Quote of the day - Melanie Morgan

Not long ago it was fashionable to say that Ronald Reagan was nostalgic for a past that never was. Today it’s become apparent that American liberals are stuck in a pre-9/11 world that never really existed.

Melanie Morgan

Quote of the day - Ann Coulter

We know who the homicidal maniacs are. They are the ones cheering and dancing right now. We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war.

Ann Coulter - 9-14-01

Quote of the day - George W. Bush

"Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but does not end there ... This war will not be like other wars. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen ... Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime ... But the only way to defeat terrorism as a threat to our way of life is to stop it, eliminate it, and destroy it where it grows ... I ask for your ... patience in what will be a long struggle."

George Bush, September 20, 2001

I am John Doe; Spartacus; Peg Noonan

Check out the Spartacus PSA.

H/T Michelle Malkin. Here are the most important parts of the manifesto:

I will never forget the example of the passengers of American Airlines Flight 93 who refused to sit back on 9/11 and let themselves be murdered in the name of Islam without a fight.
I will never forget the passengers and crew members who tackled al Qaeda shoe-bomber Richard Reid on American Airlines Flight 63 before he had a chance to blow up the plane over the Atlantic Ocean.

I will never forget the alertness of actor James Woods, who notified a stewardess that several Arab men sitting in his first-class cabin on an August 2001 flight were behaving strangely. The men turned out to be 9/11 hijackers on a test run. . . .
I will not be cowed by your Beltway lobbying groups in moderate clothing. I will not cringe when you shriek about “profiling” or “Islamophobia.”

I will put my family’s safety above sensitivity. I will put my country above multiculturalism.

For those who don't understand the Spartacus reference, check out the movie:


Remember this manifesto the next time you fly or otherwise face a situation in which Muslims act suspiciously. Remember also that the people in skyscrapers won't have a choice as to whether to fight or not. If you back down or cower because you are afraid of being sued by Muslims, you may be allowing terrorists to take over a plane and attack a building. Your backing down may well leave not only your own children fatherless, but you will leave the people in buildings vulnerable. You will prove Michael Moore correct when he blamed "stupid white people" for failing to overcome the hijackers on 9-11.

Those who sue "John Doe" are laying the groundwork for more of this.





In October 2001, Peg Noonan wrote of her regrets at not being more aggressive with individuals that she saw videotaping St. Patrick's Cathedral and Rockefeller Center:

Suddenly to our right, on the sidewalk, we saw two "Mideastern looking men," as we all now say. They were 25 or 30 years old, dressed in jeans and windbreakers, and they were doing something odd. They were standing together silently videotaping the outside of St. Pat's, top to bottom. We watched them, trying to put what we were seeing together. Tourists? It was a funny time of day for tourists to be videotaping a landmark--especially when the tourists looked like the guys who'd just a few days before blown up a landmark.

We watched them. After a minute or so they finished taping St. Pat's and turned toward where we were. We were about 20 feet away from them, and we eyeballed them hard. They stared back at us in what I thought an aggressive manner: a deadeye stare, cold, no nod, no upturned-chin hello.

They stared at us staring at them for a few seconds, and then they began to videotape Rockefeller Center. We continued watching, and I surveyed the street for a policeman or patrol car. I looked over at the men again. They were watching me. The one with the camera puts it down for a moment. We stared, they stared. And then they left. They walked away and disappeared down a side street. . . . .

. . . and I continue to regret not confronting them, questioning them and, if I had to, tackling them and screaming for help. I could have gotten us all arrested. If they had been innocent tourists I would have apologized, begged their forgiveness and offered to buy them a very nice dinner. If they had not been innocent, I would have helped stop some bad guys.

In the past month I have evolved from polite tip-line caller to watchful potential warrior. And I gather that is going on with pretty much everyone else, and I'm glad of it. I was relieved at the story of the plane passengers a few weeks ago who refused to board if some Mideastern looking guys were allowed to board. I was encouraged just last night when an esteemed journalist told me of a story she'd been told: Two Mideastern-looking gentlemen, seated together on a plane, were eyeballed by a U.S. air marshal who was aboard. The air marshal told the men they were not going to sit together on this flight. They protested. The marshal said, move or you're not on this flight. They moved. Plane took off.

Good news: Everything went safely and calmly. Bad news: The two men were probably Ph.D.'s from Yale on their way to a bioethics convention. They made it clear they resented being split up, and I understand their resentment, and would feel real sympathy if they told me about it. You would, too.

But you know what? I think we're in the fight of our lives, and I think we're going to need their patience. And I think those who have not yet developed patience are going to have to grow up and get some.

emphasis added

But they will never grow up unless they have to - unless each of us stands up and says, "I am John Doe."
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Visit counter added on March 28, 2007

I support the "John Does" in their battle with the flying imams

H/T Powerline and Michelle Malkin.

Anthrax 5 year anniversary; New York Post; Johanna Huden

Michelle Malkin posts an item today about the fifth anniversary of the anthrax scare that began in the immediate aftermath of the 9-11 attacks. The MSM/DNC has ignored this anniversary much like it ignores other terror anniversaries.

The anthrax story has the hint of a prewar Iraqi connection - all the more reason for the MSM/DNC to pretend that this event never happened.

Michelle includes a photo from the New York Post front page during the height of the crisis. I remember this particular photo. Drudge included the photo on his page at the time. [See Michelle's post for the photo.]

When I first saw it on the Drudge Report nearly five years ago, I immediately drove to the nearest newstand to pick up a copy. I was inspired by the open defiance. [Little did I realize that the MSM/DNC would, by a process of attrition and guerrilla warfare against the War, drain away all such signs of defiance against the terrorists over the next 5 years. Cindy Sheehan has replaced Johanna Huden (and Todd Beamer and Pat Tillman and others) as a symbol of this war.]

When I asked the newstand clerk if she had the New York Post, she sort of shrugged, looked away with a frown and pointed to a stack of papers laying face down on the floor apart from all of the other neatly arranged newspapers. As I retrieved my own copy from the pile, it was obvious that the cover photo offended the traditional sensibilities of the newsstand clerk (and many others). I was glad. In order for us to fight this war, we needed to adopt the attitude that the Post once displayed. I saved my copy, which I still have today. I did not know that this newspaper copy would become a momento of the defiant attitude that we once had and need to recapture in order to win this war.

CNN 9-11 coverage; Jeff Greenfield; the day America's luck ran out

Click here for previous commentary of CNN's 9-11 news coverage.

As I noted earlier, CNN reran (on its "Pipeline" website) its coverage of the September 11 attacks. Another item I noted was the commentary of Jeff Greenfield. At one point, Greenfield listed some of the attacks that had occured during the previous few years, such as the first WTC bombing (in 1993), the USS Cole and the foiled millenium bombing. He stated that we had been lucky thus far, but today was apparently the day that our luck had run out. [I believe I am paraphrasing pretty closely here.]

I think a parallel is developing with current events in Iran. We have been lucky thus far that Iran (or Al Qaeda, etc.) has not delivered a nuclear device for detonation in Manhattan. The day will come when our luck runs out again and it will make 9-11 look mild by comparison.

As CCN viewers listened to Greenfield's comments on 9-11-01, I imagine many of them wished we had done more to protect ourselves after each of the previous events that he listed. We have that chance now. We have the chance to disarm Iran NOW before its nuclear program is complete and before it destroys a major American city. We have the chance to avoid the mistakes of the 1990's. I don't want to find myself sitting in front of a TV someday listening to future commentators tell us that our luck has run out yet again as we desparately await news from a 10 mile radius around a flattened and glowing New York City.

Quote of the day - Ann Coulter

We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war.

Ann Coulter - 9-12-2001

Quote of the day - Ann Coulter

Without the ethnic profiling going on outside of airports, no security procedure currently permissible inside airports would have prevented a terrorist attack that would have left thousands dead.

Ann Coulter - August 17, 2006

Quote of the day - Ann Coulter

We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war.

Ann Coulter

Al Zarqawi; Ho Chi Minh; the War on Al Qaeda

The MSM/DNC's favorite subject is Vietnam. The MSM/DNC will forever compare every war to Vietnam (unless that war is, itself, contrary to U.S. interests - like Bill Clinton's alliance with Kosovar muslims against the Serbian people). MSM/DNC has made it a fundamental strategy in its War on the War on Terror to say "Vietnam" at every opportunity.

But another difference has now emerged between Vietnam and the War on Terror. With all of its apparent expertise in Vietnam, the least the MSM/DNC could do is mention the fact that U.S. troops never killed Ho Chi Minh during the Vietnam war (Ho died of natural causes in 1969). But last week, as the MSM/DNC was forced to admit, U.S. forces killed Al Zarqawi.

Killing Al Zarqawi is not as good as killing Osama bin Laden. [Then again, the U.S. didn't kill Mao or Brezhnev during the Vietnam war]. But now Zarqawi cannot be praised by MSM/DNC historians as the man who "outfought" the United States - or the man who would have brought Jefferson style democracy to Iraq if only we had let him - or any other Ho-style sycophancy.

Zarqawi's death points out another crucial fact about this war. In Iraq, we are fighting Al Qaeda. We are no longer fighting Saddam Hussein. Hussein is in prison. Al Qaeda threatens to take over Iraq, just like they recently took over Somalia. Al Qaeda is the organization that knocked down the twin towers (and numerous other buildings in the immediate vicinity). The longer we stay in Iraq, the more Al Qaeda we kill. Those who urge immediate pullout from Iraq are demanding a retreat in the face of Al Qaeda.

Their surrender mentality is masked only by the passage of nearly five years since 9-11. Had Murtha, Kerry, etc. demanded retreat on September 12, 2001, they would have been marginalized immediately. Instead, they waited a few years and hid behind the fog created by years of MSM/DNC nitpicking and misdirection.

In order to clear the fog, just remember 2 things.

(1) Al Qaeda destroyed the World Trade Center complex.

(2) We fight Al Qaeda now in Iraq.

Quote of the day - Ann Coulter

I think our motto should be, post-9/11, 'Raghead talks tough, raghead faces consequences'.

attributed to Ann Coulter

Looting; a glimpse of the future

Below The Beltway said it best:

I've always feared what would happen if a major American city simply collapsed. It appears that we are finding out.

I won't repeat all of the looting stories here, but these stick out in my mind:

Inside the store, the scene alternated between celebration and frightening bedlam. A shirtless man straddled a broken jewelry case, yelling, “Free samples, free samples over here.”

Another man rolled a mechanized pallet, stacked six feet high with cases of vodka and whiskey. Perched atop the stack was a bewildered toddler. . . .
Most officers, though, simply stood by powerless against the tide of law breakers.

One veteran officer said, “It’s like this everywhere in the city. This tiny number of cops can’t do anything about this. It’s wide open.”

At least one officer tried futilely to control a looter through shame.

“When they say take what you need, that doesn’t mean an f-ing TV,” the officer shouted to a looter. “This is a hurricane, not a free-for-all.”

Sandra Smith of Baton Rouge walked through the parking lot with a 12-pack of Bud Light under each arm. “I came down here to get my daughters,” she said, “but I can’t find them.”

The scene turned so chaotic at times that entrances were blocked by the press of people and shopping carts and traffic jams sprouted on surrounding streets.

Some groups organized themselves into assembly lines to more efficiently cart off goods.

I think the scene in New Orleans may be a preview of what we may expect during the next terrorist attack on U.S. soil - especially if that attack is particularly devastating. Somehow we avoided this kind of thing on 9-11, but that situation was unique.

The MSM/DNC has been making Bush and America into the enemy for almost four years. The sense of unity that appeared on 9-11 is largely gone. I don't think we can count on the patriotism of American looters the next time an attack occurs.

The rest of us should take some lessons away from this episode about preparedness not only for the next terrorist attack, but for the civil unrest that will follow. Read Peggy Noonan's column from last week also, as she advises us to Think Dark.

"Moderate" muslims and Mecca

There has been much discussion lately about the reaction of "moderate" muslims to the possibility that America might attack Mecca if the Islamists nuke Manhattan. Al Qaeda supposedly has nuclear weapons already in place in the U.S. and is waiting to use them. Several commentators have raised the possibility that we would provoke the "moderate" muslims if we attacked Mecca.

I have discussed Mecca as a military target here.

Some of us seem to assume that there is this vast reservoir of "moderate" muslims that remain up for grabs like the fictitious "undecided voter" that appears every four years in American presidential elections. While there is much that we don't know about Islam, I suspect that "moderate" muslims, if they exist, care little about Mecca. I suspect that many muslims might be muslims in name only (like many nominal Christians in the West) whose "faith" plays little role in their lives. This is just speculation on my part, but it is educated speculation. Look at the pictures from the Cedar Revolution this past spring (most of which I lifted from Willisms.com).











At least one of the ladies in the photo at left is a Lebanese Christian, but at least one of them is supposedly Muslim.



Maybe I just need an excuse to post pictures like this, but I think these pictures tell a story. Do you think any of the women in these photos (or the men in their lives) care much about Mecca? Remember, Mecca is not simply a place to which one travels, hears services and prayers, takes photos and buys a religious trinket in the nearby gift shop. Mecca is steeped in ritual, tradition and discipline. No non-muslim has been permitted to visit that city in centuries (although a few (or at least one) did so in disguise in the 19th century).

Mecca's very survival (and that of the Kaaba stone) is offered as proof of Islam's invincibility. The Kaaba stone's destruction (even with conventional weapons and little loss of life) would send a powerful signal to the fanatics that they may be giving their lives for nothing. It would also send a signal to the "moderates" that they have nothing to fear from Allah and that the Islamification of the world is not inevitable.

Think of the photos as you consider the words of Mark Steyn:

But, you know, we've been told ever since 9/11 that the allegedly seething ''Muslim street'' was about to explode, and for four years it's remained as somnolent as a suburban cul-de-sac on a weekday afternoon. Invade their countries, topple their rulers, bomb their infrastructure from the first day of Ramadan to the last, arrest their terrorists, hold them at Gitmo for half a decade, initiate reforms setting the Arab world on the first rung of the ladder to political and economic liberty, and the seething Muslim street gives one almighty shrug.

Some thoughts on Mecca, the Kaaba Stone, Tancredo, Malkin, and the Captain

Kaaba stone at Mecca

Mecca is to Islamic terror what Japanese factories were to the Japanese war effort. Islam has no manufacturing or traditional military targets. Those who think only of traditional military targets are mired in the previous generation's war - the mistake of every failed general.

Belief in literal, fundamentalist, radical Islam is the terrorists' weapon for enlisting suicide bombers. Mecca is the Islamic "production center", the Islamic engine of war, the Islamic arsenal, the Islamic industrial base. The analogies go on.

I am not saying we should nuke Mecca, but we must stop thinking of the Kaaba stone as we think of the Vatican or a church or shrine. Our approach must change in some fundamental way NOW - not after the next terrorist attack.

The Captain and Michelle Malkin weigh in.

So do 1754 and Rottweiller.
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A final thought - officials in China are gauging our reaction to Tancredo as they weigh their options for invading Taiwan down the road.

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Another final thought.

A commenter from La Shawn's page made the following points:

There would be no need to nuke Mecca. All that is needed is to bomb the main mosque where the big meteor rock is stored that is worshipped once a year. This can be done in the middle of the night with a minimal, if not any, loss of life.

The reason why such an action is expedient is the fact Islamic superstition is tied to the promise allah allegedly made that no infidels (that is us) would ever destroy the mosque or desecrate the holy site. We have seen similar superstition with the whole flushing the Qur’an nonsense.

A surgical strike with 2 or 3, 2,000 lbs bombs, would show the false prophecies of the false god allah to be what they are, false and it would demoralize the beliefs of the jihadists. If allah cannot defend his own holy sites as he claimed he would, he is exposed as being the false god that he really is. Thus, there is no more a reason to make war; at least for a weak, defenseless god.

To place this in perspective, after WW2, General MacArthur insisted that the emperor go on Japanese national radio and renounce his claim as being a divine being. The reason that was necessary was because Japanese national imperialism was tied directly to the emperor who was the god giving the orders to make war. Once the “god” was exposed as false, the purpose for making war is gone.

This type of mentality is seen through out all of human history. The defeat of one nation was viewed as a defeat of that nation’s god. It demonstrated that the god was unable to defend the nation.

Hooray for Tancredo not being a girly man. Hewitt and the others criticizing him yesterday are an embarrassment and only demonstrate their myopic ignorance of Isalm in light of the historical facts. I can only wish Hewitt will educate himself.
The one bit of advice I would give Mr. Tancredo would be to clarify his comments in light of what I wrote above. Draw back on the nuke comment and talk about the destruction of the main mosque

Fred
www.hipandthigh.blogspot.com

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update - We have apparently offended the right people.

Here are a couple of additional things at which they can take offense.