The devil is in the ellipses

Terrorist propagandist CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) is offering "biographical" material on their false prophet. On their web site is a page hosting a careful edit of his last sermon.

The revised text provides a prettier picture of Islam and Mohammed than does the original version; neither give the full import (for Infidels) of the message Mahomet conveyed to Allah's people.

From Explore the Life of Muhammad:

...“Beware of Satan for the safety of your religion. He has lost all hope that he will ever be able to lead you astray in big things, so beware of following him in small things.

“O People: It is true that you have certain rights in regard to your women, but they also have rights over you. Remember that you have taken them as your wives, only under God's trust and with His permission. . . Do treat your women well and be kind to them, for they are your partners and committed helpers...

“O People: Listen to me in earnest, worship God, say your five daily prayers, fast during the month of Ramadan, and give your wealth in regular charity (zakat). Perform Hajj if you can afford to.

“All mankind is from Adam and Eve. An Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor does a non-Arab have any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over a black, nor a black has any superiority over a white - except by piety and good action...

“Remember one day you will appear before God and answer for your deeds. So beware, (and) do not stray from the path of righteousness after I am gone...

“I leave behind me two things, the Quran and the Sunnah (traditions), and if you follow these you will never go astray. All those who listen to me shall pass on my words to others and those to others again; and may the last ones understand my words better than those who listened to me directly. Be my witness, O God, that I have conveyed your message to your people."

And here's what the Council on American Infidel Reprogramming doesn't want you to know:

This Sermon was delivered on the Ninth Day of Dhul Hijjah 10 A.H in the Uranah Valley of mount Arafat.

"O People, lend me an attentive ear, for I don't know whether, after this year, I shall ever be amongst you again. Therefore listen to what I am saying to you carefully and TAKE THIS WORDS TO THOSE WHO COULD NOT BE PRESENT HERE TODAY.

O People, just as you regard this month, this day, this city as Sacred, so regard the life and property of every Muslim as a sacred trust. Return the goods entrusted to you to their rightful owners. Hurt no one so that no one may hurt you. Remember that you will indeed meet your LORD, and that HE will indeed reckon your deeds. ALLAH has forbidden you to take usury (Interest), therefore all interest obligation shall henceforth be waived...

This is consistent with Islam's core belief that a Muslim is of more worth than a non-Muslim and deserving of significantly greater rights. This inequality is made law under Shari'ah.

Beware of Satan, for your safety of your religion. He has lost all hope that he will ever be able to lead you astray in big things, so beware of following him in small things.

O People, it is true that you have certain rights with regard to your women, but they also have right over you. If they abide by your right then to them belongs the right to be fed and clothed in kindness. Do treat your women well and be kind to them for they are your partners and comitted helpers. And it is your right that they do not make friends with any one of whom you do not approve, as well as never to commit adultery.

This is consistent with Allah's command and Mohammed's example that a woman has significantly fewer rights than a man, and a woman less than her husband, including a husband's right to beat a disobedient wife.

O People, listen to me in earnest, worship ALLAH, say your five daily prayers (Salah), fast during the month of Ramadhan, and give your wealth in Zakat. Perform Hajj if you can afford to. You know that every Muslim is the brother of another Muslim. YOU ARE ALL EQUAL. NOBODY HAS SUPERIORITY OVER OTHER EXCEPT BY PIETY AND GOOD ACTION.

Again, the superiority of Muslims over non-Muslims.

Remember, one day you will appear before ALLAH and answer for your deeds. So beware, do not astray from the path of righteousness after I am gone.

O People, NO PROPHET OR APOSTLE WILL COME AFTER ME AND NO NEW FAITH WILL BE BORN. Reason well, therefore, O People, and understand my words which I convey to you. I leave behind me two things, the QUR'AN and my example, the SUNNAH and if you follow these you will never go astray.

All those who listen to me shall pass on my words to others and those to others again; and may the last ones understand my words better than those who listen to me direcly. BE MY WITNESS O ALLAH THAT I HAVE CONVEYED YOUR MESSAGE TO YOUR PEOPLE."

And what is that message from Allah and his false prophet in Qur'an and Sunnah from which the faithful should never stray? This:

"...fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war)..." (Qur’an 9:5).

"Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued" (Qur'an 9:29).

"Say to the Unbelievers, if (now) they desist (from Unbelief), their past would be forgiven them; but if they persist, the punishment of those before them is already (a matter of warning for them). And fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah altogether and everywhere; but if they cease, verily Allah doth see all that they do" (Qur'an 8:38, 39).

"Fighting is prescribed for you, and ye dislike it. But it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is good for you, and that ye love a thing which is bad for you. But Allah knoweth, and ye know not" (Qur'an 2:216).

"Allah's Apostle said: 'I have been ordered (by Allah) to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is Allah's Apostle, and offer the prayers perfectly and give the obligatory charity, so if they perform at that, then they save their lives and property from me except for Islamic laws and then their reckoning (accounts) will be done by Allah'" (Bukhari Volume 1, Book 2, Number 24).

“Muhammad said, ‘A single endeavor of fighting in Allah’s Cause is better than the world and whatever is in it’” (Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 50).

“A man came to Allah’s Apostle and said, ‘Instruct me as to such a deed as equals Jihad in reward.’ He replied, ‘I do not find such a deed’” (Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 44).

"O ye who believe! what is the matter with you, that, when ye are asked to go forth in the cause of Allah, ye cling heavily to the earth? Do ye prefer the life of this world to the Hereafter? But little is the comfort of this life, as compared with the Hereafter. Unless ye go forth, He will punish you with a grievous penalty, and put others in your place; but Him ye would not harm in the least. For Allah hath power over all things" (Qur'an 9:38, 39).

Allah and his (false) prophet (considered the "ideal" man in Islam) on terrorism:

"Remember thy Lord inspired the angels (with the message): 'I am with you: give firmness to the Believers: I will instill terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them'" (Qur'an 8:12).

“Allah’s Apostle said, ‘I have been made victorious with terror. The treasures of the world were brought to me and put in my hand’” (Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 220).

Islam on Mohammed's raping of his nine-year-old "wife" and justifying it by saying Allah ordained it:

“My mother came to me while I was being swung on a swing between two branches and got me down. My nurse took over and wiped my face with some water and started leading me. When I was at the door she stopped so I could catch my breath. I was brought in while Muhammad was sitting on a bed in our house. My mother made me sit on his lap. The other men and women got up and left. The Prophet consummated his marriage with me in my house when I was nine years old” (Tabari 9:131).

“Allah’s Apostle told Aisha [his six-year-old bride and nine-year-old sexual "partner"], ‘You were shown to me twice in my dreams. I beheld a man or angel carrying you in a silken cloth. He said to me, “She is yours, so uncover her.” And behold, it was you. I would then say to myself, “If this is from Allah, then it must happen”’” (Bukhari Volume 9, Book 87, Number 139-140).

For those who claim the god of Islam is the God of the Bible, Allah doesn't think so:

"In blasphemy indeed are those that say that Allah is Christ the son of Mary. Say: "Who then hath the least power against Allah, if His will were to destroy Christ the son of Mary, his mother, and all every - one that is on the earth? For to Allah belongeth the dominion of the heavens and the earth, and all that is between. He createth what He pleaseth. For Allah hath power over all things" (Qur'an 5:17).

"They do blaspheme who say: Allah is one of three in a Trinity: for there is no god except One Allah. If they desist not from their word (of blasphemy), verily a grievous penalty will befall the blasphemers among them" (Qur'an 5:73).

"The Jews call 'Uzair a son of Allah, and the Christians call Christ the son of Allah. That is a saying from their mouth; (in this) they but imitate what the unbelievers of old used to say. Allah's curse be on them: how they are deluded away from the Truth" (Qur'an 9:30)!

The "divine" command for beheading:

"Remember thy Lord inspired the angels (with the message): 'I am with you: give firmness to the Believers: I will instill terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them'" (Qur'an 8:12).

"Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers (in fight), smite at their necks; At length, when ye have thoroughly subdued them, bind a bond firmly (on them): thereafter (is the time for) either generosity or ransom: Until the war lays down its burdens. Thus (are ye commanded): but if it had been Allah's Will, He could certainly have exacted retribution from them (Himself); but (He lets you fight) in order to test you, some with others. But those who are slain in the Way of Allah,- He will never let their deeds be lost" (Qur'an 47:4).

How Allah deals with prisoners of war (apparently he hasn't heard of the Geneva Conventions):

"The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter..." (Qur'an 5:33).

Mohammed on the immutability of Islam (apart from what he himself decides to change):

"I heard the Prophet saying...'Far removed (from mercy), far removed (from mercy), those who changed (the religion) after me!'" (Bukhari Volume 9, Book 88, Number 174).

“The Prophet said, ‘If I take an oath and later find something else better than that, then I do what is better and expiate my oath'" (Bukhari Volume 7, Book 67, Number 427).

On the abrogation of earlier, more peaceful Qur'anic verses in favor of the numerous verses of blood:

“Whatever communications We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, We bring one better than it or like it. Do you not know that Allah has power over all things” (Qur'an 2:106)?

Mohammed on freedom of religion:

"Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him" (Bukhari Volume 9, Book 84, Number 57).

And on truthfulness:

"War is deceit" (Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 268).

Where do the Scriptures describe Christians violently resisting evil?

In Luke 22, Jesus warns His Apostles to prepare to fend for themselves since He is about to be taken away. He tells them to buy a sword. The disciples respond with, "We have two."

Jesus replies, "That is enough." Later that night, Christ warns Peter against living by the sword (and in that particular context, trying to prevent Him from fulfilling His mission).

A wise man made the point recently to me (noted below) that the first Christians didn't use violence against evil.

From here:

bw says:

The absurdity of your statement is seen in your ability to understand that your death would not be worth what Christ's was....It wouldn't be for the same purpose or have the same value...while His enabled the ultimate victory, yours - the "sacrificial death of an 'innocent' man while purporting to do what Christ did" only enables evil and wickedness....your death will not influence evil in any way....it's another way of saying "who do you think you are?"....
The greater injustice is a good man - who could spread goodness - allowing himself to be killed in some twisted self righteous way, enabling spreading of evil....

But YHWH says:

You have heard that it was said, "Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth." But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

You have heard that it was said, "Love your neighbor and hate your enemy." But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Nations have authority to war. Christians have a duty to defend others. Self-defense also seems allowed, but as noted above, where in the Old or New Testaments do you find believers violently defending just themselves?

With this silly view, Christianity would've been wiped out long ago...or does evil not really exist?

This is what persecutors of Christ's body have always tried to do. The Scriptures say, "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."

Here is some good advice on Christian self-defense from someone who had to deal with the Religion of Peace in his own day:

Luther's Advice in Dealing with Islam

SIR CHRISTIAN -- THE FIRST MAN

The advice of Luther concerning the Islamic threat in Europe during the Sixteenth Century was not the crusades, for to advocate a Christian crusade against the Muslims was to mix spiritual authority with temporal authority. The consequences of such a mixture and a confusion of the two authorities would be to draw God's wrath and insure the success of Islam. Instead, the Muslims were to be fought spiritually by Christians with repentance, the amendment of one's life and with prayer.

In order to achieve this spiritual posture before God, Germany's pastors were to admonish the papists to stop blaspheming God and to admonish the ungrateful, wanton German people to improve their behavior, to honor God's Word and to call on God in prayer. Germany's pastors were to be God's prophetic voices, calling God's people back to Himself through genuine repentance, faith and prayer.

THE EMPEROR -- THE SECOND MAN

The second man whose place it was to fight against the Muslim was Emperor Charles. It was his office to war agains the Muslim because of their threats toward the Empire's subjects and the Empire itself. It was his duty, as a ruler appointed by God, to defend his own people and land (PE 5:102). If there was to be war against the Muslim, "it should be fought at the Emperor's command and under his banner, and in his name...[why?]...Because then everyone can assure his own conscience that he is obeying the ordinance of God, since we know that the emperor is our true overlord and head, and he who obeys him...obeys God also, while he who disobeys him disobeys God also" (PE 5:102-103).

Therefore, advises Luther, the emperor and the princes should be exhorted concerning their office and duty to God not to let their subjects be ruined, but rather to be reminded that Germany and its people are "given you and committed to you by God, that you may protect, rule, counsel, and help it, and you not only should, but must do this on pain of losing your soul's salvation and God's favor and grace" (PE 5:106).

Ideologies of Liberty should not, for the Christian, violate Christ's commands.

This Queen must be obeyed

From Miscellaneous Remarks on Scripture by Martin Luther:

"But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed" (Galatians 1:8-9).

[It] is an accursed lie that the pope is the arbiter of Scripture or that the church has authority over Scripture. This is what the canonists and commentators on the Sentences have wickedly declared, on the following basis: 'The church has approved only four gospels, and therefore there are only four. For if it had approved more, there would have been more. Since the church has the right to accept and approve as many gospels as it wishes, it follows that the church is superior to the gospels.' What a splendid argument! I approve Scripture. Therefore I am superior to Scripture. John the Baptist acknowledges and confesses Christ. He points to Him with his finger. Therefore he is superior to Christ. The church approves Christian faith and doctrine. Therefore the church is superior to them. To refute this wicked and blasphemous doctrine of theirs you have here a clear text and a thunderbolt. Here Paul subordinates himself, an angel from heaven, teachers on earth, and any other masters at all to Sacred Scripture. This queen must rule, and everyone must obey, and be subject to her. The pope, Luther, Augustine, Paul, an angel from heaven — these should not be masters, judges or arbiters, but only witnesses, disciples, and confessors of Scripture. Nor should any doctrine be taught or heard in the church except the pure Word of God. Otherwise, let the teachers and the hearers be accursed along with their doctrine" (Luther, 'Lectures on Galatians,' in Luther's Works, vol. 26, translated by Jaroslav Pelikan [St. Louis: Concordia, 1963], pp. 57-8.).

Amillennialist Contra Mundum

When I first began this site, it was with the intention of arguing politics, evolution, and Christian apologetics, topics I found myself addressing often in other forums.

I am forever opposed to anything that attempts to undermine confidence in the Word of Christ, in which we have "the faith once for all delivered to the saints."

And because it is founded upon that Christian faith and the two greatest documents created by Man -- the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution -- I defend the America given to us by God, as our Founding Fathers defined it.

I want what is good for my neighbor, my loved ones, and myself, and that means defending what is good and true.

Over the past three years, I found myself spending more and more words on The Religion of Rape and Slaughter, and that fact troubled me. Watching the coverage of Israel's current action in their War of Self-Defense Against Islam, I realized why my focus had shifted: When an enemy wants to subjugate, enslave, and murder you and yours (temporal consequences of Muhammad's venomous lies), you'd better mount a proper defense against it.

I have come to realize that President Bush's comforting words about Islam after 9/11 -- words I inwardly, quietly, wishfully wanted to believe -- were false.

We are not at war with a "tiny minority of extremists" taking their orders from a nut in a cave. We are engaged in the only continuous war of the last fourteen hundred years, Muhammad's war against humanity.

The more I've learned of Islam's "sacred" texts and history, the more I've come to realize that the "Fundamentalist, Extremist, Radical, IslamoNaziFascist, Islamist, Jihadi, Jihadist-ists" are not perverting "a great world religion of peace," they're fulfilling it.

The monsters who behead Christian schoolgirls in Indonesia, the animals who ask women in a Sudanese village whether they are Christian or Muslim and then slice the breasts off those who answer incorrectly, leaving them to die in the street, the devils who kidnap Copt daughters from their families and then rape and forcibly "marry" and "convert" them -- all of them are imitating the example of their Ideal Man, the false prophet Muhammad.

This barbarism has been carried out -- dependent upon Muslim knowledge, zeal, and resources -- around the world for the last nearly one and one-half millennia.

Only two kinds of people can deny the truth regarding this ancient, horrific, global nightmare: the ignorant and the deceitful.

If anyone doubts, he needs only to read Qur'an, ahadith, and sira, the eternal word of Allah and the words and deeds of its apostle, the genocidal pedophile Muhammad. Most of these texts are easily available to the infidel (and the inquisitive Muslim-In-Name-Only) with an ISP.

Islam's bloody present is just a trickle compared to the flood of its past. Since the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior -- and since Allah's word is immutable -- the stakes in our current conflict can not be higher.

Centuries ago, the Church Father Athanasius earned a reputation for consistently and vigorously fighting heresy. He was unwilling to let falsehood go unchallenged, so a saying developed around him: "Athanasius Contra Mundum" ("Athanasius Against the World").

Loving this same Truth, Martin Luther [apparently, it was misattributed to him] said:

"If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion [of] the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at the moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages there the loyalty of the soldier is proved. And to be steady on all the battlefield besides is merely flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point."

Can one allow the heretical claims of a genocidal, thieving, lying, enslaving pedophile to go unchallenged, especially when that false prophet commanded his followers to kill, rape, and enslave you and yours?

Christ warned that the world would hate His people, just as it hated Him. If one is not persecuted, despised, or rejected for speaking Jesus' words, it would be wise to consider whether one is in the battle at all.

Now is the time to take up the fight.

There is nothing new under the sun, unless you're ignorant of the past

The Scriptures say that ancient man had become so violent that YHWH looked upon His creation and lamented what He had made:

The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the LORD said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them....

...Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. So God said..., "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth (Genesis 6).

The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, which is why the study of history is such a useful endeavor. Those who are ignorant of the past will have to endure its painful lessons personally, which does not bode well for the West today.

With a television program, it's alright (perhaps even admirable) if an episode or series is "new to you." When it comes to history--especially the history of an ancient foe engaged in an ancient war--ignorance will kill you.

I would prefer to avoid the suffering and death of me and mine if it is at all possible.

And, to answer Mark Steyn's question about why liberal historical revisionists would create a "noble primitive" who never existed, it is because they want to undermine the foundation of Western Civilization--the Christian faith. It is an attack on the true God.

Essentially, they're lying about the past so they can lie about the past. They want to lie about Him.

From Before the white man came? War:

We've deluded ourselves into believing in the myth of the noble and peaceful primitive

MARK STEYN

Nicholas Wade's Before The Dawn is one of those books full of eye-catching details. For example, did you know the Inuit have the largest brains of any modern humans? Something to do with the cold climate. Presumably, if this global warming hooey ever takes off, their brains will be shrinking with the ice caps.

But the passage that really stopped me short was this:

"Both Keeley and LeBlanc believe that for a variety of reasons anthropologists and their fellow archaeologists have seriously underreported the prevalence of warfare among primitive societies. . . . 'I realized that archaeologists of the postwar period had artificially "pacified the past" and shared a pervasive bias against the possibility of prehistoric warfare,' says Keeley."

That's Lawrence Keeley, a professor at the University of Illinois. And the phrase that stuck was that bit about artificially pacifying the past. We've grown used to the biases of popular culture. If a British officer meets a native -- African, Indian, whatever -- in any movie, play or novel of the last 30 years, the Englishman will be a sneering supercilious sadist and the native will be a dignified man of peace in perfect harmony with his environment in whose tribal language there is not even a word for "war" or "killing" or "weapons of mass destruction." A few years ago, I asked Tim Rice, who'd just written the lyrics for Disney's Aladdin and The Lion King, why he wasn't doing Pocahontas. "Well, the minute they mentioned it," he said, "I knew the Brits would be the bad guys. I felt it was my patriotic duty to decline." Sure enough, when the film came out, John Smith and his men were the bringers of environmental devastation to the New World. "They prowl the earth like ravenous wolves," warns the medicine man, whereas Chief Powhatan wants everyone to be "guided to a place of peace." Fortunately, Captain Smith comes to learn from Pocahontas how to "paint with all the colours of the wind."

In reality, Pocahontas's fellow Algonquin Indians were preyed on by the Iroquois, "who took captives home to torture them before death," observes Nicholas Wade en passant. The Iroquois? Surely not. Only a year or two back, the ethnic grievance lobby managed to persuade Congress to pass a resolution that the United States Constitution was modelled on the principles of the Iroquois Confederation -- which would have been news to the dead white males who wrote it. With Disney movies, one assumes it's just the modishness of showbiz ignoramuses and whatever multiculti theorists they've put on the payroll as consultants. But professor Keeley and Steven LeBlanc of Harvard disclose almost as an aside that, in fact, their scientific colleagues were equally invested in the notion of the noble primitive living in peace with nature and his fellow man, even though no such creature appears to have existed. "Most archaeologists," says LeBlanc, "ignored the fortifications around Mayan cities and viewed the Mayan elite as peaceful priests. But over the last 20 years Mayan records have been deciphered. Contrary to archaeologists' wishful thinking, they show the allegedly peaceful elite was heavily into war, conquest and the sanguinary sacrifice of beaten opponents.... The large number of copper and bronze axes found in Late Neolithic and Bronze Age burials were held to be not battle axes but a form of money."

And on, and on. Do you remember that fabulously preserved 5,000-year-old man they found in a glacier in 1991? He had one of those copper axes the experts assured us were an early unit of currency. Unfortunately for this theory, he had it hafted in a manner that suggested he wasn't asking, "Can you break a twenty?" "He also had with him," notes professor Keeley, "a dagger, a bow, and some arrows; presumably these were his small change." Nonetheless, anthropologists concluded that he was a shepherd who had fallen asleep and frozen peacefully to death in a snowstorm. Then the X-ray results came back and showed he had an arrowhead in him.

Not for the first time, the experts turn out to be playing what children call "Opposite Land." There's more truth in Cole Porter's couplet from Find Me A Primitive Man:

I don't mean the kind that belongs to a club But the kind that has a club that belongs to him.

Although Porter was the kind that belongs to a club, the second line accurately conveys his own taste in men. He'd have been very annoyed if Mister Primitive had turned out to be some mellow colours-of-your-windiness hippy-dippy granola-cruncher.

Lawrence Keeley calculates that 87 per cent of primitive societies were at war more than once per year, and some 65 per cent of them were fighting continuously. "Had the same casualty rate been suffered by the population of the twentieth century," writes Wade, "its war deaths would have totaled two billion people." Two billion! In other words, we're the aberration: after 50,000 years of continuous human slaughter, you, me, Bush, Cheney, Blair, Harper, Rummy, Condi, we're the nancy-boy peacenik crowd. "The common impression that primitive peoples, by comparison, were peaceful and their occasional fighting of no serious consequence is incorrect. Warfare between pre-state societies was incessant, merciless, and conducted with the general purpose, often achieved, of annihilating the opponent."

Why then, against all the evidence, do we venerate the primitive? And to the point of pretending a bunch of torturing marauders devised the separation of powers in the U.S. Constitution. We do it for the same reason we indulge behaviour like that at Caledonia, Ont. We want to believe that the yard, the cul-de-sac, the morning commute, the mall are merely the bland veneer of our lives, and that underneath we are still that noble primitive living in harmony with the great spirits of the forest and the mountain. The reality is that "civilization" -- Greco-Roman-Judeo-Christian -- worked very hard to stamp out the primitive within us, and for good reason.

I was interested to read Wade's book after a month in which men raised in suburban Ontario were charged with a terrorist plot that included plans to behead the Prime Minister, and the actual heads of three decapitated police officers were found in the Tijuana River. The Mexican drug gangs weren't Muslim last time I checked, but evidently decapitation isn't just for jihadists anymore: if you want to get ahead, get a head. A couple of years back, I came across a column in The East African by Charles Onyango-Obbo musing on the return of cannibalism to the Dark Continent. Ugandan-backed rebels in the Congo (four million dead but, as they haven't found a way to pin it on Bush, nobody cares) had been making victims' relatives eat the body parts of their loved ones. You'll recall that, when Samuel Doe was toppled as Liberia's leader, he was served a last meal of his own ears. His killers kept his genitals for themselves, under the belief that if you eat a man's penis you acquire his powers. One swallow doesn't make a summer, of course, but I wonder sometimes if we're not heading toward a long night of re-primitivization. In his shrewd book Civilization And Its Enemies, Lee Harris writes:

"Forgetfulness occurs when those who have been long inured to civilized order can no longer remember a time in which they had to wonder whether their crops would grow to maturity without being stolen or their children sold into slavery by a victorious foe. . . . That, before 9/11, was what had happened to us. The very concept of the enemy had been banished from our moral and political vocabulary."

It's worse than Harris thinks. We're not merely "forgetful." We've constructed a fantasy past in which primitive societies lived in peace and security with nary a fear that their crops would be stolen or their children enslaved. War has been the natural condition of mankind for thousands of years, and our civilization is a very fragile exception to that. What does it say about us that so many of our elites believe exactly the opposite -- that we are a monstrous violent rupture with our primitive pacifist ancestors? It's never a good idea to put reality up for grabs. You can bet your highest-denomination axe on that.

Steyn at his best

One excellent point after another, as only Mark Steyn can make them. From an interview with Hugh Hewitt, transcribed here:

HH: I begin, as I do every single Thursday that he's available, with columnist to the world, Mark Steyn. Mark Steyn, your assessment of the war against Israel, a week into it?

MS: Well, I think the interesting feature so far, really, is the poodles that didn't yap, to pacify Sherlock Holmes. Normally, by this stage, the public rhetoric of the Europeans and the Arabs would be ferocious. And instead, I think both of them have been very circumspect in public. And certainly, the ones I've talked to in private are in fact, in a strange way, and possibly unprecedented, at least in the last thirty years, they're rooting for Israel. Amazing.

HH: Why is that?

MS: Well, I think because they have actually seen that...they've had a tremendous glimpse of their own future, and what has happened to Gaza, and what has happened in Southern Lebanon, and to Lebanon as a whole, and in effect, even to Syria, because Syria is, in fact, playing Mini Me to Iran's Dr. Evil at the moment, and that they've seen a terrible portent to where things could go, both for Jordan, for Egypt, for Saudi Arabia, and down the line, for certain European countries, too.

HH: What do you make of the Lebanese prime minister's on again/off again, we support Hezbollah, the Lebanese army will fight for Hezbollah, then it's not our war. What's going on with his game?

MS: Well, I think to a certain extent, he's hemmed in. And although he is the prime minister of Lebanon, Lebanon is effectively a state that's been hijacked. What he doesn't know is how popular the hijacking is. Lebanon has a very peculiar electoral system, essentially where the parliament is allocated on the basis of religious beliefs, and the census that determines who gets what seats, in part goes back to the 1930's. In fact, it's way out of date. Basically, if they were to redesign the Lebanese Parliament to reflect democratic reality, there'd be an awful lot more Hezbollah seats in there. That is just a sad fact. But as much as we like seeing those hot Beirut babes chanting for freedom in the streets not so long ago on TV, they look fabulous...fabulous looking women, Westernized women, chanting for freedom. There is a side of the Lebanese population that is solidly behind Hezbollah, and that is a problem for anybody in that state.

HH: Now Mark Steyn, do you think that side has been shaken by the...a miscalculation on the order of Hitler's invasion of Russia at this point, for Nasrallah?

MS: Yes, I think so, and I think what we have to do is basically do what the U.N. is usually quite good at, which is to delay doing anything at all until the situation has settled. I mean, that's what they do in the Sudan. The U.N. Security Council talks and talks and talks until everybody's dead, and then it's not an issue anymore. That's what they do in Sudan, that's what they did in Rwanda, that's what they're good at. But when the Israelis are involved, suddenly there's a terrible urgency about it, and we have to insert U.N. peacekeepers right now, and we have to get Condi Rice and Kofi Annan & Co. to fly in right now. And that's not what we want to do. What has to come out of this is that proxy clients of Tehran are so damaged, so battered, so brutalized, so humiliated, that the price of taking Tehran's side becomes too high.

HH: You just mentioned the U.N., and I'll get to Kofi in just a second. But there is this comic element to this otherwise very, very important series of events, and that's that hapless little group of U.N. blue hats stuck up there somewhere on the northern border, just over the Israeli border. And I'm not quite sure what their job is, Mark Steyn. Do you know?

MS: Well, I think they're basically the sleeping partner in the Hezbollah operation. When you look at those little offices, they've got the Hezbollah flag flying from one flagpole on the left hand side of the building, and the U.N. flag flying from the flagpole on the right hand side of the building. It's really quite disgraceful what is going on. And in a sense, this...at the heart of this whole issue is the kind of post-modern nature of Middle Eastern politics, where we all pretend that somehow the Palestinians are victims of Israel, that Lebanon is a victim of Israel, and the reality of the situation is...the reality of the situation is that basically, any nationalist group that wants to get its own country in the modern age can. Slovenia's independent, Slovakia's independent, East Timor's independent. Anywhere can be independent. The reason why what's happened in Gaza and Southern Lebanon has been such a mess has nothing to do with Israel, but is because of the pathologies of the people, and the U.N. has been complicit in that.

HH: Let's turn to Kofi Annan's statement of today. Here it is:

KA: While Hezbollah's actions are deplorable, and as I've said, Israel has a right to defend herself, the excessive use of force is to be condemned.

HH: Mark Steyn?

MS: Well, that's complete rubbish. I mean, basically, when you talk about...proportionality has a kind of legal meaning in international law, if you happen to recognize it. It doesn't relate to whether they kill ten of yours, whether you're allowed to only kill ten of them. That's not what it's about. Proportionality in law means whether what you're doing disproportionately affects civilians, compared to the merits of the military target. Now that's very hard when you're fighting a terrorist group, because they deliberately hide their men and their arms in people's houses and villages in civilian areas. But the reality of the situation is that even if we accept that the U.N. has an obligation to mediate between two warring, sovereign states, it's a huge leap for Kofi Annan then to suddenly feel that it's his job to mediate between a sovereign state and a terrorist organization. That's a vile aspect of what the U.N. does. The right of hot pursuit, which even the British have actually exercised against the United States in the 19th Century, they sent British troops over the border from Canada into the United States. Every...historically, the right of hot pursuit is recognized in international law, and he should just...Kofi Annan, if that's his contribution, he should just keep his mouth shut.

HH: Well, if hot pursuit extends to the people bringing a sophisticated weaponry into...we're going to be right back in Tehran, Mark Steyn. Probably the most important development of the last week is that the missile that struck the Israel ship, and sunk the Egyptian's ship, was provided by Iran, and it is suspected was manned and guided by Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Your reaction to that news?

MS: Well, I think this is why the Europeans and the Arabs suddenly have gone very quiet, and in fact, have been supportive of Israel, because they understand...the Arabs, after indulging in this post-modern fear-mongering for 60 years, that Israel is an entire threat to the region. Suddenly, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia see that there's a real threat, not a pseudo-threat to the region, that they are going to be living per force under an Iranian-dominated region. That in fact, the last 50 years will just have been a brief interlude of Arab independence between living as subjects of the Ottoman Empire, and now being subject to a kind of de facto apocalyptic Iranian Empire.

HH: Do you think that's clicking in, Mark Steyn?

MS: I think that's absolutely what is prompted the extraordinary Arab League statement, and the circumspection of the European leaders. They both understand that if Tehran, in a year's time, Tehran could have missiles that can hit any European capitol. And they don't want to do anything about it, but if Israel wants to set back that program, they're not going to complain.

HH: Now many people have suspected that Iran launched Hezbollah on its self-destructive mission last week as a diversion from the U.N.'s action against its program. There's also been in this time frame over the last 60 days, a huge uptick in the slaughter in Iraq. And today, 59 people killed by a suicide bomber promising them jobs. How much of the Iraqi instability, Mark Steyn, do you put down to other Iranian adventurism?

MS: Well, I think that's absolutely part of the equation here, that Iran exercises its powers, and looses its proxies to their full extent. That's what they're doing in Iraq at the moment, that's what they're doing in Southern Lebanon. And the question, of course, for everybody else, is if they've got a rifle, they'll shoot it across the border at you. If they've got these rockets, they'll lob them at Haifa. A year or two down the line, what are they going to have? And what are they going to be doing with that? That's the question.

HH: Now the Russians, of course, are saying today no need to hurry about Iran. But I do...if you're right, then that urgency will pick up around the international community, regardless of what Putin says.

MS: Yes, and I think the idea is just in a sense, to destabilize them. I was thinking of Sir Francis Drake, when he sailed into Cadiz, and destroyed the fleet there. And he set back the king of Spain's armada against England by a year. And they said that he in effect has singed the king of Spain's beard. That's how it used to be taught in history lessons. And I think that's really what we hope can come out of this, that by brutalizing Hezbollah, who are in effect the beard for Iran, you're singing the president of Iran's beard, and that will have some impact on it.

HH: Did you see Nic Robertson on CNN take the Hezbollah tour?

MS: Yes, I did see that, and they're very good at that at CNN, that actually getting...doing what you might call jihad tourism. They did it in Afghanistan, they did it in Saddam's Iraq, they're now doing it in Lebanon.

HH: Now Mark Steyn, Hezbollah is the organization adjudicated by the United States District Court, Judge Royce Lamberth presiding, as having been behind the massacre of 241 Americans at the Marine barracks in 1983. Anything untoward in CNN not telling their audience that?

MS: Yes, I think so. I think if one looks at this in historical sense, it would be absurd to see a New York Times photographer tagging along, say, on a Luftwaffe raid, and taking photographs of the Luftwaffe guy as he drops his bombs over London. It would have been unthinkable to be doing that in the 1940's. Now we live in a world when in effect, the media regard themselves as a kind of transnational power in and of themselves, that they don't have allegiances. I think this is preposterous. I think every CNN reporter, and every New York Times journalist, in his heart of hearts, he wants his sons and daughters to be growing up and living in a free society. And when they say what did you do during the war, Daddy, and when he says well, I got a great scoop, because I tagged along with the jihad guys as they were planning on killing our side, I think that's...I don't think that's going to be something they're going to be proud of, no matter how many Pulitzers it wins them.

HH: And the pathetic thing is, there's no scoop. Listen to this excerpt of Nic Robertson from yesterday.

NR: You know, in all that time we were there, which was a very, very brief period, we didn't see any evidence of any military equipment. We didn't go into the buildings, we didn't search underneath the rubble. But some of the buildings were really torn up, there was a lot of debris hanging out of broken sides of buildings, a lot of debris strewn across the roads. And in all of that, we didn't see any evidence of a military infrastructure, or anything like that. Again, though, Wolf, I have to say it was a very, very brief and swift tour, escorted by Hezbollah.

HH: Now Mark Steyn, that is just idiocy.

MS: Yes. I mean, this is this idea that Hezbollah is basically some kind of social organization, that they run great schools, and they run terrific hospitals, and all the rest of it. Actually, even this side of it is deeply toxic. The schools they run teach you basically to hate Jews and infidels. So even on that side, I don't think that they're as benign as Nic Robertson & Co. make out. But the idea that somehow he is being taken on a...led by the nose through this site that has no military weapons, and therefore it means that the big, bad Israeli guys must have accidentally bombed the social welfare side of the Hezbollah operation, this is preposterous.

HH: Oh, it's just the same premise as though a journalist would have expected Hitler to take him to Auschwitz in 1944.

MS: Well, in fact, they did do that, in effect. They had the sort of good concentration camp at...what's it called? Terezin, at what is now the Czech Republic, where they basically, the Jews were...

HH: They had the band.

MS: ...were treated better.

HH: Yes.

MS: At Terezinstad. And they...people were taken on tours of it to see, in fact, that they were just...basically, it was like a health club for Jews, and they kept them all conveniently in this nice place, and they had...So they had like one show camp. And this is really the early 21st Century equivalent of that.

HH: At the same time that some are dupes, others are beyond what the Roman Catholic Church would call invincibly ignorant. Yesterday's Los Angeles Times includes the line, "To what extent Syria is acting in concert with Iran is not clear." Mark Steyn, how clear is it that Syria is acting in concert with Iran?

MS: Well, I think it's absolutely clear that Boy Assad is not his father. His father was a contemptible and evil man, but he had control of events on his own terms. What has happened since then is that this state, effectively, is being propped up by Iran, and in a way, represents Iran's first Sunni-Arab colony. And the idea...in a sense, it's a chain, a chain snaking back through Hamas and Hezbollah, to Damascus, and from Damascus back to Tehran. And if you don't understand that, as the Los Angeles Times apparently doesn't, you probably shouldn't be writing about this subject at all. I'm sure there's Barbra Streisand's latest fundraiser or something to write about instead.

HH: Well now, we've moved from the dupes to the dunces. Now, let's get to the defeatists, which is most dangerous. Whether it's Andrew Sullivan throwing batting practice, or Greg Djerejian in middle relief, or George Will, who used to be a very serious starting pitcher in the commentariat. Lots of people, Mark Steyn, are turning belly up, not just on Iraq, but on the entire idea that there's a global war on terror, which not only can be won, but has to be fought.

MS: Well, George Will I'd separate from them, because I think he is...he makes...I think he's wrong, but he has a serious argument. Andrew Sulliven, speaking as one armchair warrior to another...

HH: Yes...

MS: I don't want to be in an armchair foxhole next to Andrew Sulliver. You know, he was writing in the days after September 11th, he was quoting all these heroic Auden poems from 1939. He was saying what an awesome privilege for our generation. This is the great...they were the words he used, an awesome privilege, and I remember thinking at the time, whoa, steady on, boy. And yet, suddenly now, the first whiff of something bad happening, Abu Ghraib, he turns against it. Sorry, that's what war is. Nobody following the invasion of Poland in 1939, the British imperial general's staff didn't say well, this is the way the war's going to go. We're going to be here in May, 1940, we're going to be this in September, 1941, and in April, 1943, here's what...it'll all be over, and we'll have the victory parade. No war ever fought goes according to plan. Horrible things happen. And if you don't...if you can't stick with the war through the horrible and unexpected things happening, if you're just a big ninny who runs around shrieking hysterically that it's gone off the rails, sorry, but your support is less than useless, and you shouldn't have gotten involved in it in the first place. I respect the visceral anti-war people more than Andrew Sullivan.

HH: But those sorts of fevers are spreading, and I don't mind Will going Buchanan on us, but I do mind the attempt not to argue with the Weekly Standard, and my position that Syria needs to be confronted sooner or later, ditto Iran. But to dismiss it as radicalism, it is hardly radicalism to argue for victory, Mark Steyn.

MS: Well, no, and George Will is a historian, too, and he should know that there is simply no precedent for what America is, which is basically a non-imperial superpower. Now he says quite rightly that you can't just impose liberty and democracy on places. They don't have a Jefferson, they don't have a Madison. Well, most countries in the world didn't have Jefferson or a Madison, and they're not in the states that the Middle East is. Canada, my own country, never had a Jefferson or a Madison. If you really want to have a snoozerama when you can't sleep, pick up a huge volume called Canada's Founding Debate...

HH: (laughing)

MS: ...by a lot of the third-rate hack, British imperial civil servants who invented the dominion of Canada. They didn't have a Madison or Jefferson. But compared to Syria or Egypt, they did good enough, and that's all we're asking here. We're saying okay, we accept the fact that America is the non-imperial superpower, but it simply cannot sit out its moment of history. This has happened on America's watch, and the idea that you can be a 19th Century isolationist republic is ridiculous.

When all you've got left is name-calling, perhaps its time to quit

Mark Call is now resorting to false and personal attacks. Perhaps he'll realize it's time to admit his error.

From here, written in response to an emotional and irrational outburst:

To which commands was Christ referring? Those of the Covenant He fulfilled, set aside, and made obsolete?

If He was referring to the regulations of the Mosaic Covenant, how could Paul forbid circumcision under any circumstances?

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth? That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. 'A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.' I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is throwing you into confusion will pay the penalty, whoever he may be.

Brothers, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished. As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves (Galatians 5)!

'Judaizer' is hardly anti-Semitic, since that term is used to describe those first-century heretics who made observing the regulations of the Mosaic Covenant a requirement for salvation (sound familiar? It should).

Shame on you for trying to play the Race Card, but I suppose I shouldn't be surprised--those without any substantive argument to make often resort to unjustified, ad hominem attacks.

Proportion?

A brief response on a good article by Hugh Hewitt:

What has Islam done without military superiority?

9/11.

Madrid 3/11.

London 7/7.

Mumbai 7/11.

An Intifada (the latest one).

Indonesian Christian schoolgirls beheaded.

Sudanese Christians and animists slaughtered and enslaved before anyone noticed Africans Muslims being mistreated by Muslim-Arab supremacists.

Egyptian Copts are routinely persecuted, including daughters being kidnapped, raped, and forced into Muslim marriages. One distraught father was told by a police chief, "Don't worry; she's in the arms of Islam now."

In Ethiopia, Nigeria, Somalia, Denmark, France, Thailand, Philippines, and everywhere else Muslims have any sort of numerical significance, intimidation and murder in the name of Allah follow. Theo van Gogh, anyone?

Is there any doubt that Islam would behave "disproportionately" if it actually had a military advantage?

Israel needs to do what it must. The West still has much to do to properly identify and deal with those in our own lands who support Islam's goal to subjugate the world to Allah.

Why should my Liberty be judged by another man's conscience?

Another try at pointing out the error that occurs when one will not allow Scripture to interpret Scripture. From here:

Mark Call misdefines

y = {keep My commands}

as

y = {keep My commands, including the dietary, ceremonial, sacrificial, and civil regulations of the Mosaic Covenant}

even though God says that the Old Covenant has been "set aside," "made obsolete," and "fulfilled" in favor of a new and better Covenant.

Mark Call says that if we love Jesus, we will keep the Mosaic regulations.

YHWH says He set aside, made obsolete, and fulfilled the Mosaic Covenant and instituted a New and Better One in His own blood.

For this reason I say: He has set aside, made obsolete, and fulfilled the Mosaic Covenant for a New and Better One in His own blood.

Because of this, Mark Call says that I am going to hell.

This makes Mark Call a Judaizer, despite his protestations to the contrary.

Proper language is important

And when dealing with Jihad, it is (literally) vital.

In response to an entry by Michael Medved, from here:

"Finally, it’s unmistakable that anti-Semitism of the crudest and cruelest variety formed the true, impassioned core belief of both yesterday’s Nazis and today’s Islamists; it’s no accident that Islamic leaders proudly circulate and republish 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion' and other Jew-hating classics..."

A few observations:

First, the hatred Islam bears for Jews is due to several causes:

1) Allah and his false prophet hated Jews--Qur'an refers to Allah turning them into apes and pigs.

2) There is an ancient rivalry (for lack of a better term) between Jews and Arabs (not all Arabs are Muslim) in light of Isaac and Ishmael.

3) Modern Israel has violated the honor of Muslims in that is it an Infidel state in a land formerly (and brutally) conquered by Islam (once under Islam's rule, always under Islam's rule).

4) Every time Islamic nations start a fight with modern Israel, Israel punishes them.

Second, it was "Hitler's Mufti," not "Hitler's Pope," who aided the slaughter of so many innocents. One account I read said that when the mufti was visiting one of the concentration camps, he exhorted the killers to do their work diligently.

Third, as of June, 2005, guess which piece of literature was a best-seller in "moderate" Turkey. That's right, Mein Kampf.

Fourth, Hitler couldn't claim divine command for his atrocities, whereas Islam's "sacred" texts command the faithful to fight against, subdue and humiliate, and kill non-Muslims to make the world Islam.

Fifth, Hitler killed for only a decade. Islam has been enslaving, subjugating, and slaughtering in the name of Allah for nearly one and one-half millennia.

Finally, in light of Qur'an and Sunnah's exhortations to war against those who will not convert or submit to Islam, it seems that terms like "Islamofascist" or "Islamo-Nazi" are redundant.

The Ethiopian front in the War of Self--Defense Against Islam

Words of wisdom and exhortation in support of Ethiopia from Fitzgerald:

You don't have to know anything in this case to take a side. The side is that of Ethiopia, formerly "Christian" Ethiopia, and once the site, for the hopes and dreams of beleaguered Western Christendom, of the mythical Christan kingdom of mythical Prester John, that great and good king, a "Christom king," who ruled a land on the other side of the lands taken by the Muslims or Saracens, and who was the great hope -- black or brown (his kingdom was first placed in India) but definitely not white -- of Christian imaginations.

Ethiopia as a Christian country for a while -- for a very long while -- was given a kind of special dispensation in Muslim attitudes, because it was the Ethiopian king who gave refuge to 85 followers of Muhammad who had fled the Hejaz, and that act gave Ethiopia a special status. But no longer, apparently. Ethiopia is in part of the world. The world belongs to Allah, and the People of Allah. Ethiopia, too, will have to be islamized, and given where it is in the world, it may be culturally arabized as well.

Ethiopia as a Christian redoubt makes it, in the eyes of the Egyptians, automatically enemy territory. Ethiopia as a black African (even if Hamitic) country, makes it a place automatically to be despised by the Arabs, whose supremacist ideology finds its perfect, semi-submerged vehicle (a veritable submarine), in Islam. And now Ethiopia is to be conquered by Islam for other reasons as well. For the Ethiopians have suffered famine after famine, drought after drought. They have never taken advantage of the Nile waters that flow through the country. In the past ten years, more and more, intelligent Ethiopians, and agronomists from outside the country, have pointed out how silly it is not to engage in irrigation projects that use some of that Nile water.

Plans have been made. But meanwhile, in the malevolent circles of Arab Muslims in Egypt, other plans have been made to prevent Ethiopians from using some of that Nile water. How dare they, those black Christian Ethiopians, think that they can divert some of the waters of the Nile to their own use? Don't they know that the Nile belongs to Egypt? Don't all the storybooks, and history books, say so? Doesn't the Nile belong to Egypt the way, say, the Danube belongs to...well, hmm, who does that Danube belong to, anyway?

Threats have been made by Egypt: don't do a thing without our permission. Has the American government stepped in? Has the Black Caucus been alterted, has the Ethiopian embassy moved heaven and earth to make this issue known to Americans? No and No and No.

Well, then, let's get the ball rolling right here and right now. Make this an issue. Make the defense, and shoring up, of Ethiopia, and total support for it, as a Christian country whose very name resonates through Western literature, glitters "like a rich jewel on an Ethiop's ear," Western history, and of course in the consciousness of black Africans, as the only country to remain free both of European imperialists, and more importantly, free of the longer-lasting Arab imperialism that deprives Believers of interest in, consciousness of, knowledge of, their own pre-Islamic or non-Islamic pasts.

Support Ethiopia, to the hilt, in its pre-emptive strike against the forces of Islam. Whether those forces are in Somalia, or sitting in Cairo, trying to deny the Ethiopians their perfectly legitimate rights to divert some of the headwaters of the Nile into irrigation projects.

There is little difference between the terrorists and those who support them

Anti-Israel, pro-jihadist protests in New York and Detroit.

With the massive anti-border protests of the past year, thousands of enemies of the Constitution of the United States assemble in public, in front of the entire world, clearly advocating the breaking of American law, and nothing happens. Now thousands more assemble to support terrorists.

What does it take for our government to do anything to stop those who would harm America?

From "We know that the president is being bought by the Zionist lobby.":

Carrying banners saying "Stop Israeli Terrorism" and chanting antiwar slogans, some 10,000 people rallied in the center of metro Detroit's Arab-American community in Dearborn on Tuesday, demanding that the U.S. government put pressure on Israel to halt attacks in Lebanon.

Although the protesters were peaceful, their message was strong, representing a profound difference of opinion between two of metro Detroit's most vital communities.

Arab-American marchers carried signs saying "Down, down Israel" and chanted, "One, two, three, four. Stop the bombing. Stop the war."

[...]

Saying that Israel is killing children and bombing innocent citizens, one of the speakers, Osama Siblani of the Congress of Arab-American Organizations, said, "This is terror." The crowd cheered loudly in response. "They are cowards."

"We know that the president is being bought by the Zionist lobby. We know that the (U.S.) Congress is being bought by the Zionist lobby. ... But we know that the American people are a great people," he said.

Some of those views concern many in the Jewish communities of metro Detroit.

"No one wanted this war," said Wendy Wagenheim, president of the Jewish Community Council, a coalition of about 200 Jewish groups in Michigan. "And certainly, emotions are running very high at this point. But there is nothing that will be served by importing the tensions apparently in the Middle East to metropolitan Detroit.

A "measured response" savages what is right

Michael Savage has written and said many useful and important things. On the subject of Islamic terrorism and Israel's right to self-defense, he has denounced the former and supported the latter.

Today's rant about Israel's going too far has gone too far itself. He asserts that Israel is intentionally targeting innocents. Savage calls Lebanon a "moderate Muslim, or rather, secular nation." He also claims that Israel's action in Lebanon will create more terrorists.

It is true that of the Muslim nations surrounding Israel, Lebanon has been the least pro-Jihad. That they have substantial Christian (the numbers of whom living in Lebanon have been radically reduced under Islam from its historical majority) and Druze populations accounts for this.

That Hizballah--backed by Iran and Syria--has had free reign is probably due more to fear of getting killed rather than affiliation with that group, but how many of Lebanese Muslims disavow violent Jihad against non-Muslims? How many support Israel's right to exist? How many of the jihadists hide (or find support) among the general population?

I do not wish for any innocents--Christian, Druze, or Muslim--to be harmed, but Israel is fighting for its very existence. They must do what is necessary to crush those who have no respect for innocent Israeli life.

Israel is not trying to "blow up the world." They're just defending themselves against our common enemy.

The blood of innocents is upon Hizballah and Hamas.

It's encouraging to know what the President really thinks

...and that it is diametrically opposed to the propaganda that the Jihadists and their Liberal dhimmis would have us swallow.

From here:

George W.'s heartfelt outburst yesterday at the G-8 summit, describing the Hezbollah attack on Israel (and by implication the terrorists themselves) as barnyard excrement, is stout-hearted and reassuring. This president gets it.

You might think the television networks, which more or less invented the vulgarity that has submerged the culture in slime, would know better than to be shocked (shocked!) by the president's word selection, which the TV correspondents invariably described as "cursing," which of course it was not. Vulgarity is not nice, even in what both parties thought was a private conversation between a president and a prime minister, but it gives us an unexpected insight into what George W. really thinks. He obviously regards the diplomatic niceties, taken with such seriousness by those with too much lace on their panties, with the disdain everyone else does.

The president's manly vocabulary recalls Bess Truman's wifely frustration with her husband's earthy way of telling it like it was. One of Mrs. Truman's friends suggested that she persuade the president to eliminate his habit of describing certain partisan parries as "horse manure."

"My dear," Mrs. Truman replied, "you have no idea how long it took me to get him to say 'manure.'?"

Bulls have long since replaced horses as the major purveyors of conversational manure, and the president's impatience with the terrorists -- and by implication his impatience with the patience shown by certain of his colleagues -- is a bracing tonic, much needed. He should send a few bottles of it to Foggy Bottom. Earlier, even as the president described Hezbollah as "a group of terrorists who want to stop the advance of peace," and defended, without asterisks or other qualifiers, Israel's right to defend itself, his secretary of state was making free with the usual State Department girlie platitudes, about how important it was that Israel show "restraint." Such talk subsided with the absence of any sign that the president was looking to his own feminine side (if any) to find moral equivalence in what is going on in Lebanon.

Even more reassuring were the president's remarks expressing frustration -- even disdain, perhaps -- for Kofi Annan's predictable proposal to send his crack United Nations peacekeepers to straighten out the Jews (and maybe Arabs) in Lebanon. The U.N. has a long record of incompetence and corruption in the administration of "peace," and its peacekeepers, sometimes better at rape than rehabilitation, have distinguished themselves by occasionally making things worse everywhere they go.

The beauty part of the president's unscripted and inadvertent (so we're told) commentary at the G-8 summit is that it demonstrates not only that the president gets it, but Tony Blair does, too. The contempt for Kofi Annan's game of both men was palpable. "What about Kofi Annan?" the president asked Mr. Blair. "I don't like the sequence of it. His attitude is basically 'cease fire and everything else happens.' "

The prime minister agreed: "What does he think? He thinks if Lebanon turns out fine, if he gets a solution in Israel and Palestine, Iraq goes in the right way, he's done it. That's what the whole thing is about. It's the same with Iran."

At that point, Mr. Blair reached across the president's buttered roll and, with no discernible look of shock or uneasiness on his face, turned off the microphone. Anyone looking for a precedent could recall Ronald Reagan's famous "open mike" in a warm-up to his Saturday-afternoon radio address. "The bombing [of the Soviet Union] starts in five minutes." Just a joke, of course, but the message was heard loud and clear in the Kremlin, and the rest is history.

Condoleezza Rice will soon be on her way to Syria, or Iran, or Beirut, or maybe all three, to make "peace," and maybe even peace. Tony Blair warned the president to make sure that "the ground is prepared" before she arrives to sup on sheep's eyes with her Arab counterparts. "If she goes out, she's got to succeed, as it were," he told the president. "I can go out and just talk."

But maybe she shouldn't make reservations right away. The Israelis, who have a script for their war against Hezbollah, probably need three or four more days to teach the terrorists the lesson they're begging for.

Eventually there will be nowhere left to run

...as Islam's history tragically demonstrates.

Ann Coulter is smart and tough. From Liberals: Born to run:

I knew the events in the Middle East were big when the New York Times devoted nearly as much space to them as it did to a New York court ruling last week rejecting gay marriage. Some have argued that Israel's response is disproportionate, which is actually correct: It wasn't nearly strong enough. I know this because there are parts of South Lebanon still standing. Most Americans have been glued to their TV sets, transfixed by Israel's show of power, wondering, "Gee, why can't we do that?"

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean says that "what's going on in the Middle East today" wouldn't be happening if the Democrats were in power. Yes, if the Democrats were running things, our cities would be ash heaps and the state of Israel would have been wiped off the map by now.

But according to Dean, the Democrats would have the "moral authority that Bill Clinton had" – no wait! keep reading – "when he brought together the Israelis and Palestinians." Clinton really brokered a Peace in Our Time with that deal – "our time" being a reference to that five-minute span during which he announced it. Yasser Arafat immediately backed out on all his promises and launched the second intifada.

The fact that Israel is able to launch an attack on Hezbollah today without instantly inciting a multination conflagration in the Middle East is proof of what Bush has accomplished. He has begun to create a moderate block of Arab leaders who are apparently not interested in becoming the next Saddam Hussein. There's been no stock market crash, showing that the markets have confidence that Israel will deal appropriately with the problem and that it won't expand into World War III.

But liberals can never abandon the idea that we must soothe savage beasts with appeasement – whether they're dealing with murderers like Willie Horton or Islamic terrorists. Then the beast eats you.

There are only two choices with savages: fight or run.

Democrats always want to run, but they dress it up in meaningless catchphrases like "diplomacy," "detente," "engagement," "multilateral engagement," "multilateral diplomacy," "containment" and "going to the U.N." I guess they figure, "Hey, appeasement worked pretty well with ... uh ... wait, I know this one ... ummm ... tip of my tongue ..."

Democrats like to talk tough, but you can never trap them into fighting. There is always an obscure objection to be raised in this particular instance – but in some future war they would be intrepid! One simply can't imagine what that war would be. Democrats have never found a fight they couldn't run from.

On "Meet the Press" last month, Sen. Joe Biden was asked whether he would support military action against Iran if the Iranians were to go "full-speed-ahead with their program to build a nuclear bomb." No, of course not. There is, Biden said, "no imminent threat at this point." According to the Democrats, we can't attack Iran until we have signed affidavits establishing that it has nuclear weapons, but we also can't attack North Korea because it may already have nuclear weapons. The pattern that seems to be emerging is: "Don't ever attack anyone, ever, for any reason. Ever."

The Democrats are in a snit about North Korea having nukes, with Howard Dean saying Democrats are tougher on defense than the Republicans because since Bush has been president, North Korea has "quadrupled their nuclear weapons stash."

It wasn't that difficult. Clinton gave the North Koreans $4 billion to construct nuclear reactors in return for the savages promising not to use the reactors to build bombs. But oddly, despite this masterful triumph of "diplomacy," the savages did not respond with good behavior. Instead, they immediately set to work feverishly building nuclear weapons.

But that's another threat the Democrats do not think is yet ripe for action. On "Meet the Press" last Sunday, Sen. Biden lightly dismissed the North Koreans, saying their "government's like an eighth-grader with a small bomb looking for attention" and that we "don't even have the intelligence community saying they're certain they have a nuclear weapon."

Is that the test? We need to have absolute certainty that the North Koreans have a nuclear weapon capable of hitting California with Kim Jong-Il making a solemn promise to bomb the U.S. (and really giving us his word this time, no funny business) before we – we what? If they have a nuclear weapon, what do we do then? Is a worldwide thermonuclear war the one war Democrats would finally be willing to fight?

Democrats won't acknowledge the existence of "an imminent threat" anyplace in the world until a nuclear missile is 12 minutes from New York. And then we'll never have the satisfaction of saying "I told you so" because we'll all be dead.

Denying Scripture never has good results

More from here:

As the Scriptures state, a Christian will uphold God's law as a fruit of faith. He will obey Christ's commands out of love for Him.

The 'lawlessness' to which Christ refers in not a lack of observance of the Mosaic regulations which He set aside, made obsolete, and fulfilled. He was referring to sin.

In light of this, Mark Call's reasoning is interesting:

-He denies that we must obey the Mosaic regulations for justification, but then says if we love Jesus, we will keep them.

-Then, because I cite Scripture showing that the Mosaic Covenant and its dietary, ceremonial, sacrificial, and civil laws have been set aside/fulfilled by YHWH Himself, I am now 'never known' by Christ.

In effect, Mark Call is making observation of the Mosaic law (an obedience neither Ancient Israel, Peter and his contemporaries, nor Mark Call ever had) necessary for salvation.

Mark Call is a twenty-first century Judaizer.

Waiting for Hughot

We'll see what happens next here:

Remedying "technical difficulties"

Since the disappearance of my posts was (I am sure) unintentional, here is some of what went missing:

Good advice I wish Hugh would take: "Know your enemy."

Hugh (and many others, including the President) want to define Islam in terms of the allegedly moderate Muslim (the Muslim-in-Name-Only), but what do Allah and Mohammed say? Who better to define true Islam than its false god and his false prophet?

In light of Allah's commands to fight against, subdue and humiliate, and kill non-Muslims to make the world Islam ("...kill the unbelievers wherever you find them") and Mohammed's actually carrying out those commands ("I have been ordered to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is Allah's Apostle"), is the truly moderate Muslim--who forever rejects as evil violent jihad against non-Muslims and supports unconditionally equal rights for all--obeying Allah and his false prophet, or is he defying them?

The implications of the answer to this question are quite troubling, which is probably why Hugh (who seems to have learned quite a bit since he first invited terrorist-propagandists CAIR onto his program) and others are unwilling to admit the truth about the nature of our enemy....

Curious deletions

It is curious that several of my comments at Hugh's Townhall 'blog no longer display.

One noting a double-post remains; the others are gone. Since I noticed in one thread two posters made consecutive posts and those remain, it can't be that.

Will Hugh maintain his honor by dealing with this directly and honestly?

Perhaps Hugh will listen to Churchill

From Hugh Hewitt:

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: 'Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed ; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves.' - Winston Churchill, 'The Gathering Storm.'

Hugh is right to reference Churchill in our present conflict. And what did he have to say about "the religion against which we do not fight"? From here:

How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property--either as a child, a wife, or a concubine--must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen; all know how to die; but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science--the science against which it had vainly struggled--the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.