Some More Quick Hits

1. I was asked today how we could allow the building of a mosque at Ground Zero. Certainly, a good question. Apparently, the land is already owned by the Cordoba Co., a muslim group taking its name from when Islam controlled Spain. Yesterday, a local community board in NYC approved the building of the mosque. Will the City Council or Landmark Commission stop it? Who knows. Even liberal New Yorkers can be pushed only so far. I think the more interesting question is: why are the peace loving muslims seeking to build a symbol equated with both their religion and the destruction of the Twin Towers at that site, knowing it will obviously cause much pain and anguish to their fellow New Yorkers? Why not build elsewhere? Obviously, the message and symbolism is not lost on these people. What better way to show the entire muslim world that they can destroy us and then build their religion on top of the destruction? What better way to get more supporters for their goal of jihad and a worldwide Caliphate under sharia law? What better way to stick it to the infidel?

Our enemies understand the importance of symbolism and propaganda - and they are good at it.

2. Another Case in Point. On the third page of today's (5/26/10) LA Times is an article about North and South Korea. North Korea sank a South Korean vessel on March 26, killing 46 on board. South Korea (foolishly) wants a UN resolution condemning the incident and imposing sanctions. (Foolish because China will never allow it; and a UN resolution has pretty much the same value as a piece of toilet paper.) In any event , North Korea now says that the South is engaging in a "deliberate provocation aimed to spark off another milirtary conflict." Beautiful! The North attacks the South, the South wants only a UN resolution, but the South is the one engaging in "provocation." Always turn the tables. Try to create an equivalency that, to the average person, sounds reasonable. And no lie is too big because said loud enough and often enough people will either come to agree or think that both sides are equally at fault.

3. Third Case in Point. Also in today's LA Times is an opinion piece by the Prime Minister Of Lebanon, Saad Hariri. It sounds so reasonable. But for the Middle East tensions and wars between Israel and the palestinians, peace would break out everywhere. After all, it is the frustration and rage of the palestinians that understandably results in people doing desperate things. Uh, no. Arabs slaughtered Jews in the 1920's before there was an Israel. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem supported Hitler in WWII before there was an Israel. How to explain the awful treatment of Christians in muslim countries; Christians do not run Israel. How do YOU explain Mr. Prime Minister why so many Christians have left Lebanon, a once majority-Christian country. The Truth-uncensored (okay, a little plug) is that radical islam has a philosophy that seeks jihad and to take over the world. That is the motivating force - not poverty or frustration. That is why the 9/11 terrorists were mostly middle and upper middle class. They were not suffering. They had a philosophy they believed in. Same with Bin Laden, whose family is worth billions.

Hariri goes on to say that a solution should be imposed by the UN or the Quartet (US, UN, EU and Russia). This is all quite odd coming from a man who says his country will never make peace with Israel. But maybe not. Without a US veto, the rest of the participants all line up on the side of the Arabs. Think the US will still protect Israel? According to Aaron Klein in a 5/18/10 posting in the Jewish Press, one palestinian negotiator says absent an agreement, the US is willing to impose a solution "that the Israelis won't appreciate." I had argued that same point in my last blog, in light of Obama declaring a resolution to be of "vital national security interests."

Hariri makes one other interesting point (LIE). He notes Israel refused the offer of the Arab world (3oo million people he notes) and the entire muslime world (1.3 billion people) to just return to the pre-1967 borders, return "occupied" Syrian and Lebanese land, and voila - peace. Of course, he can't tell the whole truth. He neglects to say they also wanted a return of all palestinian "refugees" and their descendants, effectively eliminating Israel as a Jewish state (either immediately or shortly thereafter). Yes, they just yearn for those 1967 borders; the ones they could not live with then, and instead provoked yet another war. And Hariri can't say how all the palestinian groups have in their charters a call for the total destruction of Israel and annihilation of the Jewish people. But, I (Hariri) am so reasonable; I just want peace.

Propaganda. Know it. Recognize it. And explain it to your liberal friends.

4. Iran - still. Iran was given until 12/31/09 by our President to open its nuclear facilities. No dice. And why should they cooperate? The US has done NOTHING since. Oh sure, Secreatary of State Clinton is still trying to get that worthless piece of paper known as a UN Security Council Resolution on sanctions. Meanwhile, in a world which sees the US withdrawing, others are coming to the fore. So Brazil and Turkey have offered to take some of Iran's low-enriched uranium and convert it to commercial use only. Of course, Iran is keeping enough uranium on hand to still make bombs. As Thomas Friedman noted in today's NY Times: "Is there anything uglier than watching democrats sell out other democrats to a Holocaust-denying, vote-stealing Iranian thug just to tweak the U.S. and show that they, too, can play at the big power table?" Of course, he means democratic countries selling out the reformist democrats within Iran.

But they are not the only ones selling out democracy. According to the 5/17/10 National Review column "The Week," the Egyptian government is much fonder of Obama than they were of Bush. And why not? Obama apparently slashed the funding for pro-democracy groups in Egypt. Bush, on the other hand, spoke harshly to the Arab world when he suggested that they bring more freedoms and democracy to their peoples. At the time, the mainscream media criticized Bush for being naive in trying to force our values on other people. So good for Obama - he is supporting the dictatorial values of other countries: Egypt, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and on it goes. You morons in the mainscream media feel better now?

5. Elena Kagan for SCOTUS. Obama gave a commencement address at Hampton University in Virginia. In discussing how these students live in an age of 24/7 media, he noted: "...all kinds of content exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don't rank all that high on the truth meter...information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation." This is pretty scary. He is right in some ways; people are distracted by the likes of Lindsay Lohan, for example. So do we censor those stories? Does the government decide for us what we need to read and hear? And what do we need to be emancipated from? And has he found someone willing to make those hard decisions for us?

Enter one Elena Kagan. According to Aaron Klein in a 5/12/10 posting in the Jewish Press, Kagan had signed onto a brief to which Obama would undoubtedly subscribe. (Admittedly, no date was given for this brief and it may have been years ago. But it eerily, and scarily, seems to track Obama's thinking.) The brief said: "whether a given category of speech enjoys First Amendment protection depends upon a categorical balancing of the speech against its societal costs." I wonder if Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin and many others would meet the Obama/Kagan test for First Amendment protection. So little respect for our Constitution from this Administration.

6. On a final note, the press was all over Bush after about 2 to 3 days post Katrina for not getting the federal government involved sooner. It took the press over THIRTY days to finally challenge Obama over his Administration's inaction with regards to the Gulf oil spill. But while the Obama team did nothing, they certainly got their stories aligned. One after the next said how horrible BP is and that they will have to pay civilly and possibly criminally. No surprise there, given Obama's intense dislike of Business. But my favorite line was one that was well-coordinated and which Hannity played several times: each and every member of the O. team said the government was there "from day one." They weren't doing anything, but so what - they were there.