There'll Be Heck To Pay. HECK, I Tell Ya!!

The International Committee of the Red Cross is "concerned" about the rescuers of the hostages held by the FARC in Colombia displaying the Red Cross symbol. According to the Red Cross, the use of its symbol is regulated by "international humanitarian law," whatever that is, and its misuse is prohibited.

This raises a few questions:

If the rescuers had actually been FARC operatives simply transferring the captives to another prison camp, would the Red Cross still object to the use of their symbol?

Is the Red Cross more interested in the technicalities of the use of their symbol, or the rescue of hostages from terrorists?

What punishment should the rescuers be made to suffer?

Also, it just seems a little strange that none of the terrorists on the ground who handed over the hostages to the rescue team seemed too concerned that "Red Cross personnel" were involved in what they thought was just another one of their prisoner transfers. Does this mean that the Red Cross is routinely involved in FARC activities?

Must Have Gone Over Our Heads

To the ever so sophisticated folks at The New Yorker magazine, it's probably no surprise that their cover depicting the Obamas as terrorists created a controversy. After all, most of us have little understanding of the highly nuanced satire appreciated (almost exclusively) by the northeastern elite.

For the dozen or so people sophisticated enough to have actually read the article referenced by the cover picture, it must have been quite a clever piece discussing how the "little people" are so easily mislead by vicious rumors about Barack Obama - rumors, by the way, that most of us haven't even heard before.

No harm done, though.....all the TV news channels have been busily explaining the actual intent of the magazine to us non-nuanced rubes.

Be sure to get your souvenir copy while they last.

Torture

I would be happy if the U.S. government would publicly state that we (the U.S. military) will always treat legal combatants (members of a legitimate opposing military force) in accordance with the applicable Geneva and Hague Conventions....just as we have in the past (and as none of our enemies ever have). Captured military personnel, after all, should be treated with respect regardless of which side of a conflict they are on.

With regard to illegal combatants (terrorists, pirates, brigands, etc.), they will be treated however we damned well please....even "tortured" if necessary. They are not protected by the above mentioned conventions, by the way, even though we normally afford them such niceties.

Keep in mind that we do not use torture to extract confessions (as the communists always seem to want to do). Read some of the many accounts of former POW's of North Korea or North Vietnam.

We do not torture to entertain ourselves. The mistreatment of prisoners by Americans at Abu Ghraib was not torture. Humiliating prisoners just for kicks is inappropriate, juvenile, and unbecoming of U.S. military personnel. It is not torture, however.

Torture as punishment may satisfy a need for revenge, but serves no legitimate purpose, and should be prohibited on moral grounds, if nothing else, but certainly not because we care one bit what "the world" thinks of us. Besides, when our so-called allies get themselves in trouble, who is it that always has to save their butts?

Attempting to legally define torture would be as futile as trying to define bad taste in music, anyway. Forcing someone to listen to a Barry Manilow album would be considered torture by some (most). I'm okay with leaving the interrogation of terrorists to the discretion of the experts. You say you don't trust the experts to make those decisions?......well, you damned well better trust them. Those experts are the ones who protect you from getting blown up or having your throat slit by people who would rather kill you than spend a relaxing day with their own families. I'm talking about bad people here.

Arguing that torture never works is simply denying an oft proven truth - torture always works when applied properly for an appropriate purpose. Don't believe me? Well, I'll bet that, given the opportunity, I could make you give me your social security number and all your computer passwords without even leaving a mark on your body.....and I'm not even very good at interrogation. I could probably even make you admit to being a witch, too.....even if you aren't one.

The strategy of gentle persuasion and developing a personal rapport with prisoners may work when the prisoners are reasonable people (such as ordinary soldiers whose philosophies of life are similar to our own). This approach is said to have worked with some German POW's in WWII. It will not, however, work with Islamic terrorists. They do not share our values and cannot be reasoned with.

Whatever methods our intelligence agencies deem appropriate in dealing with terrorists is okay by me. That's right....I'm not too concerned about how terrorists are treated.

Speaking of torture, try sitting through any of the absurd discussions on torture presented by CNN. Your head will explode.

A New Terrorist Tactic?

Terrorists (insurgents, radicals, extremists, resistance fighters, "freedom" fighters....pick a label) know that life is cheap. They also know that westerners consider life to be the purpose of ..... well, of living.

With explosives becoming less plentiful, it seems that the terrorists in Iraq have found a new way to further their goals without all the risks and expense of rigging a car with bombs......just make the Americans think they're being attacked by a car bomber. All that's needed is an old taxi (preferably with a couple of female passengers, just for effect) driven at high speed toward a coalition convoy, ignoring any warning shots or signals to stay clear.

The result is a car carrying "innocent civilians" shot to pieces by trigger-happy military or civilian security personnel. Western news media outlets are fed pictures and "eye-witness" accounts of the incident which they are more than willing to publish without question (the press will jump on anything that helps to undermine President Bush and the U.S. effort in Iraq).

It also tends to undo any goodwill developed between the American military and the Iraqi populace and turns world opinion against the U.S.

This type of negative PR campaign may be more damaging to the Americans than real car bombs could ever be.

Bin Laden -- Alive?

I don't believe it.....not for one minute. Oh, sure, I'd like for him to still be alive so we would (eventually) have the pleasure of killing him publicly.

But that ain't gonna happen. He's long dead, folks.....probably buried in a cave that collapsed when struck by one of those really big bunker buster bombs.

Why do I think that?.....First of all, if he were alive, he'd be more common on American TV than "home equity loan" commercials.

Also, look at these screen grabs from his last 2 released videos. Both the 2004 (on the left) and the 2007 videos are (intentionally?) out of focus and the 2007 video shows an apparently much younger bin Laden.....his beard is dark and more stylishly trimmed, too. I suspect that the audio tracks for both were provided by someone who is sorta good at doing impressions.

He could have dyed and trimmed his beard, but there's no plausible explanation for such vanity.

And if you think that these dirt bags living in a cave prevents them from making decent quality videos, take a look at the recent videos of Ayman al-Zawahiri (the number 2 man in al-Qaeda). No problem with focus there, because there's no need to obscure his features to.

Al-Qaeda and the U.S. government both need bin Laden alive in order to further their agendas.
AQ, needs him as an invincible leader against the infidels.....the U.S. needs him as a boogyman to counter the increasing opposition to the way the war in Iraq has been conducted.

I'm really disappointed in our government for carrying on this charade, too. They must think we're really stupid.

"The Flying Imams"

No...not a high-wire act from the Middle East or a magic carpet ride.

These are the Islamic clerics ejected from a US Airways flight getting ready to depart Minneapolis for Phoenix a couple of weeks ago. Their behavior prior to and after boarding the plane raised the suspicions of passengers and crew.

The suspicious behavior is said to have included loud praying prior to boarding, taking unassigned seats in different parts of the aircraft, making comments about Al Qaida, and requesting seatbelt extensions that they did not need. The Imams were also reported to have refused to leave the plane when ordered to do so by the plane's crew and security personnel.

An Air Marshal was quoted as having described the incident as a "political correctness probe" - an attempt to evaluate the threshold of cultural tolerance aboard commercial aircraft. There have been several reported attempts by Muslims to test security measures on airliners before and after 9/11.

From my point of view, it appears, in this case, to be simply a staged disruption that could be used to criticize public concerns about the threat of Islamic terrorism. Taunting westerners seems to be a favorite tactic of Muslim activists nowadays. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), of course, has called for an 'investigation' of the incident and criticized the airline for overreacting, implying that it discriminated against Muslims.

If the Imams had been testing airline security measures, they would not have made their suspicious activities so obvious. I think they were just showing their contempt for western attitudes toward the current Islamic threat to security.

I find this type of behavior insulting to our society in general and to our culture in particular. One of my basic beliefs is "live and let live," but I don't appreciate it when people from other cultures make such arrogant asses of themselves and expect the rest of us to accept them with open arms.

I wonder if US Airways (or any airline) would be truly saddened if they were boycotted by Muslims?

Frankly, I think the airlines (and their passengers) would breathe a sigh of relief.

Club Gitmo

The prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay for being unlawful combatants (terrorists) seem to be unwanted by their respective countries.

Some European countries are reportedly reluctant to accept detainees who were legal residents of those countries before they decided to join the "jihad." I can't say that I blame them, either. These are very bad people who will never be rehabilitated and live for only one reason - to kill infidels. That's right, YOU and me.

Here are the alternatives for the disposition of the detainees - as I see it.

1. Keep them in Gitmo forever where they are well fed and cared for (at our expense).

2. Return them to the countries where they hold citizenship (and hope they are not released and allowed to continue their terrorist careers).

3. Turn them over to the governments of the countries in which they were captured (Iraq and Afghanistan) to stand trial for crimes against the people of those countries.

4. Turn them over to those organizations that demand that Gitmo be closed (Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, etc.) with the understanding that the individual members of the governing bodies of those organizations will be held criminally liable for any future terrorist acts committed by detainees in their care.

5. Develop an Adopt-a-Terrorist program so that any bleeding-heart liberal can assume personal responsibility for a detainee. The detainee would be required to live with the family who adopts him.

6. Kill every last one of them and get it over with, for cryin' out loud!

From now on, follow my Take-No-Prisoners policy when it comes to dealing with terrorists.

I Just Don't Get It

Canadian police informed the U.S. that a Syrian-born Canadian, Maher Arar, was suspected to be involved with Al-Qaida. The U.S. deported the Canadian to Syria after he was apprehended at a JFK Airport on a return flight from Tunisia to Canada in 2002.

Arar claims that the Syrians tortured him before allowing him to return to Canada in 2003 where he was cleared of any connections to terrorist organizations. His side of the story can be found at his website.

What I don't get:

Why would the U.S. deport a Canadian citizen to Syria? Did Canada OK the deportation?

Why would the Syrians, of all people, torture someone the U.S. considered to be a terrorist? You would think that the Syrian government would proclaim Arar a hero. Perhaps they thought he was a U.S. spy posing as a deported terrorist? (Wacky Conspiracy Theory Alert! - could this be an elaborate ruse by the Syrians to remove suspicion from Arar so he can maintain his "cover?")

Why would Syria even accept a deportee from the U.S.? I thought they didn't cooperate with our government on any issue.

Canadian PM Stephen Harper is demanding an explanation from the Bush Administration. I'd like to know what the heck is going on, too!

Cowardice in the "War on Terror"

Have you noticed that the MSM have resolutely avoided any possibly of offending Islamic terrorists? Oh sure, they say they just don't want to offend the vast majority of peace-loving Muslims (who also seem reluctant to offend the "tiny" extremist elements among them). They're more than happy to point out anything offensive to Muslims if it will serve to undermine the Bush administration, though.

Now it appears that the Berlin Opera House is the latest entity to capitulate to the fear of Islamic terrorists by canceling the performance of an avant-garde version of a Mozart opera that included a scene that included the severed heads of prominent religious figures, including Mohammed. German government officials reportedly urged that the "show must should go on," but the opera house chose to cancel anyway. Does anyone doubt that the terrorists are winning.

[Remember, it was the Germans who quietly freed the terrorist Mohammad Ali Hammadi not in exchange for the release of Susanne Osthoff, a German national working in Iraq who was "kidnapped" by terrorists last year. Susanne is suspected of having participated in her own abduction and assisted her Baathist "captors" in this scam to get Germany to release an important terrorist and cancel the training they had agreed to provide to Iraqi security forces. Don't expect the German government to file charges against her, though.]

Whether the opera production was tasteless or inappropriate is beside the point. Many, if not most, artistic presentations could be characterized as tasteless or inappropriate (Pis Christ, Madonna, CBS News, etc.). Those of us who value civil liberties will allow such garbage as part of the price of having our own freedom.

The performance was reportedly cancelled because the German police informed the opera house that it could result in "a violent backlash from Muslim fundamentalists." They weren't worried about angry Christians or Buddhists, though (why is that?). Although no Muslim group had expressed displeasure with the scheduled performance, it's not hard to imagine that someone would have jumped at yet another excuse to torch some cars or blow up something.

Frankly, I'm getting a little sick and tired of all this tip-toeing around Muslim sensitivities. I was genuinely proud of President George W. Bush when he said to those who wished to attack us, "Bring 'em on!" I was genuinely disappointed when he backed off from that rare show of strength and defiance of our enemy.

The MSM promotes such cowardice in the way it reports (or fails to report) the news. A good example is Newsweek magazine. It couldn't wait to publish an unfounded (and false) rumor that guards at Guantanamo had flushed a copy of the Koran down a toilet (a physical impossibility, btw), but at the height of the Danish cartoon kerfluffle, the editors at Newsweek refused to publish the cartoons in question to show everyone what the "news" was all about. In fact, no major news outlet had the courage to show what was causing the uproar.

Whatever you might think of former President John F. Kennedy, he inspired me when he said:

"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty."

Is there a leader in this country today who has that kind of courage?

Bin Laden Dead?

Unconfirmed reports suggest that bin Laden may have died from typhoid. Say it ain't so! Typhoid is too good for him. I can think of many better ways for him to see his last sunrise.

When Osama stopped making propaganda videos, I speculated that he was either dead or seriously wounded. There was no other plausable explanation for his disappearance from Al-Jazeera broadcasts.

I'm skeptical of the purported audio tapes made by bin Laden in the meantime. The jihadis want everyone to think Osama is still alive, because he is an important icon for their cause. He is immensely popular with Islamists and serves as an inspirational leader for the jihadis.

The U.S. wants everyone to think he is alive, too, because they need him to be the bogey-man in the so-called "War on Terror." Without Osama, we have no one on whom to focus our outrage for the actions of the terrorists.

If Osama is dead, I suspect that a lot of people will lose interest in continuing a costly campaign to rid the world of all the scumbags who carry on bin Laden's war against the West. Instead, they will support the isolationists' desire to simply hunker down in the relative (note I said relative) safety of America's distance from the bulk of the trouble-makers (yeah, the Middle East).

Are Muslims Prone to Violence?

Looks like the Pope has stirred up a real hornets nest - not that it takes much to do that nowadays. It seems that the Muslims are up in arms over the Pope's remarks last week quoting a 14th Century emperor, Manual II Paleologos (whoever he was), who criticized the Prophet Mohammed.

So far, Muslims around the world are making Emperor Manual's case for him - by murdering a nun, fire-bombing churches, and, in general, just making complete asses of themselves.

Even a simple cartoon is enough justification for some Muslims (tens or even hundreds of thousands, actually) to go on a rampage.

Here are the infamous cartoons that were published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten last year (oh, the horror).

Are these people so easily offended that they can display no dignity in the face of criticism? Do they not realize that their behavior validates every derogatory comment ever made against Islam and it's followers?

The Muslims' penchant for bombing markets, hotels, trains, planes and automobiles....even their own mosques....doesn't aid their cause. Western liberals try to rationalize the behavior of these scumbags - yes, that's right, SCUMBAGS - and try to somehow excuse it, but no one with any sense is buying their arguments.

Here are just a few of the atrocities commited by Muslims in the name of Islam:
The World Trade Center in New York.

The U.S. Embassy in Nairobi.

Subway trains in Madrid.

Nightclubs in Bali.

The Marriott Hotel in Jakarta.

Busses and subways in London.

All of these and most others are civilian targets.

What do the vast majority of peaceful Muslims have to say about the "hijacking" of their Religion of Peace?

::crickets::

I thought so.

Airport knife scare

The AP reports that a man was arrested for having a knife hidden inside a book in a secure area of the Detroit Metropolitan Airport on Thursday. The Ft. Worth Star Telegram has the scant details of the incident.

A 21 year old "legal permanent resident of the United States" from Yemen, with a one-way airline ticket back to his home country, carrying a knife concealed inside a book....hmmm. Nothing suspicious about that. Besides, he said he didn't know how the knife got there.

No details given about the type of knife or the title of the book. How to Get Your Own 72 Virgins, perhaps?