Foragainst. SUVs. 87 billion. Etc. Etc. Etc.

UPDATE: My rosy pink &*%...

There's no business like Mullah business.

On Iraq and South Africa. But that's just a warm-up to THIS.

UPDATE: And THIS has reminded me how hopelessly negligent I have been not to post "The Three Conjectures" to the Classics links. Done.

On answering Churchill's question.

UPDATE: You really need to read it. Here's an essential taste:

Shortly after Pearl Harbor, Winston Churchill came over and addressed Congress. He asked, rhetorically, "Who do they think we are?" It was an important question, because we must understand what our enemies think about us. Churchill's implicit answer was "They think we're suckers, and they think we won't be able to beat them."

The fascists believed that we had become soft and effeminate, that we were so hooked on materialism and self-indulgence that they, the representatives of a younger, more virile, and more spiritually robust race (or nation), would easily dominate us and impose their will on us.

The terror masters have the same contemptuous vision of us. And if you look at the way they deal with our governments, you will see a mixture of contempt and bemusement, as they repeatedly get us to go for the same tricks and deceptions.

In the past few days there has been a great to-do about a possible Iranian role in Iraq, mediating between us and Moqtada al Sadr. In the end, it came to nothing. Iran's deputy foreign minister was either unwilling or unable to deliver Moqtada, blamed us for the "failure," and went back to Tehran. But the point of the exercise was not to solve a problem for us — on the contrary, the Iranians intend to create ever greater problems on the ground — but to deliver a message to the restive Iranian people: "The Americans are so weak and impotent that they have to turn to us for help. So just forget about any American help to get rid of us."

If we can't manage Iraq without the mullahs, we certainly can't be strong enough to help the Iranian people get rid of the mullahcracy and achieve freedom.

It would have been embarrassing enough if this were the first time the Iranians had played such a game. But this was a humiliating replay of the "We've got al Qaeda guys for you" joke that they played on us at least twice in the last year. Remember when Deputy Secretary of State Armitage announced that his Iranian buddies were going to deliver al Qaeda terrorists in a matter of weeks? That never happened either, and again, the main point of the game was to demonstrate that the Bush administration was perfectly willing to negotiate with the mullahs. And therefore the United States wasn't going to remove them.

There is an additional stratagem involved in these little games: The mullahs figure that, if they can keep us engaged in the games, we won't crack down on their nuclear program. And the more time they can gain, the greater their chances of building an effective supply of atomic bombs. It's working.

As I have long argued, they may be crazy, but they are anything but stupid.

Well, there may have been some food involved. It seems less and less certain though...

The latest from the congress of dictators...

UPDATE: In case you missed it, Jordainian Buddhists have come unhinged!

Phony War's End.

How inconvenient...

The truth about the truth?

On the usefullness of surrender.

UPDATE: And don't forget Afghanistan...

The gathering storm?

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

Halliburton as kindergartners. While Hitchen rocks with perspective.

Where, oh, where could they possibly be hiding them?

Who says there's no room for innovation left in wireless networking -- and then some?

Just your average WHOOPS.

Hitchens Strikes Again

Hitchens has an update for us on dud theories...

To listen to Clarke now, you could almost imagine that the invasion of Afghanistan and eviction of the Taliban—the actual first response of the administration to Sept. 11—had not taken place. To listen to Clarke, also, you would suppose that any Iraqi connection to terrorism was sucked straight out of Rumsfeld's or Wolfowitz's thumb. One theory that does collapse completely is that of administration foreknowledge—the Bush people were evidently in no shape to take any quick advantage of the events and seemingly hadn't bothered to plant even one Iraqi among the mainly Saudi hijackers. But in my experience, dud theories die only to be replaced by new and even dumber ones. The current reigning favorite is that fighting al-Qaida in Iraq is a distraction from the fight against al-Qaida.

Ummm -- no.

Enduring peace cannot be bought at the cost of other people's freedom.

The decline of the Kido Butai?

How can I resist? Must. Try. Breaking. Down.:

The French Government, taking a page from our own Department of Homeland Security has established internal threat levels. Unlike the USA, the French only have four such levels. They are, from low to high: RUN, HIDE, SURRENDER, and COLLABORATE.

On Saturday, in light of the Madrid bombing, France has raised its terror alert level from "RUN" to "HIDE."

WHOOPS!

UPDATE: Whoops II. Bigger than the first whoops as you can see ;)

On political Alzheimer's and WMD tales.

And progressives could care less...

Qaeda: Learning organization?Mandatory. Reading.

Rethinking the lessons of Lebanon.

To which retarded product shall we surrender Mr. Bean?

Of draining swamps and refilling marshes...

Mea stabus maximus.

Pretzel logic examined.

Pigs fly a little bit at least...

Of Course He Said Imminent -- Whoops!

Since Bush does such a bad job of defending himself, here once again is the relevant quote from the 2003 SOTU:

Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.

Orwell would be awe-struck at how effectively the left has used proof by repeated assertion to create a memory hole. Even more amusing, the White House site makes you work to find the speech text!

If they can't stab the guards, they will be humiliated. Of COURSE, murderers can be routinely rehabilitated -- what kind of a mental midget are you? /sarcasm

Darren says to read the writing on the wall and I couldn't agree more...

How inconvenient!

Don't say I didn't warn you more than once:

My daughter went to a lecture tonight at Lynchburg College on post-war Germany up to the present. The speaker, a German national, said that neo-Nazism and antisemitism are quite alive in her home town of Passau. People openly display the swastika, which was forbidden after WWII, and even use the heil salute.

More on Foreign Kerry Supporters -- We Swear By Allah It Is True!

This is just a beauty!:

AL QUDS (Reuters) - A spokesman for terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden said on Wednesday that Al Qaeda would immediately cease terrorist operations and disband if Americans elect John Kerry president this November.

"Hear us, o infidel," said Sheikh Sqari al-Paq al-Ipz. "The prospect of four or, Allah forbid, eight years of hair-splitting from this horse-faced douche strikes fear into our very hearts. How will we oppose Satan when we won't know what Satan stands for from one day to the next?"

He went on to say that if America elected a socialist candidate, not only would Al Qaeda disband, it would order each of its members to kill themselves. "We swear by Allah it is true," said al-Paq al-Ipz. "We'd really, really be upset if you voted socialist. Big time."

"We love death more than you love nuance," he added.

Hat tip LGF.

Certainly all the intellectual firepower of him anyway...

And reasonable prices too ... since human lives don't count...

More lawyers for the terrorists and more stretchers for their victims.

Just desserts for "wine, pigs, loose morals and nudity"? Sounds a lot like Pat Robertson to me -- but the French seem to think they're worth appeasing anyway. I guess consistency must really be the hobgoblin of little minds...

Do the "post-heroic" societies (that's pronounced with a French accent of course) get to sit it out? It's starting to look like one iotic slip and they may get the experience of falling on someone's sword. Any guesses as to whose?

Andrew is at top form today:

"But let us allow, for the moment, that the mass outcry against American hegemony is the voice of the true, the eternal and the compassionate left. Allowing that, we can put the best possible construction on its pervasiveness. Not just the majority of the intellectuals, academics and schoolteachers, but most of the face-workers in the media, share the view that international terrorism is to be explained by the vices of the liberal democracies. Or, at any rate, they shared it until a few days ago. It will be interesting, in the shattering light of an explosive event, to see if that easy view continues now to be quite so widespread, and how much room is made for the more awkward view that the true instigation for terrorism might not be the vices of the liberal democracies, but their virtues." - Clive Davis, after the Bali bombing.

And do read the rest of the post also...

High Time to Catch Up on Steyn

RWN has a great compendium of Mark Steyn quotes:

"Once upon a time we knew what to do. A British district officer, coming upon a scene of suttee, was told by the locals that in Hindu culture it was the custom to cremate a widow on her husband's funeral pyre. He replied that in British culture it was the custom to hang chaps who did that sort of thing. There are many great things about India -- curry, pyjamas, sitars, software engineers -- but suttee was not one of them. What a pity we're no longer capable of being "judgmental" and "discriminating."

"Meanwhile, those of us who talk of reforming Iraq are assured by our opponents that it's preposterous to think that Arabs can ever be functioning citizens of a democratic state. If that's so, isn't that an issue, given current immigration patterns, not for Iraq tomorrow but for Britain, France, Belgium and Holland right now?"

"(During the Cold War), only five guys had their fingers on the nuclear button - Britain, America, France, China and the Soviet Union - but because two of those fingers belonged to Ron and Maggie the Left was convinced the apocalypse was just around the corner. Now we're at the dawn of the freelance nuke era, and the Left is positively insouciant about it."

"Two years after ''the day America changed forever,'' the culture is in thrall to the same dopey self-delusion it held on Sept. 10, 2001: There are no enemies, just friends we haven't yet apologized to."

"I spent a short time on the West Bank earlier this spring. I would have spent longer, but to be honest it creeped me out, and I was happy to scram across the Allenby Bridge and on through Jordan to Iraq. Say what you like about the Sunni Triangle and RPG Alley, but I never once felt I was in a wholly diseased environment. On the West Bank, almost all the humdrum transactions of daily life take place in a culture that glorifies depravity: you walk down a street named after a suicide bomber to drop your child in a school that celebrates suicide-bombing and then pick up some groceries in a corner store whose walls are plastered with portraits of suicide bombers."

"On 11 September 2001, I wrote that one of the casualties of the day's events would be the Western alliance: 'The US taxpayer's willingness to pay for the defence of Canada and Europe has contributed to the decay of America's so-called "allies", freeing them to disband their armed forces, flirt with dictators and gangster states, and essentially convert themselves to semi-non-aligned.' 'The West' was an obsolete concept, because, as I put it later that month, for everyone but America 'the free world is mostly a free ride'."

"Well, it's January, December's come and gone, so let's add up the final score: Coalition of the Willing: Saddam captured, Gadhafi neutered. The ''International Community'': Milosevic elected to Parliament in Belgrade."

Nuff said -- go RTWT...

The shield without the sword. Another thing Eowyn might have said...

The Saviour -- In Need of Salvation?

No, I'm not talking about the Passion of the Christ. Lee Harris raises stunning questions:

Americans must grasp the full implications of the Spanish election. Democracy did not save Spain, and it will not save civilization. Instead, as Sunday's election in Spain showed with blinding clarity, democracy, like Jumbo jets and box-cutters, can be used by the enemies of civilization to achieve their objectives -- one of which is to discredit parliamentary democracy for the ease with which wicked men can twist it to their will.

Democracy will not save us from terrorism; democracy is rather one of the many infinitely precious things that must itself be saved from terrorism. Americans who are willing to die to bring democracy to people who lack it, must ask themselves after last Sunday what is the point of their immense sacrifice if a democracy like Spain's can be so easily intimidated by an act of catastrophic terror into betraying the cause of civilization, and rallying to the side of its enemies?

These are not pleasant questions to contemplate; and that is all the more reason we must steel ourselves to contemplate them. The world changed on Sunday, and we owe it to future generations to recognize this bitter truth as quickly as possible.

READ THE WHOLE THING. It's the first post-311 classic over on the right...

UPDATE: Now the French are under seige. My odds are 3-1 that the headscarf ban never goes into effect. The puppet dance begins in earnest...

ANOTHER UPDATE: Totten claims to be less pessimistic than Harris -- but you can tell his gears at least have some lint in them...

"Our best line of defense is in the enemy's ports." -- Admiral Horatio Nelson

"Those without swords may still die upon them."

An interesting review of the "Passion of Christ".

Spock returns with a triple.

Needed a good Fisking you say? And denihilism and AQ's game plan.

And a Darling package.

And I missed some balance from Totten.

You thought the head-scarf ban was bad?

Andrew on the structure of death cults.

Third Wave Ho

Steyn once more points out the obvious: "they'll blow it up anyway." And reminds us he can see the future of Europe. Meanwhile, Sensing points out that we just entered the "third wave" and Europe can count on further disciplinary action now that its surrender monkey liberal guilt has been exposed.

Whew. With the people of northern Iran in revolt -- with virtually no Western press coverage (gotta focus on how awful Iraq is doncha know) -- it looks like the "phoney war" may be showing long-awaited signs of closure.

Finally, David Warren relays the question: "Before we waste another drop of blood trying to create democracies in the Middle East, shouldn't we reflect a bit on how easily democracy in Spain was subverted by terrorists?"

And if 911 caused you not to sleep, the "third wave" will likely make you long for the good old days of insomnia...

Chistophobia in Europe -- slouching into a theatre near you...

If A Man Says He Wants to Kill You Dept.

Iron-clad proof that Osama and Saddam couldn't possibly work together (from The Atlantic 1/02):

...Even more practical and ecumenical were bin Laden's statements in his 1996 "Declaration," which was, to cite the Princeton historian Bernard Lewis, the first official "license to kill" Americans issued by bin Laden and al Qaeda. Those who think al Qaeda wouldn't ally with an irreligious Saddam Hussein or Iran's Shi'ite clerics should reflect on the following:

To repel the greatest of the two dangers at the expense of the lesser one is an Islamic principle which should be observed. It was the tradition of the people of the Sunnah to join and invade and fight with the righteous and non-righteous men. Allah may support this religion by righteous and non-righteous people as told by the Prophet ... If it is not possible to fight except with the help of non-righteous military personnel and commanders, then there are two possibilities: either fighting will be ignored and the others [the infidels], who are the great danger to this life and religion, will take control; or [we will have] to fight with the help of non-righteous rulers, thereby repelling the greatest of the two dangers and implementing most, though not all, of the Islamic laws. The latter option is the right duty to be carried out in these circumstances and in many other similar situations....

Not. Not to mention the reports that ETA have received Arab terror-camp training (scroll down about 5 paras for an eye-opening read). Arrggghhh.

The Economist provides some interesting details on the PP loss in Spain:

On Friday night, the Spanish people united to march through the streets expressing their anger at the perpetrators of the train bombings. Around 11m people—more than a quarter of Spain’s population—took part in the demonstrations. But the mood of unity quickly came under strain, as suspicions grew of an Islamist link to the bombings. On Saturday there were protests in a number of Spanish cities by anti-war protesters, accusing the government of holding back information on the bombings to manipulate the election results. This came as one of Spain’s leading newspapers, El País, revealed a memo that it said the foreign minister, Ana Palacio, had sent to Spain’s diplomats. In it, she instructed them to “use any opportunity” to blame ETA for the attacks, “thus helping to dissipate any type of doubt that certain interested parties may want to promote.”

Of course, when all the chickens are counted it's likely that it was *both* AQ and ETA. But never mind the facts, politics for the left is all about hatred -- of everyone except cold-blooded totalitarian and theocratic killers. The church of the left grows ever toward the stars...

Quote of the day: Alexander Hamilton’s words are as true today as they were two and a quarter centuries ago: "A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one." (Hat tip anonymous.)

Blood in the shark tank. As Churchill once said, they'll have both war and dishonour. As usual, Instapundit has all angles on it...

UPDATE: And add Andrew's take.

It must never reach the stars...

"Will their pea brains melt?" Sorry, but it was truly irresistable...

Finally time for Le Monde to switch sides? Pinch me.

Bells are tolling -- and the choices are stark.

VDH a poppin':

So here we are a year later. We fuss about the WMD "myth"; enemies scramble over its reality. We talk of our theft of third-world resources — and pay more for gas than ever before while the price of Iraq's national treasure soars. We worry that we are too involved abroad; those in Europe, Afghanistan, and Iraq claim there are not enough of us over there. And we scream at each other that we are not liked, even as those overseas express new respect for us.

No wonder, when asked for specific follow-ups about his general criticisms of the Iraqi war in a recent Time magazine interview, a resolute Kerry variously prevaricated, "I didn't say that," "I can't tell you," "It's possible," "It's not a certainty," "If I had known," "No, I think you can still — wait, no. You can't — that's not a fair question and I'll tell you why," — employing the entire idiom and vocabulary of those who are angry about Bush's removal of Saddam, but neither know quite why nor what they would do differently.

Lileks:

Spain doesn’t have the luxury of 200 years of Constitutional rule. Young adults sitting around the dinner table look at parents who grew up under Franco; they might value freedom more than we do. We cannot possibly imagine losing it. They have heard stories of how quickly it can be lost.

But what do I know? I know nothing. It’s ten o’clock on a cold night in a warm house in a nice town in the middle of North America. Could be ETA. Could be AQ. Could be, as some have said, that this was the opening of the the Islamacist’s front in Europe.

But it's all a front. If there’s a man sitting on a park bench reading about Buddhism: it’s a front. If there’s a woman at the mall with her head uncovered, it’s a front. If there’s a little girl in a school learning about the periodic table, it’s a front. If there’s two women in a park holding hands and sneaking a smooch, it’s a front. If there’s a guy in a room posting to his website his arguments for atheism, it’s a front. If you’re reading your child a story whose hero is a clever pig, you’re living on the edge of the front. If the appointed hour comes and the call to prayer doesn’t drift from the spiky towers, it’s a front.

So what do I hope I'll tell my child? Simple. It's over. We won.

And an affront. Period.

Ya gotta luv that Allah's take on the collapse of Western Civilization as we know it. ;) (Hat tip Roger.)

And then there's this inconvenient chap that has a propensity to nullify all of those "Bush is stupid" arguments... Can you say best read in a long time? Thought you could...

Water world?

There are those who would call it (political) suicide.

And there will never be a shred of evidence that the U.N. is a corrupt den of dictators and thieves. Never ever never never ever.

NYeT at work. Dimly. As usual. (Hat tip Glenn.)

We are sprung from the ashes of barbarism's fire...

Piss on the Wall. And feel empowered to vote by proxy!

Welcome to Utopia, fools.

On apologising for Pol Pot and other high moral positions.

"Because the people boycotted the election." But our media rocket scientists somehow missed this little detail...

One of the best arguments for why we may be unsuitable to bring democracy to Iraq. Unfortunately, the libs would be jaw-droppingly hypocritical to make it -- so they haven't...

And really, who knew about the libs anyway?

The Capitol Steps visit the U.N. and lapse into joke book mode... (It's worth clicking through and at least sampling around -- as Michael notes, the communist answers are consistently side-splitting.)

Courageously or otherwise...

Bowling blindly for barrels.

You've all been struggling to blurt out the UKT -- but this is why Roger gets paid to write...

And then there's the Nexis-Lexis problem.

Some things never change.

Banished from even their innermost thoughts.

Why politics has a bad name. And his name is...

Export problems?

Don't worry -- just an oversight...

Spock takes on Wretchard's pessimism. I think he mostly comes out on top. But the next few years will be quite interesting...

Brother, can you spare a code? (Hat tip Glenn)

Progress seen near Iran. (Hat tip Glenn)

Analyzing the grant application.

The election on the rules of engagement.

Somehow, I forgot about my second Marxist indoctrination...

The Heinz 57?

In a surprising last-minute upset, all seven Democratic presidential hopefuls somehow lost the Democratic primaries Tuesday...

Most people who were abused are child abusers? WHOOPS!

What's going on in Iraq?

On not staying up late...

Unexpected celebrations at the FBI?

Only a handful?

If we do it, it rules! And a new German word ;)

On the intelligence of Iraqis and journalists... and Zarqawi goes to work.

The Second Conjecture Fulfilled

We will save our fingertips at the cost of delivering ourselves entire into the pit.

Not enough flies? Spin good news until you're dizzy with CNN and crew ...

Not to say there isn't bad news as well... (Hat tip Doug.)

Texans *do* play poker ;)

HUMOROUS INTERLUDE: The Cartoon Laws of Physics

A doom fisking and lots of discussion...

Reconsidering Intelligence

David Warren points out the sad truth about intelligence:

There is also too little appreciation of what e.g. the military historian John Keegan has been stressing in his recent journalism. Reliable intelligence has rarely been available to any power in the world's history. It is by messing in with sheer brute force that one soon finds what is going on. And this is the Bush administration's greatest success: messing in. They have not waited for an American or European city to go up in radioactive smoke before doing something.

No pederasty here ... just move along now...

They have learned nothing...

and they have forgotten nothing.

The analogy of the shell game distracting from the pick-pocket pretty well puts our current disastrous mess in context...

Now, even ElBaradei gets it...

This man can write: about T.J. Hooker and roman candle balls.

Wretchard Rocks

I continue to grow more impressed with Wretchard. His most recent entries on the Occidental roots of the clacker escape and where Einstein was mistaken (but not wrong) are works of compact beauty and insight.