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2016

A Complete Way of Death” Edward Cline

On May 26, Family Security Matters reprinted an article, co-authored by Clare Lopez and Retired Admiral James A. Lyons, which originally appeared on Accuracy in Media. “Misrepresenting the Threat of Islam” largely a critique of retired General David Petreaus’s article in the Washington Post (May 15).

Lopez and Lyons score Petreaus on his politically correct verbal soft-shoe about Islam, pointing out that he overlooks or chooses to ignore the fact of the Global Jihadist Movement (GJM), and that Islam is fundamentally not “religion of peace” that was “hijacked” by “extremists.” Jihadists, they write,

…are carrying out the core principles of Islam as specified in the Quran, Shariah and the hadiths.

Anyone who has bothered to peruse the Koran, Sharia law, and the hadiths, will acknowledge that this is a true statement. I maintain a folder devoted exclusively to violent Koranic verses; there are over two hundred of them I could easily cite here. The core principles reside in those verses and they are taken literally by jihadists of the Sunni and Shi’ite branches of Islam – as they were meant to be taken and which do not leave any room for subtextual interpretation. Those verses do not represent a guide to becoming flower children, but rather to becoming conquerors and killers.

Lopez and Lyons also upbraid Petreaus on his cheap shot at the First Amendment.

PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN ON MEMORIAL DAY 1982 AT ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY

Mr. President, General, the distinguished guests here with us today, my fellow citizens:

In America’s cities and towns today, flags will be placed on graves in cemeteries; public officials will speak of the sacrifice and the valor of those whose memory we honor.

In 1863, when he dedicated a small cemetery in Pennsylvania marking a terrible collision between the armies of North and South, Abraham Lincoln noted the swift obscurity of such speeches. Well, we know now that Lincoln was wrong about that particular occasion. His remarks commemorating those who gave their “last full measure of devotion” were long remembered. But since that moment at Gettysburg, few other such addresses have become part of our national heritage—not because of the inadequacy of the speakers, but because of the inadequacy of words.

I have no illusions about what little I can add now to the silent testimony of those who gave their lives willingly for their country. Words are even more feeble on this Memorial Day, for the sight before us is that of a strong and good nation that stands in silence and remembers those who were loved and who, in return, loved their countrymen enough to die for them.

Yet, we must try to honor them—not for their sakes alone, but for our own. And if words cannot repay the debt we owe these men, surely with our actions we must strive to keep faith with them and with the vision that led them to battle and to final sacrifice.

Our first obligation to them and ourselves is plain enough: The United States and the freedom for which it stands, the freedom for which they died, must endure and prosper. Their lives remind us that freedom is not bought cheaply. It has a cost; it imposes a burden. And just as they whom we commemorate were willing to sacrifice, so too must we—in a less final, less heroic way—be willing to give of ourselves.

It is this, beyond the controversy and the congressional debate, beyond the blizzard of budget numbers and the complexity of modern weapons systems, that motivates us in our search for security and peace. War will not come again, other young men will not have to die, if we will speak honestly of the dangers that confront us and remain strong enough to meet those dangers.

It’s not just strength or courage that we need, but understanding and a measure of wisdom as well. We must understand enough about our world to see the value of our alliances. We must be wise enough about ourselves to listen to our allies, to work with them, to build and strengthen the bonds between us.

Our understanding must also extend to potential adversaries. We must strive to speak of them not belligerently, but firmly and frankly. And that’s why we must never fail to note, as frequently as necessary, the wide gulf between our codes of morality. And that’s why we must never hesitate to acknowledge the irrefutable difference between our view of man as master of the state and their view of man as servant of the state. Nor must we ever underestimate the seriousness of their aspirations to global expansion. The risk is the very freedom that has been so dearly won.

It is this honesty of mind that can open paths to peace, that can lead to fruitful negotiation, that can build a foundation upon which treaties between our nations can stand and last—treaties that can someday bring about a reduction in the terrible arms of destruction, arms that threaten us with war even more terrible than those that have taken the lives of the Americans we honor today.

In the quest for peace, the United States has proposed to the Soviet Union that we reduce the threat of nuclear weapons by negotiating a stable balance at far lower levels of strategic forces. This is a fitting occasion to announce that START, as we call it, strategic arms reductions, that the negotiations between our country and the Soviet Union will begin on the 29th of June.

As for existing strategic arms agreements, we will refrain from actions which undercut them so long as the Soviet Union shows equal restraint. With good will and dedication on both sides, I pray that we will achieve a safer world.

Our goal is peace. We can gain that peace by strengthening our alliances, by speaking candidly of the dangers before us, by assuring potential adversaries of our seriousness, by actively pursuing every chance of honest and fruitful negotiation.

It is with these goals in mind that I will depart Wednesday for Europe, and it’s altogether fitting that we have this moment to reflect on the price of freedom and those who have so willingly paid it. For however important the matters of state before us this next week, they must not disturb the solemnity of this occasion. Nor must they dilute our sense of reverence and the silent gratitude we hold for those who are buried here.

The willingness of some to give their lives so that others might live never fails to evoke in us a sense of wonder and mystery. One gets that feeling here on this hallowed ground, and I have known that same poignant feeling as I looked out across the rows of white crosses and Stars of David in Europe, in the Philippines, and the military cemeteries here in our own land. Each one marks the resting place of an American hero and, in my lifetime, the heroes of World War I, the Doughboys, the GI’s of World War II or Korea or Vietnam. They span several generations of young Americans, all different and yet all alike, like the markers above their resting places, all alike in a truly meaningful way.

Winston Churchill said of those he knew in World War II they seemed to be the only young men who could laugh and fight at the same time. A great general in that war called them our secret weapon, “just the best darn kids in the world.” Each died for a cause he considered more important than his own life. Well, they didn’t volunteer to die; they volunteered to defend values for which men have always been willing to die if need be, the values which make up what we call civilization. And how they must have wished, in all the ugliness that war brings, that no other generation of young men to follow would have to undergo that same experience.

As we honor their memory today, let us pledge that their lives, their sacrifices, their valor shall be justified and remembered for as long as God gives life to this nation. And let us also pledge to do our utmost to carry out what must have been their wish: that no other generation of young men will every have to share their experiences and repeat their sacrifice.

Earlier today, with the music that we have heard and that of our National Anthem—I can’t claim to know the words of all the national anthems in the world, but I don’t know of any other that ends with a question and a challenge as ours does: Does that flag still wave o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave? That is what we must all ask.
Thank you.

Homeland Security Chairman: ‘FBI Is Investigating 1,000 Homegrown Terror Cases’ By Nicholas Ballasy

WASHINGTON – Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, warned that ISIS and its affiliates have expanded to 20 countries and that the terrorist group is connected to 80 percent of the 1,000 terrorist plots being investigated by the FBI.

“Two years into the fight, our Iraqi partners are making some progress in clearing ISIS outposts but I worry they cannot hold the territory they take back and in Syria; we still do not have a coherent ground force. The president’s original strategy — a $500 million program to train and equip local rebels — has been suspended because it failed miserably to train or equip anyone capable of confronting ISIS,” McCaul said during an event at George Washington University titled “The Terrorist Exodus: Resurgent Radicalism & The Threat To The West.”

“In the meantime, the Iranian-Russian intervention has strengthened Assad, which our commanders privately admit has benefitted ISIS…even as terrorists lose some ground in Syria and Iraq, globally they are gaining new ground. ISIS and its affiliates are presently in nearly 20 countries, from Algeria to the Philippines and as they expand, so does the danger to our people and our allies,” he added.

McCaul, who recently led a congressional delegation on a trip to the Middle East, stressed that the U.S. is not winning the war against Islamic extremism.

“Violent extremists are not on the run as the president claims. They are on the march and expanding at great cost to the free world,” he said. “Today we worry about more than just terrorist cells — we worry about full-fledged terrorist armies as they capture territory and enlist thousands to join their ranks.”

In Syria and Iraq, McCaul said the world is witnessing “the largest global convergence of Islamist terrorists” in modern history.

“All you have to do is look at the numbers. More than 40,000 aspiring jihadists have entered the conflict zone providing groups like ISIS with a larger fighting force than entire nation-states like Denmark or Norway and in some ways, terrorists have put together a broader coalition than the one trying to defeat them,” he said.

“At last count, we have brought together 66 countries to fight terror in Syria. But jihadists, on the other hand, have recruits from more than 120 countries that have joined the fight on the other side,” he added.

McCaul cautioned that ISIS has become more dangerous than al-Qaeda when Osama bin Laden was alive. CONTINUE AT SITE

CNN: How ISIS terrorists are infiltrating the stream of refugees to Europe By Rick Moran

We’ve known for many months that Islamic State terrorists have been using the flood of refugees going to Europe to hide their fighters. But how are they doing it?

A CNN report shows how easy it is – at least in Libya – for the terrorists to mingle with innocent civilians to make it to Europe – and perhaps points beyond.

Abu Walid knew his caller to be a devout man, a member of ISIS. And his request was chilling. Could he ship 25 of his people from Libya to Europe on a small boat for $40,000?

Abu Walid — not his real name — declined. But it is a request that’s becoming increasingly common, he told CNN, in the past two months.

ISIS is trying to infiltrate this trade to get their people to Europe from the chaotic and near-failed state of Libya as the route from Turkey to Greece becomes more heavily policed.

“Exploitation of migrant smuggling networks by ISIS in North Africa has only been a matter of time … the U.S. and Europe need to act quickly, and together,” a Western diplomat told CNN.

He also heard of a recent case of 40 Tunisian ISIS members leaving from the militant stronghold of Sirte. Thwarted by bad weather, they tried again ten days later. He didn’t know if they made it.

A senior Libyan military intelligence official in Misrata, Ismail Shukri, said that ISIS militants sought to disguise themselves by traveling with “their families, without weapons, as normal illegal immigrants.”

“They will wear American dress and have English language papers so they cause no suspicion.”

European officials insist they’re trying to be better prepared. A senior EU counter-terrorism official told CNN there were more Europol officers working at potential “hotspots” of entry for migrants.

Still, the prospect of such an influx is a nightmare for Europe.

“If confirmed it is indeed very alarming. It is not one or two trying to move — it seems more organized,” the official told CNN.

Jew-Hatred in Hong Kong: 2016 By Stephen Kruger

Hong Kong is a city of nearly 8 million people. Modern. Good intra-urban railway mass transit. Good bus service. Reasonably good governmental public schools, and a reasonably honest government.

Beneath the surface, there are societal shortcomings. Acceptable housing is in short supply, so flats are dear. Young adults, including those who maintain long-term relationships or marriages, live with their parents. Replacement of run-down housing stock is slow. People in extreme poverty live in cage housing — flats subdivided into small spaces, formed by vertical steel rods. Each space has room for a mattress and some possessions. One toilet for a dozen or more people.

Food is expensive. Many people work long hours in jobs that pay modest salaries.

Add Jew-hatred to the list of societal shortcomings. (I prefer “Jew-hatred” and “Judaism-hatred” to “anti-Semitism”, a misnomer).

There is in Hong Kong, as elsewhere, the Jew-hatred of Mohammedism. That term is accurate, because “Islam” connotes a religion. There is Mohammedism — a militant totalitarianism under the guise of a religion.

Picture a legitimate-seeming business that is a front for a mafia. The benign attributes of the front business do not change the criminality of the behind-the-front capo, his lieutenants, and his button men. In like manner, Islam is a front for Mohammedism. The benign attributes of the front “religion” do not change the behind-the-front pathologies — loathing of Jews, loathing of Judaism, loathing of Zionism, hatred of the West, hatred of Judeo-Christian values, antipathy to modern life, despising of women, and sexual abuse of children — of the imam, his lieutenants, and his terrorists.

In Hong Kong, Mohammedists express their Jew-hatred through insolence. Turning a back to a Jew who walk by. Cutting across the path of a Jew, as he walks down the street. Spitting.

All Mohammedists who hang about on the streets are male. Some are in their late teens. Most are men in their 20s and 30s. No teen-age girls. No women in their 20s and 30s. Necessarily, those males are limited to whoring and furtive same sex liaisons. I don’t know where Mohammedist families live.

Within the past six months, I noticed expressions of Jew-hatred among the general Chinese population. Young people, middle-aged people, old people. Low-income people and middle-class people (judging by their clothing). It was across the board. Perhaps the expressions of Jew-hatred are spillovers from the evil BDS movement.

The expressions are varied. Covering the nose with a hand. Translation: Jews smell. Scratching the torso with a hand, under an arm. Translation: Jews are apes. Grasping the throat with a hand. Translation: We’ll murder you. Putting a finger into a nostril. Translation: ____ you. Putting a finger into an ear. Same translation.

Turkey on the Road to the Precipice By Alex Alexiev

A few days ago, Turkey hosted something called the World Humanitarian Summit, shortly after its parliament passed a bill that would allow its government to lift parliamentary immunity and throw in jail members of parliament whose opinions do not agree with those of its increasingly dictatorial Islamist president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. This puts paid to any remaining pretensions Turkey had of being a democracy and guarantees that this NATO member is headed for disaster. To understand why this is now inevitable, a closer look at this pernicious bill and the background to it are needed.

After coming to power with a huge majority in 2003, Erdoğan, who never hid his ultimate intentions to pursue the radical Islamization of Turkey, introduced a number of policies that were well received. One of them was to enter into reconciliation talks with the large Kurdish minority and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) representing it, which had been the key factor motivating the bloody Kurdish insurrection that claimed 40,000 victims in the 1980s and 1990s. Two of these policies, the ability to use the Kurdish language and elect their own mayors in the vast Kurd-dominated southeastern part of Turkey, were particularly popular, and the PKK unilaterally declared cease-fire in March 2013 after months of negotiations between Ankara and jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.

In the meantime, however, the geopolitical circumstances of the large Kurdish minorities in the region had changed dramatically, encouraging greater strivings for autonomy. The Kurds in northern Iraq had de facto become independent and had also distinguished themselves as the only military force capable of standing up to ISIS. Something similar happened in northern Syria, where Bashar Assad withdrew his forces early on and the majority-Kurdish areas also became autonomous, as well as the main opponent of the Islamic State terrorists, who were tacitly or directly supported by Erdoğan.

Erdoğan’s relations with the Kurds took a turn for the worst with the siege of the Kurdish-Syrian town of Kobani and the occupation of 350 Kurdish villages by ISIS terrorists in September 2014. Ankara’s failure to come to the assistance of Kobani triggered violent anti-government riots across the Kurdish areas in Turkey that were brutally put down and poisoned relations further. The end of the efforts at reconciliation came after the parliamentary elections in June of 2015, when the Kurdish party, HDP, received over 13% of the vote and not only entered parliament, but denied parliamentary majority to Erdoğan’s AKP.

Judge Hanen Shows President Obama: We’re All Post-Constitutionalists Now The remedy for lawlessness is not more lawlessness.Andrew McCarthy

Let us stipulate that President Obama’s non-enforcement of the federal immigration laws, coupled with his even more patently lawless decree of positive legal benefits to illegal immigrants (e.g., work permits, reprieves from deportation), is an outrage. In fact, as I argued in Faithless Execution, it qualifies as an impeachable offense.

All that said, the remedy for lawlessness is not lawlessness. The comeuppance for an executive branch that egregiously oversteps its limited constitutional authority is not a judiciary that responds in kind. Thus, I’m at a loss to understand the enthusiastic applause on the right for an opinion and order issued on May 19 by Judge Andrew Hanen of the federal district court in Brownsville, Texas.

The ruling came in connection with a case brought by the governments of 26 states to challenge the validity of two of Obama’s unilaterally decreed immigration non-enforcement programs: Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA), and, to a more limited extent, Deferred Action for Child Arrivals (DACA).

Judge Hanen is justifiably outraged by the egregious misconduct of Obama Justice Department lawyers, a pattern of misrepresentations to the court that he found to be “intentional, serious and material.” In a nutshell, beginning in late 2014, Justice Department lawyers repeatedly promised that DAPA and its amendments to DACA were on hold and would not be implemented until mid February 2015. These representations lulled the plaintiff states into forgoing remedies they might otherwise have sought — e.g., restraining orders and a permanent injunction — to limit the damage done by Obama’s lawless conferral of benefits (which trigger various state expenditures) on illegal aliens. In reality, DAPA was proceeding apace, and applications by over 100,000 illegal aliens were granted during the purported suspension.

Hillary has been burying emails since she was First Lady: Paul Sperry

While the State Department’s own internal probe found former Secretary Hillary Clinton violated federal recordkeeping laws, it’s not the first time she and her top aides shielded her e-mail from public disclosure while serving in a government position.

As first lady, Hillary was embroiled in another scheme to bury sensitive White House e-mails, known internally as “Project X.”

In 1999, as investigators looked into Whitewater, Travelgate, Filegate and other scandals involving the then-first lady, it was discovered that more than 1 million subpoenaed e-mails were mysteriously “lost” due to a “glitch” in a West Wing computer server.

The massive hole in White House archives covered a critical two-year period — 1996 to 1998 — when Republicans and special prosecutor Ken Starr were subpoenaing White House e-mails.

Despite separate congressional investigations and a federal lawsuit over Project X, high-level e-mails dealing with several scandals were never turned over. And the full scope of Bill and Hillary Clintons’ culpability in the parade of scandals was never known.

To those well-versed in Clinton shenanigans, this all sounds distressingly familiar.

ROGER FRANKLIN: PLAYTIME FOR TEACHER

Way down at the very bottom of the Victorian Education Department’s list of plays deemed suitable for study in HSC classrooms there is Othello, which the teachers’ guide helpfully attributes to William Shakespeare. These are modern teachers we are talking about, remember, and some maybe unaware of the Bard, there being too few hours in the day to grapple with the classics when sexism, racism, gender fluidity and environmental destruction occupy so much of an educator’s time and mind. Those topics certainly rate higher places on the reading list than the tale of a Moor prone to inflicting domestic violence, his wife’s hanky and a typically treacherous white man. That may or may not be how Othello is taught these days, with or without reference to the rampant Islamophobia in the Venice of old, but in the absence of a plot summary on the study list of “texts” such a tack must be deemed a distinct possibility. We can be certain, however, that James Thurber’s depiction (above) of Act V, Scene II’s nasty business in the bedroom will not be an approved illustration.

Other plays are more fulsomely described. For example, consider the modern re-working of Dangerous Liaisons by Christopher Hampton:

This presentation of Dangerous Liaisons utilises cross-gendered performance, bouffon clowning, grotesquery and a high-camp aesthetic. Genders are flipped to emphasise the satirical nature of the text … Hampton’s dissections of sexism, sexuality and the role of gender in warfare are potent as he takes a classic text and brings a super-feminist and contemporary approach … This production acknowledges … the possibility of a post-gendered society, one where the divide between male and female is not so black and white.

Then there is Berthold Brecht’s The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui , whose central Chicago gangster is — or rather was — a burlesque of Hitler. That is no longer the case, apparently, as teachers need to alert children to the fact that the jackboots are today being worn by an entirely new threat to civilised life, conservatives:

Each scene will be its own set piece, demonstrating a particular aspect of Arturo’s rise and highlighting how that moment corresponds with the historical rise of Hitler. This production draws connections between the events of the play, Hitler’s ascension to power, and the current waves of conservative politics spreading across the western world.

Mind you, again according to the notes, this time for The Honey Bees by Caleb Lewis, capitalist depredations have left little of the world not yet ruined:

The ‘colony collapse disorder’ that provides a background for the narrative is a real environmental disaster that has been spreading across the globe since 2007, laying waste to bee populations wherever it strikes and it’s still not known why. In the play, the only country untouched is Australia. This is a vitally important story of human relationships set against a backdrop of an almost invisible worldwide catastrophe happening right now.

Once the HSC kiddies have been exposed to the general rottenness of the West, the same West which hires so many theatre teachers, there is Tales of a City by the Sea by Samah Sabawi. Set in Gaza, it is said to depict the lives and loves of Palestinians who must exist with the thought that a Zionist bomb might come down the chimney at a moment’s notice.

Clinton email headache is about to get worse By Julian Hattem

A scathing inspector general’s report this week was just the first in what is likely to be a series of official actions related to her private server stemming from the FBI, a federal courthouse and Capitol Hill.

Clinton’s presidential campaign has failed to quiet the furor over the issue, which has dogged her for more than a year.

In the next few weeks — just as the likely Democratic presidential nominee hopes to pivot towards a general election — it will face its toughest scrutiny yet.

“All of that feeds into this overarching problem of public distrust of her,” said Grant Reeher, a political science professor at Syracuse University.

“To put it in slang terms, she’s got a pretty deeply held street rep at this point. This fits the street rep,” he added.

The State Department’s watchdog report was especially damaging, given the official nature of its source. The report claimed that Clinton never sought approval for her “homebrew” email setup, that her use of the system violated the department’s record-keeping rules and that it would have been rejected had she brought it up to department officials.

Clinton’s allies attempted to paint the office as partisan in the weeks ahead of the report’s release, but the effort failed to leave a lasting impact.