COLLECTIVE MADNESS
“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."
ReplyDeletePublic Policy Polling asked US voters if they favored bombing “Agraba.” Some 30% of Republicans said “Yes!”
Obviously, this is a a little bit of a trick, since voters being asked such a question assume it is a real policy issue. But wouldn’t you want to be sure what a place is before you blasted it?
Agraba is the fictional land of Aladdin in the Disney cartoon. There isn’t actually any place so named in the Middle East, though it may be based on the Jordanian Red Sea port of Aqaba.
In the Thousand and One Nights, Aladdin was probably sited in Baghdad, though the 18th century French collector of the tales got his manuscript and perhaps some oral stories such as Aladdin from Aleppo in Syria. (A tale with a magic lamp has recently been discovered from 17th century Alexandria in Egypt). Many of these stories originated in India and were translated and retold in the Arab lands in the medieval period.
Maybe the public hates Agraba because Disney told them it is a “barbaric place.” (Baghdad actually was highly civilized when Paris was a muddy village).
The poll actually does have a use, as demonstrated by the clear differences in the answers given depending on whom they asked.
The most belligerent voters against little Agraba were Trump supporters at 41%. And only 9% opposed bombing Aladdin and Jasmine to smithereens.
agraba
Only 19% of Democrats were knee-jerk bombers, and 36% were firmly opposed to reducing the cartoon land to smouldering cellulose. That 19% of Democrats wanted to bomb is pretty bad, obviously.
But it is interesting that the most belligerent constituencies besides Trump were supporters of Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz and Chris Christie.
I suppose Bush acolytes figure they know what a Bush would get up to. And after all, all those Neoconservatives who engineered the Iraq War are in his brain trust.
Christie, being a bully, likely attracts other bullies.
It is hard to know if the Cruz devotees are militarily aggressive or just addled like their leader.
Perhaps because he is so soft-spoken, Dr. Ben Carson appears to have attracted the least warlike followers, at only 14% anti-Agraba.
The poll seems to me to demonstrate that some significant proportion of Americans, and roughly 30% of Republicans, are so anxious, scared and angry that they would pretty much bomb anything at all at the drop of a hat.
Juan Cole
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DeleteFight or Flight Response?
I think I heard the chances of an individual American being hit by lighting is about the same as winning the lottery or about 14 million to one.
Of around a 1/4 million people murdered in the US since 9/11 about 1 in 4300 or 1/5 of 1% were killed by terrorists.
The chance of any one American being killed by a terrorist attack is less than being hit by lightning, yet, the worry of the next terrorist attack is all a good portion of America fixates on.
They have conditioned to this starting with Bush's WOT and color-coded terrorist alerts to Obama's expansion of the security state and restriction of individual rights right up to the current GOP's scaremongering and nativist tactics.
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Bomb (A Pinpoint Raid) Wisconsin !
ReplyDeleteMovement to Primary Speaker Paul Ryan Out of Congress Picks Up Steam
A facebook page was set up to primary Paul Ryan from Congress.
The page already has 4,335 likes. (8,373 after I added mine.)
There is also a Fire Paul Ryan webpage set up online.
And now this…
On Friday the Wisconsin Tea Party declared war on Ryan.
https://www.facebook.com/PaulRyanPrimary/
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/12/movement-to-primary-speaker-paul-ryan-out-of-congress-picks-up-steam/
http://firepaulryan.com/
Kyle Smith:
"If you can't beat him in the primary, you could always vote for his Democrat opponent. That way you would be kicking Ryan out of his Speaker role, and replacing him with a Democrat rookie."
Sounds good to me, if the Primary doesn't work!
Sorry, I pressed the back button twice and this mess happened.
ReplyDeleteDelete as you please.
https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/12360002_953192571414891_966533256516228016_n.jpg?oh=c7af67f7ede54e57472cea4ff67eda24&oe=5710E12B
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ReplyDeleteSounds ridiculous to me.
The budget deal was cut long before Ryan became Speaker. They have been talking of the outlines of this deal for months. Long ago everyone, in both parties, agreed that sequestration was dead. Both parties are willing to give money to the other side as long as they also get to dip their beak.
Go to teaparty.org and look up 'conservatives give Ryan a pass'. The Tea Party was more concerned about things they didn't get in the budget deal like legislation on Syrian refugees and pro-life than on money. They are still blaming Boehner for all their ills and praising Ryan for at least giving them a voice in the debate.
When will you learn, Doug, they are all dicks?
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ReplyDeleteUS Military Views on Hillary Clinton
(Rasmussen) – Hillary Clinton is still in line to win the Democratic Party’s nomination to be the next commander in chief, but few Americans in the military have a good impression of her.
A new RallyPoint/Rasmussen Reports national survey of active and retired military personnel finds that only 15% have a favorable opinion of Clinton, with just three percent (3%) who view the former secretary of State Very Favorably. Clinton is seen unfavorably by 81%, including 69% who share a Very Unfavorable impression of her. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
That compares to the 47% of all Likely Voters who viewed Clinton favorably back in April. Just as many (47%) viewed her unfavorably.
Twenty-seven percent (27%) of military women share a favorable opinion of Clinton, compared to 12% of men...
- See more at: http://www.teaparty.org/u-s-military-asked-feel-hillary-response-overwhelming-135355/#sthash.ZJuBtfyP.dpuf
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ReplyDeleteMore Hillary Corruption?
(Breitbart) – The Hillary Clinton campaign is quietly making cash transfers to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to fund state party efforts in the South.
Breitbart News has obtained an email sent by Hillary Clinton deputy national political director Brynne Craig, 30, to a state party chairman. Craig assures the chairman that the Clinton campaign will be making another “transfer” to the DNC. Then Craig said she would “follow up to let you know the amount that is transferred.”
The email sheds new light on the relationship between the financially insolvent DNC, led by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), and the Clinton campaign. The Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) camp is suing the DNC in federal court ahead of Saturday night’s debate in Goffstown, New Hampshire after the DNC banned the Sanders camp from its voter targeting data after it accessed data on Hillary Clinton voters, which was originally supposed to be shared over all of the Democratic campaigns.
The Clinton campaign is clearly gearing up for the Southern Democratic Party’s vaunted “SEC primary” in March, where Hillary Clinton lost her lead for the nomination in 2008 to then-Senator Barack Obama.
Asked to comment, the Clinton campaign did not immediately respond with an answer that provides information about how much money the Clinton campaign transfers to the DNC. The DNC also did not immediately provide that financial information...
- See more at: http://www.teaparty.org/corruption-hillary-clinton-campaign-funding-democratic-national-committee-135372/#sthash.bhqL2POv.dpuf
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Bomb Michigan.
ReplyDelete(Use urban renewal money)
ReplyDelete(since we are picking targets, start with Hamtramck, then work towards Detroit.Drop warning leaflets over Q's neighborhood)
DeleteJihad Watch
ReplyDeleteExposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts
India: Muslim accused of sexually assaulting 4-year-old girl blames her for enticing him
December 18, 2015 7:16 am By Robert Spencer 89 Comments
This is in accord with the Muslim belief that anytime a sexual sin, crime, or indiscretion is committed, it is the woman’s fault. This is why Islamic law mandates that women must cover everything except their face and hands, and some cover their faces as well: if a man attacks a woman, it is the woman’s fault for enticing him, and she will be punished.
Mohammed Akram Khan
“Hyderabad man accused of sexually assaulting four-year-old girl blames the child for the crime,” by Sakshi Khanna, IBN Live, December 18, 2015:
Hyderabad: A 46-year-old Hyderabad man accused of sexually assaulting a four-year-old girl in his home has blamed the child for the crime. The sexual predator, who has been arrested and identified as Mohammad Akram Khan, claims that the girl had approached him and came close to him.
But later he said that he had made a mistake and should be pardoned. The incident caught on CCTV camera installed in his house came to light after a technician was taking a backup of the the footage and saw the horrific act and informed the police about it.
The police filed a suo moto case after observing the CCTV footage and arrested the accused Mohammad Akram Khan.
The accused used to sexually abuse the four-year-old girl at his residence situated at Chunne ki Bati, Jahnuma….....
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2015/12/india-muslim-accused-of-sexually-assaulting-4-year-old-girl-blames-her-for-enticing-him
Paul Ryan is worthless shit, and, he's growing a beard, and he smirks.
ReplyDeleteCAIR musta gotten to him.
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ReplyDeleteIt appears it is the night of the IMA'a annual pub crawl.
With the predicted outcomes.
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This may be all true but the writer has been drinking too much Cristman Vokka is he thinks anything is coming of it --
ReplyDeleteDecember 19, 2015
The Felon in the White House
By William A. Levinson
The occupant of the Oval Office gained his position through the commission of a felony. The evidence emphatically does not involve postings from "somebody's blog," or urban legends about Obama being a Muslim and/or having been born in Kenya. The evidence comes from Obama's own YouTube video, Web site, and campaign E-mails.
Lotteries for Political Campaigns are Illegal
It is a basic principle of auditing that issuance of a finding or nonconformance requires (1) objective evidence that (2) is noncompliant with the requirements of a standard. The auditor's personal opinion, rumors, and "common knowledge" do not count. As stated by Orson Welles as General Bayan in The Black Rose, "What I can't touch doesn't exist," and that is a good way to describe what is and is not objective evidence. A criminal conviction requires similarly (1) objective evidence that (2) violates a specific law. Let's start with the law as described by the Federal Communication Commission (FCC).
The FCC has defined a lottery as “any game, contest or promotion that combines the elements of prize, chance and consideration.” Federal law generally prohibits the broadcast of any advertisement or information concerning a lottery.
Texas adds, "Texas law allows only certain charitable and nonprofit organizations to conduct raffles to support their charitable causes. An unlawful raffle may constitute illegal gambling, which may carry criminal penalties." The Center for Competitive Politics is just as explicit:
It is legally impossible to conduct a nationwide raffle, whether the funds are being used for political purposes or not. This, of course, is of great importance, because running an interstate gambling operation that does not comply with the laws in each state in which it is being conducted subjects you to both criminal and civil penalties under the Federal RICO statute.
Now we have a clear standard against which we can compare Mr. Obama's fundraising practices. The next time he talks about people he thinks shouldn't be able to own guns, for example, our side should remind him (publicly) that, had prosecutors and law enforcement agencies not given him an obvious pass in 2008, he would be a prohibited person along with other enemies of the Second Amendment such as convicted felon Rod Blagojevich.
Barack Obama Funded His Campaign via Internet Gambling
Here is an E-mail that I received from the Obama Campaign in 2007, with full headers. As shown by the traceroute of IP address 70.42.50.185 which still belongs to BlueStateDigital, this is not a forged E-mail.
X-UIDL: 8498-1156627068
X-Mozilla-Status: 1001
X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000
Received: from mta-inap3.bluestatedigital.com ([70.42.50.185])
by vms169131.mailsrvcs.net
(Sun Java System Messaging Server 6.2-6.01 (built Apr 3 2006))
with ESMTP id <0JM100JTOT7PEIU0@vms169131.mailsrvcs.net> for
[my E-mail address]; Tue, 31 Jul 2007 09:50:15 -0500 (CDT)
Received: by mta-inap3.bluestatedigital.com (Postfix, from userid 501)
id 4B67A4EDCB3; Tue, 31 Jul 2007 10:50:13 -0400 (EDT)
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 10:50:13 -0400
From: Barack Obama
Subject: Dinner invitation
X-Originating-IP: [70.42.50.185]
DeleteTo: Bill Levinson <[my E-mail address]>
Reply-to: info@barackobama.com
Message-id: <6410a68c11e0cea969d3dd947ed112f6@localhost.localdomain>
Dear Bill,
A couple of weeks ago I sat down to dinner with four supporters like you.
Christina, Haile, Margaret, and Michael each made a small online donation, and we flew them across the country for some good food and good conversation.
What I enjoyed most about this dinner was the opportunity to listen to the stories and concerns of ordinary Americans in a relaxed environment. Out on the campaign trail, there isn't always time for that kind of interaction.
Last week we started planning our second dinner, and on Friday evening at 6:42 pm, a woman named Dorothy Unruh of Lakewood, Colorado made a donation.
I'm pleased to announce that Dorothy will be one of my guests for the second dinner. You could join us if you make a small donation before 11:59 pm tonight, July 31st:
…Thank you for your support,
Barack Obama
Note all the elements of a lottery:
Element of chance ("You could join us")
Mandatory payment of consideration ("if you make a small donation"). Had it been possible to enter this game of chance without making a donation, this would have removed this element and made the proposition legal, but it was not. Only after warnings (and how many ordinary people would have been let off with warnings?) did the Obama campaign say that no payment was necessary to enter--and then, as shown below, did so in very small print.
A prize (expenses-paid trip to have dinner with Barack Obama)
This lottery was not even honest like the numbers games for which gangsters are infamous. Numbers rackets are inarguably illegal, but they are also genuine games of chance. In this case, however, at least one winner was announced before the deadline for entries. The American Presidency Project confirms meanwhile that the Obama campaign raised money with yet another illegal Internet lottery (that is, prior to this one).
As part of the second Dinner with Barack Obama, the participants were selected from a group of thousands who submitted their personal stories along with a donation as small as $5 at barackobama.com.
If this is not enough, a video of Mr. Obama himself dated June 12 2007 includes the following admission to what looks like an obvious felony beginning at 0:35.
Here's what we are going to do. We want to have four people who donate money this week to sit down and have dinner with me, on me. We'll fly you in, I'll pay for dinner, and we'll sit and we'll talk about what we need to do to change this country.
Obama's own Web page, as archived by Archive.org, says openly that participants had to donate $5.00 or more to have a chance to be selected for the September 3 2007 dinner, while "lucky supporter" underscores the element of chance.
DeleteEvery supporter who made a donation of $5 or more between July 26th and July 31st took part in our second Dinner with Barack campaign.
On Labor Day, September 3rd, four lucky supporters from all over the country will join Barack for an evening of good food and good conversation.
Even after the Obama campaign complied with the warnings from law enforcement agencies, by the way, the obvious intention was minimal compliance that underscores the entire campaign's lack of ethics. E-mails from Howard Dean, David Plouffe, and Michelle Obama said for example in 9-point print,
Free tickets will be available soon, but if you make a donation in any amount this month, you could be one of 10 supporters selected to meet Barack backstage before he delivers his speech.
If you make a donation by midnight this Thursday, July 31st, you and a guest could be flown to Denver, spend a couple of nights in a hotel, participate in the convention, and then go backstage with Barack before the big event.
Watch this short video and make a donation of $5 or more today to be part of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity:
followed by extremely small (7.5 point) print,
If you do not wish to make a donation, you can still be selected to join Barack at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. Learn more here.
It says in 9-point print that you have to donate $5 or more but adds in 7.5 point print that you don't have to make a donation. This is clearly for the sole purpose of staying out of prison rather than being square and honest with their own supporters let alone the country as a whole.
This Is the De Facto End of Obama's Presidency
The bottom line is as follows:
The occupant of the White House participated personally (as shown by his YouTube video) in dishonest as well as illegal Internet gambling to fund his campaign.
The fact that Mr. Obama was let off with a warning while ordinary people's lives were marred with felony records for similar conduct undermines our country's basic principle that nobody is above the law. "One law for Obama, another law for everybody else" is a talking point that cannot be repeated too often.
If this story circulates widely enough through social media, letters to the editor, talk radio, and so on, it could be the de facto end of Obama's Presidency, as well as a likely catastrophe for his party next November, even if Congress does not move to impeach. This will end the rest of his agendas because he will lack the basic credibility necessary to do anything. He will give no executive orders that anybody respects, make no credible climate deals (read "deals to enrich special interests at the expense of the country's producers,") or indeed do much of anything else. Hillary Clinton's candidacy will be dead on arrival while Democratic House and Senate candidates scramble to distance themselves from the head of their party.
William A. Levinson is the author of several books on business management including content on organizational psychology, as well as manufacturing productivity and quality.
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/12/the_felon_in_the_white_house.html#ixzz3upowbQ6i
Christmas Vodka
DeleteChristman Vokka is the cheap stuff Q drinks when he's a little short around the Holidays.
DeleteAfter Hillary loses the Presidential campaign, it's either Prison or a Presidential pardon by Obama on his way out.
ReplyDeleteNo Matter Who Wins the GOP Nomination, Hillary's Going to Have a Fight On Her Hands
2:28 PM, Dec 17, 2015 | By Jonathan V. Last
Tuesday's debate wasn't boring, exactly. There was a good deal of substance and some demolition derby, too. Also, there was some real news toward the end when Trump doubled down on staying in the Republican party and not running a third-party candidacy if someone else is the nominee. But I don't know that the debate altered the strategic balance of power in this race in any meaningful way.
But it did get me thinking about the general election. To my mind, the most likely nominees, in descending order of probability, are Rubio, Cruz, and Trump. And watching them, it struck me that the consensus views about each of their chances against Hillary Clinton may not be correct.
Let's start with Rubio, who remains my favorite to win the nomination. (And please understand that I mean "favorite" in the Vegas sense, i.e. "the guy with best odds to win"; not "the guy I want to win.") The theoretical poll match-ups show Rubio with a slim lead over Clinton. I think this vastly understates his potential. Watch Rubio on the debate stage and he looks like a creature genetically engineered in a lab to crush HRC. By dint of his youth and energy, he turns her greatest strengths into weaknesses. He's a devastatingly good debater. As he showed Tuesday night, he can take a punch. And his political instincts are brilliant.
Have a look at Rubio's first moment of the night. The debate opened with a question about Trump's Muslim immigration/visa pause, which Jeb Bush scoffed at, over and over, as "not serious." Wolf Blitzer then turned to Rubio and noted that a majority of Republican voters supported the idea. It was an invitation to pile on Trump and disavow a "crazy" position. Instead of disavowing it, Rubio explained why Republican voters support it and then shunted the blame onto Barack Obama:
Well, I understand why they feel that way, because this president hasn't kept us safe. The problem is we had an attack in San Bernardino. And we were paying attention to the most important issue we have faced in a decade since 9/11, and then all the talk was about this proposal, which isn't going to happen.
DeleteBut this is what's important to do is we must deal frontally with this threat of radical Islamists, especially from ISIS. This is the most sophisticated terror group that has ever threatened the world or the United States of America. They are actively recruiting Americans. The attacker in San Bernardino was an American citizen, born and raised in this country. He was a health inspector; had a newborn child and left all that behind to kill 14 people.
We also understand that this is a group that's growing in its governance of territory. It's not just Iraq and Syria. They are now a predominant group in Libya. They are beginning to pop up in Afghanistan. They are increasingly involved now in attacks in Yemen. They have Jordan in their sights.
This group needs to be confronted with serious proposals. And this is a very significant threat we face. And the president has left us unsafe. He spoke the other night to the American people to reassure us. I wish he hadn't spoken at all. He made things worse. Because what he basically said was we are going to keep doing what we're doing now, and what we are doing now is not working.
If Rubio wins the nomination, I suspect he'll beat Clinton like a drum. A 7-point, realigning victory would not be out of the question and Clinton's best-case scenario would be a narrow win eeked out by the smallest margins.
With Ted Cruz, current polls and conventional wisdom suggest that Clinton would have a much easier time: That Cruz is too conservative for mainstream voters; that his personality is too abrasive. I tend to agree with this, to a point. But watching him in these debates it's clear that Cruz isn't Barry Goldwater. He's not looking to run a capital-C Conservative campaign in order to prove a point. He wants to win and his ambition and strategic cleverness make him perfectly willing to be ambiguous when he believes it necessary.....
http://www.weeklystandard.com/hillarys-going-to-have-a-fight-on-her-hands/article/2000263
Islamic terrorism was rough riding the world long, long before the USA even became a nation.
ReplyDeleteAsk the Hindus.
************
December 19, 2015
Denver's 2015 post-marijuana legalization crime wave intensifies
By Sierra Rayne
As another month goes by in Colorado's marijuana legalization experiment, Denver's 2015 crime wave cranks up yet another notch.
November's crime data is out for the city, and it doesn't tell a pretty story. There were another eight murders in Denver during November, bringing the year-to-date total to 50, which is more than 72 percent higher than last year's numbers.
Across the board, other violent crime in Denver is also skyrocketing this year. The number of rapes has increased 16 percent, robberies are up 13 percent, and aggravated assaults are up 14 percent based on the UCR standards and up 15 percent using the NIBRS definition.
Overall violent crime has increased 14 percent. Total crimes are up almost 4 percent.
In 2014, marijuana legalization advocates were claiming that the opposite trends would take place. Crime should decrease, they said, because marijuana use doesn't lead to criminal behavior, and the decriminalization of the substance should reduce organized crime associated with the sale of a formerly illicit drug.
If the data so far is any indication, the Pollyannas were wrong.
//www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/12/denvers_2015_postmarijuana_legalization_crime_wave_intensifies.html#ixzz3uq0rnnAH
Islamic terrorism was rough riding the world long, long before the USA even became a nation.
DeleteAsk the Hindus.
Long long before the Age of Oil.
No Blood for No Oil !
Delete
DeleteBlood, blood, who cares about that black gooey stuff, we want red, red, red blood !!
(and the proper theology too, we insist on that)
DeleteDecember 19, 2015
ReplyDeleteEgyptian TV admits Islam has no ties to Jerusalem
By Karin McQuillan
Egyptian TV has been infamous for decades for its Arab-Nazi programming.
Every Egyptian leader from Nasser through Sadat to Mubarak has enshrined Nazi Jew-hatred in mainstream Egyptian culture out of both conviction and political calculation. Nasser, trained by Nazis as a youth, spread the genocidal conspiracy theories of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion… On the Ramadan following 9/11, Mubarak presided over a thirty-week-long TV series dramatizing Elders and its genocidal message.
So when Egypt TV runs a series of interviews declaring that Islam has no connection and no claim on Jerusalem, it is news-worthy. Could it be a sign that Egypt understands their state-sponsored anti-semitism, used cynically to direct their people’s anger at Israel as a scapegoat, has backfired, and is fueling the jihadi threat to their own government? If Egypt were to abandon their Nazi heritage it would be of historic importance.
The Egypt TV interviews are a repudiation of American liberal media, which has taken to shameful support of jihadi claims that the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem never existed and that Jews have no historical connection to the land of Israel.
The Egypt TV interviews were with Prof. Ziedan, the director of the museum in the Library of Alexandria, a well-known lecturer, university professor, columnist, and author of fifty-plus books.
Professor Ziedan told his Egyptian audience: "The religious aspect of the [Israeli-Arab] conflict is nonsense. … The only reason why Muslims insist on the sanctity of Jerusalem is simply politics."
Hat tip: Hillel Fendel and Chaim Silberstein at KeepJerusalem.org
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/12/egyptian_tv_admits_islam_has_no_ties_to_jerusalem.html#ixzz3uqix8QNC
The Man with the Brain has returned :
ReplyDeleteJihad Watch
Exposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts
Hugh Fitzgerald: The madness and malevolence of Kuwait
December 19, 2015 11:47 pm By Hugh Fitzgerald 4 Comments
kuwait-airways2
By now we have all heard of the decision by the government of Kuwait to end all of its flights between New York and London in order to achieve one thing: to be able to avoid having to transport an Israeli, or maybe even two — horribile dictu — on such a flight.
It is things like this that reveal the full madness and malevolence of Kuwait’s economic warfare, its economic Jihad against Israel. Kuwait is willing to deprive its national airline of what is surely one of its most important and profitable routes, all because allowing even a lone Israeli to take a seat for six hours constitutes “doing business” with the Jewish state, and that can’t be countenanced by little Kuwait. For where might it all end, if a lone Israeli were to be assigned even a lousy center seat in the back? Possibly by Israel doing even more business, and before you know it, Israel will have bought up all those nonexistent high-tech companies in Kuwait City, and then Israel, as sure as night follows day, would be able to expand its territory from the Nile to the Euphrates.
The bizarrerie of Kuwait’s identifying the taking of a plane flight, without more, as “doing business” in any meaningful sense is matched by the bizarrerie from the opposite camp: to wit, New York City Councilman Rory Lancman, who said that “it was unconscionable that Kuwait, who the United States had helped liberate in the early 1990s with the help of Jewish soldiers, would continue to discriminate against Israeli passengers.” I was unaware that Jewish soldiers taking part in Operation Desert Storm had any bearing on whether an Israeli might be a passenger on a Kuwaiti flight from New York to London. Whether there were 5, or 5,000, or no Jewish soldiers in that campaign, should be irrelevant as to whether Israelis can fly on Kuwaiti planes. And what Kuwait does or does not do — halt a flight or keep it flying — is irrelevant to the long-established American policy of opposing the economic warfare, including the boycotts, that Arab states have been conducting against the state of Israel for many decades. It is too bad that the American government did not ban the New York to London flight by Kuwait Airlines, but allowed the Kuwaitis to beat them to the punch, offering to the world a parody of a “principled” stand: “we give up a profitable route for morally more elevated reasons.” Fortunately, it is not too late for the American government, if it wished, to ban all flights by airlines from countries that participate in the economic boycott of Israel. That would mean standing on quite a different principle.
This is the kind of story that helps rip the mask off of the sheikhdom depicted in 1990-91 as “plucky little Kuwait,” a splendid little sheikdom that was the victim of Saddam Hussein and Iraq. Plucky little Kuwait, brave little Kuwait, Kuwait the Soft, Kuwait the Victim, Kuwait the So-Much-More-Moderate-Than-Saudi-Arabia, brave little plucky little Kuwait saved by its age-old friends the Americans, who came in 1991 to save it from the rapaciousness of Saddam Hussein. And in so doing, the Americans earned gratitude so eternal that it lasted as long as it took the first President Bush to come and collect, when out of office, a million dollar speaker’s fee, and a few other well-placed Americans (was Clinton one of them? James Baker? I forget) to pocket similar sums for a half-day’s work.
That eternal gratitude must have lasted at least 3-4 years. Then Kuwait, not the Kuwait represented by a handful of members of this or that family (Fouad Ajami visiting them from time to time) that sends its children to the American School of Kuwait, but all the other Kuwaitis, revered to type, to the type of all societies and peoples suffused with Islam.
The Gulf War certainly made sense as far as the ruling families of Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, the U.A.E., and Saudi Arabia were concerned. But did it, the original Gulf War, make sense for the long-term interests of Infidels? What if Saddam Hussein had captured and held the oil riches of Kuwait?
DeleteWhat then? What would Saudi Arabia have done? Saddam Hussein’s army could not simply march into Saudi Arabia. The American Air Force could have destroyed it as it marched across the desert. Would Saddam Hussein have managed to appeal to the people who live in Saudi Arabia? Not to the Wahhabis, who would regard his brand of Sunni Islam — just look at the freedoms of Iraqi women — as far too secular. Not to the Shi’a in the Eastern Province, where the oil is produced: Saddam Hussein was the arch-enemy of the Shi’a. The Al-Saud would very likely have had to embrace, as they never really have embraced, the American government, and it would have been ready to pour out huge sums for a guarantee of protection against a more powerful, and closer, Iraq.
That would have been a good thing. We want the Al-Saud to be worried. We want them to have to worry about whether or not their enemies, foreign and domestic, will be held in check by the powerful Americans. We want to force them to give us far more of their unmerited wealth, for such protection, and thereby have less to spend on mosques, madrasas, and campaigns of Da’wa.
And what would Saddam Hussein have done had Iraq been able to take over Kuwait, and make it a province of Iraq? Would he not, over the next decade, have used that wealth to try again to destroy once and for all the “Persians” of Shi’a Iran? And would he not have been supported in such a new effort by the Saudis themselves, both because they would take his side against those “Persians” of Shi’a Iran, but because they might hope that he would once again be in an endless war with Iran, with Iraqi military might confronting the human-wave techniques of the basiji? For this would have kept both Saddam Hussein and the Islamic Republic of Iran busy for a long time.
The American government at the time, however, was intent on “protecting Saudi Arabia,” and it saw things one-dimensionally. It could not conceive of how mischief-makers and megalomaniacs can sometimes be used, or at least not prevented from acting, in ways that, objectively, help the Camp of the Infidels, and damage the Camp of Islamic Jihad. Now, so many years later, it again misses an opportunity it could have seized, to reinforce a valuable and important principle, in failing to boycott Kuwait Airways for banning Israelis.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2015/12/hugh-fitzgerald-the-madness-and-malevolence-of-kuwaiThat eternal gratitude must have lasted at least 3-4 years. Then Kuwait, not the Kuwait represented by a handful of members of this or that family (Fouad Ajami visiting them from time to time) that sends its children to the American School of Kuwait, but all the other Kuwaitis, revered to type, to the type of all societies and peoples suffused with Islam.
The Gulf War certainly made sense as far as the ruling families of Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, the U.A.E., and Saudi Arabia were concerned. But did it, the original Gulf War, make sense for the long-term interests of Infidels? What if Saddam Hussein had captured and held the oil riches of Kuwait?
DeleteWhat then? What would Saudi Arabia have done? Saddam Hussein’s army could not simply march into Saudi Arabia. The American Air Force could have destroyed it as it marched across the desert. Would Saddam Hussein have managed to appeal to the people who live in Saudi Arabia? Not to the Wahhabis, who would regard his brand of Sunni Islam — just look at the freedoms of Iraqi women — as far too secular. Not to the Shi’a in the Eastern Province, where the oil is produced: Saddam Hussein was the arch-enemy of the Shi’a. The Al-Saud would very likely have had to embrace, as they never really have embraced, the American government, and it would have been ready to pour out huge sums for a guarantee of protection against a more powerful, and closer, Iraq.
That would have been a good thing. We want the Al-Saud to be worried. We want them to have to worry about whether or not their enemies, foreign and domestic, will be held in check by the powerful Americans. We want to force them to give us far more of their unmerited wealth, for such protection, and thereby have less to spend on mosques, madrasas, and campaigns of Da’wa.
And what would Saddam Hussein have done had Iraq been able to take over Kuwait, and make it a province of Iraq? Would he not, over the next decade, have used that wealth to try again to destroy once and for all the “Persians” of Shi’a Iran? And would he not have been supported in such a new effort by the Saudis themselves, both because they would take his side against those “Persians” of Shi’a Iran, but because they might hope that he would once again be in an endless war with Iran, with Iraqi military might confronting the human-wave techniques of the basiji? For this would have kept both Saddam Hussein and the Islamic Republic of Iran busy for a long time.
The American government at the time, however, was intent on “protecting Saudi Arabia,” and it saw things one-dimensionally. It could not conceive of how mischief-makers and megalomaniacs can sometimes be used, or at least not prevented from acting, in ways that, objectively, help the Camp of the Infidels, and damage the Camp of Islamic Jihad. Now, so many years later, it again misses an opportunity it could have seized, to reinforce a valuable and important principle, in failing to boycott Kuwait Airways for banning Israelis.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2015/12/hugh-fitzgerald-the-madness-and-malevolence-of-kuwait
Jihad Watch
ReplyDeleteExposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts
The People Will Waken And Listen To Hear
December 19, 2015 7:13 am By Michael Devolin 49 Comments
Donald Trump
“In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoofbeats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.”
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The best thing about Donald Trump’s message, in my opinion, is that its promotion of old fashioned prudence has awakened the American people, and especially those Americans who have been driven to lethargy by political correctness; whose voices, until now, have been obfuscated and ignored by politicians—both Republican and Democrat—more interested in selling their party than they are in taking back their country. Neighbours north of the border—those also driven to lethargy by political correctness, whose newly elected prime minister and his caucus and their proposed policies indicate that they are more attuned to the Muslim Middle East than they are to Canada—are listening with grateful fascination. We applaud Donald Trump for his clarity on issues close to our hearts also. Imagine our disappointment, therefore, when hearing of his unprovoked excoriation of Pamela Geller and her defence of freedom of speech, an attack unseemly for anyone professing to be an American patriot, and especially discomposing for those who are even now trying to picture Donald Trump as the next president of the United States of America. Pamela Geller says it best: “If you don’t support free speech, you are not qualified to be president.”
However, and in spite of this one wobbling wheel, the Trump bandwagon is attracting a growing support. Sort of like Socrates’ description of the power of Homer’s poetry: “This stone not only attracts iron rings, but also imparts to them a similar power of attracting other rings; and sometimes you may see a number of pieces of iron and rings suspended from one another so as to form quite a long chain: and all of them derive their power of suspension from the original stone.” Donald Trump is the “original stone,” the real American, and he has inspired in those of consanguineous heart the determination that America, the America envisioned by her founding fathers, is not about to go down without a fight. As Riddick Bowe, one of the greatest American heavyweight boxers of all time, once said to Britain’s Lennox Lewis, “You ain’t gonna knock nothin’ out, bum.”
It is very revealing how some of the Republican candidates are denigrating Donald Trump’s message. Steve Holland and Emily Stephenson of the Associated Press, in their coverage of a CNN moderated security debate, reported that Jeb Bush ‘…assailed Trump for a lack of depth and seriousness and called him a “chaos candidate” who was adept at one-liners but naive on policy issues.’ And again, attacking Mr. Trump’s practical approach to America’s present security issues, “Donald, you’re not going to be able to insult your way to the presidency.” Mr. Trump, ever focused, responded, “We’re not talking about isolation; we’re talking about security. We’re not talking about religion; we’re talking about security. Our country is out of control.”
Donald Trump notices what the improvidence of the other Republican candidates seems to have obscured from their political horizons: the stark reality that many Western democracies (United States and Canada included) are being internally decimated simultaneously by both a lack of leadership and an unassuming populace whose primarily Christian traditions are being aggressively transmogrified by Islam’s political activists, many of whom have publicly professed Islamist sympathies. The Polling Company CSP Poll revealed this year (2015) that 29% of Muslim-Americans support violence against those who insult Muhammad or the Quran. Only 61% of those Muslim-Americans questioned agreed that such violence is unacceptable. Adherents.com reports that there are presently 2.8 million Muslim-Americans living in the United States. Do the math.
DeleteSaul Friedlander referred to the history of the Holocaust as “…an integral part of the ‘age of ideology’ and, more precisely and decisively, of its late phase: the crisis of liberalism in continental Europe.” Mr. Friedlander goes on to say that, “…without the obsessive anti-Semitism and the personal impact of Adolf Hitler, first in the framework of his movement, then on the national scene after January 1933, the widespread German anti-Semitism of those years would probably not have coalesced into anti-Jewish political action and certainly not into its sequels.” Those ideologies back then were “…revolutionary socialism (which was to become Bolshevism in Russia and communism throughout the world), and by a revolutionary right that…turned into fascism in Italy and elsewhere, and into Nazism in Germany.” It could be said of our day that we live in an “age of ideology” also, but of one ideology only, and that ideology is Islam. Regardless of which strains of this imperialistic and expansionist ideology are insalubrious and which are not, which are dangerous and which are not, the undeniable fact remains that the religion of Islam is their locus and anti-Jewish/anti-Christian hatred is, in varying degrees, a common thread in all.
Our problem, and it’s becoming a self-destructive problem, is that Western democracies are conciliating an Islam entire—which includes all these strains—without thoroughly and opportunely discriminating between the good and the bad. Donald Trump intends to remedy this problem at a time when all other politicians, Democrat and Republican both, have made it a habit of looking the other way whenever it rears its ugly head. The reason for his rising popularity can be found in the fact that a vast majority of Americans—those Americans whose concerns about the religion of Islam have been ignored—feel nothing now but repugnance when hearing the same old excuses and the same old worn out clichés from the same old politicians. When they listen to Donald Trump, they hear a politician whose concerns are consistent with those Americans who still love their country. Donald Trump has evoked an American patriotism the rest of the world had previously assumed was dead or dying, because (not excusing his trepid rendering of the 1st Amendment) he knows that, “In the hour of darkness and peril and need, the people will waken and listen to hear…”
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2015/12/the-people-will-waken-and-listen-to-hear
Ho,ho,ho, time to saddle up folks.
The Bern is burning burning hot ~
ReplyDelete**DRUDGE POLL** WHO WON THE 3RD DEM DEBATE '16?
SANDERS 60.49% (32,027 votes)
O'MALLEY 31.68% (16,772 votes)
CLINTON 7.83% (4,148 votes)
Total Votes: 52,947
Over 90% say nyet to the Hill
DeleteWhooo-hoo !
DeleteHillary should turn the debating tasks over to Bill, or Huma, or maybe even Chelsea.
DeleteThey're all the same person, only difference is Hillary is 'confused' all the time, according to Huma, her keeper.
DeleteYet another post smeared with boobie shit!
Delete