While the World Watches

Events in Egypt continue to provide the high drama that captivates the news media.  Yesterday’s events, highlighted by Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak “agreeing” to leave Cairo and turn over the reins of the government to Vice President Omar Suleiman (while retaining his Presidency) has accomplished nothing more than to fan the flames of protest.

Suleiman’s military background and his lengthy involvement as head of Egyptian intelligence services hardly serve to convince the demonstrators that their insistence on a change in regime policies will be effected.  Indeed, this most recent evasive development engineered by Egyptian leadership has exponentially increased the size and fervor of the masses clogging the streets and squares of Egypt’s major population centers.

The Associated Press reports that, “Showing deepening dismay, President Barack Obama is questioning whether Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s promised transfer of power has any credibility or meaning. As a defiant Mubarak stayed in office, Obama challenged the autocratic Egyptian government to explain its path toward democracy to its people and the world.”

As usual, Mr. Obama is losing his cool when faced with a situation in which his rhetorical pronouncements are ignored by foreign leaders motivated by their own agendas.

To be fair, I believe it is likely that nothing this President does in this instance will have much effect on foreign actions.  What he (and his Cabinet) should be doing is making preparations on how to deal with what may well be the longed-for (on the part of more dogmatic Muslim world) emergence of the new Middle East Caliphate.

The current Administration would be well-served to look closely at the example of Iran following the deposing of the Shah and the ascension of the theocratic state.  The people of Iran joined in rising against what was regarded as tyrannical rule, planning to take the first steps toward a more democratic society.  What resulted was rule under the theocracy of the ayatollahs, which set Iranian society on a backward path to a 7th-century rigid ruling structure whose current aims show clear signs of a nuclear-assisted urge to gain regional prominence.

Should Egypt wind up with a fractional coalition form of government, strongly influenced by the growing power of The Muslim Brotherhood, Iran’s opportunities for dominance could expand.

At this point, no one seems to have a handle on how this major regional disruption will turn out, least of all our State Department, the CIA (under the disastrous stewardship of the unqualified Leon Panetta), and of course the White House.

At the very least all foreign aid ($1.5 billion plus at this point to Egypt’s military alone) should be suspended.  Not as an attempt to influence the outcome of the uprising, but simply to make at least one step in preparation for what may become a long and difficult period in our relations with the Middle East.

It is not our place to dictate the outcome of Egypt’s turmoil, but this is not the time for America to show weakness.

Is Egypt on the Brink?

For the last few days the demonstrations have been spreading and the mobs growing.  Today, the U.S. government is taking steps to advise American citizens to avoid travel to that troubled country and to leave immediately if they are there for any reason.

Considering that the Muslim Brotherhood has its roots in Egypt and a number of other radical groups have flourished there, I find it difficult not to believe that the current unrest has no connections to radical Islam.  I would predict at this point that the Mubarak government will soon fall and, as in the past in countries such as Palestine, Lebanon, etc., a coalition dominated by members of radical Islamic groups will soon emerge.

What the world is presently observing is the culmination of years of careful and subtle undermining of a totalitarian regime by Islamic fundamentalist groups, who, for their own purposes, are now fanning the flames of an uprising masquerading as a democratic revolution against tyranny.  The irony is that once Mubarak is deposed a worse tyranny will be installed and the fundamentalists will add another country to the list of the conquered.

This outcome will meet little resistance from Europe, who has their own growing problems with the results of their open immigration policy toward followers of Islam, nor from the United States, whose titular head has abdicated the historic position of leader of the free world and resorted to an apologist for and a submissive attitude to the growing Islamic juggernaut.

This is not a good scenario for Middle East stability, nor for the best interests of all Western nations, but I view it as inevitable.

What Else Did You Expect?

The ferocious ineptitude and blind ideology of the Obama Department of Justice under the despicable “leadership” of Eric Holder is on brilliant display today.

Despite repeated warnings against trusting the trials of war criminals and their attacks against Americans under the auspices of jihad to civilian courts, Holder insisted upon subjecting the determination of the guilt of Ahmed Ghailani to our criminal legal system.  The results were unsurprising, considering that the banning of key witnesses and vital information by the presiding judge effectively torpedoed the prosecution’s case against this conspirator who took an active part in the mass murder of American citizens during the bombings of American embassies in 1998.

Ghailani was found not guilty on more than 280 separate charges including murder and attempted murder by the New York City jury.  The lone conviction was on a charge of conspiracy and could result in a “life sentence” – which, of course, could mean that under current legal procedures Ghailani might well serve only twenty years or less in prison.

The Holder “Department of Injustice” naturally looks at the decision as proof that the U.S. “Criminal Justice System” is more than capable of dealing with terrorism trials involving those who have committed acts of war against America.

Reality demands that we recognize Obama and his band of incompetents are incapable of defending our country against international acts of aggression and that we need to rid ourselves of this weak, corrupt and inept administration at the first available opportunity.

On a different note, I leave tomorrow for some sorely needed R&R with a longtime and deeply valued hunting buddy for a sojourn in the wilds of West Virginia.  See y’all in a week or so.

A “High Five” For Juan Williams

Mr. Williams, “Gimme five!”.

As my long-suffering wife can attest, I sometimes strongly disagree with you during your panel participation on the FOX News evening broadcasts, but the way that you have handled yourself over the panties-in-a-knot reaction by the “leadership” at National Public Radio is an exhibition of honesty and integrity that should serve as a goal for media people of all persuasions.

This past Monday, during an appearance on “The O’Reilly Factor”, you remarked that when you board an airplane and encounter people who “are in Muslim garb, and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried.  I get nervous.”.  My hat comes off to you for telling it like it is.  Rest assured that there are millions of people in America who are chiming in with, “Damn right!”.

Of course you have now been branded a “bigot” by the likes of such as The Atlantic‘s Andrew Sullivan (display that particular slur proudly, considering the source) even though your books and your commentary throughout the years certainly dispel any legitimacy that might be attached to that charge.  As you are about to discover, the pillars of political correctness can deliver shock and awe when it comes to devouring an apostate who dares to offer the truth rather than falling in line under the commissars of the Thought Police.

And I would not be too concerned about where your next paycheck might come from.  Dignity and courage in the face of adversity are very marketable qualities, as are the ability to present cogent arguments and to exhibit belief in yourself and your fellow-man.

It is refreshing to find common ground with someone who I more often than not disagree with.  But I am sure that I will find myself in the near future once again shouting at your TV image.

I frequently bemoan, as my readers have come to discover, what I consider the general demise of the principles that once made journalism a dream of mine.  NPR is certainly one of the most visibly left-leaning media outlets and now has abandoned any pretense of professional, balanced reporting.  The majority of today’s media has followed that trend and the resulting loss of viewers (ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, for instance) and readers (The New York Times, Time magazine, the now laughable, $1 “sale” of Newsweek, the descent into babble of the once interesting U.S. News & World Report) all signify a disconnection with real America and the attempts by the elite to impinge their values upon an ungrateful and resisting public.

There are still many well-written or delivered news and opinion vehicles available (not necessarily the entertainment branch provided through Talk Radio) for those who wish to be informed.  It is unfortunate that they are increasingly becoming the target of the shrill and vindictive Left and a growing number of political and special interests groups whose dream it is to see free and open speech abolished.

Good luck to you, Juan Williams.  I hope that you have reliable people to help watch your back.

Church and State: A Synthesis?

Much is made of the necessity for “separation of church and state” in this era of moral relativity and secular self-importance.  The miasma of hysteria produced by this frantic rejection of religious societal influence has obscured the validity of the relationship between the two entities and the dependence each has on the other.

This antagonistic perception seems curiously limited to Christianity, perhaps because of the freedoms practiced (to varying degrees) throughout Western (and predominantly Christian) societies.  Islam, for instance, integrates religion with all aspects of life;  moral, political, legal and societal, e.g. the implementation of sharia law under which all citizens of the caliphate must live no matter what their religious views.  Many of the Eastern cultures, although often caustic in their views of government, seem willing to regard religion as a moral guide from which government is understood to be separate.

America’s early immigrants came from European nations that at the time were under strong religious influence.  Indeed, some of these first visitors came in search of religious freedom.  As the nation grew, its governmental structure was solidified by leaders whose cultural background reflected European legal and religious tenants.

David VanDrunen, an attorney and also a theologian at California’s Westminster Seminary, carefully examines the relationship between religion and state in his book, Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms; A study in the Development of Reformed Social Thought (Erdmans, 512 pp.).

In Mr. VanDrunen’s view, God rules all human institutions and activities, but in two different ways.  God rules the spiritual kingdom expressed in the church as “redeemer in Jesus Christ”, but rules the civil kingdom (in the form of the state and all other social institutions) not as redeemer, but “as creator and sustainer” – thus providing guidance for the two separate “kingdoms”.

These two kingdoms,  Mr.VanDrunen explains, “exist for different purposes, have different functions, and operate according to different rules” and Christian engagement with the civil kingdom needs take those differences into account.  For example, he says, citizens of the spiritual kingdom, as believers, submit to “the redemptive ethic of the Scripture”.  But as citizens of the civil kingdom they can “engage in genuine moral conversation with those of other faiths … without making adherence to Scripture a test for participating in cultural affairs” while still having a “keen interest in promoting the welfare of the human society here and now”.

Augustine, while writing The City of God, refused to commend to believers a conception of the Christian life that entailed pursuit of a theocratic state – in the modern vernacular, a culture transformed.

In another book, The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World (Oxford, 368 pp.), author James Davison Hunter focuses upon the America of the past 60 years and advises individuals and organizations intent on redeeming the culture, building the kingdom, transforming the world or changing the world by employing religious arguments that their prospects are somewhat limited.  He rejects the concept that by changing the minds of enough ordinary people you can thereby change the culture, concluding that “the Christian community is not, on the whole, remotely close to a position where it could actually change the world in any significant way”.

World or nation changing, Hunter insists, requires the use of power and that in turn means political domination – an outcome decided through electing appropriate candidates who will pass laws, alter policies and eventually result in the transforming of society.

What Hunter has denigrated is the role (or lack of) that moral and ethical standards play in the forming and adjustment of societal permutations.  Also overlooked is the role that elitists and other members of the Ruling Class play in policy generation and implementation.

The insistence that Church and State be “separated” is useful only as a smoke screen, since the two entities have been interdependent throughout history and hopefully will continue as such.  They support each other, in a healthy society, sustaining freedom as long as they are complicit in their acceptance of a moral, legal and ethical code.

The problems truly are immense when morality, religion, philosophy, education and legal procedures are all under control of one central power ……. the Ruling Class.

Thus is freedom destroyed.

A Painful Anniversery

Via live coverage, I watched the second airliner fly into the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001 and, like many others, stayed glued to the television for hours afterward.  I have sparse motivation to spend a lot of time reliving that day of horror this coming Saturday even though the vultures of the media had begun their attention-drawing spiral earlier in the week.

That does not mean that I intend to disregard the event or ignore the strong feelings that it still engenders, nor am I willing to overlook the culture that nourished and directed its perpetrators.  Far from it.

I don’t plan on burning any holy books, or defacing any mosques, or confronting any Muslims.  My anger over the murderous attacks is deep, unrelenting, and icy.  I will never forget …. or forgive.

I have overheard people wondering why an obscure, backwoods preacher has suddenly gathered such overwhelming attention, garnering responses from the President, the Secretary of Defense, combat commanders and on down the line.  Obviously, the media is mostly to blame with its overwhelming coverage of what should be dismissed as a non event generated by a certified oddball.  Unfortunately the responses from figureheads who should know better bestows credibility on a publicity-seeking eccentric who “administers” to an infinitesimal congregation and provides assistance to the rabble rousers who easily inflame the mindless, savage elements of Islam who respond to their imprecations.  Our current leadership structure is all too willing to kowtow in appeasement when confronted by those who have learned to take full advantage of any situation that might provide the opportunity to scurry under the umbrella of “political correctness”.

The imam Feisal Abdul Rauf publicly threatens America as he promises an international outpouring of Muslim rage if his organization is not allowed to build a “cultural center” (including a mosque that will provide prayer services for thousands) within two blocks of “Ground Zero”.  This, from an imam who is touted by the apologists of the elite Ruling Class as a “bridge between Islam and the West”.  To me, such a promise of violence and intolerance hardly supports the vision of a “peaceful” Islam.  And this from a man who owes much of his prestige and lavish life style to the unfettered opportunities provided to him by his long residence here in the United States.

There is, by the way, already an “Islamic Culture Center of New York”, completed in 1991 after twenty-five years of construction and the brainchild of imam Rauf’s father.  So why the insistence on a second such structure so close to “Ground Zero”?  One can only imagine the reaction if a section of say, Tehran, Baghdad, or Mecca was obliterated by an American suicide squad in the name of Christianity and then the Catholic Church insisted on constructing a Christian “Outreach Center” and cathedral next to the ruins.

The only recent voices of reason that stand out are those of New York Governor Patterson and now Donald Trump (who has offered to buy the property in question from the Cordoba Initiative at a huge margin of profit for its owners).  It is indicative of the true motivations of the backers of the project that these attempts to find middle ground have been rejected.

In case no one has noticed, the followers of Islam are being reinforced daily in their perception of America as weak, foolish, and an easy target for the advancement of Islam towards its goal of becoming the world’s dominant religious and societal overlord.  Islam, in the view of its followers, is a complete way of life (religious, legal and societal) and Muslims are God’s chosen people and destined to rule the world.  We ignore this at our peril.

The wakeup call of 9/11/2001, for a disturbing number of our citizens, has lost its potency.

A Trace Of Common Sense

“Their PR people are better than ours”.

I overheard this little pearl of wisdom expressed by a very well-known country music performer during a network interview this morning and it made me smile.

He was reacting to someone asking him what he thought about the hot topic of the week; the Cordoba Initiative.  His point was that no matter what was decided about building a mosque/Community Center/”bringing us together” monument, the United States would be on the losing side.  If the project is approved and carried out, the Muslim world will be buoyed by another victory over the weak and vacillating infidel.  If the project is denied, then America will face months, if not years, of frenzied accusations of hatred against Muslims, “civil rights” violations, racism, and what ever else the liberal mainstream media and the appeasers can construct.  Even if the planners agree to offers of an alternative site for the project, they will be hailed for masterful negotiation and a victory for the righteous.

Normally, I reject or simply overlook the downright idiotic proclamations issued by some celebrity simpletons who have little or no contact with the real world and have trouble tying their own shoes without the assistance of a bevy of sycophants and hangers’ on, but this guy got me thinking.

If by now you can not understand that we are being manipulated by a crafty, remorseless, indefatigable enemy who has recognized the best ways to use the underpinnings of our society against us ….. well, I suggest that you begin to seriously consider moving to Islamic nation in the Middle East so that you can get used to living under sharia law.

America is one of the Western countries that has welcomed those who flee the tyranny of despots who employ the repression and rigidity of fundamentalist Islamic interpretation to provide a launching pad for their jihad against what they view as decadence and corruption to be sought out, conquered, and brought under Muslim control.  Europe has long been a destination for these defectors, and is now ruefully discovering that the freedom so graciously offered is derided and spurned by the very refugees who sought it and who now insist on being allowed to replicate the sixth-century theocracies that they so eagerly abandoned.

Europe has been successfully invaded, the underpinnings of its civil societies undermined and eroded to the point where some areas have actually allowed the implementation of sharia law.  Now it is our turn.  For the expansionist-minded Muslim, our greatest strengths, such as the rule of law, our Constitution and the freedoms that it contains, and the civil compacts that anchor our society, provide the appreciable means of our downfall.

You don’t think that we are being manipulated?  You are willing to put the “rights” of other cultures before our own?  You are committed to “equality” rather than American exceptionalism?  You and the Obama folks seem to share the same pew (pun intended).

Looks like the PR people for the “9/11 Mosque” organization may indeed be better than ours.  And that is a damn shame.

Behind The Mask Of “The Ground Zero Mosque”

In a recent contribution to Victor Davis Hanson’s Private Papers website, Raymond Ibrahim questions the stated aims of the “Cordoba Initiative” in their proposal to build a  multi-million dollar mosque atop Ground Zero and the ruins remaining from the 9/11 attack.  The man reportedly behind this plan, Feisal Abdul Rauf, seems to have garnered support from many sources (“useful idiots” such as NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg for instance), although the financing for this massive project is a subject clouded in secrecy.

Supposedly, according to the Cordoba Initiative’s mission statement, the project is intended to “achieve a tipping point in Muslim-West relations within the next decade, bringing back the atmosphere of interfaith tolerance and respect that we have longed for since Muslims, Christians and Jews lived together in harmony and prosperity eight hundred years ago”.  The Andalusian city of Cordoba has long been utilized by those who would promote Islam as a “religion of peace”, as a “model of medieval Muslim progressiveness and tolerance for Christians and Jews”, an opportunity for “healing”, and the source for a new beginning between Muslims and Americans and the building of an interfaith dialogue.

For those with short memories, over 3,000 Americans died as the result of Osama bin Laden’s plan to implement his version of “justice” from a Sharia viewpoint: “Battle, animosity, and hatred – directed from the Muslim to the infidel – is the foundation of our religion.  And we consider this a justice and kindness to them.The West perceives fighting, enmity, and hatred all for the sake of the religion (i.e., Islam) as unjust, hostile, and evil.  But who’s understanding is right – our notions of justice and righteousness, or theirs?” ( Al Qaeda Reader, p. 43).

Picturing the city of Cordoba as a font of rapprochement, tolerance, and good will is as inaccurate as are many of Barack Obama’s attempts to glorify Muslim contributions to the world.

For example, Mr. Ibrahim reports that the so-called “tolerant” era of Cordoba is believed to have occurred well over one thousand years ago during the caliphate of ‘Abd al-Rahman III (912-961), rather than the claimed “eight hundred years ago” when the city was instead being ravaged by the ideological predecessors of al Qaeda, the fanatical Almohids.

He goes on to describe the history of not only Cordoba, but all of Andalusia, in a different light from what “Western academics” generally offer: “The Christian city was conquered by Muslims around 711, its inhabitants slaughtered or enslaved.  The original mosque of Cordoba – the namesake of the Ground Zero mosque – was built atop, and partly from the materials of, a Christian church.  Modern day Muslims are well aware of all this.  Such is the true – and ominous – legacy of Cordoba.”

Mr. Ibrahim then points out that, “throughout Islam’s history, whenever a region was conquered, one of the first signs of consolidation was/is the erection of a mosque atop the sacred sites of the vanquished: the pagan Ka’ba temple in Arabia was converted into Islam’s holiest site, the mosque of Mecca; the al-Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third holiest site was built atop Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem’ the Umayyad mosque was built atop the Church of St. John the Baptist; and the Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque upon the conquest of Constantinople”.

Cordoba’s conquest signified the first time a truly “Western” region was conquered by the sword of Islam and the city was then used as a base to launch attacks into Europe.  So much for the “peaceful” nature of Islam.

Should the new mosque in New York City indeed be built and opened as scheduled on 9/11/2011 (the 10-year anniversary of the worst attack ever on American soil) it would be wise to consider the choosing of that particular date.  “9/11/01″ might easily be linked with Koranic verse 9:111 which exhorts believers to “kill or be killed” in the name of suicidal jihad, and that connection particularly formed in the minds of the fanatics who engineered and carried out that despicable act.

It is equally important to remember that, as Mr. Ibrahim describes, there is a “dual significance of the Cordoba Initiative: What appears to many Americans as a gesture of peace and interfaith dialogue, is to Muslims allusive of Islamist conquest and consolidation; mosques, which Americans assume are Muslim counterparts to Christian churches – that is, places where altruistic Muslims congregate and pray for world peace and harmony – are symbols of domination and centers of radicalization; the numbers of the opening date, 9/11/11, appear to Americans as commemorative of a new beginning, whereas the Koranic significance of those numbers is suicidal jihad.”

For those such as Mr. Obama, who delight in revisionist history, for those who choose to remain defiantly unaware of Islam’s bloody trail of conquest and subjugation over many centuries, for the appeasers and political creatures such as Mayor Bloomberg, the rush to embrace this “peace-offering” entails political correctness at its most thoughtless and foolish.

For some other Americans, and I include myself, the “Cordoba Initiative” is a rank insult that presupposes our ignorance, avarice, and stupidity while slowly paving the path to conquest.