It would be easy to believe that everyone from the Middle East is the enemy. The 9/11 terrorists were all Middle Eastern Muslims; therefore, all Middle Eastern Muslims are likely to be terrorists, or so the theory goes. Unfortunately, it's a little more complicated and a lot more difficult than that. Suggesting that all Muslims are terrorists is akin to suggesting that all Southerners are in the KKK, all Italians are mobsters, or that all Christians follow Fred Phelps. (Phelps is the "reverend" whose followers noisily proclaim their hatred of gays, even protesting at military funerals.) It makes for a funny caricature on Saturday Night Live, but that's about it.

Not all terrorists are from the Middle East. We have friends in the Middle East and enemies both at home and throughout the world. We've had Eric Rudolph (the Atlanta Olympics bomber), Terry Nichols, Timothy McVeigh (the Oklahoma City bombers) and homegrown terror groups like the Earth Liberation Front. There are Irish, Colombian, Spanish, Japanese and even Filipino terror groups. Sorting friend from foe is rarely easy to do with just a visual check. It's especially hard when you're fighting an enemy that doesn't wear a uniform, and makes an effort to hide among non-combatants. Sometimes those who look like the enemy turn out to be allies, and those who appear to be allies turn out to be in bed with the enemy.

Democrats, the media and Republicans worried about the 2006 election are ramping up paranoia over a port management deal with Dubai Ports World, based in one of the United Arab Emirates. It's alright for European companies to do the administrative work for US ports, but no Arabs need apply. After all, the argument goes, Dubai may have funded terrorism before becoming our ally in the War on Terror. The fact that a state-owned Saudi Arabian company already manages American ports seems to slip right past those expressing horror at the Dubai deal. 

Meanwhile, Europeans -- some of whom are funding terrorism and "insurgency" in Iraq right now -- are apparently given the green light. According to USA Today, "far-left groups in western Europe are carrying on a campaign dubbed Ten Euros for the Resistance, offering aid and comfort to the car bombers, kidnappers, and snipers trying to destabilize the fledgling Iraq government. In the words of one Italian website, Iraq Libero (Free Iraq), the funds are meant for those fighting the occupanti imperialisti." That's us, in case you don't speak fluent Italian Socialist.

No one seems to mention the elephant standing in the middle of the room: China, whose state-owned companies already manage eleven US ports. Chinese companies manage terminals in Los Angeles and Long Beach, California, for instance. In 1998, Congress passed legislation to prevent China from acquiring a Naval base in Long Beach, but the city pulled a switch, moving existing port tenants into the base and leasing the newly-vacant property to the Chinese. PSA (Port of Singapore Authority) may buy out Stevedoring Services of America, which manages ports all along the West Coast, as well as Houston and New Orleans. Meanwhile, the Chinese have nuclear missiles pointed at our country. At least two high-ranking generals have publicly threatened to use them if we interfere with their annexation of Taiwan, which we will almost certainly do. 

What's to prevent terror-supporting Europeans or Asians from taking management jobs at critical points of US infrastructure? Perhaps it's a good thing for us that DPW bought P&O, the British company that holds the contract to manage the ports -- security procedures and background checks may actually be tightened as a result. Some suggest that no foreign companies should be allowed to manage American ports. That's a fine idea... except that no American companies are able to do the job. Not one American company bid on P&O. Do those who want to kill the DPW deal suggest nationalising our ports just to keep Arabs from setting unloading schedules?

The War on Terror has many facets, beyond the actual "war" part. Some of our efforts have to be aimed at changing the Islamofascist governments whose oppressed populations become easy prey for radical preachers, having no hope for their own future. Winning "hearts and minds" in the Middle East means finding and cooperating with moderate Muslims. Moreover, we desperately need to rid ourselves of the "Great Satan" image with which we've been painted by decades of radical Islamic hate. I may be going out on a limb here, but I don't think the way to do that is insulting countries that have assisted and are trying to build an economic relationship with us. If we treat our friends as enemies, that's exactly what we will make of them.

Dubai is among the most moderate of Middle-Eastern countries, and has been a great help to us in the War on Terror by all accounts. If al-Qaeda was taking over the place, they'd be more likely to kill its leaders for cooperating with us than hatch an elaborate plan to buy British companies and use them to sneak into America... especially since all they need to do is walk across the borders from Canada or Mexico. And there isn't much to the argument that they'd have an easier time shipping WMDs into America than they do now, no matter what company is in charge of scheduling. The US Coast Guard, Homeland Security and Customs will still be in charge of security. Besides, they'd have an easier time attacking us with planes belonging to state-owned Emirates USA Airlines, which runs daily flights to Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York and more. Unlike shipe, planes aren't inspected before entering US territory. Yet no one seems very worried about that, do they?

In the end, attempts to divine ally and enemy based on ethnicity alone are bound to fail. Our enemies are terrorists and the governments that support them, not businessmen embracing capitalism and free trade.

Hat tip to Sweetness and Light for the info on the National Shipping Company of Saudi Arabia.
Hat tip to Skye for info on Ten Euros for the Resistance.

The news that a company based in the United Arab Emirates will be operating several seaports in the US has ignited a political firestorm. Democrats, sensing an issue they could turn to their advantage, raced to denounce President Bush even faster (and louder) than usual. However, there's no substance to their attacks. What surprises me is how many Republicans allowed themselves to be stampeded into a sort of knee-jerk, xenophobic isolationism, just to prevent Democrats from getting to the "right" of them on a national security issue in an election year.

Dubai Ports World bought the British company that held a contract to manage six US ports. Many US ports are managed by companies based in foreign countries. DPW doesn't exactly appear to be a front organisation for terrorists, having many Americans among its top leadership. More important, the UAE has been a solid ally in the War on Terror. They have provided vital information to the United States, and allowed us to base ships, troops and planes in their country. The government has worked hard to crack down on terrorist movements and financing.
 
Dubai is one of the few progressive states in the Middle East, having worked to build a real economic infrastructure not based entirely on oil. It was the first Middle Eastern country to sign up with the Container Security Initiative, which places American customs agents in foreign ports to screen cargo bound for the US. This hasn't made the UAE government very popular with its neighbors, or even with some segments of its own population. The UAE has risked much to be allied with the United States.

Yet the demands to block the sale are deafening, and are entirely based on the fact that they are -- gasp! -- Arabs. Is treating allies with fear and suspicion based on race the best way to win friends and influence people in that part of the world? Will that attitude help us win the War on Terror?

The most common misperception seems to be that Dubai Ports World would handle port security. The catchphrase du jour is, "this is like letting the fox guard the henhouse." In fact, no foreign company handles security in any US port, and nothing would change in that regard. Not that port security is anything to crow about now, of course... only between about 2% and 5% of incoming shipping containers are currently physically examined after reaching our shores. (The key is to examine them before they get here.) If we actually put known terrorists in direct charge of security, the situation could hardly get worse. Those who bluster about the impact on security should direct their efforts towards building some security to be worried about.

Some argue that terrorists could learn how our ports operate by getting jobs there. Any reasonable person would instantly realise that there is nothing preventing terrorists from getting jobs in those ports now. US regulations require US citizenship or resident alien status, as well as a background check, for jobs with any kind of security access. That, too, will not change. Others fear that terrorists would use the Dubai-managed ports to sneak into the country. Why do that, when they can simply walk across the border from Canada or Mexico, which millions do without hindrance every year?

There is no evidence to indicate that DPW has any ties to terror groups, aside from being based in the Middle East. Critics point to the fact that one of the 9/11 hijackers was born in the UAE. The fact is that you can hardly point to a country that has zero ties to terrorism. For instance, a British company is currently managing the ports in question. Richard Reid, the "shoe bomber," was born in London. The terrorists who blew up several trains and a bus on 7 July 2005 were natural-born British citizens. Yet there has been no outcry against British companies managing American transportation assets.

And that's what it comes down to -- a knee-jerk reaction to an Arab company. Funny how the Left is suddenly all in favor of racial profiling, isn't it? Should every company in the Middle East be banned from doing business in the US? Should companies run or owned by Arabs be excluded from the US, or all companies based in Muslim countries? When did we start basing business decisions on racial and religious discrimination? That's not how Americans operate. And that's not the message we need to send the world. Kicking the UAE in the face would damage US credibility at a time and in a place we need it the most.

It would be different if all foreign companies were equally excluded from managing US infrastructure. That would at least be fair to everyone. Maybe we should exclude all government-owned companies... but that would cut out many European and all Chinese companies as well. Economic isolationism will not work, nor is it in our best interests. 

Perhaps the best answer would be to invest more than words in transportation and border security, rather than sacrificing needed allies on the altar of paranoia.

24 Feb 06 UPDATE: Larry Kudlow says, "Call It What It Is: Islamophobia."

7 Mar 06 UPDATE: As I said, virtually no port security to worry about. According to an ABCNews story:

The two ports handle millions of tons of cargo, with scores of cruise ships passing through each year. Truckers who transport much of the cargo are issued ID cards, which give them access to all areas of the port.

ABC News has learned that the cards, given to thousands of truckers by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, were issued with virtually no background checks. The Department of Homeland Security recently investigated the New York and New Jersey ports, and found stunning gaps in security.

The new DHS report, obtained by ABC News, shows that of the 9,000 truckers checked, nearly half had evidence of criminal records. More than 500 held bogus driver's licenses, leaving officials unsure of their real identities.

It's become a Liberal "article of faith" that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and no intention to build them, despite all the evidence that Saddam Hussein possessed and used them many times. When the CIA didn't immediately uncover huge stockpiles of illegal weapons, critics of Iraqi liberation were able to push the false meme that Saddam never had WMDs in the first place, or secretly disposed of them long ago, or that he was "contained" by UN sanctions. With the US invasion of Iraq telegraphed for well over a year in advance, it boggles the mind that Liberals still refuse to even consider the possibility that Saddam moved or hid whatever WMD materials he had to prevent them from being discovered.

The idea that every inch of Iraq has been examined and pronounced clean is ludicrous. Reports are still coming in of storage sites that were completely ignored by the Iraq Survey Group, which concentrated heavily on previously known WMD storage sites. Simple common sense would tell anyone that a place marked on every inspector's map "WMD Storage Facility" might not be the best place to hide your WMDs. Instead, something like buried and locked concrete bunkers not marked on any map might be a more likely location. Lo and behold, several such sites were reported to the ISG... and totally ignored.

David Gaubatz, a former member of the Air Force's Office of Special Investigations, was assigned to intelligence research. He was shown four sealed underground concrete bunkers in southern Iraq with the tunnels leading to them deliberately flooded. His sources told him that the facilities had contained stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons. He filed reports with photographs, grid coordinates, and testimony from multiple sources. But the ISG never unsealed the bunkers. "We agents begged and begged for weeks and months to get ISG to respond to the sites with the proper equipment," Gaubatz told the NY Sun. Yet the ISG felt comfortable filing a final report, in effect closing the case.

Several sources have previously indicated that Saddam sent some WMDs and equipment related to chemical and biological weapons production to Syria and Lebanon in the months preceding the US invasion. In May 2003, DEBKAfile reported that "the relocation of Iraq's WMD systems took place between January 10 and March 10 and was completed just 10 days before the US-led offensive was launched against Iraq." CIA satellite imagery showed "convoys of Iraqi trucks that poured into Syria in February and March 2003."

David Kay, original head of the Iraq Survey group, reported that "we know from some of the interrogations of former Iraqi officials that a lot of material went to Syria before the war, including some components of Saddam's WMD program." Among the things left behind, Kay reported finding a "clandestine network of laboratories and safehouses," and "a prison laboratory complex... that Iraqi officials working to prepare for UN inspections were explicitly ordered not to declare to the UN." The ISG's investigation revealed "new research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin." Charles Duelfer, who replaced David Kay as head of the ISG, wrote in his final report that, "ISG received information about movement of material out of Iraq, including the possibility that WMD was involved... these reports were sufficiently credible to merit further investigation." Senator Pat Roberts, (R-KS), chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, even acknowledged that "there is some concern that shipments of WMD went to Syria."

John Shaw, former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for International Technology Security, has charged that Saddam's WMD stockpiles were moved by Russian special forces into Syria and Lebanon. According to Shaw, former Russian intelligence head Yevgeny Primakov supervised the removal operations. GRU military intelligence and Russian "spetsnaz" (special forces) troops moved Saddam's WMDs to Syria by truck beginning in December 2002.

Former Iraqi Air Force General Georges Sada has come forward to corroborate and supplement these reports. Sada stated that hundreds of tons of chemicals were smuggled into Syria as early as June 2002, under cover of humanitarian aid to flood victims. Two commercial jets, a 747 and 727, were used to move the WMDs and banned material. "They used to do two sorties a day," said Sada. "Fifty-six sorties were done between Baghdad and Damascus."

Twelve hours of unclassified tapes were recently released to the public by the Intelligence Summit, a non-profit group headed by former Federal prosecutor John Loftus. The contents of the tapes make it clear that Saddam Hussein was determined to retain as much of his WMD capability as could be hidden from the UN weapons inspectors. The job of the inspectors, however, was not to discover what was hidden, but to verify what Iraq claimed to have destroyed. In 1991, Iraq was given three months to surrender or destroy everything related to weapons of mass destruction.

According to the tapes, Iraq did seem to have an active nuclear program as late as the year 2000. Iraqi scientists were working on enriching uranium using the plasma separation method. On one tape, Dr. Thamir Ma'aman Mawdud reported to Saddam on "the production we achieved in the advanced stages at the end of the Nineties." Mawdud went on to say that "activity hasn't died in plasma because it is allowed in some of the tests which we use. Then, sir, according to what we have done in the Iraqi National Laboratory in building plasma activity, we have a very large industrial base... We have built a factory to produce plasma systems... the truth is the applied activity is present and found in the industrial sector, and not only in the Military Industrial Commission, but in the Atomic Energy Agency, under Dr. Amer [Rashid al-Ubaydi]."

So much evidence and testimony relating to Iraq's illegal weapons has come to light since the fall of Saddam, and has been ignored. More will surely surface, as the millions of documents and tapes captured during the liberation of Iraq are finally translated, and more Iraqis feel secure enough to come forward with their stories. The full story will become known in time... but will the closed minds on the Left accept any of it, or will they continue to ignore everything that contradicts their predetermined conclusion?

Since before the commencement of the war in Iraq, the two main reasons to remove Saddam from power have been under daily assault by the Left, using the media to push their agenda. The Stop Accusing Poor Saddam people (or SAPS) have ignored every piece of evidence indicating that Saddam Hussein ever had weapons of mass destruction and ties to terrorist groups. The problem is that the SAPS drew their conclusions before most of the evidence was even discovered. In most cases, they decided Saddam was innocent for political reasons, and no evidence will serve to shake their conviction. Yet the evidence keeps piling up, as the SAPS shut their eyes and stick their fingers in their ears.

Twelve hours of tapes from a meeting in April or May 1995 are about to be released to the public by the International Intelligence Summit, a non-government, non-profit group that collects intelligence reports from around the world. Saddam recorded hundreds of hours of meetings with his subordinates, who probably did not know they were being taped. Documents and tapes were turned over to the FBI for translation, and tens of thousands of boxes full of evidence remain untranslated to this day. On this particular tape, Saddam can be heard discussing both WMDs and terrorism.

Bill Tierney, a former United Nations weapons inspector, translated the tapes for the FBI. He turned them over to ABC, which used a few choice excerpts from them in a Nightline special. The SAPS will be hard at work making sure the following quotes are interpreted in the way most favorable to Saddam. That only works if you listen to them in a vaccuum, completely forgetting everything else that's known about Saddam Hussein's regime. Keep in mind, too, that Saddam knew his words were being recorded.

HUSSEIN: Terrorism is coming. I told the Americans a long time before August 2 and told the British as well, I think Hamed was there keeping the meeting minutes with one of them, that in the future there will be terrorism with weapons of mass destruction. What prevents this technology from developing and people from smuggling it? All of this, before the stories of smuggling, before that, in 1989. I told them, "In the future, what would prevent that we see a booby-trapped car causing a nuclear explosion in Washington or a germ or a chemical one?"

The SAPS would have us believe that Saddam was lamenting that his warning about terror attacks went unheeded. Knowing Saddam's history, keeping in mind that he rose to power as a thug and enforcer in the street gangs of Tikrit, and given the fact that he was training terrorists at Salman Pak at the time of this conference, this sounds more like he had delivered a threat than a friendly warning.

HUSSEIN: This is coming, this story is coming but not from Iraq.

Of course not from Iraq, the SAPS will say. Saddam would never plot a terrorist attack (since, they say, he had no ties to terrorists) using biological or chemical weapons (that they believe he never had). Saddam knew "the story" would not come from Iraq... because the use of terrorist groups affords a rogue nation a certain "plausible deniability." Keep this in mind as you read the next statement:

AZIZ: Sir, the biological is very easy to make. It's so simple that any biologist can make a germ bottle and drop it into a septic tank and kill 100,000. This is not done by a state, no need to accuse a state, an individual can do it. Even an American in a house, close to the White House, I mean, they don't have a logical argument.

According to the SAPS, this would indicate that Tariq Aziz was worried someone might accuse Iraq, should some unknown third party use biological or chemical weapons in a terrorist attack. When one considers that Iraq's biological weapons program was still in secret operation at this time, Aziz was most likely reassuring Saddam that a biological terrorist attack could not be traced back to Iraq.

Hussein Kamel, Saddam's son-in-law, spoke of Iraq's WMD programs. Keep in mind that since 1991, Iraq had been ordered several times to turn over all of its WMDs, including related materials and equipment, to the UN for verified destruction. Holding anything back was a violation of all resolutions back to UNSC#687, and a valid reason to terminate the cease-fire that ended the Gulf War.

HUSSEIN KAMEL: We did not reveal all that we have... Not the type of the weapons, not the volume of the materials we imported, not the volume of the production we told them about, not the volume of use. None of this was correct. They don't know any of this. We did not say we used them on Iran. We did not reveal the volume of the chemical weapons that we had produced. We did not reveal the type of the chemical weapons. We did not reveal the truth about the volume of the imported materials. Therefore sir, if they want to create problems, I see that our argument now is that biological is everything. No, sir, I disagree and I have to be candid in front of your Excellency. I substantially disagree on this issue. They want it item by item. For the time being, they are not raising all of them with us and we did not declare. I will come back, sir, to the question of whether is it better for us to declare or to stay? In the nuclear, sir, in the biological, we also disagree with them. Not the 17 tons, no. We have a disagreement which is essential and known. We know it ourselves.

Kamel may have been referring to the 17 tons of anthrax growth media that UNSCOM still listed as unaccounted for after Kamel himself revealed the bioweapons program upon his defection later that year. The SAPS will, of course, say that it was the UN's duty to ferret illegal weapons out, and that it was Saddam's "right" to hide and dissemble. In fact, Iraq was originally given three months to disclose and surrender everything relating to biological, chemical and nuclear programs. Four years later, Saddam's henchmen were still playing hide-and-seek. Saddam never had any intention of complying with his responsibilities, as this short exchange clearly shows.

Eight years after that, following a tragically successful terrorist attack on US soil, it became clear that we couldn't keep waiting upon the whims of dictators. Don't let the SAPS bleat about the "rush to war" and repeat that "Bush lied" about WMDs and ties to terrorists. Saddam Hussein could have easily stopped the slow crawl towards war at any time, had he been willing to come clean. Instead, he appears to have wasted the time of his "final opportunity" to hide and smuggle his illegal weapons out of the country.

What information remains hidden in the tons of documentation that haven't yet been translated? As more information comes to light, the removal of Saddam from power looks more than ever like the right thing to do.

18 Feb 06 UPDATE: It seems Bill Tierney has some complaints to make about ABC's handling of the tapes. ABC discarded Tierney's translation in favor of a "less threatening" version of Saddam's word. "He was discussing his intent to use chemical weapons against the United States and use proxies so it could not be traced back to Iraq," Tierney told FNC and ABC show host Sean Hannity. ABC also decided not to air a segment in which Saddam says, "In the future there will be terrorism with weapons of mass destruction. What if we consider this technique, with smuggling?"

The essential premise of terrorism is this: fear of organised, purposeful violence can drastically change the way people act. If people fear an attack, they will change the way they shop, travel, dress, vote or even speak. Actual violence may not even be necessary, once the habit of appeasement becomes ingrained. Eventually, people will automatically modify their own behavior so as not to "cause trouble." Terrorism is schoolyard bullying on the grandest scale. And as we can see from the response to the sudden wave of violence over cartoons published in a Danish newspaper, terrorism works.

The European Union and the United Nations are fighting to lead the surrender, it seems. As a result of the violence, the European Union is considering whether to create a "code of conduct" that will encourage the media to show "prudence" when covering religion. EU Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini told the Daily Telegraph, "The press will give the Muslim world the message: We are aware of the consequences of exercising the right of free expression... We can and we are ready to self-regulate that right." UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said, "Honestly, I do not understand why any newspaper will publish the cartoons today. It is insensitive. It is offensive. It is provocative and you see what has happened around the world." Keep your heads down, in other words. Don't do anything to make them mad. See what happens when you do things they don't like?

Individual European countries are also rushing to appease the angry Islamists. French President Jacques Chirac condemned the publication of the cartoons as "overt provocation," and said that any subject matter that could hurt other people's convictions should be avoided. (Don't hold your breath waiting for French -- or any -- newspapers to stop printing anti-American editorials and cartoons.) The Swedish government went so far as to shut down the web site of a newspaper that published cartoons depicting Mohammed. Don't make waves. Don't attract their attention. Just do as they say.

Here in America, supposedly the home of free speech, our own government condemned the cartoons, missing a priceless opportunity to stand up for basic freedoms. "We find them offensive, and we certainly understand why Muslims would find these images offensive," said Sean McCormack of the State Department. Doesn't any government have the backbone to defend freedom of speech and freedom of the press? 

The common view is that all Muslims are offended by images of the Prophet. Amir Taheri, an Iranian-born journalist and author, easily refuted that position in a Wall Street Journal editorial. His article reminds us that no such historical prohibition on images of Mohammed or on religious humor exists in Islam -- and that the protests are sponsored by governments (like Syria and Iran) and extremist groups who take themselves too seriously. "Muhammad himself pardoned a famous Meccan poet who had lampooned him for more than a decade," Taheri pointed out. Many depictions of Mohammed exist in Islamic art.

The New York Times and CNN both refused to show the "offensive" Danish cartoons. The mainstream media giants cited various reasons for restraint, ranging from "showing respect for religion" to "not wishing to add fuel to the controversy." Most newspapers and TV stations followed their example. The NY Sun was one of the few newspapers in America with the courage to print the cartoons in question. The Philadelphia Inquirer was another. Some individuals showed backbone, though -- the entire editorial staff of the NY Press resigned when permission to print the cartoons was refused. The media giants more or less capitulated to terrorism, however.

In order to illustrate the news story about the riots, the NY Times did publish one picture: a piece of "art" featuring the Virgin Mary covered in dung. This despite the Times' claim to "refrain from gratuitous assaults on religious symbols." CNN aired cartoons from Arab newspapers to highlight the story, featuring hook-nosed Jews drinking the blood of Muslim children, controlling the US, falsifying history and so on. Those kinds of pictures won't anger radical Muslims, so the mainstream media feels free to show them.

How can so many be so willing to surrender so many rights as a result of a "controversy" that was so obviously manufactured? The cartoons were first published in September 2005, and were answered by a small but peaceful demonstration. The cartoons were even published in Egypt with no real outcry. There were a few diplomatic protests made by Islamic nations, but that was all.

Then Ahmad Abu Laban, leader of the Islamic Society in Denmark, toured the Middle East showing the actual cartoons alongside severa truly offensive images that he falsely claimed were common portrayals of Mohammed in the West. The worst "Mohammed" image was actually a newspaper photo from the 2005 French Pig-Squealing Championship, during which a bearded contestant was photographed wearing a pig's snout and ears. In areas controlled by dictators or where radical Islam holds sway, places where access to information is tightly restricted, violence flared. Suddenly crowds were burning Danish flags on every street corner, attacking embassies, and promising "Death to those who insult Islam."

Instead of standing up for itself, the West is already beginning to engage in self-proscription designed to appease the self-proclaimed enemies of free speech. If the EU begins passing official guidelines to prevent anything upsetting to radical Muslims from being published, how long will it be before the European government begins actively censoring anything that might provoke an attack? And how long before people here in America begin modifying their own behavior and dress codes to prevent radical Muslims from getting angry? Would you wear a T-shirt with a joke about Jesus on it? Sure you would. Would you wear a shirt bearing one of the Danish cartoons?

We're engaged in a global war on terrorism. Our enemies are radical, violent, fanatic Islamofascists who virtually enslave women, brainwash children and behead or blow up innocents just to make a point. Their aim is to destroy democracy and bring the entire world under the barbaric yoke of shari'a law by use of fear. If we're so worried about offending their delicate sensibilities, and so fearful of their retribution, that we're willing to give up our most essential freedoms to appease them, we might as well submit now and accept dhimmitude.

Hat tip to Zombie for the Mohammed Image Archive

UPDATE: The Brussels Journal posted the translation of an article by Per Nyholm, a journalist with the Jyllands-Posten (the paper that originally printed the cartoons) called "We Are Being Pissed On."

Over the last several decades, Liberals and Democrats have been pulling off the greatest scam of all time -- rewriting history itself. It's amazing how, in a free society, they have managed to hijack the past, twisting the truth by subtle manipulation. Somehow the Left has convinced a sizeable portion of Americans that lowered expectations and government coddling are their birthright by reason of their African ancestry. The new slavery is an enslavement of the mind, and its victims willingly embrace their chains.

Multiculturalists (those who preach self-segregation) have convinced many black Americans to believe they even have a different history from the rest of the country. This is a distortion of reality that has already caused much damage to our national identity. What is "black history month" supposed to represent, anyway? All those people and events singled out for special recognition as being part of "black history" were, in fact, AMERICAN events and AMERICAN people. Every American should celebrate the achievements of Americans who made a positive impact on our shared history, without dividing them according to skin color. All Americans have equal reason and right to be proud of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin as well as Booker T. Washington and Benjamin Banneker.

Race-baiting demagogues use hate and fear to keep blacks from considering candidates from any political party but Democrats when in the voting booth. Yet it was Democrats who seceded from the United States in order to preserve their "right" to own other human beings. It was Democrats who formed the Klu Klux Klan and instituted Jim Crow laws, Democrats who fought for "separate but equal" treatment of black Americans, Democrats who stood in the doorways of schools to keep blacks out and Democrats who turned fire hoses on blacks to keep them from voting. And it has been Democrats who have worked to pin all those injustices on Republicans, who have been the true "party of inclusion" all along.

Most important, it was Democrats who founded and preserved and continue to push for social programs designed to destroy autonomy and self-reliance. Lowering standards for education and employment based on race or sex sends the message "you aren't good enough to compete" to members of the "favored" group. So-called "affirmative" action programs and racial quotas only send the message, "you can't make it without help." Yet an overwhelming number of minorities vote for those who continue to push race-based condescension. How do Democrats keep fooling the people they have been oppressing into voting for them, year after year?

Democrats continue to use the false history they invented to frighten and anger blacks, to prevent them from voting for anyone but Democrats. Those who dare to embrace Conservatism are ostracised, derided as "Uncle Toms" and "Aunt Jemimas" for expressing their own point of view. Liberals have consistently characterised former Secretary of State and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell and Secretary of State and former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice as "house slaves" and "sellouts." Rice was even cartooned as Prissy, the lying, lazy slave girl portrayed by Butterfly McQueen in "Gone With the Wind." Most recently, NAACP leader Julian Bond referred to both Powell and Rice, two of the most important and influential people in the world, as "tokens," merely because they refuse to wave the flag of racial victimhood.

Worst of all, I think, are white Democratic politicians who play politics in black churches, to show how "down" they are with the dark-skinned crowd. That sort of pandering is sometimes actually painful to watch. Who can forget Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry giving the "black power" salute while speaking to the NAACP? Or Bill Clinton claiming the mantle of America's "first black President?"

Witness Senator Hillary Clinton's (D-NY) own recent faux pas in this regard, on the national holiday Ronald Reagan created to honor the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. It was King who famously dreamed that his children would "one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." A nation, in other words, without race-based quotas or standards... a nation where skin color is not used to herd people into voting blocs.

While visiting the Canaan Baptist Church of Christ, a black church in Harlem, Clinton made a political speech, as Democrats often do in churches. "The House of Representatives is run like a plantation," she told the congregation, "and you know what I'm talking about." That's right -- you people obviously just got in from picking cotton, so you must know what a plantation is like, right? Would people like Clinton get away with those sorts of remarks unscathed, if not for the "D" after their names? After a brief flurry of concern from Conservatives, the HMS Hillary sailed on, undisturbed.

Obviously, Clinton and other Democrats -- black and white -- use emotionally loaded slavery references to paint their political opponents as oppressors. They gamble on the ignorance of history that constitutes a public education these days. The fact that the Left continues to oppose true education reform -- abolishing tenure and subjecting schools to competition through vouchers -- comes as no surprise.

If public schools were run more efficiently and competitively, those who attend them might learn more about American history -- the real history -- than the Left wants them to know. The chains of the new slavery are forged from ignorance, after all.

8 Feb UPDATE: Julian Bond's reference to Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell was incorrectly reported, as it turns out. He did not call them "tokens," but called them "human shields against criticism of [the Bush administration's] record on civil rights" instead. While it's difficult to see a distinction between the two insults, the quote was incorrect.

For years, the Left has been telling us that the innocent, victimised Palestinian people (actually Egyptians and Jordanians) just want peace with those nasty bullies from Israel. Well, the Palestinians themselves finally got the chance to tell the world what they really want. A free and open election in the Palestinian territories has put an Iran-backed terrorist group in power, a group that has sworn to destroy Israel. How "peace-loving" is that?

The Fatah party openly favored negotiation with Israel leading to a two-state solution and an independent Palestine. Hamas, the largest and most influential Muslim fundamentalist movement in the Palestinian territories, entered the political fray with a platform based on the death of all Jews, and the utter destruction of Israel. Unfortunately, the party with peace talks and negotiation in mind was voted out due to corruption scandals and inability to keep order in the cities. That put the party with "a bomb on every bus" for a motto in control, to everyone's surprise.

Hamas is a terror group formed in 1987 to push for the eradication of Israel. An essential part of their ideology is that the Palestinian problem is religious, and therefore can never be solved by political compromise. They believe that the land "from the [Jordan] river to the sea" is consecrated to Islam. It cannot be given up, not even a part of it, especially not Jerusalem. Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, the group of Arab fanatics that served as an arm of Nazi intelligence during WWII. Hamas now receives a majority of its funding from Iran, funneled through Hezbollah and other groups.

A December 2000 intelligence report, for instance, showed that Iran transferred $1,200,000 to Hamas's Qassam Brigades to support 'the Hamas military arm in Israel and encouraging suicide operations.' According to the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Center for Special Studies, Iranian support for Hamas and other terrorist organisations is widespread:

Findings related to the interrogation of prisoners captured and documents seized in Operation Defensive Shield show the existence of an institutionalized and systematic network for transferring large sums of money operated by Iran through the organizations under its auspices, which use the banking systems of Syria and the Palestinian territories. Interrogation of the prisoners and the seized documents reveal large-scale transfer of money from Syria and Lebanon to Islamic Jihad, Hamas, and indirectly also to the Fatah/al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades (in addition to funds received by Fatah from the Palestinian Authority). These funds were used to encourage murderous terror activities in the Palestinian territories and in Israel; carrying out these activities was a condition for transferring financial support to the terror operatives in the field.

The fact that Hamas runs soup kitchens and health clinics in the Palestinian territories doesn't make up for bombed-out buses and restaurants in Israel. Such community support is useful to terrorist groups needing good will from the populace, not evidence of pure civic-mindedness. Luckily, that's a lesson the terrorists in Iraq never managed to learn, or the (mostly Sunni) insurgents would not be starting to turn against them now.

So the Palestinian people elected Hamas to 74 of the 132 seats in their parliament. Must we treat Hamas as a legitimate political entity if they continue to carry out terrorist attacks? Of course not. President Bush has already warned Hamas that US aid to the Palestinian Authority depends on the cessation of terrorist attacks and the repudiation of their intention to destroy Israel. It was bad enough when the Palestinian government pretended to have no control over Hamas... now the Palestinian government is Hamas. 

Our tax dollars should not go to support Hamas or any other terror group... especially when they already have enough support from Iran. Our resolve to prevent Iran from building a nuclear device must be stronger than ever, now that Iran has a willing delivery system on Israel's doorstep. Israel's security fence may be their best protection from Palestinian terrorists armed with pipe bombs... but it won't stop a nuclear weapon.

Does this election mean, as many Liberals would like to claim, that democracy has failed and freedom in the Middle East is a pipe dream? Hardly. It merely drives home the lesson that open elections are not the sole component of democracy; that along with freedom comes responsibility. Choices do have consequences.

If Hamas renounces terrorism and behaves as a legitimate government, international repercussions will likely be few. The new government already faces the possibility of civil war within the Palestinian territory, as even members of the police force have stormed the parliament building in protest of the Hamas victory. Some Fatah party leaders have already resigned, either through fear of their constituents or refusal to work with Hamas. There isn't much hope for peace with Israel at this point. It seems as though Ariel Sharon's gamble of surrendering Gaza in the hope of buying peace isn't going to pan out, after all. On the other hand, at least we can all dispense with the fiction that the Palestinians want peace with Israel.

Demands for Mahmoud Abbas and the leaders of the Fatah party to resign will probably shift to calls for party reform in the near future, as even the most violent Palestinians prefer fighting Israel to fighting with their own government. With any luck, the Fatah party -- or another, reform-minded party -- can gain enough of a voice to prevent Hamas from declaring all-out war with Israel. That's a road that will lead to no good for anyone.

The 1973 Roe v. Wade decision made by the Supreme Court was arguably the worst abuse of judicial power ever committed in this country. No other Supreme Court decision has caused so much death, nor caused so many people to become so callous about the taking of innocent life. Roe v. Wade was a severe blow to the moral fiber of America... which is why Liberals must fight so fiercely to protect it from Americans, even after all these years. Abortion is THE issue in any political ring, despite Democrat protests that they don't have a litmus test for candidates and judges. That's a bit like the College of Cardinals claiming they don't have a litmus test to approve only Catholic candidates for Pope.

The Supreme Court's decision was based on a right to privacy that is presumed to exist, one of the "others retained by the people" mentioned in the Ninth Amendment. The "right to abortion" was supposedly discovered in mysterious "emanations" of "penumbras" surrounding the Bill of Rights. In other words, the Bill of Rights doesn't actually mention abortion at all, but the Court wanted to find a way to force the Federal government to protect it.

The Bill of Rights, one must remember, is not a document that grants rights to the people... instead, its purpose is to limit the Federal government's power to encroach upon the rights of both people and states. If an issue isn't specifically mentioned in the Constitution, the Federal government has no automatic right of jurisdiction in the matter. The Tenth Amendment specifically states: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."

The Supreme Court decided that abortion was too important to let the hoi polloi have a say, and removed the right of either states or people to decide the question by creating a new Federal power with a pen stroke. No matter what you may think of abortion, Roe v. Wade is a bad ruling: judicial activism at its worst.

And worse, it's a bad ruling based on a falsehood, one that has become so essential to Liberals that they repudiate any evidence that runs the danger of altering the conclusion. Abortion can only be legal as long as unborn children aren't considered human. That's the debate we really need to have.

Many Liberals continue to insist that an unborn child is about the same, medically speaking, as a wart or tumor. One doesn't need permission to have a wart removed, nor does a tumor have any constitutionally protected rights. As long as they can pretend that an unborn child isn't a human being (though they never seem to say what it might be, in that case), the Left can argue in favor of abortion. They call this "choice," as though opponents of abortion are opposed to making choices. The difference is that abortion opponents usually believe that "choice" is what you make when you get into a bed or a car and the clothes come off. In the real world, choices may lead to unwanted consequences, and killing an innocent life you created is no way to avoid them.

So how can we know whether an unborn child is human, and thus protected by law? Science and reason may help us find the correct answer. To be human is to be a member of the species Homo sapiens sapiens. One's species is determined by one's unique genetic makeup, which is formed at conception and never alters (at least, not in nature). An unborn child is, therefore, demonstrably human -- a living creature with unique human DNA -- and he or she should be entitled to at least some legal protection.

Returning to the Bill of Rights, the Fifth Amendment states: "No person shall be ... deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." Allowing one person to deprive another of life without due process is a violation of the latter's Fifth Amendment rights. Taking the lives of the most helpless of human beings because they are inconvenient -- the reason almost all abortions are performed -- is simply wrong.

The Left's biggest fear is that Judge Sam Alito, if confirmed to the Supreme Court, will overturn Roe v. Wade. The ruling could only be overturned if a state abortion ban like the one proposed in Ohio is challenged by pro-abortion groups, and comes before the Supreme Court. Even if the Court does overturn it, the only effect would be to return the abortion decision to the states, where it belongs. When that happens, the damage done to the Constitution in 1973 will be healed, and the debate over the fate of unborn children can begin in earnest, instead of being suppressed by fictional constitutional "rights." 

Many state legislatures, more responsive to actual voters than the Federal government, would regulate or abolish abortion. In 2004, the Associated Press reported that thirty states were preparing to ban abortion if Roe v. Wade was overturned. (Of course, the story may have been exaggerated in an attempt to frighten voters into defeating President Bush's re-election.) Some states might throw the question open for the people to decide by direct referendum.

That's how the Founders intended such unanticipated questions be addressed, but the thought of regular people making real choices is a fearful thing to Liberals. It's strange to see people who supposedly advocate "choice" insisting that people have no say in their own laws.

Are we really going to go through this whole Kabuki dance all over again? I thought we'd had enough of fake international support from backstabbing allies and a corrupt United Nations the last time we faced down a self-described enemy in the Middle East. Do we have to act out the same scenario again, or can we avoid the same pitfalls this time? Who benefits from this diplomatic ballet, anyway? Certainly not America or her real allies.

Once again, we must deal with a defiant Middle Eastern dictatorship that everyone agrees is working on weapons of mass destruction, has declared us an enemy, oppresses its own people, supports terrorism and uses oil to prevent being called to account for any of it. Once again, the United Nations is talking tough, and every nation stands behind us -- as long as we take no direct action. If we decide to do more than write stern letters and make speeches, you can bet that some of those who supposedly back us now will once again back away. And you can bet that it will be some of the same countries that do so. In the words of Yogi Berra, "It's deja vu all over again."

It was only a little more than three years ago that the United Nations Security Council voted unanimously to stop the threat posed by Iraq to the entire region. When push came to shove, three members of the Security Council refused to live up to all the resolutions for which they had voted. France, Russia and China, while voting to condemn Saddam Hussein, continued to support him in private. All three countries had oil exploitation deals with Iraq that they would lose with a change of regime. France had rights to the Majnoon and Nahr Umar oil fields, Russia had rights to the West Qurna, and China had rights to oil from Al Ahdab. All three countries, as well as Germany, had extensive economic ties to Iraq. All four of those countries vigorously opposed the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, when the time came to act.

Iraq refused to surrender all the materials and documents related to its WMD programs and other biochemical processes by the specified date. UNMOVIC continued to warn us that Iraq may be holding stockpiles of banned weapons. Yet France, Russia and China refused to even consider the "serious consequences" for non-compliance in the resolution they had signed. France's ambassador to the UN stated that he would veto any resolution that called for the use of force. France and Russia, along with Germany, continued to sell weapons and military equipment to Saddam right up to the day he literally crawled into a hole and pulled it in after him.

It was only after the Butcher of Baghdad was overthrown that we began to discover just how deep in his pocket influential people and institutions in France, Russia and China (among so many other countries) were. The UN's Oil-for-Food program, designed to prevent economic sanctions from being too harsh on the Iraqi people, became the "Oil-for-Votes" program instead.

Now it looks as though the United Nations will make similar strong demands on Iran, to convince them to halt their nuclear program. Sanctions against that country are being discussed... but sanctions will solve nothing, as they solved nothing in Iraq. If Iran should back down in the face of sanctions, how long do we keep them in place? What kind of hardship will they impose on the average Iranian citizen? Will we see another Oil-for-Food program take shape -- and will it, like the Iraqi version, become a cash cow for the regime it's supposed to humble?

This time, we are assured, the United States has the backing of every nation on the Security Council, including France, Russia and China. We are lulled by the thought that all of Europe is with us this time, including Germany. But we had their full backing and support in November 2002, didn't we? As long as standing up to terrorist dictatorships working on illegal weapons consists solely of putting words on paper and making tough speeches, we will have the support of countries that have economic ties with those dictatorships. When it comes time to back those words up with force, though, we can't trust nations whose economies depend on the enemy. We will undoubtedly see the same scenario play out with Iran that we did with Iraq. Which of our allies will stall, and finally veto, the use of force in Iran?

A Chinese delegation was in Iran as recently as December 2005, attempting to negotiate an oil contract worth one hundred billion dollars. In 2004, the Chinese firm Sinopec signed a deal with Iran for exploitation of the Yadavaran oil field near the border with Iraq. There are few reasons for China to back sanctions, let alone military action, against Iran.

Europe is becoming overrun with Middle Eastern immigrants. Between 15 and 20 million Muslims live in Europe, making up four to five percent of its population. France's Muslim population comprises between seven and ten percent of the whole. Most Muslims may be decent, law-abiding citizens, but terror groups, some funded by Iran, run almost unchecked throughout Europe. Not many European countries, especially France, will want to risk repeating the Paris riots of November 2005.

Russia is actually helping the Iranians build nuclear reactors, and even signed a deal to supply the fuel to power them in February 2005. Why would Russia abandon what might be its most dependable source of revenue for the next decade? Given Russia's deepening ties with China, that country could block any action against Iran as a way of appeasing both allies at once.

By working through the United Nations, we once again subject ourselves to unnecessary debate, delay, danger and demoralisation, even as Iran draws us all closer to the brink of nuclear war. The same countries that fought the overthrow of Saddam for economic reasons will likely fight the overthrow of Iran's government, and for the same motive. Shouldn't we learn from our mistakes, and stop entrusting our safety to those who have proven themselves untrustworthy?

If we must deal with Iran militarily, we will certainly need the support of other nations -- but let it be through NATO, not the UN. And let it be soon.

21 Jan 06 UPDATE: Iran signed a deal giving the Chinese oil firm COSL partial oil rights in the Caspian Sea yesterday. The odds that China will agree to sanctions or regime change in Iran are now slimmer than ever.

Four days of grueling confirmation hearings for Judge Sam Alito, and what have we learned that we didn't already know? Nothing. No one's mind was changed -- every Senator already knew which way he or she would vote soon after hearing that Alito would be the nominee, if not before. The only purpose of such a show is to play a public "gotcha" game, as Senators attempt to trap nominees into saying something that can be used to hurt them in the media.

It's about time we stop forcing nominees to endure hostile interrogations that serve no purpose whatsoever, and possibly violate restrictions on psychological torture. At one point, as Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) apologised for the reprehensible behavior of the Democrats on the committee, Alito's wife broke down in tears. We don't need any more of these useless confirmation hearings, the specter of which probably keeps some excellent potential public servants out of the job pool.

Harlan Fiske Stone was the first Supreme Court nominee to appear before the Judiciary Committee in 1925, but the process of confirmation hearings didn't become standard until thirty years later. As far as I'm concerned, the process ceased to have any meaning in 1993, when Ruth Bader Ginsberg perfected the now-standard practice of saying nothing at all before the Committee through lawyerly evasion and use of double-speak. Her non-performance has been the template for all confirmation hearings ever since.

We already knew that Senators love to hear themselves talk more than anything else, and will take any opportunity to grab as much "face time" in front of the cameras as humanly possible. Senator Joe Biden (D-DE), for instance, spoke for twelve minutes straight at one point, before he remembered that he was supposed to be asking a question. Alito, like every Bush nominee to every position, was forced to spend several days keeping absolutely still, wearing a poker face, as his personal and professional reputation, his judgment, his morals and his life were savaged before the cameras. The sight of Senator Ted "Splash" Kennedy (D-MA) accusing anyone of being a misogynistic elitist would have been laughable, were it not so morally repulsive. The only thing missing from the circus was Senator Bobby "Sheets" Byrd (D-WV) making a special guest appearance to accuse Alito of being a racist. Instead, that task also fell to Kennedy, who lied about Alito's record, stating that Alito had never decided any case in favor of a minority.

Before the hearings, we knew that no matter how many times the Senators asked the same questions, Judge Alito would never reveal what he thought about controversial cases like Roe v. Wade. "Controversial," especially in this case, means, "a bad judicial ruling that violates the Constitution, that everyone nonetheless is supposed to pretend is a proper law." The Democratic Senators -- and not-quite-Republican Senator Arlen Specter (R?-PA) -- practically demanded that Alito chain himself to upholding Roe v. Wade at all costs. Specter even referred to it as a "super-precedent," although there is no such term in law or logic.

The Left wants all judges to swear by "stare decisis" -- a Latin term meaning to stay with that which has been decided -- in this one case alone, while cheering such decisions as Brown v. Board of Education and Lawrence v. Texas, both of which reversed previous Supreme Court decisions. The Brown decision of 1954 rightly overturned the 1896 Supreme Court decision of Plessy v. Ferguson, in which the "separate but equal" doctrine was upheld. The Lawrence decision of 2003 overturned the 1986 Bowers v. Hardwick decision, in which the Supreme Court had correctly determined that sodomy laws, not being specifically addressed in the Constitution, should be decided by individual state legislatures. So why insist that this one case must never, ever be re-examined? Because the Left can not allow representatives elected by the people, supposedly answerable to the people, to vote on the most important element of the Liberal agenda.

We knew before the hearings that Alito briefly became a member of the Concerned Alumni of Princeton several decades ago because they were against throwing the ROTC off campus. We knew that he didn't immediately recuse himself from a case involving the investment firm Vanguard, although he did so when the plaintiff questioned his involvement. He had no legal obligation to recuse himself, as Vanguard did not benefit from his decision (and a completely different court reached the same verdict in a new trial).

We knew that he would have allowed the strip-search of a ten-year-old girl, because the warrant specified searching "all persons present" in the home of a known drug dealer. Not only was the girl a person, and present, but if the court suddenly discovered a Constitutional "age exemption" from search warrants, every criminal in America would keep a child nearby for concealment in case of a raid. We also knew that none of those things have any bearing on his fitness to sit on the Supreme Court.

How did we know all these things before the camera-hungry Senators on the Judiciary Committee wasted our tax dollars interrogating Judge Alito for four long days? Because the American Bar Association already took all those circumstances into consideration before unanimously granting Alito their highest recommendation, and their findings are a matter of public record. All those questions have already been answered for all to see.

Instead of staging a showy public witch-hunt for their own benefit, the ABA quietly studied hundreds of Alito's decisions and writings, and interviewed thousands of people with whom he had associated. No one can say that their analysis is flawed or their methods not transparent. The process of interviewing "well over 300 judges, lawyers, and members of the legal community nationwide" from "varying and different political, racial, ethnic and gender backgrounds" yielded "consistent and virtually unanimous comments" attesting to Alito's exceptional personal integrity, even judicial temperament and professional competence. Why can't the Senate use methods similar to the ABA for vetting nominees, instead of forcing us all to witness the taxpayer-funded character assassination of decent people nominated to important government positions?

It's lucky for some members of Congress that there is no such vetting agency that might impartially examine their integrity, temperament and competence. The "mainstream" media once held that job, but seems to have abandoned it to the "new" media of talk radio and the internet.