Purdue Student Busted After Death Threats

President George W. Bush, Laura Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld were apparently on the hit list of Purdue University student Vikram Buddhi, who's now in jail. Post-Trib:

A Purdue University graduate student was arrested and charged with threatening to kill President George W. Bush, Laura Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

Vikram Buddhi allegedly posted the detailed and threatening messages on an online message board.

Buddhi has been studying industrial engineering at the university, having moved temporarily from India to his new home in West Lafayette 10 years ago on a student visa. He was originally hired as a teaching assistant in the math department but was removed from that position and is now a teaching assistant in the industrial engineering department. ...

In the various messages posted, Buddhi urged the Web site’s readers to bomb the United States and for them to rape American and British women and mutilate them, according to court documents. Other messages called for the killing of all Republicans.

What a lovely fellow.

Hat tip: Plus Ultra. Rico wonders, "do women at Purdue feel threatened by a graduate student who openly calls for rape and mutilation of women? Or, does the fact that he also hates George Bush make him less threatening?"

Troops In Support of the War

Washington Post, via Families United:

By Wade Zirkle

Earlier this year there was a town hall meeting on the Iraq war, sponsored by Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.), with the participation of such antiwar organizations as CodePink and MoveOn.org. The event also featured Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), a former Marine who had become an outspoken critic of the war. To this Iraq war veteran, it was a good example of something that's become all too common: People from politics, the media and elsewhere purporting to represent "our" views. With all due respect, most often they don't.

The tenor of the town meeting was mostly what one might expect, but during the question-and-answer period, a veteran injured in Afghanistan stood up to offer his view. "If I didn't have a herniated disc, I would volunteer to go to Iraq in a second with my troops," said Mark Seavey, a former Army sergeant who had recently returned from Afghanistan. "I know you keep saying how you have talked to the troops and the troops are demoralized, and I really resent that characterization. The morale of the troops I talk to is phenomenal, which is why my troops are volunteering to go back despite the hardships. . . ."

"And, Congressman Moran, 200 of your constituents just arrived back from Afghanistan -- we never got a letter, we never got a visit from you, you didn't come to our homecoming. The only thing we got was a letter from the governor of this state thanking us for our service in Iraq, when we were in Afghanistan. That's reprehensible. I don't know who you two are talking to, but the morale of the troops is very high."

What was the response? Murtha said nothing, while Moran attempted to move on, no pun intended, stating: "That wasn't in the form of a question, it was a statement."

It was indeed a statement; a statement from both a constituent and a veteran that should have elicited something more than silence or a dismissive comment highlighting a supposed breach of protocol. This exchange, captured on video (it was on C-SPAN), has since been forwarded from base to base in military circles. It has not been well received there, and it only raises the already high level of frustration among military personnel that their opinions are not being heard.

In view of his distinguished military career, John Murtha has been the subject of much attention from the media and is a sought-after spokesman for opponents of the Iraq war. He has earned the right to speak. But his comments supposedly expressing the negative views of those who have and are now serving in the Middle East run counter to what I and others know and hear from our own colleagues -- from junior officers to the enlisted backbone of our fighting force.

Murtha undoubtedly knows full well that the greatest single thing that drags on morale in war is the loss of a buddy. But second to that is politicians questioning, in amplified tones, the validity of that loss to our families, colleagues, the nation and the world.

While we don't question his motives, we do question his assumptions. When he called for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, there was a sense of respectful disagreement among most military personnel. But when he subsequently stated that he would not join today's military, he made clear to the majority of us that he is out of touch with the troops. Quite frankly, it was received as a slap in the face.

Like so many others past and present, I proudly volunteered to serve in the military. I served one tour in Iraq and then volunteered to go back. Veterans continue to make clear that they are determined to succeed in Iraq. They are making this clear the best way they can: by volunteering to go back for third and sometimes fourth deployments. This fact is backed up by official Pentagon recruitment reports released as recently as Monday.

The morale of the trigger-pulling class of today's fighting force is strong. Unfortunately, we have not had a microphone or media audience willing to report our comments. Despite this frustration, our military continues to proudly dedicate itself to the mission at hand: a free, democratic and stable Iraq and a more secure America. All citizens have a right to express their views on this important national challenge, and all should be heard. Veterans ask no more, and they deserve no less.

The writer is executive director of Vets for Freedom. He served two tours in Iraq with the Marines before being wounded in action.

Vets for Freedom
I can add my voice to these gentlemen's. The arrogance and condescension of the pampered civilians who think they can speak for me is beyond words. I am proud to have taken part in the war that liberated Kuwait in 1991; my only regret is that we did not finish the job then by liberating Iraq and getting rid of Saddam Hussein. But I am proud and grateful that today's men and women in uniform have done exactly that, and they are providing the necessary security as Iraq rebuilds itself into a free and prosperous nation.

The so-called "liberals" who defended Saddam and his torture chambers have contributed nothing - less than nothing - to this noble effort. The final defeat of fascism in the Middle East will owe much to President George W. Bush and nothing whatever to the "peace" activists, whose increasingly ignorant and incoherent ravings testify to their own disordered mental state.

When 3,000 Americans were murdered in cold blood on September 11, 2001, our Armed Forces were ready to respond and respond they did. Whether you know it or not, whether you want to believe it or not, Americans and freedom-loving people around the world sleep more safely at night because of these people.

Iraq

Iran: What Bush Must Do

While Western leftists "liberals" continue to dither and stall and make excuses for the fascists in Tehran, freedom activists urge the Bush Administration to do what needs to be done.

"Big bark, small dog" - and that dog is on its last legs. Ruzbeh Hosseini, Marze por Gohar:

There is no doubt that the latest show of force by the Islamic Regime is nothing more than an attempt to show its legitimacy. Indeed, any regime, whether democratic or totalitarian, is at its most vulnerable when it is seriously questioned by its citizens and the world. But such displays of grandeur are little consolation to those within Iran who live in a country where there is no proverbial “bottom” to hit when it comes to the Islamic regime’s complete incompetence to administer.

Within the last few months Iran's economy has all but stalled. It is estimated that over the last year, almost two-hundred billion investment dollars has left . Throughout the country development projects that were once scheduled to go ahead have either been scrapped or put on hold . A great indication of this is the seemingly un-ending real-estate boom of Tehran that has sputtered and stalled . The impetus behind this economic catastrophe is the Islamic Regime’s bold stance towards the West and its determination to go all-or-nothing on a wide range of social and political issues that are not limited to its controversial nuclear program. With propaganda campaigns and political posturing that is reminiscent of the heydays of the Islamic revolution the regime has ventured to turn government programs that would ordinarily be seen as a waste of government resources in more democratic countries into symbols of national pride. It hasn’t worked. ...

Hosseini concludes: 'Contrary to what the media may believe, such a confrontation will not be with the United States or Israel. Rather, the regime’s incompetence at home will pit it against an increasingly impatient population who longingly looks to the successes of the “East Asian Tigers” that have surpassed Iran in economic strength and reminisces of the days when Iran not only was a regional power, but the world’s sole super-power 2,500 years ago.' Read the whole article at the link.

National Review: "The problem is the regime." The Editors, National Review:

The problem with Iran is precisely not its nuclear program. The problem is the regime. We have every reason to think this regime would use its arsenal to threaten the U.S. and its allies, and to extract concessions inimical to our interests. Nor can we exclude the possibility that the mullahs would actually launch their nukes. Consider Hashemi Rafsanjani, that celebrated "moderate," exulting that the Muslim world will "vomit [Israel] out from its midst," since "a single atomic bomb has the power to completely destroy [it]." Nuclear deterrence operates on the assumption that your foe is rational. Things start to break down when a significant part of its ruling establishment fancies itself on divine mission to evaporate the Zionist Entity in a mushroom cloud, roll back the Great Satan, and usher in a paradisiacal rule by sharia. That's not a regime to bargain with. The goal must be to remove it from power.

This does not mean invasion and occupation. But it does mean getting serious about supporting the Iranian democracy movement. The contradiction of Iran is that its people, the most educated, moderate, and pro-Western of the Muslim Middle East, are ruled by the most aggressive Islamists in the world. It wouldn't take a large expenditure to catalyze that tension. ...

We can expect more of the usual incoherent drivel from the Left. What we need from President Bush is action.

Iran

Iran: The Military Option

"A military option against Iran's nuclear facilities is feasible," writes Thomas McInerny in The Weekly Standard.

A diplomatic solution to the nuclear crisis is preferable, but without a credible military option and the will to implement it, diplomacy will not succeed. The announcement of uranium enrichment last week by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad shows Iran will not bow easily to diplomatic pressure. The existence of a military option may be the only means of persuading Iran--the world's leading sponsor of terrorism--to back down from producing nuclear weapons.

A military option would be all the more credible if backed by a new coalition of the willing and if coupled with intense diplomacy during a specific time frame. The coalition could include Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Turkey, Britain, France, and Germany. Solidarity is important and would surely contribute to potential diplomatic success. But should others decline the invitation, the United States must be prepared to act.

What would an effective military response look like? It would consist of a powerful air campaign led by 60 stealth aircraft (B-2s, F-117s, F-22s) and more than 400 nonstealth strike aircraft, including B-52s, B-1s, F-15s, F-16s, Tornados, and F-18s. Roughly 150 refueling tankers and other support aircraft would be deployed, along with 100 unmanned aerial vehicles for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, and 500 cruise missiles. In other words, overwhelming force would be used.

The objective would be, first and foremost, to destroy or severely damage Iran's nuclear development and production facilities and put them out of commission for at least five years. ...

Via Free Iran News Forum. The article adds that Iran - which the author states is only 51% Persian - is rife with ethnic and civil unrest. "Azerbaijanis and Kurds comprise nearly 35 percent of the population. Seventy percent are under 30, and the jobless rate hovers near 20 percent." A massive covert operation, timed to coincide with the air campaign and patterned after the Afghan campaign of 2001, could bring down the weakened Islamic Republic regime.

Meanwhile, JINSA lists America's national security priorities.

At least one analyst suggests that Iran could only generate enough for a one-shot demonstration to halt the current round of talks at the UN by presenting the Security Council with a fait accompli. An Israeli official said Iran had proved a "rudimentary research and development capability" needed to create nuclear weapons, but it did not mean that the Iranians had "mastered the nuclear fuel cycle." Israel's Chief of Military Intelligence, Amos Yadlin, called the announcement "a bargaining chip... meant to move the debate to the next point - the extent of enrichment."

However, even a demonstration project means that Iran has acquired the knowledge to enrich uranium after which, like biting the apple, you cannot "un-know." If the Iranian program is not stopped, some analysts believe Iran could master the fuel cycle by the end of the year. This is what Israel considers the "point of no return."

The Iranians themselves say they are looking to increase the centrifuge string from the current 164 (enough to test the technology) to 3,000 (enough for industrial purposes, or to make one bomb per year) and then to 50,000 (do the math yourself). The ringer here, of course, is that we don't know what we don't know. There are suggestions of a parallel, clandestine program; that the 3,000 centrifuges already exist, that the knowledge base is stronger than we think. ...

As previously noted here, some sources believe that the regime is hiding a top-secret facility in Neyshabour. This is

a top-secret plant under construction that is designed to run 155,000 centrifuges, enough to enrich uranium for 3-5 nuclear bombs a year.

This is Project B, or the hidden face of the enrichment plant open to inspection at Natanz.

This plant, due for completion next October, is scheduled to go on line at the end of 2007. According to our intelligence sources, running-in has begun at some sections of the Neyshabour installation, which is located 600 km northeast of Tehran. DEBKAfile’s sources reveal too that the Neyshabour plant has been built 150 m deep under farmland covered with mixed vegetable crops and dubbed Shahid Moradian, in the name of a war martyr as obscure as its existence.

Spook86 at In from the Cold cites an e-mail exchange with a former weapons inspector:

The former inspector believes that Iran will have to operate a small-scale cascade for at least 6-12 months before ramping up production. Obviously, the availabilty of P-2 centrifuges would help, but there is no evidence that Iran has the larger models in quantity (yet).

This former inspector also opined that Iran may have only a limited supply of the parts required for building centrifuges, estimating that Tehran might be able to assemble another 1-2,000 over the next year. Even if those are the larger P-2 models (and that's a stretch), it's still a long way from the 50,000 needed for fast-track, weapons-scale enrichment efforts (with the P-1), or the 12-13,000 needed, if the P-2 models are used. Beyond that, Iran still has the issues of output and quality to contend with.

A cautionary note: I am not trying to underestimate the menace posed by Iran's nuclear program. But Tehran still has significant technical and logistical barriers to overcome to reach the production levels needed to build a bomb. When will they overcome those hurdles? That's the $64,000 question, but given current levels of activity, Iran's progression along the enrichment track would probably produce a weapon in the 2009-2010 timeframe, and not in 2006 or 2007.

Having said that, we must emphasize (again) that there are significant gaps regarding what we actually know about Iran's nuclear program. The lack of P-2 centrifuges at Natanz may suggest that those models are being used (or will be used) in a parallel program at a covert facility. If the secret effort is more advanced/producing enriched uranium on a larger scale, Iran could have the material for a bomb before 2009 or 2010. As we've noted on numerous occasions, the possibility of a "dual track" nuclear program in Iran cannot be dismissed.

Late last week, a senior Israeli official stated that the west had missed the opportunity to head off Iran's nuclear program.

Spook86 doesn't cite the Debka report, but Debka may be working from the same sources as the "senior Israeli official". I've left a comment at IFTC, so we'll wait to see what Spook makes of Debka's claims about Neyshabour.

UPDATE: Spook86 responds with this illuminating post in comments:

Follow the main rail line heading east out of Tehran. Beyond the city, there isn't much, but the Iranians spent billions on that line that appears to go nowhere; certainly the number of passengers from Mashhad couldn't justify that level of investment; neither could potential trade with Afghanistan. A number of analysts in the intel community have long believed that this region is home to at least one major nuclear site, and possibly others as well. The location is remote; facilities could be more easily concealed, and it creates more targeting problems for potential adversaries, namely Israel.

On the other hand, any sites in eastern Iran are just a short hop from our bases in Afghanistan--something the Iranians never really counted on.

Iran

Vision and Memory

The second day of Passover is my mother's yahrzeit, and I observed it by lighting a candle in her memory and taking a few moments to think about her role in my life. I thought about her again today as I was rummaging through old books, many of which I inherited from my parents. And I want to say a few words about how my parents' legacy had shaped my views on the world today.

Mom was born on the eve of the stock market crash in small-town Maine. She was raised by a domineering and very conservative mother, who - she believed - favored her older brother (a grudge my mother would bear against my uncle until very late in her life). She must have seen the horrific newsreels from World War II, with their scenes of the German death camps, just as she was entering adulthood, and I believe it influenced her deeply. Looking back on those years, she would wonder bitterly why somebody didn't "do something".

My mother was a staunch liberal, but no friend of communism. She objected strenuously to what she saw as attempts to impose Christian practices in the schoolroom, but she didn't care for Madalyn Murray O'Hair, whom she considered an intolerant extremist. Mom wasn't against religion - she placed a high value on the individual's right to his or her own belifs. I think she would have appreciated Wafa Sultan's words: "You can believe in stones, just don't throw them at me." And she loved the Russian writers - Tolstoy, Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Pushkin - but never confused Russian culture with the brutal Soviet regime. One of her greatest heroes, and a name I heard often in our home, was a Soviet dissident who then went by his Russian name - Anatoly Shcharansky.

Mom was an idealist, but enough of a cynic to know how easily, and how badly, good intentions can go wrong. (My father, on the other hand, was mild-mannered and a bit more utopian in his outlook. He had a congenital allergy to anything that smacked of elitism, recognizable even in his days as a young soldier: even at the remove of many years, he resented his eviction from the officers' recreation area. That's my Dad. I don't believe he was ever pro-Communist, but I think he had a sneaking admiration for socialism - or at least, for socialists like Bernie Sanders.)

I remember my mother well, and you might think that I had a good relationship with my parents and a happy childhood. No. Mom drank heavily and suffered from mental illness; she could be incredibly cruel to those closest to her. Even in the best of times she was usually imperious and aloof. One of the things we must do in life, as we grow older, is to sort out the things we have inherited and try to pick out the good from the bad. I believe that the clarity we are able to bring to this task largely determines the clarity with which we are able to find our way into the uncertain future.

We have to do this, not only with our families of origin but with the ideas we have inherited - religion, political ideology, and so on. Unlike many neoconservatives - David Horowitz, for example - I never went through the "road to Damascus" experience or the wholesale repudiation of an old belief system. (Well, I never went through the Communist thing either, so that probably helped.) I believe it was my mother's uncompromising commitment to her own ideals, and her healthy mistrust of any kind of missionary extremism - that has shaped my experience and my beliefs as they are now.

Thanks to Judith at Kesher Talk for prompting this post. I plan to write more about my experiences with liberalism - and with Judaism - in the near future. So stay tuned.

liberalism

The Euston Manifesto

Liberals who haven't forgotten what liberalism is all about should go read The Euston Manifesto, which boasts the likes of Norm Geras, Harry Hatchet, Shalom Lappin, Jane Ashworth, and Eve Garrard among its signatories. From the Preamble:

We are democrats and progressives. We propose here a fresh political alignment. Many of us belong to the Left, but the principles that we set out are not exclusive. We reach out, rather, beyond the socialist Left towards egalitarian liberals and others of unambiguous democratic commitment. Indeed, the reconfiguration of progressive opinion that we aim for involves drawing a line between the forces of the Left that remain true to its authentic values, and currents that have lately shown themselves rather too flexible about these values. It involves making common cause with genuine democrats, whether socialist or not.

The present initiative has its roots in and has found a constituency through the Internet, especially the "blogosphere". It is our perception, however, that this constituency is under-represented elsewhere — in much of the media and the other forums of contemporary political life.

Go read the rest at The Euston Manifesto. For those pressed for time, Soldier's Dad makes it short and sweet.

The left and right should be arguing about the size of shape of social safety nets, which services are best provided by government or private industry, formulas for taxation etc.

We shouldn't being arguing over the benefits of genocidal dictators. We can argue about the best way to get rid of genocidal dictators.

liberalism
Euston Manifesto

Iran and the Bomb: A Nightmare Returns

Varifrank reminds us of what it was like to live through the Cold War years ... and feels strangely nostalgic. Go read it at the link.

Search Hit of the Day

Someone in the State Department at IP address 169.253.4.21, visiting Dreams Into Lightning at 2:35AM Eastern Time on April 12, 2006, wants to know:

when will the us strike iran

Heh. As if I'd tell you! Nice try, State geeks.

(Don't worry, Condi, I still love you.)

New Blog: Creative Destruction

Quiet as it's kept, there's a terrific new blog in the 'sphere. Creative Destruction is a very exciting, across-the-political-spectrum group blog. It's now on my list of "daily reads". That's all I'm going to say ... just go check out Creative Destruction.

Neocon Rabbi

The Jewish Week: Confessions of a Neocon Rabbi

Confessions Of A Neocon Rabbi
Bruce Dollin
Thirty years of being a registered Democrat came to an end this week and I thought it prudent to pause a moment to reflect.

It has been a slow and uncomfortable transformation for this pulpit rabbi, preaching each week to an overwhelmingly liberal congregation. I haven’t come out of the closet to them — yet. I thought I would take a risk with all of you first, as you live halfway across the country from my hometown. I have heard that most Jews in New York City tend to the left as well.

My Democratic credentials are solid. I hated the Vietnam War, voted Carter twice, Dukakis once, Clinton twice and was aghast when W was the choice of the Supreme Court. I have never voted for a Republican candidate for Congress and only recently voted for a Republican governor. ...

So why the switch? It started with my co-religionist, Monica Lewinsky, who was cavorting with our president in the White House. When I spoke out from the pulpit against immoral sex and the importance of marital fidelity the following Rosh HaShanah, some of my liberal congregants complained to me about having to listen to my politics from the bima; they wanted me to speak more about Judaism. ...

... I had no idea who George W was until he became my president. I didn’t know what he was made of until 9-11, when I was impressed with his firm and comforting response.

From him I heard that we Americans (and Jews) had real enemies in the world and had better start taking them seriously. Some of the young, Jewish neocons like William Kristol and Paul Wolfowitz, who the left were calling a “kabal,” were encouraging armed intervention to bring democracy to the world. On campus, professors were saying that these Jewish neocons were pushing our country to war to help Israel — and therefore, presumably, for the wrong reasons.

But I heard W and the neocons saying, “Bring the fight to the bad guys, so they can never again bring it to us,” which is just what Israel has been saying about its enemies for six decades.

Having been a pacifist at one time, I felt strange cheering on our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some on the left were saying Bush lied to us about Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction. For me, Saddam and every tyrant in the world is a weapon of mass destruction and therefore must be removed.

“But there are other tyrants in the world who we have not attacked,” say my liberal congregants.

“Not yet,” I reply. “Tyranny anywhere in the world is a threat to freedom everywhere in the world. Tyranny is against God’s will and it must be eradicated from the face of the earth.” [my emphasis - aa]

Go read it all at the link. This quote, though, is magnificent ...

My friend Ted Haggart, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, told me once that in the end of days, Jesus may come walking down Ben Yehuda Street, “and you Jews will have to make some theological adjustments.”

“Well, that’s no problem for me,” I told him.

When Jesus comes again, Ted and I will have a long talk about theology.

Wafa Sultan: Website

Did you know that Wafa Sultan keeps a website? It's called An-Naqed / The Critic, and millions of thanks to Neo for spotlighting it. Here's an excerpt from a lengthy, but well worth reading, article by Amit Ghate:

In reacting to the Islamists’ ongoing cartoon Jihad, most commentators have focused on the issue of free speech. This is natural, and necessary, since eradication of free speech is the most immediate risk; and certainly without free speech there can be no defending other values. Nevertheless it is also vital to take a step back and to view the events as part of a larger pattern, a pattern which poses a grave threat to our core Western values and system of government –- and to their primary consequence and beneficiary: the free individual.

To see why, and to appreciate what we stand to lose, we must begin by understanding what is meant by “Western”. Let us be clear that “Western” refers to a set of ideas -- it is not a racial or ethnic epithet. Anyone can embrace the ideas, just as anyone can reject them, regardless of his race, country of birth, or upbringing. Thus we can speak of Japan and Hong Kong having adopted “Western” principles as accurately as we can speak of Canada having done so.

In the broadest and most essentialized sense, the term “Western” denotes a set of fundamental ideas first discovered and adopted by the ancient Greeks. It was they who, for the first time in history, challenged the age-old notion that only the life of a society’s rulers and/or priests was important -- to instead assert that every man’s life is of crucial value. It was they who turned their focus from an obsession with death and the after-life -- to instead seek success and joy in this life. It was they who dispensed with all-encompassing superstition and from cowering before the supernatural –- to instead assert that the world was knowable, that no question was off-limits, and that the questioning mind was among the most revered of attributes. Finally, and as a consequence of all the others, it was they who cast away the resignation of living as unhappy subjects in an unknowable world -- to instead realize that with freedom to live, happiness on earth was possible for every man. ...

The unique relationship existing between each man and his government cannot be overemphasized: in the West, and only in the West, government exists for the sake of each individual, not vice versa. As Lincoln put it so famously: ours is a “government of the people, by the people, for the people”.

Yet though government exists for the sake of each man, its proper implementation involves having each individual delegate his use of retaliatory force to the government, which then acts as his agent to protect his rights. Thus in civilized nations, the government is the sole legitimate wielder of force, and its central charge -- and solemn obligation -- is to wield that force when (and only when) necessary to protect its citizens in the exercise of their legal rights.

The benefits of this system are manifold. ...

It would therefore be of the highest treason for a government to abandon any law-abiding citizen who comes under attack. In fact failing to protect an individual would be beyond treason: it would essentially reverse and betray 2,500 years of Western development. It would be tantamount to taking the individual, whose life and happiness is for the first time important, stripping him of all his defenses, and then offering him up to any mindless brute or savage to skin alive as he pleased.

And yet, in the past few decades, this is exactly what Western governments have done repeatedly. If it is not stopped soon, Western, i.e. civil and peaceful, society will break down -– and we will return to the primitive state of gang rule and utter contempt for the individual which currently exists in the entire non-Westernized world.

To understand the pattern of failures, and to see how it must be broken, it is important to survey the relevant historical events of the past 25 years or so. For though the faltering of Western governments could be decried since the end of World War II, and even more so with the events in Korea and Vietnam, a watershed of sorts began with our response to the rise of fundamentalist Islamic nations and their self-proclaimed hatred and hostility towards the West and all things Western.

The pattern began in 1979 when the newly empowered supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, took power. ...

The historical pattern is clear and consistent. For twenty five plus years, Islamists have isolated and targeted Western citizens around the world with impunity, and have succeeded in fostering fear in most citizens. They have effectively used a divide and conquer strategy, with little or no opposition. The pattern must be broken immediately.

To see how, imagine a neo-Nazi state arising and declaring to Western nations: “We have no quarrel with you, we just want to exterminate the Jews who reside within your borders.” The proper response would of course be: “if you want to harm our law-abiding citizens, you DO have a quarrel with us, in fact you have a war, for no one may threaten our citizens without threatening our nation as a whole.” Similar reasoning extends from a segment of the population to a single individual citizen. If a nation threatens one citizen, it threatens the nation, and we must do everything in our power, including going to war if necessary, to eradicate the threat. Otherwise there is no point for individuals to delegate their use of force to the state, and every enemy will employ a “divide and conquer” tactic to eliminate us one citizen at a time. ...

Go read it all at the link ... oh, and pay a visit to Amit Ghate and Rob Tarr/

Drama Queen

The Religious Policeman responds to an e-mail.

What would a Blogger's life be like, without hate mail? So it was really nice to get this one from "queen.oman@gmail.com". (Slightly edited with my "delete thingy" - I can be a bit of a prude)

F*CK U PIG BURN IN HELL

ENJOY UR LIFE TEMPORARLY BUT REMEMBER ABOVE UR F*CKING HEAD THERE'S A GOD WHO SEES AND HEAR WUT UR F*CKING EYES CAN'T SEE AND WUT UR F*CKING EARS CAN'T HEAR
STAY IN UR DARKNESS
I'LL ENJOY WATCHING U BURN IN NAR JAHANNAM SON OF A BITCH WHO DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO RAISE U RIGHT

Queen, that's really kind of you, but could I just point out one or two things?

1. In the West, "Queen" is slang for a gay, usually one who is a bit aging and past their prime. Now I don't have any problem with gays, even ones who have seen better days, so if that's the lifestyle you want to choose for yourself then that's OK with me, but you're not going to be able to offend me that way.

2. I think the God up there has seen and heard it all ...

Go to the link to read the rest. Oh, and just so you know: the fanhood is mutual.