worldwide terrorist organization Hezbollah, which is based mainly in southern Lebanon and Beirut. Al Qaeda members received advice and training from Hezbollah.

Intelligence indicates the persistence of contacts between Iranian security officials and senior al Qaeda figures after bin Ladin's return to Afghanistan. Khallad [bin Attash, a high-level Al-Qaeda operative[10]] has said that Iran made a concerted effort to strengthen relations with al Qaeda after the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole, but was rebuffed because bin Ladin did not want to alienate his supporters in Saudi Arabia.

Khallad and other detainees have described the willingness of Iranian officials to facilitate the travel of al Qaeda members through Iran, on their way to and from Afghanistan. For example, Iranian border inspectors would be told not to place telltale stamps in the passports of these travelers. Such arrangements were particularly beneficial to Saudi members of al Qaeda. Our knowledge of the international travels of the al Qaeda operatives selected for the 9/11 operation remains fragmentary. But we now have evidence suggesting that 8 to 10 of the 14 Saudi "muscle" operatives traveled into or out of Iran between October 2000 and February 2001

But not to worry folks, Huckabee's got it covered

Both al Qaeda and Iran seek not just to dominate Israel, but to destroy her and to control the Palestinians. The Huckabee administration would not waver nor flinch in standing by our ally, Israel.

Yes except for the part where the Huckabee administration will waver, flinch and begin taking the diplomatic track with Iran, as he has just described. I mean let's be consistent for a moment here.

We have to be as diplomatically aggressive as we have been militarily aggressive since 9/11.

Oh boy that will scare the living daylights out of them. Maybe we can recruit France to teach us some diplomatic aggressiveness.

Normally we speak to Iran only indirectly, through the Swiss embassy in Tehran. Our recent direct negotiations about Iraq have been very narrowly focused, not very productive because we really weren’t exploring the full range of issues. We have valuable incentives to offer Iran in exchange for helping us to stabilize Iraq, not supporting the Taliban, Hamas, and Hezbollah, and abandoning their nuclear ambitions: trade and economic assistance, full diplomatic relations, and security guarantees.

Whoohoo. It worked so great with North Korea, every time we tried it, it's bound to work with Iran. Never mind the part where Iran is run by a theocracy that sees its religious duty as supporting Jihad, we'll offer them FULL DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS, security guarantees that are worthless and money, lots and lots of money, so they can do exactly what North Korea did and accelerate their nuclear program.

Man that's diplomatically aggressive.

And while there can be no rational dealings with al Qaeda, Iran is a nation-state looking for regional power. It plays the normal power politics that we do understand, and can skillfully and rightfully pursue

Yes and it isn't going to set them aside because Mike Huckabee offers them a few million in trade goods.

The wisdom of Sun-Tzu, from nearly 2,500 years ago, is relevant today: Keep your friends close; keep your enemies closer.

Yes, just don't surrender to them.

We haven’t had diplomatic relationships with Iran in almost 30 years, most of my entire adult life, and a lot of good it’s done. Putting this in human terms, all of us know that when we stop talking to a parent, or a sibling, or even a friend, it’s impossible to resolve the differences to move that relationship forward. Well, the same is true for countries. Our experience in Iraq should prove a valuable lesson for Iran.

So is Iran our parent or our brother? Well at least we know Mike Huckabee's plan is to take foreign policy advice from Dr. Phil. I bet if we just start talking to them, we'll find out we have lots in common. I mean at the end of the day, don't we all just want to conquer the world in the name of Allah and hang disobedient women?

When we first invaded Afghanistan, Iran helped us, especially in dealings with their allies, the northern alliance. They wanted to join us in fighting al Qaeda, hoping this would lead to better U.S.-Iranian relationships. The CIA and the State Department supported the partnership, but some in the White House and the Pentagon did not. And when President Bush included Iran in the axis of evil, everything went downhill pretty fast.

And now we've come circle with apologetics for Iran, blaming poor relations on American policy and the full text of Obama's foreign policy address. Thank you Mike Huckabee. If only Bush hadn't included Iran in the Axis of Evil, I bet we'd be great friends today.

As the only presidential candidate with a theology degree, along with several years of political experience, I know that theology is black and white. Politics is not.

So politics is morally relativist but theology isn't? And isn't morality involved in politics too or only theology? We should ask Al Gore, I think he was going for a degree in theology too.

Now, Musharraf claims that he agreed to our demands on September 12th 2001 under Richard Armitage’s threat to “bomb Pakistan back to the Stone Age.” Instead of making such a threat, I’d rather promise to help build them into the 21st century. If we can help meet the needs of Pakistan’s poor, they have less reason to support the religious parties.

Well I can't see anything wrong with this plan. We'll just spend lots of money on any people who might want to kill us, until they have so much money that they don't want to kill us anymore. Then we'll pat them on the heads and give them a big hug.

Oh yes Pakistan has a population of nearly 200 million, much of which is rural and poor. And all the aid we sent to Indonesia and Gaza only made them hate us more.

But in closing;

"DR. FLANAGAN:Governor Huckabee, thank you very much for what I think was, as I said, a very nuanced and comprehensive of the terrorism issue. I think you’ve set a very high standard among the candidates this year in analysis of this problem and we wish you the best of luck in the future. And I welcome you back here to CSIS at some point. Thank you."

Thank goodness the Kerry "nuance" is back. Reading this, I'm not so sure if Huckabee beat the Clinton or became the Clinton machine.