Saturday, October 2, 2010
Friday, October 1, 2010
Report States That Osama bin Laden Personally Ordered the Mumbai-style Terror Attacks Scheduled For Europe
If you believe this report that is out, then I guess if you are one of those that has been saying that Osama bin Laden has been dead since Tora Bora...well, you might want to rethink that. LOL Just for the record, I have insisted that bin Laden is still alive because I feel that when he does kick the frickin bucket, it will be the martyrdom event of the century for all of muslimville. They would never want to hide his death - they would celebrate this madman.
Anyway, here's some from the new report about bin Laden being behind the recently discovered European terror plot for multiple Mumbai-style operations...the article is from The Long War Journal:
Now, please don't get me wrong - I certainly don't mean to downplay the seriousness of this plot - quite the opposite. It is actually quite disturbing due to the fact that his is the first time we have seen any kind of centralized effort by al Qaeda's top leadership - and this is why we saw the predator drone attacks go fucking crazy the past couple of weeks.
I want to point out something else to my readers...perhaps you missed it. The CIA, with all of this new information on this planned plot by al Qaeda spent their energy trying to disrupt al Qaeda's operations and planning for it by bombing the shit out of North and South Waziristan in Pakistan using predator drones. What that tells me is that the CIA thinks al Qaeda's upper level command IS IN PAKISTAN, in the Northwest areas... And I'm a firm believe that top leadership levels of al Qaeda simply are not going to be that far away from bin Laden and al-Zawahiri.
Anyway, here's some from the new report about bin Laden being behind the recently discovered European terror plot for multiple Mumbai-style operations...the article is from The Long War Journal:
Osama bin Laden personally ordered the recently discovered plot against multiple cities in Europe. The terror master wanted al Qaeda and its affiliates to carry out an attack similar to the terrorist attack on Mumbai, India in 2008. The news confirms that the al Qaeda chieftain is still relevant, and that he commands respect across a number of terrorist organizations based in Afghanistan and Pakistan that work hand-in-hand with one another.And here's a little more updated information regarding this all encompassing terror plot - this would have been huge if pulled off, although I have doubts about the synchronization of it and certainly the success of it:
NPR reported on Thursday that “bin Laden used couriers to send a message to” al Qaeda’s “affiliates and partners.” He wanted them to emulate a “Mumbai-style attack” in the United Kingdom, Germany and France. NPR also reported that US intelligence officials are currently investigating the possibility that the US was a target as well.
News of bin Laden’s personal involvement in the plot comes at the same time that an audio message from al Qaeda’s CEO has surfaced on the web. The SITE Intelligence Group broke news of the tape, saying it is entitled “Pauses with the Method of Relief Work.” In the tape, bin Laden does not threaten attacks, but instead criticizes relief efforts inside Pakistan in the wake of the massive flood that has hit the nation hard. The authenticity of the tape has not yet been confirmed.
The recently foiled plot against Europe demonstrates, yet again, that al Qaeda works in concert with a number of like-minded jihadist organizations based in Pakistan and Afghanistan. [See LWJ report, Al Qaeda is the tip of the jihadist spear.]
This is best illustrated by the path of Ahmed Siddiqui, the German citizen of Afghan descent who was captured in Afghanistan and revealed the plot while in detention at the US base in Bagram.
Siddiqui’s path to jihad began at the Taiba mosque in Hamburg, which was closed down by German authorities just weeks after Siddiqui was arrested in July of this year. [See LWJ report, 9/11 hijackers’ mosque tied to recent terror plot against Europe.]
The mosque, formerly known as the Al Quds mosque, was a core part of al Qaeda’s international terrorist network prior to the September 11 attacks. The suicide pilots for the 9/11 operation attended the Hamburg mosque regularly before being sent off to receive training in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
Siddiqui knew members of the Hamburg cell. According to NPR, Siddiqui knew lead 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta. And Der Spiegel reported in September that Siddiqui is close to the family of Mounir el Motassadeq, who is serving a 15-year sentence in a German prison because of his involvement in the 9/11 plot.
In addition, the Taiba mosque was run by an imam named Mamoun Darkazanli, a Syrian-German who is a longtime al Qaeda operative and was heavily involved with the Hamburg cell.
Now, please don't get me wrong - I certainly don't mean to downplay the seriousness of this plot - quite the opposite. It is actually quite disturbing due to the fact that his is the first time we have seen any kind of centralized effort by al Qaeda's top leadership - and this is why we saw the predator drone attacks go fucking crazy the past couple of weeks.
I want to point out something else to my readers...perhaps you missed it. The CIA, with all of this new information on this planned plot by al Qaeda spent their energy trying to disrupt al Qaeda's operations and planning for it by bombing the shit out of North and South Waziristan in Pakistan using predator drones. What that tells me is that the CIA thinks al Qaeda's upper level command IS IN PAKISTAN, in the Northwest areas... And I'm a firm believe that top leadership levels of al Qaeda simply are not going to be that far away from bin Laden and al-Zawahiri.
Report: Osama bin Laden ordered Mumbai-style attacks in Europe
Osama bin Laden personally ordered the recently discovered plot against multiple cities in Europe. The terror master wanted al Qaeda and its affiliates to carry out an attack similar to the terrorist attack on Mumbai, India in 2008. The news confirms that the al Qaeda chieftain is still relevant, and that he commands respect across a number of terrorist organizations based in Afghanistan and Pakistan that work hand-in-hand with one another.
NPR reported on Thursday that “bin Laden used couriers to send a message to” al Qaeda’s “affiliates and partners.” He wanted them to emulate a “Mumbai-style attack” in the United Kingdom, Germany and France. NPR also reported that US intelligence officials are currently investigating the possibility that the US was a target as well.
News of bin Laden’s personal involvement in the plot comes at the same time that an audio message from al Qaeda’s CEO has surfaced on the web. The SITE Intelligence Group broke news of the tape, saying it is entitled “Pauses with the Method of Relief Work.” In the tape, bin Laden does not threaten attacks, but instead criticizes relief efforts inside Pakistan in the wake of the massive flood that has hit the nation hard. The authenticity of the tape has not yet been confirmed.
Bin Laden and other al Qaeda operatives have increasingly sought to turn the Pakistani public against their government. A series of tapes from Ayman Zawahiri, Adam Gadahn (al Qaeda’s American spokesman), Abu Yahya al Libi (a chief ideologue), and now Osama bin Laden himself have criticized the Pakistani government in a variety of ways.
Multiple organizations involved
The recently foiled plot against Europe demonstrates, yet again, that al Qaeda works in concert with a number of like-minded jihadist organizations based in Pakistan and Afghanistan. [See LWJ report, Al Qaeda is the tip of the jihadist spear.]
This is best illustrated by the path of Ahmed Siddiqui, the German citizen of Afghan descent who was captured in Afghanistan and revealed the plot while in detention at the US base in Bagram.
Siddiqui’s path to jihad began at the Taiba mosque in Hamburg, which was closed down by German authorities just weeks after Siddiqui was arrested in July of this year. [See LWJ report, 9/11 hijackers’ mosque tied to recent terror plot against Europe.]
The mosque, formerly known as the Al Quds mosque, was a core part of al Qaeda’s international terrorist network prior to the September 11 attacks. The suicide pilots for the 9/11 operation attended the Hamburg mosque regularly before being sent off to receive training in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
Siddiqui knew members of the Hamburg cell. According to NPR, Siddiqui knew lead 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta. And Der Spiegel reported in September that Siddiqui is close to the family of Mounir el Motassadeq, who is serving a 15-year sentence in a German prison because of his involvement in the 9/11 plot.
In addition, the Taiba mosque was run by an imam named Mamoun Darkazanli, a Syrian-German who is a longtime al Qaeda operative and was heavily involved with the Hamburg cell.
Siddiqui and his co-conspirators followed a similar route to the Hamburg cell – traveling from the mosque to Pakistan and Afghanistan, where they received terrorist training. It is possible that the mosque delivered fresh recruits for al Qaeda’s latest international operation, just as it did for 9/11.
According to NPR, Siddiqui was sheltered by the Haqqani Network in Pakistan. The Haqqani Network has longstanding ties to al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. Al Qaeda, the Haqqani Network, and the Taliban cooperate in attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan. Siraj Haqqani, the leader of the Haqqani Network, is a member of al Qaeda's Shura Majlis.
In Afghanistan, Siddiqui became a member of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), an al Qaeda affiliate that has primarily fought alongside the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The IMU is known as a guerilla-style fighting organization. But in keeping with bin Laden’s vision of folding local organizations into his international jihad, the IMU contributed to this latest plot by accepting Siddiqui into its ranks and possibly doing more.
The plot itself was supposed to be modeled after the November 2008 Mumbai attacks, which were carried out by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET). The LET was originally founded by the Pakistani military and intelligence establishment to fight Indian forces in Kashmir. It currently assists the Taliban and al Qaeda in operations in Afghanistan and has an international presence, including inside the US.
Al Qaeda has long worked closely with the LET. In March 2002, for example, top al Qaeda terrorist Abu Zubaydah and other al Qaeda operatives were captured in a LET safe house in Pakistan.
Ilyas Kashmiri, a Harakat-ul Jihad Islami (HUJI) commander who is now a top al Qaeda leader, is believed to have been involved in the Mumbai assault. Kashmiri is a former member of the Pakistani Special Forces and a highly-skilled commando. It remains to be seen if Kashmiri was involved in the latest plot against Europe, but it is certainly possible, if not likely. In the recent past, Kashmiri has been involved in plotting attacks in Europe with David Coleman Headley, according to the FBI.
Connecting the dots, all of the following entities were involved in the Osama bin Laden-ordered plot against Europe to some degree: the Taiba mosque, the Haqqani Network, the IMU, and possibly HUJI and the LET.
The “syndicate”
Speaking to students at Duke University at Wednesday, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates explained that the US-led coalition’s enemy in Afghanistan "is increasingly an unholy syndicate of terrorist groups working together: al Qaeda, the Haqqani network, the Pakistani Taliban, the Afghan Taliban and groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba.”
“A success for one is a success for all,” Gates explained, according to an account of the talk published by Reuters.
Gates' remarks echo the recent testimony of other senior US officials. For example, in testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee on Sept. 22, National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) Director Michael Leiter explained that al Qaeda works closely with the same organizations listed by Gates. [See LWJ report, US official explains National Counterterrorism Center's view of the enemy.]
As evidenced by the recent plot against Europe, this cooperation is not confined to the fight for Afghanistan. Al Qaeda draws support from numerous like-minded jihadist groups based in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Holger Asks Why #38: Cut the BS
Holger Asks Why...
Why is it that every political advertisement I see from a Democrat states that we HAVE to spend more and more on public education because that is the key to economic recovery?
I thought we have plenty of qualified people to work jobs in this economy...the actual problem is jobs available, not people to fill jobs?
Seems to me what we are really lacking, what we REALLY need are...Entrepreneurs.
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A Sermon
This is a sermon delivered by Rabbi Schlomo Lewis of Atlanta. It was e-mailed to me by a friend. I am cross-posting it here. Rabbi Lewis does not accuse all Muslims, yet he states that peaceful Muslims must speak out.
Posted at Monkey in the Middle by Gary Fouse of Fousesquawk
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EHR KUMT
First Day of Rosh Hashanah 2010
"I thought long and I thought hard on whether to deliver the sermon I am about to share. We all wish to bounce happily out of shul on the High Holidays, filled with warm fuzzies, ready to gobble up our brisket, our honey cakes and our kugel. We want to be shaken and stirred – but not too much. We want to be guilt-schlepped – but not too much. We want to be provoked but not too much. We want to be transformed but not too much.
I get it, but as a rabbi I have a compelling obligation, a responsibility to articulate what is in my heart and what I passionately believe must be said and must be heard. And so, I am guided not by what is easy to say but by what is painful to express. I am guided not by the frivolous but by the serious. I am guided not by delicacy but by urgency.
We are at war. We are at war with an enemy as savage, as voracious, as heartless as the Nazis but one wouldn’t know it from our behavior. During WWII we didn’t refer to storm troopers as freedom fighters. We didn’t call the Gestapo, militants. We didn’t see the attacks on our Merchant Marine as acts by rogue sailors. We did not justify the Nazis rise to power as our fault. We did not grovel before the Nazis, thumping our hearts and confessing to abusing and mistreating and humiliating the German people. We did not apologize for Dresden, nor for The Battle of the Bulge, nor for El Alamein, nor for D-Day.
Evil – ultimate, irreconcilable, evil threatened us and Roosevelt and Churchill had moral clarity and an exquisite understanding of what was at stake. It was not just the Sudetenland, not just Tubruk, not just Vienna, not just Casablanca. It was the entire planet. Read history and be shocked at how frighteningly close Hitler came to creating a Pax Germana on every continent.
Not all Germans were Nazis – most were decent, most were revolted by the Third Reich, most were good citizens hoisting a beer, earning a living and tucking in their children at night. But, too many looked away, too many cried out in lame defense – I didn’t know.” Too many were silent. Guilt absolutely falls upon those who committed the atrocities, but responsibility and guilt falls upon those who did nothing as well. Fault was not just with the goose steppers but with those who pulled the curtains shut, said and did nothing.
In WWII we won because we got it. We understood who the enemy was and we knew that the end had to be unconditional and absolute. We did not stumble around worrying about offending the Nazis. We did not measure every word so as not to upset our foe. We built planes and tanks and battleships and went to war to win….. to rid the world of malevolence.
We are at war… yet too many stubbornly and foolishly don’t put the pieces together and refuse to identify the evil doers. We are circumspect and disgracefully politically correct.
Let me mince no words in saying that from Fort Hood to Bali, from Times Square to London, from Madrid to Mumbai, from 9/11 to Gaza, the murderers, the barbarians are radical Islamists.
To camouflage their identity is sedition. To excuse their deeds is contemptible. To mask their intentions is unconscionable.
A few years ago I visited Lithuania on a Jewish genealogical tour. It was a stunning journey and a very personal, spiritual pilgrimage. When we visited Kovno we davened Maariv at the only remaining shul in the city. Before the war there were thirty-seven shuls for 38,000 Jews. Now only one, a shrinking, gray congregation. We made minyon for the handful of aged worshippers in the Choral Synagogue, a once majestic, jewel in Kovno.
After my return home I visited Cherry Hill for Shabbos. At the oneg an elderly family friend, Joe Magun, came over to me.
“Shalom,” he said. “Your abba told me you just came back from Lithuania.” “Yes,” I replied. “It was quite a powerful experience.” “Did you visit the Choral Synagogue in Kovno? The one with the big arch in the courtyard?” “Yes, I did. In fact, we helped them make minyon.” His eyes opened wide in joy at our shared memory. For a moment he gazed into the distance and then, he returned. “Shalom, I grew up only a few feet away from the arch. The Choral Synagogue was where I davened as a child.”
He paused for a moment and once again was lost in the past. His smile faded. Pain filled his wrinkled face. “I remember one Shabbos in 1938 when Vladimir Jabotinsky came to the shul” (Jabotinsky was Menachim Begin’s mentor – he was a fiery orator, an unflinching Zionist radical, whose politics were to the far right.) Joe continued “When Jabotinsky came, he delivered the drash on Shabbos morning and I can still hear his words burning in my ears. He climbed up to the shtender, stared at us from the bima, glared at us with eyes full of fire and cried out. ‘EHR KUMT. YIDN FARLAWST AYER SHTETL – He’s coming. Jews abandon your city.’ ”
We thought we were safe in Lithuania from the Nazis, from Hitler. We had lived there, thrived for a thousand years but Jabotinsky was right -- his warning prophetic. We got out but most did not.”
We are not in Lithuania. It is not the 1930s. There is no Luftwaffe overhead. No U-boats off the coast of long Island. No Panzer divisions on our borders. But make no mistake; we are under attack – our values, our tolerance, our freedom, our virtue, our land.
Now before some folks roll their eyes and glance at their watches let me state emphatically, unmistakably – I have no pathology of hate, nor am I a manic Paul Revere, galloping through the countryside. I am not a pessimist, nor prone to panic attacks. I am a lover of humanity, all humanity. Whether they worship in a synagogue, a church, a mosque, a temple or don’t worship at all. I have no bone of bigotry in my body, but what I do have is hatred for those who hate, intolerance for those who are intolerant, and a guiltless, unstoppable obsession to see evil eradicated.
Today the enemy is radical Islam but it must be said sadly and reluctantly that there are unwitting, co-conspirators who strengthen the hands of the evil doers. Let me state that the overwhelming number of Muslims want nothing more than a Jeep Cherokee in their driveway, a flat screen TV on their wall and a good education for their children, but these good Muslims have an obligation to destiny, to decency that thus far for the most part they have avoided. The Kulturkampf is not only external but internal as well. The good Muslims must sponsor rallies in Times Square, in Trafalgar Square, in the UN Plaza, on the Champs Elysee, in Mecca condemning terrorism, denouncing unequivocally the slaughter of the innocent. Thus far, they have not. The good Muslims must place ads in the NY Times. They must buy time on network TV, on cable stations, in the Jerusalem Post, in Le Monde, in Al Watan, on Al Jazeena condemning terrorism, denouncing unequivocally the slaughter of the innocent – thus far, they have not. Their silence allows the vicious to tarnish Islam and define it.
Brutal acts of commission and yawning acts of omission both strengthen the hand of the devil.
I recall a conversation with my father shortly before he died that helped me understand how perilous and how broken is our world; that we are living on the narrow seam of civilization and moral oblivion. Knowing he had little time left he shared the following – “Shal. I am ready to leave this earth. Sure I’d like to live a little longer, see a few more sunrises, but truthfully, I’ve had it. I’m done. Finished. I hope the Good Lord takes me soon because I am unable to live in this world knowing what it has become.”
This startling admission of moral exhaustion from a man who witnessed and lived through the Depression, the Holocaust, WWII, Communist Triumphalism, McCarthyism, Strontium 90 and polio. – Yet his twilight observation was – “The worst is yet to come.” And he wanted out. I am convinced that it was not his age speaking but his heart.
I share my father’s angst and fear that too many do not see the authentic, existential threat we face nor confront the source of our peril. We must wake up and smell the hookah.
“Lighten up, Lewis. Take a chill pill, some of you are quietly thinking. You’re sounding like Glen Beck. It’s not that bad. It’s not that real.” But I am here to tell you – “It is.” Ask the member of our shul whose sister was vaporized in the Twin Towers and identified finally by her charred teeth, if this is real or not. Ask the members of our shul who fled a bus in downtown Paris, fearing for their safety from a gang of Muslim thugs, if this is an exaggeration. Ask the member of our shul whose son tracks Arab terrorist infiltrators who target – pizza parlors, nursery schools, Pesach seders, city buses and play grounds, if this is dramatic, paranoid hyperbole.
Ask them, ask all of them – ask the American GI’s we sit next to on planes who are here for a brief respite while we fly off on our Delta vacation package. Ask them if it’s bad. Ask them if it’s real.
Not a perfect parallel but did anyone imagine in the 1920’s what Europe would look like in the 1940’s. Did anyone presume to know in the coffee houses of Berlin or in the opera halls of Vienna that genocide would soon become the celebrated culture? Did anyone think that a goofy-looking painter named Shickelgruber would go from the beer halls of Munich and jail, to the Reichstag as Feuhrer in less than a decade? Did Jews pack their bags and leave Warsaw, Vilna, Athens, Paris, Bialystok, Minsk, knowing that soon their new address would be Treblinka, Sobibor, Dachau and Auschwitz?
The sages teach – “Aizehu chacham – haroeh et hanolad – Who is a wise person – he who sees into the future.” We dare not wallow in complacency, in a misguided tolerance and naïve sense of security.
We must be diligent students of history and not sit in ash cloth at the waters of Babylon weeping. We cannot be hypnotized by eloquent-sounding rhetoric that soothes our heart but endangers our soul. We cannot be lulled into inaction for fear of offending the offenders. Radical Islam is the scourge and this must be cried out from every mountain top. From sea to shining sea, we must stand tall, prideful of our stunning decency and moral resilience. Immediately after 9/11 how many mosques were destroyed in America? None. After 9/11, how many Muslims were killed in America? None. After 9/11, how many anti-Muslim rallies were held in America? None. And yet, we apologize. We grovel. We beg forgiveness.
The mystifying litany of our foolishness continues. Should there be a shul in Hebron on the site where Baruch Goldstein gunned down twenty-seven Arabs at noonday prayers? Should there be a museum praising the U.S. Calvary on the site of Wounded Knee? Should there be a German cultural center in Auschwitz? Should a church be built in the Syrian town of Ma’arra where Crusaders slaughtered over 100,000 Muslims? Should there be a thirteen story mosque and Islamic Center only a few steps from Ground Zero?
Despsite all the rhetoric, the essence of the matter can be distilled quite easily. The Muslim community has the absolute, constitutional right to build their building wherever they wish. I don’t buy the argument – “When we can build a church or a synagogue in Mecca they can build a mosque here.” America is greater than Saudi Arabia. And New York is greater than Mecca. Democracy and freedom must prevail.
Can they build? Certainly. May they build? Certainly. But should they build at that site? No -- but that decision must come from them, not from us. Sensitivity, compassion cannot be measured in feet or yards or in blocks. One either feels the pain of others and cares, or does not.
If those behind this project are good, peace-loving, tolerant Muslims, as they claim, then they should know better, rip up the zoning permits and build elsewhere.
Believe it or not, I am a dues-paying, card carrying member of the ACLU, yet from start of finish, I find this sorry episode disturbing to say the least.
William Burroughs, the novelist and poet, in a wry moment wrote – “After one look at this planet, any visitor from outer space would say – “I want to see the manager.”
Let us understand that the radical Islamist assaults all over the globe are but skirmishes, fire fights, and vicious decoys. Christ and the anti-Christ. Gog U’Magog. The Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness; the bloody collision between civilization and depravity is on the border between Lebanon and Israel. It is on the Gaza Coast and in the Judean Hills of the West Bank. It is on the sandy beaches of Tel Aviv and on the cobblestoned mall of Ben Yehuda Street. It is in the underground schools of Sderot and on the bullet-proofed inner-city buses. It is in every school yard, hospital, nursery, classroom, park, theater – in every place of innocence and purity.
Israel is the laboratory – the test market. Every death, every explosion, every grisly encounter is not a random, bloody orgy. It is a calculated, strategic probe into the heart, guts and soul of the West.
In the Six Day War, Israel was the proxy of Western values and strategy while the Arab alliance was the proxy of Eastern, Soviet values and strategy. Today too, it is a confrontation of proxies, but the stakes are greater than East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Israel in her struggle represents the civilized world, while Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Queda, Iran, Islamic Jihad, represent the world of psychopathic, loathesome evil.
As Israel, imperfect as she is, resists the onslaught, many in the Western World have lost their way displaying not admiration, not sympathy, not understanding, for Israel’s galling plight, but downright hostility and contempt. Without moral clarity, we are doomed because Israel’s galling plight ultimately will be ours. Hanna Arendt in her classic Origins of Totalitarianism accurately portrays the first target of tyranny as the Jew. We are the trial balloon. The canary in the coal mine. If the Jew/Israel is permitted to bleed with nary a protest from “good guys” then tyranny snickers and pushes forward with its agenda.
Moral confusion is a deadly weakness and it has reached epic proportions in the West; from the Oval Office to the UN, from the BBC to Reuters to MSNBC, from the New York Times to Le Monde, from university campuses to British teachers unions, from the International Red Cross to Amnesty International, from Goldstone to Elvis Costello, from the Presbyterian Church to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
There is a message sent and consequences when our president visits Turkey and Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and not Israel.
There is a message sent and consequences when free speech on campus is only for those championing Palestinian rights.
There is a message sent and consequences when the media deliberately doctors and edits film clips to demonize Israel.
There is a message sent and consequences when the UN blasts Israel relentlessly, effectively ignoring Iran, Sudan, Venezuela, North Korea, China and other noxious states.
There is a message sent and consequences when liberal churches are motivated by Liberation Theology, not historical accuracy.
There is a message sent and consequences when murderers and terrorists are defended by the obscenely transparent “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”
John Milton warned, “Hypocrisy is the only evil that walks invisible.”
A few days after the Gaza blockade incident in the spring, a congregant happened past my office, glanced in and asked in a friendly tone –
“Rabbi. How’re y’ doing?”
I looked up, sort of smiled and replied – “I’ve had better days.”
“What’s the matter? Is there anything I can do to cheer you up?” he inquired.
“Thank you for the offer but I’m just bummed out today and I showed him a newspaper article I was reading.
“Madrid gay pride parade bans Israeli group over Gaza Ship Raid.” I explained to my visitor – “The Israeli gay pride contingent from Tel Aviv was not allowed to participate in the Spanish gay pride parade because the mayor of Tel Aviv did not apologize for the raid by the Israeli military.”
The only country in the entire Middle East where gay rights exist, is Israel. The only country in the entire Middle East where there is a gay pride parade, is Israel. The only country in the Middle East that has gay neighborhoods and gay bars, is Israel.
Gays in the Gaza would be strung up, executed by Hamas if they came out and yet Israel is vilified and ostracized. Disinvited to the parade – by moral morons.
Looking for logic?
Looking for reason?
Looking for sanity?
Kafka on his darkest, gloomiest day could not keep up with this bizarre spectacle and we “useful idiots” pander and fawn over cutthroats, sinking deeper and deeper into moral decay, as the enemy laughs all the way to the West Bank and beyond.
It is exhausting and dispiriting. We live in an age that is redefining righteousness where those with moral clarity are an endangered, beleaguered specie.
Isaiah warned us thousands of years ago – “Oye Lehem Sheh-Korim Layome, Laila v’Laila, yome – Woe to them who call the day, night and the night, day.” We live on a planet that is both Chelm and Sodom. It is a frightening and maddening place to be.
How do we convince the world and many of our own, that this is not just anti-Semitism, that this is not just anti-Zionism but a full throttled attack by unholy, radical Islamists on everything that is morally precious to us?
How do we convince the world and many of our own that conciliation is not an option, that compromise is not a choice?
Everything we are. Everything we believe. Everything we treasure, is at risk.
The threat is so unbelievably clear and the enemy so unbelievably ruthless how anyone in their right mind doesn’t get it is baffling. Let’s try an analogy. If someone contracted a life-threatening infection and we not only scolded them for using antibiotics but insisted that the bacteria had a right to infect their body and that perhaps, if we gave the invading infection an arm and a few toes, the bacteria would be satisfied and stop spreading
Anyone buy that medical advice? Well, folks, that’s our approach to the radical Islamist bacteria. It is amoral, has no conscience and will spread unless it is eradicated. – There is no negotiating. Appeasement is death.
I was no great fan of George Bush – didn’t vote for him. (By the way, I’m still a registered Democrat.) I disagreed with many of his policies but one thing he had right. His moral clarity was flawless when it came to the War on Terror, the War on Radical Islamist Terror. There was no middle ground – either you were friend or foe. There was no place in Bush’s world for Switzerland. He knew that this competition was not Toyota against G.M., not the Iphone against the Droid, not the Braves against the Phillies, but a deadly serious war, winner take all. Blink and you lose. Underestimate, and you get crushed.
I know that there are those sitting here today who have turned me off. But I also know that many turned off their rabbis seventy five years ago in Warsaw, Riga, Berlin, Amsterdam, Cracow, Vilna. I get no satisfaction from that knowledge, only a bitter sense that there is nothing new under the sun.
Enough rhetoric – how about a little “show and tell?” A few weeks ago on the cover of Time magazine was a horrific picture with a horrific story. The photo was of an eighteen year old Afghani woman, Bibi Aisha, who fled her abusive husband and his abusive family. Days later the Taliban found her and dragged her to a mountain clearing where she was found guilty of violating Sharia Law. Her punishment was immediate. She was pinned to the ground by four men while her husband sliced off her ears, and then he cut off her nose.
That is the enemy.
If nothing else stirs us. If nothing else convinces us, let Bibi Aisha’s mutilated face be the face of Islamic radicalism. Let her face shake up even the most complacent and naïve among us. In the holy crusade against this ultimate evil, pictures of Bibi Aisha’s disfigurement should be displayed on billboards, along every highway from Route 66 to the Autobahn, to the Transarabian Highway. Her picture should be posted on every lobby wall from Tokyo to Stockholm to Rio. On every network, at every commercial break, Bibi Aisha’s face should appear with the caption – “Radical Islamic savages did this.” And underneath – “This ad was approved by Hamas, by Hezbollah, by Taliban, by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, by Islamic Jihad, by Fatah al Islam, by Magar Nodal Hassan, by Richard Reid, by Ahmanijad, by Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, by Osama bin Laden, by Edward Said, by The Muslim Brotherhood, by Al Queda, by CAIR.”
“The moral sentiment is the drop that balances the sea” said Ralph Waldo Emerson. Today, my friends, the sea is woefully out of balance and we could easily drown in our moral myopia and worship of political correctness.
We peer up into the heavens sending probes to distant galaxies. We peer down into quarks discovering particles that would astonish Einstein. We create computers that rival the mind, technologies that surpass science fiction. What we imagine, with astounding rapidity, becomes real. If we dream it, it does, indeed, come. And yet, we are at a critical point in the history of this planet that could send us back into the cave, to a culture that would make the Neanderthal blush with shame.
Our parents and grandparents saw the swastika and recoiled, understood the threat and destroyed the Nazis. We see the banner of Radical Islam and can do no less.
A rabbi was once asked by his students….
“Rebbi. Why are your sermons so stern?” Replied the rabbi, “If a house is on fire and we chose not to wake up our children, for fear of disturbing their sleep, would that be love?” Kinderlach, ‘di hoyz brent.’ Children our house is on fire and I must arouse you from your slumber.”
During WWII and the Holocaust was it business as usual for priests, ministers, rabbis? Did they deliver benign homilies and lovely sermons as Europe fell, as the Pacific fell, as North Africa fell, as the Mideast and South America tottered, as England bled? Did they ignore the demonic juggernaut and the foul breath of evil? They did not. There was clarity, courage, vision, determination, sacrifice, and we were victorious. Today it must be our finest hour as well. We dare not retreat into the banality of our routines, glance at headlines and presume that the good guys will prevail.
Democracies don’t always win.
Tyrannies don’t always lose.
My friends – the world is on fire and we must awake from our slumber. “EHR KUMT.”
Posted at Monkey in the Middle by Gary Fouse of Fousesquawk
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EHR KUMT
First Day of Rosh Hashanah 2010
"I thought long and I thought hard on whether to deliver the sermon I am about to share. We all wish to bounce happily out of shul on the High Holidays, filled with warm fuzzies, ready to gobble up our brisket, our honey cakes and our kugel. We want to be shaken and stirred – but not too much. We want to be guilt-schlepped – but not too much. We want to be provoked but not too much. We want to be transformed but not too much.
I get it, but as a rabbi I have a compelling obligation, a responsibility to articulate what is in my heart and what I passionately believe must be said and must be heard. And so, I am guided not by what is easy to say but by what is painful to express. I am guided not by the frivolous but by the serious. I am guided not by delicacy but by urgency.
We are at war. We are at war with an enemy as savage, as voracious, as heartless as the Nazis but one wouldn’t know it from our behavior. During WWII we didn’t refer to storm troopers as freedom fighters. We didn’t call the Gestapo, militants. We didn’t see the attacks on our Merchant Marine as acts by rogue sailors. We did not justify the Nazis rise to power as our fault. We did not grovel before the Nazis, thumping our hearts and confessing to abusing and mistreating and humiliating the German people. We did not apologize for Dresden, nor for The Battle of the Bulge, nor for El Alamein, nor for D-Day.
Evil – ultimate, irreconcilable, evil threatened us and Roosevelt and Churchill had moral clarity and an exquisite understanding of what was at stake. It was not just the Sudetenland, not just Tubruk, not just Vienna, not just Casablanca. It was the entire planet. Read history and be shocked at how frighteningly close Hitler came to creating a Pax Germana on every continent.
Not all Germans were Nazis – most were decent, most were revolted by the Third Reich, most were good citizens hoisting a beer, earning a living and tucking in their children at night. But, too many looked away, too many cried out in lame defense – I didn’t know.” Too many were silent. Guilt absolutely falls upon those who committed the atrocities, but responsibility and guilt falls upon those who did nothing as well. Fault was not just with the goose steppers but with those who pulled the curtains shut, said and did nothing.
In WWII we won because we got it. We understood who the enemy was and we knew that the end had to be unconditional and absolute. We did not stumble around worrying about offending the Nazis. We did not measure every word so as not to upset our foe. We built planes and tanks and battleships and went to war to win….. to rid the world of malevolence.
We are at war… yet too many stubbornly and foolishly don’t put the pieces together and refuse to identify the evil doers. We are circumspect and disgracefully politically correct.
Let me mince no words in saying that from Fort Hood to Bali, from Times Square to London, from Madrid to Mumbai, from 9/11 to Gaza, the murderers, the barbarians are radical Islamists.
To camouflage their identity is sedition. To excuse their deeds is contemptible. To mask their intentions is unconscionable.
A few years ago I visited Lithuania on a Jewish genealogical tour. It was a stunning journey and a very personal, spiritual pilgrimage. When we visited Kovno we davened Maariv at the only remaining shul in the city. Before the war there were thirty-seven shuls for 38,000 Jews. Now only one, a shrinking, gray congregation. We made minyon for the handful of aged worshippers in the Choral Synagogue, a once majestic, jewel in Kovno.
After my return home I visited Cherry Hill for Shabbos. At the oneg an elderly family friend, Joe Magun, came over to me.
“Shalom,” he said. “Your abba told me you just came back from Lithuania.” “Yes,” I replied. “It was quite a powerful experience.” “Did you visit the Choral Synagogue in Kovno? The one with the big arch in the courtyard?” “Yes, I did. In fact, we helped them make minyon.” His eyes opened wide in joy at our shared memory. For a moment he gazed into the distance and then, he returned. “Shalom, I grew up only a few feet away from the arch. The Choral Synagogue was where I davened as a child.”
He paused for a moment and once again was lost in the past. His smile faded. Pain filled his wrinkled face. “I remember one Shabbos in 1938 when Vladimir Jabotinsky came to the shul” (Jabotinsky was Menachim Begin’s mentor – he was a fiery orator, an unflinching Zionist radical, whose politics were to the far right.) Joe continued “When Jabotinsky came, he delivered the drash on Shabbos morning and I can still hear his words burning in my ears. He climbed up to the shtender, stared at us from the bima, glared at us with eyes full of fire and cried out. ‘EHR KUMT. YIDN FARLAWST AYER SHTETL – He’s coming. Jews abandon your city.’ ”
We thought we were safe in Lithuania from the Nazis, from Hitler. We had lived there, thrived for a thousand years but Jabotinsky was right -- his warning prophetic. We got out but most did not.”
We are not in Lithuania. It is not the 1930s. There is no Luftwaffe overhead. No U-boats off the coast of long Island. No Panzer divisions on our borders. But make no mistake; we are under attack – our values, our tolerance, our freedom, our virtue, our land.
Now before some folks roll their eyes and glance at their watches let me state emphatically, unmistakably – I have no pathology of hate, nor am I a manic Paul Revere, galloping through the countryside. I am not a pessimist, nor prone to panic attacks. I am a lover of humanity, all humanity. Whether they worship in a synagogue, a church, a mosque, a temple or don’t worship at all. I have no bone of bigotry in my body, but what I do have is hatred for those who hate, intolerance for those who are intolerant, and a guiltless, unstoppable obsession to see evil eradicated.
Today the enemy is radical Islam but it must be said sadly and reluctantly that there are unwitting, co-conspirators who strengthen the hands of the evil doers. Let me state that the overwhelming number of Muslims want nothing more than a Jeep Cherokee in their driveway, a flat screen TV on their wall and a good education for their children, but these good Muslims have an obligation to destiny, to decency that thus far for the most part they have avoided. The Kulturkampf is not only external but internal as well. The good Muslims must sponsor rallies in Times Square, in Trafalgar Square, in the UN Plaza, on the Champs Elysee, in Mecca condemning terrorism, denouncing unequivocally the slaughter of the innocent. Thus far, they have not. The good Muslims must place ads in the NY Times. They must buy time on network TV, on cable stations, in the Jerusalem Post, in Le Monde, in Al Watan, on Al Jazeena condemning terrorism, denouncing unequivocally the slaughter of the innocent – thus far, they have not. Their silence allows the vicious to tarnish Islam and define it.
Brutal acts of commission and yawning acts of omission both strengthen the hand of the devil.
I recall a conversation with my father shortly before he died that helped me understand how perilous and how broken is our world; that we are living on the narrow seam of civilization and moral oblivion. Knowing he had little time left he shared the following – “Shal. I am ready to leave this earth. Sure I’d like to live a little longer, see a few more sunrises, but truthfully, I’ve had it. I’m done. Finished. I hope the Good Lord takes me soon because I am unable to live in this world knowing what it has become.”
This startling admission of moral exhaustion from a man who witnessed and lived through the Depression, the Holocaust, WWII, Communist Triumphalism, McCarthyism, Strontium 90 and polio. – Yet his twilight observation was – “The worst is yet to come.” And he wanted out. I am convinced that it was not his age speaking but his heart.
I share my father’s angst and fear that too many do not see the authentic, existential threat we face nor confront the source of our peril. We must wake up and smell the hookah.
“Lighten up, Lewis. Take a chill pill, some of you are quietly thinking. You’re sounding like Glen Beck. It’s not that bad. It’s not that real.” But I am here to tell you – “It is.” Ask the member of our shul whose sister was vaporized in the Twin Towers and identified finally by her charred teeth, if this is real or not. Ask the members of our shul who fled a bus in downtown Paris, fearing for their safety from a gang of Muslim thugs, if this is an exaggeration. Ask the member of our shul whose son tracks Arab terrorist infiltrators who target – pizza parlors, nursery schools, Pesach seders, city buses and play grounds, if this is dramatic, paranoid hyperbole.
Ask them, ask all of them – ask the American GI’s we sit next to on planes who are here for a brief respite while we fly off on our Delta vacation package. Ask them if it’s bad. Ask them if it’s real.
Not a perfect parallel but did anyone imagine in the 1920’s what Europe would look like in the 1940’s. Did anyone presume to know in the coffee houses of Berlin or in the opera halls of Vienna that genocide would soon become the celebrated culture? Did anyone think that a goofy-looking painter named Shickelgruber would go from the beer halls of Munich and jail, to the Reichstag as Feuhrer in less than a decade? Did Jews pack their bags and leave Warsaw, Vilna, Athens, Paris, Bialystok, Minsk, knowing that soon their new address would be Treblinka, Sobibor, Dachau and Auschwitz?
The sages teach – “Aizehu chacham – haroeh et hanolad – Who is a wise person – he who sees into the future.” We dare not wallow in complacency, in a misguided tolerance and naïve sense of security.
We must be diligent students of history and not sit in ash cloth at the waters of Babylon weeping. We cannot be hypnotized by eloquent-sounding rhetoric that soothes our heart but endangers our soul. We cannot be lulled into inaction for fear of offending the offenders. Radical Islam is the scourge and this must be cried out from every mountain top. From sea to shining sea, we must stand tall, prideful of our stunning decency and moral resilience. Immediately after 9/11 how many mosques were destroyed in America? None. After 9/11, how many Muslims were killed in America? None. After 9/11, how many anti-Muslim rallies were held in America? None. And yet, we apologize. We grovel. We beg forgiveness.
The mystifying litany of our foolishness continues. Should there be a shul in Hebron on the site where Baruch Goldstein gunned down twenty-seven Arabs at noonday prayers? Should there be a museum praising the U.S. Calvary on the site of Wounded Knee? Should there be a German cultural center in Auschwitz? Should a church be built in the Syrian town of Ma’arra where Crusaders slaughtered over 100,000 Muslims? Should there be a thirteen story mosque and Islamic Center only a few steps from Ground Zero?
Despsite all the rhetoric, the essence of the matter can be distilled quite easily. The Muslim community has the absolute, constitutional right to build their building wherever they wish. I don’t buy the argument – “When we can build a church or a synagogue in Mecca they can build a mosque here.” America is greater than Saudi Arabia. And New York is greater than Mecca. Democracy and freedom must prevail.
Can they build? Certainly. May they build? Certainly. But should they build at that site? No -- but that decision must come from them, not from us. Sensitivity, compassion cannot be measured in feet or yards or in blocks. One either feels the pain of others and cares, or does not.
If those behind this project are good, peace-loving, tolerant Muslims, as they claim, then they should know better, rip up the zoning permits and build elsewhere.
Believe it or not, I am a dues-paying, card carrying member of the ACLU, yet from start of finish, I find this sorry episode disturbing to say the least.
William Burroughs, the novelist and poet, in a wry moment wrote – “After one look at this planet, any visitor from outer space would say – “I want to see the manager.”
Let us understand that the radical Islamist assaults all over the globe are but skirmishes, fire fights, and vicious decoys. Christ and the anti-Christ. Gog U’Magog. The Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness; the bloody collision between civilization and depravity is on the border between Lebanon and Israel. It is on the Gaza Coast and in the Judean Hills of the West Bank. It is on the sandy beaches of Tel Aviv and on the cobblestoned mall of Ben Yehuda Street. It is in the underground schools of Sderot and on the bullet-proofed inner-city buses. It is in every school yard, hospital, nursery, classroom, park, theater – in every place of innocence and purity.
Israel is the laboratory – the test market. Every death, every explosion, every grisly encounter is not a random, bloody orgy. It is a calculated, strategic probe into the heart, guts and soul of the West.
In the Six Day War, Israel was the proxy of Western values and strategy while the Arab alliance was the proxy of Eastern, Soviet values and strategy. Today too, it is a confrontation of proxies, but the stakes are greater than East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Israel in her struggle represents the civilized world, while Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Queda, Iran, Islamic Jihad, represent the world of psychopathic, loathesome evil.
As Israel, imperfect as she is, resists the onslaught, many in the Western World have lost their way displaying not admiration, not sympathy, not understanding, for Israel’s galling plight, but downright hostility and contempt. Without moral clarity, we are doomed because Israel’s galling plight ultimately will be ours. Hanna Arendt in her classic Origins of Totalitarianism accurately portrays the first target of tyranny as the Jew. We are the trial balloon. The canary in the coal mine. If the Jew/Israel is permitted to bleed with nary a protest from “good guys” then tyranny snickers and pushes forward with its agenda.
Moral confusion is a deadly weakness and it has reached epic proportions in the West; from the Oval Office to the UN, from the BBC to Reuters to MSNBC, from the New York Times to Le Monde, from university campuses to British teachers unions, from the International Red Cross to Amnesty International, from Goldstone to Elvis Costello, from the Presbyterian Church to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
There is a message sent and consequences when our president visits Turkey and Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and not Israel.
There is a message sent and consequences when free speech on campus is only for those championing Palestinian rights.
There is a message sent and consequences when the media deliberately doctors and edits film clips to demonize Israel.
There is a message sent and consequences when the UN blasts Israel relentlessly, effectively ignoring Iran, Sudan, Venezuela, North Korea, China and other noxious states.
There is a message sent and consequences when liberal churches are motivated by Liberation Theology, not historical accuracy.
There is a message sent and consequences when murderers and terrorists are defended by the obscenely transparent “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”
John Milton warned, “Hypocrisy is the only evil that walks invisible.”
A few days after the Gaza blockade incident in the spring, a congregant happened past my office, glanced in and asked in a friendly tone –
“Rabbi. How’re y’ doing?”
I looked up, sort of smiled and replied – “I’ve had better days.”
“What’s the matter? Is there anything I can do to cheer you up?” he inquired.
“Thank you for the offer but I’m just bummed out today and I showed him a newspaper article I was reading.
“Madrid gay pride parade bans Israeli group over Gaza Ship Raid.” I explained to my visitor – “The Israeli gay pride contingent from Tel Aviv was not allowed to participate in the Spanish gay pride parade because the mayor of Tel Aviv did not apologize for the raid by the Israeli military.”
The only country in the entire Middle East where gay rights exist, is Israel. The only country in the entire Middle East where there is a gay pride parade, is Israel. The only country in the Middle East that has gay neighborhoods and gay bars, is Israel.
Gays in the Gaza would be strung up, executed by Hamas if they came out and yet Israel is vilified and ostracized. Disinvited to the parade – by moral morons.
Looking for logic?
Looking for reason?
Looking for sanity?
Kafka on his darkest, gloomiest day could not keep up with this bizarre spectacle and we “useful idiots” pander and fawn over cutthroats, sinking deeper and deeper into moral decay, as the enemy laughs all the way to the West Bank and beyond.
It is exhausting and dispiriting. We live in an age that is redefining righteousness where those with moral clarity are an endangered, beleaguered specie.
Isaiah warned us thousands of years ago – “Oye Lehem Sheh-Korim Layome, Laila v’Laila, yome – Woe to them who call the day, night and the night, day.” We live on a planet that is both Chelm and Sodom. It is a frightening and maddening place to be.
How do we convince the world and many of our own, that this is not just anti-Semitism, that this is not just anti-Zionism but a full throttled attack by unholy, radical Islamists on everything that is morally precious to us?
How do we convince the world and many of our own that conciliation is not an option, that compromise is not a choice?
Everything we are. Everything we believe. Everything we treasure, is at risk.
The threat is so unbelievably clear and the enemy so unbelievably ruthless how anyone in their right mind doesn’t get it is baffling. Let’s try an analogy. If someone contracted a life-threatening infection and we not only scolded them for using antibiotics but insisted that the bacteria had a right to infect their body and that perhaps, if we gave the invading infection an arm and a few toes, the bacteria would be satisfied and stop spreading
Anyone buy that medical advice? Well, folks, that’s our approach to the radical Islamist bacteria. It is amoral, has no conscience and will spread unless it is eradicated. – There is no negotiating. Appeasement is death.
I was no great fan of George Bush – didn’t vote for him. (By the way, I’m still a registered Democrat.) I disagreed with many of his policies but one thing he had right. His moral clarity was flawless when it came to the War on Terror, the War on Radical Islamist Terror. There was no middle ground – either you were friend or foe. There was no place in Bush’s world for Switzerland. He knew that this competition was not Toyota against G.M., not the Iphone against the Droid, not the Braves against the Phillies, but a deadly serious war, winner take all. Blink and you lose. Underestimate, and you get crushed.
I know that there are those sitting here today who have turned me off. But I also know that many turned off their rabbis seventy five years ago in Warsaw, Riga, Berlin, Amsterdam, Cracow, Vilna. I get no satisfaction from that knowledge, only a bitter sense that there is nothing new under the sun.
Enough rhetoric – how about a little “show and tell?” A few weeks ago on the cover of Time magazine was a horrific picture with a horrific story. The photo was of an eighteen year old Afghani woman, Bibi Aisha, who fled her abusive husband and his abusive family. Days later the Taliban found her and dragged her to a mountain clearing where she was found guilty of violating Sharia Law. Her punishment was immediate. She was pinned to the ground by four men while her husband sliced off her ears, and then he cut off her nose.
That is the enemy.
If nothing else stirs us. If nothing else convinces us, let Bibi Aisha’s mutilated face be the face of Islamic radicalism. Let her face shake up even the most complacent and naïve among us. In the holy crusade against this ultimate evil, pictures of Bibi Aisha’s disfigurement should be displayed on billboards, along every highway from Route 66 to the Autobahn, to the Transarabian Highway. Her picture should be posted on every lobby wall from Tokyo to Stockholm to Rio. On every network, at every commercial break, Bibi Aisha’s face should appear with the caption – “Radical Islamic savages did this.” And underneath – “This ad was approved by Hamas, by Hezbollah, by Taliban, by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, by Islamic Jihad, by Fatah al Islam, by Magar Nodal Hassan, by Richard Reid, by Ahmanijad, by Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, by Osama bin Laden, by Edward Said, by The Muslim Brotherhood, by Al Queda, by CAIR.”
“The moral sentiment is the drop that balances the sea” said Ralph Waldo Emerson. Today, my friends, the sea is woefully out of balance and we could easily drown in our moral myopia and worship of political correctness.
We peer up into the heavens sending probes to distant galaxies. We peer down into quarks discovering particles that would astonish Einstein. We create computers that rival the mind, technologies that surpass science fiction. What we imagine, with astounding rapidity, becomes real. If we dream it, it does, indeed, come. And yet, we are at a critical point in the history of this planet that could send us back into the cave, to a culture that would make the Neanderthal blush with shame.
Our parents and grandparents saw the swastika and recoiled, understood the threat and destroyed the Nazis. We see the banner of Radical Islam and can do no less.
A rabbi was once asked by his students….
“Rebbi. Why are your sermons so stern?” Replied the rabbi, “If a house is on fire and we chose not to wake up our children, for fear of disturbing their sleep, would that be love?” Kinderlach, ‘di hoyz brent.’ Children our house is on fire and I must arouse you from your slumber.”
During WWII and the Holocaust was it business as usual for priests, ministers, rabbis? Did they deliver benign homilies and lovely sermons as Europe fell, as the Pacific fell, as North Africa fell, as the Mideast and South America tottered, as England bled? Did they ignore the demonic juggernaut and the foul breath of evil? They did not. There was clarity, courage, vision, determination, sacrifice, and we were victorious. Today it must be our finest hour as well. We dare not retreat into the banality of our routines, glance at headlines and presume that the good guys will prevail.
Democracies don’t always win.
Tyrannies don’t always lose.
My friends – the world is on fire and we must awake from our slumber. “EHR KUMT.”
Is It Just a Coincidence That the Democrats Started Calling the Conservatives "Extremists?" Not If You Follow Alinsky's Rules #11 and #13
This article at Family Security Matters takes us behind the curtain a bit on how the Left has developed strategies to attack Conservatives and the Tea Parties as they gained total control of Congress and the White House this past year and a half...and those strategies came not from the likes of Harry Truman or Lyndon Baines Johnson...but from Communist author and revolutionary, Saul Alinsky.
Specifically, if you look at Alinsky's Rules 11 and 13, you see how much of the attack squad's unifying message was initiated:
Two rules that are coming into play this midterm election cycle are rules eleven and thirteen, what many would consider the most effective of Alinsky’s rules:
11. Push the negative...every positive has its negative; and
13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it and polarize it.
In pushing the negative and personalizing a target – in this case the Tea Party movement – Progressive and Liberal operatives employ the tools of buzzwords and talking points. To be fair, both sides of the aisle use these tools, but a quick look at “the rules,” a book written before Lee Atwater arrived on the scene, provides conclusive evidence – in rules five and eleven – that Progressives not only own their birthright, but refined the tactic of deploying them to a level of potency not seen before in American politics.
Now, one of the things we have to keep in mind is that even though the Left has been and is in power, following the Alinsky model has not been about governing or even controlling - Alinsky is all about revolution. It's all about the end goal, it always has been.
Many of you have heard me describe the Taliban in Afghanistan as not wanting any sort of peace in Afghanistan or limited governmental role...the Taliban simply want that country back in their hands as it was before. Well, the same is true of the extreme Left in America ...they don't want some sort of Democrat control at the top of two of the three branches...hell no, they want to "transform" this country - they want to take the latest stab at Marx's form of Communism and use the "fruited plains" as the test market.
Us "extremists" that the Left has identified are not considered a hurdle or a nuisance to the Left and their agenda - oh no. We are considered the enemy, the one to topple, the one to "remove."
Constructing the Buzzword 'Extreme': Alinsky Rules 11 & 13
f you are paying attention to the politics surrounding the midterm elections – and, for the good of the country, you should be – then you have, no doubt, heard almost everyone from the Left side of the aisle using the word “extreme” where the Tea Party is concerned. To a lesser extent they use it to describe the Conservative movement as a whole but without doubt, it is the descriptor of choice when anyone of the Liberal or Progressive persuasion talks about the Tea Party. This tactic comes straight from the Progressive playbook.
I have been saying since before Barack Obama was elected president that if you want to understand the tactics being used by the Progressive Left you have to read two books: Boss by Mike Royko and Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky.
The first, Boss, examines the genesis of the Chicago Machine – Mayor Richard J. “The King Maker” Daley’s Chicago Democrat Machine – and Chicago style politics. It is important because it not only sheds light on how “The Machine” came to be, but how it operates. Barack Obama, Dick Durbin, Rahm Emanuel, Luis Gutierrez and Jan Schakowsky, to name but a few, are all products of “The Machine.” “The Machine” has been responsible for the election of every Democrat president since John F. Kennedy.
The latter, Rules for Radicals, outlines the guidelines for growing and advancing the agenda of the Progressive Left. It outlines thirteen specific rules that the Progressives commit themselves to from birth, at least that’s the way it seems. They are:
1. Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.
2. Never go outside the expertise of your people.
3. Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.
4. Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.
5. Ridicule is man's most potent weapon.
6. A good tactic is one your people enjoy.
7. A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.
8. Keep the pressure on.
9. The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.
10. Develop operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.
11. Push the negative...every positive has its negative.
12. The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.
13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it and polarize it.
Combined, these two books not only define the “game plan” used by the Obama campaign team to attain the White House – and the game plan they will no doubt employ during the midterm elections and the 2012 General Election, but provide an ideological window through which we can understand how the Progressives have moved everything from healthcare to the Great Society and before that the New Deal.
Two rules that are coming into play this midterm election cycle are rules eleven and thirteen, what many would consider the most effective of Alinsky’s rules:
11. Push the negative...every positive has its negative; and
13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it and polarize it.
In pushing the negative and personalizing a target – in this case the Tea Party movement – Progressive and Liberal operatives employ the tools of buzzwords and talking points. To be fair, both sides of the aisle use these tools, but a quick look at “the rules,” a book written before Lee Atwater arrived on the scene, provides conclusive evidence – in rules five and eleven – that Progressives not only own their birthright, but refined the tactic of deploying them to a level of potency not seen before in American politics.
The word Progressives and Liberal Democrats are employing in an attempt to not only shock and frighten independent and undecided voters but to misinform and deceive the total of the American electorate, is, “extreme.” The Republicans running in the 2010 midterm elections – and especially the Tea Party-backed candidates – are, they say, “extreme.” Progressives and Liberals are banking on the probability that many will hear the label enough times that it will be believed without examination. They do so with the added benefit of having a mainstream media that is extremely (no pun intended) reluctant to questioning the claim.
The word “extreme” is defined as:
“...exceeding what is usual or reasonable; immoderate; very strict, rigid, or severe; drastic...”
The word “extreme” defined, let’s take a look at what the Tea Party stands for; what its platform is:
1) Limited government
2) Limited and equitable taxation
3) Fiscal responsibility
4) Adherence to the constitutional process in the crafting of legislation
Where the “Young Guns” of the GOP have done a commendable job of putting together a “Pledge to America,” and whereas many Tea Party groups include addition items, almost each of the planks can be a subheading for these four general tenets.
That said, even a cursory comparison of the definition of “extreme” and the tenets of the Tea Party reveals that something isn’t quite right where calling the Tea Party “extreme” is concerned.
Limited Government
The question begs to be asked, which is more “extreme,” a larger government that employs a greater number of regulations on personal choice and the free market system; which requires an ever increasing amount of taxes for the purpose of administering programs for which they make the rules – rules that can exclude certain demographics based on race, religion or economic status, or a smaller constitutional government that provides limited but potent oversight over the citizenry and the private sector while facilitating a maximum opportunity for each and every citizen?
A larger more intrusive government has the ability to, among a plethora of other things:
▪ Limit what you can do and say
▪ Limit and control what the private sector can produce and sell
▪ Limit what you will receive in return for your taxation, i.e. Medicare, Social Security, national defense and, now, healthcare
▪ Mandate how much you will pay to the government in taxes to support entitlement programs for which you may not even be eligible
▪ Limit your protection under the law based on an ever changing set of criteria, i.e. equal protection under the law in general and equal protection under Civil Rights law to be specific.
Limited government, or government that recognizes the Charters of Freedom – The Declaration of Independence, The US Constitution and The Bill of Rights – as being created to limit the powers of government to those enumerated, avoids the frailty of the human element that allows for the creation of elitist factions, the elevation of despots and the egotism and narcissism of tyrants. It protects the people from government by limiting what government can inflict on the people.
So, which is more “extreme”?
Limited and Equitable Taxation & Fiscal Responsibility
Again, which is more “extreme,” a government that can recklessly impose a financial burden on its citizenry (read: taxation) that, in turn, facilitates the bringing about of a societal catastrophe that until now only existed in the fiction of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, or a government that is committed to operating inside a set of boundaries; the boundaries of a balanced budget derived from honest and equitable taxation of the citizenry?
A government allowed to expand beyond the boundaries of a fiscally responsible balanced budget; that can borrow from foreign nations to the point of no return; and which can expand and extend debt beyond the boundaries of future generations, is a government that possess the ability to tax the citizenry into government dependence; that can create an economic catastrophe that could damage the nation beyond recovery.
A limited government, that derives its fiscal mandate from the enumerated powers of the Constitution; that operates within the constraint of a fiscally responsible budgetary process; and that, essentially, “cuts up the credit cards,” allows for the citizenry to keep more of what they earn, which, in turn, allows the citizenry to spend, to purchase, to engage the private sector market place, thus creating competition and value in the marketplace, while fulfilling the constitutional obligation to “provide for the common defense” and “promote the general Welfare.”
Again, which position is more “extreme”?
The Constitutional Process
My wife Nancy, who literally cherishes the American Constitution and the whole of the Charters of Freedom, has said on any number of occasions that the United States Constitution is the tool, the instrument, by which opportunity for all – every man, woman and child of every race, religion and background – is possible; it is what we all have in common; the noble mechanism that binds us together and at the same time makes us unique, not only as a people, but as a system of government. To that almost perfect statement I add that it is only when we deviate from the Constitution that we affect inequity, favoritism, bias and the dangers of factionalism, corruption and tyranny of the elite.; only when politics usurps constitutional government do we get into trouble.
If we all quest for a maximum amount of freedom, if we all value liberty and the right to remain free in our choices and actions, in our lives, do we not want a government free from inequity, favoritism, bias and the dangers of factionalism, corruption and tyranny of the elite? If we recognize that man is flawed, that human nature does not always find our fellow man and/or our elected officials doing what is right, what is honest, what “promotes the general Welfare,” then our government must have boundaries that they cannot usurp. These boundaries are established in the US Constitution.
If we jettison the Constitution and the limitations it mandates for our Republican form of government we literally invite the deterioration of our government by virtue of the frailties of man and human nature. If we allow elected officials to change the rules without the consent of the governed, to abandon good government for self-absorbed political opportunism, to ignore the constitutional process when it benefits their own motives and the motives of special interest factions, then are we not facilitating a catalyst for establishing legislation that promotes inequity, favoritism and bias while courting the dangers of factionalism, corruption and tyranny of the elite?
I ask, yet again, which is more “extreme,” adhering to our constitutional process or gambling with our children’s future by allowing for even the slightest possibility of tyranny in government?
The Progressives, Liberal Democrats and the operatives that work on their behalf – and even some liberal and establishment Republicans – are doing everything in their power to demonize the Tea Party. They are attempting to smear a group of people who vow to enact limited government, limited and equitable taxation, fiscal responsibility and adherence to the constitutional process, should they be elected to office. And to what end? So that we can experience more of the same tax-and-spend generated debt, more divisive and opportunistic special interest politics and more out-of-control government expansion?
The smearing of the Tea Party as “extreme” isn’t a Democrat v. Republican issue. It isn’t a Conservative v. Liberal issue. This is an issue that pits forces that would “fundamentally transform the United States of America” into a government based on Democratic Socialism, against those of us who believe that the system of government best suited to preserve individual freedoms; that preserves liberty and justice for all –regardless of race, religion or economic demographic, is found in the limited government that only the United States Constitution and the Charters of Freedom can afford.
My argument made, please, ask yourself, honestly and selflessly, which position is actually more “extreme?”
CIA's Panetta Hangs Tough With Pissed Off Pakistani President and Prime Minister
CIA Director Leon Panetta had the uncomfortable role of sitting in front of Pakistan's President, Prime Minister and Military Chief yesterday as those three are plenty pissed off, apparently, over not only the intensified predator drone attacks that the CIA is conducting in NW Pakistan but throw in the latest situation of some AH-64 incursions by our military into Pakistani territory as well. Well, it appears that Panetta stood firm. And believe me folks, I am no Leon Panetta fan but I think what this all shows is that when even a dyed in the wool Leftist Democrat gets put into a role of actually serving America and is surrounded by the right Patriots, he can get some religion.
From the article at DAWN:
Tension between Pakistan and the US soared on Thursday as visiting CIA chief Leon Panetta remained adamant on intensifying drone strikes in tribal areas, saying the region was being used for planning attacks in Europe and fomenting violence in Afghanistan.
Mr Panetta’s meetings with President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and Chief of Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani were described by sources as extremely tense.
US Senator John Kerry also called the prime minister in the evening.
The two-day visit by the chief of the US Central Intelligence Agency comes against the backdrop of an unprecedented increase in drone strikes in Waziristan, repeated aerial incursions into the tribal areas by US-led International Security Assistance Force and revelation of a terror plot being hatched in the region to attack European cities.
According to sources, Mr Panetta snappily demanded full cooperation in neutralising the Europe terror plot, more intelligence sharing and greater ‘operational space’ within Pakistan to avert future threats.
One of the most interesting and eye-opening portions of this article for me was this, concerning what the CIA is also doing inside of Pakistan:
American journalist Bob Woodward has recently disclosed in his book Obama’s Wars that the CIA was using secret ‘pursuit teams’ of elite Afghan fighters in Pakistan for hunting Taliban leaders.
Now, I have said all along that when you consider the pinpoint accuracy and the level of effectiveness in taking out higher level Taliban and al Qaeda leaders by the CIA drone strikes, that there has to be some incredible on the ground intel going back to the CIA directors of the UAV program...perhaps now we are seeing some of the sources of that intel.
I want to give proper credit to Mr. Panetta - our predator drone strategy has been key to not only decimating the Taliban ranks and leadership, as well as al Qaeda, but it has hampered movement of the enemy from and to Afghanistan.
CIA chief takes tough line on drone hits
ISLAMABAD: Tension between Pakistan and the US soared on Thursday as visiting CIA chief Leon Panetta remained adamant on intensifying drone strikes in tribal areas, saying the region was being used for planning attacks in Europe and fomenting violence in Afghanistan.
Mr Panetta’s meetings with President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and Chief of Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani were described by sources as extremely tense.
US Senator John Kerry also called the prime minister in the evening.
The two-day visit by the chief of the US Central Intelligence Agency comes against the backdrop of an unprecedented increase in drone strikes in Waziristan, repeated aerial incursions into the tribal areas by US-led International Security Assistance Force and revelation of a terror plot being hatched in the region to attack European cities.
Mr Panetta last visited Islamabad soon after an attempt by one Faisal Shahzad to carry out a terrorist attack and was able to persuade his interlocutors to launch an operation in North Waziristan, but at the timing of their choice.
The current spike in drone attacks — almost two dozen in September, one of which reportedly took out leading Al Qaeda operative Sheikh Fateh Al Masri on Sept 25 — is being linked to the plot to attack European cities.
According to sources, Mr Panetta snappily demanded full cooperation in neutralising the Europe terror plot, more intelligence sharing and greater ‘operational space’ within Pakistan to avert future threats.
American journalist Bob Woodward has recently disclosed in his book Obama’s Wars that the CIA was using secret ‘pursuit teams’ of elite Afghan fighters in Pakistan for hunting Taliban leaders.
Analysts believe the demand for more operational space pertains to those secret units, whose presence has been denied by Pakistan.
An outline of the information regarding the European plot was shared with Pakistani leaders, who were told that a terrorist, a German of Pakistani origin identified by his surname Siddiqui, was caught as he tried to leave the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and was now being grilled at the Bagram airbase in Afghanistan.
The plot for Mumbai-style attacks in Europe in late November, involving about three dozen terrorists, is claimed to have been hatched jointly by Al Qaeda, the Haqqani network and Lashkar-e-Taiba, a group about which Pakistani leaders had been alerted by Admiral Mullen in July that it was fast becoming a global threat.
Mr Panetta hinted that although the US government did not doubt Pakistan’s sincerity and commitment in the war on terror, it feared that they might be having support of some hidden hands.
Sources said the Pakistani leaders were stunned by Mr Panetta’s menacing tone and assured him of intensifying the military offensive against militants in the tribal areas.
The operations had slackened because of the military’s pre-occupation with flood relief activities, providing a breathing space to terrorists holed up in the region.
Prime Minister Gilani was quoted as saying that despite the catastrophic floods and consequent precarious economic situation, Pakistan remained resolutely committed to the war against terror because it considered that success in the war was vital not only for peace, stability and economic development in the country, but also for the world at large.
President Zardari said: “Fight against militancy and terrorism remains the highest priority and the government is determined to pursue its struggle against militancy till its logical end.”
Both asked the CIA chief to provide detailed information about the plot and keep the ISI on board regarding progress in the probe.
The CIA chief agreed to the suggestion and said: “The US cannot confront the terrorists without Pakistan’s support… and the US will try its utmost to provide timely and credible information to Pakistan against any possible terrorist activity on its side of the border to enable its forces to take prompt action against the miscreants.”
There were clear indications in the lead-up to Mr Panetta’s visit that efforts were made to bring Pakistan’s tribal areas -- not just North Waziristan -- into focus and to increase pressure on the Pakistan Army.
First there was a sudden increase in drone attacks in both parts of Waziristan and then there were aerial attacks by helicopter gunships in North Waziristan and Kurram, one of which left three Pakistani soldiers dead on Thursday.
At the same time, a video surfaced showing stoning of a woman in Orakzai by Taliban.
The release of the video is being seen by Pakistani strategists as a western effort to show that the militants were returning to areas earlier reclaimed by the army from the Taliban.
And the latest in the series is the release of a video revealing extrajudicial killings in Swat. The army has dismissed it as fake and an attempt to malign the military, but US officials are reported to have sought an explanation on the matter.
Clearly concerned over the propaganda campaign, Prime Minister Gilani found it fit to tell Mr Panetta, though in the context of Mr Woodward’s revelations, that the US should avoid negative messaging which fostered ‘misperceptions and mistrust’.
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