Terrorist Gets Burned

Not long ago, I posted about terrorist mastermind Dhiren Barot and his whiny attorney being upset over his treatment in prison. Well, it turns out that keeping him segregated from other prisoners wasn't enough. Somehow, the other inmates got a hold of Barot and scalded him with water and hot oil. He was treated and returned to prison.

Read more here, here, and here.

Just a couple of thoughts. First, better he got scalded than the thousands he hoped to kill during the attacks he was planning. Two, perhaps the criminals in the prison aren't all bad, and have some redeeming qualities. Three, how can this Islamist swine's attorney claim that authorities "failed to discharge their duty of care." Seems to may they discharged that duty just fine, they caught this piece of scum and put him in prison. That's the greatest act of caring and fulfilling their duty I can imagine.

But, we are not barbarians and shouldn't condone such treatment by fellow prisoners. There should be some punishment for scalding Barot. I suggest no dessert in the prison cafeteria...for two days. That should teach them a lesson.

Hopeful News

Found this at the Times Online. The article is titled "Al-Qaeda faces rebellion from the ranks" and reports that US forces in Doura are seeing an increasing number of people informing on AQI, including some who have been on the terrorists' side in the past.

Fed up with being part of a group that cuts off a person’s face with piano wire to teach others a lesson, dozens of low-level members of al-Qaeda in Iraq are daring to become informants for the US military in a hostile Baghdad neighbourhood.

The ground-breaking move in Doura is part of a wider trend that has started in other al-Qaeda hotspots across the country and in which Sunni insurgent groups and tribal sheikhs have stood together with the coalition against the extremist movement.

"They are turning. We are talking to people who we believe have worked for al-Qaeda in Iraq and want to reconcile and have peace,” said Colonel Ricky Gibbs, commander of the 4th Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, which oversees the area...

“Al-Qaeda’s days are numbered and right now he is scrambling,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Stephen Michael, who commands a battalion of 700 troops in Doura.

A key factor is that local people and members of al-Qaeda itself have become sickened by the violence and are starting to rebel, Lieutenant-Colonel Michael said. “The people have got to deny them sanctuary and that is exactly what is happening.”

This is indeed a hopeful story and seems to confirm what Michael Yon reported in his latest dispatch: 7 Rules: 1 Oath. The dispatch relates a meeting of Iraqi Army officers and former leaders of the insurgency. A Yon reports: "The insurgent leaders who seem to be sincerely working toward peace are now collectively referred to as “the Baqubah Guardians.”

Yon details a discussion of rules for the forces and a 6 point oath. From his report it appears that there was a rational discussion with differences of opinion, but over all a clear indication that these insurgents intended to be part of the solution. Among the most positive features of Yon's report is the result of the discussion of Rule # 2: "Accept both peaceful Sunni, Shia and others." Yon writes of the issue: "After some intelligent discussion, the Iraqis wanted this changed to “Accept all peaceful Iraqi citizens without discrimination.”

AQI could be facing a turning of the tide against them. Let's hope so.

Here We Go Again?

Well, the blogoshphere seems to be serving as fact checker for the liberal media again. This time raising questions about a supposed American Soldier in Iraq who has been writing for the New Republic under the pseudonym Scott Thomas. Thomas tells his readers of American soldiers heartlessly mocking a woman disfigured by an IED, donning a grisly camp fashioned from the top of human skull unearthed in a mass grave (and wearing it all day, even under his helmet), and using a Bradley fighting vehicle to run down concrete barriers, buildings, market stands and especially dogs.

If Thomas turns out to be a fraud, this would not be the first time an American soldier has exaggerated and told flat out lies about the conduct of his fellow soldiers (heck, the Democrats ran such a man as their candidate for president). It also wouldn't be the first time the liberal media fell for it, as they tend to be quick to believe the most negative stories about our soldiers. The jury is still out but serious questions are being raised.

Read more at Washington Post, and Michelle Malkin. Be sure to check out Michelle's links to her past posts on similar cases in which the MSM falsely ran reports that accused our soldiers of atrocities.

Here is my own link to a past post about the MSM's apparent eagerness to believe the worst about us while ignoring the enemy's actions here. Especially interesting is my debate with commenter "Silence" who denied that media bias affects the stories that see print, or make it on the air. I would hope that if Scott Thomas turns out to be another liar, folks like "Silence" would finally start to admit that the media is easily played by the left; but I doubt they will ever be convinced. Like those in the media, folks like "Silence" will move on and readily drink the Kool Aid the next time some publicity seeker tries to sell a story about how cruel and despicable the American Soldiers are.

I eagerly await the outcome of this. If Thomas is a fraud you can bet the MSM will ignore it and will dig up more bad news from any source; reliable or not, who can provide it.

Obama OK With Genocide

US Senator Barack Obama, currently running for the Democratic Presidential nomination has stated that the US cannot solve humanitarian crises militarily and shouldn't keep troops in Iraq to prevent a genocide. Read more at Forbes.

His comments came while on the campaign trail yesterday in New Hampshire:

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Thursday the United States cannot use its military to solve humanitarian problems and that preventing a potential genocide in Iraq isn't a good enough reason to keep U.S. forces there

Curiously, a Lexis-Nexis search for his earlier positions on the crisis in Darfur turned up the following from a Sept. 4, 2006 AP story:

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama visited Mile on Saturday and came away saying the United States and other western nations must act urgently to restore order to Darfur, both to help the people there and to keep the violence, already spreading to Chad, from destabilizing more African nations.

"We've got an emergency on our hands that has to be solved right away," the Illinois Democrat said after his 90-minute tour of the camp.

And this:

Obama said he wants to hold new Senate hearings on the Darfur situation and called for the appointment of a U.S. envoy to focus on getting Sudan to accept a peacekeeping force.

"There's a lot of other activity competing for the world's attention," he said, "and it's important that these folks here are not forgotten."

Hearings, after all, are the surest way to make murderous savages comply with the wishes of the civilized world. Presumably, he was willing to see US troops participate in that "peacekeeping" effort.

A Chicago Sun Times story from the same date carried this from the Senator regarding US policy in Darfur:

"Better, but better is not good enough. [A protective force] is not going to happen without special effort on our part."

In his defense, Obama stated in his NH appearance that he would oppose the US deploying unilaterally in Darfur, and suggested deployments of US forces should have an international mandate [read: let the UN have a veto on our foreign policy].

So, would Obama like to see US forces as part of an internationally mandated force in Iraq to prevent a genocide? It seems his real, underlying issue is that he feels the US should submit to un-elected bodies, that do not represent US interests, in making foreign policy decisions. After all, he seems only to be willing to oppose genocide if other nations lead the way and if they don't, "so long, and see ya in a mass grave."

I also take issue with this:

"There's no doubt there are risks of increased bloodshed in Iraq without a continuing U.S. presence there."

The greater risk is staying in Iraq, Obama said.

"It is my assessment that those risks are even greater if we continue to occupy Iraq and serve as a magnate [sic] for not only terrorist activity but also irresponsible behavior by Iraqi factions," he said.

First, he admits increased bloodshed is likely without US troops present, but then states there is risk if we stay. Wow, that's taking a position. In other words, he'd rather leave millions to the mercy of AQ thugs than stay in Iraq. He knows exactly what will happen the moment we leave, but it's all OK with Obama.

Second, in Iraq or not, we are a magnet for terrorists. This is my biggest problem with the anti-war left. The Jihadists have been at war with us for decades. Their attacks are not a response to our invasion of Iraq, although our presence there has made that the principal battlefield.

The left's position is like saying World War II started when the allies invaded Normandy. After all, all those deaths in the Battle of the Bulge would never had happened had we not invaded Europe. Seems to me FDR's policy provoked greater violence on behalf of the Germans. We should have re-deployed to Iceland, just over the horizon, to intervene under an international mandate in the future if necessary. But, it goes without saying, only after we hold some new hearings on the issue.

Come on! Of course there's more violence now; for the simple reason that when you strike back and engage the enemy in battle, he tends to fight back. But, that does not change the fact that the Islamofascists started this war against the west long before Iraq, long before Israel, even before the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Get it through your head Senator or you may find that head at the mercy of a Mohammedan blade. Sometimes, you actually have to defeat the enemies of freedom.

Enemy Identification

“There are multiple threats from within this country and some of them, you know, do come from the sources that you are taking about (radical Islam). But, you know, Muslims didn’t blow up the building in Oklahoma City or send anthrax through the mail. Those were, you know, some of Dan’s people here, unfortunately, political extremists. They were right-wingers.”

The quote above is from Pete Giangreco, an aide to Barak Obama. The comment came during a nationally syndicated radio program "Beyond the Beltway" which broadcasts from WLS radio in Chicago. They occurred during this past Sunday's broadcast during a discussion of the threat of the Islamofascist Jihad against the West.

Read more from Dan Proft, who was another panelist on the show and writes about the discussion at Human Events.

I have to agree with him that in the eyes of the left, all conservatives (or "right-wingers) are lumped together with the likes of Timothy McVeigh. This aide to Obama made a direct connection with the comment that these were some of "Dan's people."

These are the same broad-minded individuals who tell us it is wrong to paint Islam with a broad brush or even to mention that the vast majority of terrorists in this world are adherents of the Mohammedan faith. Yet all "right-wingers" are to be associated with a miniscule number of attacks that happened years ago and which were unanimously condemned by the leaders of the conservative movement.

Proft is right in his statement: "Welcome to Barack Obama’s fairytale land where there are no such things as “blue Americans” and “red Americans”, there are just “Americans” -- unless, of course, you disagree with them, and then you are a terrorist."

The liberal attitude is wholly unsupported by facts. In spite of the fact that Jihadism represents a broad strategy of violence on behalf of an ideology that is ascribed to by millions and is on the march on a global scale, the left continues to chant the mantra that we are dealing with a small minority. While the Jihadists openly tell us they are at war with us, the left wants to treat terrorism as a crime. Indeed, remember that John Kerry hoped for a day when it returned to acceptable levels like prostitution and other crimes. That belief is also why John Edwards calls the War on Terror a "bumper sticker slogan."

We cannot afford to entrust our security to the likes of these, who can't see past their PC and partisan ideology enough to know who the real threat is. I pray that such comments from their side continue so that more and more Americans will see just how out of touch with reality the left is.

This Is The Enemy

Hattip: The Wide Awake Cafe

I'm a bit behind in keeping up with news, but found a link over at Wide Awake Cafe to Michael Yon's July 1, 2007 Dispatch. Warning, the photos are graphic, but you must see the truth.

A village in Iraq whose residents; men, women and children were massacred during its occupation by AQ troops. Children decapitated. It's all there and it is why we fight AQ. This enemy is evil folks, pure and simple. Its evil at least equals, if not surpasses that of the Nazis and the Japanese who slaughtered their way through Europe and the Pacific. It is as evil as the communist leaders such as Stalin and Mao who mercilessly savaged their own people. The MSM doesn't tell us much of this. Thank God for Yon who keeps the truth (good and bad) coming.

Obama Sees The Problem But Has Wrong Solution

Senator Barack Obama, of my home state, offers the same old, failed liberal policies in a newer, younger looking package. At a recent speech he tried to address the issue of escalating violence among urban males, but alas he trots out the same tired liberal mantra.

Read more here.

Obama told churchgoers at the Vernon Park Church of God on Chicago's South Side that too many young lives are being claimed by violence and more must be done to combat the problem.

"From South Central L.A. to Newark, New Jersey, there's an epidemic of violence that's sickening the soul of this nation," the Illinois senator told the crowd. "The violence is unacceptable and it's got to stop."

Nearly three dozen Chicago students have been killed this year, according to Chicago Public Schools. Obama said that figure is higher than the number of Illinois serviceman who've died in Iraq in 2007.

We have seen violence not only in Chicago but in smaller towns as well, including here in my town with some instances uncomfortably close to home and my children's schools.

But Obama goes on to propose exactly the wrong solutions. Solutions which have tried and failed, for decades. Solutions which not only haven't worked, but have made the problem worse.

He also said government should support and fund more after-school programs to keep kids off the streets. But some of the burden must also be shouldered by residents who need to do more to raise and protect at-risk children, he added.

"We have an entire generation of young men in our society who have become products of violence, and we are going to have to break the cycle," Obama said. "There are too many young men out there who have gone down the wrong path."

He later added, "There's a reason they go out and shoot each other, because they don't love themselves. And the reason they don't love themselves is because we are not loving them enough."

Focus on that last line about not loving themselves. Hasn't this brand of self esteemia done enough harm? (More on Self-esteemia, including the quote below, here:)

Character is a quest. It's not quite a destination because we never reach there and we are always accountable for who we are. Some of the self-esteem movements I very much agree with, but to deliberately enhance esteem but not make people accountable for their choices is a mistake. I call that self-esteemia. Self-esteemia is to be more concerned with feeling good than being good[emphasis mine].

I'd say these young people love themselves too much. They love themselves so much that they think they have the right to victimize their fellow men. They think so highly of themselves that they feel it is acceptable to attack, steal and kill. Take a look at those in the modern gangsta culture and tell me they don't love themselves. They are the absolute deffinition of hedonism and self gratification.

Consider this MySpace site. It belongs to a girl who is mother to a fatherless child. A child who is fatherless because he was in a gang and was shot by a fifteen year old boy. You can read about the murder here.

Here is another MySpace dedicated to the deceased featuring comments from his friends.

Take a look over the MySpace sites and tell me that these young people have a self esteem problem. The real problem, in my humble opinion, is they have too much esteem for themselves but are utterly unworthy of esteem from others. What we need is for them to value the esteem of others, of society at large, and to live a life that earns such esteem.

But Obama had part of the solution right. He was speaking to a congregation, and the church needs to play a big part in this. Government programs are short on values and without those, the kids will not change. The congregation is the key to solving the problem, not the politicians who speak to congregations.

My heart aches for these young people. It aches even more because liberals' idea of helping doesn't often include helping them learn, cherish and personalize the values that will truly make their lives better. Private virtue, after all, is the greatest public good.

Pity That...

Somehow, I just can't seem to work up any tears over this.

Seems that the poor little jihadists can dish it out but can't take it and the attorney for a man (term used lightly) who admitted to plotting attacks he hoped would bring mass death should be given special protection while in prison. Daily India has more.

Terror mastermind Dhiren Barot is demanding prisoner of war rights for himself and fellow al-Qaeda fanatics in jail.

Barot, 35, given life for plotting a UK and US bomb blitz, was quoted by The Mirror as saying that it is unfair that he was facing frequent searches and curbs because of his desire to interact with his Muslim inmates.

His lawyer, Mudassar Arani, also questioned the need for his client to suffer at the hands of law enforcement officials

"Why should he suffer? Isn't it bad enough to have to serve your sentence? Why does he have to be placed in segregation?" asked Arani.

My heart just aches for poor old Barot and his AQ friends. Why should he suffer? How about because...

Barot prepared meticulous plans for al-Qaeda figures on a series of synchronised attacks in the UK.

The central plan was for the construction and deployment in a basement car park underneath a building of an improvised explosive device using gas cylinders hidden in limousines. Files found on Barot's computers revealed the planning.

In the document, Barot had written his primary objective of the project was to "inflict mass damage and chaos".

The court heard Barot's plot also included plans to detonate a bomb under the River Thames to flood the Tube network and potentially drown hundreds of commuters.

Barot also planned to strike a number of US financial institutions.

And why should he be segregated?

He has been shifted to a Durham jail after bosses at Belmarsh in London feared he was radicalising Muslims there.

This piece of filth is lucy just to be alive. Quite honestly, he should have been executed long ago, and jail time is just not enough.

Those Cunning Iranians

Well, Iran has scored a great victory in the cause of the Islamic Revolution. Allah has smiled on the Islamic Republic and granted them victory over more than a dozen vile, infidel squirrels. You read correctly. The Iranian News Agency is reporting that the crack(ed) Iranian Intelligence Services successfully aprehended 14 squirrels who were acting as foreign agents. As the agency reported "The squirrels were carrying spy gear of foreign agencies, and were stopped before they could act, thanks to the alertness of our intelligence services."

Read more here, and here.

I have an unnamed inside source who recently passed along some more information to me at a recent livestock show and rodeo in Texas.

Apparently, the 14 squirrels were part of a larger rodent task force that included a spymaster named Fivel, a pair of talking beavers from a highly classified intelligence unit known as the NAtional RodeNt Intelligence Agency, and a wise cracking rabbit who goes by the cover name "BUGS." The entire team had been training for months for a variety of operations within Iran. According to my source, the rodents had each been warned of the neccessity of being "as quiet as a mouse," but the captured team "had always been a little squirrelly, and were considered the most apt to blow their own cover."

My source said that most of the team has been sucessfully evacuated from Iran following the arrests of the suirrel taskforce. Three mice, according to the source, remain unaccounted for. "We should never have sent them in," bemoaned the source who said the mice suffered from blindness, a disability that probably should have disqualified them from covert operations.

Stay tuned for further updates...

England Discovers New Way To Fight Terror

You have to read this post by Michelle Malkin about the latest act of dhimmitude in jolly old England. Apparently the schools there are planning to shake up their curriculum to give more coverage to "relevant" topics such as climate change and GM foods. Gone are such irrelevant topics as who was Winston Churchill.

Read the original article from The Sun here.

Apparently the shakeup includes adding the study of Arabic and Urdu in place of European languages too.

(sarcasm on)But, before we condemn this too quickly, this could be a great anti-terrorism weapon. England is sending a clear message to the Jihadists "stop trying to destroy our culture, we will do it for you."(sarcasm off)

Live Earth -BC Edition

I found it interesting that in the days before and after the highly hypocritical Live Earth concerts there were several Global Warming related news stories.

The first story concerns the discovery of DNA evidence that suggests Greenlad was once MUCH Warmer than previously thought. Research indicates that that

it was covered by a thick, verdant boreal forest that would have been similar to what is currently found in many regions of Canada.

The average temperature in the summer, according to the discovery, would have been around 50 degrees F. Just for comparison sake, the temperature right now in Prins Christian Sund (near the Southern tip of Greenland) is 42. It makes one wonder what the carbon footprint of any prehistoric Al Gores or Madonnas was, and if that contributed to the warming of Greenland that allowed such forests to exist.

My point is that climate change is natural and obviously occurred without any human activity. I am still not convinced that taking the advice, if not the sad example of Gore and his ilk, will do anything to alter the trend in the earth's temperatures.

Also, if we can cause warming, shouldn't we consider continuing it so we can restore the once beautiful forests of greenland and the diverse animal species they supported? Shouldn't we strive to reverse the destruction of these natural areas?

In other climate news there is a column by Tim Blair entitled "Fear of a Global 'Coldening." With more than a bit of satire, Blair takes the MSM to task for using every warm day as proof of global warming while pretty much ignoring any cooler than normal days. That is, of course, unless you try to claim cooler weather is caused by global warming. As Blair sees it:

But climate change is like Michael Moore's tracksuit - it can fit anyone. In 2005, Greenpeace rep Steven Guilbeault helpfully explained: "Global warming can mean colder, it can mean drier, it can mean wetter, that's what we're dealing with."

What we're dealing with, apparently, is weather.

I'll tell you one thing, here in Illinois we are enjoying a brief cooling off during our summer. Yesterday at work we cut, bound and shocked our oat crop and the temperature barely broke the 80 degree mark. I'll take it, considering the heat index last year when we harvested was around 110!