Nathaniel, you quote that Cairo cleric, Dr. Khaled Said, sneering that U.S. aid to Egypt is a form of jizya, the tax Islam levies upon infidels:

We consider this aid to be jizya, not regular aid. . . .They pay so that we will let them be.

He’s not the first to suggest this. From page 165 of my book America Alone, published in 2006:

But the Muslim world has effortlessly extended the concept of jizya worldwide. If you’re on the receiving end, it’s possible to see the American, European and Israeli subsidies of the Palestinian Authority as a form of jizya. Or even the billions of dollars Washington has lavished on Egypt, to such little effect (other than Mohammed Atta coming through the window).

We’re losing this War.

Dhimmitude: It’s What’s For Dinner.

—Chef Barack Hussein Obama

I was browsing in the Piccadilly branch of Waterstones the other week, looking for a textbook for my coursework when I (inevitably) got distracted and headed to the politics section. There, the same thing annoyed me which has annoyed me countless times before: the absurd number of books about Islamic terrorism.

Almost every book addressing Islamic-Western relations these days seems to dwell centrally on the issue of terrorism, Jihadism, and al-Qaeda, and nothing else. The few honourable exceptions to this (Mark Steyn’s wonderfully savage ‘America Alone’, and Fallaci’s ‘Force of Reason’), I have already read.

Why aren’t more books dedicated to addressing the real problems caused by Islamic immigration? The problems which are a 24/7 issue and affect the vast population, as opposed to those – like terrorism – that are only freak occurrences affecting a few?

I began to write an essay about something I call ‘Muslim Social Terrorism’ a few months ago. The essay became so long that I’m going to try and extend it into a book. But the definition is simple and so I’ll explain it here.

If you’re a British kaffir living in Bradford, Oldham, Sparkbrook, Tower Hamlets or some other place undergoing Islamisation, you’ll no doubt be rather pissed-off about the whole affair. But if I was to ask for a list of reasons for your opposing the local Islamic presence, I’m almost certain (correct me if I’m wrong) that words like ‘terrorism’, ‘Jihad’ and even ‘Sharia’ wouldn’t feature very highly among them.

More likely your answers would include terms like ‘intimidation’, ‘immaturity’, ‘aggression’, ‘sexual abuse’, ‘stalking’, ‘loitering’, ‘benefit cheating’ etc… etc…

These are not, as some Counter-Jihad authors suggest, tactics of Jihad. Muslims don’t smash bus shelters, or wolf-whistle schoolgirls to further their religion. These things are rather the inevitable side-effects of allowing a talentless, backward people to dwell in an innovative, progressive society.

Muslims tend to be a social nuisance often because they couldn’t become anything else even if they wanted to. The Muslim condition is innate and the reasons why are worth elaborating upon.

Wit, charm and depth of personality are not developed like a language. Personality cannot be either taught or learned. Rather it is developed subconsciously through human experience. A personality is the legacy (good or otherwise) of trial and error, success and failure, pleasure and pain, evolved over many years from the cradle upwards. The personality one has by the age of university (18-30) is the direct product of youth-experience. If a man has a happy childhood, this will show in his twenties. If he has an unhappy childhood, this will show likewise. But in both cases, the individual can still develop a creative, fulfilled and decent character. If we are all pressed by the same culture, whatever shape we are left in will usually be compatible with some kind of constructive adulthood in that culture. For all our distinctions we know there are other people like us out there, who will find us or we will find them.

This is plainly not the case with Muslims. Their youth is not suited to anything we are used to. They are socially stunted from an early age and their character is never developed to be compatible with the society they will one day have to work or study within.

There are many factors which contribute to this.

Even in the Western world, Muslim youths are reared in large but suffocatingly tight families, whose windows are lined with the bars of rigid tradition. Irony and advanced humor can never genuinely develop in these conditions. For the average Muslim there are no meeting points with freedom available before late-adolescence and by then it is too late.

Until University, a Muslim’s daylight is spent in an all-Muslim school, his evening in a Muslim home, his weekend at some all-Muslim family get-together, and on the rare occasion he has reason to leave the prison of his family, it will be with a Muslim friend whose family is known to his own.

The end product of this horrific process is not something either socially desirable or able to be reformed.

At any University there are countless cases of a Muslim who has been given his first taste of non-Muslim life. Having been raised in a dark-room of tradition, he is plunged suddenly into the flashing light of Western liberty. He sincerely thinks he’ll be fine. He usually has some crude knowledge of his country – but only via artificial mediums like television and music. Lacking a real developed personality, he fails. He doesn’t understand why he fails, but he fails.

This total incompatibility lies behind all the real problems of Islamic immigration. Social Terrorism is the fallout from the clash of Muslim inadequacy and Western sophistication. It lies behind the grooming, rape, bullying, stalking, and aggression so typical of Muslim migrants.

Unlike Jihadist Terrorism, Muslim Social Terrorism affects everyone.

Most Muslims cannot integrate, even though many want to. This is why, despite the huge Muslim presence in Universities, most young Muslim graduates are unemployed or on benefits. The skills themselves are not the issue. Muslims can be bright and complete degrees in complicated scientific areas of study. They may even do the job they qualify for well during the early weeks, and earn merit for efficiency. But their inadequacies will sooner or later present themselves.

I knew an English student who had studied pharmaceutical science. After completing his degree, this chap went to work at a branch of a popular pharmacist in South London. His work-mates were evenly split between Eastern-European migrants and British born Muslims. The Eastern-Europeans kept to themselves after work, but the Muslims, as would be expected, competed amongst themselves for the attention of the Brit.

On the few occasions our fellow went for an after-work coffee with the Muslims, he reports that the difference in behavior between then and the hours of work, was truly staggering.

“In the day” he said, “They did their job like everyone else. They were polite and mechanical. But then when work finished, they became like children. Babies almost. They liked to talk about things I used to joke about with mates in Year 5. They giggled nervously around women, and when we were safely distant from work after hours, they would talk about the female customers in the most horrible way. Calling them ‘slags’ was routine.”

This is, of course, to be expected. The surface of a grown-up Muslim may be professional, respectable and hard-working, but his emotional deformities are always bubbling just below the surface, and beneath the gloss of financial achievement, they remain children.

Crucially here, we have a problem that is separate from Islam itself. Even if these young men who have been raised for another culture, abandon their religious beliefs and make an honest effort to integrate, this will not resolve the issue. They will still be unable to function without friction in any advanced Western atmosphere. The stunted Muslim-raised personality cannot hope to compete with that of a well-developed non-Muslim, even if belief in Islam is subtracted from it. We cannot furthermore expect people to be second-class citizens in a civilized country.

Consequently any sensible solution to the Muslim threat must include (as a first rather than a last step) the orderly segregation of socially-developed citizens away from those of Islamic design. The latter cannot be integrated and even if they could be, it would not be desirable. For these reasons, I am not a fan of movements aimed at converting Muslims to Christianity. The damage inflicted by a strict Islamic upbringing cannot be undone.

I am still waiting for an anti-Muslim movement to arise which takes such things into account; a movement which understands that the real problems of Muslim immigration are social and not political and consequently require harder, less-political actions to face them down. The EDL degrade themselves when they use dumb slogans like ‘No Surrender to Al-Qaeda!’. Al-Qaeda is a spent force, whose leaders are taken out by drones on a daily basis. But even were they not, they would not care a jot about young lads in Durham or Stoke-on-Trent. The main beef of Bin-Laden’s terror-network was with America, Israel and the House of Saud, not Hanley Council.

We must be serious. The problem is serious, and it shows no sign of going away.

Mark Steyn: Iraq Less Unwon Than Other Wars

” Ten years ago, along with three-quarters of the American people, including the men just appointed as President Obama’s secretaries of state and defense, I supported the invasion of Iraq. A decade on, unlike most of the American people, including John Kerry and Chuck Hagel, I’ll stand by that original judgment.

Three weeks after Operation Shock and Awe began, the early bird naysayers were already warning of massive humanitarian devastation and civil war. Neither happened. Over-compensating somewhat for all the doom-mongering, I wrote in Britain’s Daily Telegraph that “a year from now Basra will have a lower crime rate than most London boroughs.” Close enough. Major-General Andy Salmon, the British commander in southern Iraq, eventually declared of Basra that “on a per capita basis, if you look at the violence statistics, it is less dangerous than Manchester.”

Ten years ago, expert opinion was that Iraq was a phony-baloney entity imposed on the map by distant colonial powers. Joe Biden, you’ll recall, advocated dividing the country into three separate states, which for the Democrats held out the enticing prospect of having three separate quagmires to blame on Bush, but for the Iraqis had little appeal. “As long as you respect its inherently confederal nature,” I argued, “it’ll work fine.” As for the supposedly secessionist Kurds, “they’ll settle for being Scotland or Quebec.” And so it turned out. The Times of London, last week: “Ten Years After Saddam, Iraqi Kurds Have Never Had It So Good.” In Kurdistan as in Quebec, there is a pervasive unsavory tribal cronyism, but on the other hand, unlike Quebec City, Erbil is booming.”

 

 

 

 

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It would be perverse if regulations enacted in response to [the phone-hacking] scandal ended up stifling the kind of hard-hitting investigative journalism that brought it to light in the first place.

Jill Stewart, the managing editor of the LA Weekly, said that she was “shocked and horrified” by the proposals on BBC Radio Five Live, adding that “in the United States this would be considered a crazy idea – a bad thing”. Canada’s Toronto Star said the proposed regulatory system was “as if crime victims had helped judges establish sentencing guidelines”. The National Review in the United States slammed the proposals as a “shameful compromise”, calling 2013 the end of the “the Era of the Free Press in Britain” as their headline. A commentator for that publication, author Mark Steyn, considered the grotesquery that this proposal arose under “an ostensibly Conservative Prime Minister”, noting:

Aside from the small matter of abandoning core principles of English liberty, these “conservatives” cannot even calculate their own interests.

The Spectator are rather clear. (Photo: The Spectator).

The reaction in Britain has been no less tumultuous. The Sun has declared that the new regulator would be an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth’, generating a press culture of political subservience. The Daily Mail, the Sun, the Times, the Telegraph, the Daily Express and the Daily Star are all seeking legal advice about the possibility of boycotting the new regulator. The Spectator proudly said ‘No’, and Ian Hislop of the Private Eye asked “why should I answer to David Cameron?” The New Statesmen will also be boycotting any new regulator, revealing that the magazine “currently does not see its interests served by regulation designed to suit politicians, nor by a revanche regime cooked up for the comfort of newspaper barons.” The Economist also joined the opposition, noting that the regulatory scheme is “unravelling”.

Insouciance at the Independent

The editorial in the Independent shrugs and soothes into insouciance at its peers, stating:

On balance, then, while the outlines of a newly agreed regime seem a reasonable compromise, potentially critical flaws remain. And, behind the fulminations of some elements of the press, the fact remains that a new system is worthless if the majority refuse to participate.

They are joined by the Financial Times, who reacted positively to the proposals. The National Union of Journalists gave the Royal Charter “a guarded welcome”.

In flailing support for this regulatory system by politicians, much has been made of the requirement of two-thirds supermajority to amend the Royal Charter. Such statements are usually followed by the claim that it would be very difficult for Parliament to change the charter. However, what is rarely noted is that the Royal Charter is not the keystone of this new system – the Royal Charter is merely the mechanism by which regulators are ‘recognised’. The Leveson-derivative scheme’s keystone is the change in court costs, whereby relevant publishers who are not members of a ‘recognised’ regulator faced exemplary costs, and must pay plaintiffs in cases that they win. This incentive structure was a major section of Lord Justice Leveson’s proposals, with the intention that newspapers would submit to recognised regulators. These incentives will be enshrined in law through amendments to the Crimes and Courts Bill, such as Clause 29:

(2) Exemplary damages may not be awarded against the defendant in respect of the claim if the defendant was a member of an approved regulator at the material time.

The phone-hacking scandal has directly lead to these proposals. (Photo: NS Newsflash)

What publications are called ‘relevant publishers’, the scale of the increased court costs, and the balance of payments between publishers who do not submit to an “approved regulator” and their plaintiffs are all determined by normal legislation, and may be amended by any government at any time. There is no supermajority protection to the incentive structure that makes the Leveson proposals function.

Divergent Definitions

There are two divergent definitions to what a ‘relevant publisher’ is: one from the Royal Charter and one from the Crimes and Courts Bill. The latter one takes primacy, and has what Culture Secretary Maria Miller calls “three interlocking tests”:  the production of news-related material in the course of a business, multiple authors, and editorial control. Some blogs and small newspapers could pass all three tests, whilst Lord Justice Leveson believed that the internet should remain outside of his proposed regulatory system. Tom Watson MP, a former foghorn on the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, said:

It is clear to all but the very stupid that the new system should only apply to big media – with print operations that might also have a digital presence.

Lastly, the definition of ‘relevant publisher’ would appear to include major news organisations outside of the UK, where their content is “targeted primarily at an audience in the United Kingdom”. The sheer weight of the world will crush this new regulatory system.

It was widely reported that this proposal was forged at 2am in the Leader of the Opposition’s office – it reads like it. There are many aspects of this idea that are simply unworkable, and it has received a shocked response from the rest of the world. The liberty necessary for the press to bleach corruption in the highest offices and hold those in power to account should never be underestimated. The phone-hacking scandal was part of a criminal subculture in our press, but one that is being extinguished, and one that was brought to the world by the press in the first place. The Press Complaints Commission was never constructed to deal with such a subculture, which is the proper purview of the police. The freedom of the press, which is often ugly, often ferocious, and often feral – is vital to defend all our other freedoms.

CNS News points out that Gosnell joked with his staff about later-term abortions.

Excerpt:

Dr. Kermit Gosnell, an abortionist now on trial in Philadelphia charged with seven counts of first-degree murder–he allegedly cut the spinal cords of late-term aborted babies who were born alive–apparently used to joke about the large size of some the infants he aborted and in one case, according to what a co-worker told the grand jury, said, “This baby is big enough to walk around with me or walk me to the bus stop.”

Gosnell, 72, who ran a multi-million dollar abortion business in West Philadelphia, was arrested on Jan. 19, 2011, and his trial started Monday, Mar. 18, 2013. The first-degree murder counts refer to seven late-term aborted babies who were born alive and then killed, their spinal cords cut with scissors.

Gosnell is also charged with the third-degree murder of a pregnant woman, Karnamaya Mongar, 41, who died after being given a pain killer at Gosnell’s office. He also faces several counts of conspiracy and violation of Pennsylvania’s law against post-24-week abortions.

In testimony on Monday, Adrienne Moton, who used to work for Gosnell at the Women’s Medical Society in West Philadelphia, said she recalled one baby – “Baby Boy A” – who was aborted  in July 2008. Baby A was so large, Moton took a photo of the child with her cell phone before Gosnell took the baby out of the room.

“I just saw a big baby boy. He had that color, that color that a baby has,” Moton said in court. “I just felt he could have had a chance. … He could have been born any day.”

Moten described how she helped to kill at least 10 born-alive babies by cutting their spinal cords.

More on the story from Life Site News.

Excerpt:

The grand jury report includes the account of another of Gosnell’s employees, Kareema Cross, describing the moment of Baby A’s birth:

After the baby was expelled, Cross noticed that he was breathing, though not for long. After about 10 to 20 seconds, while the mother was asleep, “the doctor just slit the  neck,” said Cross. Gosnell put the boy’s body in a shoebox. Cross described the baby as so big that his feet and arms hung out over the sides of the container. Cross said that she saw the baby move after his neck was cut, and after the doctor placed it in the shoebox. Gosnell told her, “it’s the baby’s reflexes. It’s not really moving.”

A neonatologist who testified on behalf of the grand jury said that Gosnell’s explanation for the baby’s movements was false, and that in all likelihood Gosnell failed immediately to kill the baby, and that his “few moments of life were spent in excruciating pain.”

The neonatologist also estimated the baby’s age as around 32 weeks gestation.

[...]Gosnell’s lawyer is arguing that the prosecution can’t prove that any of the seven babies he stands accused of murdering were born alive. He told the courtroom yesterday that the prosecution of his client is a racist-inspired “lynching.”

Gosnell is calling the charges against him an “elitist, racist prosecution”.

The fact that the mainstream media is not carrying this story speaks volumes, as this does not comport with their political beliefs, unlike the mass killings committed with guns.

 

I sat down this evening to write a blog-post about Islam (just trying to diversify my portfolio you know?), and felt straightaway the rough anxiety known as writers block. This isn’t the first time that this subject has produced such a feeling. After all, what is there to say that has’t already been said?

This is by-itself a misnomer, given that the Islamisation of the West is the premier issue of our day and the one most in need of talking about. But to an extent it is this very urgency which explains the impotence.

The obviousness of the Islamist threat is such that nothing usually needs to be added to what can be observed. The experience of seeing a Muslim woman strolling down the street clad in funeral black isn’t something which needs elaborating upon. The vital fact here is readily apparent. She is a perfect display of confinement, imprisonment, barbarism and exotic cruelty.

When Christians are literally fed to dogs in Syria, expressions like “barbaric” or “savage” seem redundant. These words belong to a society which can understand them, and a society which can understand them is by its nature incapable of such actions. The words therefore are doomed to be an echo, a weak protest after the event, by those too far away to do anything.

Addressing the Islamist threat is now so urgent that language – whether books, blogging or journalism – seems an exhausted form of expression. The neccessary books are already written and the issue is still undecided.

Those who like to read at all will have read (or will eventually read) volumes like “America Alone” by Mark Steyn, “Reflections on the Revolution in Europe” by Christopher Caldwell, “Londonistan” by Melanie Phillips etc… These are sufficient to explain most future variations on the Islamist theme. Those who like to watch people argue will have already observed Christopher Hitchens mowing down opponents on the Islamist issue on youtube. Those who like to riot and protest will have joined the English Defence League, the BNP or another comparable organisation.

But all of these categories, taken as one, amount to little more than a tenth of the population. The remaining ninety percent are not convinced of the need to address the problem, or even that there is a problem.

I grow tired of hearing things like “The time for talking is over”, or “Now is the time for action”…. But I tire of hearing them in the same way in which a smoker tires of hearing people tell him that he is damaging his health. I dislike their words for their accuracy and for my refusal to act on them.

And so, what are people doing about the Islamist threat? The EDL are at least doing something, albeit not very successfully, and not with any sophisticated plan of action. The BNP have core beliefs repellent to the liberal and decent majority and UKIP are too centrist and pro-Muslim to be of any real use.

We need then a party of our own.

I am told by my friend, the blogger Enza Ferreri (who runs the page ‘Save the West’ on facebook), that Paul Weston, the figure behind the now defunct British Freedom Party, has a new one for us to join – Liberty GB. I enclose a link to its homepage at the bottom of this article. For Britain’s sake, join it, attend its meetings, stand as candidates for it, vote for it.

The excuses for idleness are wearing thin.

D, LDN.

• Please could British readers share either this article or at least the LibertyGB homepage which can be found at

http://libertygb.org.uk/v1/

Mark Steyn: An Unstable Truce With The Axis Of Crazy

” Meanwhile, back at the GOP, Sen. Rand Paul is no Dick Cheney, either: At CPAC this week, the narrow bounds of his smash-hit filibuster – questioning drone assassinations of Americans in America – broadened somewhat, not just to questioning drone assassinations of Americans anywhere, nor to questioning drone assassinations of anyone, nor even to questioning the “war on terror” or war in general, but to questioning the very assumptions of American global order, starting with our bankrolling of Mohamed Morsi in Cairo. The Egyptians send mobs to torch the U.S. embassy, the Saudis wage ideological warfare against Western civilization, the Turks call Israel a “crime against humanity” and threaten a cultural and demographic takeover of Europe, the Pakistanis are ramping up nuke production to sell to any loon in town – and those are just our “allies.” With friends like these, who needs foreign policy? There are fewer and fewer takers for the burdens of global superpower, and whoever wins the nomination in 2016 will be considerably less Cheney and more Randy.

 

As the CPAC crowd suggested, there are takers on the right for the Rand Paul position. There are many on the left for Obama’s drone-alone definition of great power. But there are ever fewer takers for a money-no-object global hegemon that spends 46 percent of the world’s military budget and can’t impress its will on a bunch of inbred goatherds. A broker America needs to learn to do more with less, and to rediscover the cold calculation of national interest rather than waging war as the world’s largest NGO. In dismissing Rand Paul as a “wacko bird,” John McCain and Lindsay Graham assume that the too-big-to-fail status quo is forever. It’s not; it’s already over.”

 

 

 

 

 

—

While substitute hosting Rush Limbaugh’s radio program, Mark Steyn took aim at this confluence of nanny state insanity.

…Afghanistan is winding down, at best, to join the long list of America’s unwon wars, in which, 48 hours after departure, there will be no trace that we were ever there. The guys with drones are losing to the guys with fertilizer – because they mean it, and we don’t. The drone thus has come to symbolize the central defect of America’s "war on terror," which is that it’s all means and no end: We’re fighting the symptoms rather than the cause.

This is a problem that goes back to Harry Truman, with a few exceptions — but only a very few — along the way.

The past century has often been described as The American Century, but I have long believed that to be false. That period was, in fact, The Leftist Century.

It was a time when Leftism, in various forms, triumphed in every, single nation on the face of the Earth.

It was a time when the Leftist Mindset took hold among the people in the nations of The West.

It was a time when God was replaced by the Self as the divinity and where arose pagan idols of a new kind and where a demonic cult [Islam] rose from it’s dung heap to become again a threat to all that is Good.

It was the best of times for many peoples, especially in America, but it was far more the worst of times for those who perished in the gulags, concentration camps, re-education camps, labor camps — wherever the Totalitarians housed their victims and their followers who had fallen out of favor.

In the 21st Century, the seeds of Leftism planted in The West during the past one hundred years are now pushing it towards the very worst of times.

Unlike other nations, our military does not pose a threat to freedom and liberty. In fact, they are the first guardians of our Rights. Many of the Left In America have been smart enough to understand this. So, they have sought to undermine our armed forces — as they always attack their enemies — on various fronts all at once.

Playing the long game, the Left In America has sought to exploit the strong belief, codified in The Constitution, in The United States that civilians should control the military. They don’t want our troops to achieve great victories on the battlefield and to win wars because it only strengthens our respect for our soldiers, sailors, and marines. And our warriors, unlike those in most nations, will not join in any power-grabbing coups.

When the Left In America have been in positions to provide counsel to those elected officials who have the power to start and wage wars, they have urged them to hesitate and sought to spook them into not pursuing total victory. They have also sought to promote those few officers who do not possess the American Spirit and are out for themselves.

The Left In America has been waging a long war against the American Military Ethos and now, emboldened by the election of a Committed Leftist to be Commander-In-Chief and armed with the knowledge that a large number of the American People don’t care, they have stepped-up their offensive.

The conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq have or will soon be lost.

What do we say to the glorious dead of the battlefield?

What do we say to the tens of thousands who have returned home crippled by our wars?

Apologies won’t do.

Only a commitment to right the wrongs we have allowed will begin to make-up for our neglect, for going AWOL on pulling guard duty for The American Republic.

The Panopticon State

Where the government can see, it can send a drone.

” I’m a long, long way from Rand Paul’s view of the world (I’m basically a 19th-century imperialist a hundred years past sell-by date), but I’m far from sanguine about America’s drone fever. For all its advantages to this administration — no awkward prisoners to be housed at Gitmo, no military casualties for the evening news — the unheard, unseen, unmanned drone raining down death from the skies confirms for those on the receiving end al-Qaeda’s critique of its enemies: As they see it, we have the best technology and the worst will; we choose aerial assassination and its attendant collateral damage because we are risk-averse, and so remote, antiseptic, long-distance, computer-programmed warfare is all that we can bear. Our technological strength betrays our psychological weakness.

And in a certain sense they’re right: Afghanistan is winding down, at best, to join the long list of America’s unwon wars, in which, 48 hours after departure, there will be no trace that we were ever there. The guys with drones are losing to the guys with fertilizer — because they mean it, and we don’t. The drone thus has come to symbolize the central defect of America’s “war on terror,” which is that it’s all means and no end: We’re fighting the symptoms rather than the cause.

For a war without strategic purpose, a drone’ll do.”

Related articles

• Why Washington’s Drone Warfare Overseas Is A Strategic Mistake (txwclp.org)
• Beware the Droids of March (askmarion.wordpress.com)
• Mark Steyn on Use of Drones (VIDEO) (shepherdspiehole.typepad.com)
• U.S. Air Force stops reporting data on Afghanistan drone strikes (news.yahoo.com)
• The 7 Absolute Worst Reactions To Rand Paul’s Drone Filibuster (mediaite.com)
• Democrats Block Rand Paul Resolution Against Drone Killings of Americans on US Soil (pjmedia.com)
• Obama’s broken promise: A Q&A on Guantanamo Bay (nj.com)

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By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton  – The NoisyRoom

Hellfire from above, DHS from below — a match made in the fevered imagination of a reality TV producer whose material is about to be rejected for lacking plausibility. What at first appears laughable, is a security nightmare on our borders. Napolitano has drones patrolling the Canadian border, while none are stationed on the Mexican border. We are furloughing 60,000 border agents because of a fake ‘sequestration emergency,’ while obligingly granting visas to our Jihadist enemies and denying them to those shifty Europeans. America has become a security free zone, where radical Islamists come to play in the sun and kill Americans for sport. But hey… at least they aren’t using evil black guns.

America made a horrific mistake after 9-11. Actually, several. We declared a ‘War on Terror’ which was too vague and easy to manipulate. When going to war, one should name his enemy — such as radical Islam — and take the fight to them. (Of course, the assault lawyers will be quick to point out that “radical Islam” is not a nation; well, no, but neither is “terror.”) Actual war should have been declared and Iran should have been dealt with — violently. We kept claiming that Saudi Arabia was our friend, but in reality, the majority of the terrorists on that infamous day came from there. Whether sanctioned by the government or not, at the very least all dealings with Saudi Arabia should have been halted immediately (oil or not) and sanctions should have been put in place. Frankly, to this day, no one should be allowed in this country from an Islamist state without a full background check and strict security. But that would be sanity, which is in short supply in America these days. Now, our government beds down with the Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda – the very ones who killed almost 3,000 Americans in the most horrendous attack on American soil to have ever occurred. Our leadership is pervasively infiltrated with the very ones who murdered our people and somehow, America seems fine with that — as long as you accept that media-squelched dissent is the same as “acceptance” — and Barack Obama is aggressively furthering it.

From Mark Steyn:

And, in a certain sense, they’re right: Afghanistan is winding down, at best, to join the long list of America’s unwon wars, in which, 48 hours after departure, there will be no trace that we were ever there. The guys with drones are losing to the guys with fertilizer – because they mean it, and we don’t. The drone thus has come to symbolize the central defect of America’s “war on terror,” which is that it’s all means and no end: We’re fighting the symptoms rather than the cause.

Rand Paul filibustered the nomination of Brennan as head of the CIA last week. It did not stop the suicidal approval of a Muslim convert (I’m sure there is no conflict of interest there) as our chief spy (savor the irony of that for a moment), but it did bring to light the unconstitutional use of drones on American soil and the government’s claim to fame of killing Americans in the US with no warrant or due process, all in the name of the War on Terror. Our Attorney General answered Paul, saying that the US government could not blow up, mow down or generally kill Americans on US soil – sort of:

From Conscience of a Conservative:

This is attorney weasel speak – please define the use of the word ‘combat.’ And it still does not rescind the previous authority for the government to attack American citizens, arrest them and detain them without trial. Actually, this leaves the issue wide open to legal interpretation where anyone that Obama does not like can be deemed to be engaged in combat on American soil. Holder might as well have inserted ‘Tea Party’ into the wording as it is obvious to most of us exactly what he meant. It all depends on what the word ‘is’ is, a la Clinton. We are still being legally screwed by Progressives. I understand taking out bad guys on our turf, but there should be Constitutional guidelines and it should be a last resort. If someone is killing or getting ready to kill lots of people, or is getting ready to nuke middle America – then drones have a place. But taking out Joe Six-Pack? Not without due process. Hunting down and exterminating Americans should never be simple. It is a kill shot too easy to abuse by anyone in power, not to mention a megalomaniac like the current Dictator-in-Chief.

The government is ramping up a police state here in America in a big hurry. With the purchase of 1.6 billion rounds of ammo, more guns than can be counted, over 2700 heavily armored MRAPs (vehicles protected against IEDs and outfitted with gun turrets — should be handy in protecting against Ma and Pa America when they get uppity and guarding against all those landmines across rural America — cleverly disguised as potholes), warehousing food and weapons – you would think that Armageddon is due just about any old time now. The federal government is arming not only local city police forces, but the Social Security Administration, the Department of Education, the IRS, the EPA and even the Railroad Retirement Board (?!). If everyone gets their very own SWAT teams, can drones for everyone be far behind? And if you think that they’ll just use them for tickets (heinous all by itself), weather reports and traffic management, you are living in LaLa Land, waiting for SkyNet to take over.

Remember Waco? Ruby Ridge? Those will look like a walk in the park if this keeps up. Any American can be labeled a combatant – any excuse will do and after the first kill and outcry, Americans are likely to accept it just as they do the TSA feeling up their children (remember, you didn’t hear any dissent, so it must have been “accepted,” right?). Obama has violated most of our Constitutional Amendments, what makes you think that he won’t use the military against us, utilizing drones to do so? He will use clever legal linguistics to step around his limitations as President and he will use executive fiat as well. An Administration that is reluctant to restrain itself from killing suspect Americans at home, will now extend all judicial proprieties to known enemy combatants, such as Bin Laden’s son-in-law in New York awaiting a civilian trial when he should face a military tribunal. He conspired to attack America and has no rights as an American citizen. But hey, one small step for New World Order, right? It’s Progressive/Marxist incrementalization.

We now exist in Droneworld and Holder’s ‘clarification’ is no comfort at all. It is alarming. Although the Senator from Kentucky did an outstanding job of filibustering and bringing this to the forefront, nothing was gained on this issue except a solidifying of resolve on the part of our increasingly militaristic police state government. And to add to the mistrust issue, the Air Force is erasing drone strike data. But, Senator Paul did get his point across — from Diana West:

Republican Rand Paul took to the floor of the U.S. Senate this week to filibuster John Brennan’s nomination to become head of the CIA. “I will speak as long as it takes,” the junior senator from Kentucky said, “until the alarm is sounded from coast to coast that our Constitution is important, that your rights to trial by jury are precious, that no American should be killed by a drone on American soil without first being charged with a crime, without first being found to be guilty by a court.”

I imagine many Americans following news of the filibuster, which lasted nearly 13 hours, were finding out for the first time that lawmakers such as Paul, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and a handful of others are gravely concerned about a possible threat from the executive branch against these unalienable rights. This makes the filibuster a success. As Paul said, sounding the alarm from “coast to coast” was exactly his aim.

Not only can you thank Barack Obama, Eric Holder and Janet Napolitano, you can thank John McCain and Lindsey Graham for supporting and forwarding this blatant attack on Constitutional rights and the liberty of the American populace at large. Don’t believe the government and Progressives on both sides of the aisle when they tell you these are not the droids you’re looking for. No, rather, these are the droids that are looking for you. Beware the droids of March.

Related:  Rand Paul: Obama in guns-to-jihadists cover up?

h/t to Sovereignty in Colorado

Arif Alikhan – Assistant Secretary for Policy Development for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Mohammed Elibiary – Homeland Security Adviser

Rashad Hussain – Special Envoy to the (OIC) Organization of the Islamic Conference

Salam al-Marayati – Obama Adviser – founder Muslim Public Affairs Council and its current executive director

Imam Mohamed Magid – Obama’s Sharia Czar – Islamic Society of North AmericaIslamic Society of North America

Eboo Patel – Advisory Council on Faith-Based Neighborhood Partnerships

**And let us not forget Valerie Jarrett – Confident to both the Obamas and is a Senior Advisor to the President of the United States and Assistant to the President for Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs in the Obama administration.

Jarrett’s Influence Over Obama: She’s The ‘De Facto President’

Bombshell Obama Vetting: 1979 Newspaper Article By Valerie Jarrett Father-In-Law Reveals Start Of Arab Purchase Of U.S. Presidency

*WHITE HOUSE INSIDER: “We Got One Last Chance Here To Make It Right”

No Marines for Libyan Ambassador, Full Security Detail for Valerie Jarrett Vacation

An Open Letter To Communist Valerie Jarrett

What Are The Chances? Obama, Jarrett, and Axelrod, All Connected to Communist Frank Marshall Davis

Where is Michelle? – Hanging With Cronie Valerie Jarrett

VALERIE JARRETT’S MOTHER AND BILL AYERS’ FATHER

The Marxist Plan to Bankrupt the United States: Is History Repeating Itself?

Insofar as it relieves Washington of the need to think strategically about the nature of the enemy, the drone is part of the problem. But its technology is too convenient a gift for government to forswear at home. America takes an ever more expansive view of police power, and, while the notion of unmanned drones patrolling the heartland may seem absurd, lots of things that seemed absurd a mere 15 years ago are now a routine feature of life. Not so long ago, it would have seemed not just absurd but repugnant and un-American to suggest that the state ought to have the power to fondle the crotch of a seven-year-old boy without probable cause before permitting him to board an airplane. Yet it happened, and became accepted, and is unlikely ever to be reversed.

Read the whole thing. This is a Mark Steyn masterpiece.

For a war without strategic purpose, a drone’ll do. Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen born in New Mexico, was whacked by a Predator not on a battlefield but after an apparently convivial lunch at a favorite Yemeni restaurant. Two weeks later, al-Awlaki’s son Abdulrahman was dining on the terrace of another local eatery when the CIA served him the old Hellfire Special and he wound up splattered all over the patio. Abdulrahman was 16, and born in Denver. As I understand it, the Supreme Court has ruled that American minors, convicted of the most heinous crimes, cannot be executed. But you can gaily atomize them halfway round the planet.

That sort of killing raises some difficult questions, and the prospect of such use of drones by civilian law enforcement brought Rand Paul to the floor of Senate for his recent filibuster.

Far fetched?

The Department of Education has its own SWAT team and has used it to conduct a raid at the wrong address that left a homeowner handcuffed in a hot police car for 6 hours. Over someone else’s student loan fraud. Even the Railroad Retirement Board has armed agents. OK, I can understand that agency Inspectors General need to conduct investigations to uncover fraud and the like, but couldn’t the door-kicking be detailed out to the U. S. Marshals?

Mr. Steyn asks:

If it’s not “far-fetched” for the education secretary to have his own SWAT team, why would it be “far-fetched” for the education secretary to have his own drone fleet? … When you consider the resources brought to bear against a nobody like Randy Weaver for no rational purpose, is it really so “far-fetched” to foresee the Department of Justice deploying drones to the Ruby Ridges and Wacos of the 2020s?

Read the whole thing.

This year, I applied to speak and was ignored. I tried to get a room for an AFDI event, “The War on Free Speech” and was ignored. So, for the first time in five years, I won’t be at CPAC. Last year Suhail Khan bragged out loud that he (and his other operatives) had successfully kept Robert Spencer and me from being invited to speak. He went so far as to warn people not to attend our events or read our books.

In several articles I took on Grover Norquist and his powerful influence over CPAC….

Norquist is on the board of the American Conservative Union, which runs CPAC.

As I have chronicled here at TCOTS, this man is, at best, a Dhimmi, a Dupe of Islam; at worst, he is a Fellow Traveller who sympathizes with the Mohammedins and works to provide them with legitimacy when they are nothing but savage murderers.

His extensive [and damning] file over at Discover The Networks may be found by clicking here.

The courageous Trevor Loudon has more on Norquist here.

The Investigative Project On Terrorism’s files on him may be found here.

Mark Steyn is not pleased with the ACU:

…I know nothing about the organization’s internal machinations, but the latest expulsion I take personally. On the only occasion I’ve ever spoken at CPAC, I had the honor of being introduced by Pamela Geller. Back then, some fellows were trying to rule her beyond the pale and leaning on me to get her kicked off the much coveted (ha!) Steyn-intro spot. I told ‘em to take a hike: She’s a fearless fighter on free speech and other issues, and I wish there were more with her spirit. Yet five years on it seems she too is unacceptable to CPAC.

Donald Douglas has been covering this story since it broke a few days ago.  You can read all of his posts on it by clicking here.

The ACU is putting on this show and has a right to invite and not invite who they want to.

I wish there were an alternative conference because the stain of that Dhimmi Norquist — who is not simply, like GOProud, someone I disagree with, but is, in fact, providing aid and comfort to our enemies — has tarnished CPAC so deeply.

The treatment of Pam Geller is despicable.

She is one of the bravest and most fearless warriors in our struggle to save The West from destruction.  At great personal cost, she has refused to allow the forces of Totalitarianism [ie: the Left In America and Islam] to spew their lies and deceptions freely without being challenged.  Mrs. Geller is truly doing The Lord’s Work.

I urge you to read this post by her that provides more background and has a fine aggregation of those who are standing with her.

I leave you with something I wrote in February of 2010:

The reason I am being very hard-ass about Norquist is because

1) I grew up during the final decades of The Cold War and also spent a great deal of time researching the earlier years of it.  It wrecked a great deal of damage across the world.  And the world has never recovered from it.

2) I well remember the damage done to use by the fellow-travellers, dupes, and useful idiots — and this was only a cold not a hot conflict.  The Jihadists are waging a seeringly hot war against The West.  Many have died.  Many have been maimed.  In The Cold War, the peoples of The West got off relatively easy, but in this conflict we are engaged in a battle against a foe that will only accept our deaths or enslavement.  While life under the Soviets was harsh and often cruel, it is a nothing compared to a life lived under the Dhimmitude.

Anyone who aides and abets Islam is a traitor to Western Civilization.  Islam is not and never has been a ‘religion of peace’.  It has always been a savagedom of barbarity.

How long will conservatives continue to treat Grover Norquist as if he is worthy of being a part of a movement that seeks to preserve, protect, and defend The Constitution and everything America stands for?

How long will we let this modern Kapo [yes, I called him that!] get away with being an evangelist for and a servant of our enemies?

On 29 February, 2012 he was speaking at a meeting of the Institute of Public Affairs in Australia.

English as she is spoke and English as she is wrote are subtly different languages. One of these days I shall write a full-scale essay on the subject; but for now I’d just like to return to a theme that I have oft – that’s apocope, if you’re interested – oft explored concerning a speaker being a talking head.

Steyn is reading his speech. He doesn’t read all of it: now and then his face addresses the room and he goes off on one. When he does, the speech comes alive. The rest of the time it comparatively lacks oomph.

On other occasions in this blog I’ve highlighted a range of advantages to constructing your speech in such a fashion that you have a clear enough mind-map for you to shoot the whole thing from the hip -

• Audiences love it
• It frees you to adjust the material on the hoof
• If your face isn’t forever looking down, you are less likely to pop your microphone
• It says all the right things about your command of the subject, confidence, sincerity, spontaneity,
• It forces you to structure the material in a format that you can remember, and as a byproduct you make it easier for your audience to digest.
• etc.

This speech is only 35 minutes long, and if he had been taught how to do it Steyn could easily have shot it all from the hip.

I’d like to add to that list of bullet-points another factor that comes into play here. It amounts to a challenge. I suggested earlier that there was a lingual difference between written and spoken English. I contend that you can close your eyes, listen to Steyn, and know when he is speaking and when he is reading. There’s a difference in the rhythm, the intensity, the sheer energy that comes out of the words. There’s even a difference in the words. This is where those who have been taught, or taught themselves, skilfully to handle paper too often fail.

Mark Steyn handles paper better than Brendan O’Neill and less well than Boris; but till he finds himself having to make a range of different speeches, day after day, it’s a wasted, indeed counter-productive skill. The skill he needs is learning to do without, and it continues to amaze me how few have it. In nearly fifty postings on this blog barely a handful of speakers have delivered without paper.

He writes brilliantly. He speaks very well, but less brilliantly. If he would only learn how to speak without paper, and trust himself to do it, his speaking would rise to the quality of his writing.

I will admit that there are occasions where it is appropriate, in fact better, to read the material. If you are quoting someone else at length, then by all means unashamedly do that from paper. I mention this because there is just such an example in this speech. At 9:35 Steyn quotes David Icke in an hilarious section that I would not have missed for anything.

In fact, I would not have missed the whole speech. It is brilliant; but particularly when he shoots from the hip.

P.S. [added 14/3/13] Since posting this, I have seen several instances of Steyn speaking without paper. He can do it. So why did he not do it here? I can only assume that he felt this high-profile event required greater security. That’s a mistake: paperless speaking, properly prepared, is actually more secure than its scripted equivalent.

Guy Benson: And then you’ve got Senator Kerry, or now Secretary Kerry, on his first international trip, inventing a Central Asian country, and just flippantly mentioning that well, Iran’s government is elected, so we should talk to them.

Mark Steyn: Yeah, yeah. I mean, this is the guy, don’t forget, this is the fellow who had been going on these one on one summits with boy Assad in Damascus for years on end. Why would you expect him, he basically has got every single foreign policy issue wrong for the last four decades. Why would you be, why would you expect him to be on top of which Stan…if it’s Tuesday, it must be this Stan. If it’s Wednesday, is must be that Stan. He can’t tell his Azerbaijan, the Jan that thinks it’s a Stan that thinks it’s a Jan from his Tajikistan, his Uzbekistan, his Kyrgyzstan, his Kazikhstan, his who gives a Stan, he can’t tell when he’s in the capitol of Who-Gives-A-Stan. He has no idea.

Also:

Mark Steyn: …I said to Hugh a few weeks ago if you’d told me ten years ago that in a decade’s time Joe Biden would be Vice President, John Kerry would be Secretary of State, and Chuck Hagel Secretary of Defense, I’d have thought it was one of these kind of bizarro alternative universe Planet of the Apes type scenarios. But alas, it has actually happened….

‘Who gives a Stan’???…

What difference does it make.