Jul 29 2009

Hiding behind the innocent

Category: Hamas,Islam,Palestine,UN — harmonicminer @ 12:49 am

Officials say that Hamas is tunneling near UN facilities

Hamas is digging tunnels next to United Nations facilities under the assumption that the IDF will not target them during a future conflict, defense officials warned on Sunday.

The idea of tunneling near the UN school, the official said, was a lesson Hamas had learned from Operation Cast Lead earlier this year, during which the IDF did its utmost to avoid targeting UN facilities.

“Hamas uses civilian infrastructure to hide behind,” explained the official. “This is another example of Hamas’s cynical use of a school.”

This is not the first time Palestinian terrorists have used the Beit Hanun school. In October 2007, an IAF drone videotaped three terrorists preparing and then launching mortars from within the UN school compound in Beit Hanun.

Clearly, the Palestinians need to choose between supporting Hamas and having a UN presence in Gaza. And the UN needs to force that choice, by simply leaving until Hamas is gone. It is unconscionable for the UN to allow itself to be used as a shield for Hamas terrorists.

Will the UN force the choice? You’re kidding, right?

Jul 19 2009

The grand Islamic choral tradition. Not.

Category: Iran,Islam,music — harmonicminer @ 8:30 am

Iran: Artist gets five year jail term for musical Koran

An Iranian artist has been sentenced to five years in prison for having put the Koran to music. According to ‘Fardanews’, the Iranian authorities considered the move “offensive to Islamic morality”.

Mohsen Namju is accused of having ridiculed the Koran, “reciting it in a western and anti-Islamic style”.

One of the major experts on recitation of the the Koran in Iran, Abbas Salimi, reported the musician to the Islamic court in Tehran.

The court found the artist guilty for having breached “Islamic morality”.

After the sentence, Abbas Salimi was reportedly “very satisfied” and underlined the importance of “defending the sacredness of god’s book”.

“No-one should be able to ridicule it,” he said.

Under Islamic law, music is allowed if it does not result in provoking the faithful.

Combining the recitation of the Koran and popular songs, like the Iranian artist, is not tolerated under Islamic Sharia law.

And you thought your local church was musically conservative. Along these lines: is there any equivalent to jazz in Islam?

Just kidding.

Jul 18 2009

Killing for honor

Category: Islam,liberty — harmonicminer @ 8:45 am

In Saudi Arabia, the police appear to be complicit in so-called “honor killings,” arresting women for the “crime” of been seen in the company of men to whom they are not related, and then releasing them into the hands of murderous male relatives.

Saudi Arabia’s religious police are being blamed for the death of two sisters who were murdered in what is known as an ‘honor killing’ by their brother after the sisters were arrested for allegedly mixing with unrelated men.
Saudi King Abdullah.

The Society for Defending Women’s Rights in Saudi Arabia said the religious police arrested the two sisters, aged 19 and 21, thus putting their lives in danger.

Their brother shot them to death in front of their father when they left a women’s shelter in Riyadh on July 5, according to Saudi news reports.

The practice known as honor killing is a daily occurrence in Saudi Arabia. The incidents are staged to look like a suicide or an accident, Wajeha Huweidar, a Saudi women’s rights activist told The Media Line.

In the meantime, Human Rights Watch seems to think it’s just fine to seek donations from wealthy Saudis for their organization’s campaign against Israel, by highlighting to rich Saudis how much reporting Human Rights Watch has done on “Israeli atrocities.”   That’s probably an easy sell in Saudi Arabia.  One suspects that the Saudi donors must not be feeling very much pressure from Human Rights Watch for their own transgressions, which make Israels’ look like a snide remark at a pre-school.

Jul 02 2009

NOKIA: the real sellout to IRANIAN MULLAH’S TERROR

Category: Iran,Islam,terrorism — harmonicminer @ 9:00 am

The American Islamic Conference, an organization that promotes western style pluralism to Muslims, and is an example of what a truly moderate Muslim organization looks like, has called on us to Boycott Nokia for Iran Crackdown

Nokia recently provided the Iranian regime with a “monitoring center” that enables security forces to tap cell phones, read e-mails, scramble text-messages, and interrupt calls. Nokia’s new surveillance system has enhanced the regime’s ability to crack down on dissent during recent protests. The monitoring technology is being deployed on a massive scale, with hundreds arrested thanks to Nokia’s technology.

From Google to Nokia, we have a problem with multinational communications companies aiding repressive regimes, apparently just to do more business.  Signup for the Nokia boycott here, and send a personalized message to Nokia at the same time.

For a broader approach to “divesting terror,” i.e., ceasing financial support of companies and organizations that do business with terror-related organizations, start your reading here.

Jun 22 2009

Michael Yon on the war in the Philippines

Category: Islam,terrorism — harmonicminer @ 8:57 am

Michael Yon has a really unique perspective on the US military and the war on Islamic terror in the Philippines. Here are several articles, with LOTS of photos, in the order he posted them. This is a war where US forces rarely fight, yet play a crucial role in helping and training local forces, and building bonds with the local citizenry. This, too, is the war on terrorism.  As usual, I’m very proud of our military.

If you want to have more background on this type of mission for our military, check out the book “Imperial Grunts” by Robert Kaplan.  In the meantime, hot off the presses from Michael Yon, with LOTS of fascinating photos at the links below:

Continue reading “Michael Yon on the war in the Philippines”

Jun 03 2009

Sadly, this won’t be the last American Jihadist

Category: Islam,media,military,sharia,society — harmonicminer @ 9:55 am

ARKANSAS’ LONE JIHADIST: HOW ALONE IS HE? (much more at the link)

Here we have a new case of an individual U.S. citizen who committed an act of terror in the name of his ideology (Government officials have called it inaccurately a “political and religious motive”) against U.S. military targets. Do we see a pattern here? Are we witnessing a repeat and copycats? In fact, as we review several previous cases, from the Miami cell case, to the Fort Dix Six, the Georgia two, the New York Four, the Virginia Paintball network, and many other cases, we’re witnessing the surge of a phenomenon we have been warning about. I have repeatedly coined it Mutant Jihad, including in my book Future Jihad. Two important elements are to be taken into consideration: One is the fact that in many of these cases, U.S. military personnel and targets have been on the short list of these “homegrown terrorists.” If you study the repeated targeting process of these urban Jihadists, they systematically focus on military deployment inside the United States. In a sense, even as the perpetrators are separate, dispersed, and not connected, their targeting seems war-like: attacking the enemy’s forces on the homeland. The second element to be taken into consideration is the clear fact that in all these cases, without exception, we’re seeing one ideology: Jihadism. Despite various levels of understanding and sophistication, the cells and lone wolves who were involved in the terror acts, legitimized their action under the label of “Jihad.”

When relatively perfunctory Christians are re-energized, they tend to give more money, act nicer towards their families, and maybe volunteer more. New converts to Christianity simply do not become violent. The exact opposite is true.  The comparison of Christian fundamentalism to Muslim fundamentalism is one of the most dishonest things done in our Left media.

But too many American and British mosques and imams preach ways of thinking and feeling about what it means to be a good Muslim that boil down to jihad. I wish it wasn’t true. But it has been pretty well documented, though not well covered in the major media.

A question: how many Muslim groups immediately issued unconditional condemnation of the murder of the soldier at the recruiting office, and denied that such actions are any part of being a good Muslim?  Google it.  See if you can find even one.

In contrast, pro-life groups around the USA immediately and unconditionally condemned the murder of Tiller the Kansas abortionist.

Maybe the imams will save their statements of condemnation of the murder for the mosque attendees.   Yeah, that’s it.

In the meantime, I guess our military recruiters had better start showing up for work in full battle-rattle.

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May 31 2009

Woman on woman violence in Islam and the third world

Category: higher education,Islam,left,multi-cultural,society — harmonicminer @ 9:20 am

Western Law Remedies Woman’s Inhumanity to Woman Among Muslim Immigrant Communities.

In 2001, the mother of an 11-year-old girl spirited her out of Gothenburg, in Sweden, and back to Somalia where she had her brutally genitally mutilated (and without anesthesia). The mother and two other women held her down while a man made sure that she would never experience sexual pleasure and would instead, experience a great deal of pain for the rest of her life.

It’s not hard to understand the silence of the American Left, the multi-cultural Left, and particularly the feminist Left, on the matter of Islamic violence against women, whether perpetrated by other women or by men.  Its existence calls into question all the assumptions at the core of the Left’s belief system, about moral equivalence, about who does violence to whom, about whether there is such a thing as an objective standard of right and wrong, etc.

Just as sex-selection abortion in Asia (and, increasingly, other places) highlights the cognitive dissonance for the Left in supporting easy access to abortion — at any time in the pregnancy, for any reason–, Islamic violence by women on women and men on women highlights the fact that some cultures ARE simply better than others, more free and more just, regardless of the putatively equivalent status of all cultures that lies at the root of multi-culturalism and diversity activism.

But the multi-cultural pieties of the Left, and the absence of a moral center based on absolutes of human dignity flowing from a conception of the imago dei, make it impossible for the Left to speak up consistently about this kind of injustice.  It’s far easier to blame white males and colonialism for everything under the sun than to deal with the hard work of challenging — and changing — cultures.

Read the entire article linked above, and thank God that you live where you do, assuming you live in a western-style liberal democracy of some kind.  And, while you’re at it, reconsider any belief you may hold in cultural equivalence and moral equivalence.

Here’s a book that can help you get started.   The author is not a Christian.  In fact, I think she’s an atheist…  understandably, given what was done to her in the name of religion, or at least under cover of it.  You may speculate about why she is not a constantly invited speaker to American feminist groups.  Maybe it’s because American feminism isn’t fundamentally about protecting women, but about pursuing Leftist agendas with feminism as cover.

May 27 2009

Obama to Israel: pound sand

Category: Iran,Islam,Israel,national security,Obama — harmonicminer @ 9:50 am

President Obama has made it clear that he has no intent of taking any serious action to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons, and that if Israel does take such action, he will blame Israel, not Iran. Caroline Glick reports. (much more at the link, all worth reading)

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s visit with US President Barack Obama at the White House on Monday was a baptism of fire for the new premier. What emerged from the meeting is that Obama’s priorities regarding Iran, Israel and the Arab world are diametrically opposed to Israel’s priorities.

During his ad hoc press conference with Netanyahu, Obama made clear that he will not lift a finger to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. And acting as Obama’s surrogate, for the past two weeks CIA Director Leon Panetta has made clear that Obama expects Israel to also sit on its thumbs as Iran develops the means to destroy it.

It’s becoming apparent that Obama is bluffing on a busted flush. He has no hole cards (at least that he’s willing to use), and he has no plans to do anything serious to deter or prevent either North Korea or Iran from becoming full-fledged nuclear threats complete with delivery systems. At the same time, he is reducing our commitment to missile defense, and weakening our military commitment to proven technologies that could defend us and our allies.

Iran will not bomb Jerusalem, which it considers to be a “holy city,” but Tel Aviv, Haifa, etc., are obvious targets.  And with its surrogates Hamas and Hizbullah, Iran has ways of getting the bombs into Israel without being the obvious launch site….  just enough to maintain “implausible deniability,” which would not prevent an Israeli response, futile though that response would be to save Israel.  About three or four bombs, and in essence there is no nation of Israel, at least none that could resist the following onslaught of conventional forces rolling in from its neighbors.

The other nations in the Middle East, mostly Sunni, are not in favor of a nuclear armed Iran, but they have even fewer options to do anything about it than Israel.  If Israel does attack Iran to delay its acquisition of nuclear arms, the muslim nations around it will cry publicly, and cheer privately.  They know that Israel presents no danger to them, while Iran clearly does, especially a nuclear Iran.

We are on the cusp of a moral decision, nationally, not very different from the run-up to the Holocaust.   Obama will have to do more than talk and threaten.  He must act, decisively, and soon.  If he does not, Israel cannot be blamed for doing what it must simply to survive.

I hope and pray that, even if he does not care about Israel directly, Obama will recognize the enormous support Israel has in the USA, and realize what a political disaster it will be for him if Israel is destroyed on his watch.

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May 16 2009

The REAL story of Samson and Delilah?

Category: arab,Islam,Israel,multi-cultural,music,politics,racism — harmonicminer @ 8:52 am

It seems that there is no story where the demands of art cannot be impressed into the service of politically correct “creativity,” and this “SAMSON” AND OPERATIC INSANITY appears to be on the same general plain as a crucifix in urine, or maybe a star of David in pig blood.

In Belgium, a government-funded opera company is presenting a bizarre reworking of the Biblical story of Samson and Delilah. This “updated” version of a nineteenth century Saint-Saens melodrama depicts Samson as a Palestinian “freedom fighter”, not an Israelite, and portrays Delilah as a despicable Israeli agent, not a Philistine temptress.

In the climax of the production, Samson straps on a suicide vest and blows-up the Israeli “oppressors.” This politically-correct operatic indulgence follows announced plans by La Scala—on of the world’s most prestigious opera-houses—to produce a full-scale musical version of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” and by the Shanghai opera to offer a lavish, five hour singing-and-dancing adaptation of Marx’s “Das Kapital.” As the composer Franz Liszt once aptly observed: “All music is an insane asylum, but opera is the wing for incurables.”

Just a couple of observations, and a plug:

It WOULD be a government-funded opera company producing this trash. What private company would do it with the intent of making a profit? Of course, the Saudis will fund nearly anything that puts Israel and Jews in a bad light, and I’m just guessing that, much like Washington D.C., the Belgian government and lobbying apparatus is full of people on the Saudi payroll, who seem to own 1 out of 3 former congress critters and state department drudges.

As far as a Jewish Delilah goes, it would make more sense to cast Tokyo Rose as General MacArthur’s secret lover.

And the plug. The REAL story of Samson and Delilah, a story about sex and violence, and yet rated G.    “God Brings Down The House” is a particular show stopper.  At the link, just click the cover of Samson and Delilah, and then at the linked site you can play excerpts of the tunes.  Eat your heart out, Belgium.

Apr 30 2009

8 yr old girl divorces her “husband”

Category: Islam,Uncategorized — harmonicminer @ 7:45 pm

I’ve commented before on child marriage in Islam, which is little more than legally sanctioned sale of a child for the purpose of rape.  Now, we have news that an  8-year-old Saudi girl divorces 50-year-old husband

An 8-year-old Saudi girl has divorced her middle-aged husband after her father forced her to marry him last year in exchange for about $13,000, her lawyer said Thursday. Saudi Arabia has come under increasing criticism at home and abroad for permitting child marriages. The United States, a close ally of the conservative Muslim kingdom, has called child marriage a “clear and unacceptable” violation of human rights.

The girl was allowed to divorce the 50-year-old man who she married in August after an out-of-court settlement had been reached in the case, said her lawyer, Abdulla al-Jeteli. The exact date of the divorce was not immediately known.

A court in the central Oneiza region previously rejected a request by the girl’s mother for a divorce and ruled that the girl would have to wait until she reached puberty to file a petition then.

One can only wonder what the radical feminists in the USA want to happen in cases like this.  On the one hand, they’ve shackled themselves to the Left, which is all about cultural equivalence, moral equivalence, and just plain equivalence, with no one being able to say they are absolutely right about much of anything, other than the right (rite?) to abortion on demand, and the required obeisance to the gods of eco-paganism.  If there really isn’t an absolute moral law, who are THEY to say that Islamic fathers shouldn’t sell their prepubescent girls to men who want to “marry” them?  Isn’t traditional marriage just a cultural thing, anyway?  Can’t it be changed to fit the circumstances of the culture?  Who are we to judge these people, and just assume that our way is better?

UPDATE:  Along these lines, wouldn’t it be a natural fit for feminist organizations of all kinds to participate in rallies such as this?  I wonder where there are…..

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