Category Archives: The Front

Palestinians Planning New Intifada Regardless of Peace Talk Outcome

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Let’s give them a state alert from Fars News:

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Representative of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement to Tehran dismissed the Mideast peace conference in the US as a failed effort, and said he expected that a new wave of Intifada would arise in the occupied territories following the US summit.

Speaking in a press conference here in Tehran on Tuesday, Naser Abu Sharif said the so-called Mideast peace conference, similar to previous meetings hosted by the US, is merely aimed at rendering support and buying credit for the Zionist regime of Israel which sustained a great loss and defeat in its invasion of Lebanon last summer.

Meantime, he said that the US and Israel are seeking to use the conference to attract the companionship of the moderate governments of the region to form a front against Iran, Syria and Lebanon.

“Palestine is the main issue of the world of Islam and Arab countries cannot have the required legitimacy for accompanying the US plots against Iran, Lebanon and Syria without having the support of their nations,” Abu Sharif said.

He also perceived an obvious failure for the conference, saying, “All political analysts have envisaged failure for the peace conference because this conference has not been built up on proper fundaments.”

“Given the United States’ unilateral support for the Zionist regime, Israel will make no concessions to the Palestinian nation in the conference,” the Islamic Jihad official added.

He also said that Palestinian negotiators are not powerful enough to receive concessions, “Palestinian leaders will step into this conference without the support of the Palestinian nation while Islamic Jihad, Hamas and other groups will not participate in the meeting. Considering all the above, the Palestinian delegation will not have a winning ace in the conference.”

Abu Sharif warned Palestinian negotiators against participation in the conference, saying that if they attend the meeting, they will be forced to sustain a failure.

“The Palestinian and Israeli sides will not achieve anything in the conference,” he said, adding, “and since the Israelis are aware of this point, they will merely strive to normalize their relations with the regional countries during the meeting.”

Abu Sharif said the failure of the conference is a taken-for-granted fact for all the participants, adding that not only the Palestinian side, but also the Israeli regime has accepted to partake in the conference due to the United States’ pressures.

He also anticipated that following the conference in the US, Palestinians would start a new round of Intifada in the occupied territories.

Nice to see the Palestinians are giving peace a chance. I guess within the next few weeks another round of violence will start, no doubt simultaneous with a Hezbollah/Syrian offensive against our Jewish allies in Israel. Debka is reporting Fatah al Islam has taken credit for a drive by shooting attack on Israeli targets while Hezbollah is warning that Lebanon will become “the next Iraq” for America.

I guess the Intifada is on.

Blackwater is Untouchable

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According to this article from the Strategy Page:

October 3, 2007: Iraqis are upset with Blackwater International, the security firm that provides protection for American diplomats (and many other VIPs) when they travel about. Blackwater recruits experienced military veterans, especially commandos, to do the job. When Blackwater is attacked, they attack right back. Blackwater’s aggressiveness and competence is well known in Baghdad, and Iraqi police and civilians stay out of the way. As a result, Blackwater has never lost any of the State Department people they have escorted. But 30 Blackwater personnel have been killed, along with hundreds of Iraqis (armed and unarmed, the terrorist attacks often use civilians for cover). American politicians, who are opposed to the Iraq war, are joining in to attack Blackwater, and accuse it of misbehavior. The State Department remains silent, but is unwilling to give up Blackwater. There are enough experienced people inside the State Department who understand that Blackwater is professional and effective, and you can’t beat a perfect record when it comes to security. Considering what high value targets U.S. diplomats are, and the success of Blackwater in defeating hundreds of attacks, the State Department cannot afford to abandon Blackwater. But the diplomats cannot afford to openly defend Blackwater either, lest they anger Democratic politicians who run Congress. So the media circus will play out, and life goes on.

Blackwater is too important to our diplomatic core for America to allow leftist grandstanding to hamper their effectiveness, Kos be damned.

Also on the Blackwater front, after some disastrous showings with light aircraft, Blackwater is inking a deal to buy a Brazilian Super Tucano fighter bomber for counter insurgency operations. These wicked little single props are already in service in Columbia doing counter-insurgency duty and will significantly ad to the flexibility of Blackwater forces, as well as their value to the State Department. Blackwater is buying one reportedly for “training” but a little bird has told me their looking to expand their aviation branch significantly.

Check this out, it’s footage of a Tucano shooting down a drug smuggler:

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For you anti-Blackwater types out there, The Spy Who Billed Me has been covering the private contractor business in Iraq for years. My prediction: Blackwater’s not going anywhere anytime soon.

Are Things About to Heat Up in Iran?

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A DEBKA report suggests just that:

The Khorramshar News Agency, which is published by the ethnic Arab underground of Iran’s oil-rich Khuzestan, reported early Oct. 1 that the entire staff of Russian nuclear engineers and experts employed in building the nuclear reactor at Bushehr had abruptly packed their bags Friday, Sept. 28, and flew back to Russia. The agency’s one-liner offers no source or explanation. DEBKAfile have obtained no corroboration of its report from any other source.

The story appears to have originated with the ethnic Arabs who live near the reactor or who come in contact with its Russian staff. If true, DEBKAfile can offer three hypothetical scenarios to account for the Russians’ precipitate departure:

1. Another crisis has cropped up in the patchy Russian-Iranian dealings over the Bushehr reactor. This is unlikely because Russian president Vladimar Putin is due for a high-profile visit to Tehran on Oct. 16, when he plans to sign a series of nuclear accords with the Islamic Republic. Furthermore, Moscow, like Beijing, stands foursquare behind Iran’s efforts to delay harsher sanctions for its continued uranium enrichment. Only this week, the two powers gained Iran two to three months’ grace by forcing a delay in the UN Security Council session that was to have approved a third round of sanctions.

2. Moscow or Tehran has been tipped off that a US or Israeli attack is imminent on the Bushehr plant and Iran’s other nuclear installations and acted to whip Russian personnel out of harm’s way.

3. Moscow has learned that an Iranian pre-emptive attack is imminent against American targets in Iraq and the Persian Gulf and/or Israel.

Aside from these hypothetical scenarios, DEBKAfile’s Iranian sources report that the Khorramshar News Agency keeps its ear to the ground on happenings in Bushehr, because it is claimed by Khuzistan separatists as Arab land which they will fight to liberate from Iranian “occupation.”

DEBKA gets a bad rap for sometimes using less than reliable sources, but if this is solid it clearly indicates that something is going to happen in Iran that Putin wants know part of. We’ll have to keep an eye on this…

Gun Control Caused the Burma Massacre

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A government monopoly on firearms creates a situation where a military Junta can act without fear of retaliation by the people. Thus the Junta in Burma is sending monks to slave camps while dismissively meeting with an important U.N. envoy for 15 minutes without fear that the totalitarian supporting world community will invade and secure in the knowledge that the Burmese themselves can do nothing to stop them.

If the Burmese were able to defend themselves and their Buddhist monk brethren, the ineffectual United Nations and self pitying American left’s impotence in the face of this Nazi like madness would be a moot point. But they can’t defend themselves. They are relying on the largess of the world community to save them.

Of course, as Darfur has proven time and again, the world is full of tyrant enablers who are more interested in “peace” than stopping genocide. The Jews have learned this the hard way and because so many Jewish people have taken this lesson to heart they are vilified by the American left and the world community. Vilified in large part because the nation of Israel won’t allow a second holocaust to be perpetrated by Islamist terrorists.

The left is advocating for policies exactly like the gun control in Burma. Yet it is the left that constantly makes the charge that Republicans are planning some sort of military coup. It makes you wonder what they’re planning for the future if they want a disarmed populace who, in their opinion, were just days away from a military takeover.

In Burma, we see the end result of an unarmed population living under a Socialist dictatorship. The Burmese are now learning that the world will never help them, and the end of a once great civilization is at hand. From Samazdata (h/t Maggie’s Farm):

Burma is a good example of ‘gun control’, i.e. a state of affairs where firearms are a legal monopoly of the government forces. One side has good intentions and the other side has loaded rifles, and the result (so far) has been the same as it was in 1988 – or even back in 1962 when the late General Ne Win first set up his socialist administration.

However, me being a cold hearted man whose mind starts to wander even when shown scenes of murder and other horror, the situation reminds me of the philosophy of David Hume. This mid 18th century Scottish philosopher claimed that government was not based on force – but rather that it was based on opinion. Hume did this to mock the claim that there was a great difference between the ‘constitutional’ government of Britain and the ‘tyranny’ of France – under the skin both sides are basically the same, was his point.

This was part of David Hume’s love of attacking what his opponents (such as Thomas Reid) were to call “Common Sense”. David Hume was involved in what are now called ‘counter intuitive’ positions. Hume claimed (at times) that there was no objective reality – that the physical universe was just sense impressions in the mind. This did not stop him also claiming (at times) that the mind did not exist, in the sense of a thinking being, that a thought did not mean a thinker – that there was no agent and thus no free willed being.

Whether David Hume actually believed any of this – or whether he was just saying to people “you do not have any strong arguments for your most basic beliefs – see how weak reason is”… is not the point here. The point is that many people. including many people who have never heard his name, have been influenced by the ideas of David Hume.

For example, Louis XVI of France did not actively resist his enemies, going so far as ordering others, such as the Swiss Guard, not to resist, because he had read David Hume’s History of England – it was his favourite book. In his history Hume claimed that Charles the First did not get killed because he lost the Civil War (as a simple minded ordinary man might think) – but because he had fought back against his enemies at all. If he had not resisted his enemies, they would have seen no need to kill him (a clever counter intuitive position).

So Louis XVI did not resist. It is possible that he was given cause to doubt Hume’s wisdom right before his enemies murdered him, and so many others, but we will never know the answer to that I suppose.

In Burma, as in so many other places, many people seem to have thought that opinion, namely the good intentions of the majority, were more important than firepower – they appear to be mistaken.

As the world sorts itself out in the face of the new reality of an impotent America, hindered from within by a collection of nihilistic, post-modernist political groups who are buying their way into the the Democratic party, more massacres will happen in more countries where people are denied their essential rights to defend themselves. Let us hope that here in America the situation isn’t remains as it is, a large armed population capable of defending itself from actual tyranny, rather than be massacred as the world watches and does nothing.

Are We About to Get Nuked?

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Reliapundit lays out a compelling case for believing that Al-Qaeda is planning on nuking us in this post over at Astute Bloggers which also points to this hair graying article from The Jamestown Foundation’s website:

After 9/11, bin Laden received sharp criticisms from Islamist scholars that dealt with the al-Qaeda chief’s failure to satisfy several religious requirements pertinent to waging war. The critique focused on three items: (1) insufficient warning; (2) failure to offer Americans a chance to convert to Islam; and (3) inadequate religious authorization to kill so many people. Bin Laden accepted these criticisms and in mid-2002 began a series of speeches and actions to remedy the shortcomings and satisfy his Islamist critics before again attacking in the United States.

Bin Laden devoted most attention to warning Americans that, to prevent another 9/11-type attack, they had to elect leaders who would change U.S. policies toward the Islamic world. He focused especially on the U.S. presence in the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq, and Afghanistan, unqualified support for Israel, as well as support for Muslim tyrannies in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere. Animosity toward these policies had long been a staple of bin Laden’s statements, but since 2002 he has spoken directly to Americans about what they – not their leaders – must do to avoid another attack.

In America’s democratic system, bin Laden said, U.S. leaders are elected by the people and stay in office only if the people support their policies. Arguing that the U.S. policies perceived by Muslims as attacks on Islam have been in place for decades, bin Laden said it is clear that the American people as a whole approve of anti-Islamic policies. “The American people have the ability and choice to refuse the policies of their Government and even to change their Government,” bin Laden said in October 2002, “yet time and again polls show that the American people support the policies of the elected Government.” On this basis, bin Laden warned Americans on four occasions between mid-2002 and October 2004 that they would be responsible for any military disaster that befell them if they did not elect leaders who would change the policy status quo. Indeed, bin Laden’s speech of 30 October 2004 appears to be an exceptionally explicit warning. It was largely devoid of the religious and historical allusions usually present in his speeches, as if he wanted to ensure that translators would get his warning to Americans quickly and clearly. (Al-Jazeera, 30 October, 12 Nov 02; Waaqiah.com, 26 Oct 02)

Parallel to the warnings, bin Laden on two occasions since 2002 asked Americans to convert to Islam as the means of terminating the war al-Qaeda is waging against the United States. “We call you to Islam,” bin Laden said on both occasions, addressing himself to President Bush – as the leader of the American people – and asking him to lead his countrymen to Islam. He also offered to serve as guide and teacher for the American people, urging them to “follow the right path” to Islam. “I am an honest adviser to you.” bin Laden concluded, “I urge you to seek the joy of life and the after life…. I urge you to become Muslims….” (Al-Jazeera 6 Oct 02; Waaqiah.com, 26 Oct 02)

To remedy the criticism of inadequate religious authorization for mass American casualties, bin Laden received the necessary sanction from a young, radical Saudi Shaykh named Hamid bin al-Fahd. In May 2003, al-Fahd published a fatwa on his website entitled “A Treatise on the Legal Status of Using Weapons of Mass Destruction Against Infidels.” (FBIS, May 23 2003) In this lengthy work, al-Fahd affirmatively answered the question of whether it was permissible under the four schools of Sunni Islam for the mujahideen to use nuclear weapons against the United States. Bin al-Fahd concluded that each school did permit the use of such weapons and that the mujahideen would be justified in inflicting millions of casualties in the United States. “Anyone who considers America’s aggression against Muslims and their lands during the last decade,” al-Fahd maintained, “will conclude that striking her is permissible merely on the rule of treating one as one has been treated. Some brothers have totaled the number of Muslims killed directly or indirectly by their [America’s] weapons and come up with the figure of nearly ten million.”

Thus, when bin Laden spoke to Americans in October 2004, he was tying up loose ends leftover from 9/11 and telling Americans again that changing the “policy of the White House … [is] the ideal way to prevent another Manhattan….” (Al-Jazeera 30 Oct 04) By then he had repeatedly warned Americans that al-Qaeda would attack unless U.S. policies were changed. Strange and even comic sounding to American and Western ears, bin Laden’s warnings and invitation to conversion are meant to satisfy Islamic scholars, and Muslims generally, that al-Qaeda has abided by the Prophet Muhammad’s instructions of offering a warning to the enemy before launching an attack. Likewise, Shaykh al-Fahd’s treatise attempts to overcome the lack of religious grounding for mass casualties for which Islamic scholars criticized the 9/11 attack, and will be used by bin Laden as such after his next attack against the United States.

Jihad Watch concurs with the Jamestown reading:

That the jihadists are mounting this kind of theological appeal is one of the least-noted aspects of their communiques to the West. Most analysts don’t understand and don’t care what they are doing in these statements, and just brush past them.

In reality, however, such statements go right to the heart of why Al-Qaeda and other jihadists are fighting, and what they are fighting for. I discuss this in my book Religion of Peace?, but I’m not seeing it much of anywhere else. The ideological challenge that the jihadists are making to the West is still almost universally misunderstood. Here is Osama inviting us to accept Islam, and probably very few Americans would be able to articulate why they wouldn’t want to accept the invitation. If more attention is not paid to this, Osama’s appeal will surely make inroads among Westerners that will deeply surprise most analysts.

As I’ve said before, the theft of radioactive materials has been a recurring and underreported problem these last few years, both here and in Canada. In 2003 the government released a report saying that at least 1300 radioactive devices were unaccounted for, and that the risk of terrorist getting enough material to cobble together a dirty bomb was “significant.”

Here’s some bitter irony for you, I’m in the middle of packing for a move to South Carolina … from New York. I also started a survival blog where I was going to put up articles on, among other things, surviving a nuclear attack but only posted to it twice before deciding to move.

I thought I’d have time to start it next month.