End Muslim Immigration

Cross posted from Take Our Country Back.

new from CitizenWarrior.com...

Stop Muslim Immigration to the United States
Posted: 07 Jan 2009 01:18 PM CST

WE HAVE NO way of determining which Muslims subscribe to pure Islam. The reason this matters is that pure Islam is seditious. Islamic doctrine is more political than religious, and its sole political goal is the domination of Islam over all over religions and all governments.

It is a Muslim's religious duty to achieve that political goal.

When Muslims move to a country, a certain percentage of them start agitating for special considerations. They start to organize and influence the nation politically in a way that is good for Islam and bad for freedom and equality. When the percentage of the Muslims in a nation's population becomes high enough, they gain so much political power that freedoms and rights begin to disappear. (Watch this video to learn more.)

Given all this, until we have a way of determining who is dedicated to pure Islam, no more Muslims should be allowed to immigrate into free countries.

Does this seem extreme? It's not as bad as it might seem. We already choose who can immigrate and who cannot. We make the rules. This is our country, after all. We are not under any obligation to allow anyone to immigrate who wants to. They do it with our blessing or they don't do it.

So this policy is simply adding to the already-existing filter.

This is not racist. Islam is not a race; it's an ideology. The policy of stopping Muslim immigration is simply acknowledging the reality of the Islamic teachings. I know there are Muslims who reject the violent and intolerant verses of the Qur'an. But Islam also teaches taqiyya and we have no way of knowing who is sincere and who is deliberately deceiving us.

We should not take the chance, at least until we find some way to discern between people who genuinely reject the political goals of Islam and those who do not. In the meantime, we should stop all immigration into free countries by Muslims while we can. You can get the process started right now by signing this petition.

Does signing a petition do any good? According to ThePetitionSite (the organization I used to create this petition), the answer is: "Yes — often, but the answer really depends on a number of factors. In general, the more a target organization is impacted by public opinion, the more effective are the petitions. In addition, ThePetitionSite enhances the credibility of online petitions by centralizing signature collection, structuring/regulating signature data collection and output, facilitating communication of petitions via fax, email, etc. and by using fraud-reduction technology. Remember — the effect of a petition usually goes far beyond the actual list of signatures. Journalists write stories about the petitions, signers get inspired to take additional actions, and other "potential targets" conform their behavior to avoid being a target."

Petitions can also exert an influence through two powerful principles of influence: Social proof and commitment and consistency. Petitions have been known to ignite important public debates.

When this petition reaches 50,000 signatures, I will make sure each member of the House and the Senate finds out about it. And I will make sure newspapers and magazines all over the country find out about it. Your signature will make a difference. Sign the petition today: No More Muslim Immigration.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At the time of this writing, the petition has 368 signatures. You can help it grow by signing it and urging your contacts to sign and promote it. I have added this petition to my list, which you can view at Crusader's Armory.

I urge all readers to visit Citizen Warrior's web site and sign up for his updates. Citizen Warrior has many good ideas and much information to share with us.

Breaking: Lebanon Fires Katyusha Rockets into Israel

Cross posted from Maggie's Notebook.

Israeli woman and her children take cover during rocket attack.

Fox News: Israel Battered by Rockets from Lebanon and Gaza:

Up to 5 rockets fired from Lebanon explode in northern Israel while several more from Gaza blast towns to the south

The rockets reportedly struck around the town of Nahariya, 5 miles south of the Lebanese border and wounded at least one person.

Israeli forces immediately returned fire, blasting mortars across Lebanon's border after the attack

BBC - Rockets hit Israel from Lebanon:

At least three rockets have been fired into northern Israel from Lebanon raising fears that the current Israeli offensive in Gaza may spill over.

Israel's army said it had returned fire into Lebanon. There are no details.

The BBC's Mike Sergeant in Jerusalem says this is a very dangerous moment in Israel's conflict.

CNN - Rockets fired into Israel from Lebanon.

Two Katyusha rockets were fired into northern Israel from Lebanon on Monday night, an Israeli police spokesman said.

It's the first time in more than six months that such a rocket has been fired from Lebanon into Israel.

Israeli munitions experts have examined the rockets, which landed in the northern city of Shlomi, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

One rocket landed on a house patio and the other near a road, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

Katyusha rockets have a range of up to 25 km (15 miles) -- much longer than the more crude Qassam rockets, which are more commonly fired from Gaza into Israel.

A spokesman for militant group Hezbollah said he could not confirm if his organization was responsible.

More here from Debka File.

Humanitarian Israel

FrontPageMagazine, January 08, 2009
By David Solway

As we observe a mounting and increasingly pervasive campaign to censure Israel for defending itself against the Hamas thugocracy, we are also witnessing a likely self-induced blindness among both elite institutions and ordinary people. The UN, the media, the NGOs and proliferating altruistic organizations, the European governments (with the exception of Germany), the intellectual panjandrums and a vast popular constituency appear utterly incapable of recognizing the obvious. Israel is in fact under no obligation to lend its support to its self-avowed enemy. It is under no imperative to provide Gaza—whose population elected Hamas by a wide margin and supports terror attacks against Israel by an even wider margin—with medical treatment, diesel fuel, electrical power and food shipments. The Geneva Conventions which assign responsibility to the occupying power for the welfare of the occupied people do not apply in this situation since Gaza can no longer credibly be described as “occupied.”

So the question needs to be asked. What other nation in the world heals and victuals its enemies, while at the same time allowing its own population centers to undergo relentless bombardment? What nation in its right collective mind would go on supplying sustenance to and serving its attackers’ energy needs? Russia, for example, is not under attack, yet even in a non-conflictual situation it has no compunction in cutting off Gas supplies to the Ukraine and threatening to do the same to Europe—in the middle of the winter no less—yet the General Assembly sits on its hands, Amnesty International is deafeningly mute, the streets are empty of protesters. Innocent people can freeze to death for all they care.

But Israel is routinely denounced for supposedly depriving its mortal enemies of food and material. Gaza, let us recall, is a hostile “state” which persists in trying to abduct Israeli soldiers, laying explosive devices at the border, sniping at Israel’s labor force and firing rockets daily at its civilian communities. But what is even more preposterous than such false and hypocritical defamation is the fact that Israel, apparently bowing to pressure or subject to some misguided sense of noblesse oblige, continues to act as Gaza's fuel pump and breadbasket.

Whatever way we look at it, the situation is so absurd and self-defeating as to defy belief. The many “well-intentioned” peace outfits and most of the world’s governments have not seen fit to acknowledge the plain reality of the overall situation. To repeat: Israel is under no obligation whatsoever to cater to or initiate relations with another state or people. Such is the rule the Muslim nations have adopted wholesale vis à vis Israel . It is the assumption behind the anti-Zionist divestment campaigns of the Churches, NGOs, universities and trade unions, and, indeed, it is an axiom the “world community” has sanctioned for its own members, with the hypocritical exclusion of the Jewish state. This is a basic principle of the jus gentium: there is no legitimate compulsion for a competent authority to “do business” with or provide succour to those it does not wish to.

And thus there is no ethical, legal or political justification for imposing this responsibility upon Israel, especially as Israel has been under attack for years from the very entity it is expected to sustain and subsidize. Nevertheless, from the unreflected perspective of the rest of the world, Israel, which owes nothing to Gaza, must go on furnishing its adversaries with their stipulated requirements. Simply put, Israel is the victim of what we might call negative exceptionalism. Unlike any other country on the planet it must work against its own interests. It is as if there exists among its many enemies a shadowy, perhaps unconscious, realization that only one country in the Middle East is capable of defeating Israel, and that is Israel itself. And therefore, in the current conflict, it must be bullied and constrained to furnish Hamas with the ammunition, so to speak, that can be used against it.

That, I believe, is for much of the world what Gaza is all about. Against all common sense and natural law, Israel must be forced via moral condemnation and political pressure to feed, equip, endow and replenish Hamas and its Gazan electors until the Jewish state finally succumbs to a process of physical and military erosion, and becomes something other than a Jewish state. The world demands that Israel defeat itself in the absence of any stronger opponent in the region to complete the task. And Israel, at least up to now and despite its belated military response to continued Hamas aggression, seems perfectly willing to comply.

Related stories:

The Barbaric IDF - in Pictures: Israeli's saving the very people who are trying to kill them.

Why Palestinians Victims Receive More Attention: Only hatred can explain the critical and otherwise bizarre absence of global perspective.

From Rush In A Hurry

Pearl of Wisdom: "A true stimulus would shrink deficits. What Obama really wants to do is stimulate government -- the same government that demanded a plan from the automakers before giving them the money, but wants us to give Congress trillions before they have a plan. Government did the wrong thing, and we have to pay for it!"

Not Easily Broken - Check out this Christian Movie

Not Easily Broken

Browse more Films

Here is the link to the Facebook page shown below, and here it the link to the Official "Not Easily Broken" website.

Dissecting Dershowitz: Left … And Right

Cross posted from Pat Dollards.

Jewish World Review

By Dennis Prager

Harvard Law Professor Alan M. Dershowitz is that rare individual who is both a highly respected academic and well known to the general population.

But in another regard he is even rarer. He regards himself as a man of the left, yet on one of the defining moral issues of our time, attitudes toward Israel, he has nothing in common with the left. He is not only one of Israel’s staunchest supporters, he spends much of his time defending Israel. He has written innumerable articles and four books defending Israel: “The Case against Israel’s Enemies: Exposing Jimmy Carter and Others Who Stand in the Way of Peace,” “The Case for Peace: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Can Be Resolved,” “The Case for Israel,” and “What Israel Means to Me: By 80 Prominent Writers, Performers, Scholars, Politicians, and Journalists.”

This past week, Dershowitz wrote two eloquent columns defending Israel’s attack on Hamas in Gaza. One was titled “Israel, Hamas, and Moral Idiocy,” published in the Christian Science Monitor and the other, “Israel’s Policy Is Perfectly ‘Proportionate,’” was published in the Wall Street Journal.

In his Monitor column, Dershowitz describes “three types of international response to the Israeli military actions against the Hamas rockets” — “Iran, Hamas, and other knee-jerk Israeli-bashers,” “the United Nations, the European Union, Russia, and others who, at least when it comes to Israel, see a moral and legal equivalence between terrorists who target civilians and a democracy that responds by targeting the terrorists,” and “the United States and a few other nations that place the blame squarely on Hamas.”

It is relevant to the question I will pose that he omits any mention of the world’s left, even when mentioning the European Union. Who exactly in the European Union is condemning Israel? Its conservatives? Who in America is condemning Israel? Conservatives? Who in Australia or Canada? Conservatives? Of course not. As regards Israel (and America and much else), the Western world’s moral idiots, to use the term in the title of the Dershowitz column, are virtually all on the left, including and especially many of his colleagues in academia.

So, I have a question for my friend Dershowitz. (I say ‘friend’ because we’ve known each other for years and debated and dialogued together.)

Given that Israel’s security is so important to you, given that you believe that the ability to morally distinguish between Israel and its enemies is tantamount to the ability to distinguish between good and evil, and given that those who condemn Israel for its “disproportionate” response to Hamas terror-rockets are almost all on the left in America and Europe, why do you continue to identify yourself as a man of the left?

Everyone who thinks sometimes differs with one’s ideological compatriots. But when one’s ideological compatriots are morally wrong on the greatest moral issue of the moment and perhaps the very clearest as well, don’t you at least suffer from cognitive dissonance?

It seems that to avoid this cognitive dissonance, Dershowitz engages in some intellectual denial. Just as he avoids any mention of the left in his column on the world’s moral idiots at the present moment, he does criticize the right for having its anti-Israel moral fools. In his book “The Case against Israel’s Enemies,” he has a chapter on the far left and a chapter on the far right, as if there is any equivalence of impact. And as if the existence of anti-Israel voices on that insignificant “far right” somehow balances the staggering number of anti-Israel voices on the huge left, whether far or not so far.

Dershowitz himself repeatedly acknowledges how inverted moral thinking reigns on American campuses.

To cite just two examples: In 2005 Dershowitz wrote, “It’s no coincidence that so many of the professors leading the campaign against Harvard President Lawrence Summers for his recent comments about women in science also were in the vanguard of the campaign to divest from Israel and boycott Israeli academics.” And in 2007: “The only people who tremble on campuses are students at Columbia and Berkeley who are worried that they’ll be graded down for being pro-Israel.”

Now which part of the American political spectrum dominates the universities, the left or the right? The former, of course. But Dershowitz won’t put two and two together, at least publicly, and conclude that there is something fundamentally and morally flawed about the left and its values.

Dershowitz undoubtedly reads the New York Times and Boston Globe editorials as well as those of the Wall Street Journal. So he knows that only the conservative editorials of the Wall Street Journal routinely defend Israel.

He knows that with few exceptions, there are no pro-Israel left-wing journals as there are right-wing pro-Israel journals, such as the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, and National Review.

He knows that Israel is routinely bashed on left-wing talk radio (including, though more subtly, on NPR) and that Israel is constantly defended on right-wing talk radio.

He knows that on the Internet, the most virulent attacks on Israel are on the left, while the most pro-Israel websites are nearly all conservative and right wing.

But none of this matters. Dershowitz still morally equates left and right and considers himself a man of the left.

Why?


I welcome Dershowitz’s response. Here is mine.

One reason, I believe, is that to acknowledge the moral failure of the left, especially the secular left, on most of the great moral issues of the post-World War II era — the Cold War, the Middle East, confronting (or even acknowledging the existence of) the Islamist threat — is very difficult for a person on the left, even one as analytical as Dershowitz. Secular leftism is analogous to Arthur Koestler’s “god that failed.” And few people want to confront the fact that the ideal, the god they bet their lives on, is a false god.

Second, to acknowledge the broken moral compass that guides the left is to implicitly endorse the right, especially the religious right. But that is very difficult for anyone on the left to do because the essence of the secular left is a rejection of the Christian right. That it is conservatives, especially religious conservatives, who are the most stalwart supporters of Israel, must greatly disturb Dershowitz.

And, it is precisely among those who most reject Judeo-Christian values that anti-Israel moral idiocy prevails. How does Dershowitz explain that? That’s my question.

Photos From Drone Prove Hamas Attacked From School It Packed With Explosives, Killing Dozens Of Civilians

UPDATED January 09, 2009. 'See below'

Cross posted from Pat Dollards.

UPDATED January 07, 2009

AP:

JERUSALEM - An Israeli official says Palestinian militants fired on Israeli soldiers from the courtyard of a U.N. school where dozens of people died in fiery explosions.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he said the army is still drafting the country’s official response to the incident.

Palestinian medics said 34 people were killed in an Israeli strike outside a U.N. school in the northern Gaza town of Jebaliya. The United Nations confirmed 30 were killed and 55 injured.

The Israeli official said “hostile fire” was directed at the soldiers from within the school. He said soldiers returned fire and multiple explosions went off, presumably emanating from munitions stored there.

Jerusalem Post

At least thirty people were reportedly killed and 53 wounded in an explosion in a UN-run school in the town of Jabalya in the northern Gaza Strip, according to Palestinians. The IDF issued a statement saying the school grounds were used by terrorists to fire mortar shells at the troops.

The infantrymen returned mortar shell fire into the school grounds, the army said. Defense officials told The Associated Press that booby-trapped bombs in the school triggered the secondary explosions which killed scores of Palestinians on the site.

The Jerusalem Post could not confirm the number of casualties reported by Palestinian sources.

Channel 10 reported that the military had a video filmed by a drone proving that the school was used by terrorists to fire mortars at IDF troops.

The United Nations said hundreds of people from a Gaza City refugee camp had gone to seek shelter in the school from Israel’s 11-day offensive against the Hamas terror group.

“There’s nowhere safe in Gaza. Everyone here is terrorized and traumatized,” said John Ging, the top UN official in Gaza.

“I am appealing to political leaders here and in the region and the world to get their act together and stop this,” he said, speaking at Gaza’s largest hospital. “They are responsible for these deaths.”

Earlier Tuesday, seven Palestinians were killed in several separate incidents. One young man was killed in an attack on a Hamas charity building, a 15-year-old was killed in an air force attack in the center of Gaza City and five Palestinians were killed when their house in the eastern part of Gaza City was shelled.

Palestinians also said nine members of the same family were killed in the Zaytoun neighborhood of Gaza, six of them children. Three other people were reportedly killed in the strike. The Jerusalem Post could not independently confirm the Palestinian reports.

Also on Tuesday, the IAF struck the home of one of the founders of Hamas’s rocket division on Tuesday morning, as Operation Cast Lead entered its eleventh day.

The IDF said that the terror chief, Iman Siam, was in his house at the time of the air strike in the Jabalya neighborhood of northern Gaza.

The army said that in addition to being a founder of Hamas’s rocket launching program, Siam was also the head of the group’s artillery program throughout the Gaza Strip.

At least 10 Hamas and Islamic Jihad gunmen were killed in other Gaza battles early Tuesday, the IDF said. Palestinians put the number of fatalities at 25.

In central Gaza, the navy fired on targets in Deir al-Balah and in the El-Bureij refugee camp.

There was also fighting in Jabalya and in the Zeitun neighborhood of Gaza City.

Over the past 24 hours the IDF has reported escalating clashes in Gaza, with over 50 separate incidents in northern Gaza.

Paratroopers operating near the town of El-Atatra discovered on Tuesday a booby-trapped doll at the entrance to a smuggling tunnel. The doll was safely dismantled.

In an overnight clash, paratroopers operating near El-Atatra spotted a suicide bomber and opened fire on him. The shooting triggered his explosive belt, which killed him when it detonated. One soldier was lightly wounded in the incident.

The IDF announced that it had conducted over 30 sorties during overnight operations late Monday and early Tuesday. During the raids, IAF planes bombed the Jabalya home of Basal Abu Wadi, a prominent Hamas military officer who was at the level of a company commander in Izzadim Kassam. The Jubalya home of another Hamas officer, Ashraf Guda, was also destroyed in a different air strike. His house was said to function as a Hamas Command and Control Center. The house of a third company commander in the military wing, Iman Jalala, was also targeted overnight.

Elsewhere, a booby-trapped house was bombed. The IDF believed that under the house were a number of smuggling tunnels.


Why is the U.N. allowing a U.N. run school to be used as a fire base and munition storage facility?
Hamas booby-trapped munitions inside the school and then allowed refugees in? FOR WHAT PURPOSE?

The U.N. has some answering to do for this debacle. Oh...wait...I see now. This was done to show how terrible the Israeli's are. RIGHT? You bloody fools!

"Maxwell Gaylard, the UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, demanded an investigation."

***THIS STORY WILL BE UPDATED AS NEWS DEVELOPS***

UPDATE VIDEO January 07, 2009



Terrorists from the Gaza Strip fire mortars from an UNRWA boys’ school in Gaza on 29 Oct. 2007. Hamas and other terror organizations in Gaza make deliberate use of civilians living in populated areas as human shields.

From Michelle Malkin; About that Israeli strike on the UN “school” Updated

More from ALLAHPUNDIT here.

From Gateway Pundit here.

Video Update January 09, 2009 from Pat Dollards;

You Say War Crimes? How’s A Mortar Launcher In A “UN School Yard”



Powerline; John Hinderaker says:

The first big anti-israel news story of the Gaza conflict was the alleged bombing, on Tuesday, of a UN-run school which resulted in the deaths of 40 or so children. What happened, of course, was that Hamas set up a mortar launcher in the school or on its grounds. The IDF returned fire and destroyed the launcher and its crew. Among those killed were Imad and Hassan Abu Askhar, who ran Hamas mortar crews. Hamas will position a rocket or (in this case) mortar launcher within a few feet of a school, not because school grounds are somehow ideal locations from which to fire ordnance, but in hopes of causing civilian casualties.


John then asks:


One wonders, too, what was going on at the UN-run school. Why were dozens or hundreds of children present? Is the UN unaware that Gaza is a war zone? Schools have been closed in Israeli towns that are subject to Palestinian rocket attacks. Why on earth would the UN, or whoever, be assembling students in a location where they can easily be turned into “martyrs” by Hamas? Were classes really being conducted in this alleged school, in the middle of a bombardment? There is a story here, waiting to be told.

Gaza Market Massacre Video a Hoax

Cross posted from Faultline USA.

Another cruel Hamas disinformation campaign video has been found to be a hoax. The real Gaza Market Massacre occurred in 2005 by accidental detonation of homemade Palestinian rockets during a Hamas rally.

URUKnet.info has issued an apology to its readers after being alerted to the fact that the video footage of the Gaza Market Massacre had been doctored. The video allegedly showed the aftermath of an Israeli IDF air strike on a Gaza market four days ago. It turned out that the video was actually taken in 2005 showing a scene from the Jabalya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip. The real video depicted the accidental detonation of homemade Palestinian rockets during a Hamas rally.

The erroneous story had widespread coverage and was circulated in the BBC News, Ynetnews.com, and on Digital Journal.

According to URUKnet.info, a detailed comment on Reddit debunked the claim by comparing the video with photographs taken after the 2005 blast at the Hamas rally. One of the photographs that was compared with the video is from a CBS News article dated Sept. 23, 2005.
_________________________________________________________________________________

A side-by-side comparison of a frame from the video at ~4:08 and the aforementioned photo from the CBS News article is here.

“Activist” Turns In Would-Be RNC Convention Firebombers

H/T Pat Dollard.

ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS:

COURTS

Social activist, organizer … and FBI informant

It was all about stopping violence, says Austin man who revealed alleged firebomb plot at GOP convention.

By David Hanners

ST. PAUL, Minn. — In a federal courtroom in Minneapolis this month, the public transformation of Brandon Darby of Austin will become complete.

In four years, he has gone from a never-trust-the-government activist to the confidential informant who helped the FBI arrest two Austin men on suspicion of building firebombs during the Republican National Convention in St. Paul in September.

“I feel like, as an activist, I played a direct role in stopping violence,” Darby, 32, said in his first interview on his role.

(Crowder)

Darby was the government’s chief informant in the case against David McKay and Bradley Crowder. The two are scheduled to go on trial in U.S. District Court on Jan. 26 on accusations they built Molotov cocktails during the convention. They are being held without bail.

Prosecutors say the two men built the firebombs because they were angry that police had seized a trailer filled with riot shields they had built and hauled to Minnesota.

(McKay)

In a conversation recorded by the FBI, McKay told Darby he planned to use the explosives on law-enforcement cars parked in a lot near the convention site, officials said.

“What if there’s a cop sleeping in the car?” Darby asked McKay, according to an affidavit by Christopher Langert, a special agent in the FBI’s Minneapolis office. “He’ll wake up,” McKay allegedly replied.

McKay also told Darby, “It’s worth it if an officer gets burned or maimed,” the affidavit said.

Darby had been working as an informant since November 2007, almost a year before the GOP convention , and in an e-mail sent to friends Monday, he said he was comfortable with that.

“Like many of you, I do my best to act in good conscience and to do what I believe to be most helpful to the world,” he wrote.

Darby’s admission shocked Austin’s activist community, which includes people who have worked with him on a variety of grass roots organizing efforts for years.

“Everyone that knew Brandon has gone through a whole range of emotions. Clearly, he’s betrayed the trust of the community, and all the communities he’s worked with,” said Lisa Fithian, a social-justice activist who worked with Darby in Austin.

A spokesman for prosecutor Frank Magill, the U.S. attorney for Minnesota, declined to comment.

McKay, Crowder and nine other people riding in a van with Darby had little reason to suspect he was a government informant. Darby long had been known for having a strong mistrust of authority, particularly police.

“He and I faced the cops with arms, ‘law enforcement’ (and some within our communities) view him as very antagonistic toward the cops and all their flavors,” friend Scott Crow wrote of Darby on an online independent site in November.

“He often tried to inflame situations,” Crow said in an interview.

It was in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina that Darby made a name for himself as an activist, organizer and, as he calls it, proponent of “service-oriented direct action.”

After Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in August 2005, Darby and others started the Common Ground Collective, which began by delivering supplies to people in the ravaged city.

Darby said he saw firsthand what happens when government fails to protect its citizens. “When I showed up in New Orleans, I was very angry at my government,” he said.

But he said that while working there, he concluded that some activists seemed more intent on promoting radical agendas than helping people.

As for why he got involved with the FBI, Darby said it was because he discovered that people he knew were planning violence.

“Somebody had asked me to do something that would’ve resulted in hurting people, and I said no,” he said. “So they started asking other people. At that point, that’s when I went forward and contacted somebody in law enforcement.”

Trevor Has a Blog

My friend Trevor has a new blog, and I wanted to send some traffic his way. Trevor is a fine Christian young man, and I'm sure his blog will be great! Here is the email he sent me about the blog.

CP

Hey Pastor Ed


It's a new year so thought I would try something new! A BLOG! So thanks for the inspiration LOL.... Spread the word to all my friends at "Do The Right Thing".... It's still a work-in-progress but with prayers and support I hope the LORD uses it for his glory.... I would love it if our blogs could kind of merge together and be "Partner Blogs"

Here's the link.
All Things For Christ


Thanks and God Bless
Trevor

Stop Funding Planned Parenthood

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Pro-lifers push to 'stop subsidizing' abortion industry

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow

A Kansas state senator wants to defund Planned Parenthood.

Republican Senator Tim Huelskamp explains why he believes it is time to drop funding of the abortion provider. "Planned Parenthood has been under criminal investigation for nearly a year now, and they've found probable cause to have committed 107 misdemeanor and felony counts in our state," he contends.

On a national level, Planned Parenthood gets many millions of federal tax dollars and makes a sizeable profit, even though it is a nonprofit organization. "It makes no sense that hundreds of thousands of pro-life Kansans have to fork over more than $550,000 to this organization," he adds. "That's the amount we've discovered."

Huelskamp is submitting a bill to the Kansas legislature to defund the abortion provider. "I think it's time to stop subsidizing the actions of an organization that operates under a cloud of suspicion and scandal," he concludes.

Pro-Hamas Demonstration - Fort Lauderdale FL

This makes me sick to my stomach! CP

Christians called to mass exodus from public schools

By Pete Chagnon - OneNewsNow - 1/2/2009

Critics of America's public school system have launched a new effort highlighting the need for Christians to exit the system.

The initiative -- dubbed The Call to Dunkirk (video link) -- was launched by Dr. Bruce Shortt, author of The Harsh Truth About Public Schools; Rev. Voddie Baucham, author of Family Driven Faith: Doing What It Takes to Raise Sons and Daughters Who Walk with God; and the founder and director of the Exodus Mandate Project, retired U.S. Army Chaplain Lt. Col. E. Ray Moore.

Moore explains the proposal. "The Call to Dunkirk is a special emergency effort to try to get other ministries, churches, pastors, and the major Christian right and pro-family movement to join with us and the other K-12 home-school ministries in rescuing the children from the public schools during the year 2009," he says.

Although Christians have fought other aspects of the culture war such as homosexual "marriage," Moore contends they are losing the fight when it comes to the education of their children.

"The real target of the liberals and the left has always been the children. And we can see in California where the conservatives won Proposition 8 -- the vote [was] 52 to 48 [percent] -- but...when Proposition 22 was voted on [in March 2000], they had a 61-percent margin of victory. So the culture is turning against Christianity and against the pro-family movement primarily because we've allowed our children to be educated in their schools," he adds. "They're converting our children; we're not converting them."

The Call to Dunkirk gets its name from the historical WWII event when the Allied forces of England and France were run out of Europe, but ordinary citizens rallied to their aid and used their own boats to help more than 300,000 soldiers escape safely in order to return again on D-Day.

What's the primary reason most Christian parents send their children to secular public schools instead of opting for private or home schooling?

Vote in our poll

From the "Expose Soros" Facebook Group

"Secondary" or "Indirect" Affiliates of the George Soros Network

To members of Expose Soros

Todd Glick
January 3 at 2:47pm

Folks, here are some more groups funded "indirectly" by George Soros, see what you think, visit the group and put in your 2 cents, a couple of forum posts have popped up related to this.

I will try to keep group e-mails down to no more than 1 per week, as Facebook is REALLY policing this for some reason.


"Secondary" or "Indirect" Affiliates of the George Soros Network

In addition to those organizations ("primary" or "direct" affiliates) that are funded directly by George Soros and his Open Society Institute (OSI), there are also numerous "secondary" or "indirect" affiliates of the Soros network. These include organizations which do not receive direct funding from Soros and OSI, but which are funded by one or more organizations that do. These secondary affiliates also include organizations that work collaboratively or synergistically with Soros-funded groups. Among these secondary affiliates are the following:


Air America Radio: Funded by Democracy Alliance, which is heavily bankrolled by Soros, this radio station was created to advance the cause of the Democratic Party and the political Left.


Catalist: Headed by Soros ally Harold Ickes, this political consultancy seeks "to help progressive organizations realize measurable increases in civic participation and electoral success by building and operating a robust national voter database of every voting-age American." Toward this end, it helps leftist organizations conduct more effective get-out-the-vote drives and targeted political advertising.


Center for Progressive Leadership: Funded by the Soros-bankrolled Democracy Alliance, this anti-capitalist organization is dedicated to training future leftist political leaders.


Media Matters for America: Seeking to "systematically monitor [the media] for conservative misinformation" and to discredit anything that "forwards the conservative agenda," this group, which has intimate ties to Hillary Clinton, works very closely with the Soros-backed Center for American Progress. It is heavily funded by Democracy Alliance, of which Soros is a major financier.


Moving Ideas Network: This coalition of more than 250 leftwing activist groups is a partner organization of the Soros-backed Center for American Progress. Promoting the candidacy of leftwing politicians, the Moving Ideas Network was originally a project of the Soros-backed American Prospect and, as such, received indirect funding from the Open Society Institute. In early 2006, The American Prospect relinquished control of the Moving Ideas Network


New Organizing Institute: Created by the Soros-funded MoveOn.org, this group "trains young, technology-enabled political organizers to work for progressive campaigns and organizations."


Schumann Center for Media and Democracy: PBS broadcaster and Schumann Center President Bill Moyers is a trustee of the Open Society Institute's Board of Directors. The Schumann Center shares many of OSI's agendas.


Service Employees International Union: The current President of SEIU is the former New Leftist Andrew Stern, who sat on the Executive Committee of the Soros-created America Coming Together.


Sierra Club: This organization's Executive Director, Carl Pope, co founded America Coming Together, in whose creation Soros played a major role.


Think Progress: This "project" of the American Progress Action Fund, which is a "sister advocacy organization" of the Soros-funded Center for American Progress and Campus Progress, seeks to transform "progressive ideas into policy through rapid response communications, legislative action, grassroots organizing and advocacy, and partnerships with other progressive leaders throughout the country and the world." Think Progress promotes an agenda identical to that of the left wing of the Democratic Party.


Vote for Change: Coordinated by the political action committee of the Soros-funded MoveOn.org, Vote for Change was a group of 41 musicians and bands that performed concerts in several key election "battleground" states during October 2004, to raise money in support of Democrat John Kerry's presidential bid.


Working Families Party: Created in 1998 to help push the Democratic Party toward the left, this front group for the Soros-funded ACORN functions as a political party that promotes ACORN-friendly candidates.

Islam Under Scrutiny by Ex-Muslims

From Islam Watch;

Islam Simplified: A Pile of Stinking Garbage

By Dr. Omar Zia

02 Jan, 2009

Let me apologize in advance for I will take up a minute of your time to tell you, first of all, about myself in this article.

The past three-and-a-half years has been the most traumatic of my life. I have been ostracized, called deaf, dumb and blind, threatened and even begged, cursed and prayed at to come to my senses. The more I was subjected to the above the more I became determined to get to the bottom of my predicament. I call it my predicament because I was most bewildered as to why my own loved ones have gone against me. My friends abandoned me, my relatives scorned me, even my wife of 15 married years threatened to leave me. The people, who did not even know me, sent me emails threatening dire consequences in this world and afterlife. They prayed for my early death and scorching in hellfire for eternity. But all that is past me. Since writing the previous two articles, I have been subjected to levels of hate previously unknown. If cyberspace was capable of shredding one into barbequed pieces of chewed up and spat out meat, I would resemble that. Receiving this huge smack in the Cyberface has prompted me to explain my understanding of Islam in simplified terms; I urge all "alleged" Muslims to refute me in a logical manner, if they please.

Islam may be many things for many people from different sects, but one thing on which every sect of Islam will agree, and which is beyond dispute, is the "five-pillar" theory. Those five pillars are:

1. Belief (Reciting Kulma)

2. Prayers (5 mandatory prayers during the course of the day)

3. Fasting (30 day mandatory period)

4. Zakat (2.5% alms given from ‘income’)

5. Hajj (Once a lifetime pilgrimage)

It is these five pillars on which Islam is supposed to be resting upon. The absurdity of a ‘belief’ resting on rituals is as diabolical as the idea of transubstantiation. For now, let's move on to the rituals of Islam and how they may be beneficial or not for humanity as a whole.

Belief

I implore the Muslim readers for a moment to just think, think for a moment about the vastness of our universe, the complexity of its function, the time of its existence, the wonder of life arising on speck of dust called earth (as well as the probability of life arising on another billion planets in hundreds of billions of galaxies similar to ours) and then imagine a Being which runs all that. How complex and how vast that imagined Being must be. Even the comparison in size between me and the ants living in my garden is beyond scale by millions of time. Can you imagine that Being caring an iota about a microscopic and most inferior being ‘believing’ in it or not. Its existence would not require confirmation or the threats of eternal torture for non compliance. If it existed it would be totally free of such needs. It’s like you creating an army of robots and started torturing them for an eternity for not believing in you. Allah the sadist is not that Being.

Prayers

The 5 times a day prayers are a most mind numbing ritual for the simple reason that little minority that practice it do not know what they are reciting even the ones who are familiar with Arabic. The first Surah recited in that is Surah Fatihah in which the reciter is praying to Allah to send him on a straight path. That Surah is a prayer and therefore does not belong in Quran. One of the many smaller Surahs which are often recited by Muslims in these prayers is 111. It is full of curses. The other small surahs are also meaningless and devoid of any piety and contain abstract verses. No Muslim knows what they are reciting and the repetitive and incomprehensibleness of this forces the mind to wonder to anything but Allah. Multiply this boredom and also just imagine reciting Surah 33 and Surah 66 detailing Muhammad’s sex affairs during travehs in Ramadan.

There are many other unsolvable puzzles created by an ignorant Muhammad in the prayers. I list some of them below.

Direction of Kaaba: How do you determine that in a world which is round! Even from only a thousand mile away from Mecca you are pointing towards the space and not Kaaba.

Closer to Polar ends: How do you read five prayers at different intervals in a world which does not have equal days and nights and in some regions night and day run into months rather than 24 hour period.

Five times a day Ablution: Does this make them any cleaner? Certainly not. In my travels around the muslim world I have yet to come across a clean muslim country barring the oil rich Emirates who can afford to hire an army of slaves from the subcontinent to keep their little emirates clean. This is also such a waste of scarce water resource (mercifully most Muslims ignore call for prayers) and what a pain it could be for Muslim Eskimos to do that in their freezing surroundings.

Determining the time of prayers: How do you determine the time of prayers under cloud cover. Did Muhammad foresee the invention of clocks? Muslims even resisted the use of loud speakers for Azan at the advent of that invention. Why do they use the clock to determine the time of prayers?

Finally to think that the alleged creator of this magnificent universe wants humans to forego normal life and pray to him all their life and become his slaves is an insult to our evolved sensibilities.

Fasting

For those who are not familiar with this ritual of Islam, fasting is done for around 30 days every year. The month of fast falls 10 days behind preceding year, every year, due to Muhammad Lunacy of basing his year on Lunar calendar. Hardly any muslim uses that calendar.

During fast you are not allowed food or water from sunrise till sunset.

Once again the crazed deity called Allah wants his creation suffered in immeasurable terms.

It never fails to amaze me how during normal times my wife gets upset if she fails to have dinner table ready when the children come home from school. She wants them fed and watered immediately. But during fasting month she scorns us for refusing to fast and makes us feel guilty the whole month. To my gentle queries as to why the mover of universe wants its puny beings starved and suffered, she has no answer. The sadistic Allah has a very peculiar satanic affect on her.

Fasting is proven to be bad for health. Our metabolic system requires food at intervals rather than gorging twice a day. I have personally seen most rich Arabs in Saudi Arabia and Emirates sleep all day after closing fast and gorge all night on ‘all night buffets’, while the poor muslims from subcontinent build their countries while suffering with hunger and thirst due to demonic Allah’s unjust edicts.

When I am in Pakistan, I often come across people who bemoan the fact that prices of edibles go up with the advent of Ramadan. When I tell them that prices only go up when demand is high against a constant supply and perhaps people eat more rather than less during Ramadan they just look at me as if I am mad.

Zakat

Would it not be great if governments can run all their affairs on 2.5% collection of taxes to maintain all the essential services in the country? Can any Muslim show me a country which only collects this amount of tax? The truth is that this tax was levied by Muhammad and his cohorts without any thought or planning. It was basically an afterthought once income from ghazwas (robbing expeditions, which provided 20%) began to decline.

Most civilized countries which provide cradle to grave services for its citizens levy almost 60% taxes. Even the Islamic Jamhooria of Pakistan which provides hardly any services to its citizens levies 15% basic income tax, almost 6 times more than the absurd amount of Islamic tax.

But let’s see what effect this lip service to Zakat has on normal people.

Before the 1st of Ramadan people in Pakistan empty their bank accounts so the government cannot charge Zakat from their savings. They then take some of that money and stock up on alcoholic beverages as the wine shops are closed during Ramadan.

They gather in their droves at the banks to sign a form for Zakat exemption. The banks take advantage of this by charging Rs 100 for that form.

The spectacle of poor queuing up on rich peoples palatial houses for bits of food and money handed out in Zakat is a sad and despicable sight and a most degrading experience for the poor. This shameful spectacle is on display in most Muslim countries.

Even more shameful is the fact that according to almost all Islamic Scholars Zakat cannot be used for the welfare of non-muslims. How much more Islam has to show its ugly head before Muslims realize that this religion or cult cannot be from an all encompassing all loving being.

Hajj

This ritual, filled with satanic practices, to me as I have personally experienced it, is the most absurd and self serving of all. According to Siratunnabi, the only authentic portrayal of life of Muhammad, the confirmation of Kaaba being the abode of almighty mover and shaker of universe, Allah, came in shape of a note buried under the stones of Kaaba. The only problem was that the note was in Syriac and not Arabic. Perhaps Allah did not know Arabic when he buried the note. As the pagan Arabs were illiterate, a learned Jew had to translate the note.

On my visit to Mecca many years ago I was aghast at the spectacle of people cutting the throats of various animals and throwing them in a large dug out pit to be sanded over later on. I was blamed of cowardice when I opted to pay the money over a counter to a charity which promised to cut the animal on my behalf and ship the tinned meat to poor Muslim countries. He emphasized on Muslim countries. When I asked my group leader why more people did not opt for this more saner option I was contemptuously told that Allah preferred to see the blood there and then by the hands of the Hujjaj. Bonkers. Absolutely bonkers.

Kissing the black stone was another hurdle which I refused to cross. Please don’t blame me for that. Even Umar the most psychopathic follower of Muhammad, according to an ahadith narration, kissed it but only after proclaiming that he is doing it because Muhammad did it otherwise he knew that this stone was lifeless.

At the ritual of throwing pebbles at the Satan I was aghast at the zeal of some Muslims. They were building a purposeful but comical rage and throwing pebbles, stones, coins, shoes, anything. I was once again blamed of being a coward as I was throwing the pebbles half heatedly and gently to avoid hurting anybody else. Later on the pebbles are picked up by the bulldozers and replaced where they came from!

Look at the economic side. It costs 250,000 Pak rupees a person to perform Hajj. The main beneficiaries of this money spent is Saudi Arabia and some Chinese companies which make the Tasbihs and prayer mats for the Hajis to bring back in their thousands for handing out to relatives. One does not have to be a mathematician to work out that this is another way of exploiting Muslims outside of Arabia. Once again that cunning Allah has duped the non Arab Muslims. Is it any wonder Muhammad claimed that his tribe is the most favored of all Muslims?

So there you have it. My definition of Islam. Feel free to hurl as many threats and insults at me as you can; but before you do that, think for a second. If you take away these nonsensical rituals away from Islam what else is left? Take a look. Underneath these pillars there is nothing but a stinking pile of stones with rules for subjugation of slaves, women, non-Muslims and other civilizations. You may even find some piety among the rubble sneaked in for appearance's sake but it is not worth bothering with. One can always be good just because it is good to be good rather than to please a demented duo: Muhammad and Allah.

Are these the reasons that Muslims are at the bottom rung of civilization?

Are these the reasons that makes Muslim countries the most illiterate, filthiest, most corrupt and hypocritical?

Just for a change, do some critical thinking and self-inspection.

Groundhog Day for the Fifth Column of Malice

By Melanie Phillips

So there is indeed now a war. In Gaza. Actually, there are two wars going on: one involving rockets and warplanes, and the other involving the media, as Barry Rubin notes:

Nothing is clearer than Hamas’s strategy. It gives Israel the choice between rockets and media, and Hamas thinks it is a situation of, ‘We win or you lose.’...The smug smiles are wiped off the faces of Hamas leaders. Yet they have one more weapon, their reserves, they call up the media. Those arrogant, heroic, macho victors of yesterday – literally yesterday as the process takes only a few hours – are transformed into pitiful victims. Casualty figures are announced by Hamas, and accepted by reporters who are not on the spot. Everyone hit is, of course, a civilian. No soldiers here. And the casualties are disproportionate: Hamas has arranged it that way. If necessary, sympathetic photographers take pictures of children who pretend to be injured, and once they are published in Western newspapers these claims become fact.

All too predictable – and going to plan, with assistance from the Club of Terror UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon who condemned “excessive use of force leading to the killing and injuring of civilians,” and Navi Pillay, the ludicrous UN High Commissioner for “Human Rights,” who “strongly condemned Israel’s disproportionate use of force.” Of course, the Club of Terror UN has been silent about the actual violations of international law by the Palestinians, as pointed out here by Justus Reid Weiner and Avi Bell:

The Palestinian attacks violate one of the most basic rules of international humanitarian law: the rule of distinction, which requires combatants to aim all their attacks at legitimate targets - enemy combatants or objects that contribute to enemy military actions. Violations of the rule of distinction - attacks deliberately aimed at civilians or protected objects as such – are war crimes.

Furthermore, say Weiner and Bell, Israel actually has a legal duty to take action against Hamas under the Genocide Convention:

In carrying out their attacks on Israeli Jews as part of a larger aim to kill Jews, as demonstrated by the Hamas Covenant, many of the Palestinian terrorists are also violating the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide. Under Article 1 of the Genocide Convention, Israel and other signatories are required to ‘prevent and punish’ not only persons who carry out such genocidal acts, but those who conspire with them, incite them to kill and are complicit with their actions. The Convention thus requires Israel to prevent and punish the terrorists themselves, as well as leading figures that have publicly supported the Palestinian attacks. Article 2 of the Convention defines any killing with intent ‘to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such’ as an act of genocide.

If anything has been “disproportionate,” it’s been Israel’s refusal to take such action during the years when its southern citizens have been terrorized by rockets and other missiles raining down on them from Gaza. No other country in the world would have sat on its hands for so long in such circumstances. But whenever Israel defends itself militarily, its response is said to be “disproportionate.” The malice, ignorance and sheer idiocy of this claim is refuted here comprehensively by Dore Gold, who points out that Israel’s actions in Gaza are wholly in accordance with international law. This permits Israel to launch such an operation to prevent itself from being further attacked. Moreover, it defines ‘disproportionate’ force as when force becomes excessive if it is employed for another purpose, like causing unnecessary harm to civilians.

But Israel has demonstrably not been targeting civilians but Hamas terrorists. Despite the wicked impression given by the media, most of the casualties in this operation have been Hamas operatives. Even Hamas itself has admitted that the vast majority of sites Israel has hit were part of their military infrastructure. UNRWA officials in the Gaza Strip have put the number of deaths at 310, of whom 51 were civilians. The rest were Hamas terrorists.

Certainly, some civilian casualties are regrettably inevitable in any such situation – but particularly so in Gaza, since Hamas has deliberately sited its terrorist infrastructure amongst the civilian population.

Those who scream ‘disproportionate’ think – grotesquely -- that not enough Israelis have been killed. But that’s in part because Israel cares enough about human life to construct air raid shelters where its beleaguered civilians take cover; Hamas deliberately stores its rockets and other apparatus of mass murder below apartment blocks and in centers of population in order to get as many of its own people killed as possible as a propaganda weapon. Hamas is thus guilty of war crimes not just against Israelis but against the Palestinian people. Yet on this there is – fantastically, surreally – almost total silence in the west, which blames Israel instead. Historical resonances, anyone?

In any event, if by ‘disproportionate’ is meant merely an imbalance in the numbers who are killed on either side, this is actually inescapable if the infrastructure of aggression is to be defeated. Many more died in Afghanistan than in the 9/11 attacks; yet that war was necessary to destroy the Taliban. Many more died in Nazi Germany or Japan than in Britain or America during World War Two. Yet the scale of the Allied offensive was necessary to defeat Nazism and prevent yet more carnage amongst its designated victims.

The disgusting fifth column in the Gaza conflict, however, is – as ever – the western media. It was telling to witness the sight of British TV camera crews heading out to Israel on Saturday night. The point was that they weren’t already there – because their editors had not thought it necessary to send them to cover the resumed rocket attacks on southern Israel. Indeed, hardly anyone in Britain is aware that Israel is only now finally responding to some 6,000 rocket attacks since 2001, with a 50% increase after Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. British journalists were only dispatched to the battle zone when Israel finally retaliated – because, appallingly, it is only Jewish violence that is ever the story.

As a result, Israel is painted – wholly unjustly and untruthfully -- as the aggressor. The ineffable BBC reported in radio bulletins on Saturday that Israel’s attack had “put back the chance of peace in the region.” Most sane people would think that the reason peace in the region had been put back was that Hamas was continuing to wage aggressive war. And indeed, even now it is still firing rockets at Israel, including Katyushas and Iranian Grads which are reaching as far as Ashkelon and Ashdod. Today they killed another Israeli in Ashkelon and injured many more – including several Israeli Arabs.

If the media have mentioned the attacks on Israel at all, they have done so as an afterthought. The main story is “disproportionate” Israeli violence. As far as I can see, there has been no mention of the extraordinary fact that on the day prior to the start of the Israeli operation, a Palestinian from the Gaza Strip was admitted to hospital in Israel for medical treatment for a severe wound -- inflicted upon him by a stray Hamas rocket which had been fired at Israel.

What other country would treat its enemies in its own hospitals – which Israel does routinely with Palestinians from Gaza -- even when they are wounded as a direct consequence of their own side trying to murder yet more Israelis? What other country would provide or enable the supply of electricity, gas and other essentials to people who use such facilities to continue trying to murder as many of its citizens as possible? On Sunday, for instance, as Ha’aretz reported, the Kerem Shalom crossing was opened to let through 26 trucks carrying food and medical equipment. Today it was opened again and about 40 trucks had entered with food and medical supplies by midday. Yet organizations such as Amnesty International have condemned Israel's imposition of all “blockades” on the Gaza Strip as “collective punishment,” and Jeremy Hobbs, Director of Oxfam International, has called on Israel “immediately [to] lift its inhumane and illegal siege.”

Yet it is Hamas that is refusing wounded Gazans access into Egypt for treatment – and indeed the Egyptians even opened fire on them. So where are the screams about Egyptian and Hamas brutality? Where are Amnesty and Oxfam’s condemnation of Hamas and Egypt? And might all those from the Foreign Secretary down screaming about a “humanitarian disaster” in Gaza pause for one second and look at the well-fed, healthy Gazans parading across their TV screens? If that’s a “humanitarian disaster” – with supplies constantly pouring through the illegal tunnels from Egypt, along with billions of dollars-worth of missiles with which to commit mass murder – what do they call what’s happening in Zimbabwe, which for some unaccountable reason inspires among the high-minded merely indifference?

Such bigotry and malice are not confined to British media and NGOs. On Salon, Glenn Greenwald whines about

America’s one-sided support for whatever Israel does from our political class, and one-sided condemnation of Israel's enemies (who are, ipso facto, American enemies) -- all of it, as usual, sharply divergent from the consensus in much of the rest of the world.

Oh really? Well, Hamas has been blamed for this war by Mahmoud Abbas, who said Hamas could have avoided this attack if it had prolonged its “cease-fire.” It has been blamed for this war by Egypt; and Arab states which are terrified of Islamism in general and Iran in particular are privately rooting for Israel to wipe Hamas out. Even the Israeli left is supporting this operation. The only people taking the side of the genocidal terrorists of Hamas are the western media, parroting their propaganda and thus inciting yet more to join the murderous rampage against Israel as well as ratcheting up the pressure on world leaders to force Israel to stop before Hamas is destroyed.

Isn’t there a case for legal action against these media outlets on account of their blood libels, for indirectly aiding the perpetrators of attempted genocide?

Note: Emphasis added is mine.

OP-ED: Moral Clarity in Gaza

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, January 2, 2009; Page A15

Late Saturday, thousands of Gazans received Arabic-language cell-phone messages from the Israeli military, urging them to leave homes where militants might have stashed weapons.

-- Associated Press, Dec. 27
 
Some geopolitical conflicts are morally complicated. The Israel-Gaza war is not. It possesses a moral clarity not only rare but excruciating.

Israel is so scrupulous about civilian life that, risking the element of surprise, it contacts enemy noncombatants in advance to warn them of approaching danger. Hamas, which started this conflict with unrelenting rocket and mortar attacks on unarmed Israelis -- 6,464 launched from Gaza in the past three years -- deliberately places its weapons in and near the homes of its own people.

This has two purposes. First, counting on the moral scrupulousness of Israel, Hamas figures civilian proximity might help protect at least part of its arsenal. Second, knowing that Israelis have new precision weapons that may allow them to attack nonetheless, Hamas hopes that inevitable collateral damage -- or, if it is really fortunate, an errant Israeli bomb -- will kill large numbers of its own people for which, of course, the world will blame Israel.

For Hamas, the only thing more prized than dead Jews are dead Palestinians. The religion of Jew-murder and self-martyrdom is ubiquitous. And deeply perverse, such as the Hamas TV children's program in which an adorable live-action Palestinian Mickey Mouse is beaten to death by an Israeli (then replaced by his more militant cousin, Nahoul the Bee, who vows to continue on Mickey's path to martyrdom).

At war today in Gaza, one combatant is committed to causing the most civilian pain and suffering on both sides. The other combatant is committed to saving as many lives as possible -- also on both sides. It's a recurring theme. Israel gave similar warnings to Southern Lebanese villagers before attacking Hezbollah in the Lebanon war of 2006. The Israelis did this knowing it would lose for them the element of surprise and cost the lives of their own soldiers.

That is the asymmetry of means between Hamas and Israel. But there is equal clarity regarding the asymmetry of ends. Israel has but a single objective in Gaza -- peace: the calm, open, normal relations it offered Gaza when it withdrew in 2005. Doing something never done by the Turkish, British, Egyptian and Jordanian rulers of Palestine, the Israelis gave the Palestinians their first sovereign territory ever in Gaza.

What ensued? This is not ancient history. Did the Palestinians begin building the state that is supposedly their great national aim? No. No roads, no industry, no courts, no civil society at all. The flourishing greenhouses that Israel left behind for the Palestinians were destroyed and abandoned. Instead, Gaza's Iranian-sponsored rulers have devoted all their resources to turning it into a terror base -- importing weapons, training terrorists, building tunnels with which to kidnap Israelis on the other side. And of course firing rockets unceasingly.

The grievance? It cannot be occupation, military control or settlers. They were all removed in September 2005. There's only one grievance and Hamas is open about it. Israel's very existence.

Nor does Hamas conceal its strategy. Provoke conflict. Wait for the inevitable civilian casualties. Bring down the world's opprobrium on Israel. Force it into an untenable cease-fire -- exactly as happened in Lebanon. Then, as in Lebanon, rearm, rebuild and mobilize for the next round. Perpetual war. Since its raison d'etre is the eradication of Israel, there are only two possible outcomes: the defeat of Hamas or the extinction of Israel.

Israel's only response is to try to do what it failed to do after the Gaza withdrawal. The unpardonable strategic error of its architect, Ariel Sharon, was not the withdrawal itself but the failure to immediately establish a deterrence regime under which no violence would be tolerated after the removal of any and all Israeli presence -- the ostensible justification for previous Palestinian attacks. Instead, Israel allowed unceasing rocket fire, implicitly acquiescing to a state of active war and indiscriminate terror.

Hamas's rejection of an extension of its often-violated six-month cease-fire (during which the rockets never stopped, just were less frequent) gave Israel a rare opportunity to establish the norm it should have insisted upon three years ago: no rockets, no mortar fire, no kidnapping, no acts of war. As the U.S. government has officially stated: a sustainable and enduring cease-fire. If this fighting ends with anything less than that, Israel will have lost yet another war. The question is whether Israel still retains the nerve -- and the moral self-assurance -- to win.
 
letters@charleskrauthammer.com

A Chaplain's Prayer Request

Chaplain Martin Booth

by MARTIN R. BOOTH, Ch, Capt, USAF

This was a big week. I flew on a Medical Evacuation mission. Everything went very smoothly. There were ample opportunities for ministry. Once again, all of you should be proud of our aircrews and the medical folks that fly these missions. It truly was an honor and privilege to be there. The pilot is a regular attendee at one of the services that I lead, so that was a bonus.

We also had Wingman Week, which meant I had to give extra briefs and attend BBQs. That’s not exactly hardship duty, now is it?

We also had fog and dust storms all in one week. Sounds pretty apocalyptic, but it is bearable. Actually, at this time of year, the weather here is usually beautiful.

Continue to pray for the people that I counsel. God knows their names and that is the most important thing. Also, pray for the injured that were on the Med Evac.

Time is going quickly. I'm in a routine and that helps the effectiveness.

I have to scoot, as usual. Thanks again for all of your prayer support and being the cool people that
you are.

Blessings,

MARTIN R. BOOTH, Ch, Capt, USAF
Chaplain, 379 AEW/HC
Southwest Asia

U.S. Intelligence Official Breaks Silence On Israel Situation: “This Is Just The Beginning”

Cross posted from Pat Dollards.

Northeast Intelligence Network:

31 December 2008: Northeast Intelligence Network director Doug Hagmann interviewed a highly-placed U.S. intelligence official late yesterday who not only confirmed rumors about escalated and more intensive Israeli military operations against the Muslim terrorists in Gaza, warned of the increasing probability of abandonment of Israel by the U.S. and other Western countries based on what he termed “malicious intelligence.”

“Remember that term,” advised this well-placed intelligence official, “you’ll be hearing it again.”

“This is just the beginning,” stated this intelligence official, who wished to remain anonymous. This official stated that the possibility for a much more protracted ground war is more likely today than at any other time in the past, adding that Israel is exercising her right to protect herself from her enemies in Gaza. But there is a catch, noted this official, and a big one at that: Israel could be about to lose the support of the United States.

“I have every reason to believe, based on what I’ve seen at my level of [security] clearance especially over the last several years, that Israel will soon be completely on their own… or worse.” When asked what could be worse than losing the support of the United States, he stated: “when our administration provides more support to Arab countries [with] financial and military aid, undercutting Israel’s defense efforts all while pushing Israel to succumb to the pressure of unreasonable demands designed to end with their political annihilation as a nation.”

According to this official, the U.S. has been slowly proceeding down this road. He cited the 2005 surrender of Gush Katif to the Palestinian Authority as one critical example of the slow dismantlement of Israel as a viable nation. “Despite critical intelligence outlining in every possible manner imaginable that this would be a disastrous move leading to the events we are seeing today, it was done anyway,” he stated.

“We are seeing the very scenario play out today that was outlined in intelligence briefs three and four years ago. Knowing that, there is something very wrong with this picture,” he stated.

He added that Western media is also playing a very big role in the current war in the Middle East, thanks, in part, to carefully worded statements prepared by political officials in Washington. Officials in the current administration, like some previous administrations, submit carefully crafted informational releases to a media that is controlled by those having special interests that are contrary to a legitimate peace in the Middle East.

“The game is rigged. At the highest levels of power in the U.S. and even by some in power in Israel, the game is rigged,” he emphasized.

The next obvious question in this interview was, of course, “how is it rigged?” followed by ”how are you in a position to know?”

This official responded by stating that he has spent the last two decades serving in “an unfortunate position where intelligence and politics meet and often collide.” Now, merely days away from retirement, he stated that he is looking forward to leaving his position after conducting over 20 years of intelligence work “that has been molded and massaged to advance the agendas of a select few.”

He continued: “When an intelligence work product that has been thoroughly and properly vetted is submitted to those in Washington, and I see a completely different and entirely inaccurate product intentionally submitted and aired in the media, only to be told ‘that is the way it must be,’ then I know it’s time for me to leave.”

“It is obvious to me that most Americans don’t understand or don’t care what is actually happening in the Middle East relative to Israel. People don’t understand history, or have been subjected to revisionist history based on lies and more lies. Add to that a media that fails to provide an accurate assessment of what is taking place in Israel, in Gaza, and you end up with a very bad situation for Israel,” stated this source. He added that the disinformation coming and going to and from Washington is getting worse, as is the media bias against Israel.

The events currently taking place in Israel are extremely perilous for Israel and especially perilous for the national security of the United States, according to this source. Contrary to the accepted assessments of “Middle East experts” in the news, our intelligence services have “ample evidence to prove active collusion and support between HAMAS and other terrorist organizations, both Sunni and Shite. Further, there is a level of Iranian complicity in this war that is not being talked about, or being dismissed out of hand because of the schism between the Sunni and Shia sects,” stated this source.

Additional reading:
“As it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us”

And from Take Our Country Back; Fire!!!

It's time once more to blame the Jews.

4,048 rockets, 4,040 mortars have rained down on Israel since 2001 and yet the Israeli's are accused of a disproportionate response by libtards and the lame stream media. This is insanity.
To date the Israeli's have shown an unbelievable restraint. Damned if they do and damned if they don't. It's time for Israel to tell the world to SHUT UP.

"Behold, all those who were incensed against you shall be ashamed and disgraced; They shall be as nothing, and those who strive with you shall perish. [12]You shall seek them and not find them -- those who contended with you. Those who war against you shall be as nothing, as a nonexistent thing. [13]For I, the Lord your God, will hold your right hand, saying to you, 'Fear not, I will help you.'" Isaiah 41:11-13).
 

The "Buy Israeli" Campaign

Friends -

Any of you who know me well at all know that, while I don't agree with everything the Israeli government does 100% of the time, I am generally strongly supportive of the only Western nation in the Middle East and see no moral equivalence whatsoever between the Israeli government and the Hamas-led government controlling Gaza.

Thus, it should come as no surprise to you that I'm supporting the 'Buy Israeli' campaign and encouraging my friends to do the same.

If you would like to learn more about the Buy Israeli campaign, you can find more information here:

http://sammenhold.org/2398/

If you agree with this effort, please help spread the word.

Thank you and best regards,
- Ken E.

Happy New Year! from Do The Right Thing

Happy
New Year's
Day
2009

From your friends at

Do The Right Thing!