Some days nothing goes right

Headline:  "Text message blows up suicide bomber by mistake"

Obama's Plan in Action

If we interpret the concerns expressed by the Democrats and new President Obama correctly, then what we see is a group who wants Guantanamo detainees released. Now there's a report identifying three former detainees who were released (under Bush) who have apparently been promoted to high-ranking positions in al-Qaida, to the extent that the three appeared in an al-Qaida video posted to a jihadist website after they were released.

From the report: "The latest case highlights the risk the new US administration faces as it moves to empty Guantanamo of its remaining 245 prisoners and close the controversial detention camp within a year."

Obama promised a lot of things to a lot of people, but none of his promises received as much emphasis as his vow to deconstruct the security and safety measures implemented by President Bush. So far he's issued several executive orders doing just that. Obama and the other Democrats are very concerned with the rights and well-being of those prisoners held in Gitmo. Apparently, not so much the safety, security or well-being of American citizens -- and our right not to be killed by Islamic terrorists.

So do you feel safer yet?

Why habeas corpus for Terrorists is a Mistake

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) -"An accused September 11 conspirator told the U.S. military war court at Guantanamo on Thursday that he should have access to classified evidence against him."

I'm sure none of this "classified evidence" will ever find its way to our enemies via attorneys when the cases go to an American court. Right?

Read the entire article here.

A Video You Don't See That Often

Lest anyone forget what happened, this is a video of Palestinians dancing in the streets when they heard about the terrorist attacks on 9/11.

The video has been attacked on the internet as faked, but TruthorFiction.com confirmed its validity and debunked the internet rumor.

Remember, this Palestinian celebration was before we invaded Iraq.

Newt: The Phony War

"We have two choices: We can find a way to be reasonable and surrender, or we can defeat them." - Newt Gingrich

"Oops, My Bad" Doesn't Quite Cut It

Over the last few days car bombs have been discovered pre-explosion in London, and an SUV afire and loaded with explosives was crashed into an airport building in Glasgow, Scotland.

My question to the anti-war Liberals and Democrats: What kind of punishment will be appropriate for you if you have your way and troops are pulled from Iraq before any kind of acceptable resolution (i.e., our side wins) and the scene above happens in Lubbock, or Omaha, or Reno or Nashville?


What kind of "my fault" will you be able to utter that can ever correct the havoc you allowed to unleash?


The big question I have is: What if you're wrong?

The Enemy Within

While there's a huge debate over illegal immigration, the biggest threats we face may not be from people crossing the border.

Not-yet-announced Republican Presidential Candidate Fred Thompson recently wrote an interesting column for Townhall.com. He revealed some alarming facts about CAIR -- the Council on American-Islamic Relations. (I've written about CAIR before.)

According to Thompson, who cited IRS data, "CAIR's dues-paying membership has shrunk 90 percent since 9/11 -- from 29,000 in 2000 to only 1,700 last year. CAIR's annual income from dues plunged from $733,000 to $59,000....

"Of course, every silver lining seems to have a cloud; and this cloud is that CAIR's spending is running about $3 million a year. They’ve opened 25 new chapters in major cities across the country even as their dues shrank to a pittance. The question is; who’s funding CAIR?"

Important note: Part of that $3 million is being spent to silence Americans who speak up about suspicious activity.

From Sublime to Foolish

In a scene from the Tom Hanks movie The Green Mile, miracle-worker John Coffey describes how a killer made a little girl be quiet and not sound an alarm when he took her sister: "He killed them with their love. With their love for each other. That's how it is, every day, all over the world." (Quick wrap-up of the movie: the killer murders both of the girls, but receives justice later.)

Love is an emotion that is basic to humanity. It takes a special kind of psychopath to turn something like that into a weapon to be used against innocents.

Likewise, freedom and justice are principles basic to humanity and civilization. Freedom and justice are virtues universal enough to be written into the U.S. Constitution, and form the backbone of our country.

Now those same virtues are being used against us. Recently, a misquided soul has written a series of letters to a smalltown newspaper, promulgating the fact that he hates George W. Bush, Republicans, Conservatives, everything they do, and all they represent.

His latest tirade deals with habeas corpus, and a recent move by the Senate to limit the ability of Guantanamo Bay detainees to access U.S. courts. The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled against a GB detainee's access.

There are too many details to go into about this, but one thing the abovementioned myope, and others who feel as he does, chooses to ignore is that these people were captured trying to kill Americans at war.

The tactic they want to use -- and which is oh-so-clear to me -- is to use our own systems against us. The GB detainees want to choke the court with cases, subpoena-ing the President, Vice President, Secretary of Defense et al, in order to disrupt the government. Meanwhile, they'll be able to get headlines every day as the press rushes to report every tidbit of scandal they can gather or make up. As we've seen in the Duke lacrosse "rape" case, the press doesn't need facts in order to run a story.

(Sidequote on the press: "The press supplies an endless stimulus to popular imagination; the press lives upon heat and coarse drama and incessant restlessness." The Conservative Mind, written by Russell Kirk in 1953! Some things never change.)

Likewise, the imams want to 1) Tie up the courts with their lawsuit; 2) Use the specter of a charge of racism to dull the senses of the citizenry's watchful eyes; 3) Push the envelope as much as possible, testing our security so much that abnormal activity is considered normal.

As wonderful as our society is, as well as our system of government (while recognizing its flaws), the US Constitution, as someone has said, is not a suicide pact. We must find a way to fight attempts to corrupt our system. Otherwise we're simply acting like Wells' Eloi while the Morlocks devour us and our way of life.

Pro-American Muslims

I recently discovered the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD), a group whose mission statement reads as follows:

"We proud citizens of the United States of America join together as devoted and patriotic citizens and as devout Muslims in this forum in order to serve as a vehicle for the discussion and public awareness of the complete compatibility of America’s founding principles with the very personal faith of Islam which we practice."

That's what I've been waiting for: a group of Muslims who denounce and renounce the terrorism practiced by the Islamo-fascists (and those who aid them) who are so dominant on the world stage.

Among those who I classify as aiding the terrorists is the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Among other things, CAIR is representing the group of six imams who were put off a US Airways flight in Minnesota because of their suspicious actions (see here and here.)

The imams are suing US Airways for discrimination, and in a move full of chutzpah, also suing the passengers who reported them. (Although they deny this, the language is still in their lawsuit.) As I mentioned previously, I think this lawsuit is designed to soften up the American system for future attacks by intimidating watchful citizens who would report suspicious actions.

This is, as are all cases about citizens' rights, a balancing act. The imams -- as well as all Muslims, or any other group -- have the right in America not to be discriminated against by virture of their race, religion, etc. This right, however, pales compared to the right of all of us not to be killed.

This does not mean that Muslims have lost their rights. It's just that, in a post 9/11 world, when Muslims (or anyone else, for that matter) act in a way that can be perceived by a normal, rational person as suspicious, they're lowering the level of their rights. They can't afford to be as arrogant and presumptuous as they might normally be in asserting those rights. And from all indications, the imams were acting very suspiciously, if not provocatively.

In recent weeks I've been working my way through Russell Kirk's book The Conservative Mind. In a section about Anglo-Irish political theorist Edmund Burke, Kirk notes that all rights come with correspending duties. If the imams want to enjoy their rights as American citizens, then they need to remember that they also have duties to their fellow citizens; those rights do not exist in a vacuum.

Other People Say Smart Stuff, Too

"To suggest that combatants who fight without a flag or a uniform; who wipe their feet on the Geneva Convention; who disguise themselves as women; who hide in mosques and marketplaces; who slice off the heads of their prisoners; and who use children as shields; are entitled to the same safeguards as soldiers is sheer lunacy."
-- Burt Prelutsky

As It Happened - 9/11

The video says it all