The Bush administration and it's minions have been a huge disapointment when it comes to dealing or identifying our Islamic enemy. Their failure to recognize how the Islamist factor continues to drive and motivate the Palestinian Terror Machine will result on more pressure on Israel to make concessions that will never be reciprocated and will only result in greater risk for the citizens of the only civilized country in the Middle East.

Israel doesn't help things as they continue to elect Leftist idiots who cling to equally moronic assumptions that you can make a lasting peace with barbarians who want you dead. You would think after all that's happened people in Israel would be wiser.

Posted by: Proud Infidel at December 12, 2007 12:30 PM

Here's the Dry Bones cartoon of the same subject:

Posted by: Tziona at December 12, 2007 12:31 PM

the URL didn't come through, here's another go:

http://drybonesblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/like-white-on-rice.html

Posted by: Tziona at December 12, 2007 12:33 PM

If she was white, she would be gone long ago.

Rice is everything that is wrong with affirmative action, political correctness and a weak presidency, a guy who may know something about oil business in Texas, but nothing about history, geography or Islamic jihad.

We are in deep s#*t: the anti-jihad movement nipped in the butt by king lizard, France selling nuclear power (make that nukes) to the Arabs, Islamic infiltration continues unhindered and we worry about 'global warming' - which is an euphemism for the greatest transfer of wealth from developed countries to 3rd world s#*t holes who destroy their environment if we don't pay them to stop slash and burn.

We are insane!

If I would tell you how I really feel it would get me banned from my own blog, let alone this one.

Posted by: sheik yer'mami at December 12, 2007 12:47 PM

I wish Israel would tell her to kiss off because that woman is a disgrace. She has to be one of the 5 worst Secretaries of State ever.

Posted by: ISLAMSFORLOSERS at December 12, 2007 12:59 PM

The Bush administration and it's minions have been a huge disapointment when it comes to dealing or identifying our Islamic enemy. Their failure to recognize how the Islamist factor continues to drive and motivate the Palestinian Terror Machine will result on more pressure on Israel to make concessions that will never be reciprocated and will only result in greater risk for the citizens of the only civilized country in the Middle East

Like all of their predecessors since 1948, the Bush administration has failed to learn the real reason behind that "Palestinian Terror Machine", which is Israel's very existence. The Palestinian leaders will never be placated by Israeli concessions. What they want, and have wanted since Israel came into being, is Israel's destruction. As Yasser Arafat said in 1974, ten days before addressing the U.N.:

"We shall never stop (killing Jews) until we can go back home and Israel is destroyed. The goal of our struggle is the end of Israel and there can be no compromise or mediations. We do not want peace we want victory. Peace for us means Israel's destruction, and nothing else." (emphasis added)

Bush, Rice, and everyone else in the State Department need to study Arafat's words.

Posted by: Bigfoot at December 12, 2007 1:01 PM

If the Israel Lobby was so powerful, how could someone who has made such ignorant remarks as Ms. Rice has, still retain their job?
Setting aside malice aforethought, the idea that establishing checkpoints to prevent terrorist infiltration is analogous to Jim Crow is not just stupid, but it also defames our own troops who do the same thing for the same reason in Iraq and Afghanistan.
There was also a good article by Caroline Glick in jpost.com on how Condi tried to get Ethiopia from fighting the jihadis in Somalia, despite the obvious incapacity of African Union troops.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1196847304436&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
She has done a great deal to undermine our allies. I blame Bush, howvever, who has demonstrated his limitations by his poor appointments.

Posted by: jewdog at December 12, 2007 1:04 PM

In the first couple of years of the Bush Administration, Bush himself was very good on the need for Palestinian terror to end completely. He himself endorsed a Palestinian state on the explicitly stated conditions that it had to be democratic and peaceful, otherwise no go. Many supporters of Israel's right to exist, both Jewish and non-Jewish, referred to him as just about the best friend Israel ever had. That's pretty much gone now. Seems Bush has slipped back into the typical desperate-to-placate-the Arabs mode that previous Presidents also fell for. Rice's recent unfortunate comments are a further indication of all this.

More inexplicably, it seems many Israeli politicians have also learned nothing, perhaps less than nothing. I don't get Olmert. The only possible and somewhat sane explanation for what he's doing is that he's calculated that stalling is itself a strategy. If so, then strategy has morphed into tactics, which is hardly strategy at all. Besides, he really does seem to want to give land away and that's not going to accomplish anything but to make Israel more vulnerable and its many enemies more emboldened.

Perhaps everyone is just worn down by Arab/Muslim intrasigence. Perhaps that's exactly what the Arabs want. As more than one Israeli I've spoken to over the years has told me, there is time and then there is Arab time. Since the Arab world has produced precious little for centuries, what is it to Arabs to continue to wallow in their own self-created, dysfunctional, non-productive world? They may reason (if you can dignify it with that term) that since they can't pick themselves up, why not pull everyone else down and do so by attrition over generations. What's ironic here is that the Arabs, fellow Muslims and much of the rest of the world take the line that Arabs have been treated too harshly. The exact opposite is the reality. The Arabs have been indulged, coddled, exculpated, carressed and, worst of all, treated as though they're the equals of others when in fact they are the most self-pitying, vengeful and destructive major people on the planet. In short, they need a major kick in the ass. Think that will happen? I don't see it coming. Too bad.

Posted by: Wellington at December 12, 2007 1:04 PM

Wellington,
I think the reason Bush has slipped back into the old mindless accomodation mode is that he (and most of our governemt officials) never really learned the essentials of Islam and the Jihad ideology. That led to unrealistic policies that proved futile. Rather than go back and figure it all out, we're now going to make new mistakes in more conventional ways. It's the lack-of-learning curve.

Posted by: jewdog at December 12, 2007 1:23 PM

jewdog: I think you're probably right. Question is, what government officials do know Islam well, are capable all around and are prepared to do something about it? Pretty slim pickins' out there, I'd say. Mighty slim.

Posted by: Wellington at December 12, 2007 1:42 PM

I think the real reason Bush has made such a political U-turn in his foreign policies is because of the demands made on him by his CAMPAIGN DONORS.

Bush's real problem from the onset of his first term has been and continues to be that he is owned and manipulated by the corporate sources of his campaign finances. Most people tend to see this presidency as an instrument of evil that operates on its own caprices but nothing could be further from the truth (at least on the second count anyway).

In this case, corporate America sees dollar signs in "emerging markets" in the Muslim nations and wishes to capture its share of the goodies. Corporate America would be unable to do this by taking a pro-Israel position and in all likelihood pressed the Bush boatload of dhimmiwits (behind closed doors and out of our view) into doing this. So, voila! Bush becomes (all of a sudden) pro-Islam, anti-Israel, and backs down on most, if not all, of his administration's anti-jihad policies.

Hark! I, alas, hear the quackings of a lame duck presidency.

Posted by: pythagoras at December 12, 2007 1:45 PM

I hope Ms Rice likes the new Anti-Semite label. She should wear an Israeli flag lapel pin with the red circle and slash superimposed.

Posted by: Pelayo at December 12, 2007 1:45 PM

We're all against deporation based on religion unless it's Jews as part of the peace process.

Aren't we progressive?

Posted by: Beagle at December 12, 2007 1:47 PM

A new study projects that there will be no Christians left in the PA jurisdictions by 2015. With Condi's help, maybe they can add Jews to the list.

Posted by: jewdog at December 12, 2007 2:00 PM

"More inexplicably, it seems many Israeli politicians have also learned nothing, perhaps less than nothing. I don't get Olmert."
-- from a posting above

He's a dope. He's also very likely corrupt. And the corruption comes, as so often in Israel, from the fact that Israeli political figures are paid so poorly, but do make friends among those deep-pocked "Friends of Israel" who, living safely abroad, and having even less understanding of the situation than the muddle-headed Israelis, who have managed to avoid thinking seriously about Islam, and what it means for their survival, or a strategy that makes sense, to make that survival more rather than less likely. Take Olmert's friend Daniel Abraham, for example. Oh, like so many "Friends of Israel," it is enough for him to be a "Friend of Israel" even if he knows nothing about Islam, and furthermore doesn't know the legal, moral, and historic claims of the Jews to the land they currently possess (including the "West Bank"), has not studied the Mandate for Palestine or what lay behind it, knows nothing of the demographic and cadastral records for that area under the Ottomans, has not a clue about what a "dhimmi" is or how many Jews endured that status, under Muslim rule, in the Middle East and North Africa. In short, merely a successful businessman who, being Jewish, and being, as he sees it, "pro-Israel," presumes to have opinions, and with his money, buys himself entree into the ruling circles of Israel. In this case, it happpens to be Olmert. It is difficult for Israel's mostly mediocre leaders, living in a land where Robert Frost's definition of a "liberal" as someone "who takes the other fellow's side in a quarrel" applies to so many, except that the "quarrel" in question is not merely some dispute over a cow pasture or what a stone wall demarcates between two hardscrabble farms in Coos County (pardon the absence of the diacritical mark over the second "o"), but rather Israel's very survival.

And the failure of Israel's leaders to know or make their case, and their even greater failure to understand the Islam that explains the relentlessness, and the never-to-be-assuaged permanence of what is not, and never was, a "quarrel" about the "legimiate rights" of the (recently-invented) "Palestinian people" but, rather, about whether that tiny Infidel nation-state is going to survive, which requires not the impossible -- a change in the worldview that Islam inculcates -- but the entirely possible, a situation in which Israel's military superiority is maintained, and so clearly that the surrounding rulers have an excuse not to make open war, and meanwhile Israel, along with the rest of the West, recognizing the demographic conquest from within, acts to halt and reverse it -- which can be done.

And if Israel elects leaders who discuss the texts and tenets of Islam openly, and how they relate (how, for god's sake, the Treaty of Al-Hudaibiyya relates to all treaty-making between Israel and any Muslim Arabs), that will encourage those in Western Europe to do likewise.

And, of course, vice-versa.

The people of Western Europe, subjected almost non-stop to anti-Israel propaganda -- the kind of thing that innocent listeners are fed, in the daily poisonous drip-drip-drip that omes from the BBC (Orla Guerin! Barbara Plett! Lyse Doucet! and a cast of hundreds!), The Guardian, Robert Fisk wherever he manages to place his nasty mythomanic stuff, Le Monde (especially in the days of Eric Rouleau, as long as Peroncel-Hugoz was kept muffled), Agence France-Presse, and in so many other places, in so many other countries, where those who needed an acceptable outlet for their....peculiar pathology found it, and then some.

Posted by: Hugh at December 12, 2007 2:10 PM

Fact–there are NO “indigenous” people, known as the “Palestinian’s”
Fact–there is NO “indigenous” language known as “Palestinian”

A little history to back up these facts! The British coined this term ‘Palestinian’ to mean “all the native inhabitants of Palestine” existing there, during the mandate period of 1918 to 1948, whether these individuals religion were Christian, Judaism or Islam.

The English word “Palestine” is derived from the Hebrew word Philistia, meaning “foreign invader” as written in the Torah and the Hebrew Bible ‘Book of Genesis’ which indicates these people were in the area roughly 1200 BC.

In Arabic, Filasteen (فلسطين) has been the name of the region since the earliest medieval Arab geographers (1200AD) an, adopted from the then-current Greek term Palaestina (Παλαιστινη), first used by Herodotus, itself derived ultimately from the name of the Philistines in about 450BC.

Fact–the “Zionist” “did not ethically cleanse the land” As has been asserted by ignorants.

History, to back-up these facts!
“The Zionist” were a group of Socialist Jews who started purchasing wasted lands from the Ottoman Empire starting about 1882. They sought to create a Jewish community in their native homeland and by 1913 (pre-World War I) had amassed more that 90% of what is today Israel.
In some cases they paid much more for the land than it was worth. In two separate documents, the Ottoman’s Vilayets and the Sanjak of Jerusalem, the general condition of the land is described as “empty,” a “place of ruin” and a place of “desolation”.

After World War I, the British and French wound up with a Mandates of Lands through the League of Nations. The Balfour Declaration called for the creation of a “national homeland for the Jewish people”. There are hundreds of pre-statehood documents and articles where Arabs’ “welcomed the Jews and 'Zionist' back to their home land!” The small population of Arabs relocated into the area, and welcomed the opportunity of employment, better access to health care and food.

"Yasser Arafat" was born as Mohammed Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa Al-Husseini; in Cairo, Egypt!
He was a distant cousin to the Grand Mufti, and learned his hatred of the Jews, from this man who help Hitler...

Enuf said already!
KnightHawk

Posted by: KnightHawk at December 12, 2007 2:14 PM

Open Mouth, Insert Foot

Something Condi is good at - I've come to expect nothing less from her.

Posted by: champ at December 12, 2007 2:27 PM

Have Mr. Bush and Ms. Rice been listening to Bishop Tutu or Sabeel? Did they buy the "aparteid" metaphor?

Unfortunately, if the Dhimmicrats win the presidency, I think they will be even more anti-Israel and pro-Islamist. That would apply to Kosovo, the PA and maybe even Sudan.

Posted by: CTYankee at December 12, 2007 2:43 PM

Perhaps it is too bad that Judaism like Christianity has in essence, become "secular" for the most part. In both these groups it seems that there are many high-sounding claims, but when you get right down to it -- either individual members qualify their claims becoming secular; or disbelive their claims altogether.

Ironically, the muslim seem to believe the claims of their faith and we see the murderous result.

In the case of the Jews, if they don't believe that a literal Moses existed; the Red Sea actually parted; and all those claims made by their early prophets surrounding Jerusalem in the so-called "end-time;" if they don't really believe those things and are separated from those things because of their own secularistic tendencies -- perhaps they don't have a legitimate claim to exist after all?

Perhaps, that is the thinking behind Olmert and Condi?

And as long as one can wish people and traditions into existance -- such as the Plastinian people -- because you are the "rule of law;" perhaps you can reverse the process and wish people and traditions -- such as the Jews and Judaism -- out of existence with the stroke of a pen affixing a signature to a treaty?

If the Jews want to keep Israel and keep Jerusalem in particular -- they better start clinging to the traditons of their parents and grandparents and make religious claims loud and clear.

If they are too sophisticated, or too embarassed to do this -- they will cease to exist within a generation.

There is nothing much to figure out -- either use the ancient traditions as the birthright and moral claim to hold the legally acquired parcel of land called "Israel" by the UN in 1947; or kiss it good-bye forever.

Posted by: witness at December 12, 2007 2:45 PM

The worst appointment for Sec of State I can remember.

Posted by: Elric66 at December 12, 2007 2:51 PM

"Some [wo]men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them."
-Heller

"This principle of excellence is one which Americans seem to be losing, and at a time when the Nation stands in need of it. A lack of excellence implies mediocrity. And in a society that is willing to accept a standard of mediocrity, the opportunities for personal failure are boundless. Mediocrity can destroy us as surely as perils far more famous."
-Rickover

Posted by: pez at December 12, 2007 3:00 PM

The problem that Israelis have with the outside world is the same one that they have with themselves: an ignorance of Islam, compounded by a reluctance (possibly based on fear), of what one might upon, further study, find out, and what the obvious implications of such study, if conducted properly, for the formulation of policy. The whole absurd peace-processing search for that "solution" that seems always to evade those in its hot pursuit, and they tend to console themselves with such hoarinesses as "well, we didn't try hard enough" or "the Israelis and the Arabs really have to want to do it" or "we have to sit them down in a room and present them with what 'everyone knows is what the final outcome will have to look like'" and so on.

The possiblilty, or the certainty, that there is no peace-process, that the Arabs are jockeying for every advantage, every possible way to weaken and undercut what they regard as their permanent enemy, and the permanent affront of that enemy's existence. Yes, sometimes smiles are used and sometimes frowns. Sometimes Muslim Arabs, even "Palestinians," may fight amongst themselves over who gets what spoils, especially the largest slice of the disguised Jizyah of Infidel aid. But there is no disagreement, none, over the ultimate goal, when it comes to the Infidel nation-state of Israel, but only disagreements over strategy, over timing and tactics.

If this were understood, and if the Muslim world-view were understood, Israel would no longer pursue, or have pushed upon it, the will-o'-the-wisp of agreements that, on the Muslim side, are made only to be broken, and every "peace" treaty is in reality merely a hudna, a truce treaty, that will necessarily be broken at the first opportunity, by the Muslim Arabs emulating Muhammad, their great exemplar, in his own treaty with the Meccans in 628 A.D. Simply because non-Muslims find such ideas preposterous and prefer to disbelieve that Muslims would actually wish to model themselves, for all time, on everything said or done by a seventh-century Arab, shows how impoverished is their imagination, how limited their experience, either immediate, or through books, how limited their knowledge of men and events, through time and across space.

Posted by: Hugh at December 12, 2007 3:04 PM

Hugh: Thanks for your post. And you're correct about corruption in Israel. It's endemic. So many Israelis I've spoken to just nod their head when the matter of corruption in their country is brought up. And it's bad enough American politicians are ignorant of so much in Islam, but it's even more inexplicable that Israeli public figures seem clueless (or at least strangely mute) as well.

As I stated above, I do think the attrition factor is also why so many Western government officals, elected and appointed, seem to acquiesce to the Arab/Muslim world far more then they should. The Arabs' own stupefyingly dismal performance as a people over the past half millennium actualy works in their favor in a warped and pathetic way. They do nothing and non-Arabs aplenty are eventually enervated by them. This needs to change. Arabs need to be read the riot act, so to speak, but not before we wean ourselves off Middle Eastern oil. That's the Arabs' only ace and they know it

One last thing: don't worry about any diacritical mark over the second "o" in Coos county. They don't give a damn about it in the north country in NH. But they do care how you pronounce the name of their only city up there--------Berlin has the accent on the first syllable, not the second. Only outsiders say it the way one would when referring to the German capital. Take care.

Posted by: Wellington at December 12, 2007 3:15 PM

Anyone here an expert on the sack of Constantinople? Some blogger claims it was Crusaders that raped the nuns at Haga Sophia.

http://in2thefray.wordpress.com/2007/12/10/cleaning-the-street10december2007/#comment-2210

Posted by: Elric66 at December 12, 2007 3:42 PM

Glen Reinsford of thereligionofpeace.com has compiled from checkable news sources in dozens of countries a list of over ten thousand deadly Islamic jihad attacks and the many tens of thousands of civilian deaths those attacks produced over just the last six years.

Here is Reinsford's monthly jihad summary for November 2007 (October was worse, but this sort of monthly report seems to be fairly typical):

Jihad Attacks: 203
Countries: 13
Religions [attacked by Islamic jihad]: 5
Dead Bodies: 1138
Critically Injured: 1358

Over ten thousand deadly jihad attacks in the last six years averages to over 100 deadly jihad attacks per month around the globe.

Immediately below is a link to Reinsford’s more detailed list of attacks for just the last two months. Reinsford can provide the news sources for each attack, as well as the global list of attacks going back six years:

http://www.thereligionofpeace.com#attacks

Posted by: traeh at December 12, 2007 3:48 PM

I knew a girl from that Berlin, so I know that the first syllable pleasingly takes the accent. Just as one might know that Beaufort, North Carolina is pronounced one way, and Beaufort, South Carolina nearby, is pronounced in quite another. Trips to either or both places may tip one off, but there are other ways to acquire that knowledge.

As for Coos County, it swam into my ken because of treks around or armchair atlas-travelling but rather because of "The Witch of Coos" or rather, because of Randall Jarrell's essay on "The Witch of Coos" and then the poem, by that name, itself.

That may be the poem with the line "the snake stood up for Evil in the Garden." Can't remember. Help!

Posted by: Hugh at December 12, 2007 3:49 PM

elric66/Richard, I sent you an email. Sorry it took so long to get back to you.

Posted by: traeh at December 12, 2007 3:55 PM

Traeh,

I got it and thanks. Hope all is well.

Posted by: Elric66 at December 12, 2007 4:01 PM

"The problem that Israelis have with the outside world is the same one that they have with themselves: an ignorance of Islam . . . "
--Hugh (from his comment above)

Doesn't anybody see that "the emperor is not wearing any clothes?" That is, the "Pal" Arab Moslems, and the entire Mahometan "ummah" that is using them as proxies, do not--and never did--want "peace" with Israel. The Arabs Moslems, and the other Islamics who want to out-arabize the Arabs as has been said before, want not peace but Israel to disappear as a state--let alone a Jewish State.

What is called the "Peace process" by our (U.S.) idiots, Bush&Rice--& the U.S. non-idiots that pull their strings for profit--is the process used by the Arabs, led by the Saudis and all those little much-too-rich Gulf states, emirates, to make Israel into a state for the Islamic "Palestinians"--Cleansed of Jews.

Why "No Jews Allowed?" Because that's how it is in Jordan, in Saudi and how they would like it to be in the "Palestinian"-occupied Israeli territories--except for these pesky Jewish settlements in Judea.

Do you-all get that? The only way Jews can live in Judea is in "settlements" that the "Pals" and the Saudis want gone. How do you suppose that territory came to be called Judea (Yehuda) in the first place? And Jews have to "settle" there, to be allowed to live there--the Yehudis should not be allowed to live in "Yehuda," according to the Bush-Rice-EU-USS--oops--Russia "Road Map."

And Israel has a government and has had governments that are willing to shuffle along that Road Map, covered as it is with Road Apples.

And now back to what Hugh said in his post. Because that is where the trouble starts, why Israeli PMs stubbornly continue to seek that elusive "Peace" with what they view as their "Arab brethren."

There is no possibility of "Peace" with the "Arabs" for Israel. You see, Israel, the Arabs--"your" Arabs--are Mahometans. The sooner you face that Israel, the better.

It takes guts to do that, and recently no Israeli PM has had that quality.

Fear of what the U.S. will say or do, or what the nations of the world, the EU etc.--aside from the ummah--will and can do, must be overcome, and Israel must act boldly as it has in the past, when it ignored the expected reaction of the nations.

Face it, Israel--and all Jews:

"The hatred of Jews is codified in the Moslem’s koran . . . " and so . . .

. . . continue following that thought at

http://islamic-danger.blogspot.com/2007/12/problem-of-resurgent-islamic-jihad-and.html

Posted by: unicorns62000 at December 12, 2007 4:11 PM

Hugh - thank you for your brilliant essays - day after day, month after month, at jihadwatch and dhimmiwatch. Thank you, in particular, for your discussions of antisemitism, antizionism, the human geography of 'Palestine' under Muslim and then under British rule, the 'lesser jihad' as part of the 'greater jihad', and the 'slow jihad'/ 'fast jihad' distinction.

Now: everyone else here who cares about Israel, and the Jews: here is the challenge.

We must reduce, to 250 words or less, the gist of Hugh's eloquent and elegant postings about the Muslim Jihad against the Jewish state of Israel.

We may need to separate out this point or that, giving a source - e.g the relevance of the Treaty of Hudaybiyya, with a page reference to Spencer's Truth About Muhammad, or Khadduri's Law of War and Peace in Islam, to show why 'peace agreements' or treaties made between any Infidel entity (e.g. Israel ) and any Muslim entity, are ultimately - for the Infidel party - worthless and, indeed, destructive.

Or , for example, we may refer people to Bat Yeor, The Dhimmi, and Joseph Schacht, to explain that the peculiar virulence of modern Arab Muslim hatred of the uppity Jews of Israel might perhaps best be understood as analogous to - though much worse than - the hatred of the KKK toward uppity niggers in the old Deep South.

Quranic quotes and Hadith, or typical quotations from the Hamas Charter, are also useful. Ellul's lapidary remark - "we hear so much nowadays about the tolerance and fundamental pacifism of Islam, that it is necessary to recall its nature, which is fundamentally warlike" - bears quoting, over and over.

Soon we will be able to refer to Andrew Bostom's latest book, "The Legacy of Islamic Anti-Semitism", to explain that a deadly Muslim contempt for Jews long pre-dates the modern Jewish state.

Then, whenever and wherever the opportunity presents itself - in letters to the editor, online or on paper, in talkbacks of every kind, in whatever media you frequent - plant these hard little apple-seeds, or these sharp pricking burrs, of uncomfortable truth.

Lies create confusion. Truth does the opposite. Once someone, Jew or Gentile, 'gets' what Jihad and Dhimmitude are about, and the Muslim way of war, the whole bewildering confusion of the past 100 years of interactiion between Jews and Muslim Arabs - and Arabised Christians, too - in and around the land of Israel, suddenly falls into place. It makes sense, and goes on making sense; you begin to be able to predict, or expect, Arab Muslim moves, well ahead of time.

I was not in the least surprised by media 'events' such as the 'Gaza beach atrocity' or 'the Qana massacre, 2006'. Not in the least. I was EXPECTING something of the kind to happen, just when it would be most scandalously mediagenic, most strategically useful.

PS - If you have 'clueless' Jewish or Israeli friends/ workmates/ classmates/ students, give them printouts of Hugh's essays! Find out if they have read Bat Yeor and Andrew Bostom and if they haven't, keep at them until they do!

Away we go: Johnny Appleseeds, all of us.

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at December 12, 2007 4:52 PM

It's her grin. It blinds her too reality.

Posted by: Ian at December 12, 2007 4:56 PM

Uhmmm.....
Going to go out on a limb here.
Use full idiot.

Posted by: alexb at December 12, 2007 5:38 PM

"If you have 'clueless' Jewish or Israeli friends etc. . . . "
-- dumbledoresarmy

Unfortunately, dumbledoresarmy and anybody else listening, there exists that inborn "People are people, Arabs are no different," and they all know some perfectly nice Muslims, prevalent among Jews, Israeli or otherwise.

It is this belief in the "perfectability of man," to which species even the Moslem Arab belongs, that has them befuddled. There are always the examples of how Moslem Arabs saved the lives of Jews, etc.

Yashiko Sagamori or Zack at her website (his last name escapes me) has an essay that deals with the "nice Arab Muslim" and how one thing has nothing to do with the other.

Example (from me): There were very nice Nazis who helped Jews. These Nazis were members of the Nazi party, but their souls were not drenched with Jew-hatred as are those of the true Nazi.

That this had no effect on the final outcome of the Nazis against the Jews operation does not appear to sink in.

Anyway, if anybody is interested in the Sagamori/Lieberberg (I believe that's Zack's surname), essay that starts off with that example, let me know, I'll look for it and let you know where it can be found.

The point that I am making is that denial--refusal to believe that there exists ultimate evil--as evil as well as good supposedly comes from the same divine source in Judaism--is what causes Jews to hold that hope to find "Peace" with the Arabs.

I have brought the message of the koranic source for irreversible Jew-hatred to Israeli Jews, and, by furnishing examples from Islamic history and quotations from Islamic sources, have found them propagating these tidings.

So many, however, those whose liberalism is rooted in the long-lost past, are clueless. Look at the Jews in the entertainment business. Try convincing them that Islam is evil and is behind a large % of antisemitism, and that even that of the Nazis sprouted from that night-soil.

It's an uphill struggle, as is all spreading of news that people do not want to believe, hence do not even want to hear.

Posted by: unicorns62000 at December 12, 2007 5:39 PM

unicorns62000
Thank you for the above..spot on comment.

To those with an agenda, the exception to the rule can become the rule.

Posted by: pismopal at December 12, 2007 5:53 PM

I am so ashamed. Ashamed I voted for Bush, twice, ashamed that I was a staunch supporter of Condoleeza Rice for so many years....and as Hugh has noted, so what that she speaks fractured Russian or plays Brahms on the piano...I do both, too. Only I haven't had the heart to play Brahms much....I am not sure what he would think. Not that I care, mind you. No. I am not ashamed...I am angry. In the words of His Epicene Highness, Queen Gore of Tennessee, "He betrayed us all! He played on all our fears!"

Posted by: Jauhara Al-Kafirah at December 12, 2007 6:04 PM

I am so ashamed. Ashamed I voted for Bush, twice, ashamed that I was a staunch supporter of Condoleeza Rice for so many years....and as Hugh has noted, so what that she speaks fractured Russian or plays Brahms on the piano...I do both, too. Only I haven't had the heart to play Brahms much....I am not sure what he would think. Not that I care, mind you. No. I am not ashamed...I am angry. In the words of His Epicene Highness, Queen Gore of Tennessee, "He betrayed us all! He played on all our fears!"

Posted by: Jauhara Al-Kafirah at December 12, 2007 6:04 PM

Now, now, don't be so hard on yourself. bush and condi's theater was a good act for a while, but I took a peek backstage and realized that the "props" were ... substitutes for reality.

But who in the theater of the world could know that the actors were ... fools?

Smoke and mirrors is great entertainment for a while but then reality sets in.

And I would not shorten Hugh's comments a yot or tiddle -- I like the insights presented in all their eloquent glory!

Posted by: witness at December 12, 2007 6:39 PM

Big foot wrote: "Bush, Rice, and everyone else in the State Department need to study Arafat's words."

Come on Big foot. Come on! Tell me you are joking. Tell me you are trying to deceive us.

Bush could have written Arafat's script. Yes or no? This anti-Semitic son of G. H. W. Bush, grandson of Prescott Bush, could have written Yasser Arafat's script. No?

Posted by: monk at December 12, 2007 6:44 PM

For a photo of Condi Rice in her preferred milieu, click here

Posted by: unicorns62000 at December 12, 2007 7:04 PM

You need to look at the bright side of Rice...
She plays a mean piano, and looks good in a red dress...Maybe you just expect too much...

Posted by: duh_swami at December 12, 2007 7:18 PM

" . . . if anybody is interested in the Sagamori/Lieberberg (I believe that's Zack's surname), essay that starts off with [an example of a "nice Arab Muslim" and that one's effect on the final outcome of the Moslem-Arabs-against-the-Israeli-Jews operation, showing how one thing has nothing to do with the other] let me know, I'll look for it and let you know where it can be found."
--from a unicorns62000 post above

Here I am, back again, looks as if nobody is interested in that story. After looking at it again, however, I decided that it was too good not to distribute, as it might explain the reluctance of the Israeli Jews to do what has to be done, if they want to prevail.

Again my mind had deceived me, the story is by the incomperable Yashiko Sagamori and not by the equally superb Zack Lieberberg (at least I did remember his name after a while).

Here is the link: The Inevitability of Genocide by Yashiko Sagamori

Read it. You will not regret the time spent.

(If you are interested in that topic, that is.)

Posted by: unicorns62000 at December 12, 2007 7:24 PM

"I did, in fact, bring up Har Homa, both earlier in a phone call and then today in our meeting," Rice said. " ... I've made clear that we're in a time when the goal is to build maximum confidence between the parties and this doesn't help to build confidence ..."
---------------------------------

(1) At what point was Ms. Rice elected to any position of authority over construction in Israel? (2) Do you suppose she would be just a tad miffed if Olmert attempted to impose his will on US policy?
(3) Where did she find this high horse she rode in on?

May God bless and protect Israel, and may He also thwart Bush and Rice in their betrayal of Israel's interests.

Posted by: A_Nonny_Mouse at December 12, 2007 7:43 PM

Yawn...Same pack of idiots are still running the show? Yea I voted for Bush twice too. Like there was an alternative? Not looking better in 2008, either. Tancredo is the only one who seems to get it and he doesn't seem to have a chance. Love to hear some input. I'm leaning toward staying home getting drunk and cleaning my firearms. Robert have an endorsement? Anybody have an endorsement with some good reasons behind it? I think I'd vote for anyone who came out in favor of water boarding. 35 seconds of it? How inhumane. Hmmm maybe not. Stockpile food, stockpile amo, hunker down. A hard rain is gonna fall as Bob sed.

Posted by: Rick at December 12, 2007 7:52 PM

Okay, I won't give up on my Brahms. But the picture of Condi is totally gone. Well, maybe I'll keep it around for darts or knife throwing practice

Posted by: Jauhara Al-Kafirah at December 12, 2007 8:02 PM

unicorns62000...I read the article...right on the money...thanks

Posted by: duh_swami at December 12, 2007 8:12 PM

What's bizarre about Condi's comments is that the Palestinian press is among the most racist on earth. It was in a Palestinian newspaper that a cartoon was drawn showing Secretary Rice pregnant with a monkey.O'Reilly showed the racist cartoon on his show and called out a Palestinian apologist about it.Condi's also been described as a "colored lady" and an "old maid" in the Palestinian press.Showing that Palestinians are equal opportunity racists, when Colin Powell was Secretary of State he was referred to in the Palestinian press as a "colored man".Does anyone believe Condi could rise to the same position of power and influence in the Middle East in any country other then Israel? Condi of all people should know better then to mention racism and Israel in the same sentence with the Palestinians.There's simply no comparison between the two "nations".

Posted by: Roxane at December 12, 2007 8:18 PM

The Inevitability of Genocide by Yashiko Sagamori

Posted by: unicorns62000 December 12, 2007 7:24 PM
--------------------------------------------------

Thanks for the link. That was a good one (if, necessarily, chilling). In summary, antelopes can wish, hope, pray and pretend that lions will become herbivores ... but it is not, cannot be, so. Lions are -by their essential nature- carnivores. Period.

Do you suppose a few hundred of us ought to email the link to G.W. Bush and C. Rice?

Posted by: A_Nonny_Mouse at December 12, 2007 8:25 PM

I agree that the Palestinians have not yet shown the courage and leadership to make the changes necessary for peace. The intent of the peace negotiations is to negotiate the final status of the west bank, Gaza, and yes, even East Jerusalem. It's reasonable for people to be concerned when Israel builds new buildings on areas that are meant to be negotiated over.

Posted by: Monte Gardner at December 12, 2007 8:47 PM

On NPR Condoleezza Rice's biographer, Elisabeth Bumiller, describes her, when she was at Stanford, at telling a clerk who made the colossal error, when she asked to see jewelry, of showing her the costume jewelry, as offering in response to the putative racism of this terrible offense: "You stand behind that counter and make $6 an hour, while I am on this side, and make considerably more." A telling remark, and Rice does not come off well.

Nor does she come off well when she pushed so hard for the Iraq venture, without bothering to study, calmly, Islam, its texts and tenets, and how Iraq, how the regime of Saddam Hussein fit into the Camp of Islam, and what its disappearance would mean for Iran, and what, given the history of Iraq and its makeup, was almost certain to happen once that regime disappeared, and why the Light-Unto-the-Muslim-Nations Plan doomed to failure, and in any case, represented exactly the wrong goal for Americans and other Infidels to pursue.

She was "amazed" and flabbergasted that Hamas won the election -- an amazement that tells us a goo deal about this dutiful Kremlinologist who cannot speak Russian (she tried to do so, in an interview for Russian television, and the result was deeply embarrassing and she had to rush back into English after demonstrating her complete confusion as to what the interviewer was saying in Russian).

Rumsfeld, according to Bumiller, regarded Rice as a "glorified Russian-studies graduate student." Exactly right. Rumsfeld had his points.

Posted by: Hugh at December 12, 2007 8:54 PM

Rick: Understand your sentiments, but at the risk of being excoriated I would suggest that Bush is not as bad as many who post here think he is. First of all, it's not just dumb luck we haven't been hit again since 9/11. The Patriot Act has worked wonders and, of course, the Democrats and their liberal minions don't see this (almost as menacing as Islam itself is the cluelessness of modern liberalism, especially when Western liberals get all gooey-like and want to "understand" the Muslim point of view).

Also, Bush has taken the fight to the Islamic nutjobs and no one knows it better than they (though they won't admit it publicly) how much of a beating they've taken, both in Iraq and Afghanistan. Trouble is we live in the sound-bite age and people want information and solutions in twenty seconds. Ain't gonna' happen. We're in a fight to the death with much of the Islamic world (all of the Islamic world?) for many, many years to come (try a century). We will lose many battles, just as the Union did in the Civil War, and just as America did in WWII and the Cold War. But the important point is to prevail overall. Perspective is crucial and that includes the realization that victory will not be easy or soon.

Well, what is needed? First of all, I would suggest that Bush is a step in the right direction but not enough certainly. Don't be fooled by the Bush Admministration's kowtowing to the Arab/Muslim world at Annapolis. Sure it was futile, but it won't add up to much in the long run. And everyone else before Bush stupidly did it too. So, Bush in this regard shouldn't be blamed any more (or less) than his predecessors. Drip by drip it will sink into the collective American consciousness that the Arab world is not to be taken seriously and that Islam is not just another religion but a belief system which is as threatening to the preservation of America as was Nazism and Marxism. People, especialy free people, need to be talked into revolutionary new ideas slowly. It will take time to inculcate into the body politic at large the fact that Islam is not to be respected; in fact it is to be despised and eventually defeated.

Second, the kind of leaders we need will come most likely incrementally and not all at once. Giuliani is a further step in the right direction, yet still not enough (hey, how can you not like a guy who, when Mayor of NYC, offered at a particular news conference, to the members of yet another group with a grievance, an "apology to all of those who feel they need one"). My strong guess is that if elected President, he will still say some things that many who post here at JW will find exasperating, but he will do things even more effectively than Bush has. Then we will need someone even more effective after Giuliani. Who that is I don't yet know. But that person will be paramount for the West to survive. And his or her successor will be even more paramount. And those who say we can't spare the time, my response would be, yes we can but I understand your importunateness nonetheless and am very sympathetic.

Be patient (though not too patient). The truth will win out. People will get sick of Islamic excuses. Hell, people will get sick of all of Islam. Folks like Robert Spencer and Hugh Fitzgerald years from now will be looked upon as prophets by the general populace, not just folks like us who post at JW. The world will make it, though I see plenty of tragedies ahead because of the worst religion of all time-----------Islam. But through it all know that those who love true freedom will prevail. My best to you and yours.

Posted by: Wellington at December 12, 2007 8:54 PM

I suspect the real culprit in all of this is market economics and corporate America's immense clout over Washington along with its drive to open all possible "emerging markets"(including Islamic ones). Does anyone remember that old bromide: "money talks, b***s*** walks?"

I hope so, because it probably applies here.

If only the corporate lobby would understand what Islam would do to them if it had the opportunity (which may well be coming).

There SHOULD be a sense of de ja vous in all this as what the Bush Administration is doing presently vis-a-vis the Israel-"Palestinian" stand off is eerily similar to what the French were doing in the Euro-Arab talks in the 1960s-- and we all know where that took western Europe...

Posted by: pythagoras at December 12, 2007 9:34 PM

No, Monk, I'm not trying to deceive anyone, just giving a quote from Arafat to support my point that Israel's very existence is, and has always been, the real reason for the terrorism that she has endured since her creation.

Arafat's words written by Bush? Highly unlikely, if you're referring to my previous quote. Back in 1974, Dubya was either at his Air National Guard desk job, out campaigning for various Republicans, or drinking. (I will admit that only the last of these three can I relate to.)

And by the way, "Bigfoot" is one word. Or if you don't like "Bigfoot", you may call me "Sasquatch" instead.

Posted by: Bigfoot at December 12, 2007 9:37 PM

The Palestinians won't rest until the Jews are dead. It is that cut and dried. Any US government official that thinks differently is delusional.

Posted by: Thor-Zone at December 12, 2007 10:12 PM

CONFIDENCE? Did she say "this doesn't help to build confidence?" And what, Madam Secretary, of the constant Palestinian rocket attacks against southern Israeli towns and cities? Do they "help to build confidence"?

Exactly!

Posted by: Thor-Zone at December 12, 2007 10:18 PM

Bigfoot:

The assertion that Israel's existence is the reason for Islamic terrorism across the globe is plain balderdash. Trust me, you'll get nowhere with this (erroneous) viewpoint.

This view that Israel is the cause of Islamic terror, by the way, is popular among the political leftists who don't know any better. Most leftists in America still don't know that Islam and Communism made common cause in the mid-twentieth century (Yasser Arafat was on the KGB payroll for decades) and that the socialists are in fact the quislings who betrayed western Europe and opened the door for Islamism to take over the European Union (which it is now doing).

India for example has been subjected to persistent terrorism since the eighth century AD, a hindu part of the world no less with absolutely NO connections to Israel (save for a tiny number of Jews living there). Ghandi was against the creation of Israel, besides that! Ditto goes for the former Yugoslav states which have been subjected to persistent and bloody terrorist attacks since the eleventh century AD. What do the Sudanese animists have to do with Israel, by the way? What do the Lebanese Maronite Christians who were massacred by the tens of thousands by the "poor Palestinian" armies have to do with Israel? Why are thousands of Buddhists being brutally and horribly slaughtered in southern Thailand if Israel is the reason for Islamic terror?

Wherever you got this notion, Bigfoot, you need to leave it there and wake up and see the world as it really is. And that means understanding that Islam alone-- in and of itself-- is responsible for Islamic terror--NOT Israel.

Posted by: pythagoras at December 12, 2007 10:25 PM

Welliton...yes, thank you for your thoughtful response. You are, of course, right. My first thought after 9/11 was that we're in for at least a 100 year war. And yea, the liberal apologists for Islam often seem the more dangerous enemy to me. One also has to like Giuliani for no other reason than that he told the Saudis to shove the 10 million they offered to NY city after 9/11. It IS heartening to begin to see more and more folks in the mainstream press calling out Islam for the death cult that it is and to see the laughter at the antics of CAIR (not that they're not dangerous as well as buffoonish). I sometimes think that the greatest weapon in this fight we're in is ridicule. "You really believe WHAT???" "You're protesting about being called a violent religion by doing WHAT???" So I'll go vote, then come home, get drunk and clean my firearms and accept that turning 60 in January I ain't gonna live long enough to see how this one is going to turn out.

Posted by: Rick at December 12, 2007 10:35 PM

Woops...Wellington.

Posted by: Rick at December 12, 2007 10:36 PM

Condi Rice is a big big disappointment. Her outrageous comparison about the Israeli treatment of Palestinians to the treatment of blacks in the U.S. southern states by white Americans truly shows how little she really knows about Middle Eastern history.

The political climate in Palestine has little resemblance to Alabama, U.S. in the 1950's.

Rice’s competence and credibility as a politician have been called into serious question.

Her criticism of the Ethiopian intervention in Sudan undermines U.S. allies in the region ( and democratic principles)

By criticizing an Ethiopian government which seeks to quell an Islamist movement in the N.E. African region, she is emboldening our Islamist enemies that seek to impose sharia and rid the region of democratic principles.

Posted by: Johnathan at December 12, 2007 10:59 PM

Wellington -

President Bush and his administration have drained me bone dry. I have no more patience for him. Like a teenaged ne'er-do-well, he dissembles, mumbles, and stutters. His performance in office and as commander-in-chief are a national embarrassment.

Granted: there have been no more terror attacks here in the USA (maybe?). Further, the sun continues to rise every morning. However, I am not convinced that President Bush deserves credit for either phenomenon.

Remember, our enemies sent a host of 19 jihadi's armed with box-cutters to attack us. We probably don't want to know how much money President Bush has blown in his inconclusive war to slap these primitive bastards down. That number would be truly embarrassing.

Posted by: Havoc at December 12, 2007 11:08 PM

Oops..... I meant to write about her criticism of the Ethiopian intervention in Somalia- not in Sudan- as I mistakenly wrote in the above post.

Posted by: Johnathan at December 12, 2007 11:27 PM

"I know what it is like TO HEAR that you cannot go on a road or through a checkpoint because you are Palestinian," the Washington Post (November 29) quoted her as saying. "I understand the feeling of humiliation and powerlessness," she added.

No, Madam Secetary, if all you know is that it humiliates you TO HEAR that you cannot travel on a certain road then you do NOT understand 'the feeling of humiliation and powerlessness' and you are a patronising little git with no understanding whatsoever of how we, the peoples of the civilised West feel, about the supremacist ideology of Islam which seeks to relegate us to a position of no importance simply because we have values which are different from those held by mainstream Islam.

Your beef, if you can say that today you have a beef, is about a genetically inescapable skin colour which you cannot help and which the vast majority of civilised western people simply choose to ignore and discount - judging you, instead, upon the quality of your intellect and upon your achievements.

Islamic supremacist ideology is deeply engrained amongst all Muslims and is NOT, in any sense, directly comparable to your experiences as a black American woman. For you even to imply that it is so is to insult every fibre of Western civilisation and to insult the memory of your ancestors who strove for freedom as expressed, in absolute form, in the constitutions of the civilised Western nations.

Madam Secretary: you are a traitor, revealed so by your actions and your words.

You claim to be a victim just as they (the Muslims) do whilst manifestly being no such thing. You are an opportunist, Madam Secretary, with an eye, no doubt, to the main chance.

Do you seek to be President. Huh! Dream on! You will lose, Ms. Rice, not because of the colour of your skin but because of the colour of your thoughts the only justifiable basis for voting for or against anyone! but I daresay you'll cry foul on that, too: for such is the nature (devious and nasty) of people like you.

Posted by: OliverPCamford at December 13, 2007 12:05 AM

And if you think that being black is difficult and gives you insights into the mindsets of those peoples whom you perceive as being persecuted then try to be 'gay for a day' and then you will see just how much nastiness and vilification you receive - especially from your favoured Muslim friends and your fellow blacks!

Posted by: OliverPCamford at December 13, 2007 12:11 AM

A_Nonny_Mouse,

Re e-mailing "The Inevitability of Genocide" to G. W. Bush & C. Rice,

Naw, it'd be a waste of time. Bush could never wrap what goes for a brain in his head around it, and Rice is too much stuck in the Civil Rights movement of the 60s to allow anything to disrupt her "righting the wrongs against African-Americans" by marching shoulder to shoulder with her proteges, the so-called "Palestinians" (read Moslem Arabs).

What gets my dander up is that Olmert doesn't have the "innards*" to tell her where to stuff her "confidence-building but for Jews only."

These "innards*" have been lacking in Israeli PMs, ever since Golda Meir.
_____________________
* and "innards" is a polite word for what women don't even have, literally, that is.

Posted by: unicorns62000 at December 13, 2007 2:40 AM

I am an engineer with no education in political sciences and the likes. However I can clearly see
the aims of the jihadist and the so called peaceful muslims, to destroy our ways of life, religion, culture that we have acquired over a few thousand years.
The only consolation I have, that upon reaching their goals, maybe 60-80 years from now, they will destroy themselves, when there is nothing else left to destroy.
Why the dhimmi cant see that, I am unable to comprehend

Posted by: hemoglobin at December 13, 2007 6:16 AM

Why the dhimmi cant see that, I am unable to comprehend

Posted by: hemoglobin at December 13, 2007 6:16 AM

That is the wrong question, which is why most Americans are still struggling for an answer, not only to this question, but to the question of president/commander-in-chief, the leader of the free world, and his approach to Palestinian question. Try asking/answering that....

Posted by: Alert at December 13, 2007 8:29 AM

the things (and people) money (wahhabi and that of others') can buy

the question - "why don't western elite ("leaders") understand the realities of "the religion of peace""? - can no longer be considered valid (this class is not that stupid nor are they mere dupes...)

the question now is - why do western elites agree with tenets (which are purely political disguised so as not to be questioned as "religious") of "the religion of peace";

for what ulterior motives are the elites allowing the unhindered spread of the fascist political system known as "the religion of peace"

who/what is ultimately behind the plans

Posted by: TINBH at December 13, 2007 9:25 AM

Someone needs to tell this administration, particularly Our Ms. Rice, that jumping through all the hoops in the world for Islam (which Bush and Company appear hellbent on doing) STILL will never make a non-Muslim anything other than a cursed non-believing "infidel" to the muslim world and its leaders.

Worse, the Bush Administration is alienating the vast number of ethnicities and nation-states around the globe that have legitimate grievances against Islam. America is going to lose good friends because of this boatload of Bush Administration idiots.

An infidel state jumping through hoops for Islam at the expense of its real and potential allies for chimerical benefits from the Muslim world. A true lose-lose situation if ever there was one.

Posted by: pythagoras at December 13, 2007 1:37 PM

pythagoras: You aver that the Bush Administration has alienated "the vast numbers of ethnicities and nation-states around the globe who have grievances againt Islam." Yeah, who? The Bush Administration has forged closer ties with India, a nation whose Hindu majority have deep reservations about Islam, than any presidential administration since India's creation in 1947. What other nation-state has come to dismiss America because of any conciliatory machinations toward the Muslim world by Bush? Not Israel, which has a PM and so many other government officials who have sucked up to Muslims at least as anyone in the Bush Administration, including Rice. Think Canada is miffed by Bush here? Please. Most there think Bush, not Islamic terrorists, is the real culprit in Iraq. Ditto for virtually all of Latin America. Don't mention France either because that recent and stupid NIE report was meant to hurt Bush (and Sarkozy as well) by those in the State Department who hate Bush. Exactly which friend is America going to lose because we're too friendly to Muslims? Think Japan minds Bush playing nicey-nicey to the Arabs so that its oil supply from the Middle East won't be reduced or cut off? Please, name some countries if you will. Who exactly dislikes America becaues Bush has been too cozy with the Muslim world? Most hate Bush because they view him (wrongly I would vigorously argue) as a slaughterer of those in the Muslim world. Hell, the guy can't win going or coming.

Havoc: You don't think Bush should get any credit for no more attacks here at home since 9/11? OK, who should? Bush has taken knock after knock for things like the Patriot Act and has acted again and again quite effectively to protect us. I have many reservations and disagreements with the President, but so many who post here make me think that Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS) is alive and well. Don't forget that both Washington and Lincoln were thought of as idiots by many, including fellow Federalists and Republicans respectively. No, I'm not comparing Bush to those two greatest Americans, but I am trying here to provide some historical perspective, which sometimes seems lost in our rush to blame this administration no matter what for anything no matter what.

Posted by: Wellington at December 13, 2007 9:15 PM

It only take a 5th grade education to understand Islam.
I am appalled at the direction and actions of many of our elected officials concerning Islam.

I feel that all non-Muslims are being marginalized and the lies of the Islamists are becoming a real problem as they are affecting policy in the USA due to the ignorance or our elected officials.

I can live with gangs, illegal aliens and gasoline at $200.00 a gallon. I cannot live with Islam and Sharia.

Posted by: Sk8rboi99 at December 13, 2007 9:52 PM

Wellington:

I am surprised at the naivete of your response to my post, my friend.

First off, regarding Canada, to the best of my knowledge Canadians have until recently had precious little experience with Islam on their soil, at least in its more militant carnation. In fact, Canada probably has fewer grievances against Islam than any major country I can think of and is about the last country I would have been referring to (this will of course change in time as Canada gets a taste of the real Islam--when it will be too late for Canadians to do much about it). Also,the United States and Canada have never been especially friendly to each other and I doubt they ever will be (nor do I as an American especially care) so Bush's recent pro-islam maneuvres would of course change very little with this country and its relationship with America.

Latin America like Canada to date has little experience or knowledge concerning Islam on its soil (I know about the situation in Argentina, which is one of the exceptions proving the rule)either and I see few grievances there either concerning the religion of pieces. I didn't mean Latin America either (and, with several notable exceptions, there have historically been very few real allies of the US there for Bush and Co. to alienate anyway).

Since you asked, the nations I had in mind include the Balkan countries notably Serbia and Greece, also right now France's and Germany's leaders, Merkel and Sarkozy are likely upset at Bush's u-turn on anti-jihadism and they matter more than you might suppose to America, as getting their support will prove critical for western civilization to rescue itself from the onslaught of jihad and turn itself around. Eastern Europe has historically had horrific problems with repeated and brutal Islamic invasions and the Bush administration's recent pro-Palestine and pro-Islam policies could possibly drive them right into active anti-Americanism (and for good reason I might add)--more is the pity since as these are Christian, democratic, western nations with growing economies cultivating lasting relationships would be I think vital to combating Islam's spread throughout the western democracies.

Regarding India, although America may have gotten closer to the Indian government, the actual masses of people may change their minds about America thanks to Bush's boatload of dimwits and their recent pro-Islam political shenanigans at Annapolis. Many, many sub-Saharan nations also have had disastrous experiences with Islamic jihads (like Nigeria, Sudan, or the Egyptian Coptic Christians)and now they know the United States government will probably NEVER help them out with their struggles against jihads--but, who knows they may decide that maybe CHINA coulds help them out instead! (and voila, the United States of America gets written off by the masses of nearly an entire continent).

So as you can see, I perceive the Bush Adminsitration's latest "We are all terrorists" charade at Annapolis as a horrendous setback for America and the struggle to stop the Islamization of the west.

Posted by: pythagoras at December 14, 2007 1:26 PM

pythagoras: Thanks for your response. I'll give you a Balkan country or two. I should have mentioned Serbia in particular. I'm not sure about Greece. It's been very forgiving, sometimes even supportive, over the past few decades respecting Palestinian terror against Israel, so any initiative to help those poor down-trodden Palestinians would get a thumbs up from most Greeks, deluded though they would be.

Further north of the Balkans I'm not so sure. Poland, for example, has had little interaction with the Islamic world over the centuries (notwithstanding John Sobieski's defense of Vienna in 1683). As for Russia, no matter what we do where she is concerned we will be disliked unless we continue to think and act as though the world remains divided into spheres of influence a la the good old Soviet and czarist days and concede virtually all of Eastern Europe (and other places) to Holy Mother Russia (in short, we indulge the paranoid and xenophobic Russians or else). As for China, statements from that police state have been critical of Bush's intervention in the Muslim world as unhelpful to Muslims (in part because China just doesn't like America and also because it sorta' has to suck up to Muslims from time to time because it needs their oil and is a bit worried about millions of Muslims out in western China).

I mentioned Latin American nations and Canada because to the extent the Middle East is thought of in those countries, there's no way Bush is looked upon as too friendly to Muslims by majorities there. Quite the opposite. Mean old George Bush is just proving again that America is imperialistic and has only America's interests at heart----blah, blah, blah. I'm not sure about sub-Saharan Africa either. The Bush Administration has been regularly critical of Islamic extremism around the world, including Africa, and I don't believe your average non-Muslim African has yet concluded that all of Islam is a menace to all non-believers. I'd say in places like South Africa and Congo the attitude to Bush and America has been (once again) that Bush has been beating up on the Muslim world, which would be seen by many Africans as another part of the Third World, thus eliciting (unfortunately) sympathy. Repecting Sarkozy and Merkel you are correct (and I did mention Sarkozy), but most French and Germans I'd wager still see American dealings with the Islamic world as avaricious, insensitive and even brutal. This perception, though, is wrong, as almost all Western European perceptions of America are.

Noticed too that you didn't bother to rebuke my listing Japan as a nation that doesn't think Bush has been too indulgent of the Muslim world. The second largest economy on earth needs Middle Eastern oil and any American intiative which, however ephemeral, placates Arabs for the time being, is looked upon as a good thing by the powers that be in Tokyo et al.

One last thing. I would argue that you've made far too much of the Annapolis Conference. Sure, it was futile, but it won't even register as a blip on the international screen a year or two from now. It's already fading from history. No one cares about it. So, I stand by what I wrote yesterday.

Posted by: Wellington at December 14, 2007 6:02 PM