Category: Syria

They Want to Kill Us All

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People need to understand what this means:

Islamic State militants have released a video depicting the murder of British aid convoy volunteer Alan Henning, three weeks after warning that he would be the next to die.
Henning is the fourth western hostage to have been killed by the group, following the filmed beheadings of US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, and Scottish aid worker David Haines.
A further hostage, Hervé Gourdel, from Nice in France, was murdered by Jund al-Khalifa, a group with links to Isis, on 24 September.

Aid workers and journalists are non-combatants. When the Islamic “militants” (a euphemism that our decadent media prefer to “terrorists”) are publicly murdering Western non-combatants, what is the intended message? What do these killers intend to convey to us, in the West, as well as to their audience in the Islamic world?

It should be apparent that these Muslims, by their deliberate and premeditated killings of helpless civilians — including people who had come to provide humanitarian aid to Syrians suffering in the civil war there — are saying to their fellow Muslims:

“KILL THEM ALL! Death to all the Americans!
Death to all the British! Death to everyone
everywhere who does not join the worldwide
Islamic caliphate! Kill the women! Kill the children!
Spare no one! KILL THEM ALL!”

What the ISIS “militants” are doing, in other words, is exhibiting the attitude of murderous ruthlessness they consider necessary to their success, and which they wish other Muslims to emulate.

After 9/11, a lot of liberal hand-wringers kept asking, “Why do they hate us?” What have we done, liberals asked, that has inspired the kind of hatred that would cause people to hijack jetliners and crash them into skyscrapers? Implicit in such questions was the naïve idea that, if our policy was to blame for their hatred of us, then by changing our policy — choosing a policy of peace — we could end their hate. This was the meaning of the question, “Why do they hate us?”

BECAUSE THEY HATE, answered Brigitte Gabriel in her 2006 book.

This is not about us, this is about them — the people who hate us, the people who want to kill us all. It is a narcissistic delusion for liberals to believe that somehow we have caused Muslims to hate us when, in point of fact, the Koran and other Islamic scriptures command them to hate us. The texts that Muslims consider sacred order them to kill us all, and promise the greatest blessings for those martyred Muslim warriors who die while pursuing Mohammed’s murderous commandments.

We cannot negotiate with this hate. We cannot compromise with this hate. No policy of ours will permit us to co-exist in peace with this hate. We cannot choose peace when Islam chooses war, and we cannot hope that “tactical air strikes” will suffice to defeat their deadly hatred. The only option left to us is to give them war without limits, war without mercy, a determined, relentless and unceasing war that will not be satisfied with anything less than complete victory over these murdering Muslim monsters who want to kill us all.

 

The American Spectator Folds Like A Cheap Tent, And Other Signs Of The End Times

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— compiled by Wombat-socho


One of the more disagreeable things I saw on Facebook this week (and, having a number of acquaintances who report crap from ThinkProgress and similar founts of stupidity, that’s saying something) was this post by Ken White at Popehat pointing out that the American Spectator had surrendered, horse and foot, to the Dread Pro Se Litigant And Alleged Pedophile Brett Kimberlin. My reaction, like Ken’s, boiled down to “WTF? You had the balls to play gadfly against the Clinton Administration, but caved to a petty jerk like this?” Well, that’s one less stream of alerts and fundraising e-mails to clutter my in-box. Semi-related: editors at Wikipedia are trying to flush The Federalist down the memory hole on account of their butthurt over Sean Davis’ exposure of their hero Neil DeGrasse Tyson as this decade’s Dan Rather.


On Wednesday, Army Chief of Staff General Ray Odierno announced that a division headquarters would be heading for Iraq to coordinate the efforts of the advisors, intel weenies, increased Embassy security forces and other ground troops sent to assist in the fight against the Islamic State. I could have sworn we were told there would be no boots on the ground. In related news, the family of the first female fighter pilot in the UAE disowned her Thursday after she took part in air strikes against IS forces in Syria. Oh, and that Khorasan group Obama was bragging about bombing earlier in the week? Didn’t actually exist. On the ground, Syrian Kurds in Kobane want weapons, not “humanitarian aid.”


Here at home, former Congressman Jim Traficant died of injuries from a tractor accident. You can tell he was a conservative Democrat by the kind of obituaries he’s getting from the Drive-By Media. In riot-torn Ferguson, the Justice Department has ordered police to take off bracelets indicating support for accused fellow officer Darren Wilson. The NYT is visibly hoping third-party candidates derail the GOP’s drive to retake the Senate this fall. In the recent outbreak of workplace violence in Oklahoma, it seems the suspect was canned for arguing in favor of stoning women, and that he was connected to both terrorist imam Anwar al-Awlaki and the Boston bomber’s mosque. But rest easy, there’s no connection to Islam here, right?


Speaking of boots on the ground, T.R. Fehrenbach’s This Kind of War‘s Kindle edition is on sale for $1.99. The early chapters dealing with America’s rapid demobilization after World War 2 and unreadiness for the Korean War seem especially pertinent these days, as Fate seems intent on dragging President Obama and the rest of us back to Iraq, kicking and screaming.


Equal Rights for Hostages?

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The United States refused to pay a ransom for James Foley, and it would be sexist discrimination to pay ransom for a woman:

A third American hostage held by ISIS has been identified as a 26-year-old American woman who was kidnapped a year ago while doing humanitarian relief work in Syria. The terror group is demanding $6.6 million and the release of U.S. prisoners for the life of the young woman, who the family requested not be identified.
She is the third of at least four Americans who were known to be held by ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. American journalist James Foley was executed by the group in a video that appeared online last week. Another writer, Steven Sotloff, was seen alive but under duress in the same footage.
In addition to the multi-million dollar ransom, the terror group has also demanded that the U.S. release Aafia Siddiqui, an MIT-trained neuroscientist who was convicted by the U.S. in 2010 of trying to kill U.S. officials two years before, according to a supporter of Siddiqui who has been in contact with the hostage’s family.

Meanwhile, an American has been killed fighting for ISIS in Syria. His name is “McCain,” but he’s probably not close kin. He was born in Illinois and my guess is that he’s from the Mississippi branch of the family, who owned vast plantations in the Delta and from which my Crazy Cousin John is descended. I’m from the East Alabama dirt-farmer branch of the McCain family. My folks never owned anybody.

 

Nobel Peace Prize Winner

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“Obama: Anatomy of a World Leader,” by Alex Gray (detail)

There seems to be some confusion about President Obama’s “foreign policy.” At times, it has been alleged that he actually has a policy, but these allegations have never been substantiated. My perception, after watching this administration’s actions for the past five years, is that the “foreign policy” is just one continual ad hoc improvisation.

It’s not a Mozart concerto, it’s bebop jazz. For example:

The White House is struggling to deliver a clear message on the threat posed by radical Islamist group ISIS and what the administration might do to counteract it.
Officials have sowed confusion by giving different statements at different times on the level of danger posed by the Islamic group, whose full name is the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
Obama’s decision last year to ask Congress for authority to level Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces with air strikes is also haunting the administration as it mulls strikes in Syria against ISIS. There have been no guarantees that similar Congressional approval will be sought this time around.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest was peppered with questions on the issue Monday. Referring to the proposed strikes against the Assad regime last year, Earnest responded, “That was a different situation, right?”
But he said little that was definitive about whether attacks against ISIS in Syria are now being considered. Any such action would represent a major escalation from the current situation, in which the U.S. is carrying out airstrikes against ISIS positions in northwestern Iraq.
Strikes within Syria would not merely represent a significant ramping-up of U.S, military action. They would also risk providing de facto assistance to the Assad regime, even while the United States hopes that government will be deposed.

See? The chattering class is convinced that the Obama administration has a “message” problem, when in fact, it’s a policy problem.

Exactly what the hell is the policy? Today is Tuesday, so the Obama administration’s Tuesday policy is in effect, and the Tuesday policy is whatever the hell they decide it is. There’s no long-term plan, no overarching strategy. For the first four years, the Obama administration’s foreign policy was the same as its domestic policy, i.e., “Whatever It Takes to Get Obama Re-Elected.” Now, it seems, the policy is “Whatever It Takes to Help Harry Reid Keep the Senate Majority.”

What this translates to is rather simple:

  1. Try to avoid obvious disasters.
  2. When obvious disasters happen anyway, try to avoid blame.
  3. If you can’t avoid blame, minimize the disaster, accuse critics of racism and get your media friends to change the subject.

As long as the media are eagerly solicitous to pretend that the Obama presidency has been a spectacular success, this approach can never fail. If radical Islamic terrorists were to take over Cleveland, Ohio, next Thursday, the media would unite their voices in a chorus of praise for the president’s handling of the “Cleveland crisis,” and any Republican who pointed out the obvious truth — that the crisis was actually a direct result of Obama’s failed policies — would be denounced as an irresponsible extremist hatemonger.

The media are judging the Obama administration by the standards of a kiddie soccer league where the score doesn’t matter and every child gets a trophy. As a matter of politics, therefore, Obama is always the winner. But policy failure is still policy failure, no matter how many times you call it “success.” If the media had been this blindly partisan in 1968, LBJ would have cruised to re-election on the strength of his “successful” policy in Vietnam.

 

The Bloody Cost of Failure

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The New York Times reports:

Kneeling in the dirt in a desert somewhere in the Middle East, James Foley lost his life this week at the hands of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Before pulling out the knife used to decapitate him, his masked executioner explained that he was killing the 40-year-old American journalist in retaliation for the recent United States’ airstrikes against the terrorist group in Iraq.
In fact, until recently, ISIS had a very different list of demands for Mr. Foley: The group pressed the United States to provide a multimillion-dollar ransom for his release, according to a representative of his family and a former hostage held alongside him. The United States — unlike several European countries that have funneled millions to the terror group to spare the lives of their citizens — refused to pay.
The issue of how to deal with ISIS, which like many terror groups now routinely trades captives for large cash payments, is acute for the Obama administration because Mr. Foley was not the lone American in its custody. ISIS is threatening to kill at least three others it holds if its demands remain unmet, The New York Times has confirmed through interviews with recently released prisoners, family members of the victims and mediators attempting to win their freedom.

ISIS obtained it current strength in Syria after 2011, as part of the “militant opposition” to the Assad regime. ISIS was at least encouraged — and some say aided and armed — by the U.S. and its allies during the “Arab Spring” the Obama administration celebrated. Hillary Clinton’s State Department was directly involved in this series of blunders and, while we may stipulate that their intentions were good, their policy was misguided and has manifestly failed.

The Law of Unintended Consequences has not been repealed, nor have The Gods of the Copybook Headings been dethroned.

If you ever wondered what Jimmy Carter’s second term would have been like, you need no longer wonder.

 

American Journalist James Foley Beheaded by Islamic Terrorists

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The killers blame Barack Obama:

A video released by ISIS shows the beheading of U.S. journalist James Foley and threatens the life of another American if President Barack Obama doesn’t end military operations in Iraq.
In the video posted Tuesday on YouTube, Foley is seen kneeling next to a man dressed in black. Foley reads a message, presumably scripted by his captors, that his “real killer” is America.
“I wish I had more time. I wish I could have the hope for freedom to see my family once again,” he can be heard saying in the video.
‘The world’s most ruthless terrorists’ American journalist beheaded by ISIS
He is then shown being beheaded. . . .
Obama was briefed about the video, and “he will continue to receive regular updates,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz said.
ISIS has carried out executions, including beheadings, as part of its effort to establish an Islamic caliphate that stretches from Syria into Iraq. In many cases, ISIS — which refers to itself as the Islamic State — has videotaped the executions and posted them online. . . .
Foley disappeared on November 22, 2012, in northwest Syria, near the border with Turkey. He was reportedly forced into a vehicle by gunmen; he was not heard from again. At the time of his disappearance, he was working for the U.S.-based online news outlet GlobalPost. . . .
The video of his killing also shows another U.S. journalist. The militant in the video, who speaks English with what sounds like a British accent, says the other American’s life hangs in the balance, depending on what Obama does next.
The journalist is believed to be Steven Sotloff, who was kidnapped at the Syria-Turkey border in 2013. Sotloff is a contributor to Time and Foreign Policy magazines.
The Committee to Protect Journalists estimates there are about 20 journalists missing in Syria, many of them held by ISIS.
Among them is American Austin Tice, a freelance journalist who was contributing articles to The Washington Post. Tice disappeared in Syria in August 2012.

(Hat tip: Memeorandum.) Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t the terrorists who executed Foley the same “militants” the Obama administration supported during the 2011 “Arab Spring” in the State Department/CIA plan to overthrow Syria’s Assad regime?

 

Excellent, @RosieGray! Questions Surround Pro-Assad ‘News’ Site

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Rosie Gray of BuzzFeed has a fascinating story today about the Minnesota-based site that published a story in late August claiming Syrian rebels had used chemical weapons supplied by the Saudis.

You may not remember that weird Aug. 29 item from Minnesota-based MintPressNews.com — I saw the headline, but dismissed it as obvious propaganda — but some people took it seriously, because it carried the byline of a veteran Mideast correspondent for the Associated Press, Dale Gavlak. Yet there was something distinctly fishy about this story: How could a Web site with no previous reputation as a source for foreign affairs reporting suddenly get this “EXCLUSIVE” story that, rather conveniently, was in direct contradiction of what everyone believed about the situation in Syria?

Whereas reports of chemical weapon use against the rebels by the Assad regime had aroused worldwide indignation, this little-known Web site based in Minnesota had a story claiming the opposite was true, that in fact it was the Syrian rebels who had gassed innocent civilians, and that the Saudis had supplied the poison gas.

Fishy, see?

Beginning with that basic common-sense impression that something didn’t add up, Rosie Gray started digging around and asking questions. She discovered a story involving Mnar Muhawesh, a 26-year-old “progressive” editor  who, as an undergraduate at St. Cloud State University, had gained recognition as “the first reporter to wear a hijab on the school’s TV news program.”

The young editor’s brother-in-law, Muhammad Muhawes, is managing editor of MintPressNews.com, and it appears that the money behind the operation comes via the editor’s father-in-law, “Odeh Muhawesh, 54, a Minneapolis businessman born in Jordan,” who “studied under an ayatollah for five years after the Islamic Revolution.”

As I say, fishy.

Anyway, having first met Rosie Gray out on the 2012 campaign trail, and having occasionally given BuzzFeed a hard time — they hate it when you call them a “liberal blog” — I was quite impressed with this particular exercise in long-form reporting. The principle of credit where credit is due requires me to praise this article, urge you to go read the whole thing, and thank Rosie Gray on Twitter.

Good work, Rosie. But I still say BuzzFeed is a liberal blog.

 


‘Hvilken Stilling Skyder Du På’?

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That’s Danish for, “What position are you shooting at?”

That question appears as a subtitle caption in video footage from Syria, so we can assume that it was a Danish video crew covering this scene with rebel gunmen in a firefight against Assad forces. In reply to the question, one of the gunmen answers, “We got one of them. So there is only one left.” (“Vi fik en af dem. Så er der kun en tilbage.”) But then the gunman decides to stand up to get a better look . . .

 

That didn’t work out so good, eh? (Hat-tip: Blazing Cat Fur.)

Deadly blunders are to be expected when you send a bunch of untrained amateurs up against a professional army.

By the way, the subtitle “Gud er det største!” (at the 51-second mark) is a Danish translation of “Allahu akbar!”

UPDATE: Bob Belvedere points out that the same shot killed two rebels.