Numerical Models, Integrated Circuits and Global Warming Theory

The 'hockey stick', shortcomings of computer models and questionable motives drive reasoned opposition to global warming alarmism. The following article covers these factors better than any other I have seen. It is quite long, but if you have a serious interest, you will want to read the entire piece:

Numerical Models, Integrated Circuits and Global Warming Theory
By Jerome J. Schmitt, February 28, 2007
Cross-posted from the American Thinker

Although based on scientific "first principles", complex numerical models inevitably require simplifications, judgment calls, and correction factors. These subjective measures may be entirely acceptable so long as the model matches the available data -- acceptable because the model is not intended to be internally consistent with all the laws of physics and chemistry, but rather to serve as an expedient means to anticipate behavior of the system in the future. However, problems can arise when R&D funding mechanisms inevitably "reward" exaggerated and alarming claims for the accuracy and implications of these models.

Many other scientific fields besides climatology use similar models, based on the same or related laws of nature, to explain and predict what will happen in other complex systems. Most famously, the US Department of Energy's nuclear labs use supercomputer simulations to help design atomic weapons. Most of this work is secret but we know, of course, that the models are "checked" occasionally with underground test explosions. The experimental method is an essential tool

A much better analogue to climate science is found in the semiconductor industry. Integrated circuits and many other building blocks of modern electronics are manufactured by creating artificial atmospheres or "climates" within which chemical vapor deposition (CVD) forms nanometer-scale thin solid films on silicon wafer surfaces. In CVD, metal vapor precursors entrained in carrier gases are used to deposit metal films on surfaces in a condensation process not unlike formation of dew or frost on a lawn. In such CVD processes, premature formation of metal particles is unwanted and needs to be controlled and prevented; such particle formation is akin to precipitation of rain drops in the atmosphere

The semiconductor process industry uses numerical models to predict the behavior of gases and vapors in order to deposit these substances on substrates, and thereby manufacture integrated circuits. I am not a climatologist or meteorologist but I have studied fluid mechanics and gasdynamics and have a general understanding of computer models used in process engineering. Such models are used to analyze industrial processes with which I am familiar. Indeed the mathematics for such models is generalized. And industry's experience with numerical process models sheds light on their strengths and limitations.

Andrew Grove PhD is a giant in the history of semiconductors. A founder of Intel, Grove famously presided as CEO over its enormous growth during the 1980s and 1990s. Few realize that his academic training is as a Chemical Engineer, not an Electrical Engineer. Chemical Engineering is at the heart of what Intel and other semiconductor manufacturers accomplish.

Process Models: Vapor deposition

Let's consider how these process engineering mathematical models are actually used in industry. Intel and its competitors (as well as their key suppliers) employ many chemical engineers who are familiar with such process models, some of whom specialize solely in mathematical modeling. Often a new technical challenge will emerge in which a process must be changed (such as for scale-up to accommodate larger silicon wafers) or adjusted to accommodate a new material composition.

Almost all semiconductor manufacturing processes occur in closed vessels. This permits the engineers to precisely control the input chemicals (gases) and the pressure, temperature, etc. with high degree of precision and reliability. Closed systems are also much easier to model as compared to systems open to the atmosphere (that should tell us something already). Computer models are used to inform the engineering team as the design the shape, temperature ramp, flow rates, etc, etc, (i.e. the thermodynamics) of the new reactor.

Nonetheless, despite the fact that 1) the chemical reactions are highly studied, 2) there exists extensive experience with similar reactors, much of it recorded in the open literature, 3) the input gases and materials are of high and known purity, and 4) the process is controlled with incredible precision, the predictions of the models are often wrong, requiring that the reactor be adjusted empirically to produce the desired product with quality and reliability.

The fact that these artificial "climates" are closed systems far simpler than the global climate, have the advantage of the experimental method, and are subject to precise controls, and yet are frequently wrong, should lend some humility to those who make grand predictions about the future of the earth's atmosphere.

So serious are the problems, sometimes, that it is not unheard of for an experimental reactor to be scrapped entirely in favor of starting from scratch in designing the process and equipment. Often a design adjustment predicted to improve performance actually does the opposite. This does not mean that process models are useless, for they undergird the engineer's understanding of what is happening in the process and help him or her make adjustments to fix the problem. But it means that they cannot be relied upon by themselves to predict results. These new adjustments and related information are then used to improve the models for future use in a step by step process tested time and again against experimental reality.

In actuality, the semiconductor industry is well familiar with the limits of process modeling and would never make a decision to purchase equipment or adjust their manufacturing processes based on predictions derived from models alone. They would rightly expect extensive experimental data to support such a decision in order to assure the ability to reliably and economically manufacture high quality materials and devices.

Climate Models

As with all fluid mechanics models, the flow field of a climate model (i.e. the entire atmosphere) is divided into three-dimensional grids of small volume elements designated by latitude, longitude and altitude. Each volume element of the grid is then characterized with parameters such as pressure, temperature, wind velocity, etc., and equations that relate these factors. Air and energy that leave one volume element enters the adjacent one. When summed across all volume elements, the model keeps track of the flows of air and energy in the entire atmosphere. Many factors must be accounted (see below). Boundary conditions must be set: in this case, the boundary of the atmosphere is land or ocean surface on the bottom, and some boundary in space on the top; these yield rules (e.g. air cannot flow into the surface of the earth). Then, Initial Conditions must be set: this means that the grid's equations are "populated" with the known values of the parameters characterizing the atmosphere such as pressure, temperature, and humidity profiles measured today.

Finally, the computer calculation can commence: A unit of time (a second, minute, day) is assumed to pass and the computer calculates the next "state" of the model based on the initial conditions, the boundary conditions and the other equations of the model. This process is repeated again and again, with the new state being the initial condition for calculating the subsequent state, until e.g. 100 years has passed.

Errors can accumulate rapidly. Let's list some of the factors that must be included (by no means an exhaustive list):
Solar flux
Gravity, Pressure
Temperature
Density
Humidity
Earth's rotation
Surface temperature
Currents in the Ocean (e.g., Gulf Stream)
Greenhouse gases
CO2 dissolved in the oceans
Polar ice caps
Infrared radiation
Cosmic rays (ionizing radiation)
Earth's magnetic field
Evaporation
Precipitation
Cloud formation
Reflection from clouds
Reflection from snow
Volcanoes
Soot formation
Trace compounds
And many, many others

Even if mathematics could be developed to accurately model each of these factors, the combined model would be infinitely complex requiring some simplifications. Simplifications in turn amount to judgment calls by the modeler. Can we ignore the effects of trace compounds? Well, we were told that trace amounts of chlorofluoro compounds had profound effects on the ozone layer, necessitating the banning of their use in refrigerators and as aerosol spray propellants. Can we ignore cosmic rays? Well, they cause ions (electrically charged molecules) which affect the ozone layer and also catalyze formation of rain-drops and soot particles.

As with all models, it is perilous to ignore factors in the absence of complete experimental data which might have otherwise have significant effect.

Perhaps most critically, the role of precipitation in climate seems to be understated in the numerical global climate models. Roy W. Spencer, principal research scientist at the Global Hydrology and Climate Center of the National Space Science and Technology Center in Huntsville, AL, writes that the role of precipitation is not fully accounted for in global warming models. In my view, that's like an economist admitting his theory of the money supply doesn't fully account for the role of the Federal Reserve.

Unless we know how the greenhouse-limiting properties of precipitation systems change with warming, we don't know how much of our current warmth is due to mankind, and we can't estimate how much future warming there will be, either. To solve the global-warming puzzle, we first need to learn much more about the precipitation-system puzzle.

What little evidence we now have suggests that precipitation systems act as a natural thermostat to reduce warming.
Approximating the experimental method

While mankind cannot experiment on the global climate, these models can be used retroactively to see how well they "model" the past. The UN's 2001 Climate Change report distorted the historical record by eliminating the Medieval Warm Period in the famous "Hockey Stick Curve" which, by many accounts, unreasonably accentuated temperature rise in the 20th century. Such distortion of the historical data undercuts the credibility of the models themselves, since this is the only "experimental data" available for testing the fidelity of the models to the actual climate.

Why on earth would climate scientists "massage the data" to produce doomsday predictions? The answer requires looking at the rewards available to these researchers.

Catastrophe and careers

Vannevar Bush's seminal 1944 policy paper unleashed the Federal government's unprecedented post-war investment in R&D in the hard sciences and engineering. Science was seen as the way to avoid (or at least win) another catastrophic war.

The golden era of federal funding resulted in unprecedented employment opportunities for hard science Ph.D.s. Fresh graduates could easily find tenure track employment at universities expanding their hard sciences program. The enormous dividends from this investment make up our modern technological world. However, the munificence of the federal funding caused a certain, shall we say, insouciance about resources: "Why use lead when gold will do?" became an informal motto at Lawrence Livermore National Lab.

Inevitably, the growth in congressional funding tapered off and in the late 1980s the competition for R&D sponsorship began to tighten. Fresh Ph.D.s often had to look to the private sector for employment (heaven forefend!). Grant writers were required to start highlighting the potential "practical payoffs" of their proposed work. Since there was little need for better atomic weapons in the post-cold war era, High Energy Physics lost its central status in the funding universe. Many mathematical physicists became refugees to allied fields (some of them even became "quants" on Wall Street). But others found employment elsewhere, including in climate science.

In this competitive environment, one can imagine climate modelers justifying their work by citing the possibility of global change, the further study of which requires, of course, "more research". One can further imagine that in the inchoate communication between university researcher, funding agency, congressional staffer and congressmen that "possibility" eventually became "probability" and then "probability" morphed into "certainty" of global warming, especially if there was potential for political advantage.

This has resulted in an inadvertent funding-feedback mechanism that now resonates in largely unjustified alarm and also seeks to quash scientific dissidents who indirectly threaten to throttle the funding spigots.

The practical experience of numerical modeling in allied fields such as semiconductor process modeling should cause us to question the claimed accuracy for Global Climate Models. The UN's distortion of historical climate data should further undermine our faith in climate models because such models can only be "tested" against accurate historical data.

In my view, we should adopt the private sector's practice of placing extremely limited reliance on numerical models for major investment decisions in the absence of confirming test data, that is, climate data which can be easily collected just by waiting.

Jerome Schmitt is president of NanoEngineering Corporation, and has worked in the process equipment and instrument engineering industries for nearly 25 years.

Only ABC Reports ACLU-connected Porno Bust

The O’Reilly Factor last night led off with the fact that only ABC, of all major news organizations, reported the arrest for child pornography of a former, and prominent, ACLU official. The Washington Post, O’Reilly said, had mentioned the story in its second section. O’Reilly’s point was that the mainstream press hypes stories that embarrass conservatives, while burying similar stories about liberals.

Here is the story:
“Former ACLU Chapter President Arrested for Child Pornography”
Complaint Alleges Virginia Man Accessed, Downloaded Graphic Child Pornography
By JACK DATE, ABC News

Feb. 23, 2007— - Federal agents arrested Charles Rust-Tierney, the former president of the Virginia chapter of the ACLU, Friday in Arlington for allegedly possessing child pornography.

According to a criminal complaint obtained by ABC News, Rust-Tierney allegedly used his e-mail address and credit card to subscribe to and access a child pornography website.

The complaint states that federal investigations into child pornography websites revealed that "Charles Rust-Tierney has subscribed to multiple child pornography website over a period of years."

As recently as last October, the complaint alleges, "Rust-Tierney purchased access to a group of hardcore commercial child pornography websites."

Complaint Alleges Access to Graphic Material
Rust-Tierney admitted to investigators that he had downloaded videos and images from child pornography websites onto CD-ROMs, according to the complaint.

The videos described in the complaint depict graphic forcible intercourse with prepubescent females. One if the girls is described in court documents as being "seen and heard crying", another is described as being "bound by rope."

The investigation is being conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and the Arlington County Police as part of the Northern Virginia and District of Columbia Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.

Rust-Tierney made an initial appearance in a federal court in Alexandria, VA, Friday. He is being detained pending a preliminary hearing scheduled for Wednesday, February 28.

Youth Coach, Argued Against Restricting Public Internet
Rust Tierney coaches various youth sports teams in and around Arlington, Virginia, according to court documents.

In the past, Rust-Tierney had argued against restricting Internet access in public libraries in Virginia, writing, "Recognizing that individuals will continue to behave responsibly and appropriately while in the library, the default should be maximum, unrestricted access to the valuable resources of the Internet."

Calls to Rust-Tierney's home were not answered and calls to the ACLU of Virginia were not immediately returned.

Hollywood Adds Gore to Alar, the Snail Darter, Nuclear Power and DDT

It just gets more and more frustrating every day; the more the junk science of the global-warming alarmists gets shredded, the more these liberal dupes and European socialists push this nonsense in our faces. Their famous “hockey stick”, on which all their computer models have been based, has been shown to be a fraud. For every report of the thinning of glacier ice, there are two reports of its thickening. Man-made global warming has become a religion to some people – a leap of faith that historical facts and the scientific method can not breach. Al Gore gets an Oscar in 2007, but, like DDT, it will probably take 35 years before reason takes hold, and we can get back to more-serious problems than a temperature increase of 0.7 of one degree Celsius over 100 years (and we are not certain that even that is correct).

Plus Ça (Climate) Change
The Earth was warming before global warming was cool.

BY PETE DU PONT, Opinion Journal
Wednesday, February 21, 2007 12:01 a.m.

When Eric the Red led the Norwegian Vikings to Greenland in the late 900s, it was an ice-free farm country--grass for sheep and cattle, open water for fishing, a livable climate--so good a colony that by 1100 there were 3,000 people living there. Then came the Ice Age. By 1400, average temperatures had declined by 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, the glaciers had crushed southward across the farmlands and harbors, and the Vikings did not survive.

Such global temperature fluctuations are not surprising, for looking back in history we see a regular pattern of warming and cooling. From 200 B.C. to A.D. 600 saw the Roman Warming period; from 600 to 900, the cold period of the Dark Ages; from 900 to 1300 was the Medieval warming period; and 1300 to 1850, the Little Ice Age.
During the 20th century the earth did indeed warm--by 1 degree Fahrenheit. But a look at the data shows that within the century temperatures varied with time: from 1900 to 1910 the world cooled; from 1910 to 1940 it warmed; from 1940 to the late 1970s it cooled again, and since then it has been warming. Today our climate is 1/20th of a degree Fahrenheit warmer than it was in 2001.

Many things are contributing to such global temperature changes. Solar radiation is one. Sunspot activity has reached a thousand-year high, according to European astronomy institutions. Solar radiation is reducing Mars's southern icecap, which has been shrinking for three summers despite the absence of SUVS and coal-fired electrical plants anywhere on the Red Planet. Back on Earth, a NASA study reports that solar radiation has increased in each of the past two decades, and environmental scholar Bjorn Lomborg, citing a 1997 atmosphere-ocean general circulation model, observes that "the increase in direct solar irradiation over the past 30 years is responsible for about 40 percent of the observed global warming."

Statistics suggest that while there has indeed been a slight warming in the past century, much of it was neither human-induced nor geographically uniform. Half of the past century's warming occurred before 1940, when the human population and its industrial base were far smaller than now. And while global temperatures are now slightly up, in some areas they are dramatically down. According to "Climate Change and Its Impacts," a study published last spring by the National Center for Policy Analysis, the ice mass in Greenland has grown, and "average summer temperatures at the summit of the Greenland ice sheet have decreased 4 degrees Fahrenheit per decade since the late 1980s." British environmental analyst Lord Christopher Monckton says that from 1993 through 2003 the Greenland ice sheet "grew an average extra thickness of 2 inches a year," and that in the past 30 years the mass of the Antarctic ice sheet has grown as well.

Earlier this month the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a summary of its fourth five-year report. Although the full report won't be out until May, the summary has reinvigorated the global warming discussion.

While global warming alarmism has become a daily American press feature, the IPCC, in its new report, is backtracking on its warming predictions. While Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" warns of up to 20 feet of sea-level increase, the IPCC has halved its estimate of the rise in sea level by the end of this century, to 17 inches from 36. It has reduced its estimate of the impact of global greenhouse-gas emissions on global climate by more than one-third, because, it says, pollutant particles reflect sunlight back into space and this has a cooling effect.

The IPCC confirms its 2001 conclusion that global warming will have little effect on the number of typhoons or hurricanes the world will experience, but it does not note that there has been a steady decrease in the number of global hurricane days since 1970--from 600 to 400 days, according to Georgia Tech atmospheric scientist Peter Webster.

The IPCC does not explain why from 1940 to 1975, while carbon dioxide emissions were rising, global temperatures were falling, nor does it admit that its 2001 "hockey stick" graph showing a dramatic temperature increase beginning in 1970s had omitted the Little Ice Age and Medieval Warming temperature changes, apparently in order to make the new global warming increases appear more dramatic.

Sometimes the consequences of bad science can be serious. In a 2000 issue of Nature Medicine magazine, four international scientists observed that "in less than two decades, spraying of houses with DDT reduced Sri Lanka's malaria burden from 2.8 million cases and 7,000 deaths [in 1948] to 17 cases and no deaths" in 1963. Then came Rachel Carson's book "Silent Spring," invigorating environmentalism and leading to outright bans of DDT in some countries. When Sri Lanka ended the use of DDT in 1968, instead of 17 malaria cases it had 480,000.

Yet the Sierra Club in 1971 demanded "a ban, not just a curb," on the use of DDT "even in the tropical countries where DDT has kept malaria under control." International environmental controls were more important than the lives of human beings. For more than three decades this view prevailed, until the restrictions were finally lifted last September.

As we have seen since the beginning of time, and from the Vikings' experience in Greenland, our world experiences cyclical climate changes. America needs to understand clearly what is happening and why before we sign onto U.N. environmental agreements, shut down our industries and power plants, and limit our economic growth.

Mr. du Pont, a former governor of Delaware, is chairman of the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis. His column appears once a month.

A final note: The World Health Organization has now approved the use of DDT to control malaria. The long nightmare and millions of deaths caused by extreme environmentalists on this issue, at least, is finally over. And thank you again, Katherine Harris.

Radical Islam finds US 'sterile ground'

Recently I published an article listing several incidents in which Muslim-Americans had killed groups of fellow-Americans during bouts of Muslim rage. I thought it only fair to present also the following article that may provide some perspective on the American experience. This does not mean that organizations like C.A.I.R. are not playing with fire when they deny Muslim terrorism and provide support to terrorist organizations. This does not mean that we should look the other way when Imams, largely financed by Saudi Arabia, preach hate and the imposition of Sharia law in the United States. This does not mean we should fall for the ploy of the outraged, airport Imams and grant Muslims special rights.

Notice too that one of the major factors behind America's success here is that multiculturalism has not spread its poison to the degree found in Europe.

Radical Islam finds US 'sterile ground'

Home-grown terror cells are largely missing in action, a contrast to Europe's situation.
By Alexandra Marks | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
NEW YORK

The Islamist radicalism that inspired young Muslims to attack their own countries - in London, Madrid, and Bali - has not yielded similar incidents in the United States, at least so far.

"Home-grown" terror cells remain a concern of US law officers, who cite several disrupted plots since 9/11. But the suspects' unsophisticated planning and tiny numbers have led some security analysts to conclude that America, for all its imperfections, is not fertile ground for producing jihadist terrorists.

To understand why, experts point to people like Omar Jaber, an AmeriCorps volunteer; Tarek Radwan, a human rights advocate; and Hala Kotb, a consultant on Middle East affairs. They are the face of young Muslim-Americans today - educated, motivated, and integrated into society - and their voices help explain how the nation's history of inclusion has helped to defuse sparks of Islamist extremism.

"American society is more into the whole assimilation aspect of it," says New York-born Mr. Jaber. "In America, it's a lot easier to practice our religion without complications."

In a nation where mosques have sprung up alongside churches and synagogues, where Muslim women are free to wear the hijab (or not), and where education and job opportunities range from decent to good, the resentments that can breed extremism do not seem very evident in the Muslim community. Since 9/11, however, concern is rising among Muslim-Americans that they are becoming targets of bias and suspicion - by law enforcement as well as fellow citizens. It's a disquieting trend, say the young Muslims - one that might eventually help radicalism to grow.

It's impossible to pinpoint the factors that produce home-grown terrorists, analysts say. But it's also impossible to ignore the stark contrast between the lives of Muslims in European countries where bombings have occurred and those of Muslims in America.

"What we have here among Muslim-Americans is a very conservative success ethic," says John Zogby, president of Zogby International in Utica, N.Y., whose polling firm has surveyed the Muslim-American community. "People come to this country and they like it. They don't view it as the belly of the beast. With very few exceptions, you don't see the bitter enclaves that you have in Europe."

Life in America vs. life in Europe
Part of what so shocked Spain about the Madrid train bombers, and then Britain after the London subway and bus bombings in July 2005, was that most of the perpetrators were native sons. In each case, the young men, allegedly inspired by Al Qaeda ideology, came from poorer neighborhoods heavy on immigrants. (By contrast, a plot foiled in August to blow up airplanes over the Atlantic involved suspects from leafy, middle- and upper-middle-class neighborhoods in Britain.)

America, too, has poorer neighborhoods with large Muslim concentrations, but they tend to be interspersed with other ethnic groups and better assimilated into society. Another difference, some suggest, is the general profile of Muslims who have come to the US and raised their families here.

Most Muslim immigrants came to America for educational or business opportunities and from educated, middle-class families in their home countries, according to an analysis by Peter Skerry of Boston College and the Brookings Institution. In Europe, the majority came to work in factory jobs and often from poorer areas at home.

European Muslims today live primarily in isolated, low-income enclaves where opportunities for good jobs and a good education are limited. In the US, 95 percent of Muslim-Americans are high school graduates, according to "Muslims in the Public Square," a Zogby International survey in 2004. Almost 60 percent are college graduates, and Muslims are thriving economically around the country. Sixty-nine percent of adults make more than $35,000 a year, and one-third earn more than $75,000, the survey showed.

In Britain, by contrast, two-thirds of Muslims live in low-income households, according to British census data. Three-quarters of those households are overcrowded. British Muslims' jobless rate is 15 percent - three times higher than in the general population. For young Muslims between 16 and 24, the jobless rate is higher: 17.5 percent.

"The culture is qualitatively different [in the American Muslim community] from what we've seen from public information from Europe, and that actually says very positive things about our society," says Jonathan Winer, a terrorism expert in Washington. "We don't have large populations of immigrants with a generation sitting around semi-employed and deeply frustrated. That's a gigantic difference."

Jaber, the AmeriCorps volunteer, who is studying to become a medical doctor, says he has not experienced anti-Muslim bias. In part, he says, that may be because he doesn't have an accent or look particularly Middle Eastern - his father is Palestinian and his mother Filipino. But he also credits America's melting-pot mentality, as does Ms. Kotb, the Middle East consultant.

"We weren't isolated growing up. We were part of the culture," says Kotb, who grew up outside Washington in a family that inculcated a success ethic. "Religion was important, but not so much that you'd have to cover your head or if you don't pray five times a day, that's it - nothing like that. There were a lot more progressive attitudes" within her local Muslim community.

In mosques in America, it's fairly common for imams to preach assimilation, says Mr. Zogby. That's not as true in Europe, particularly in poorer neighborhoods where sermons can be laced with extremism.

"The success of ... Saudi-inspired religious zealotry in Europe was in large part because the Saudis put up the money to build mosques and pay for imams," says Ian Cuthbertson, a counterterrorism expert at the World Policy Institute at the New School for Social Research. "The American Muslim community was rich enough not to require Saudi money to build its mosques."

In Europe, it's estimated that millions of second- and third-generation Muslims have not been well assimilated in their adopted countries, so have little or no fealty to either the European country they live in or the one their parents were born in. "They are much more susceptible to the Internet, returning jihadist fighters, and extremist imams," says Thomas Sanderson of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "There's no doubt that Europe has an incubator environment and we have a somewhat sterile environment for radicalism."

To be sure, the United States has brought charges in several terrorism-related cases involving American Muslims. Some have resulted in convictions, notably the 2002 case of six Yemeni-Americans from Lackawanna, N.Y. Other cases are pending. (See chart on Page 2.)

Identifying and tracking home-grown terrorists is a complicated task - one that risks alienating or even infuriating the general Muslim-American citizenry if tactics are seen as unfair.

Feeling a chill
The young Muslims interviewed for this story chose their words carefully, but their inference is clear: They worry that suspicion toward Muslims has been building since 9/11, and they suggest that US intervention in Iraq and its support for Israel cause angst among many Arab-Americans.

US foreign policies "in the long term are going to hurt the US," says Mr. Radwan, the human rights activist, who works in Washington. "They, along with the crackdown on Muslim-Americans [by law enforcement], feed a feeling of resentment and the perception that the US acts on the basis of a double standard."

Indeed, America's Muslim community would wage the war on terror differently. According to the 2004 Zogby survey, three-quarters say the best way is for the US to change its foreign policy in the Middle East by recognizing a Palestinian state and being less supportive of Israel.

A newer concern for America's Muslims is their standing in post-9/11 society. Many sense that the ground under their feet is shifting - and young people like Florida-born Radwan, in particular, feel it. A 2001 graduate of Texas A&M University, Radwan wanted to become a doctor and began working as a medical researcher. One month after the 9/11 attacks, he was let go - at the end of a three-month probationary period. Afterward, he says, he couldn't get even an interview for a job that used his biochemistry degree or research skills. Eventually he abandoned his hopes of a medical career and shifted to human rights work.

That experience leads him to suggest another reason the US hasn't seen European-style homegrown terror cells: the intense scrutiny the FBI has focused on Muslim-Americans. "That is good in the short term, but bad in the long term," he says. "The Bush administration policies feed resentment that ... will stay in the Arab- American psyche for a long time."

The FBI says it doesn't target any community, neighborhood, or religion. Agents simply go where the leads take them, says John Miller, the FBI's assistant director of public affairs. But he adds: "We have put a growing effort into community outreach because we understand the discomfort the amount of pressure our attention can bring to a community."

The 'home-grown' threat: Is it overstated?
A small but growing number of analysts believe that some US officials have overstated the threat of homegrown Islamist radicalism in the United States. While Al Qaeda and foreign terrorists remain determined to attack in America, they say, the focus on potential American cells may be leading the US to misdirect its antiterror efforts.

"My theory as to why we haven't found any [homegrown Islamist terrorist cells] is because there aren't very many of them.... They aren't the diabolical, capable, and inventive people envisioned by most politicians and people in the terrorism industry," says John Mueller, a political scientist at Ohio State University. "The danger is that we've wasted an enormous amount of money with all of the wiretaps [and] investigations, and diverted two-thirds of the FBI from criminal work to terrorism work."

The FBI calls such conclusions "uninformed," citing alleged plots by radicalized US citizens. The most notable was the case of the Lackawanna Six, so named for the six Yemeni-Americans from Lackawanna, N.Y., who went to Al Qaeda training camps in the spring of 2001.

"The people who make these claims [about threats being exaggerated] are never the ones responsible for preventing these attacks," says John Miller, the FBI's assistant director of public affairs. "The point is that if you're the dead guy, or you're a family member of one of those guys, all you know is that you wanted someone to develop the intelligence and take the actions to prevent it."

Still, a lack of public evidence pointing to extensive Islamist extremism in the US is leading a small but growing number of experts to agree with Professor Meuller's assessment. Like Meuller, though, they add a cautionary note.

"There's not zero threat in any community, but it is good news and we have to hope that reflects an underlying reality that [homegrown extremist cells] don't exist here," says Jonathan Winer, a terrorism expert in Washington. "You've always got lone nuts in every imaginable ethnic group grabbing every imaginable ideology to justify terrorism."

Mayhem Main Event at NBA All-Star Weekend

I’ve gone from being one of pro basketball’s biggest fans to the point where I don’t even look at basketball stories on the sports pages. I don’t know what these thugs playing the sport call it, but it isn’t basketball any more. It has come to the point now that the assorted hoodlum-stars who assault fans, coaches and each other, who carry guns and routinely make court appearances – have attracted so many lowlifes that it is not safe to be in the same city as the NBA All-Star game is played.

Mayhem Main Event at NBA All-Star Weekend
'Police Were Simply Overwhelmed' in Sin City
By JASON WHITLOCK
AOL
Sports Commentary

LAS VEGAS -- NBA All-Star Weekend in Vegas was an unmitigated failure, and any thoughts of taking the extravaganza to New Orleans in 2008 are total lunacy.

NBA's Big Weekend

An event planned to showcase what is right about professional basketball has been turned into a 72-hour display of why commissioner David Stern can't sleep at night and spends his days thinking of rules to mask what the NBA has come to represent.

Good luck fixing All-Star Weekend.

The game is a sloppy, boring, half-hearted mess. The dunk contest is contrived and pointless. The celebrity contest is unintended comedy. And, worst of all, All-Star Weekend revelers have transformed the league's midseason exhibition into the new millennium Freaknik, an out-of-control street party that features gunplay, violence, non-stop weed smoke and general mayhem.

Word of all the criminal activity that transpired during All-Star Weekend has been slowly leaking out on Las Vegas radio shows and TV newscasts and on Internet blogs the past 24 hours.

"It was filled with an element of violence," Teresa Frey, general manager for Coco's restaurant, told klastv.com. "They don't want to pay their bills. They don't want to respect us or each other."

Things got so bad that she closed the 24-hour restaurant from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m.

"I have been spit on. I have had food thrown at me," she said. "I have lost two servers out of fear. I have locked my door out of the fear of violence."

All weekend, people, especially cab drivers, gossiped about brawls and shootings. You didn't know what to believe because the local newspaper was filled with stories about what a raging success All-Star Weekend was. The city is desperately trying to attract an NBA franchise, and, I guess, there was no reason to let a few bloody bodies get in the way of a cozy relationship with Stern.

Plus, the NBA's business partner ESPN didn't have time to dirty its hands and report on the carnage. I'm sure ESPN's reporters were embedded in the rear ends of the troops -- Shaq, Kobe, King James, D-Wade, AI and Melo.

But there were multiple brawls, at least two shootings, more than 350 arrests and a lot of terror in Vegas over the weekend.

And the police might want to talk to NFL player Pacman Jones about a nasty shooting spree at a Vegas strip club. Jones and the rapper Nelly were allegedly at Minxx Gentlemen's Club Monday morning shortly before (or during) the shooting.

Two victims, male employees of the club, were listed in critical condition at the hospital; a third, a female patron, sustained non-life threatening injuries after being grazed by a bullet.

There were so many fights and so many gangbangers and one parking-lot shootout at the MGM Grand that people literally fled the hotel in fear for their safety. I talked with a woman who moved from the MGM to the Luxor because "I couldn't take it. I'll never come back to another All-Star Game."

There are reports of a brawl between rappers and police at the Wynn Hotel.

Vegas police were simply overwhelmed along The Strip. They were there solely for decoration and to discourage major crimes. Beyond that, they minded their own business.

I was there. Walking The Strip this weekend must be what it feels like to walk the yard at a maximum security prison. You couldn't relax. You avoided eye contact. The heavy police presence only reminded you of the danger.

Without a full-scale military occupation, New Orleans will not survive All-Star Weekend 2008.

David Stern seriously needs to consider moving the event out of the country for the next couple of years in hopes that young, hip-hop hoodlums would find another event to terrorize. Taking the game to Canada won't do it. The game needs to be moved overseas, someplace where the Bloods and Crips and hookers and hoes can't get to it without a passport and plane ticket.

I'm serious. Stern has spent the past three years trying to move his league and players past the thug image Ron Artest's fan brawl stamped on the NBA.

After this weekend, I'm convinced he's losing the battle. All-Star Weekend Vegas screamed that the NBA is aligned too closely with thugs. Stern is going to have to take drastic measures to break that perception/reality. All-Star Weekend can no longer remain the Woodstock for parolees, wannabe rap artists and baby's mamas on tax-refund vacations.

This was not a byproduct of the game being held in Vegas. All-Star Weekend has been on this path for the past five or six years. Every year the event becomes more and more a destination for troublemakers.

If something isn't done, next year's All-Star Weekend will surpass the deceased Freaknik, a weekend-long party in Atlanta, in terms of lawlessness. Wide-spread looting and a rape killed the Freaknik in 1999.

The NBA's image cannot survive bedlam in the French Quarter. And I'm not sure it can survive the embarrassment of a New Orleans standoff between its fans and the National Guard, either.

If Stern wants to continue to strengthen the international appeal of his game, he has the perfect excuse to move the All-Star Game to Germany, China, England or anywhere Suge Knight's posse can't find it.

YELLOWCAKE AND YELLOW JOURNALISM

Love her or hate her, when she’s right, she’s right:

YELLOWCAKE AND YELLOW JOURNALISM
by Ann Coulter
February 7, 2007

To see how liberal history is created, you need to tune into the nut-cable stations and watch their coverage of the Scooter Libby trial. On MSNBC they're covering the trial like it's the Normandy Invasion, starring Elvis Presley, as told by Joseph Goebbels.

MSNBC's "reportage" consists of endless repetition of arbitrary assertions, half-truths and thoroughly debunked canards. No one else cares about the trial — except presumably Scooter Libby — so the passionate left is allowed to invent a liberal fable without correction.

Night after night, it is blithely asserted on "Hardball" that Wilson's trip to Niger debunked the claim that Saddam Hussein had been seeking enriched uranium from Niger.

As David Shuster reported last week: "Wilson goes and finds out that the claim that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger is not accurate."

There have been massive investigations into this particular claim of "Ambassador" Joe Wilson, both here and in Britain. Nearly three years ago, a bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that this was not merely untrue, it was the opposite of the truth: Wilson's report actually bolstered the belief that Saddam was seeking uranium from Niger.

"The panel found," as The Washington Post reported on July 10, "that Wilson's report, rather than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, as he has said, bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts." So you can see how a seasoned newsman like David Shuster might come to the exact opposite conclusion and then repeat this false conclusion on TV every night.

Wilson's unwritten "report" to a few CIA agents supported the suspicion that Saddam was seeking enriched uranium from Niger because, according to Wilson, the former prime minister of Niger told him that in 1999 Saddam had sent a delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" with Niger. The only thing Niger has to trade is yellowcake. If Saddam was seeking to expand commercial relations with Niger, we can be fairly certain he wasn't trying to buy designer jeans, ready-to-assemble furniture or commemorative plates. He was seeking enriched uranium.

But Wilson simply accepted the assurances of the former prime minister of Niger that selling yellowcake to Saddam was the farthest thing from his mind. I give you my word as an African head of state.

Chris Matthews also repeatedly says that Bush's famous "16 words" in his 2003 State of the Union address — which liberals say was a LIE! a LIE! a despicable LIE! — consisted of the claim that British intelligence said there was a "deal" for Saddam Hussein to buy enriched uranium from Niger.

Matthews huffily wonders aloud why Wilson's incorrect report didn't get into Bush's State of the Union address "rather than the president's claim of British intelligence that said there was a deal to buy uranium, which of course became one of the underpinnings of this administration's argument that we had to go to war with Iraq."

Considering how hysterical liberals were about Bush's "16 words," you'd think they'd have a vague recollection of what those words were and that they did not include the word "deal." What Bush said was: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

Even if the British had been wrong, what Bush said was factually correct: In 2003, the British government believed that Saddam sought yellowcake from Niger. (Not "MSNBC factual," mind you. I mean "real factual.")

But in fact, the British were right and Wilson was wrong. By now, everyone believes Saddam was seeking yellowcake from Niger — the CIA, the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, Lord Butler's report in Britain, even the French believe it.

But at MSNBC, it's not even an open question: That network alone has determined that Saddam Hussein was not trying to acquire enriched uranium from Niger. Actually one other person may still agree with MSNBC: a discredited, washed-up State Department hack who used his CIA flunky wife's petty influence to scrape up pity assignments. But even he won't say it on TV anymore.

Shuster excitedly reported: "We've already gotten testimony that, in fact, that Joe Wilson's trip to Niger was based on forgeries that were so obvious that they were forgeries that officials said it would have only taken a few days for anybody to realize they were forgeries."

This is so wrong it's not even wrong. It's not 180 degrees off the truth — it's more like 3 times 8, carry the 2, 540 degrees from the truth. Shuster has twisted Wilson's original lie into some Frankenstein monster lie you'd need Ross Perot with a handful of flow charts to map out in full.

During Wilson's massive media tour, he began telling reporters that he knew Saddam was not seeking yellowcake from Niger because the documents allegedly proving a deal were obvious forgeries.

Again, thanks to endless investigations, we now know that Wilson was lying: He never saw the forged documents. (Not only that, but Bush's statement was not based on the forged documents because no one ever believed them.)

The bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report notes that Wilson was asked how he "could have come to the conclusion that the 'dates were wrong and the names were wrong' when he had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports." Indeed, the United States didn't even receive the "obviously forged" documents until eight months after Wilson's trip to Niger!

Wilson admitted to the committee that he had "misspoken" to reporters about having seen the forged documents. Similarly, Cain "misspoke" when God inquired as to the whereabouts of his dead brother, Abel.

But on "Hardball," the forged documents that no one in the U.S. government saw until eight months after Wilson's trip now form the very impetus for the trip. A perfectly plausible theory, provided you have a working time machine at your disposal.

If you wonder how it came to be generally acknowledged "fact," accepted by all men of good will, that Joe McCarthy was a monster, that Alger Hiss was innocent, that mankind is causing global warming and that we're losing the war in Iraq, try watching the rewriting of history nightly on MSNBC. Don't forget to bring your time machine. Ann Coulter

Just one point of disagreement. I was politically aware during the McCarthy era (Ann wasn’t born yet), and he was a monster.

And one point of agreement: on this Wilson thing, the liberals seem to be employing the Goebbels credo of “if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the accepted truth”. It won’t work.

Will Muslim Women Rise to the Challenge?

Since a major difference between western culture and Islam is the position and rights of women, and this issue is a major cause of Muslim anger, in my view a very important key to overcoming Islamic terrorism and even to an eventual good outcome of the noble experiment in Iraq rests with Muslim women like Homa Arjomand, the courageous Canadian immigrant from Iran who was instrumental in defeating the imposition of the Sharia there.

There is also Maryam Namazie*, who, despite her anti-American views, is to be commended for leading a fight to save Nazanin Fatehi from execution by the Islamic Republic of Iran, and who is a leader in the resistance to the regime currently in power in Iran.

And especially there is Ayaan Hirsi Ali, perhaps the most courageous woman in the world today.

Australian Broadcasting Corporation
TV PROGRAM TRANSCRIPT
Broadcast: 26/01/2007
Kerry O'Brien interviews anti-Islamic author

KERRY O’BRIEN: When Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh was murdered by an Islamist in Amsterdam in 2004 for directing a film called Submission, that was highly critical of violence against Muslim women, the killer staked a death threat to the film's author, Ayaan Hirsi Ali through Van Gogh's heart. Hirsi Ali was a Somalian refugee who fled to the Netherlands 14 years ago to escape an arranged Muslim marriage. She became a passionate activist against Islam's perceived discrimination against women and one of Europe's most controversial political figures, serving briefly in the Dutch Parliament before being forced to resign for allegedly lying to get asylum.

She continues to attract the ire of many Muslims and other critics in the west for continuing to revile her religion from her base at a conservative Washington think tank, arguing that Islam is simply not compatible with liberal democracies. Hirsi Ali has previously written a book depicting women in Islam as caged virgins and will have a second book on her own life, called Infidel, which will be published next month. She has previously been named one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people and has just received the Martin Luther King Jr award for her activism. I spoke with Hirsi Ali today from New York.

KERRY O’BRIEN: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, I guess this is a tough question to answer in a few short sentences. but how do you summarise your journey from fervent Muslim supporter to anti-Islam campaigner?

AYAAN HIRSI ALI: In one sentence, I would say it's a journey in time. It’s a journey from a pre-modern society to a very modern society. From a tribal society to a nation state which believes in citizens - which has citizens. So that's how, I mean, in a very short way that's how I would describe it. And it's also a journey to enlightenment.

KERRY O’BRIEN: When you arrived in the Netherlands, what was it that shocked you in to taking up this campaign against Islam?

AYAAN HIRSI ALI: Most Muslim women in the Netherlands, whether they're from Turkey or Morocco or Somalia or Afghanistan, were used to some form of oppression. Of course, it differs from family to family and it differs from people who live in cities to people who live in rural areas, but it was as if that was something that we were used to. As an interpreter, I translated for women who would be rescued from abuse and who would go back to their abusive husbands saying, "I have to obey him because that's what God wants me to do." What I thought was contradictory was the free society which I had come to live in the Netherlands where we were all equal before the law, but in these ghettos where mainly nominated by Muslims, women and girls could be abused and the minority communities could get away with that, with the argument it was done in the name of their culture or religion and the liberal society and the agents of the liberal society thought that, that being their culture, they had to leave them alone or look the other way.

KERRY O’BRIEN: You recently agreed with Tony Blair that the Muslim veil is a mark of separation, but if a Muslim woman wants to wear the veil in a society that's supposed to be tolerant, why shouldn't she?

AYAAN HIRSI ALI: That's exactly what I argue. I say, if it's voluntary, a Muslim woman who chooses to wear the veil can wear it and she should not be in any way prevented from wearing the veil. What I tried to do was also explain what the veil symbolises and I said, actually, we should not be debating the clothe itself but what it stands for, the sexual morality and based on morality that says men cannot restrain themselves sexually. They are like wild dogs, like the imam in your country said, and we women are like pieces of tempting meat and if we do not want to put society into chaos, then we should ideally stay behind closed doors and if it's necessary for us to go outside of the house, then we need to veil ourselves. And I wanted to go into debate with the women who are veiling themselves voluntarily and say, first of all, there are women who are being forced into the veil and I wanted to know their opinion on that, and next, based on their sexual morality, a woman who veils herself of her own free will, is actually wearing a banner telling every man that he is a potential rapist and he is incapable of sexual restraint and I would like to know what men think of this and a woman who covers herself freely is also telling every woman who does not that she's a whore.

KERRY O’BRIEN: As a champion of human rights, don't you see the contradiction that you're arguing for the suppression of a woman's right to wear whatever clothes she likes?

AYAAN HIRSI ALI: No, there is no contradiction because I'm not arguing for legislation. For those women who are forced to wear the veil, I argue that the state should protect them from the coercion.

KERRY O’BRIEN: But who is going to say whether they're forced to wear the veil or wearing it by choice?

AYAAN HIRSI ALI: Yes. That's another debate. But the major debate is on the merits of the morality on which the veil is based. We live in a democracy and we cannot interact with each other only through the law. Often we have to debate and persuade each other, and I think that I can persuade many rational people that the assertion that men are incapable of restraining their own sexuality and because of that I have to cover myself, that that is irrational and something we should not want.

KERRY O’BRIEN: Is it fair to draw the conclusion from your books and from your articles that you don't believe that Islam and Western style democracy can coexist?

AYAAN HIRSI ALI: Islam has certain characteristics that can coexist with Western democracy. As a Muslim I was taught to be generous, to be hospitable, to be kind to the elderly and to be kind to the poor but Islam contains - the basic tenets of Islam and the basic tenets Western liberal democracies are incompatible. Islam fails to recognise secularity or the separation of church and State. Women are subordinate. Life is not valued as much is in the Western liberal societies where life and the freedom of the individual are separate ends in themselves. In Islam, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are things that you can pursue when you go to heaven but you have to die first because life on earth is just a passage and you observe certain rules and if you don't observe those rules you're not considered a Muslim. And then you have the treatment of homosexuals, or at least the idea that they are not allowed to live and should either be banished or killed. Now, in liberal societies these are values that are radically different from what Islam preaches.

KERRY O’BRIEN: But there are many, many moderate Muslims in Australia and I imagine England, the Netherlands and other Western style democracies who would say they have no absolutely problem practising their religion faithfully but also supporting the democratic system of their country.

AYAAN HIRSI ALI: Precisely, and that's why in this debate I think we should make a distinction between Muslims and Islam. Muslims are individuals and they are varied. You will find some of them are radical and some of them are moderate and some do not practice the religion at all. Islam as a doctrine, as a body of ideas, as a belief, is - means submission to the will of Allah. What is that submission means is recorded in the Koran and in the Hadid and we have seen examples of that practice in the countries that have implemented Muslim law, or the Sharia, such as Iran, Saudi Arabia and lately Afghanistan under the Taliban. In some Muslim countries they have implemented only the family law part of the Sharia and it's this that I oppose to and I think it's Islam, the doctrine, the ideology that religion that does not meet or that is incompatible with liberal democracy but that Muslims, as varied as they are, you will find that some accept democracy and appreciate it, some who do not and you will find others who are out to destroy it. I think we should not underestimate those.

KERRY O’BRIEN: When you draw, as you have, on the now notorious comments of Sheikh Hilali in Sydney last year about the victim of gang rape as uncovered meat to make your case for Islam’s double standards for men and women, shouldn't you acknowledge that the sheikh's comments shocked and angered many Muslims in his community?

AYAAN HIRSI ALI: I'm not sure if many Muslims were shocked. I haven't seen reactions to his comments. What is striking since 11 September about the debate on Islam is that when in the name of Islam violence is committed or in the name of Islam remarks are made such as the sheikh has done, the majority of Muslims remain silent, but when drawings of the Prophet Mohammed are made or when you make remarks about - I think the Koran was thrown in Guantanamo Bay, or the Pope quotes a Byzantine emperor from very long ago, then you see large groups of Muslims taking to the streets shouting murder and saying they are offended because Islam is a religion of peace and going out there in large numbers to demonstrate the opposite.

KERRY O’BRIEN: What do you say to those who would dismiss you as the migrant who came from a traumatic background and became a reactionary as a result?

AYAAN HIRSI ALI: In the first place, I use the tools that we are supposed to use in a democracy which is non-violent means to argue my assertions and views. Next, I don't see what is reactionary about saying, "Let's respect life as an end in itself, liberty as an end in itself and the equality of men and women."

KERRY O’BRIEN: Does it concern you, particularly in the emotional environment post 9/11, that your comments will be used by extremists and zealots in Western countries as an excuse for their bigotry, a bigotry that also sometimes leads to violence?

AYAAN HIRSI ALI: I am against every form of extremism and any attack on Liberalism. I think extreme right wing parties and movements to me are just as bad as extreme right wing fundamentalist Muslims. There is - what I have descended to is the idea of liberty and self reflection and creating a society that is peaceful and prosperous through trial and error.

KERRY O’BRIEN: Do you still fear for your life in the way you came to do in the Netherlands? Do you take the threats seriously?

AYAAN HIRSI ALI: I take the threats seriously and fortunately I still have people protecting me, provided by the Dutch Government. But I cannot live my life in fear every day. I enjoy life to the full. I know the threats are out there and I think that it's clearly worth fighting for the freedoms that I have come to benefit from in just 14 years. I know them only for 14 years. Probably that's why I'm more passionate about them than the people who are born into it.

KERRY O’BRIEN: From your self-imposed exile, how do you describe your relationships now with your family - your father, mother, brothers and sisters?

AYAAN HIRSI ALI: That's one of the prices of speaking out against Islam. My entire family are devout Muslims and repelled by what I do and what I say. And that's unfortunate. But I can explain it as I belong to the generation that's the transition and that's something my children will not suffer.

************************************

Maryam Namazie* is a Communist activist of Iranian descent. She is mainly known for her activities for women's rights, asylum seeker's rights and for her fight against the Islamic republic and political Islam internationally.

Maryam is currently the secretary of the International Relations committee of the Worker-Communist Party of Iran and a current member of the politburo and coordinating council of the party. She is also a leader within the International Federation of Iranian Refugees, a current member of the central council of Organisation for Women's Liberation and one of the hosts on New Channel TV. She is hosting the "International TV" which is broadcasted by NCTV and is the current editor of "WPI Briefing" (English organ of WPI).

Maryam Namazie was born in Tehran but left with her family in 1980 following the Islamic Revolution

They Do Hate America and We Will All Pay the Price

When President Clinton decided to bomb the Serbs and to protect the Bosnians and also protect the Albanians who were flooding into Kosovo, I supported him although I had reservations. After all weren’t the Serbs on our side in World War II, and weren’t they Christians fighting off Muslims? Didn’t Serbs save Jews from the Holocaust killings carried out by Bosnians? I supported him because I didn’t really understand that the conflict in the former Yugoslavia was really part of the world-wide battle against Islamic jihad. I supported him because he was the President of the United States, and an American citizen should support their president in foreign affairs regardless of party affiliation.

I supported him because I didn’t understand that the American and European left were allies of the Muslim terrorists. I have only come to understand rather late in life just how vicious and dangerous and anti-American the American far left has become.

I never knew there were Americans who hated America until I semi-retired from business and became a college professor. I attribute this to the fact that my circle of friends and acquaintances were people like me – people who worked in or owned businesses and who were mission-oriented. In other words, if they didn’t own the business, they were like Sergeant Killer McCoy*: they focused on accomplishing the goals of the organization they worked for – not on moaning about their lot in life or blaming others for their perceived sense of the unfairness of it all, and they didn’t find joy when things went wrong for their employer.

Of course, back then, I knew the positions of people like Ted Kennedy or John Kerry, but I never took them seriously. I always thought that they were posturing – advancing causes that would get them votes, not causes that they could possibly believe in. Even Kerry’s outrageous slander of American soldiers in Vietnam I took to be political posturing of the worst sort. It was not until I came into close contact with academics that I realized that these Ward Churchills, who owed everything that they had to the sacrifices of others, believed what they were saying: that America was an evil country, and that all other cultures were superior to ours.

The problem we all face is that these people, whom Bill O’Reilly calls ‘secular-progressives’, not only deny the seriousness of Islamic terrorism, but also try in every way to hamstring our attempts to defend ourselves and our culture. 9/11 woke some of them up – people on the left like Christopher Hitchens and Alan Dershowitz and Nick Cohen**, but most of them won’t change their minds about the dangers we face until more horrific terrorist acts take place here.

I have to face the fact that the only realistic hope I can have for the future is that all America will wake up and start pulling together after only a few more mass atrocities like 9/11 happen here, and that my children and my grandchildren will be able to avoid large gatherings in the meantime. This country has always been blessed by good luck and great men at moments of crisis. May God continue to watch over us.

*a main character in many of W.E.B. Griffin’s great books

**”WHY is it, asks British journalist Nick Cohen, that apologies for a militant Islam, which stands for everything the liberal Left is against, come from the liberal Left? Why are you as likely to read about the alleged conspiracy of Jews controlling American foreign policy in a literary journal as in a neo-Nazi hate sheet? Why, after the bomb attacks in the London underground, did left-leaning British newspapers run pieces excusing the suicide bombers, these same young men who were motivated by "a psychopathic theology from the ultra-Right"?

Why, in short, have Left and Right changed places? Nick Cohen is not the first to write about the unholy alliance between Western liberals and extreme right Islamic fundamentalists, but he does it in a particular and powerful way in his new book What's Left? How Liberals Lost Their Way.” From The Left is onside with hate, The Australian, February 1, 2007

Mexico Demanded U.S. Prosecute Sheriff, Agents

If the illegal immigration situation were not bad enough, evidence accumulating from attempts to unearth the true facts concerning the arrest and conviction of Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean suggest strongly that the United States government is not only trying to placate the Mexican government, but is actually carrying out policies demanded by Mexico.

This is also not the only case where an American law enforcement official has been punished for using force in an incident involving illegals caught in criminal acts.

In a previous incident, a Sheriff Hernandez, of the Sheriff ‘s Department of Edward County, Texas, was arrested for use of force involving a van transporting illegals. According to the World Net Daily article cited below, “The Mexican national Rodriguez was in a Chevrolet Suburban van full of illegals that attempted to run over Hernandez after he had stopped the vehicle for running a stop sign April 14, 2005, in Rocksprings, Texas. Firing his weapon at the rear tires, a bullet fragment hit Rodriguez in the mouth, cutting her lip and breaking two teeth.

Hernandez, convicted of felony civil rights violations, is incarcerated in a Del Rio prison waiting sentencing.”

This conviction was obtained under circumstances similar to the Border Patrol Agents case, and resulted from the takeover of the investigation from the State of Texas by the FBI after a complaint was filed by the Mexican government.

Documents show role of consulate in cases of Gilmer Hernandez and Ramos-Compean (Excerpt)
Posted: February 13, 2007
By Jerome R. Corsi
WorldNetDaily.com

“The Mexican Consulate played a previously undisclosed role in the events leading to U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton's high-profile prosecution of Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, who are serving 11 and 12 year sentences for their role in the shooting of a drug smuggler, according to documents obtained by WND.

And Mexican consular officials also demanded the prosecution of Texas Sheriff's Deputy Guillermo "Gilmer" Hernandez, who subsequently was brought to trial by Sutton, the documents reveal.

Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas – among a number of congressman who have fiercely opposed the prosecution of Ramos and Compean – told WND he has "long suspected that Mexican government officials ordered the prosecution of our law enforcement agents."
"Mexico wants to intimidate our law enforcement into leaving our border unprotected, and we now have confirmation of it in writing," Culberson said.

Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, was equally outraged.

"The Mexican government should do more to keep illegals from Mexico from crossing into the United States, especially drug dealers, rather than be concerned about our border agents," he told WND. "The U.S. Justice Department should not be working for the Mexican government."” World Net Daily

No Dogs Were Heard Barking In the Night Mused Sherlock

In Salt Lake City, Utah, on February 12, 2007, wearing a tan trench coat, Sulejman Talović , age 19,went on a shooting rampage killing five civilians and wounding several others at Trolley Square, a Salt Lake City shopping mall, before being fatally shot by police.

The killings by Talovic, a Bosnian Muslim, was immediately labeled NOT a terrorist act. Both the authorities and the media took pains NOT to identify him as a Muslim.

In 2002, Muslim convert John Allen Muhammad, one of the Washington, DC snipers, killed 10 innocent Americans and wounded three more critically.

Authorities claimed no connection between Islam and the Beltway Sniper case, and took pains NOT to identify him as a Muslim.

That same year, an Egyptian immigrant, a Muslim, walked into Los Angeles Airport and shot down two EL Al employees before being killed by El Al Security.

The FBI found no terrorist connection; authorities and the press took pains NOT to identify him as a Muslim.

In the past year, Ismail Yassin Mohamed, 22, stole a car in Minneapolis, and then went on a rampage, ramming the stolen car into other cars and then stealing a van and continuing to ram other cars, injuring one person. During his rampage, Mohamed repeatedly yelled, "Die, die, die, kill, kill, kill," and when asked why he did all this, he replied, "Allah made me do it."

This was determined NOT to be a terrorist act, and Mohamid was not immediately identified as a Muslim in press accounts.

Omeed Aziz Popal, a Muslim from Afghanistan, killed one person and injured 14 during a murderous drive through San Francisco city streets in August 2006, during which he targeted people on crosswalks and sidewalks He identified himself as a terrorist after his rampage. Later the murders were ascribed to Popal's mental problems, and to stress arising from his impending arranged marriage.

His Muslim connections were not immediately mentioned in the press.

On July 28, 2006, a Muslim named Naveed Afzal Haq forced his way into the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle. Once inside, Haq announced, "I'm a Muslim American; I'm angry at Israel," and then began shooting, killing one woman and injuring five more.

FBI assistant special agent David Gomez stated: "We believe … it's a lone individual acting out his antagonism. There's nothing to indicate that it's terrorism-related. But we're monitoring the entire situation." Mysteriously, Haq had recently been baptized a Christian.

In March 2006, a 22-year-old Iranian student named Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar drove an SUV onto the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, deliberately trying to kill people and succeeding in injuring nine. During his arraignment, he explained that he was "thankful for the opportunity to spread the will of Allah."

There was no reason to believe that Taheri-azar was a terrorist. Later reports did mention his Muslim religion.

A rewrite with some editorial comments from a report by World Net Daily.

Three Days That Will Live in Infamy

Twice now, in my lifetime, a Democrat Congress has stabbed an American army in the back – bringing to mind President Roosevelt’s famous phrase that described the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor – “a day that will live in infamy”.

After voting to authorize the use of force for regime change in Iraq, these cowards and turncoats pretend they never said what they said, that they never did what they did, and, to the disgust of all American patriots, that they “support the troops”.

I never thought I would again feel the shame I felt in 1975 – the first time a Democrat Congress did this, but I do.

May I remind them that this all started when a Democrat President named Carter pulled the rug from the Shah of Iran, setting the stage for the Ayatollah Khomeini, and for the invasion of our embassy and the kidnapping of 62 of our citizens?

Letter From a Muslim Woman

One of the responses to Dinesh D’Souza’s recent works (see note below) is from an unknown Muslim woman who helps us understand some of the underlying causes of Muslim unhappiness with the spread of western culture. Since Muslim terrorism is a world-wide phenomenon, existing in places like Darfur and Indonesia, as an explanation, there is obviously much more to it than the elevation of women’s rights, but it raises an interesting question: where are the womens’ rights groups? Why do they and other left-wing organizations turn a deaf ear to human rights abuses by Islamists? Why do they support the cause of the Palestinian terrorists over an Israeli population that has turned itself inside out to find a peaceful solution that doesn’t involve their own extermination?

Excerpt of the letter:
“What threatens patriarchal Muslim communities are not the excesses of Western societies but its very norms. Individualism and the relatively equal position of women manifest themselves in the opportunities females have to pursue education and economic independence. And these principles of individual freedom and equality, even Mr. D'Souza will agree, are neither Right nor Left, but simply American. There is no way that Muslim women, in great numbers, can be granted similar opportunities without it eventually shaking their societies at their very foundations. Whatever else the Taliban is obtuse about, they understand perfectly the concept of the slippery slope - allow a girl child to be educated at all, and you never know where she will end up - perhaps like me, with only tangential ties to some of the core values of the conservative Islamic community I was raised in.

When I go back home to my country of birth, as I frequently do, I see the changes that education and economic independence have wrought in a once very orthodox community, which slowly allowed its women a more Western lifestyle. Women are waiting longer to get married, having fewer children (going against the Islamic obligation to increase the "Umma" - the community of Muslims), going out of the home to work, often choosing a spouse against the wishes of the family, and initiating divorce in numbers that were unthinkable in the past. The great strength of Muslim societies, the stability of its families, and the cohesiveness of its communities, is beginning , in some places, to fray at the edges and the anxiety provoking question for those who care about this, as I do, is -how much can the foundational thread of conservative Islamic societies, -women's submissiveness, and their economic and social dependence on men - be pulled out, without it unraveling the entire fabric?

In the face of this challenge there are those who believe that the solution lies in reverting to fundamentalist Islam, and among such people could well be some future terrorists. There are others who know there is no going back. To do so would be to tolerate, for instance, some of the rules that governed my mother's life. No leaving the house without a chaperone, no signing your own marriage certificate, and most tragic of all, no going to school, no matter how much you love to learn. Or it could mean, as it did with a schoolmate of mine, a seventeen year old girl would be forced to marry a fifty six year old man, because her family forced her to. If she could have fended for herself, she may have fled her family. But she could not, and went through the marriage ceremony tears pouring down her face.

How can Muslim societies strike a balance between the needs of the individual and the need of the community so as to stay true to some of its better traditions and avoid the breakdown of family and society that has taken place in the West? There are no easy answers to that, and certainly none so easy as staying as far away as possible from pornography, or even making it more difficult for a woman to get a divorce. If Mr. D'Souza has any advice to give on this issue, I would like to hear it. Turning the TV off when Britney Spears appears, I know to do on my own.”

D’Souza’s recent book, “The Enemy At Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibilty for 9/11”, places blame for Islamic terrorism on the debasement of American society by the left.

A Replay of the Salem Witch Trials Before Our Eyes

We have three, politically-motivated, criminal prosecutions going on right now that remind us of the Fells Acre Day Care Case in Massachusetts where an innocent man, Gerald Amirault was charged with molesting 19 children, and his mother, Violet Amirault, who owned the center, was also charged. Gerald's sister, Cheryl Amirault LeFave, was charged with 10 counts of abuse. In the 1986 trial, Gerald was convicted and sentenced to 30 to 40 years in state prison. In the two subsequent trials, Violet and Cheryl were each convicted and sentenced to 8 to 20 years in a Massachusetts state prison. At both trials the children testified in open court sitting directly in front of the jury with their backs to the defendants and their faces to the jurors. These convictions were eventually overturned, but the people involved were totally ruined. Until now, this was one of the most egregious cases of prosecutorial misconduct since the Salem Witch trials.

The three prosecutions I find similar are the Duke rape case, the Border Agents case and the Scooter Libby trial. Each situation reeks of politics. In the Duke case, D.A. Nifong was elected by the largely black electorate who rewarded him for charging the white students.

In the Border Agents case, it appears that Homeland Security has a policy of sacrificing Border Agents who use force trying to stop illegal-immigrant drug-smugglers in order to placate Mexico and to appeal to future Mexican-American voters.

In the Scooter Libby Trial, opponents of the Bush Administration are trying to get at him through Libby and, possibly, through Cheney. The Joe Wilson lies collapsed like a house of cards, and the liberal-left is very angry at anyone who played a role in exposing him.

Unfortunately, we have several situations where no good deed goes unpunished. We thought there was hope for the Duke young men when Nifong recused himself and was then brought up on charges before the North Carolina Bar Association, but it appears that there is an effort to find something with which to charge the students so North Carolina can save face and also avoid a massive civil suit.

From Liestoppers (Excerpt):

In a case that needs no additional irony, the prosecutor who decided to retry Alan Gell, despite evidence of his actual innocence and prosecutorial misconduct in withholding that evidence, will now replace Defendant Nifong as prosecutor of the Hoax.

Citing the conflict of interest created by his upcoming trial before the State Bar Disciplinary Hearing Committee, Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong has requested that a special prosecutor be appointed by Attorney General Roy Cooper. In a press conference today, AG Cooper announced that he has granted Defendant Nifong’s request, effectively ending Nifong’s reign as Hijacker of the Hoax. Longtime prosecutor Jim Coman, who is the head of the NC Attorney General’s Special Prosecution Unit, as well as the former head of the SBI lab, and Mary Winstead will be the primary attorneys assigned to the case, according to Cooper. Promising to seek truth and justice while respecting all those involved, Cooper stated that the special prosecutors would approach the case with eyes wide open on evidence and closed to everything else.

If the hoax proceeds to trial, it will not be Coman's first attempt at placing innocent men behind bars. In 2003, despite the revelation that prosecutors David Hoke and Debra Graves withheld evidence that exonerated Alan Gell of murder charges that had sent him to death row, Coman decided to put Mr. Gell on trial for a second time. Later Coman would testify at the State Bar trial of Hoke and Graves to the effect that withholding evidence was standard policy in the Attorney General's office.

Oh by the way, the absurdity of the Fells Acre Day Care case mentioned above, was one of several ridiculous cases involving alleged sexual abuse at daycare centers in Massachsetts, New Jersey and California. All the people involved were innocent, but all were ruined by the proceedings. In the Fells case, Democrat D.A. Harshbarger actually had children tell fantastic stories which included: being abused by a clown and a robot in a secret room; and animals being sacrificed. One girl claimed Gerald Amirault had penetrated her anus with the twelve-inch bladed knife.

In the Scooter Libby trial, we have Prosecutor Fitzgerald charging Libby with lying about which of dozens of people first told him of a person's name in a situation where no crime was committed. He also faces ruin.

Court Rules Against ACLU, Protestors in Military Funeral Lawsuit

Court Order Cites Judicial Watch’s Amicus Brief
Jan 30, 2007

(Washington, DC) "Judicial Watch, the public interest group that promotes transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law, announced today that a U.S. District Court in Missouri denied a request by the American Civil Liberties Union lawyers made on behalf of a member of the Westboro Baptist Church to prevent the state from enforcing its statute limiting protests “in or about” the location of funeral services (Shirley L. Phelps-Roper v. Jeremiah W. Nixon, et al., No. 06-cv-4156-FJG). The ACLU filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the law on behalf of protesters who disrupted military funerals by picketing and conducting other protest activities.

The court order, issued by federal Judge Fernando J. Gaitan, Jr., essentially adopts Judicial Watch’s argument that Missouri’s “funeral protection law” is well-grounded in Eighth Circuit judicial precedent and is consistent with the U.S. Constitution. Moreover, Judge Gaitan specifically cites Judicial Watch’s amicus brief concerning the right of family members and friends of those killed in battle to mourn their loss. The judge writes: “…amicus Judicial Watch notes that Missouri also has an interest in protecting funeral attendees’ First Amendment rights to free exercise of religion.” Judge Gaitan ruled that the ACLU’s client failed to demonstrate a “likelihood of success on the merits” of her arguments. Her request for a preliminary injunction was, therefore, denied.

“We’re pleased the court seems to recognize the right of funeral attendees to mourn those who died defending our country without being disrupted by protesters,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Unlike the ACLU, most Americans believe that mourners should be able to engage in quiet and reflective prayer at funerals. As the court noted, ‘…picketing soldiers’ funerals and belittling the sacrifices made by soldiers are intolerable actions…’”

Missouri lawmakers were spurred into action after protesters began picketing outside the August 2005 military funeral of Army Spec. Edward L. Myers in St. Joseph, Missouri. The law reads: “It shall be unlawful for any person to engage in picketing or other protest activities in front of or about any church, cemetery, or funeral establishment ... within one hour prior to the commencement of any funeral, and until one hour following cessation of any funeral…” The Missouri “funeral protection law,” therefore, does not ban picketing altogether, and does not make any reference to the content of the speech it seeks to regulate. As Judicial Watch argues in its brief, this is a “narrowly tailored law” that merely regulates the time and place of protests.” Judicial Watch

Here in Florida we were visited by members of this church or by demonstrators with similar warped views who raised anti-gay signs at the funeral of a soldier killed in Iraq. This is another case where the action of the ACLU is unfathomable. They (the ACLU) defend child-molester killers in Massachusetts (the Curley case-NAMBLA connection); they have attempted to destroy the Boy Scouts in many locations; and here they defend funeral disrupters. I don’t understand how anyone can continue to defend or to contribute to this organization. The ACLU (which does have Communist roots) has morphed from being a selective defender of our civil rights to an abuser of our community rights and responsibilities.

Judicial Watch is a nonpartisan, educational foundation organized under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue code. Judicial Watch is dedicated to fighting government and judicial corruption and promoting a return to ethics and morality in our nation's public life.

President Bush Is Not A Liar, But Sen. Clinton Is

I try to ignore most of the rantings of college-age liberals and those who buy into conspiracy theories or who are ignorant of history, but when a United States Senator, who is a presidential candidate, makes false statements like this, I have to say something. It is totally dishonest for her and for others to pretend that the Iraq War is something that President Bush cooked up with no justification and with no history or vital U.S. interests involved. It is despicable that they keep throwing this mud hoping some of it will stick.

“Clinton 44’s war amnesia

From Sen. Hillary Clinton’s speech on the Senate floor on Oct. 10, 2002:

“I believe the authority to use force to enforce that mandate is inherent in the original 1991 UN resolution, as President Clinton recognized when he launched Operation Desert Fox in 1998.

“If we get the resolution that President Bush seeks, and if Saddam complies, disarmament can proceed and the threat can be eliminated. Regime change will, of course, take longer but we must still work for it, nurturing all reasonable forces of opposition.

“If we get the resolution and Saddam does not comply, then we can attack him with far more support and legitimacy than we would have otherwise.”

Bush got the Ultimatum Resolution from the UN Security Council on Nov. 8, 2002, and now, 4 years later, comes the story from New Hampshire that she never said any of that.

John Ditaso, senior political reporter for the Union-Leader, filed a report today: “Hillary: I didn’t vote for ‘pre-emptive war’ ”

“I have taken responsibility for that vote. It was based on the best assessment that I could make at the time, and it was clearly intended to demonstrate support for going to the United Nations to put inspectors into Iraq.

“When I set forth my reasons for giving the President that authority, I said that it was not a vote for pre-emptive war,” the former first lady said.

The hell she did. Pre-emptive is not in that 2002 floor speech; she did not say it was not a vote for pre-emptive war. Far from that. Here is how she ended that speech:
“And finally, on another personal note, I come to this decision from the perspective of a Senator from New York who has seen all too closely the consequences of last year’s terrible attacks on our nation. In balancing the risks of action versus inaction, I think New Yorkers who have gone through the fires of hell may be more attuned to the risk of not acting. I know that I am.

“So it is with conviction that I support this resolution as being in the best interests of our nation. A vote for it is not a vote to rush to war; it is a vote that puts awesome responsibility in the hands of our President and we say to him - use these powers wisely and as a last resort. And it is a vote that says clearly to Saddam Hussein - this is your last chance - disarm or be disarmed.”

Hussein did not avail himself of that last chance.”

Can SCOTUS Sustain Abortion on Demand?

Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton may be enshrined as the law of the land (in my opinion these decisions were a destructive distortion of our Constitution by activist justices intent on imposing their own personal beliefs), but the American public does not buy abortion-on-demand according to all the polls I have seen – including these most recent ones:

EWTN.com

Washington DC, Jan 26, 2007 (CNA).- “A new CBS News poll has found that a majority of Americans want to prohibit abortions in all or most cases or want greater restrictions. The poll results are consistent with the results of a 2006 poll, reported LifeNews.com.

According to the poll, 47 percent of Americans want to prohibit all or most abortions and 16 percent want them to be greatly restricted.

About 30 percent of those polled want to limit abortions to the very rare cases of rape, incest or danger to the life of the mother. Twelve percent want abortions allowed only when the pregnancy threatens the mother's life. Five percent said abortions should always be illegal. Only 31 percent of those polls want to permit abortion in all cases.

The poll was conducted from Jan. 18 to 21 and it surveyed 1,168 adults nationwide.

The CBS poll is backed-up by other recent polls, such as one by Zogby, which found that 69 percent of voters think that federal funds should not be used for abortions.

69 percent also support parental notification for girls 16 or younger and 55 percent say the notification law should apply to girls 18 and younger.

Zogby also found 56 percent of Americans back a 24-hour waiting period on abortion, 64 percent would charge criminals with a second crime for killing or injuring an unborn child in the course of an attack on a pregnant woman, and 69 percent don't want their tax money to pay for abortions or promoting abortion in other nations, according to LifeNews.

A third poll, conducted by Newsweek in November 2006 found the number of pro-life Americans rose 5 percent while the number of Americans who support abortion fell four percent compared to a previous poll it conducted in 2005.” EWTN News

If President Bush gets an opportunity to appoint another conservative to the Supreme Court, and that person gets a fair hearing for a change, we may see this issue finally go back to the states where questions of morality should be decided. While I am personally opposed to abortion-on-demand and to the Roe v. Wade decision, I would work at the state level to ensure first trimester abortions were without limitation in my state, because I don’t want us to go back to the horrors of back alley abortions for desperate young women. On the other hand, if a majority of my state’s voters disagreed with me, I would accept that judgment because that’s the way a republic form of democracy is supposed to work.

The Only Way the West Can Be Saved

Either because he believes it to be true, or because he does not want to get the United States into a religious war against 1.6 billion Muslims, President Bush has many times taken pains to keep separate the radical Islamic killers from the overall Muslim community. Another reason for his concern has to do with the rights of peaceful American Muslims. The President is the president of all of us.

I still agree with him on this, but I must admit that every day my resolve not to associate the evil and brutal acts of Jihadists with the general Muslim population grows weaker. In particular, the actions of C.A.I.R. (the Council on American Islamic Relations), and what I see going on in Europe and right here in Dearborn, Michigan and on some college campuses give me pause. I am also, of course, aware of the attempt made recently to impose Sharia in a province of Canada.

The problem is, we in America and in Europe have a terrible, built-in hurdle to overcome in facing this problem squarely. The ‘anti-Western culture’ crowd has reached critical mass, as the following piece explains:

The only way the West can be saved
View From the Right
Lawrence Auster

It is among the evils, and perhaps is not the smallest, of democratical governments, that the people must feel, before they will see. When this happens, they are roused to action—hence it is that this form of government is so slow.—George Washington to Henry Knox, 8 March 1787.

The wages of sin is death, and the wages of long-standing indifference to the informing genius of a culture is—not just the death of the culture, but the pain and fright that attend death.—L. Brent Bozell, Mustard Seeds

I keep saying that the West must endure much more suffering and horror, many more surrenders and losses, before it will abandon its liberalism and start to defend itself from Islam—if it ever does. But no matter how many times I’ve said this, I realize I haven’t yet got to the core of the problem.

We must focus our attention on the fact that the key to this unfolding disaster is LIBERALISM. I am not speaking of liberalism in the classical sense, as constraints on the power of government, as free speech and free inquiry, as a single rule of law for all citizens, as individual rights. Nor I am not speaking of liberalism in the New Deal sense, as the use of government to correct imbalances in the economy. I am speaking of liberalism in its pure, modern sense, the sense in which it is most authoritative and active for us today—liberalism as non-discrimination, liberalism as non-judgmentalism, liberalism as the belief that individual rights and individual freedoms constitute the defining content of our society, the principle that rules all other principles. All of which comes down to the belief—for us, a sacred belief—that we must not define ourselves as a group, a collective whole, and therefore must not define any other group as fundamentally different from our group.

This is the belief that led the West to admit millions of unassimilable, hostile, and dangerous aliens into the West, and this is the belief that even now makes it impossible for Westerners to think critical thoughts about Islam as such, let alone to take effective action, or even imagine taking effective action, against it. In April 2001 I wrote an article called “America No Longer Exists,” by which I meant that America no longer sees itself as a nation, culture, and people, and therefore is unable to respond to obvious threats to itself as a nation, culture, and people. The same state of spiritual non-existence is much further advanced in Europe, especially Britain. Liberalism, by taking over the minds and hearts and souls of the Western peoples, has literally dissolved them as peoples. Having done so, it is now leading them to their political and civilizational destruction as well.

Now, what can turn this hideous situation around? There is only one thing that can do it: Westerners must feel the horror that liberalism has wrought. When they see their societies progressively taken over by Muslims, when they see Muslim sharia being implanted and enforced in more and more parts of their country, when they see Islam being taught in their children’s schools and promulgated in the mass media, when they see Muslim imams in the councils of state, when they hear the Muslims’ increasingly strident demands for every more Islamization, when they see Muslim razzias (a.k.a. riots and “random” murders) grow in intensity and audacity, when they see the government paralyzed even in the face of the most palpable crimes and threats, and when, most importantly, they feel the horror and despair and pain and humiliation of all this, and when, finally, they see that this situation was brought about by and is sustained by LIBERALISM, by the liberal belief that the acceptance of alien cultures is the highest virtue of society, then, only at that point, they will see that LIBERALISM, which they had imagined to be the fairest good, is the darkest and most disgusting evil, the smiling destroyer that has seduced them to their ruin. Then, and only then, will they be ready to repent of their liberalism and start defending themselves and their civilization.

Reader Alex sends this discouraging word:

Sometimes something stares us in the face yet we just don’t see it.

We seem to forget that where Islam has taken root it has never departed.

Turkey was at one time was part of the Byzantine Empire, Egypt was Christian, India is now three states (India, Pakistan ,& Bangladesh). The Muslims are still in the Balkans and Chechen, even parts of China. Indonesia is so predominantly Muslim its folly to think it will anything else in the future. Does anyone think that Islam will ever retreat from Africa?

Only Spain has ever managed to recover and then only after over 300 years of constant warfare that forever changed the character and complexion of its people. I agree with you that the root core of this problem is liberalism. But it will not disappear overnight and time most definitely is not on our side. What is lost today we won’t get back cheaply or quickly tomorrow, if at all.

A Europe changed by Islam is a Europe changed forever.