GEERT WILDERS FITNA MOVIE!!!!

WE HAVE A FRIEND IN HOLLAND!!!!

WE HAVE A FRIEND IN HOLLAND!!!!
Category: News and Politics

..TR> ..TABLE>By Stephen Brown
FrontPageMagazine.com | Monday, March 24, 2008

Can a film save a country? Geert Wilders is betting that it can.

The courageous politician, a member of the Dutch Freedom Party, is currently locked in a battle against the jihadists who would overwhelm and Islamize his homeland. But as he stands in combat against the enemies of Holland’s liberal, democratic society, a fifteen-minute film that no one has yet seen is one of his few weapons.

Scheduled for release before the end of March, the film is still a mystery. But one thing is certain: it will be explosive. Of the film, titled Fitna’(Chaos), Wilders has said that it would portray "the intolerant and fascistic character of the Koran." In an article in a Dutch newspaper, he explained that the fifteen-minute-long production would have a split screen that would show such things as a decapitation and a stoning on one side, while verses and sura from the Koran are read on the other. Wilders also wants the Koran banned, like Hitler’s Mein Kampf, from his country. It is, he believes, a book of violence.

Not unexpectedly, Wilders’s film has Europe’s timid governments, especially that of the Netherlands, wringing their hands with worry and veering toward outright panic. NATO is concerned about attacks against its troops in Afghanistan, especially against Dutch troops serving there, and the Netherlands itself fears a terrorist attack at home or against its interests and nationals overseas. Home to some one million Muslims, the Netheerlands has been put on its second-highest security alert level in anticipation of the film.

Even prior to its release, Wilders’s film has proved poignant. The biggest effect Wilders’ film project has had so far is that it has shown how deeply the Netherlands, and the rest of Europe, has already sunk into cowardice. For instance, the Dutch government, afraid of a violent Muslim backlash rivaling or surpassing what Denmark experienced after the Mohammed cartoons were published in 2006, has twice asked Wilders not to show the film. To be sure, their fears are not unfounded: Some Muslim countries have threatened an economic boycott should Wilders’s film be released.

Dutch politicians also fear a repeat of the civil violence that took place in Holland itself after film director Theo van Gogh was murdered by a Muslim fanatic in 2004 for his short film showing the oppression of women in Islam. Van Gogh’s gruesome death, some believe, was tantamount to a declaration of jihad against Dutch, and European, society. In the hopes of placating Islamic wrath, Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende has chosen capitulation. According to a story in the German publication Der Spiegel, he has met with Iran’s foreign minister, who advised him to use an article from the 1948 Declaration of Human Rights to prevent the film’s showing.

As the story correctly pointed out, Balkenende saw nothing base about accepting human- rights advice from a country where women are stoned and homosexuals are hanged. For Holland’s political leader, respect for human rights appears to end at the Dutch borders.

Even worse, Balkenende saw nothing wrong with allowing a foreign country to interfere in the Netherlands’s internal affairs. Balkenende’s foreign minister has also met with 35 representatives from Muslim countries, including ambassadors, about the film.

Another major Middle Eastern human rights abuser, Syria, also got into the act when its Grand Mufti appeared before the European Parliament in Strasbourg, saying Wilders would be responsible if there were any "disturbances, spilling of blood and acts of violence" after the film’s debut. Incredibly, no delegate of this legislative body that is supposed to represent enlightened, human rights-oriented Europe stood up and forcefully contradicted him.

Besides showing what a craven wreck the European political class has become, Wilders is attempting to stand up to the Mufti and the Islamist movement slowly sweeping Europe. While Muslim radicals have been using the West’s tolerance to promote their intolerance, the Dutch stalwart has adopted the strategy of using the same rights and freedoms the West offers to show how great this Muslim intolerance really is and what a severe danger it poses to Western civilization’s existence.

Most important, Wilders also intends to reveal though his film the most disturbing, and perhaps dangerous, part of this intolerance -- namely, the high capacity for violence present in the Muslim world, which is now being transplanted within the West’s own borders. In turn, this belated revelation would hopefully cause European countries to rethink further, large-scale immigration from a part of the world that is so inimical to its values and crack down on the existing danger within.

Some in Europe have accused the Dutch politician of being a provocateur, of deliberately provoking the Muslim umma to violence. But this characterization distorts what is in fact a serious purpose. What Wilders wants to reveal, above all, is that the violence is already an innate part of the umma. Besides Muslim intolerance, the Dutchman is also standing up to the moral feebleness of some of his own countrymen, whom he has called "cowards." Every television network in Holland has refused to run his film, leaving only the Internet, where Fitna will probably be posted on YouTube.

Moreover, in response to Prime Minister Balkenende’s fainthearted warning that, in case of a terrorist attack, he would be held partially responsible, Wilders defiantly replied: "The Cabinet may go down on its knees before Islam and capitulate, but I will never do that. The film will be released." The Freedom party leader has also called Balkenende "a timid man who has chosen the side of the Taliban."

In an unprecedented speech to the Dutch parliament this month, Wilders again pointed to the danger a creeping Islamification poses to Holland and Europe, warning it was "a few minutes to midnight." He also chided the ruling party for betraying the Dutch culture and people, calling one minister "stark raving mad" in the speech for having said that sharia law could be introduced into Holland.

Wilders has paid a heavy price for his position. He has had his own freedom restricted. Death threats from Muslim extremists have caused him to be put under 24-hour police protection for the past two years. Wilders thus joins the growing list of people in Europe requiring protection from Islamic radicals. At one time, it was only Salman Rushdie who was forced to live in hiding; now, as one observer pointed out, such people are so numerous they nearly constitute a new, social class.

Most citizens of the Netherlands have forgotten, but the Dutch were once made of sterner stuff. In 1816, Europe was not yet afraid to show enemies her pride and strength. Under British Admiral Edward Pellew and Dutch Admiral Theodorus van Capellen, a combined Anglo-Dutch fleet had arrived at the main base of the Barbary Coast pirates in North Africa at the behest of Europe to put an end to three centuries of brutal, Muslim slave raiding against its shores and shipping. Over that time, an estimated million Europeans, and some Americans, had become the desolate and dishonored victims of Islamic slavery.

After an hours-long battle before Algiers, van Capellen’s squadron helped defeat the Muslim defenses and rescue three thousand Christian slaves. Two thousand of the defenders’ bodies were counted strewn across the harbor along with the wreckage of their pirate ships. Dutch losses totaled thirteen dead and the English about one hundred.

Europe is now light years away from such a resolute response to the threat of radical Islam. And that makes Wilders’ film -- a lone note of dissent in a continent resigned to cultural submission -- all the more important.

POLITICAL ESPIONAGE!!!!

POLITICAL ESPIONAGE!!!!
Category: News and Politics

Devious Media Cover-up In Passport Security Breach

By JR Dieckmann

The State Department has fired two contract employees and disciplined a third for inappropriately looking at presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama’s passport files. On March 20, the State Dept. became aware that Senator Obama’s passport files had been accessed without proper authorization. This prompted an investigation which revealed that Senator McCain’s passport files had also been accessed by the same person.

In a Friday morning press briefing, State Dept. spokesman, Sean McCormack said the Obama violations were detected by internal State Department computer checks, which flag certain records of high-profile people when someone tries to access the records improperly. McCormack said an internal monitoring system at the department discovered the violations. Passport records are protected by the Privacy Act. The department is looking into the possibility that the contractors accessed the information for political reasons.

Don’t be fooled by media (including Fox News) attempts to include Senator Clinton in this story. Clinton’s files were accessed last summer by a trainee in a training session and that incident is completely unrelated to the current accessing of McCain’s and Obama’s files being accessed by one person at the State Department this year.

Clinton’s name was included in this media story only to derail speculation that it was her campaign supporters who were involved in this breach of State Dept. security. Don’t be fooled by the mainstream media’s attempts to cover for the Clinton’s by including Mrs. Clinton in the story. It is well known that the Clinton have strong connections in the State Department and many employees there were hired by the Clinton Administration.

McCormack said the State Department already fired two contract employees for inappropriately examining Obama’s file on three separate dates this year, on Jan. 9, Feb. 21 and March 14. McCormack said the Clinton breach occurred in summer 2007 during a training exercise in which employees were asked to search the electronic file by entering a name. While the employees were encouraged to enter family names, one employee entered Clinton’s name.

McCormack said the trainee was admonished, and "it didn’t happen again," which translates into - this incident was not a recent discovery and has no connection to the intrusions into the Obama and McCain files. The current perpetrator appears to have had no interest in breaching the Clinton files.

McCormack said the breaches of McCain and Clinton’s passport files were not discovered until Friday, after officials were made aware of the privacy violation regarding Obama’s records and a separate search was conducted. McCormack also stated that the Clinton incident last summer was detected but never reported to senior management in the State Dept. who just became aware of it during this recent search.

McCormack said the individual who accessed Obama’s files also reviewed McCain’s file earlier this year. This contract employee has been reprimanded, but not fired. The individual no longer has access to passport records, he said.

Why hasn’t this person been fired? How much clout must this person have in the Department to avoid being fired? I wonder if Sandy Burger would have been considered a "contract employee" of the Clinton Administration.

"Senator Clinton will closely monitor the State Department’s investigation into this and the other breaches of private passport information," Clinton’s Senate office said in a statement. I’m certain they will and try to derail any responsibility and connections to the Clinton campaign or the Clinton’s themselves for this offense. I would like to see Clinton’s explanation as to why her passport records were not examined by this person, while Obama’s and McCain’s were.

U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House oversight committee, on Friday wrote a letter to Rice calling for the identities of the companies involved to be released. What? Waxman wants the names of the contract companies to be released but not the names of the employee? Be careful who you hire.

That contractor’s name has now been released as Stanley Inc. The company provides IT services -- including consulting, systems integration, logistics, outsourcing, and engineering -- primarily to military and civilian agencies of the US government. Its clients have included the Library of Congress, the Department of Defense, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, the Department of State, NASA, and the Smithsonian Institution. Stanley was started as a consulting firm in 1966 by Admiral Emory Stanley.

News reports continue to focus only on the passport application, saying little information could be gained from it other than the applicants Social Security number. Just the SS number in itself is nearly a password to other personal files. The question was asked earlier if the files contained one’s travel history. McCormack said he didn’t know. Where else would one’s travel history be saved if not in their passport file? My God, it’s part of the passport. What other information might be contained in those files is unknown. But I can assure you, there is a great deal more there than just the passport application, and possibly information that could be used in a political campaign to smear one’s opponent.

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THE OBAMA CRASH AND BURN!!!! Category: News and Politics March 24, 2008, 5:00 a.m. The Obama Crash and Burn If he acts as if the Wright controversy is behind him, it’s over for Obama. By Victor Davis Hanson The latest polls reflecting Obama’s near-collapse should serve as a morality tale of John Edwards’s two Americas — the political obtuseness of the intellectual elite juxtaposed to the common sense of the working classes. For some bizarre reason, Obama aimed his speech at winning praise from National Public Radio, the New York Times, and Harvard, and solidifying an already 90-percent solid African-American base — while apparently insulting the intelligence of everyone else. Indeed, the more op-eds and pundits praised the courage of Barack Obama, the more the polls showed that there was a growing distrust that the eloquent and inspirational candidate has used his great gifts, in the end, to excuse the inexcusable. The speech and Obama’s subsequent interviews neither explained his disastrous association with Wright, nor dared open up a true discussion of race — which by needs would have to include, in addition to white racism, taboo subjects ranging from disproportionate illegitimacy and drug usage to higher-than-average criminality to disturbing values espoused in rap music and unaddressed anti-Semitism. We learn now that Obama is the last person who wants to end the establishment notion that a few elite African Americans negotiate with liberal white America over the terms of grievance and entitlement — without which all of us really would be transracial persons, in which happiness and gloom hinge, and are seen to do so, on one’s own individual success or failure. Instead there were the tired platitudes, evasions, and politicking. The intelligentsia is well aware of how postmodern cultural equivalence, black liberation theory, and moral relativism seeped into Obama’s speech, and thus was not offended by an "everybody does it" and "who’s to judge?/eye of the beholder" defense. But to most others the effect was Clintonian. Somehow Obama could not just say, There is nothing to be offered for Rev. Wright except my deepest apologies for not speaking out against his venom far earlier. We in the African-American community know better than anyone the deleterious effects of racist speech, and so it is time for Rev. Wright and myself to part company, since we have profoundly different views of both present- and future-day America. The more the pundits gushed about the speech, the more the average Americans thought, "Wait a minute — did he just say what I thought he said?" It’s not lost on Joe Q. Public that Obama justified Wright’s racism by offering us a "landmark" speech on race that: (1) Compared Wright’s felony to the misdemeanors of his grandmother, Geraldine Ferraro, the Reagan Coalition, corporate culture, and the kitchen sink. (2) Established the precedent that context excuses everything, in the sense that what good a Wright did (or an Imus did) in the past outweighs any racist outburst of the present. (3) Claimed that the voice of the oppressed is not to be judged by the same rules of censure as the dominant majority that has no similar claim on victim status. What is happening, ever so slowly, is that the public is beginning to realize that it knows even less after the speech than it did before about what exactly Obama knew (and when) about Wright’s racism and hatred. Even elites will wake up to the fact that they’ve been had, in a sense, once they deconstruct the speech carefully and fathom that their utopian candidate just may have managed to destroy what was once a near-certain Democratic sweep in the fall. And a number of African-Americans will come to resent that they are being lumped into a majority akin to the Rev. Wright, millions of whom the majestic Sen. Obama has nobly chosen not to "disown," despite their apparently similar embarrassing racialism. Over the past four days, I asked seven or eight random (Asian, Mexican-American, and working-class white) Americans in southern California what they thought of Obama’s candidacy — and framed the question with, "Don’t you think that was a good speech?" The answers, without exception, were essentially: "Forget the speech. I would never vote for Obama after listening to Wright." In some cases, the reaction was not mild disappointment, but unprintable outrage. The blame, such as it is, for all this goes to the Obama campaign "pros," who, in their apparent arrogance over Obamania (a phenomenon due to the candidate’s charisma, not their own savvy), simply went to sleep and let the senator and his wife resort to their natural self-indulgence — itself the offspring of the Obamas’ privilege and insularity. Any amateur handler could have scanned that speech and taken out just 8-10 phrases, called for a tougher stance on Wright, a genuine apology, and put the issue behind them. Now it’s too late. Like Hillary’s tear, one only gets a single chance at mea culpa and staged vulnerability — and he blew it. Where are we now? At the most fascinating juncture in the last 50 years of primary-election history. Superdelegates can’t "steal" the election from Obama’s lock on the delegate count. And they can’t easily debase themselves by abandoning Obama after their recent televised confessionals about abandoning Hillary. But they can count and compute — and must try to deal with these facts: (1) Obama is crashing in all the polls, especially against McCain, against whom he doesn’t stack up well, given McCain’s heroic narrative, the upswing in Iraq, and the past distance between McCain and the Bush administration; (2) Hillary may not just win, but win big in Pennsylvania (and maybe the other states as well), buttressing her suddenly not-so-tired argument about her success in the mega-, in-play purple states. Michigan and Florida that once would have been lost by Hillary in a fair election, now would be fairly won — and Clinton is as willing to replay both as Obama suddenly is not; and (3) The sure thing of Democrats winning big in the House and Senate is now in danger of a scenario in which a would-be Senator or Representative explains all autumn long that the party masthead really does not like Rev. Wright, whose massive corpus of buffoonery no doubt is still to be mined. (The problem was never "snippets," but entire speeches devoted to hatred and anger, often carefully outlined in a point-by-point format). What is the remedy? I would go buy about 10,000 American flags to blanket every Obama appearance, have a 4x4 lapel-button flag custom-made for the senator, have Michelle finish every appearance by leading a chorus of "God Bless America," draft every middle-of-the-road crusty drawling Democratic veteran (the knightly Harris Wofford doesn’t cut it) to criss-cross the country — and try to Trotskyize Rev. Wright from the campaign. Oh, and no need for any more Obama half-conversations about race and "typical white person" clarifications. All that does far more damage to the country than even to Obama himself. — NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and author, most recently, of A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War.

TALK SHOW HOST REVEALS OBAMA'S CONNECTION TO THE PLO!!!!

TALK SHOW HOST REVEALS OBAMAS CONNECTION TO THE PLO!!!! Category: News and Politics
TALK SHOW HOST REVEALS OBAMA CONNECTION TO TERRORISTS There is a far-reaching scandal brewing for presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, thanks to a radio talk show host based in Oregon. Syndicated talk show host Laurie Roth’s revelations make the news story about Obama’s relationship with a racist, anti-American pastor look like child’s play.
A top official at the Pentagon during former-President George H. W. Bush’s Administration and a former CIA intelligence officer maintain that Barack Obama and former Weather Underground honcho William Ayers funneled money to Professor Rashid Khalidi, a known terrorist sympathizer.Khalidi serves on the faculty of Columbia University in New York and is best known as the professor who invited Iranian President Ahmedinejad to visit Columbia University after he finished his speech at the United Nations. According to confidential sources, Khalidi has direct ties to the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), a group on the US State Department’s list of known terrorist groups."One source for this information was once a top military figure in the 1990s. He doesn’t take making allegations lightly. If he says something happened, believe me, it happened," said syndicated radio talk show host Laurie Roth."Another source is a former agent for the Central Intelligence Agency, who is an expert in counterterrorism," said Roth, who broke the story on her show Friday night."I certainly don’t want to demonize someone because they are a woman, black or liberal running for President. I love the idea that in our culture, a black and woman can now run. However, it does matter to me with any candidate, their consistency with good judgment, their voting record, their association with people with questionable backgrounds and commitment to our country," she said during her show. To listen to Laurie Roth’s 3-21-08 show click here.Here are the connections as described by very reliable sources, who possess impressive military, national security and intelligence backgrounds: Allison Davis, who hired the young Obama into his small, Chicago law firm Davis, Miner, and Barnhill in 1993, left the firm in late 1999-2000 and became a housing developer. Davis went into business with Tony Rezko, the indicted businessman who’s scheduled to go on trial for corruption in Illinois, and who was a major fundraiser for Obama.Davis met Rezko when he was a client of Davis, Miner, and Barnhill. Rezko is currently under indictment in Illinois for demanding kickbacks from companies seeking state government business contracts under Governor Blagojevich. Obama was identified as one of the politicians cited in the indictment as having received political contributions from Rezko out of his kickback funds.Tony Rezko hosted fundraising events for Obama in his home and was on Obama’s US Senate campaign finance committee which collected $14 million for his campaign against conservative Alan Keyes, an African-American who served as an Ambassador during the Reagan Administration. In order to avoid a scandal during his presidential campaign, Obama returned $85,000 that Rezko and his family had donated to him.In early 2000, while Obama served as a state senator in Illinois, he also sat on the board of the nonprofit Woods Fund. The Woods Fund is a Chicago-based foundation that claims its primary mission is to make financial grants in order to increase and/or create opportunities for disadvantaged people and low-income communities.The chairman of the Woods fund board in 2000 was Howard Stanback, who like Obama also had connections to Davis, according to the reliable sources.
Davis submitted a grant request to the Woods Foundation for a $1 million investment in his development partnership, Neighborhood Rejuvenation LP, that would be used to finance low-income senior-citizen housing. Under normal circumstances, a board member is supposed to recuse himself or herself from decisions where they have a business or personal relationship.Obama, who did not recuse himself, voted to approve Davis’ grant request. Stanback, on the other hand, abstained from voting. The housing project, which also received a $5.7 million loan from the city of Chicago, in turn donated almost $70,000 in political contributions to Obama’s presidential campaign.In the past, Rezko gave Obama -- who served as an Illinois State Senator -- his first two political contributions in 1995, $1,000 each from two of his companies. In 1998, State Senator Obama wrote letters to city and state officials urging them to fund a Davis-Rezko housing project. It was an obvious quid pro quo arrangement.Another major fundraiser for Obama is William Ayers, who also sat on the board of the Woods Fund with Obama and is a professor at the University of Chicago.Bill Ayers, along with his wife Bernadine Dohrn, was an active member of the Weather Underground, a radical left-wing group that advocated violence against the United State. Both Ayers and Dohrn went "underground" in 1970 after others in the group accidentally detonated a bomb in a Greenwich Village (New York City) townhouse. The blast killed three of the group’s members including Ayers’ girlfriend at the time.While Ayers and Dohrn were hiding from law enforcement, the Weather Underground participated in the bombings of the US Capital, the Pentagon and a State Department building. In 1981 Ayers and Dohrn turned themselves in to federal authorities, but all charges were dropped as a result of alleged "government legal misconduct." In his 2001 memoir, Ayers wrote, "I don’t regret setting the bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough.Ayers and Dohrn are known to have held at least one fundraiser for Barack Obama in their Chicago home.During Obama’s last year on the board of The Woods Fund (2002), he participated in awarding grants, including a $70,000 grant to the Arab American Action Network, a Chicago-based group founded by Rashid and Mona Khalidi.In another suspected quid pro quo arrangement similar to those with Ayers and Rezko, Rashid Khalidi also held a fundraising event in his home for Barack Obama.In the Middle East, Rashid Khalidi was known as a man to be reckoned with. From 1972 through 1983, Khalidi was the director in Beirut of the official Palestinian press agency, FAFA. His wife worked there as well.According to sources, when the Khalidi’s left Chicago for Columbia University in New York, Rashid was honored with the Edward Said Chair in Arab Studies at that Ivy League university. Their goodbye party in Chicago included testimonials from Bill Ayers and Barack Obama."What other fund raising connections does Obama have? How many times can you look the other way in church and with fund raising situations with more than questionable people?" asked Ms. Roth."We all make mistakes in judgment with people and their backgrounds sometimes, but usually we learn and pick better friends and associates. How come Obama seems to have continued hanging around more than questionable characters with anti American backgrounds and some with criminal behaviors? Now one is being indicted, Tony Rezco, who raised a ton of money for Obama," she said."As President, how much would he look the other way when dealing with national security and dangers to our country? How much would he listen passively to terrorist leaders then lecture us on our ugly American status? This kind of change is not what our country needs!" added the popular talk show host, whose show is syndicated by USA Radio Network.In a related story, during an interview on Thursday morning (March 20) with Black Panther leader Malik Zulu Shabazz, Fox News Channel viewers learned that Shabazz’ group endorsed and supported Senator Barack Obama for President of the United States. Even on Fox -- an organization wrongly accused of being "conservative" -- the interviewers were careful in their questioning of Shabazz, a recognized racist and anti-American radical.The New Black Panther Party leader proudly announced on Fox News that his organization endorsed Obama for President."While some people may say that Barack Obama has no control over who endorses him, he should have control over what endorsements are posted on his websites," said Laurie Roth, who, besides hosting a popular talk show, is a regular columnist for NewsWithViews. Com "The endorsement of the New Black Panther Party was posted on Barack Obama’s website. Why was this tolerated unless Barack Obama wanted their endorsement? If he does not want their endorsement, how much control over his staff is he going to have once he’s elected President?" asks Mike Baker.The New Black Panther Party is openly anti-White, anti-Jewish, and anti-America. After Obama’s Tuesday damage-control speech, his campaign pulled the Black Panthers’ endorsement story off their website.It’s also been reported that Obama’s campaign staff was allowed to fly a Che Guevara flag inside his office, according to NewsMax."Do these revelations demonstrate a pattern of Barack Obama’s judgment? If so, then I do not want him dealing with world leaders. I do not want these groups having access to the White House. Do you?" asks the New Jersey-based political strategist."It appears the Barack Obama water carriers within the mainstream news media are on the job as usual -- ignoring another story that has the alternative media on the Internet buzzing: Obama’s embracement of an endorsement by the radical, racist organization," Baker added.To contact Laurie Roth 509-701-1884Website: www. therothshow. com

THE LAST DAY!!!!

ON THE LAST DAY!!!!

JIHAD WATCH !!!!

Palestinians: Olmert must be living on another planet

At last, I agree with a Palestinian Authority official on something! I think Olmert is living on another planet also, although I doubt the PA wonk and me have exactly the same idea of why that is. In this story, the PA official takes Olmert to task for daring to suggest that Israelis may stay on what he regards as "occupied lands belonging to the Palestinian people." The only problem is that when one starts inquiring into what these Palestinian spokesmen believe are the particular "occupied lands belonging to the Palestinian people" in question, one finds that they're referring to every bit of Israel, such that only someone who lives on another planet, like Olmert, could possibly believe that this or that concession of land would satisfy them.

"PA: Olmert must be living on a different planet," by Khaled Abu Toameh in the Jerusalem Post (thanks to Sr. Soph):

The Palestinian Authority on Tuesday reacted angrily to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's assertion that Ma'aleh Adumim was an "indivisible" part of Jerusalem and Israel, and warned that continued construction in the settlements and Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem would "sabotage" the peace process.

In an interview with The Jerusalem Post published Monday, Olmert made it clear that he did not envisage a permanent accord along the 1967 lines, adding that his primary responsibility as prime minister lay in ensuring a "separation" from the Palestinians.

"I don't think when people are talking about settlements they are talking about Ma'aleh Adumim," Olmert said.

Asked to comment on Olmert's statements, a top PA official in Ramallah said, "Olmert must be living on another planet. Peace and settlements don't go together. If this is his policy, he can forget about finding a partner on the Palestinian side."

The official stressed that the PA does not distinguish between an illegal settlement outpost and Ma'aleh Adumim or Har Homa.

"These are all illegal settlements that were built on occupied lands belonging to the Palestinian people," he said.

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Al-Qaeda claims Algeria bomb attack

Another victory for the glorious mujahedin, the lovers of death. "Algeria: Al-Qaeda claims northern attack," from AKI (thanks to Sr. Soph):

Naciriya, 2 Jan. (AKI) - Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has claimed Wednesday's deadly bomb attack against a police station in the northern town of Niciriya, in Boumerdes province, east of Algiers, Arabic satellite TV network al-Arabiya reported.

A suicide bomber, named as Abdullah, blew himself up in the attack, in which a truck with 500 kilgrammes of TNT explosives, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb said, quoted by al-Arabiya.

The bombing killed at least three people and wounded seven, according to the interior ministry. It provided no further details of the attack.

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Spencer: Bhutto Dead, Democrats Clueless

In Human Events today I discuss the reactions to Bhutto's death from Hillary and Obama (links in the original):

Benazir Bhutto has been murdered and the Democrats, stampeding to the microphones to make a statement about her death, have shown themselves as clueless as ever. Quickly after the assassination, a top foreign policy adviser for Barack Obama, Susan Rice, contrasted her boss’s approach with that of Hillary Clinton: “Sen. Clinton’s view,” she asserted, “has been closer to Bush’s, which is to see Musharraf as the linchpin but democracy as something that is desirable, but not necessarily essential to our security interests. Whereas Obama feels that democracy and human rights in the context of Pakistan are essential to our security.”

Hillary’s campaign reacted quickly to show that they could be just as Carteresque as Obama, if not more so. Lee Feinstein, Hillary’s foreign policy adviser, took issue with the claim that his candidate supported Musharraf. He wrote indignantly: “Sen. Obama’s continuing and deliberate efforts to politicize this tragedy by blaming Sen. Clinton for it are unbecoming someone seeking the office of the presidency. Sen. Clinton has opposed the Bush administration’s coddling of President Musharraf and stood steadfastly with the people of Pakistan in their struggle for democracy and against terrorism.”

Continue reading "Spencer: Bhutto Dead, Democrats Clueless"

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“Allah has purchased of the believers their persons and their goods; for theirs in return is the garden of Paradise: they fight in His cause, and slay and are slain”

That's Qur'an 9:111 -- a guarantee of Paradise to those who "slay and are slain" for Allah. I discuss it in the latest Blogging the Qur’an installment at Hot Air: Sura 9, “Repentance,” verses 81-129 (links in the original):

Verse 81-89 of Sura 9, “Repentance,” excoriate Muslims who refused to accompany Muhammad on his expedition to Tabuk, where he had hoped to fight the Byzantines in the year 631. Some begged off because of the scorching heat in Arabia, making an expedition particularly trying – leading Allah to taunt them about the heat of hell, for “they hated to strive and fight,” that is, wage jihad (yujahidoo, يُجَاهِدُوا) “with their goods and their persons, in the cause of Allah” (v. 81). Ibn Kathir explains: “if they have any comprehension or understanding, they would have marched with the Messenger of Allah during the heat, so as to save themselves from the Fire of Jahannam [Hell], which is much more severe.”

Even if the Hypocrites were to change their minds and want to join Muhammad on a future expedition, they are forever barred from doing so (v. 83). Muhammad and the Muslims should not even pray for them when they die (v. 84). They will be punished in this world also (v. 85 – a repeat of v. 55). But Muhammad and the Muslims who do “strive and fight [jahadoo, جَاهَدُواْ] with their wealth and their persons” will enter the gardens of Paradise (vv. 88-89).

Continue reading "“Allah has purchased of the believers their persons and their goods; for theirs in return is the garden of Paradise: they fight in His cause, and slay and are slain”"

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Death jihad: suicide bomber kills 32 at Baghdad funeral

The jihadists who make such effective propaganda use of anything they can portray as an attack on civilians by the Americans or Israels never hesitate to target anyone, anywhere, with no regard for any convention or civilized norm. "Suicide bomb at Baghdad funeral kills 32," by Patrick Quinn for Associated Press (thanks to Jeffrey Imm):

BAGHDAD - A suicide attacker killed at least 32 men gathered in eastern Baghdad Tuesday to mourn the death of a retired Iraqi army officer, a Shiite who was slain last week in a car bombing blamed on al-Qaida in Iraq.

The attack was a reminder of the dangers that persist despite Baghdad's recent decline in violence and of the peril for any mass gathering in a country where the bereaved often find themselves targets.

[...]

In Tuesday's bombing the east Baghdad neighborhood of Zayouna, a mixed Shiite and Sunni district, a man loaded with explosives walked into a funeral tent outside the home of Nabil Hussein Jassim, a retired army officer killed along with another 13 people in a car bombing in downtown Baghdad's Tayaran Square on Friday.

All 32 people killed by the suicide bomber were men, police and ambulance officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release details of the bombing. The attack resembled those carried out by al-Qaida in past years, when men in suicide vests targeted funeral tents or processions. Tents are usually erected outside the homes of those whose died or outside mosques and are usually filled with male friends and relatives of the deceased.

It was the fourth large bombing to target Iraqi civilians or members of the predominantly Sunni tribal movement known as Awakening Councils in the past 10 days. A suicide bomber targeting members of the U.S.-funded movement killed 12 people on Monday in Tarmiyah, just north of Baghdad....