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March 2016

You Better Believe ‘Islam Hates Us’ By Raymond Ibrahim

Donald Trump’s latest politically incorrect comment concerning Islam is much truer than most know.

After being asked last week on CNN if he believed the West was at war with Islam, the Republican presidential candidate simply said:

I think Islam hates us. There’s something there that — there’s a tremendous hatred there. There’s a tremendous hatred. We have to get to the bottom of it. There’s an unbelievable hatred of us.

While millions of Americans undoubtedly agree with Trump’s assertions — at least those who have eyes and ears to see and hear with — few realize that this “tremendous hatred” is not a product of grievances, political factors, or even an “extremist” interpretation of Islam; rather, it is a direct byproduct of mainstream Islamic teaching.

According to the ancient Islamic doctrine of wal’a wa bara’, or “loyalty and enmity” — which is well grounded in Islamic scriptures, well sponsored by Islamic authorities, and well manifested all throughout Islamic history and contemporary affairs — Muslims must hate and oppose everyone who is not Muslim, including family members.

James C. Bennett Preferring the Pirate

A Trump administration may well see needed reforms left undone and unneeded populist measures promoted. As this most unlikely of candidates draws closer to the GOP’s nomination, one thing is certain: Whatever the mogul’s flaws, and they are many, he is less dangerous than Hillary

ships riggedBeing a great aficionado of Patrick O’Brien’s tales of the Georgian Royal Navy, I beg the reader’s indulgence of my using a metaphor from that era. Imagine the American Right to be in the position of a Royal Navy captain of the Napoleonic Wars era, who has found himself trapped in a narrow strait of water blocked at one end by a strong French fleet, and at the other by a large ship which he recognizes as belonging to an infamous and eccentric buccaneer. Escape might still be possible by skirting past the pirate, but is growing more improbable by the moment. The crew, so loyal and steadfast in the past, is becoming spooked. Some are even jumping overboard and swimming toward the pirate vessel, hoping to join him, and the corpulent purser has absconded with a ship’s boat, rowing in the pirate’s direction.

The choices are grim. To surrender to the French is an appalling prospect, meaning four or even eight years in a prison hulk. However, the pirate is so eccentric and unpredictable that he might just kill you for surrendering to him. You call a council of war with your remaining officers and hear their opinions. One counsels that you take to the remaining boats and set the ship on fire, rather than surrender her to either. That would deny the ship to your enemies but leave you adrift and helpless. You might indeed make your way to shore and slowly, painfully use salvaged supplies to build a new ship, but that is uncertain, and would certainly leave you stranded for a long time.

Michael Copeman Over the Hillary

Pity those poor Americans in this presidential election year. In one corner, the bizarre figure of Donald Trump. In the other, the woman who excused her husband’s sexual predations, achieved nothing in the Senate and made cowardice her guide as Secretary of State. Some choice, eh?

Listening to one of Hillary Clinton’s stump speeches as she pursues the Democrats’ presidential nomination, you could be forgiven for suspecting that, taken at her word, she has been personally responsible for the liberation of women. In truth, her vapid and dismissive response to Bill Clinton’s history of abusive affairs likely set the women’s movement back many years. Hillary’s citing of a fabled “vast right-wing conspiracy” somehow, according to a compliant press corps, made Bill’s appalling history seem a mere side issue, all the allegations presented as no more than mere excuses to bring him down. Lies under oath, innovative uses for cigars and interns — even rape if you accept the word of at least two alleged victims and the late Christopher Hitchens, who wrote of having spoken at length to a third.

But none of this bothered Mrs Clinton, who has continued to present herself as the essence and hope of womanhood’s advancement. What she ignores are the key advances that have made life better for women and enabled them to take up opportunities previously un-achievable or forbidden. Legislation for compulsory school education for all children in the late 19th Century arguably opened the way. Those educated women would grow up to demand the vote, more control of money, and less back-breaking domestic drudgery.

The Political Stupidity of the Jews Revisited Why do so many of my fellow Jews stay in the Democratic Party’s pocket? By Joseph Epstein

The story has it that during the George H.W. Bush administration, James Baker proposes to his boss an idea that would go against Israeli interests. “The Jews aren’t going to like it,” President Bush says. Mr. Baker replies: “They don’t vote for us anyway—screw ’em!” Fast forward 15 years, when Rahm Emanuel proposes a different idea to his boss that would also go against Israeli interests. “The Jews aren’t going to like it,” President Obama says. Mr. Emanuel replies: “They vote for us anyway—screw ’em!”

Such, one might say, are the advantages of bloc voting for ethnic groups. Just as Democratic politicians assume the support of black voters, the Jews have been in the pocket of the Democratic Party at least as far back as Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and though there are few Jews alive today who were old enough to have voted for FDR, they, the Jews, are still in that pocket. This despite the fact that we now know that FDR was not such a grand friend to the Jews, for he did nothing to stop or even slow the Nazi genocide of Jews during World War II, and instead, when told by Rabbi Stephen Wise of the death camps, counseled silence on the subject. CONTINUE AT SITE

An Average Terror Sunday Few days go by without attacks on innocents somewhere in the world.

Welcome to what is becoming the new global terrorist normal.

Few days go by now without at least one mass-casualty terrorist attack somewhere in the world. Two such attacks on Sunday, in the Ivory Coast and Turkey, killed 39 people combined.

On Sunday afternoon gunmen raided Grand Bassam, a resort town in the Ivory Coast popular with wealthy locals and Westerners. The assault followed the template of other recent Islamist attacks in the region, with gunmen spraying fire at vacationers on the beach.

At least 12 people were murdered in Grand Bassam, at least one a French citizen, before security forces killed six terrorists and stopped the attack, according to the Ivorian government. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb claimed responsibility for the attack.

Left unchecked in the Middle East, al Qaeda and Islamic State (ISIS) have expanded into Africa. An Islamist crescent stretches from the Horn of Africa to West Africa, and to compete for recruits Africa’s al Qaeda and ISIS affiliates are racing to out-do each other in savagery. CONTINUE AT SITE

The U.S. Is Botching the Zika Fight A genetically tweaked mosquito could stop the illness, but regulators won’t test it. Why would that be? By John J. Cohrssen and Henry I. Miller

Almost every day seems to bring more bad news about the Zika virus: babies born with malformed brains; adults suffering the progressive paralysis of Guillain-Barré syndrome; Americans diagnosed after traveling to the tropics; active transmission of the disease in U.S. territories. Several companies are working on a vaccine, but primarily because of regulatory requirements none is likely to become commercially available before the end of the decade.

Last month President Obama announced that he will ask Congress for $1.8 billion to fight the mosquito-borne disease. But the president seems unaware that the bumbling of his Food and Drug Administration is blocking progress on a vital tool to control the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that carry and transmit Zika and the viruses that cause dengue fever, chikungunya and yellow fever.

Using genetic engineering techniques, the British company Oxitec (a subsidiary of American-owned Intrexon) has created male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes with a specific mutation that causes them to need a certain chemical (the antibiotic tetracycline) to survive. Without it, they die—and their offspring die before reaching maturity. Releasing the males over several months causes a marked reduction in the mosquito population. Because male mosquitoes don’t bite, they present no health risk, and, because their progeny die, no genetically engineered mosquitoes persist in the environment.

This approach has already been widely and successfully tested abroad. Brazil has approved it, and Oxitec is helping to control mosquitoes in the city of Piracicaba. But in the U.S. the FDA has been paralyzed, unwilling to permit even small-scale testing. How did the feds go wrong? CONTINUE AT SITE

RACHEL EHRENFELD:IRAN THUMBS ITS NOSE AT OBAMA

Iran’s firing long-range ballistic missiles that could reach Israel last week was the result of the Obama administration’s unwavering refusal to hold the regime accountable.

Last week Iran flaunted its violation of U.N. Resolution 2231, which bans Tehran from “any activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using ballistic missile technology.”

But Iran feels reassured. After all, the regime was not held responsible for three fire previous testing of ballistic missiles, even after the Iran Deal was agreed upon. Instead of punishing the Islamic Republic, the U.S. added a few Iranian individuals and companies to its designation list, as if these were engaging in a private missiles development program.