+ Word of the Day +

From Life Of The World:

At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, "Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them, and said, "Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me.

"But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world because of offenses! For offenses must come, but woe to that man by whom the offense comes! If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life lame or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet, to be cast into the everlasting fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes, to be cast into hell fire.

"Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that in heaven their angels always see the face of My Father who is in heaven. For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost" (Matthew 18:1-11).

Islam isn't violent...except in Nigeria

Fulfilling their god's commands and emulating their false prophet, Muslim youths destroy 10 churches over a comment:

...A mob of Muslim youths injured six Christians – one critically – and set fire to 10 churches last week in Dutse, capital of Jigawa state in northern Nigeria.

The attacks on September 19 and 20 were sparked by allegations that a Christian woman had blasphemed the Muslim prophet Muhammad.

Angered Muslims demanded that the woman, identified only as a tailor named Jummai, be stoned to death for her comments.

“Muslims believed that the Christian woman would not be stoned to death, and that is why they decided to vent their anger on Christians and their churches,” Malam Isa Hussani told Compass.

Rumors spread rapidly, and after a few skirmishes on the evening of the dispute, a rampage broke out the following morning against the churches, homes and businesses of local Christians.

Hundreds of Muslims assembled on September 20 at 10 a.m. at Dutse’s Central Mosque, with another group congregating at the district Muslim leader’s residence. Christian leaders said the mobs were addressed by the Emir (Muslim leader) of Dutse, Dr. Nuhu Muhammadu Sanusi, his defense minister, and Jiwaga State Governor Ibrahim Saminu Turaki.

According to the South Korean online “OhmyNews” website, all three officials as well as State Police Commissioner Abubakar Sardauna were trying to “keep the protest from getting out of hand,” but failed when police fired teargas into the crowd, enraging the protestors and sending them on a rampage. Sardauna declined to speak to Compass about the incident.

The Rev. Joseph Hayab, secretary of the North-Western Nigerian chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria, confirmed that 10 churches were torched in the attack, although a police spokesman told Reuters that a total of 11 churches had been burned.

...Hussani, one of the Dutse Muslims protesting against the woman, said that Jummai’s argument with an unidentified Muslim man on September 19 had started over controversial statements about Islam attributed to Pope Benedict XVI the previous week.

But persons who witnessed the verbal dispute stated that Jummai was reacting to a blasphemous remark against Jesus Christ made by the Muslim man.

“Such a minor incident between a Muslim man and a Christian woman should not have led to the destruction of churches,” Hayab told Compass. “This is a heinous crime in the name of religion.”

According to sources in the Anglican congregation, which lost St. Peter’s Anglican Cathedral in the attack, the Anglican bishop’s residence was also partially destroyed, forcing BishopYusufu Lumu to seek shelter with his wife and children at a local police station.

In addition, an Assemblies of God church, the Living Faith Church and three Evangelical Church of West Africa churches were confirmed among those demolished.

At least 20 Christian homes were also looted and destroyed during the rampage, along with 40 shops belonging to Christian traders. More than 1,000 local Christians who were displaced during the attack fled to the police barracks and schools to escape from the mob.

The Jigawa state government imposed an 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew after the violent attacks.

On September 22, the federal government sent armored tanks and truckloads of armed soldiers and anti-riot police into Dutse to patrol the town during Friday Muslim prayers.

Police reported that six Christians injured in the attacks received treatment at Dutse General Hospital. One victim is in critical condition, with local doctors saying they lack adequate facilities to treat his injuries.

Another Christian identified only as Mr. Friday, a security officer for the governor, was slashed across his face with a machete before being rescued from the mob by police.

...Police authorities in Dutse have detained Jummai for questioning on the incident. There was no confirmation whether the Muslim who had argued with her was also in custody, although police spokesman Nwakalor Ejike confirmed on September 22 that more than 20 people had been arrested over the incident.

Ejike, a police public relations officer, attributed the riots to “a little misunderstanding,” which he said the police were working to contain.

An estimated 80 percent of Dutse’s population are Muslim. In a previous outbreak of violence in the town nearly two years ago, heavily armed Muslim militants attacked Christian evangelists during an open-air preaching event.

Alhaji Muhammadu Maccido, the Sultan of Sokoto and spiritual head of Nigeria’s Muslims, declared after last week’s attacks that religion should not be used as a tool of violence. “No religion will support violence, harassment, victimization and all vices, let alone murdering of innocent people,” Maccido told Nigeria’s The Guardian.

Jigawa state is one of 12 northern Nigerian states that have imposed Islamic law in the past six years. Repeated outbreaks of religious violence have erupted ever since, claiming thousands of lives. In a similar incident in Jigawa state’s Kazaure town in November 2003, Muslim militants burned 10 churches and destroyed 100 Christian properties.

"Innocent"? Muslims keep using that word. I do not think it means what they think it means.

Will they so easily dismiss the Pentagon?

President Bush edged toward the truth with "Islamofascism" before backtracking. It appears the Pope has (mostly) retreated from Palaeologus's accurate assessment of Mohammed's heresy.

But what will the liars and the stubbornly ignorant say now?

As many who have examined the Religion of Death's "holy" texts and history with their own eyes attest, it is the will of Allah and his false prophet as revealed in Qur'an and Sunnah that provides the source and sustenance of Islam's fighting against, subduing and humiliating, and killing non-Muslims and Apostates to make the world Islam.

Though it is too late for those whose life and limb have been wasted in an attempt to "win the hearts and minds" of millions of Fausts, it is not too late for the rest of us. Individuals in the United States government appear to be realizing that Suicide bombers follow Quran:

With suicide bombings spreading from Iraq to Afghanistan, the Pentagon has tasked intelligence analysts to pinpoint what's driving Muslim after Muslim to do the unthinkable.

Their preliminary finding is politically explosive: it's their "holy book" the Quran after all, according to intelligence briefings obtained by WND.

In public, the U.S. government has made an effort to avoid linking the terrorist threat to Islam and the Quran while dismissing suicide terrorists as crazed heretics who pervert Islamic teachings.

"The terrorists distort the idea of jihad into a call for violence and murder," the White House maintains in its recently released "National Strategy for Combating Terrorism" report.

But internal Pentagon briefings show intelligence analysts have reached a wholly different conclusion after studying Islamic scripture and the backgrounds of suicide terrorists. They've found that most Muslim suicide bombers are in fact students of the Quran who are motivated by its violent commands – making them, as strange as it sounds to the West, "rational actors" on the Islamic stage.

In Islam, it is not how one lives one's life that guarantees spiritual salvation, but how one dies, according to the briefings. There are great advantages to becoming a martyr. Dying while fighting the infidels in the cause of Allah reserves a special place and honor in Paradise. And it earns special favor with Allah.

"Suicide in defense of Islam is permitted, and the Islamic suicide bomber is, in the main, a rational actor," concludes a recent Pentagon briefing paper titled, "Motivations of Muslim Suicide Bombers."

..."His actions provide a win-win scenario for himself, his family, his faith and his God," the document explains. "The bomber secures salvation and the pleasures of Paradise. He earns a degree of financial security and a place for his family in Paradise. He defends his faith and takes his place in a long line of martyrs to be memorialized as a valorous fighter.

"And finally, because of the manner of his death, he is assured that he will find favor with Allah," the briefing adds. "Against these considerations, the selfless sacrifice by the individual Muslim to destroy Islam's enemies becomes a suitable, feasible and acceptable course of action."

The briefing – produced by a little-known Pentagon intelligence unit called the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA – cites a number of passages from the Quran dealing with jihad, or "holy" warfare, martyrdom and Paradise, where "beautiful mansions" and "maidens" await martyr heroes. In preparation for attacks, suicide terrorists typically recite passages from six surahs, or chapters, of the Quran: Baqura (Surah 2), Al Imran (3), Anfal (8), Tawba (9), Rahman (55) and Asr (103).

CIFA staffs hundreds of investigators and analysts to help coordinate Pentagon security efforts at U.S. military installations at home and abroad.

The Pentagon unit is especially concerned about a new wave of suicide bombings hitting Afghanistan.

Suicide bombings have killed more than 200 people in Afghanistan this year, up from single digits two years ago. On Tuesday, a suicide bomber detonated his explosive vest and killed 18 outside an Afghan government compound. Last week, a suicide bomber riding a bike killed at least four NATO soldiers. And earlier this month, a suicide car bomber rammed into a U.S. military convoy near the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, killing 16 people, including two American soldiers.

...The U.S. command in Afghanistan now warns that a suicide bombing cell is operating inside the Afghan capital. Meanwhile, the Taliban's top military commander told ABC News he has 500 suicide bombers at his disposal.

"We have so many of them that it is difficult to accommodate and arm and equip them," Mullah Dadullah Akhund said. "Some of them have been waiting for a year or more for their turn to be sent to the battlefield."

The emergence of a suicide cell in Kabul troubles military analysts because suicide attacks are the most effective weapon Muslim terrorists can use against the West. The Rand Corp. predicts they'll pose a serious and constant threat to the U.S. for years to come.

The U.S. intelligence community is growing increasingly worried, as well.

"Most jihadist groups will use suicide attacks focused primarily on soft targets to implement asymmetric warfare strategy," warns the just-declassified executive summary of the National Intelligence Estimate on the global terror threat. "Fighters with experience in Iraq are a potential source of leadership for jihadists pursuing these tactics."

Many scholars and media pundits, however, insist Muslim suicide bombers are not driven by religion.

"Beneath the religious rhetoric with which [such terror] is perpetrated, it occurs largely in the service of secular aims," claims Professor Robert A. Pape of the University of Chicago. "Suicide terrorism is mainly a response to foreign occupation rather than a product of Islamic fundamentalism."

He says U.S. foreign policy is more a factor than faith.

"Though it speaks of Americans as infidels, al-Qaida is less concerned with converting us to Islam than removing us from Arab and Muslim lands," Pape said.

But what about the recent video by Adam Gadahn, the American al-Qaida, warning fellow Americans to convert to Islam before al-Qaida attacks again?

"He never mentions virgins or the benefits Islamic martyrs receive in Heaven," Pape asserted.

In fact, Gadahn notes 36 minutes into his speech that Allah reserves the highest rewards – "honors and delights" – for martyrs in Paradise.

"[He] promised the martyr in his path the reward over and above the reward of the believer," Gadahn said. "He has promised them honors and delights too numerous to go into here."

The 9/11 hijackers and the London bombers made martyrdom videos. In their last testaments, they recite the Quran while talking of their "love of death" and "sacrificing life for Allah." Seven martyrdom videotapes also were recovered by British authorities in the foiled transatlantic sky terror plot.

Before the 9/11 attacks, the hijackers shaved and doused themselves with flower water in preparation for their weddings with the beautiful virgins in Paradise. "Know that the women of Paradise are waiting, calling out 'Come hither, friend of Allah,'" according to a four-page letter circulated among them titled "THE LAST NIGHT." "They have dressed in their most beautiful clothing."

But are the virgins scriptural or apocryphal? French documentarian Pierre Rehov, who interviewed the families of suicide bombers and would-be bombers in an attempt to find out why they do it, says it's not a myth or fantasy of heretics.

He says there's no doubt the Quran "promises virgins" to Muslim men who die while fighting infidels in jihad, and it's a key motivating factor behind suicide terrorism.

"It's obviously connected to religion," said Rehov, who features his interviews with Muslims in a recently released film, "Suicide Killers." "They really believe they are going to get the virgins."

He says would-be Muslim suicide bombers he's interviewed have shown him passages in the Quran "in which it's absolutely written that they're going to get the girls in the afterlife."

Muslim clerics do not disavow the virgins-for-martyrs reward as a perverted interpretation of the Quran.

And even Muslim leaders in the West condone suicide bombings. British scholar Azzam Tamimi recently told 8,000 Muslims in Manchester, England, that dying while fighting "George Bush and Tony Blair" is "just" and "the greatest act of martyrdom." Earlier, he said it's "the straight way to pleasing Allah."

And the founder of an allegedly mainstream Muslim group in Washington – the Council on American-Islamic Relations – also has given his blessing to suicide bombings.

Addressing a youth session at the 1999 Islamic Association for Palestine's annual convention in Chicago, CAIR founder Omar Ahmad praised suicide bombers who "kill themselves for Islam," according to a transcript provided by terror expert Steve Emerson's Investigative Project.

"Fighting for freedom, fighting for Islam, that is not suicide," Ahmad asserted. "They kill themselves for Islam."

Osama bin Laden has encouraged "Muslims brothers" to defeat the U.S. and U.K. with suicide attacks.

"I tell you to act upon the orders of Allah," he said in 2003, "be united against Bush and Blair and defeat them through suicide attacks so that you may be successful before Allah."

Islam's wounds and other ironies

Is it possible for the West to grovel any more shamelessly at the feet of the Religion of Death?

In a disgusting inversion of truth, a television news report today expressed concern over whether "Islam's wounds would be healed."

They were talking about Muslim rage over Pope Benedict's citing a Byzantine emperor's demonstrably true statement that Mohammed espoused the use of violence in spreading his religion. (For an irony within an irony: Emperor Palaeologus's city, Constantinople, was besieged by Islam during his reign, finally falling to the Religion of Peace within just a few decades of making the infamous remark. I guess he knew what he was talking about!)

Rather than patronize those whose feelings are hurt by the truth, Western media should be talking about the actual, irreparable wounds caused by fourteen hundred years of fighting against, subduing and humiliating, and killing non-Muslims to establish the reign of Allah and his false prophet.

It is not "Islam's wounds," but Islam wounds (humanity).

On a related note: The federal government can ban spinach within hours over three deaths, but it does nothing except apologize for Islam which has raped, enslaved, and slaughtered millions upon millions.

A tangential hypocrisy: Liberals ignore or deny the stifling effect of taxes on human behavior until they want to use your vote to control others. In this case, they argue that raising taxes on cigarettes will reduce smoking.

That they would be so honest in their other tax-induced suffocations of human creativity and industry.

Baseless conspiracy theories only weaken our defenses

Whether that consequence is intended or not. Doesn't he realize we're at war with an ancient and merciless foe?

Unfortunately, his willingness to attack the single person most responsible for America's defense is characteristic of too many in the West.

From here:

New evidence of deliberate White House cover-ups

...looks a lot like evidence of a detachment from reality.

The recordings from the planes that supposedly hit the WTC have the last words of the hijackers as being "Allah ahkbar" or "God is great". But a Muslim wouldn't say that if he knew he were about to die. Instead he'd recite a blessing stating that Allah is God and Mohammed is his prophet.

Obviously, you know all about Muslims who are about to die. What about when they kill?

That phrase is often uttered when slaughtering Infidels.

Scientists and chemists who have analyzed the metal pools left behind at Ground Zero doubt a plane hit the building....

Despite millions of eyewitnesses to the second plane's impact.

As for the collapse, how likely is it that "untrained" Muslim terrorists would be able to fly the planes into exactly the locations where the explosives had been set ahead of time? For it is clear from the footage of the attack that the Towers collapsed exactly where the planes hit them.

I simply reiterated what other more prominent and educated people than myself have determined.

An appeal to authority rather than evidence...interesting.

OBL has admitted to his organization's planning and carrying out 9/11; for your intellectually-irresponsible "simple reiterations" to be true, President Bush would have to have been at least cooperating with him. Reason would dictate that Osama would have brought up that fact sometime during the last five years of his people being killled by American and other Coalition forces.

We need clarity if we are to prevail in Allah's War Against Humanity

From here:

'Wacko Christians vs. Wacko Islamists = Bush Republicans'

This demonstrates an embarrassing (and suicidal) lack of intellectual and moral clarity.

One group devoutly believes in a God Who commands: "Love your enemies," and "Love your neighbor as yourself."

The other devoutly believes in a god that requires: "Kill the unbelievers wherever you find them," and "I [Mohammed] have been ordered to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is Allah's Apostle."

Misapplying "Essential Liberty"

Did America's revolutionaries do any sort of monitoring of the enemies' communications during the War? Did they seek to discover those within the Colonies who were helping the Crown? Is it prudent, during a time of war, to know what your enemy is planning and their contacts within the nation's borders?

Benjamin Franklin on Liberty:

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

This statement of defiance in the cause of Freedom has lately been misused by some in the context of the United States government's surveillance of terrorists and their accomplices within the country. On the surface it may seem applicable; upon closer inspection, it clearly is not analogous.

When Franklin and other patriots stated this simple but profound truth, they were facing a mortal threat from England: Stand down and submit, or else. The trade-off here for Americans was that if they were to avoid martial conflict with the Crown, they were going to have to sacrifice their God-given Liberty and their dignity as men. The temptation to acquiese to England's tyranny in an effort to avoid harm to their bodies and property must have been great.

Today, the aforementioned quotation is used not to encourage Americans to fight against the murderous Tyranny of Allah, which has maimed and killed thousands of Americans in its effort to subdue and humiliate us in accord with Islam's "sacred" texts (indeed, "Islam" means "submission" not "peace"). It is not used to ignite patriots' love of Liberty against those who would subject us to the vile state of abject abasement and humiliation called dhimmitude. Neither is it used to inspire courage against those who would take and use our sons, daughters, wives, and lives to gratify their "divinely-sanctioned" sadistic and imperialistic predilections.

Instead, this indictment of those who love safety more than Freedom is misapplied to a government seeking to identify those who would kill us (and worse) in the name of their false god and prophet.

The West is now in the latest phase of Allah's one and one-half millennia-old War Against Humanity; it needs to make every effort to defend itself, and that includes using every technological advantage at its disposal to discover and monitor the jihadists and their accomplices. The intellectually lazy and morally bankrupt should not handicap our struggle by taking the Founders' comments out of context.

Those who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear.

We must defend our Lives, Liberty, and sacred honor against the malevolent, tyrannical evil seeking to them in the name of Allah. Anything less is cowardice. We are better than that, and we have much that is worth defending.

Only the ignorant, the liar, and the coward

Where is the moderate Muslim?

Why does the papal citation of a Byzantine emperor's empirically-true statement result in murder, fire bombings, and death threats around the Muslim world, but Islamic "extremists" like bin Laden are considered heroes of the faith?

Why do the West's political and media elites bend over (not backwards) to offer the "Islam is a religion of peace hijacked by a tiny minority of extremists" lie despite all scriptural and historical evidence to the contrary?

Emperor Palaeologus's accurate observation was made while his Great City was under siege by Mohammed's minions. Islam's bloody rage in reaction to it is one more proof that only the ignorant, the liar, and the coward can utter phrases like, "Islamism has nothing to do with Islam."

The New Mecca Times continues the fight for Islam

It used to seem that the Times were just such God-hating, anti-American leftists that they couldn't help but try to hurt politically a socially-conservative, Christian, Republican president.

The Times revealed our surveillance of terrorists' calls into the United States. It exposed our monitoring of the banking transactions of our enemy. Now the Times has denounced the Pope for quoting a factually-true statement on Allah's mandate for violence against non-Muslims, made by an emperor whose Great City was about to fall to Islam.

The Times has gone so far past typical liberal sabotage and unwittingly treasonous behavior that it almost appears to be actively and intentionally serving the Jihad against the West. Even if it isn't intentional, the effect is the same: Say what you want of Christians. Do what you want to Jews. But never, ever, under any circumstances say anything less than complimentary about the Religion of Peace, even if it's true.

I thought the New York Times liked exposing impropriety. Why does it not demonstrate some of the intellectual vigor and moral clarity of which it is undoubtedly so proud by exposing the base doctrine of Mahomet and the blood-soaked history of his followers? Why does it not denounce and call for apologies from those who fight against, subdue and humiliate, and kill Infidels and Apostates to make the world Islam (and those who support them), just as their god and false prophet require?

Cowards. And it's not just the Times.

From here:

The New York Times on Saturday joined other newspapers that have denounced latest remarks by Pope Benedict XVI and demanded an immediate apology from him.

In an editorial published Saturday, the Times called Pope's remarks about Islam as 'tragic and dangerous' and urged him to apologize.

...The Times recalled that this was 'not the first time the pope has fomented discord between Christians and Muslims.'

In 2004 when he was still the Vatican's top theologian, he spoke out against Turkeys joining the European Union, because Turkey, as a Muslim country was in permanent contrast to Europe, the paper recalled.

At the recent comments, Turkey's ruling party likened the pope to Hitler and Mussolini and accused him of reviving the mentality of the Crusades.

"A doctrinal conservative, his greatest fear appears to be the loss of a uniform Catholic identity, not exactly the best jumping-off point for tolerance or interfaith dialogue," the editorial said.

"The world listens carefully to the words of any Pope," The Times continued. "And it is tragic and dangerous when one sows pain, either deliberately or carelessly. He needs to offer a deep and persuasive apology, demonstrating that words can also heal."

Exactly how will lying about the malevolence of Allah heal Infidel wounds?

If the Pope doesn't give us a better apology for saying we're violent, we'll become...violent!

As long as groups like Hamas do not consider the Pope's statement an apology, there is hope. Once they're satisfied, this will just have been another instance of a Western leader's vile submission to the most successful thug in history.

From here:

Pope Benedict said on Sunday he was deeply sorry Muslims had been offended by his use of a medieval quotation on Islam and violence, but failed to quell the fury of some Islamic groups demanding a full apology.

Good.

The head of the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics, whose comments on Tuesday sparked worldwide Muslim anger because they were seen as portraying Islam as a religion tainted by violence, said the quotation did not represent his personal views.

"In Hamas we do not view the statement attributed to the Pope as an apology," said Sami Abu Zuhri, spokesman for the militant group which controls the Palestinian government.

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, the main opposition force, initially said the Pope made a "sufficient apology". But deputy leader Mohammed Habib said later: "It does not rise to the level of a clear apology and ... we're calling on the Pope to issue a clear apology that will decisively end any confusion."

It will be a tragedy if he does.

By the way, has anyone noticed that the two groups here unsatisfied with the Pope's cited a Byzantine emperor are terrorists?

Before the Pope spoke and mollified some Muslims, there were attacks on churches in the West Bank and a protest in Iran. In Somalia, an Italian nun was killed in an attack one Islamist source said could be linked to the dispute.

But I thought Islam was "untainted by violence."

"I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address at the University of Regensburg, which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims," the Pope told pilgrims at his Castelgandolfo summer residence.

That's a good non-apology.

"These in fact were a quotation from a medieval text, which do not in any way express my personal thought," he said at his weekly Angelus prayer.

Leaving out the words "in any way," would go a long way to confirming the Pope's courage and intellectual honesty. In fact, he ought to come out with a much more explicit statement. Something like that posted here or here.

"The heads of Muslim countries had expressed dismay at what they saw as an offensive comment and religious leaders had called it the start of a new Christian crusade against Islam.

Considering that the first Crusade began as a response to a desperate call for help from Eastern Christendom suffering at the hands of Allah and his false prophet, a new Crusade is entirely appropriate, about eight hundred years too late, five years too late, and too much to hope for from today's flaccid Western "leaders."

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi hoped the death of a nun working at a Mogadishu children's hospital was 'an isolated event'. The nun's order said there was no evidence to suspect it was related to the Pope's speech last Tuesday.

Where I come from, nuns are shot all the time.

Didn't the article just note above that an "Islamist" source attributes the nun's murder to Muslim anger over the citation?

In the speech, the Pope, a former theology professor and enforcer of Vatican dogma, referred to criticism of the Prophet Mohammad by 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus.

The emperor said everything the Prophet Mohammad brought was evil 'such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached'.

That's not what he said. The emperor said that Mohammed brought nothing "new" except that which was evil and inhuman. That's a fact.

...But angry Muslim leaders flung what they saw as allegations of violence back at the West, referring to the medieval crusades against Islam and to the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which have fanned the flames of Muslim resentment.

Both the Crusades and our Global War of Self-Defense Against Islam are instances of Infidels fighting back against the jihadist onslaught, so basically, Islam resents its victims defending themselves against it. That's typical of Islam's moral clarity and intellectual honesty.

In Iran, about 500 theological school students protested in the holy city of Qom and hardline cleric Ahmad Khatami said that if the Pope did not apologize, 'Muslims' outcry will continue until he fully regrets his remarks'.

One al Qaeda umbrella group in Iraq, the Mujahideen Shura Council, threatened in an unauthenticated Internet statement to 'break the cross and spill the wine' in revenge, referring to Christian symbols and sacraments."

That certainly sounds like a religion of peace to me!

Let's hope Turkey's State Minister Mehmet Aydin, who said that the Pope seemed to be saying he was sorry for Muslim rage but not his actual comments, is correct.

Speaking of Turkey, has anyone in the media noted that within only a few decades, Palaeologus's comments on Islam were finally and brutally proven true with the fall of Constantinople?

Now what will Western dhimmis do?

For here is a voice that can not be so easily dismissed by deceitful apologists for Jihad and their (sometimes) unwitting dhimmi accomplices in government and the media.

Immediately after 9/11, President Bush defended Islam as a "great" world religion of "peace" and "tolerance." He visited an outpost of that murderous ideology, showing the proper dhimmi submission to Islam just hours after its adherents had slaughtered with zeal thousands of his countrymen. The President religiously refrained from using the terms "Islam" and "terrorism" in the same time zone.

Since then, President Bush has been growing in his realization of the breadth and depth of the Islamic threat to the point that he is finally identifying our temporal (and mortal) enemy as "Islamofascists." By this he acknowledges their global effort to subdue the world under the tyranny of Allah.

Regrettably, five years after 9/11, the President has still to admit publicly the fact that Islam itself--as defined by Allah and his false prophet Mohammed in Qur'an and Sunnah, that religion's "sacred" texts--is the source and sustenance of Islamic terrorism and has been for nearly one and one-half millennia. The failure of our nation's leadership to comprehend this fact--combined with the media's compliance in the "Islam is a religion of peace hijacked by a tiny minority of extremists" propaganda game--prevents us from defending ourselves as fully and effectively as we must, it cripples our ability to correctly implement effective measures to contain the enemy, and it makes impossible (if it is possible) to finally end once-for-all-time the threat posed by Allah's bloody ideology.

Apparently providing the leadership the West has been wanting, Pope Benedict and Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus have made the statement of fact the West has needed to hear, needs to hear, and needs to continue hearing, until the religion of Mahomet is recognized as the vile, malevolent evil it is.

Here's from where Islam's latest excuse for its bloodlust comes:

...In the seventh conversation..., the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: "There is no compulsion in religion". According to the experts, this is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur'an, concerning holy war. Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the "Book" and the "infidels", he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached".

Undoubtedly, Emperor Palaeologus was referring to those commands and statements found in the perfect word of Allah and the words and deeds of his apostle, of which the following are only a small (but representative) sampling:

"...fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war)..." (Qur’an 9:5).

"Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book [Jews and Christians] until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued" (Qur'an 9:29).

"Say to the Unbelievers, if (now) they desist (from Unbelief), their past would be forgiven them...And fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail...faith in Allah altogether and everywhere..." (Qur'an 8:38, 39).

"Fighting is prescribed for you, and ye dislike it. But it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is good for you, and that ye love a thing which is bad for you. But Allah knoweth, and ye know not" (Qur'an 2:216).

"Allah's Apostle said: 'I have been ordered (by Allah) to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is Allah's Apostle...'" (Bukhari Volume 1, Book 2, Number 24).

“Muhammad said, ‘A single endeavor of fighting in Allah’s Cause is better than the world and whatever is in it’” (Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 50).

“A man came to Allah’s Apostle and said, ‘Instruct me as to such a deed as equals Jihad in reward.’ He replied, ‘I do not find such a deed’” (Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 44).

"O ye who believe! what is the matter with you, that, when ye are asked to go forth in the cause of Allah, ye cling heavily to the earth? Do ye prefer the life of this world to the Hereafter? But little is the comfort of this life, as compared with the Hereafter. Unless ye go forth, He will punish you with a grievous penalty, and put others in your place..." (Qur'an 9:38, 39).

"Remember thy Lord inspired the angels (with the message): 'I am with you: give firmness to the Believers: I will instill terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them'" (Qur'an 8:12).

“Allah’s Apostle said, ‘I have been made victorious with terror. The treasures of the world were brought to me and put in my hand’” (Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 220).

"The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter..." (Qur'an 5:33).

"Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him" (Bukhari Volume 9, Book 84, Number 57).

"War is deceit" (Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 268).

The Emperor was right. To the degree the Pope shares his conclusions, the Pope is right. They are right because they are merely stating the expressed will of Allah and his false prophet.

May the West have the courage to face this truth and act accordingly.

What went wrong in Islam? Allah and his false prophet, of course

For long, I have been arguing that the bigoted or violent religious interpretations we see in the Islamic world are results of not the Koran, but of the post-Koranic traditions that arose in the early centuries of the Islamic civilization. In other words, I have been claiming that the original message of the Koran, which was tolerant, humane and gracious, was overshadowed over time.

Yes, what we Muslims need is to return to the spiritual trajectory established by the Prophet...We should be wise enough to denounce them and reclaim the tolerant, humane and gracious essence of Islam.

--from What Went Wrong In Islam — An Excellent Analysis.

That's the urban legend repeated by many Western political, media, and academic elites.

Unfortunately for Infidels and Apostates, here is the "tolerant," "humane," and "gracious" "trajectory" established by Mohammed--and yes, modern Islamic terrorism is the result of Qur'an (and Sunnah):

"...fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war)..." (Qur’an 9:5).

"Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued" (Qur'an 9:29).

"Say to the Unbelievers, if (now) they desist (from Unbelief), their past would be forgiven them...And fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail...faith in Allah altogether and everywhere..." (Qur'an 8:38, 39).

"O ye who believe! fight the unbelievers who gird you about, and let them find firmness in you: and know that Allah is with those who fear Him" (Qur'an 9:123).

"Fighting is prescribed for you, and ye dislike it. But it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is good for you, and that ye love a thing which is bad for you. But Allah knoweth, and ye know not" (Qur'an 2:216).

"Allah's Apostle said: 'I have been ordered (by Allah) to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is Allah's Apostle...'" (Bukhari Volume 1, Book 2, Number 24).

“Muhammad said, ‘A single endeavor of fighting in Allah’s Cause is better than the world and whatever is in it’” (Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 50).

"Not equal are those believers who sit (at home) and receive no hurt, and those who strive and fight in the cause of Allah with their goods and their persons...those who strive and fight Hath He distinguished above those who sit (at home) by a special reward..." (Qur'an 4:95).

“A man came to Allah’s Apostle and said, ‘Instruct me as to such a deed as equals Jihad in reward.’ He replied, ‘I do not find such a deed’” (Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 44).

"Allah hath purchased of the believers their persons and their goods...they fight in His cause, and slay and are slain..." (Qur'an 9:11).

"O ye who believe! what is the matter with you, that, when ye are asked to go forth in the cause of Allah, ye cling heavily to the earth? Do ye prefer the life of this world to the Hereafter? But little is the comfort of this life, as compared with the Hereafter. Unless ye go forth, He will punish you with a grievous penalty, and put others in your place..." (Qur'an 9:38, 39).

"Remember thy Lord inspired the angels (with the message): 'I am with you: give firmness to the Believers: I will instill terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them'" (Qur'an 8:12).

“Allah’s Apostle said, ‘I have been made victorious with terror. The treasures of the world were brought to me and put in my hand’” (Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 220).

"My mother came to me while I [Aisha] was being swung on a swing between two branches and got me down. My nurse took over and wiped my face with some water and started leading me. When I was at the door she stopped so I could catch my breath. I was brought in while Muhammad was sitting on a bed in our house. My mother made me sit on his lap. The other men and women got up and left. The Prophet consummated his marriage with me in my house when I was nine years old” (Tabari 9:131).

“Allah’s Apostle told Aisha, ‘You were shown to me twice in my dreams. I beheld a man or angel carrying you in a silken cloth. He said to me, “She is yours, so uncover her.” And behold, it was you. I would then say to myself, “If this is from Allah, then it must happen”’” (Bukhari Volume 9, Book 87, Number 139-140).

"The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter..." (Qur'an 5:33).

"Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him" (Bukhari Volume 9, Book 84, Number 57).

"War is deceit" (Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 268).

How can you consider one who is (according to your own "sacred" texts) a lying, thieving, malevolent, murderous pedophile someone whose example is to be emulated?

Don't say Islam is violent or we'll kill you

In response to Pope’s attack on Islam sparks anger:

Throughout Islam's "sacred" texts Allah and his false prophet Mohammed command the faithful to fight against, subdue and humiliate, and kill non-Muslims to make the world Islam.

The Pope angered Muslims not because he lied about their god or 'Ideal Man,' but because he told the truth without paying the proper dhimmi tribute to their murderous pedophile.

There's no pretty way to say it

Dear Mohamed,

In no way do I wish to offend you. However, to placate you would require my dishonesty. Since it is only through telling the truth that you might turn from your sin and believe in the Christ, that is what I must speak.

It seems proper to point out that apparently you consider citing your god's "sacred" texts is "a block stone," "reviling," and "insult."

I do understand your position. It is dangerous to Muslims' souls and Infidels' bodies, and that is why I must speak.

There is only one option for the decent person who answers the following questions truthfully.

1. Is Qur'an the perfect word of Allah?

2. Are all Allah's commands (that have not been abrogated) in Qur'an to be obeyed by faithful Muslims?

3. Are the words and example of Mohammed to be emulated by faithful Muslims (as their resources and circumstances allow)?

4. Does Allah command the faithful Muslim to "...kill the unbelievers wherever you find them"? Does Allah require the faithful Muslim to "Fight...until all religion is for Allah"? Did Allah command faithful Muslims to "Fight...the People of the Book until they feel themselves subdued and pay the jizya"?

5. Did Mohammed say that he had been ordered to "fight until all confess there is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet"?

6. Did Mohammed say that there is no work like Jihad?

7. Did Mohammed say that he had "been made victorious with terror"?

8. Did Mohammed say "If anyone changes his religion, then kill him"?

9. Did Mohammed indulge his "marital impulse" with a nine-year-old child? Did he not "marry" her when she was six? Did he not attribute this child rape to Allah by saying, "If this is from Allah, then it must happen"?

10. Have Muslims warred against humanity to make the world Islam (in accord with their resources and will) for nearly fourteen centuries?

The answer to all these is, regrettably and tragically, yes. These are unalterable facts of history, despite what deceitful apologists and gullible, ignorant infidels and apostates might say to the contrary.

No decent person can discover the will of Allah and the words and work of Mohammed as revealed in Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira and do anything other than condemn them as evil.

I hope that you will admit the truth about the vile, wicked doctrine of Mahomet, reject it, and embrace the true God Who has revealed Himself to us in His Son.

There's not much fun (of any kind) to be had when you take this author's advice

From Clean fun: What are you judging?!!!:

"'Prophet Mohammad came with the message of Islam which is inviting to peace, love, cooperation, kindness among all people,his message was ordering not to hurt others'"

But Allah commanded, 'Kill the unbelievers wherever you find them,' and 'Fight...until all religion is for Allah.'

And his false prophet said, 'I have been ordered to fight until all confess there is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet.'

'...not to steal, drink, harlot, oppress....

How is 'Fight...the People of the Book until they feel themselves subdued and pay the jizya' not oppression?

(And shall we mention Mohammed's six-year-old 'wife,' Aisha, with whom he consummated their 'marriage' when she was nine? Or that Allah required this pedophilia?)

'...said that it's a religion of terrorism.'

But Mohammed said, 'I have been made victorious with terror.' And remember Allah's promise to strike terror into the hearts of the Infidels.

'They didn't give themselves the opportunity to read teachings of Islam,and read Qur'an,and teachings of prophet Mohammad(PBUH).'

As made obvious in my comments above, consulting Islam's 'sacred' texts doesn't help your argument, it only justifies the intuition of those ignorant, prejudiced Infidels whom you condemn.

And no, there is no 'context' that makes those passages mean anything other than what their literal interpretation indicates.

'Judging a religion...And I insist in this point;you must look at what you're judging, if you're judging Islam so look at its teachings taken from Qur'an and Sunnah...'

Again, appealing to Allah's will and Mohammed's example won't really soothe the suspicions of wary Infidels.

'but if you're going to judge deeds of Muslims so look at deeds of good Muslims same like you look at deeds of bad Muslims.

The only trouble is that when evaluated in light of the words of Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira, the 'good' Muslims are those who fight against, subdue and humiliate, and kill non-Muslims to make the world Islam.

I don't think you'll persuade (deceive?) too many Infidels with that line of reasoning.

The devil is in the ellipses

Terrorist propagandist CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) is offering "biographical" material on their false prophet. On their web site is a page hosting a careful edit of his last sermon.

The revised text provides a prettier picture of Islam and Mohammed than does the original version; neither give the full import (for Infidels) of the message Mahomet conveyed to Allah's people.

From Explore the Life of Muhammad:

...“Beware of Satan for the safety of your religion. He has lost all hope that he will ever be able to lead you astray in big things, so beware of following him in small things.

“O People: It is true that you have certain rights in regard to your women, but they also have rights over you. Remember that you have taken them as your wives, only under God's trust and with His permission. . . Do treat your women well and be kind to them, for they are your partners and committed helpers...

“O People: Listen to me in earnest, worship God, say your five daily prayers, fast during the month of Ramadan, and give your wealth in regular charity (zakat). Perform Hajj if you can afford to.

“All mankind is from Adam and Eve. An Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor does a non-Arab have any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over a black, nor a black has any superiority over a white - except by piety and good action...

“Remember one day you will appear before God and answer for your deeds. So beware, (and) do not stray from the path of righteousness after I am gone...

“I leave behind me two things, the Quran and the Sunnah (traditions), and if you follow these you will never go astray. All those who listen to me shall pass on my words to others and those to others again; and may the last ones understand my words better than those who listened to me directly. Be my witness, O God, that I have conveyed your message to your people."

And here's what the Council on American Infidel Reprogramming doesn't want you to know:

This Sermon was delivered on the Ninth Day of Dhul Hijjah 10 A.H in the Uranah Valley of mount Arafat.

"O People, lend me an attentive ear, for I don't know whether, after this year, I shall ever be amongst you again. Therefore listen to what I am saying to you carefully and TAKE THIS WORDS TO THOSE WHO COULD NOT BE PRESENT HERE TODAY.

O People, just as you regard this month, this day, this city as Sacred, so regard the life and property of every Muslim as a sacred trust. Return the goods entrusted to you to their rightful owners. Hurt no one so that no one may hurt you. Remember that you will indeed meet your LORD, and that HE will indeed reckon your deeds. ALLAH has forbidden you to take usury (Interest), therefore all interest obligation shall henceforth be waived...

This is consistent with Islam's core belief that a Muslim is of more worth than a non-Muslim and deserving of significantly greater rights. This inequality is made law under Shari'ah.

Beware of Satan, for your safety of your religion. He has lost all hope that he will ever be able to lead you astray in big things, so beware of following him in small things.

O People, it is true that you have certain rights with regard to your women, but they also have right over you. If they abide by your right then to them belongs the right to be fed and clothed in kindness. Do treat your women well and be kind to them for they are your partners and comitted helpers. And it is your right that they do not make friends with any one of whom you do not approve, as well as never to commit adultery.

This is consistent with Allah's command and Mohammed's example that a woman has significantly fewer rights than a man, and a woman less than her husband, including a husband's right to beat a disobedient wife.

O People, listen to me in earnest, worship ALLAH, say your five daily prayers (Salah), fast during the month of Ramadhan, and give your wealth in Zakat. Perform Hajj if you can afford to. You know that every Muslim is the brother of another Muslim. YOU ARE ALL EQUAL. NOBODY HAS SUPERIORITY OVER OTHER EXCEPT BY PIETY AND GOOD ACTION.

Again, the superiority of Muslims over non-Muslims.

Remember, one day you will appear before ALLAH and answer for your deeds. So beware, do not astray from the path of righteousness after I am gone.

O People, NO PROPHET OR APOSTLE WILL COME AFTER ME AND NO NEW FAITH WILL BE BORN. Reason well, therefore, O People, and understand my words which I convey to you. I leave behind me two things, the QUR'AN and my example, the SUNNAH and if you follow these you will never go astray.

All those who listen to me shall pass on my words to others and those to others again; and may the last ones understand my words better than those who listen to me direcly. BE MY WITNESS O ALLAH THAT I HAVE CONVEYED YOUR MESSAGE TO YOUR PEOPLE."

And what is that message from Allah and his false prophet in Qur'an and Sunnah from which the faithful should never stray? This:

"...fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war)..." (Qur’an 9:5).

"Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued" (Qur'an 9:29).

"Say to the Unbelievers, if (now) they desist (from Unbelief), their past would be forgiven them; but if they persist, the punishment of those before them is already (a matter of warning for them). And fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah altogether and everywhere; but if they cease, verily Allah doth see all that they do" (Qur'an 8:38, 39).

"Fighting is prescribed for you, and ye dislike it. But it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is good for you, and that ye love a thing which is bad for you. But Allah knoweth, and ye know not" (Qur'an 2:216).

"Allah's Apostle said: 'I have been ordered (by Allah) to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is Allah's Apostle, and offer the prayers perfectly and give the obligatory charity, so if they perform at that, then they save their lives and property from me except for Islamic laws and then their reckoning (accounts) will be done by Allah'" (Bukhari Volume 1, Book 2, Number 24).

“Muhammad said, ‘A single endeavor of fighting in Allah’s Cause is better than the world and whatever is in it’” (Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 50).

“A man came to Allah’s Apostle and said, ‘Instruct me as to such a deed as equals Jihad in reward.’ He replied, ‘I do not find such a deed’” (Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 44).

"O ye who believe! what is the matter with you, that, when ye are asked to go forth in the cause of Allah, ye cling heavily to the earth? Do ye prefer the life of this world to the Hereafter? But little is the comfort of this life, as compared with the Hereafter. Unless ye go forth, He will punish you with a grievous penalty, and put others in your place; but Him ye would not harm in the least. For Allah hath power over all things" (Qur'an 9:38, 39).

Allah and his (false) prophet (considered the "ideal" man in Islam) on terrorism:

"Remember thy Lord inspired the angels (with the message): 'I am with you: give firmness to the Believers: I will instill terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them'" (Qur'an 8:12).

“Allah’s Apostle said, ‘I have been made victorious with terror. The treasures of the world were brought to me and put in my hand’” (Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 220).

Islam on Mohammed's raping of his nine-year-old "wife" and justifying it by saying Allah ordained it:

“My mother came to me while I was being swung on a swing between two branches and got me down. My nurse took over and wiped my face with some water and started leading me. When I was at the door she stopped so I could catch my breath. I was brought in while Muhammad was sitting on a bed in our house. My mother made me sit on his lap. The other men and women got up and left. The Prophet consummated his marriage with me in my house when I was nine years old” (Tabari 9:131).

“Allah’s Apostle told Aisha [his six-year-old bride and nine-year-old sexual "partner"], ‘You were shown to me twice in my dreams. I beheld a man or angel carrying you in a silken cloth. He said to me, “She is yours, so uncover her.” And behold, it was you. I would then say to myself, “If this is from Allah, then it must happen”’” (Bukhari Volume 9, Book 87, Number 139-140).

For those who claim the god of Islam is the God of the Bible, Allah doesn't think so:

"In blasphemy indeed are those that say that Allah is Christ the son of Mary. Say: "Who then hath the least power against Allah, if His will were to destroy Christ the son of Mary, his mother, and all every - one that is on the earth? For to Allah belongeth the dominion of the heavens and the earth, and all that is between. He createth what He pleaseth. For Allah hath power over all things" (Qur'an 5:17).

"They do blaspheme who say: Allah is one of three in a Trinity: for there is no god except One Allah. If they desist not from their word (of blasphemy), verily a grievous penalty will befall the blasphemers among them" (Qur'an 5:73).

"The Jews call 'Uzair a son of Allah, and the Christians call Christ the son of Allah. That is a saying from their mouth; (in this) they but imitate what the unbelievers of old used to say. Allah's curse be on them: how they are deluded away from the Truth" (Qur'an 9:30)!

The "divine" command for beheading:

"Remember thy Lord inspired the angels (with the message): 'I am with you: give firmness to the Believers: I will instill terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them'" (Qur'an 8:12).

"Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers (in fight), smite at their necks; At length, when ye have thoroughly subdued them, bind a bond firmly (on them): thereafter (is the time for) either generosity or ransom: Until the war lays down its burdens. Thus (are ye commanded): but if it had been Allah's Will, He could certainly have exacted retribution from them (Himself); but (He lets you fight) in order to test you, some with others. But those who are slain in the Way of Allah,- He will never let their deeds be lost" (Qur'an 47:4).

How Allah deals with prisoners of war (apparently he hasn't heard of the Geneva Conventions):

"The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter..." (Qur'an 5:33).

Mohammed on the immutability of Islam (apart from what he himself decides to change):

"I heard the Prophet saying...'Far removed (from mercy), far removed (from mercy), those who changed (the religion) after me!'" (Bukhari Volume 9, Book 88, Number 174).

“The Prophet said, ‘If I take an oath and later find something else better than that, then I do what is better and expiate my oath'" (Bukhari Volume 7, Book 67, Number 427).

On the abrogation of earlier, more peaceful Qur'anic verses in favor of the numerous verses of blood:

“Whatever communications We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, We bring one better than it or like it. Do you not know that Allah has power over all things” (Qur'an 2:106)?

Mohammed on freedom of religion:

"Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him" (Bukhari Volume 9, Book 84, Number 57).

And on truthfulness:

"War is deceit" (Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 268).

Where do the Scriptures describe Christians violently resisting evil?

In Luke 22, Jesus warns His Apostles to prepare to fend for themselves since He is about to be taken away. He tells them to buy a sword. The disciples respond with, "We have two."

Jesus replies, "That is enough." Later that night, Christ warns Peter against living by the sword (and in that particular context, trying to prevent Him from fulfilling His mission).

A wise man made the point recently to me (noted below) that the first Christians didn't use violence against evil.

From here:

bw says:

The absurdity of your statement is seen in your ability to understand that your death would not be worth what Christ's was....It wouldn't be for the same purpose or have the same value...while His enabled the ultimate victory, yours - the "sacrificial death of an 'innocent' man while purporting to do what Christ did" only enables evil and wickedness....your death will not influence evil in any way....it's another way of saying "who do you think you are?"....
The greater injustice is a good man - who could spread goodness - allowing himself to be killed in some twisted self righteous way, enabling spreading of evil....

But YHWH says:

You have heard that it was said, "Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth." But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

You have heard that it was said, "Love your neighbor and hate your enemy." But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Nations have authority to war. Christians have a duty to defend others. Self-defense also seems allowed, but as noted above, where in the Old or New Testaments do you find believers violently defending just themselves?

With this silly view, Christianity would've been wiped out long ago...or does evil not really exist?

This is what persecutors of Christ's body have always tried to do. The Scriptures say, "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."

Here is some good advice on Christian self-defense from someone who had to deal with the Religion of Peace in his own day:

Luther's Advice in Dealing with Islam

SIR CHRISTIAN -- THE FIRST MAN

The advice of Luther concerning the Islamic threat in Europe during the Sixteenth Century was not the crusades, for to advocate a Christian crusade against the Muslims was to mix spiritual authority with temporal authority. The consequences of such a mixture and a confusion of the two authorities would be to draw God's wrath and insure the success of Islam. Instead, the Muslims were to be fought spiritually by Christians with repentance, the amendment of one's life and with prayer.

In order to achieve this spiritual posture before God, Germany's pastors were to admonish the papists to stop blaspheming God and to admonish the ungrateful, wanton German people to improve their behavior, to honor God's Word and to call on God in prayer. Germany's pastors were to be God's prophetic voices, calling God's people back to Himself through genuine repentance, faith and prayer.

THE EMPEROR -- THE SECOND MAN

The second man whose place it was to fight against the Muslim was Emperor Charles. It was his office to war agains the Muslim because of their threats toward the Empire's subjects and the Empire itself. It was his duty, as a ruler appointed by God, to defend his own people and land (PE 5:102). If there was to be war against the Muslim, "it should be fought at the Emperor's command and under his banner, and in his name...[why?]...Because then everyone can assure his own conscience that he is obeying the ordinance of God, since we know that the emperor is our true overlord and head, and he who obeys him...obeys God also, while he who disobeys him disobeys God also" (PE 5:102-103).

Therefore, advises Luther, the emperor and the princes should be exhorted concerning their office and duty to God not to let their subjects be ruined, but rather to be reminded that Germany and its people are "given you and committed to you by God, that you may protect, rule, counsel, and help it, and you not only should, but must do this on pain of losing your soul's salvation and God's favor and grace" (PE 5:106).

Ideologies of Liberty should not, for the Christian, violate Christ's commands.

This Queen must be obeyed

From Miscellaneous Remarks on Scripture by Martin Luther:

"But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed" (Galatians 1:8-9).

[It] is an accursed lie that the pope is the arbiter of Scripture or that the church has authority over Scripture. This is what the canonists and commentators on the Sentences have wickedly declared, on the following basis: 'The church has approved only four gospels, and therefore there are only four. For if it had approved more, there would have been more. Since the church has the right to accept and approve as many gospels as it wishes, it follows that the church is superior to the gospels.' What a splendid argument! I approve Scripture. Therefore I am superior to Scripture. John the Baptist acknowledges and confesses Christ. He points to Him with his finger. Therefore he is superior to Christ. The church approves Christian faith and doctrine. Therefore the church is superior to them. To refute this wicked and blasphemous doctrine of theirs you have here a clear text and a thunderbolt. Here Paul subordinates himself, an angel from heaven, teachers on earth, and any other masters at all to Sacred Scripture. This queen must rule, and everyone must obey, and be subject to her. The pope, Luther, Augustine, Paul, an angel from heaven — these should not be masters, judges or arbiters, but only witnesses, disciples, and confessors of Scripture. Nor should any doctrine be taught or heard in the church except the pure Word of God. Otherwise, let the teachers and the hearers be accursed along with their doctrine" (Luther, 'Lectures on Galatians,' in Luther's Works, vol. 26, translated by Jaroslav Pelikan [St. Louis: Concordia, 1963], pp. 57-8.).

There is nothing new under the sun, unless you're ignorant of the past

The Scriptures say that ancient man had become so violent that YHWH looked upon His creation and lamented what He had made:

The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the LORD said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them....

...Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. So God said..., "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth (Genesis 6).

The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, which is why the study of history is such a useful endeavor. Those who are ignorant of the past will have to endure its painful lessons personally, which does not bode well for the West today.

With a television program, it's alright (perhaps even admirable) if an episode or series is "new to you." When it comes to history--especially the history of an ancient foe engaged in an ancient war--ignorance will kill you.

I would prefer to avoid the suffering and death of me and mine if it is at all possible.

And, to answer Mark Steyn's question about why liberal historical revisionists would create a "noble primitive" who never existed, it is because they want to undermine the foundation of Western Civilization--the Christian faith. It is an attack on the true God.

Essentially, they're lying about the past so they can lie about the past. They want to lie about Him.

From Before the white man came? War:

We've deluded ourselves into believing in the myth of the noble and peaceful primitive

MARK STEYN

Nicholas Wade's Before The Dawn is one of those books full of eye-catching details. For example, did you know the Inuit have the largest brains of any modern humans? Something to do with the cold climate. Presumably, if this global warming hooey ever takes off, their brains will be shrinking with the ice caps.

But the passage that really stopped me short was this:

"Both Keeley and LeBlanc believe that for a variety of reasons anthropologists and their fellow archaeologists have seriously underreported the prevalence of warfare among primitive societies. . . . 'I realized that archaeologists of the postwar period had artificially "pacified the past" and shared a pervasive bias against the possibility of prehistoric warfare,' says Keeley."

That's Lawrence Keeley, a professor at the University of Illinois. And the phrase that stuck was that bit about artificially pacifying the past. We've grown used to the biases of popular culture. If a British officer meets a native -- African, Indian, whatever -- in any movie, play or novel of the last 30 years, the Englishman will be a sneering supercilious sadist and the native will be a dignified man of peace in perfect harmony with his environment in whose tribal language there is not even a word for "war" or "killing" or "weapons of mass destruction." A few years ago, I asked Tim Rice, who'd just written the lyrics for Disney's Aladdin and The Lion King, why he wasn't doing Pocahontas. "Well, the minute they mentioned it," he said, "I knew the Brits would be the bad guys. I felt it was my patriotic duty to decline." Sure enough, when the film came out, John Smith and his men were the bringers of environmental devastation to the New World. "They prowl the earth like ravenous wolves," warns the medicine man, whereas Chief Powhatan wants everyone to be "guided to a place of peace." Fortunately, Captain Smith comes to learn from Pocahontas how to "paint with all the colours of the wind."

In reality, Pocahontas's fellow Algonquin Indians were preyed on by the Iroquois, "who took captives home to torture them before death," observes Nicholas Wade en passant. The Iroquois? Surely not. Only a year or two back, the ethnic grievance lobby managed to persuade Congress to pass a resolution that the United States Constitution was modelled on the principles of the Iroquois Confederation -- which would have been news to the dead white males who wrote it. With Disney movies, one assumes it's just the modishness of showbiz ignoramuses and whatever multiculti theorists they've put on the payroll as consultants. But professor Keeley and Steven LeBlanc of Harvard disclose almost as an aside that, in fact, their scientific colleagues were equally invested in the notion of the noble primitive living in peace with nature and his fellow man, even though no such creature appears to have existed. "Most archaeologists," says LeBlanc, "ignored the fortifications around Mayan cities and viewed the Mayan elite as peaceful priests. But over the last 20 years Mayan records have been deciphered. Contrary to archaeologists' wishful thinking, they show the allegedly peaceful elite was heavily into war, conquest and the sanguinary sacrifice of beaten opponents.... The large number of copper and bronze axes found in Late Neolithic and Bronze Age burials were held to be not battle axes but a form of money."

And on, and on. Do you remember that fabulously preserved 5,000-year-old man they found in a glacier in 1991? He had one of those copper axes the experts assured us were an early unit of currency. Unfortunately for this theory, he had it hafted in a manner that suggested he wasn't asking, "Can you break a twenty?" "He also had with him," notes professor Keeley, "a dagger, a bow, and some arrows; presumably these were his small change." Nonetheless, anthropologists concluded that he was a shepherd who had fallen asleep and frozen peacefully to death in a snowstorm. Then the X-ray results came back and showed he had an arrowhead in him.

Not for the first time, the experts turn out to be playing what children call "Opposite Land." There's more truth in Cole Porter's couplet from Find Me A Primitive Man:

I don't mean the kind that belongs to a club But the kind that has a club that belongs to him.

Although Porter was the kind that belongs to a club, the second line accurately conveys his own taste in men. He'd have been very annoyed if Mister Primitive had turned out to be some mellow colours-of-your-windiness hippy-dippy granola-cruncher.

Lawrence Keeley calculates that 87 per cent of primitive societies were at war more than once per year, and some 65 per cent of them were fighting continuously. "Had the same casualty rate been suffered by the population of the twentieth century," writes Wade, "its war deaths would have totaled two billion people." Two billion! In other words, we're the aberration: after 50,000 years of continuous human slaughter, you, me, Bush, Cheney, Blair, Harper, Rummy, Condi, we're the nancy-boy peacenik crowd. "The common impression that primitive peoples, by comparison, were peaceful and their occasional fighting of no serious consequence is incorrect. Warfare between pre-state societies was incessant, merciless, and conducted with the general purpose, often achieved, of annihilating the opponent."

Why then, against all the evidence, do we venerate the primitive? And to the point of pretending a bunch of torturing marauders devised the separation of powers in the U.S. Constitution. We do it for the same reason we indulge behaviour like that at Caledonia, Ont. We want to believe that the yard, the cul-de-sac, the morning commute, the mall are merely the bland veneer of our lives, and that underneath we are still that noble primitive living in harmony with the great spirits of the forest and the mountain. The reality is that "civilization" -- Greco-Roman-Judeo-Christian -- worked very hard to stamp out the primitive within us, and for good reason.

I was interested to read Wade's book after a month in which men raised in suburban Ontario were charged with a terrorist plot that included plans to behead the Prime Minister, and the actual heads of three decapitated police officers were found in the Tijuana River. The Mexican drug gangs weren't Muslim last time I checked, but evidently decapitation isn't just for jihadists anymore: if you want to get ahead, get a head. A couple of years back, I came across a column in The East African by Charles Onyango-Obbo musing on the return of cannibalism to the Dark Continent. Ugandan-backed rebels in the Congo (four million dead but, as they haven't found a way to pin it on Bush, nobody cares) had been making victims' relatives eat the body parts of their loved ones. You'll recall that, when Samuel Doe was toppled as Liberia's leader, he was served a last meal of his own ears. His killers kept his genitals for themselves, under the belief that if you eat a man's penis you acquire his powers. One swallow doesn't make a summer, of course, but I wonder sometimes if we're not heading toward a long night of re-primitivization. In his shrewd book Civilization And Its Enemies, Lee Harris writes:

"Forgetfulness occurs when those who have been long inured to civilized order can no longer remember a time in which they had to wonder whether their crops would grow to maturity without being stolen or their children sold into slavery by a victorious foe. . . . That, before 9/11, was what had happened to us. The very concept of the enemy had been banished from our moral and political vocabulary."

It's worse than Harris thinks. We're not merely "forgetful." We've constructed a fantasy past in which primitive societies lived in peace and security with nary a fear that their crops would be stolen or their children enslaved. War has been the natural condition of mankind for thousands of years, and our civilization is a very fragile exception to that. What does it say about us that so many of our elites believe exactly the opposite -- that we are a monstrous violent rupture with our primitive pacifist ancestors? It's never a good idea to put reality up for grabs. You can bet your highest-denomination axe on that.

Steyn at his best

One excellent point after another, as only Mark Steyn can make them. From an interview with Hugh Hewitt, transcribed here:

HH: I begin, as I do every single Thursday that he's available, with columnist to the world, Mark Steyn. Mark Steyn, your assessment of the war against Israel, a week into it?

MS: Well, I think the interesting feature so far, really, is the poodles that didn't yap, to pacify Sherlock Holmes. Normally, by this stage, the public rhetoric of the Europeans and the Arabs would be ferocious. And instead, I think both of them have been very circumspect in public. And certainly, the ones I've talked to in private are in fact, in a strange way, and possibly unprecedented, at least in the last thirty years, they're rooting for Israel. Amazing.

HH: Why is that?

MS: Well, I think because they have actually seen that...they've had a tremendous glimpse of their own future, and what has happened to Gaza, and what has happened in Southern Lebanon, and to Lebanon as a whole, and in effect, even to Syria, because Syria is, in fact, playing Mini Me to Iran's Dr. Evil at the moment, and that they've seen a terrible portent to where things could go, both for Jordan, for Egypt, for Saudi Arabia, and down the line, for certain European countries, too.

HH: What do you make of the Lebanese prime minister's on again/off again, we support Hezbollah, the Lebanese army will fight for Hezbollah, then it's not our war. What's going on with his game?

MS: Well, I think to a certain extent, he's hemmed in. And although he is the prime minister of Lebanon, Lebanon is effectively a state that's been hijacked. What he doesn't know is how popular the hijacking is. Lebanon has a very peculiar electoral system, essentially where the parliament is allocated on the basis of religious beliefs, and the census that determines who gets what seats, in part goes back to the 1930's. In fact, it's way out of date. Basically, if they were to redesign the Lebanese Parliament to reflect democratic reality, there'd be an awful lot more Hezbollah seats in there. That is just a sad fact. But as much as we like seeing those hot Beirut babes chanting for freedom in the streets not so long ago on TV, they look fabulous...fabulous looking women, Westernized women, chanting for freedom. There is a side of the Lebanese population that is solidly behind Hezbollah, and that is a problem for anybody in that state.

HH: Now Mark Steyn, do you think that side has been shaken by the...a miscalculation on the order of Hitler's invasion of Russia at this point, for Nasrallah?

MS: Yes, I think so, and I think what we have to do is basically do what the U.N. is usually quite good at, which is to delay doing anything at all until the situation has settled. I mean, that's what they do in the Sudan. The U.N. Security Council talks and talks and talks until everybody's dead, and then it's not an issue anymore. That's what they do in Sudan, that's what they did in Rwanda, that's what they're good at. But when the Israelis are involved, suddenly there's a terrible urgency about it, and we have to insert U.N. peacekeepers right now, and we have to get Condi Rice and Kofi Annan & Co. to fly in right now. And that's not what we want to do. What has to come out of this is that proxy clients of Tehran are so damaged, so battered, so brutalized, so humiliated, that the price of taking Tehran's side becomes too high.

HH: You just mentioned the U.N., and I'll get to Kofi in just a second. But there is this comic element to this otherwise very, very important series of events, and that's that hapless little group of U.N. blue hats stuck up there somewhere on the northern border, just over the Israeli border. And I'm not quite sure what their job is, Mark Steyn. Do you know?

MS: Well, I think they're basically the sleeping partner in the Hezbollah operation. When you look at those little offices, they've got the Hezbollah flag flying from one flagpole on the left hand side of the building, and the U.N. flag flying from the flagpole on the right hand side of the building. It's really quite disgraceful what is going on. And in a sense, this...at the heart of this whole issue is the kind of post-modern nature of Middle Eastern politics, where we all pretend that somehow the Palestinians are victims of Israel, that Lebanon is a victim of Israel, and the reality of the situation is...the reality of the situation is that basically, any nationalist group that wants to get its own country in the modern age can. Slovenia's independent, Slovakia's independent, East Timor's independent. Anywhere can be independent. The reason why what's happened in Gaza and Southern Lebanon has been such a mess has nothing to do with Israel, but is because of the pathologies of the people, and the U.N. has been complicit in that.

HH: Let's turn to Kofi Annan's statement of today. Here it is:

KA: While Hezbollah's actions are deplorable, and as I've said, Israel has a right to defend herself, the excessive use of force is to be condemned.

HH: Mark Steyn?

MS: Well, that's complete rubbish. I mean, basically, when you talk about...proportionality has a kind of legal meaning in international law, if you happen to recognize it. It doesn't relate to whether they kill ten of yours, whether you're allowed to only kill ten of them. That's not what it's about. Proportionality in law means whether what you're doing disproportionately affects civilians, compared to the merits of the military target. Now that's very hard when you're fighting a terrorist group, because they deliberately hide their men and their arms in people's houses and villages in civilian areas. But the reality of the situation is that even if we accept that the U.N. has an obligation to mediate between two warring, sovereign states, it's a huge leap for Kofi Annan then to suddenly feel that it's his job to mediate between a sovereign state and a terrorist organization. That's a vile aspect of what the U.N. does. The right of hot pursuit, which even the British have actually exercised against the United States in the 19th Century, they sent British troops over the border from Canada into the United States. Every...historically, the right of hot pursuit is recognized in international law, and he should just...Kofi Annan, if that's his contribution, he should just keep his mouth shut.

HH: Well, if hot pursuit extends to the people bringing a sophisticated weaponry into...we're going to be right back in Tehran, Mark Steyn. Probably the most important development of the last week is that the missile that struck the Israel ship, and sunk the Egyptian's ship, was provided by Iran, and it is suspected was manned and guided by Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Your reaction to that news?

MS: Well, I think this is why the Europeans and the Arabs suddenly have gone very quiet, and in fact, have been supportive of Israel, because they understand...the Arabs, after indulging in this post-modern fear-mongering for 60 years, that Israel is an entire threat to the region. Suddenly, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia see that there's a real threat, not a pseudo-threat to the region, that they are going to be living per force under an Iranian-dominated region. That in fact, the last 50 years will just have been a brief interlude of Arab independence between living as subjects of the Ottoman Empire, and now being subject to a kind of de facto apocalyptic Iranian Empire.

HH: Do you think that's clicking in, Mark Steyn?

MS: I think that's absolutely what is prompted the extraordinary Arab League statement, and the circumspection of the European leaders. They both understand that if Tehran, in a year's time, Tehran could have missiles that can hit any European capitol. And they don't want to do anything about it, but if Israel wants to set back that program, they're not going to complain.

HH: Now many people have suspected that Iran launched Hezbollah on its self-destructive mission last week as a diversion from the U.N.'s action against its program. There's also been in this time frame over the last 60 days, a huge uptick in the slaughter in Iraq. And today, 59 people killed by a suicide bomber promising them jobs. How much of the Iraqi instability, Mark Steyn, do you put down to other Iranian adventurism?

MS: Well, I think that's absolutely part of the equation here, that Iran exercises its powers, and looses its proxies to their full extent. That's what they're doing in Iraq at the moment, that's what they're doing in Southern Lebanon. And the question, of course, for everybody else, is if they've got a rifle, they'll shoot it across the border at you. If they've got these rockets, they'll lob them at Haifa. A year or two down the line, what are they going to have? And what are they going to be doing with that? That's the question.

HH: Now the Russians, of course, are saying today no need to hurry about Iran. But I do...if you're right, then that urgency will pick up around the international community, regardless of what Putin says.

MS: Yes, and I think the idea is just in a sense, to destabilize them. I was thinking of Sir Francis Drake, when he sailed into Cadiz, and destroyed the fleet there. And he set back the king of Spain's armada against England by a year. And they said that he in effect has singed the king of Spain's beard. That's how it used to be taught in history lessons. And I think that's really what we hope can come out of this, that by brutalizing Hezbollah, who are in effect the beard for Iran, you're singing the president of Iran's beard, and that will have some impact on it.

HH: Did you see Nic Robertson on CNN take the Hezbollah tour?

MS: Yes, I did see that, and they're very good at that at CNN, that actually getting...doing what you might call jihad tourism. They did it in Afghanistan, they did it in Saddam's Iraq, they're now doing it in Lebanon.

HH: Now Mark Steyn, Hezbollah is the organization adjudicated by the United States District Court, Judge Royce Lamberth presiding, as having been behind the massacre of 241 Americans at the Marine barracks in 1983. Anything untoward in CNN not telling their audience that?

MS: Yes, I think so. I think if one looks at this in historical sense, it would be absurd to see a New York Times photographer tagging along, say, on a Luftwaffe raid, and taking photographs of the Luftwaffe guy as he drops his bombs over London. It would have been unthinkable to be doing that in the 1940's. Now we live in a world when in effect, the media regard themselves as a kind of transnational power in and of themselves, that they don't have allegiances. I think this is preposterous. I think every CNN reporter, and every New York Times journalist, in his heart of hearts, he wants his sons and daughters to be growing up and living in a free society. And when they say what did you do during the war, Daddy, and when he says well, I got a great scoop, because I tagged along with the jihad guys as they were planning on killing our side, I think that's...I don't think that's going to be something they're going to be proud of, no matter how many Pulitzers it wins them.

HH: And the pathetic thing is, there's no scoop. Listen to this excerpt of Nic Robertson from yesterday.

NR: You know, in all that time we were there, which was a very, very brief period, we didn't see any evidence of any military equipment. We didn't go into the buildings, we didn't search underneath the rubble. But some of the buildings were really torn up, there was a lot of debris hanging out of broken sides of buildings, a lot of debris strewn across the roads. And in all of that, we didn't see any evidence of a military infrastructure, or anything like that. Again, though, Wolf, I have to say it was a very, very brief and swift tour, escorted by Hezbollah.

HH: Now Mark Steyn, that is just idiocy.

MS: Yes. I mean, this is this idea that Hezbollah is basically some kind of social organization, that they run great schools, and they run terrific hospitals, and all the rest of it. Actually, even this side of it is deeply toxic. The schools they run teach you basically to hate Jews and infidels. So even on that side, I don't think that they're as benign as Nic Robertson & Co. make out. But the idea that somehow he is being taken on a...led by the nose through this site that has no military weapons, and therefore it means that the big, bad Israeli guys must have accidentally bombed the social welfare side of the Hezbollah operation, this is preposterous.

HH: Oh, it's just the same premise as though a journalist would have expected Hitler to take him to Auschwitz in 1944.

MS: Well, in fact, they did do that, in effect. They had the sort of good concentration camp at...what's it called? Terezin, at what is now the Czech Republic, where they basically, the Jews were...

HH: They had the band.

MS: ...were treated better.

HH: Yes.

MS: At Terezinstad. And they...people were taken on tours of it to see, in fact, that they were just...basically, it was like a health club for Jews, and they kept them all conveniently in this nice place, and they had...So they had like one show camp. And this is really the early 21st Century equivalent of that.

HH: At the same time that some are dupes, others are beyond what the Roman Catholic Church would call invincibly ignorant. Yesterday's Los Angeles Times includes the line, "To what extent Syria is acting in concert with Iran is not clear." Mark Steyn, how clear is it that Syria is acting in concert with Iran?

MS: Well, I think it's absolutely clear that Boy Assad is not his father. His father was a contemptible and evil man, but he had control of events on his own terms. What has happened since then is that this state, effectively, is being propped up by Iran, and in a way, represents Iran's first Sunni-Arab colony. And the idea...in a sense, it's a chain, a chain snaking back through Hamas and Hezbollah, to Damascus, and from Damascus back to Tehran. And if you don't understand that, as the Los Angeles Times apparently doesn't, you probably shouldn't be writing about this subject at all. I'm sure there's Barbra Streisand's latest fundraiser or something to write about instead.

HH: Well now, we've moved from the dupes to the dunces. Now, let's get to the defeatists, which is most dangerous. Whether it's Andrew Sullivan throwing batting practice, or Greg Djerejian in middle relief, or George Will, who used to be a very serious starting pitcher in the commentariat. Lots of people, Mark Steyn, are turning belly up, not just on Iraq, but on the entire idea that there's a global war on terror, which not only can be won, but has to be fought.

MS: Well, George Will I'd separate from them, because I think he is...he makes...I think he's wrong, but he has a serious argument. Andrew Sulliven, speaking as one armchair warrior to another...

HH: Yes...

MS: I don't want to be in an armchair foxhole next to Andrew Sulliver. You know, he was writing in the days after September 11th, he was quoting all these heroic Auden poems from 1939. He was saying what an awesome privilege for our generation. This is the great...they were the words he used, an awesome privilege, and I remember thinking at the time, whoa, steady on, boy. And yet, suddenly now, the first whiff of something bad happening, Abu Ghraib, he turns against it. Sorry, that's what war is. Nobody following the invasion of Poland in 1939, the British imperial general's staff didn't say well, this is the way the war's going to go. We're going to be here in May, 1940, we're going to be this in September, 1941, and in April, 1943, here's what...it'll all be over, and we'll have the victory parade. No war ever fought goes according to plan. Horrible things happen. And if you don't...if you can't stick with the war through the horrible and unexpected things happening, if you're just a big ninny who runs around shrieking hysterically that it's gone off the rails, sorry, but your support is less than useless, and you shouldn't have gotten involved in it in the first place. I respect the visceral anti-war people more than Andrew Sullivan.

HH: But those sorts of fevers are spreading, and I don't mind Will going Buchanan on us, but I do mind the attempt not to argue with the Weekly Standard, and my position that Syria needs to be confronted sooner or later, ditto Iran. But to dismiss it as radicalism, it is hardly radicalism to argue for victory, Mark Steyn.

MS: Well, no, and George Will is a historian, too, and he should know that there is simply no precedent for what America is, which is basically a non-imperial superpower. Now he says quite rightly that you can't just impose liberty and democracy on places. They don't have a Jefferson, they don't have a Madison. Well, most countries in the world didn't have Jefferson or a Madison, and they're not in the states that the Middle East is. Canada, my own country, never had a Jefferson or a Madison. If you really want to have a snoozerama when you can't sleep, pick up a huge volume called Canada's Founding Debate...

HH: (laughing)

MS: ...by a lot of the third-rate hack, British imperial civil servants who invented the dominion of Canada. They didn't have a Madison or Jefferson. But compared to Syria or Egypt, they did good enough, and that's all we're asking here. We're saying okay, we accept the fact that America is the non-imperial superpower, but it simply cannot sit out its moment of history. This has happened on America's watch, and the idea that you can be a 19th Century isolationist republic is ridiculous.