On Thursday, President Barack Obama stated that he will not make a decision on Afghan troop levels until after the Thanksgiving holiday. This development came at the end of President Obama’s eight-day Asia tour, where he took time to stop at Osan Air Force Base in South Korea. While there, he remarked to 1,500 troops, “You guys make a pretty good photo op.”

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That says a lot, doesn’t it? Upon examination, photo-ops certainly seem to be President Obama’s main concern. If you will recall, just a few weeks ago, Obama visited Dover Air Force Base in Delaware as some of our fallen servicemen were brought home to rest. For reasons unbeknownst to many, the president thought it would be appropriate to allow cameras at the event. Most families were made uneasy by this, and in fact, only one family allowed cameras to follow their proceedings.

Because of that, his visit came off as self-serving, especially when contrasted with former President George W. Bush’s visit to Fort Hood, where he insisted that no press be permitted.

The underlying point of all this, is that President Obama only seems interested in our armed servicemen and women when he can use them as a prop to get his picture taken or to get himself on television.

It has been weeks since General Stanley McChrystal requested an additional 40,000 troops for the effort in Afghanistan, and in the process making it emphatically clear that this was indeed necessary, claiming that the effort was not sustainable with current resources. On top of that, General McChrystal was only able to secure a 25-minute meeting to make the request in the first place.

Something is desperately wrong here.

Does anybody remember the campaign, where Obama insisted that Afghanistan was a top priority? The war we should be most focused on, if you will? What happened to that?

The answer to that is simple. It was nothing more than a campaign promise. It has become quite clear that our Commander-in-Chief clearly has no interest in our effort there, and by extension, it shows exactly what he actually thinks of our troops, which is, not much.

You have to pay attention to what Obama is saying here, and the words that he uses. He is saying he will not make a decision until after Thanksgiving. He’s not saying he won’t commit more troops until after then. This is nothing short of him saying “Yeah, I’m going to continue to put this off until at least after turkey is served.”

Brave sons and daughters dying over there on a daily basis, and our president is content to dither and play games with American lives and American security. This is clearly a tactic he is using in an effort to placate his left wing base, military advisors and cost to America be damned.

This man has already made his decision, and deep down we all know what it is. He may finally be forced at some point to send additional resources at some point, but he clearly has no real interest in doing so.

The only future Barack Obama is interested in is his own.

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Let me first make it clear that I do not believe in the banning of books. Not Mein Kampf, and not that piece of putrefying hatred called the Koran. All books have a place, even if it is only in history.

That said, if ever there was an argument for banning the Koran, this would be it.

When a war is being waged against your country, propaganda for the enemy is forbidden. It is a condition of victory. We have to come to terms with the fact that war has been foisted upon us. The strategy to oppose it is entirely different from what would apply in normal times.

*****

Many people think the Koran is just another book, or just another religious text, or just another expression of one’s opinion. It is not. It is a casus belli from the Muslim standpoint, as are any goalposts that Muslims will gladly plant and move forward, in their strategy of conquest of kuffar territory.

As with Geert Wilders’ argument that if Mein Kampf can be banned for inciting hatred against Jews, so too should the Koran, this argument is good. It is sound. I don’t agree with the principle behind it, but I admit that it makes sense. Until such time as we can declare victory over our enemy and reassert our own cultural values, it seems ridiculous that we should be promoting and allowing the promotion of the very message that inflames our enemy to so much hatred.

Propaganda. Does the Koran fit the description?

1capitalized : a congregation of the Roman curia having jurisdiction over missionary territories and related institutions
2: the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person
3: ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one’s cause or to damage an opposing cause ; also : a public action having such an effect

As usual most of the world shows such a blatant double standard with respect to Israel and frankly, everyone else that we tend not to even notice it and on occasion, like Hitler’s ‘big lie’ tend to think there must be something to it for so many to buy into it. In a way I suppose there is. Oil money and fear of terrorism by immigrants to western nations. But here are a few links which offer some clear as day thought on the matter. Of course, when the UN passed a resolution against Israel as the worlds worst actor in terms of women’s rights it was so laughable that most ignored it. But now we are down to the existential.

First, from www.thereligionofpeace.com 9 questions that should be answered before anyone can criticize the Israeli actions in Gaza. I could add quite a few myself but this is a nice list.

Next an op ed from the National Post on same subject. Pithy and spot on. It’s not that this is profound or hugely insightful. It’s that a Canadian national newspaper has the courage to make a clear moral stand. I wonder if we could find this in a British major paper or any other European one. It is worth reading even if most of us already know these facts.

As an aside,
there was an attack on an American Jewish center. I doubt this will be an isolated event. Look for more in Montreal.

Meanwhile the religion of peace advances it’s cause for world domination while nobody much notices.

The Swat Valley in Pakistan has been pretty much taken over by Taliban/Al Queda. A close look at a map and some thinking about US Canadian operations in Afghanistan plus rapidly rising tensions between nuclear neighbors Pakistan and India will show why this story deserves attention. Pakistan is losing a lot of territory to the Islamists. They are moving troops away from the allied areas and re enforcing borders with India. This creates opportunity for Islamist expansion on that front. I recently spent close to a hundred dollars I really do not have to buy a decent world map. It may have been the worlds first sub prime map loan actually. Who knew in high school physical geography would actually matter.

Also Stratfor reports more deadly mortar attacks by Islamist forces in Somalia killing ten people today alone. The amusingly named MILF continues to attack bomb and spread hatred and fear in the Philippines and the western media either ignores it or claims its a separatist group. It is not. It is a group of Islamic supremacy.

This article about Russia’s approach to Islam is quite good as well. It explains the little known use by Russia of Islamic proxy’s. The US likely did this as well during the cold war. Chechen’s where most likely funded by the US to annoy and distract resources of the Soviets during the cold war and we all know about Afghanistan and the Mujahadeen proxies for the US. However what should be evident by now to all of us is that this backfires. Not just sometimes but all the time to most of the world. Even Pakistan and Iran have used Islam as the tie that binds disparate tribes to try and create a national identity. We see how well that works in both places. Well, I suppose in a way you can say it does.

Here is an article albeit an older one from Jeff Jacoby at the Boston Globe on UN hypocrisy with respect to Israel. Lots of links as well and a good read. Perhaps the fact that this was written before even rumors of a retaliatory strike on Gaza makes it more meaningful.

This to paraphrase Dr. Wafa Sultan, is not a war of civilizations. Civilizations compete. This is a war of civilization against barbarism.

James Cohen for Girl on the right.

December 17, 2008 | Khaled Abu Toameh
PA Tortures Journalists

“This is not Israel, where you are allowed to see a lawyer.”

Over the past two years Palestinian journalists in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have been subjected to a systematic campaign of intimidation that has resulted in the death of some and the detention of others.

The campaign, which is being waged by both Hamas and Fatah, has received almost no attention from human rights groups and advocates of the freedom of expression throughout the world.

By contrast, when a Palestinian journalist is accidentally wounded by Israeli gunfire during clashes with Palestinians, the incident makes headlines in major media outlets in the US and EU.

What is most disturbing about the campaign of intimidation is the fact that it’s being spearheaded by the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank. This is the same authority that is receiving hundreds of millions of dollars from American and European taxpayers’ money every month to build a proper judicial system and promote democracy and transparency among the Palestinians.

Click here to continue reading »

Another cowardly American is seeking refuge in Canada after volunteering for a war he didn’t want to be a part of. This man enlisted in 2005, and only a few months ago decided there might be torture afoot. Remember, Americans have been fighting in various places since 2002, and this man enlisted in 2005. Voluntarily.

“I did everything I was supposed to. I’m not afraid to be deployed. I’m not afraid to die,” Jemley said.

But he’s awful scared to end up in lovely Leavenworth for a few months, isn’t he? We’d be glad to host him here in Kansas, at the Disciplinary Barracks at the Fort. C’mon, Peter, join us! You craven pussy.

No, I’m not torn up over Fallon stepping down from CENTCOM. He’s an exceptionally good Admiral, but he shouldn’t be running a desert war.

I hope he enjoys retirement.

Forty-nine Iraqi “criminals” have been killed in three separate raids in Sadr City in the capital, Baghdad, the US military says.

That’s a headline on the BBC website. Note the scare quotes around the word criminals.

“The operation’s objective was an individual reported to be a long-time Special Groups member specialising in kidnapping operations,” it said.

Iraqi sources said women and children were among those killed, but the US said it was not aware of this.

Iraqi sources? What kind of sources? Is it the Iraqi government? Not exactly…

An official loyal to Moqtada Sadr said the attack was “simply barbaric”.

“Most of those killed and wounded were women, children and elderly men which shows the indiscriminate monstrosity of the attacks on this crowded area,” Abdul-Mehdi al-Muteyri told Reuters news agency.

The BBC feels the burden of proof should be on the American military to prove that those killed were indeed “criminals”, but has no trouble at all believing the henchmen of a known thug and terrorist. Disgusting.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has made it a little easier for us patriot-types to know where to invest our money. They have released a list of 100 companies who contribute to state-sponsored terrorism. And there are four Canadian companies on that list.

Five countries - Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria - are highlighted on the SEC site on a web page called “Countries the secretary of state has designated as state sponsors of terrorism.”

That page leads to others that list around 100 companies, including some Canadian ones such as Petro-Canada, which sold oil properties in Syria two years ago, and the Calgary-based Precision Drilling, an oilfield services company with drilling rigs in Iran.

Also included are Ontario-based YM BioSciences Inc., and Lundin Mining, whose registered address is in Vancouver, B.C.

Call your broker. Don’t support terror in an effort to get rich.

Some of the well-known names on the list are; Benetton S.p.A., Four Seasons Hotels Inc., Nokia Corp., Xerox Corp., Unilever PLC, and Reuters Group PLC.

Al Reuters? The devil you say!

Shockingly - shockingly, I tell ya - they were all Muslim. Wow.

Six foreign-born Muslims were arrested and accused Tuesday of plotting to attack the army’s Fort Dix and massacre scores of U.S. soldiers, a plot investigators say was foiled when the men took a video of themselves firing assault weapons to a store to have the footage put onto a DVD.

Three of them were illegal aliens (Oops, sorry. I meant “undocumented workers”).

“It doesn’t matter to me whether I get locked up, arrested or get taken away,” Serdar Tatar was quoted as saying. “Or I die, it doesn’t matter. I’m doing it in the name of Allah.”

This is what we’re fighting: an enemy who wants to die for their devil-god. A false religion, a cult of sex and death, from a false desert prophet. A Religion of Pieces.

Will we ever learn?

[Padre] Varga told the mourners. “A war took Patrick; evil in the world took Patrick. God caught him when he fell and now God carries him safely into eternal life.”

Pentland died when the light-armoured vehicle he was driving hit a roadside bomb near Kandahar.

What a lovely way to eulogize someone.

This is a wonderful statement on supporting the troops. It’s more than a sticker on your car (or a lapel pin like mine). It’s more than talking the talk.

It means never backing down, never giving up, never quitting. It means taking the time to make a difference in someone’s life-after all, did a soldier not make a difference in yours?

It means teaching your children that places like Normandy, Iwo Jima, and Bastogne are sacred, almost holy phrases that encompass all that we are and all that we must remain. It means getting off your chair and doing your part-whether that be reading to a double amputee fresh from the dusty hell of Iraq, packing granola bars into a box to be sent to the front, or just not ignoring those who are ignorant any longer. How many times have we all just sighed and rolled our eyes when we hear “I support the troops but not the war?”

I know that by linking to this post, I will get the freaks commenting how I should take my fat aging body down to the recruiting office and join the war, because of course it’s the only way I can truly show support. But those idiots only know straw-men. They don’t know about the late-night emails winging back and forth across the globe. The VOIP calls at all hours from Officers who have lost men, and how. The Officers don’t tell their wives these horrors. They don’t tell their mothers. The idiots can’t know about the frantic mothers who contact me to see if I can get word about their sons or their sons’ platoons from one of my friends. The idiots will never know what it’s like to hear about the losses from those who were there, and to not even be able to tell my husband or my closest friends about it.

So, idiots, may I ask what YOU are doing to support the troops?

H/t Michelle

Ok, I know I’m going to get into trouble on all sides with this, but thankfully I’m used to that. I’ll try to be delicate, given my own grave feelings on the subject.

Canada should not be televising the Repatriation Ceremonies of our brave dead. It’s gruesome, and it’s bad for the group morale of the country. Perhaps more Canadians would back our troops if they didn’t have to see the parade of flag-draped coffins go by on our official Death TV station, WDED. Oops, I mean CTV.

Every Canadian has the right (almost the obligation) to mourn for those who gave their lives. But there is something truly unsettling about watching the caskets come off the planes. The Americans don’t do this. Do the British? I’m not sure, but I don’t think so (someone step up if I’m wrong). There is a certain anti-war “I told you so” feeling to these ceremonies, and I think it’s inappropriate.

Please, if there are any families of lost soldiers out there who agree or disagree, I would love to hear from you. Maybe it’s just me. Or maybe you feel it too. Let me know.

Canada lost six today.

Six Canadian soldiers died Easter Sunday in southern Afghanistan in the worst attack on Canadian soldiers since Canada joined the conflict there.

The soldiers died and four others were wounded when the vehicle they were riding in came into contact with an explosive device.

Names have not yet been released, but that doesn’t stop us from keeping them and their families in our thoughts and prayers.

Via LGF:

The corporation has cancelled the commission for a 90-minute drama about Britain’s youngest surviving Victoria Cross hero because it feared it would alienate members of the audience opposed to the war in Iraq.

Would those be the same members of the audience who would have rioted has Britain used it’s dusty spine to free its sailors instead of humbly accepting them as a “gift”? Would those be the same members of the audience who protest holding signs that say “Behead those who insult Islam”? Because I assure you, it would not be the members of the audience whose fathers and grandfathers fought for Her Majesty themselves. It would not be the average middle-classman who understands that the freedoms they enjoy did not just spring up from a wild mushroom or something.

“The BBC has behaved in a cowardly fashion by pulling the plug on the project altogether,” said a source close to the project. “It began to have second thoughts last year as the war in Iraq deteriorated. It felt it couldn’t show anything with a degree of positivity about the conflict.

“It needed to tell stories about Iraq which reflected the fact that some members of the audience didn’t approve of what was going on. Obviously a story about Johnson Beharry could never do that. You couldn’t have a scene where he suddenly turned around and denounced the war because he just wouldn’t do that.

“The film is now on hold and it will only make it to the screen if another broadcaster picks it up.”

Here’s hoping a more patriotic station backs it. The so-called “British” Broadcasting Corporation has no room for the good news out of Iraq. Only the bad.

His latter-day minions are pretty damn cowardly. Think about it. Osama is hiding in a cave on the Pak/Af’stan border. Moqtada al Sadr has been hiding since the surge was announced. Even the “secular” Saddam Hussein was found in a spiderhole, wretched and filthy, not having seen the sun in weeks. These are the people that are leading resistance? How could anyone be foolish enough to follow them and do their bidding?

The orders [to resist the surge] come from a diminished Sadr, who still has yet to poke his head above ground in Iraq since the beginning of the surge. At first, he fled to Iran supposedly to hold strategy meetings with senior Mahdi Army commanders and to consult with his Iranian allies, but most suspected he bugged out before the Americans could seize him and his most loyal followers.

Sad, sad, sad.

It seems Toronto is harboring another war-dodging, yellow spined, America-hating cretin who thought joining the National Guard would be like basket weaving at summer camp.

U.S. army deserter Corey Glass smoked a cigarette during a break in his Immigration and Refugee Board hearing yesterday and hoped he’ll avoid time behind bars.

“I hope I don’t have to sit 20 years in prison,” said Glass, who fled the U.S. to resist fighting in Iraq and is seeking refugee status in Toronto. “And I hope it helps make something happen with someone admitting the war is illegal.”

But there are legal hurdles to clear for Glass, 23, before he can be granted his wish and avoid imprisonment in the home country he has no plans to return to.

His lawyer, Jeffry House, is arguing that the war in Iraq violates international law and therefore Glass should not be punished for refusing to take part in an illegal war.

I can hear the violins. Especially since he’s unlikely to serve more than a few months or a year in prison if he returns home and pleads guilty to cowardice.

He misses his parents and three siblings, who support his decision to flee, but Glass says he will not go back to the U.S. if his claim is denied here.

“I guess I’ll have to find out what I have to do then and start looking for other countries,” he said.

Try France, kid. They have a long and distinguished history of cowardice. They may make you their new king. Or mullah, anyway, given the direction they’ve taken.

For your blog-reading pleasure (and because there’s no damn way I’m passing up this opportunity), RightGirl is heading off to the sunny beaches of Oahu in 28 1/2 days. How does this benefit you? Well, I’ll be somewhat of a guest of the military establishment on the Island, including a very special tour of Camp Smith.

You see, for the past five years, all eyes have been on the Middle East in the War on Terror. How many of you are aware of the work that PACOM (Pacific Command) have been doing in places like the Philippines? How many of you are aware that we are facing an Islamic threat from there just as much as we are from the desert? And that the joint staff of PACOM are regularly sent to the Pacific Rim to clear out and rebuild areas? These guys should not be forgotten while - just like the Muslims are wanting - we’re facing East.

You may ask “How did RightGirl get such a plum assignment?” The answer is simple: I’m RightGirl. I believe that if you don’t ask, you don’t get, and that a little chutzpah goes a long way. So I made arrangements with some very dear military friends of mine to fly out there. They said if I was willing to fly 5000 miles by myself just to talk about the Pacific Rim WoT (and get a tan), they’d take care of all the arrangements on the ground. So for the bargain price (well, sorta) of a plane ticket, I’m getting a week in Hawaii. Some days being me isn’t all bad.

From EM comes an excellent post on things Khalid Shaikh Mohammed confessed to:

*Assembling an international coalition of terrorists, murderers and thugs
*Crocs shoes
*The Cory Kennedy-CobraSnake breakup
*Casting Hayden Christiansen in Star Wars
*Trying to steal Whitney Houston away from both Bobby Brown AND Osama
*Changing Martha Stewart’s stock information
*Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip.
*Insane Clown Posse and their entire, unwashed fan base
*Being the inspiration for A Million Little Pieces

And a whole lot more.

The bodies of 14 policemen were found Friday northeast of Baghdad after an al-Qaida-affilated Sunni group said it abducted members of a government security force in retaliation for the rape of a Sunni woman by members of the Shiite-dominated police.

How do we know the charge is bogus? Because if it were real, the woman would have been killed, not the Iraqi police.