Afghan policy way off track

As Obama prepares to wade deeper into Afghanistan, President Karzai complains on Fox News about two things: his lack of control over American military operations in his country and the fact that "civilians are being killed". Here's the link. Comments:

* The Taliban embed themselves in civilian areas specifically for this reason. If Karzai succeeds with his demands for control and "no operations in civilian areas", it would neuter our military operations and give the Taliban a free pass.

* Karzai continues to demand more and more aid. This plays into the erroneous secularist notion that terrorism is caused by "poverty": not true! Violence is a tactic of JIHAD! We can waste billions over as many years as we wish but it will not change a thing: JIHAD will persist.

* JIHAD is the sacred obligation of all Muslims to struggle against unbelievers to impose The Shari'a Law on the whole world! It is a goal that Karzai and the Taliban have in common. We delude ourselves if we believe we can establish a "democracy" in this medieval tribal society, because Islam and democracy are utterly incompatible and irreconcilable. Why waste the blood and treasure on an unattainable goal? Forget the purple thumbs and understand Islamic Theology!

* We would do far better utilizing our resources to formulate an energy policy that eliminates our need to import oil from the Middle East. Doing that would defund and defang "JIHAD"and save Western Civilization.

Jihad in Southern Colorado?

Channel 13 in Colorado Springs reported local reacation on the Obama administration possibly relocating Gitmo terrorists to the Supermax prison in Florence.  The reporter interviewed two women that are residents of Florence.  One woman is the local library director and the other apparently was a woman on the street.  Both women expressed complete comfort with the idea and said they believe the facility itself and the staff are quite competent to take on this unique set of inmates.  The news anchor commented that Florence residents are in favor of bringing radical Islamic terrorists to their town because it would create jobs. The question is not whether we can have confidence in Supermax and it's courageous, highly trained personnel.  None of the criminals there have escaped and threatened me or my neighbors, and I don't even worry about that happening.  However,  I am not in favor of bringing terrorists to Colorado or any other location on our mainland. 

Gitmo was put in place to keep such people away from the general population because they pose a serious threat and a clear and present danger.  The people they align with and want them free are also a threat.  While I adamantly disagree with the President's decision to close Gitmo and then toss around several ideas as to where in the United States these criminals will end up, I especially think Colorado is about as poor a choice as could be made. 

Governor Ritter is in favor of bringing the inmates here.  Residents need to consider the fact that the Colorado Springs area has been considered a possible target for terrorism, especially since 9/11.   In addition to Ft. Carson, Cheyenne Mountain AF Station, the Air Force Academy, Peterson AF Base, Schriever AF Base, we have Homeland Security and several large defense contracting firms.  This area could become even more of a target if we house terrorists that no one else on the planet wants.   Our governor should put the safety of our people first, ahead of any political consideration.

Several years ago I was employed at St. Thomas More Hospital in Canon City.  We provided medical care to inmates at the various prisons that was outside the capability of the prison healthcare units.  As part of our ongoing training, we were made aware of the fact that violent criminals have families and friends that come in and out of the area to visit inmates.  In addition,  people that have an unfriendly attitude toward a prisoner also come and attempt to enter the prison to visit.  Of course, visitors are screened and may be turned away, but they are in the region, spending time in our communities.   If a very violent inmate required hospitalization or emergency care, extreme safety measures were mobilized to secure the safety of hospital employees and the surrounding neighborhood and community at large.  The possibility of a friend or family member possibly trying to stage an escape during transport or while the patient was receiving medical care was anticipated, with appropriate planning put in place.  If we house radical terrorists in prisons in Southern Colorado, and our new policy dictates that we are more sympathetic toward them, will we not be forced to allow these prisoners to have visitors?  If they ask to have the privilege of visits from families, friends and religious leaders, will we have the ability under new guidelines to deny those privileges?  Given the new policy directives, we will at a minimum allow them to meet with legal counsel.  Would we not also be required to allow them to have visitation rights similar to other inmates?  The question then becomes, do we want the friends and associates of terrorists coming in and out of our state?

Congressman Doug Lamborn has spoken out against this proposal and if you agree that our state should not take on the responsibility and possible additional terror threat, write to President Obama and Governor Ritter, and also write to Congressman Lamborn and others to support their efforts to take this possibility off the table.

 Contrary to the newsclip on News Channel 13, the support expressed by two residents does not amount to a concensus that everyone in the area welcomes the Gitmo Jihadists to our great state.  Having lived in Canon City, I know many people there and in Pueblo who are not in favor.  This is an important debate and our readers that feel strongly one way or another have an opportunity to participate in the discussion.  If our voices aren't heard, they aren't given consideration. 

Israel's grim situation

Today the existence of Israel is in greater peril than at any time since its founding hour when the fledging state was invaded by every one of its Arab neighbors. Only an understanding of this mortal threat to the Jewish state allows comprehension of the high stakes involved in Israel’s determined assault on Hamas in Gaza. First, consider that Israel is the same size as Massachusetts; its population is little greater than Colorado. Israel’s enemies have fifty times the territory, and twenty-five times the population. While lately only the President of Iran has publicly endorsed the goal of wiping Israel off the map, anyone familiar with the underlying mindset of Israel’s Muslim neighbors knows they all would welcome such an event.

Israel has been sustained through sixty years, three invasions, and the unremitting hostility of its neighbors only by its decisive military superiority and the support of the Western democracies.

Today with the exception of the United States support for Israel in the Western democracies has collapsed. Elite (i.e. leftist) European opinion tends to be pro-Palestinian, and borderline anti-Semitic. Most assuredly no European country would aid Israel militarily in the event of war. This general antipathy to Israel was well illustrated by the French ambassador to Great Britain who in an unguarded moment referred to the Jewish state as a “sh---- little country”.

On November 29, 1947, the United Nations voted to partition Palestine into separate homelands for the Arabs and Jews thus setting the stage for the birth of Israel six months later. It is at once ironic and tragic that if the United Nations took such a vote today Israel would have no chance whatsoever.

Most ominous of all, however, is Israel’s steadily declining military edge over its enemies.

The Hamas rockets that have terrorized the population of southern Israel are harbingers of more horrific things to come. It is only a matter of time and political calculation before Iran provides its proxies in Gaza (Hamas) and Lebanon (Hezbollah) with the more sophisticated rockets that can reach all of Israel’s major population centers.

Israel is painfully aware of where events are leading, and in no doubt as to the implications of Iran’s not too distant acquisition of nuclear weapons.

Israel’s sense of looming apocalypse is confirmed by their recently revealed request to the U.S. to overfly Iraqi airspace for the purpose of conducting air strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities. A politically weakened Bush administration predictably refused this request thereby denying Israel the chance to replicate their years ago success in pre-emptively destroying Saddam Hussein’s nuclear weapons project.

Israel’s own government is arguably the weakest in its history. Not since the untimely death of Ariel Sharon has Israel had either a strong leader or a truly effective majority in the multi-party Knesset. The current Prime Minister Ehud Olmert who leaves office in just a few weeks under a cloud of scandal and threatened prosecution authorized an earlier woefully mismanaged military incursion into Lebanon and the withdrawal from Gaza- now seen clearly as the strategic blunder which led to the present conflict.

For so long has America’s image of Israel been of outstanding leaders- David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir- and invincible soldiers- Moshe Dyan, Ariel Sharon- that today it is nearly impossible for us to grasp either the enfeebled condition of its democracy, or its vulnerability to military catastrophe.

President Bush steadfastly supported Israel and refused to buy into the pernicious doctrine of “moral equivalence” between Jews and Palestinians. Yet in Europe tens of thousands of demonstrators thronged the streets of London, Paris, and Berlin denouncing Israel as the equivalent of Nazi Germany. In New York similar rhetoric rings out in the United Nations.

To understand the desperate determination of Israel to stop rockets raining down on its citizenry we must see the plight of a small country denounced as a savage aggressor by most of “World Opinion”, its diplomatic isolation nearly complete, and its military advantages rapidly disappearing against an enemy whose goal is not peace but annihilation.

In 1945 as the victorious Allied armies drew back the curtain on the horrors of the Holocaust, the world’s revulsion and guilt- “If only we had known …… in time”- led to the creation of Israel.

Today we should recall the philosopher Santayana who warned that “those who do not heed the past are doomed to repeat it”.

William Moloney’s columns have appeared in the Wall St. Journal, USA today, Washington Post, Washington Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Baltimore Sun, Denver Post, Rocky Mountain News.

Merci, Monsieur le Président

Dear President George W. Bush: As you open a new chapter in your life down in Crawford, Texas, after eight, sometimes turbulent years as the 43rd President of the United States, I would like to take this opportunity to publicly express my eternal gratitude to you for strengthening my faith in America’s destiny as a truly exceptional nation. It all goes back to March 2003. Back then, I remember huddling over my ancient radio trying to pick up medium-wave signals of the BBC World Service for the latest English-language news about the outcome of a summit meeting which you were holding in the Azores with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar to work out a U.N. resolution that might eventually lead to military intervention in Iraq. In hindsight, I can truthfully say that when the report ended with the view that war was imminent, I was born again.

Please, do not get me wrong. I agree that war is ugly and should always be used as a last resort. However World War II taught us that the use of force in a just cause is an eminently virtuous course of action. In March 2003, most Europeans were still wilfully denying the essential truth of that painfully poignant lesson and you were trying hard to educate them.

Therefore, Mr. President, although your brand of conservatism eventually turned out to be too compassionate for my small-government predilections, I want to thank you again for courageously standing up for good against evil. I want to thank you again for steadfastly promoting freedom and democracy in the world. Above all, I want to thank you again for relentlessly protecting America and the American people and conserving the enduring values which your blessed country uniquely stands for.

May God bless you, Sir. May God bless the United States of America.

Yours Faithfully, A French friend of America

Note: “Paoli” is the pen name, er, nom de plume, of our French correspondent. Monsieur is a close student of European and US politics, a onetime exchange student in Colorado and a well-wisher to us Americans. He informs us the original Pasquale Paoli, 1725-1807, was the George Washington of Corsica.

Jihadists' goal: 'Destroy US from within'

Documents uncovered in a raid on the Holy Land Foundation, subject of the recent terrorism trial in Texas, reveal the intention and strategy of Islamizing the United States, even if it takes a hundred years. Linked below is an electronic copy of the Muslim Brotherhood's "Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America, 5/22/1991," shown in the original Arabic with English Translation. Consider, for example, Item 4 on the page numbered as Page 7 of 18 (but designated page 21 in the Adobe Reader for this PDF). Muslims are to understand that

their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions. Without this level of understanding, we are not up to this challenge and have not prepared ourselves for Jihad yet. It is a Muslim's destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he is and wherever he lands until the final hour comes...

This candid self-indictment by the jihadists is worth sharing with those who think that Muslims are like any other group of immigrants and will assimilate, or with that a Mosque is no different than any other church, just like the Methodists on the next block.

Link to PDF: Muslim Brotherhood Intentions 1991