The pragmatic fantasy

January 28, 2011, 7:33 AM

By Caroline Glick

Today the Egyptian regime faces its gravest threat since Anwar Sadat's assassination 30 years ago. As protesters take to the street for the third day in a row demanding the overthrow of 82-year old President Hosni Mubarak, it is worth considering the possible alternatives to his regime.

On Thursday afternoon, Egyptian presidential hopeful Mohammed ElBaradei, the former head of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency returned to Egypt from Vienna to participate in anti-regime demonstrations.

As IAEA head, Elbaradei shielded Iran's nuclear weapons program from the Security Council. He repeatedly ignored evidence indicating that Iran's nuclear program was a military program rather than a civilian energy program. When the evidence became too glaring to ignore, Elbaradei continued to lobby against significant UN Security Council sanctions or other actions against Iran and obscenely equated Israel's purported nuclear program to Iran's.

His actions won him the support of the Iranian regime which he continues to defend. Just last week he dismissed the threat of a nuclear armed Iran telling the Austrian News Agency, "There's a lot of hype in this debate," and asserting that the discredited 2007 US National Intelligence Estimate that claimed Iran abandoned its nuclear weapons program in 2003 remains accurate.

Elbaradei's support for the Iranian ayatollahs is matched by his support for the Muslim Brotherhood. This group, which forms the largest and best organized opposition movement to the Mubarak regime is the progenitor of Hamas and al Qaida. It seeks Egypt's transformation into an Islamic regime that will stand at the forefront of the global jihad. In recent years, the Muslim Brotherhood has been increasingly drawn into the Iranian nexus along with Hamas. Muslim Brotherhood attorneys represented Hizbullah terrorists arrested in Egypt in 2009 for plotting to conduct spectacular attacks aimed at destroying the regime.

Elbaradei has been a strong champion of the Muslim Brotherhood. Just this week he gave an interview to Der Spiegel defending the jihadist movement. As he put it, "We should stop demonizing the Muslim Brotherhood. ...[T]hey have not committed any acts of violence in five decades. They too want change. If we want democracy and freedom, we have to include them instead of marginalizing them."

The Muslim Brotherhood for its part has backed Elbaradei's political aspirations. On Thursday it announced it would demonstrate at ElBaradei's side the next day.

More at: CarolineGlick.com

De realiteit in Kunduz

Graphic Video of Fatal Stoning Shows Taliban's Strength

The Taliban were able to impose their version of justice in part because northern Afghanistan has been neglected in the post-Taliban administration. Kunduz province, where the stoning took place, is one of the primary economic hubs in northern Afghanistan and was one of the safest areas in the country. Until 2008, there was little violence and little evidence of Taliban presence.

But today, across large areas of northern Afghanistan, inadequate and corrupt governance has combined with determined efforts by militants, and areas that were once safe are now under strong Taliban influence, and in some cases, under Taliban control.

Hier gaat onze politie, die dus nog niet eens de straatterroristjes in onze prachtwijken de baas kan, de Afghaanse politie opleiden.

Veel succes jongens en meisjes...

Digging Graves for the Next World War

Roland Shirk on January 23, 2011

A running theme in my recent commentaries has been the need to secure the safety of Western countries by limiting who enters them. I think most Jihadwatch readers are already convinced that the admission of millions of Muslims into Europe was a catastrophe on the order of... well, what historical incident equals it? The final outcome remains to be seen, so let me lay out a range of possibilities.

If the influx is stopped in the next few years, and Western societies overcome the self-gelding political correctness and hysterical scrupulosity that drives them to hold their own societies to an inhuman standard of Kantian selflessness--while endlessly indulging the sins of newcomers--it's possible that we will keep our freedoms intact without a major violent confrontation. For that to happen, we'd need to slam shut our borders, cut welfare programs that allow recent immigrants to breed irresponsibly on the taxpayers' dime, rigorously enforce laws suppressing sedition, infiltrate and expose terror networks already in our midst, and push back hard against attempts to force an alien religion into our cultural mainstream. If all that were to happen, there would be significant unrest among Muslim communities lasting several decades, but in general the level of violence would be low. We'd essentially have to reduce Islamic enclaves to the condition of the Basques--midsized, deeply disgruntled minorities treasuring claims against our territory, without the power to do much more than disrupt the peace, and occasionally murder some policemen. (Of course, the Basques have old, and in some ways legitimate grievances, since they really were here first--while the Muslims have none--but that's not really the issue.) If all those happy events were to come about, perhaps through the secret release of massive doses of testosterone into the water supply, then the decision of wretched socialists like Francois Mitterand to flood their motherlands with Saracens might be comparable to some mid-level historical blunder--like Napoleon's attack on Russia.

More at Jihad Watch

Europe On Trial "What is the Judge Going to Find Me Guilty of, Quoting the Koran?"

by A. Millar

January 17, 2011 at 5:00 am

When Austrian anti-sharia activist Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff stood in court November 28 to defend herself against the charge of "incitement of hatred," her alleged "crime" was to have given a seminar on the subject of Islam in Europe, during which she quoted the Koran and several prominent Islamic scholars.

The case was suspended until January 18, when she will be back in court facing the possibility of receiving a sentence of up to three years in jail. In the meantime, although the Austrian media has largely refused to report the case, Mrs. Sabaditsch-Wolff has been garnering attention elsewhere for her activism. She recently visited Israel with a small delegation of European politicians. Sarah Palin has called the delegation to offer her support, and author Bat Ye'or has also sent a letter of support.

"It is so important to fight this fight," Sabaditsch-Wolff said recently, "and not to give up. I feel if ever I have to be in court, this is a very worthy cause."

Mrs. Sabaditsch-Wolff's legal problems began when she presented a three-part seminar to the Freedom Education Institute, attached to the Austrian Freedom Party. Veronika Dolna, a young journalist for the Left-wing News magazine attended the first two parts, recording the second part and about 30 minutes of the first.

Mrs. Sabaditsch-Wolff has since been studying Islam for about ten hours a day in preparation for her court case, although she says that "religion should not be in the courtroom. It does not belong there. How can you explain in court the gates of Ijtihad [questioning,]… that they have been closed.," she said.

"What is the judge going to do with information… that there cannot be any change in Islam as long as the gates of Ijtihad are closed. What is she going to judge on? Is she judging me or is she judging the Koran? What is she going to find me guilty of? Of quoting the Koran?"

Read more at: HUDSON NEW YORK

Dependence Day

January 2011

by Mark Steyn

On the erosion of personal liberty.


If I am pessimistic about the future of liberty, it is because I am pessimistic about the strength of the English-speaking nations, which have, in profound ways, surrendered to forces at odds with their inheritance. “Declinism” is in the air, but some of us apocalyptic types are way beyond that. The United States is facing nothing so amiable and genteel as Continental-style “decline,” but something more like sliding off a cliff.

In the days when I used to write for Fleet Street, a lot of readers and several of my editors accused me of being anti-British. I’m not. I’m extremely pro-British and, for that very reason, the present state of the United Kingdom is bound to cause distress. So, before I get to the bad stuff, let me just lay out the good. Insofar as the world functions at all, it’s due to the Britannic inheritance. Three-sevenths of the G7 economies are nations of British descent. Two-fifths of the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council are—and, by the way, it should be three-fifths: The rap against the Security Council is that it’s the Second World War victory parade preserved in aspic, but, if it were, Canada would have a greater claim to be there than either France or China. The reason Canada isn’t is because a third Anglosphere nation and a second realm of King George VI would have made too obvious a truth usually left unstated—that the Anglosphere was the all but lone defender of civilization and of liberty. In broader geopolitical terms, the key regional powers in almost every corner of the globe are British-derived—from Australia to South Africa to India—and, even among the lesser players, as a general rule you’re better off for having been exposed to British rule than not: Why is Haiti Haiti and Barbados Barbados?

The New Criterion

Islam is het probleem

Naar aanleiding van de recente aanslagen op Kopten in Egypte, wil ik als Nederlandse Kopt mijn ongenoegen uiten over de situatie in Egypte. Sinds 1970 zijn er steeds meer aanslagen geweest op Koptische Christenen, waarvan een van de meest bloedige dus op de dag waarop het nieuwe jaar werd gevierd, ongeveer twee weken geleden. Een goed overzicht van de aanslagen op Kopten staat op Wikipedia. In tegenstelling tot wat de Moslim Broederschap in Egypte propageert, dat Islam de oplossing is voor alle problemen in Egypte, is het voor Kopten overduidelijk dat de Islam niet de oplossing is, maar juist het probleem.

Maar het probleem is niet 40 jaar oud. Het probleem is al begonnen sinds de Islamitische inval in Egypte in het jaar 641. Een inval die zeker niet vredig was, zoals islamitische apologeten u graag willen doen geloven, en het was al zeker geen zelfverdediging vanuit islamitische hoek. De Arabieren vielen binnen om de Byzantijnen verdrijven en de islamitische staat te bouwen, geheel volgens de idealen van Mohammed. De Jizya werd ingesteld (Koran 9:29), Arabisch werd de officiële taal, de tongen van mensen die in het openbaar Koptisch (de originele Egyptische taal voordat de Arabische taal kwam) spraken werden afgehakt, Koptische vrouwen werden verkracht.

Zie: Artikel7.nu

En hier een uitstekende oplossing uit Zwitserland: Geen ontwikkelingshulp na moord op Christenen