Perhaps in response to major viewer push-back, Fox News ("fair and halal") pulled its video clips of the two evening slams on Geert Wilders that appeared last night, first by Glenn Beck and then by Bill Kristol and Charles Krauthammer. That's right: Fox pulled the videos from all Internet sight.

Well, not quite. Thanks to the invaluable Gates of Vienna, we can still watch  the Beck outburst:

Prince Talal has pals and they all have pockets filled with Westerners.

From the AP:

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — With an economy based on pumping oil and landmarks that include one of the Mideast's grandest mosques, buttoned-down Abu Dhabi has little obvious in common with freewheeling media magnets like Hollywood or midtown Manhattan.

This week, the Arab emirate is hoping the world takes another look. The city-state, best known of late for bailing out its flashier neighbor Dubai, is bringing together some of the industry's biggest names for a summit...

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It was pile-on time at Fox News tonight as Glenn Beck, Charles Krauthammer, a gal whose name I missed [update -- A.B. Stoddard] and Bill Kristol all branded Geert Wilders beyond the pale tonight.

Beck classified Geert as a fascist.

Krauthammer said Geert didn't know the difference between Islam and Islamism -- never mind that according to Krauthammer's idea of  Islamic scholarship, neither did Mohammed.

[Stoddard] said she agreed with Imam Krauthammer and added that if people like this (Geert) are elected to lead Holland it will suffer the consequences.

Kristol called Geert a demagogue.

In other words, a stomach-turning display -- or should I say halal?

...

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Never heard of Russia TV before I went on Friday but hey, at least they're interested in talking about the Wilders phenom -- as opposed to some fair and balanced most trusted names in news I could mention. (Don't miss host's wrap-up equating Islamic imperialism & Western imperialism -- the new moral equivalence?)

AP photo: Geert Wilders arriving for a press conference in London today

Below is the text of Geert Wilders' address today in the House of Lords, where, at the invitation of Baronness Cox and Lord Pearson, both members of United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), he showed his film Fitna.  Thank you. It is great to be back in London. And it is great that this time, I got to see more of this wonderful city than just the detention centre at Heathrow Airport. Today I stand before you, in this extraordinary place. Indeed, this is a sacred place. This is, as Malcolm always says, the mother of all Parliaments, I am deeply humbled to have the opportunity to speak before you. Thank you Lord Pearson and Lady Cox for your invitation and showing my film ‘Fitna’. Thank you my friends for inviting me. I first have great news. Last Wednesday city council elections...

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Author's photo: Antwerp, Belgium 2008

This week's syndicated column further unwraps the hijab and finds  totalitarian ideology underneath:

When the Netherlands' Party for Freedom leader Geert Wilders recently addressed voters in Almere, a Dutch city of 200,000 where his party handily won elections this week, he told them what to expect as his once-tiny, anti-Islamization party started flexing its new political muscle. Aside from lower taxes and other political staples, his plans for this city not far from Amsterdam include a ban on Muslim headscarves.

Wilders' ban would apply to "headscarves in municipal bodies and all other institutions (that) receive even one penny of subsidy from the municipality." He continued: "And for all clarity: This (ban) is not meant for crosses or yarmulkes because those are symbols of religions that belong to our own culture and are not -- as is...

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From the amazing team of GoV, Vlad Tepes and VH, the Wilders victory speech (in Dutch with English subtitles) last night in Almere, the Netherlands.

 

How do you say "Reconquista" in Dutch? Anyway, so it begins in Almere, the Netherlands, where Geert Wilders's PVV party looks like the Big Winner in yesterday's munipal elections, also coming in second in The Hague. Best news in a long time.

An only somewhat jaundiced report from the Guardian:

Geert Wilders, the Dutch far-right anti-immigrant maverick, scored big gains in yesterday's local elections in the Netherlands, according to projections last night, indicating he may dominate the political scene in the run-up to the general election in three months.

OK. Let's break it down.

Is Wilders "far-right"? That conjures up visions of state-controlled fascism. What is state-controlled-fascist about a politician such as Wilders who wants to lower taxes, which necessarily reduces the goverrnment power? And what, to take a couple of other Wilders programs, is "far right" about fighting crime and keeping the retirement age at 65? Indeed, what is "far-right" or fascist about Wilders' anti-Islamization program to halt and reverse the creeping totalitarianism of sharia (Islamic law), a religio-fascist program based on mosque-control of public and private life?

...

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"Playful" students and teachers in The Hague protest Geert Wilders' proposal to de-Islamize the Dutch public square with a ban on the hijab, the Islamic uniform, in institutions funded by taxpayer money. Via Gates of Vienna.

"They want to make it clear that a headscarf is not something exclusive to Muslims: “Brigitte Bardot in the sixties also often wore headscarves...."



Are they kidding?

 

 

 

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Remember our British friend Nigel Farage's bracing if also entertaining pushback against the anti-democracy European Union machine posted here?

That'll be 3,000 Euros, says the EU -- which converts to $4,078 bucks.

From the United Kingdom Independence Party website (via Paul Belien):

UKIP MEP Leader Nigel Farage has been hit with a €3000 fine for accusing the President of the European Council Herman van Rumpuy of having "the charisma of a damp rag".

Mr Farage was informed this afternoon by Jerzy Buzek, president of the European Parliament the he had decided to fine him €3000 for his comments relating to Mr van Rompuy and Belgium.   The fine represents...

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Photo: Geert Wilders campaigning in Almere, the Netherlands

Tomorrow, in municipal elections in Almere, the Netherlands, Geert Wilders' PVV party -- Partij voor de Vrejheid, or Party for Freedom -- is poised to emerge the big winner as polls show PVV winning as much as 30 percent of the vote.

A few days ago, Geert Wilders spoke in Almere, an excellent speech full of insights into the Dutch political scene in the wake of its government having fallen. Toward the end of the speech, Wilders describes how his burgeoning political power to reverse the Islamization process may manifest itself.

I still have other good news for you. I heard from our party leaders in Almere and the Hague [the other city where the PVV joins the municipal elections], Raymond de Roon and Sietse Fritsma, what the main effort will be for the [coalition] negotiations in Almere and the Hague after March 3 [the municipal elections]: That will be a ban on headscarves in municipal bodies and all other institutions, foundations, or associations, if they receive even one penny of subsidy from the municipality. Thus an immediate ban on headscarves, get rid of that woman-humiliating Islamic symbol. And for all clarity: this is not however meant for crosses or yarmulkes, because those are symbols of religions that belong to our own culture and are not — as is the case with headscarves — a sign of an oppressive totalitarian ideology.

...

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MG Paul Vallely has some excellent questions for our civilian and miitary leadership today. He also has some excellent answers -- all of which involve abandoning once and for the self-destructive, self-defeating, not to mention masochistic, strategies of "counter-insurgency" (COIN) doctrine and nation-building.

As Gen. Vallely points out: "The COIN principle is not based on winning; it is based on political whims and is not a true tenet of warfare. Warfare is, and always should be, about WINNING."

Winning this specific war against forces impelled by Islamic ideology calls for unconventional measures, Gen. Vallely writes, not the conventional actions followed by lengthy occupations such as we have seen and are seeing in Iraq and Afghanistan. Such an unconventional war doctrine, as he writes below, "heavily leverages the core capability to break enemy states, target and destroy the...

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From Marx to Lenin to Gramsci to Marcuse ... the subversion of academia is complete: Cultural relativism is taught (an old story), and promiscuity is not just non-judgmentally tolerated (as per cultural relativism), it is now actively  encouraged by the Yale Dean's Office. And do, the dean says, tell us all about it.

From the Yale Daily News (via Michael Rubin at The Corner):

The Yale Dean's Office's is planning a web venture: hosting student essays "by current undergraduates, allowing them to reflect anonymously on their sexual experiences at Yale and their impressions of the sexual culture here."

It goes one from here. And don't miss the comments.

New motto suggestion from what you might almost call an Old Blue:

Lux and Voyeurism.

 

 

...

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Chalk one up for their side. Again.

From the AP: "Danish daily issues apology over prophet drawing"

That would be this, in case you didn't know:



A Danish newspaper on Friday apologized for offending Muslims by reprinting a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb-shaped turban, rekindling heated debate about the limits of freedom of speech.

Danish daily Politiken said its apology was part of a settlement with a Saudi lawyer representing eight Muslim groups in the Middle East and Australia.

The Breitbart story...

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Sheriff Joe Arapaio is for Hayworth; Sarah Palin is for McCain. Why? Answer below

What drew me to the Arizona GOP Senate primary story, the subject of this week's column (below and here), was not just the face-off between liberal John McCain and conservative J.D. Hayworth. It was also the weird warning bells that went off with some big-name conservatives, particularly conservative poster-girl Sarah Palin, endorsing John McCain. Not only is the philosophical breach seemingly unpassable, it's hard to forget what a rat he was to her as both he and his staff savaged her in the wake of the prez campaign. 

Meanwhile, Romney, Dick Armey, Fred Thompson and Sen. Kyl, I believe, have linked arms with McCain as well.

...

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I almost forgot what it felt like to experience McCain Derangement Syndrome. Then I saw this web ad attack on McCain's Senate primary challenger J.D. Hayworth (who only shows common sense and a modicum of grit in pointing out that "questions will remain" until Obama releases his birth certificate paperwork). Then I wrote this week's (upcoming) column. Then I felt better.

I'm driving along, I turn on the radio , a gravelly voice with an unplaceable Northeastern accent comes on ...

"...and during that period with Nazism and fascism growing -- a real danger to the United States and Democratic countries all over the world -- there were people in this Congress, in the British parliament saying, 'don't worry! Hitler is not real! It'll disappear! We don't have to be prepared to take it on....'" My gosh, who is that talking so forthrightly about the failure of the West to face up to the existential threat of Islam -- on AM drive-time radio?

Darn that dream. The speaker was Bernie Sanders, Vermont's "independent" senator, and he was talking not about Islamic apologists who deny the perils of Islamization and the spread of liberty-strangling sharia (Islamic law), but about those of us who have by now figured out that global warming -- sorry, climate-change -- is a lot of bunk based on a noxious brew of cooked scientific data and warmed-over Karl Marx.

...

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Two pieces by esteemed contributors to this blog have come out elsewhere this week, both on topics largely ignored by the media, the punditry and the military and civilian leadership, and both on topics related to the appalling failures of the same to ensure that the nation's military forces receive justice and a fair shake as they struggle with hostiles abroad and a hostile miiltary justice system at home.

"John Murtha Forgot Semper Fi" by Tom Stone appears here in the Washington Examiner.

"Imprisoned for Saving American Lives" by John L. Work appears here at Frontpagemag.com.

Must reads.

...

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Astonishing how quietly retired General and former Secretary of State Alexander Haig passed away this past weekend, slipping the mortal coil practically incognito -- at least for a significant historical figure whose decades of service to this nation spanned war and tumultous peace.

Sure, there were front-page obituaries in the big papers, and yes, they all pounced one more time on his post Reagan-assassination-attempt "I'm in charge" routine -- a bogus splice of life, the way the media played it, that always cut the part where he said he would of course be informing the vice president if anything came up while he was in transit back to Washington ....

Tom DeFrank discusses Haig's key contributions in the darkest days of Watergate here.

Arnaud de Brochgrave recounts Haig's impressive military career (and strange-sounding later-life devotion to communist China) here.

...

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Here is the fourth part of "Flirting with Afghanistan," text, photos and captions by Paul Avallone. (See here for Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.) In this final installment, Avallone examines the exploitation, segregation and enslavement of girls and women in Afghan Islamic society -- a society the US-led coalition is prepared to die for, defend and perpetuate.



Stare into this girl's eyes, stare long, and she'll capture you, and you won't be able to look away. Then realize that I took this photograph in early 2003, when I and my Special Forces team mates played in our "Chocolate Alley" Jalalabad neighborhood of our safehouse base with the scores and scores of kids who trusted us and were unafraid of us, confident of our intent for good rather than bad, to the point that even the girls were photographical. Look again at this girl, then realize that, seven years later, she has been long married as well as long under a burqa. Under a burqa. Not just the pure beauty, but--look at her--whatever is going on in that mind.

...

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The Dutch government has fallen for the fifth time since 2002.

”This is a beautiful day,” Mr Wilders said. ”The worst cabinet in Dutch history no longer exists and people can let their voices be heard by voting in a few months’ time.”

Our leaders, military and civilian, all wanted to ignore the June 2009  jihad attack on Pvt. William Long outside an Army Navy recruiting center in Little Rock.

They still do.

Watch this video interview with Pvt. Long's father Daris Long and see if you can, too.

This week's column:

Remember last June when President Obama traveled to Saudi Arabia because, as he put it, "It was very important to come to the place where Islam began and seek his majesty's counsel"?

I argued at the time, gagging, that rather than visiting "the place where Islam began," the president of the United States should have gone to the place where Islam had just ended the life of a U.S. soldier. I refer to the U.S. Army-Navy recruiting center in Little Rock, Ark., where on June 1, Muslim convert...

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Left to right: Capt Roger Hill, Officer in Charge of the Honor Guard at Ronald Reagan's funeral, and in Afghanistan.

Remember Capt. Roger Hill? Almost exactly one year ago to the day, I wrote:

After four years at West Point, nine years of honorable service, including two wars (Iraq and Afghanistan) and a Bronze Star for valor, Captain Roger Hill now faces a "less than honorable discharge" in a massive miscarriage of military "justice."

The story?

As three retired senior officers--Army Col. Andy O'Meara, Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerny and Army Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely--explained his case in an op-ed posted at the time, Capt. Hill was commanding a lonely outpost in 2008 in Wardak Province, Afghanistan, "an area the size of Connecticut with many Taliban lurking amid...

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Photo: A U.S. soldier returns fire as others run for cover during a firefight with insurgents in the Badula Qulp area, West of Lashkar Gah in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, on Sunday, Feb. 14, 2010. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)

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At the end of an AP "analysis" today by Anne Gearan and Anne Flagerty comes this comment from C. Christine Fair in response to happy talk from national security advisor James Jones about how Marjah "will demonstrate, I think successfully, that the new elements of the strategy will work." Jones, the AP writers note, "listed economic reform and good local governance in the same breath with the security bought with military might."

"That's where I get really skeptical," said Georgetown University professor C. Christine Fair, a former U.N. official in Afghanistan.

"I don't know where they found 2,000 Afghan police [mentioned earlier in the...

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Oh, to see former US Rep. J.D. Hayworth (GOP) trounce current Sen. John McCain ("Maverick") in Arizona's Republican Senate primary on August 24. Hayworth announced his candidacy this week.

McCain is everything wrong with the Republican Party, and despite the deep despair the Obama administration inspires, I still think (I think) a McCain presidency would have been somehow worse in the long run (if there is a long run ...).

A McCain administration would have been merely lousy. But it would have left the republic adrift in some similar and significant ways -- the disastrously prosecuted war, the drumbeat for illegal alien amnesty (one of Hayworth's major claims to fame is his staunch determination...

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I don't know why the British newspapers seem to offer better war  coverage, but they often do. Here, vivid and extremely disturbing reporting (compare to Wall Street Journal here) from Ben Anderson of the Times of London on what our ROE-handcuffed troops are going through to take that prize package Marjah (above).

We clung to the steep sides of the canal trying to find some safe ground halfway up the bank. A rocketpropelled grenade came in just over our heads and exploded against the wall behind us. The Marines either side of me were hit with shrapnel. One, Doc Morrison, took a chunk of metal in his leg that severed an artery. The helicopter called to evacuate him came under machinegun and rocket fire.

Captain...

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Radio News Netherland reports:

A conference centre in The Hague has cancelled the launch of a book criticising Islam. The book launch was scheduled for Thursday at The World Forum, but was cancelled because the director of the venue does not believe he can guarantee the safety of his guests.

The book in question is Islamofobie? (Islamophobia?), written by Islam critic and PVV supporter Frans Groenendijk. The PVV, or Freedom Party is an anti-Islamic opposition party led by Geert Wilders.

Must be Geert's fault somehow.

Photo: Afghanistan Marine BG Lawrence "Eat Lots of Goat" Nicholson

The Battle of Marjah continues, only it's not a "battle" as understood in the traditional sense of the word. Marjah is a deadly foray into "armed social work" for US troops who probably thought they had signed up to fight for their country.

Wrong country.

“What are we here for?” Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, the top Marine commander in Afghanistan, would shout to his troops.

“The people!” was the troops’ refrain.

And yes, that would be "the people" of Afghanistan.

More from the AP:

MARJAH, Afghanistan — Some American and Afghan troops say they’re fighting the latest offensive...

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Here is the third installment of "Flirting with Afghanistan," text, photos and captions by Paul Avallone. Catch up on Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

 

GIs inspect a school, built the previous year through US aid and contracts, and subsequently destroyed by the Taliban. 2008.



A villager says his piece in a meeting with American soldiers. 2008.



"Afghan TV":...

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Via ISAF: Valentine's Day at the Battle of Marjah.

The news from Marjah is increasingly surreal as "counterinsurgency" theory goes into battle -- "counterinsurgency" being a fancy word for hearts-and-minds nation-building.

Example: A rocket hits the wrong compound, killing 10 "civilians." Since COIN means always having to say you're sorry, the commanding general not only "apologizes" in the middle of the battle, he suspends the further use of the rocket in the middle of the battle. This is in line with the guiding fantasy of COIN warfare -- that it is possible to "win" the confidence, trust, "hearts and minds," whatever of the "people," as though war were a popularity contest, and after eight-plus-years the Muslims of Afghanistan still can't make up their...

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LTC Allen West (ret.) is a man who isn't afraid of enemy fire or speaking the truth, and voters in Florida's District 22, from Jupiter to Ft. Lauderdale, are lucky pups to be able to vote him into Congress this November. When they do -- and they better not blow it -- the rest of the United States will finally have his leadership where we need it ... in Washington, DC.

Via Andrew Bostom.

Asia Times map via Long War Journal report on post-Keating Taliban rule in Kamdesh.

This week's column is about an age-old story, how Big Fish sacrifice small fry to stay Big Fish. The story the column was triggered by came out last Friday, when the Washington Post reported on military investigations into battles at Wanat, Ganjgal and Kamdesh, all in Afghanistan.

The U.S. military has reprimanded an unusually large number of commanders for battlefield failures in Afghanistan in recent weeks, reflecting a new push by the top brass to hold commanders responsible for major incidents in which troops are killed or wounded, said senior military officials.     

Fyi, "top brass" = Big Fish in this story.

Having covered -- no, railed about -- the rules of engagement inflicted on commanders by top brass in thrall to the PC doctrine of "counterinsurgency"...

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Touching down at COP Keating, March 2009

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The battle of Kamdesh on October 3, 2009 is the focus of this week's upcoming column -- specifically, the Pentagon's reported decision to punish mid-level commanders for intelligence failures that preceded the brutal battle that left eight Americans dead. According to an investigation, commanders ignored local intelligence indicating that a large attack against COP Keating was likely andfailed to take appropriate defensive measures.

That may be. But why was a small US outpost in Kamdesh in the first place? And, if there, why was it based for three years in an indefensible position? The real blame for the battle of Kamdesh lies with the military brass behind this fatally pointless and needlessly dangerous mission. Before deciding whether you agree, watch the below video of the base and battle site, COP Keating, taken last summer by Britain's News 4 photographer Stuart Webb (via Burnpit,  which has more Keating video.)

...

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Just another day in Pakistan, where jihadi symps last week expressed their opinion of the US conviction of "Lady Al Qaeda," Aafia Siddiqui, who was found guilty in a Manhattan court of trying to kill US personnel in Afghanistan.

Now for something completely new and different:

Headline: "British parliamentarians for public inquiry into Dr. Aafia Siddiqui's conviction"

Lead: Describing the conviction of Pakistani neuroscientist Dr.Aafia Siddiqui as “miscarriage of justice”, British Parliamentarians have called for withdrawal of case against her and repatriation to Pakistan.

British parliamentarians?

Muslim members of British Parliament is more to the point. The story from the Associated Press of...

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Remember Omer Bajwa, Yale's "Muslim Victory" Chaplain?

The one who was reported to have told an Islamabad audience "Muslims will win the final victory in the West if they conform to their beliefs and disseminate the message of Islam with wisdom and politeness"?

The one who slandered Kurt Westergaard by publicly stating at Yale in front of the cartoonist that he, the Muslim Victory Chaplain, had read in the New York Times that Kurt's son had converted to Islam -- when there was no such story in the New York Times, while Kurt's son has not converted to Islam?

The one who, practicing taqiyya,...

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Protocol calls: Who in the EU gets to receive President Obowma?

While EU officials mud wrestle each other for the fun of receiving Obama and, more important, his bow in a US-EU summit to be, the words "Greek" and "economy" come together and threaten to pull the EU apart. Paul Belien explains in "The EU's Horrible Honeymoon" at the Brussels Journal:

Last week, Barack Obama snubbed the Europeans by refusing to attend next May’s European Union summit in Madrid. The Europeans are very upset. But that is not the worst of their problems, and neither is the looming bankruptcy of Greece. Analysts fear that Spain might sink the euro, the EU’s common currency, and with the euro also the dreams of greater political integration.

At this point Europe is not even halfway its 100-day political “honeymoon” since the Treaty of Lisbon, which transformed the EU into a state in...

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Ilmar Reepalu is the Mayor of Malmo, Sweden, but he could well serve as the Mouthpiece of Eurabia, having crystallized its essence in a recent interview about rocketing Antisemitism in his city. Malmo (pop. 250,000), a confortable train ride across the Oresund strait from Copenhagen, is Sweden's third-largest city, a Leftist-jihadist territory where like-minded Leftist "antifa" Swedes and Muslim immigrants, the 21st-century's alliance of Brown Shirts and Black Shirts, effectively arm "civilized" Socialist rule with the under-flowing threat and as-necessary implementation of violence.

You may recall the March 2009 Davis Cup match between Sweden and Israel that was played in Malmo sans spectators after the City Council voted five to four to hold the match in an empty stadium. As the Jerusalem Post noted...

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Here is Part 2 of "Flirting with Afghanistan," text, photos and captions by Paul Avallone.

(Part 1 is here.)



By 2008, the Taliban had finely honed their roadside bomb-making, -employing and -initiating skills to the point where, as here, a bomb totally demolished the uparmored humvee, immediately killing the four GIs and one Afghan interpreter. September 2008.





Oh, for a return to those halcyon days of the first couple of years of the war, when there was no thought at all about the possibility...

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Behold the smug mug of Willem Stegeman, who has made a Dutch state-subsidized film "spoofing" an assassination attempt on Geert Wilders.

"Spoofing."

Of course, the grotesquerie of Stegeman and his "spoof" are not the main story in a backward -- no, twisted -- report from Radio Netherlands Worldwide (RNW) that leads with the response ("furious") of Party for Freedom (PVV) members over "Radio FunX's" assassination-attempt entertainment. Almost as breath-taking is the nasty photo of Wilders with which RNW, supposedly a news organization, illustrates the story.

Currently embroiled in open-ended Kafka-esque legal jeopardy, Wilders has lived under permanent threat of death since that November day in 2004 when Theo van Gogh was assassinated...

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A couple of week's ago, I blogged about Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal's charm-blitz through NY, juxtaposing Fox News' Neil Cavuto's sweetheart interview with "the prince" and Charlie Rose's far more revealing conversation -- essentially, it's (everything's) all Israel's fault, and "my" 1.5 billion Muslims are all like the underpants' bomber's father.

I kept thinking about Alwaleed -- his stake in News Corp., his stakes in Georgetown and Harvard -- and realized that as a leading scion of the so-called House of Saud (q: how many countries are named for their rulers?), a totalitarian theocracy whose foundational documents...

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Behold (courtesy Tundra Tabloids) the very image of Dutch "justice." After today's "judicial" proceedings in Amsterdam, Holland itself is forever besmirched, its "judges" having made it clear that no semblance of fairness will enter into their proceeeding against Geert Wilders. As noted below, the "judges" slashed the roster of witnesses the Wilders defense team planned to call to the stand from eighteen to three.

John L. Work writes at Newsreal:

Even if you...

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Photoshopped image by Baron Bodissey

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This just in:

The second day of the Geert Wilders trial in Amsterdam ended after a short session in which the court ruled that it was competent to try the case (a real cliffhanger-not). The court-ruled "competent" court then pared down the list of 18 witnesses whom Wilders had wished to call in his defense to only three people: the Dutch Arabists Jansen and Admiraal, plus Syrian-born, all-American-heroine Wafa Sultan, author of the must-read A God Who Hates.

For extensive and unique translations of Dutch- (and other-) langauge coverage of this barely reported on but urgently significant court case, see Gates of Vienna. Geert Wilders has launched an English-language website to track trial events at Wilders on Trial.

If anyone is puzzled as to why there is so little MSM...

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There is something surreal about today's featured story, an Air Force Magazine rah-rah treatement of Gen. McChrystal's ball-and-chain rules of engagement and the crackpot-zen vogue for what is known as "counterinsurgency" warfare. It is called "Holding Fire Over Afghanistan" -- which already sounds like a spoof -- and it begins with a subhead:

"Airmen adapt to the McChrystal directive."

Now, before going any further, here is a link to the McChrystal directive, the portions of which that were released to the public. (I shudder to think what the unreleased portions say.) Every American should read it and, as blood pressure levels suggest, call his representatives in Washington...

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More evidence of massive "surge" backfire -- if, in fact, US strategic interests were the guiding concern. What was that rousing slogan: Making the world safe for sharia ... Iran ... AND China?

From the AP:

Iraq says China has agreed to write off 80 percent of its Saddam Hussein-era debt.

A statement posted on the Iraqi Finance Ministry Web site on Tuesday put Iraq's debt to China at $8.5 billion.

The statement says the promise followed a meeting between China's ambassador to Iraq and Iraq's Finance Minister Bayan Jabr.

Gee, do you think they talked about us?

It says the write-off "will enhance economic cooperation between the two friendly countries."

How friendly.

The deal could further push Chinese business...

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Someday, civilian and military leaders responsible for these rules of engagement, this policy of sacrificing American troops to make the barbarians of Afghanistan "like us" should come before at the very least a Congressional hearing, but at this point an out-for-blood people's tribunal seems more appropriate. What they are doing to our military, our treasury, our power and our prestige is an unconscionable national betrayal.

The following news story describes the toll these rules, this policy is taking on our bravest young men -- amoebas in a petri dish to the mad, see-no-Islam social engineers masquerading as American statesmen and generals.

From the Telegraph:

On a base near Marjah, a Taliban stronghold in Helmand...

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Princeton prof: "Reminds me a lot of Scalia in their approach to texts ..."

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Last time I mentioned the NYT's Andrea Elliott it was to call her on her lavish and pristine three-part whitewash of Brooklyn imam Reda Shata. Example:

Then there was the series' look at terrorism. "What I may see as terrorism, you may not see that way," Mr. Shata says. What does he mean by that? The reporter [Elliott] doesn't tell us. Hamas is a powerful symbol of resistance, he says; the assassinated Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin was the "martyred" "lion of Palestine," he sermonizes; and yet the imam says he condemns all violence. How does he square...

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As promised, the first installment of "Flirting with Afghanistan: Dispatches from the Frontline." Text, photographs and captions by Paul Avallone.

Written in 2008, this essay presents provocative and thoughtful analysis by someone with the dual credentials of having served in Afghanistan in US Special Forces and having later returned there as a journalist. And it includes some of the most evocative and raw writing on Afghan culture you will ever read on the war ....



A party thrown by a rural warlord for US Army Special Forces is missing only one thing, what anything outside the immediate family is always missing: females. In this completely dominate male culture, it is men with men only and always. Period. Nangarhar province, 2003.

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0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false /* Style...

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This is a picture of Prez Obama lobbing a grapefruit to the GOP to bat out of the park: namely, when in meeting with the GOP yesterday he derided conservative opposition to Obamacare (which proposes to nationalize one-sixth of the economy) and said: "You'd think this thing was some Bolshevik plot."

Um, yeah. "Bolshevik," "Marxist-Leninist," "Socialist," "Communist," "Progressive" -- take your pick.It's not a plot, of course, because it's in the open. Hiding in plain sight.

Imagine if the GOP had agreed with the president and embarked on a little history lesson to connect Obama with his ideological roots for the American people ...

But no.

Here's the relevant Obama  transcript from the White House.

...The component parts of...

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This is a "postcard" from Afghanistan created by ex-Green Beret, sometime- writer-journalist Paul Avallone. The dark humor of the captions is one way to defuse the nakedly discomforting essence of the bizarre and the malevolent on display in the photo he took -- a picture of people our troops have been ordered to bribe, placate, and, I'm afraid, serve, in a disastrous policy that amounts to submission. What else can we call a war policy that puts United States Marines in charge of mosque-building?



Shortly, I will begin posting Paul's equally evocative and vivid essay "Flirting with Afghanistan" in several installments, along with more of the photos he took while working as a journalist in Afghanistan after serving there earlier in the war.

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