Posted by Richard on September 11, 2019
Eighteen years ago this morning, in the words of Rep. Ilhan Omar, “some people did something.”
On September 11, 2001, barbarians with box cutters — primitive 7th-century savages who could never build a World Trade Center or a 747, but whose insane ideology is dedicated to making the building of such things impossible — murdered 2,996 innocent people and changed Lower Manhattan from this:
to this:
Never forget.
Never forget.
Never, ever forget.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: 9/11, al qaeda, barbarism, flight 93, heroism, islamofascism, new york, terrorism, twin towers, war, world trade center, wtc | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on September 11, 2018
Seventeen years have passed since that awful September 11th morning. Virtually all of today’s college students, and even recent grads, didn’t see what happened to the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and to the Pentagon. They didn’t watch, in shock and disbelief, as the second plane crashed into the South Tower. They didn’t feel their hearts rising into their throats and a chill run down their spines as people jumped from 80+ stories up to avoid burning alive. They don’t know or understand the significance of what the passengers on United Flight 93 did, and they aren’t moved, as I am to this day, by the words “Let’s roll!” They may have seen some brief video or images, but they didn’t live it. And I suspect that their parents and teachers, in many cases, didn’t spend much time on this topic.
Most of the rest of this post is, with minor changes, what I’ve posted in past years on this grim anniversary. It’s my hope that someone will stumble across this page who is too young to remember or who has forgotten, and that it will have an impact on them. If you know such a person, share your memories from that day. Show them this post and other information about what happened and why. Maybe watch United 93 with them.
Seventeen years ago this morning, we watched in horror as people jumped a thousand feet to their deaths because it was better than the alternative. Later that day, we learned that the heroic passengers of United Flight 93, knowing the fate that awaited them, had fought and died to prevent their plane from crashing into the White House or Capitol. In the ensuing days, we learned the details of that brave struggle, and “Let’s roll!” became a phrase that brought goosebumps to me whenever I heard it.
We must not forget the events of September 11, 2001. We must keep the images fresh in our memories. It’s necessary, I believe, if we’re to retain the resolve we need to understand, oppose, and defeat the ongoing Islamofascist effort to destroy our way of life, of which the attacks of 9/11 were a part.
We must not forget that there is a large, powerful, well-financed international movement dedicated to destroying Western Civilization.
On September 11, 2001, barbarians with box cutters — primitive 7th-century savages who could never build a World Trade Center or a 747, but whose insane ideology is dedicated to making the building of such things impossible — murdered 2,996 innocent people and changed Lower Manhattan from this:
to this:
Never forget.
Never forget.
Never, ever forget.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: 911, al qaeda, barbarism, flight 93, heroism, islamofascism, new york, terrorism, twin towers, war, world trade center, wtc | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on August 16, 2018
From The Daily Wire:
A young American couple who took a year-long bike trip around the world, believing that evil was a make-believe concept, took a fatal route in Tajikistan near the Afghan border, where alleged ISIS terrorists stabbed them to death.
Alleged? ISIS, which claimed responsibility, released a video showing the five men pledging allegiance to ISIS leader Abu al Baghdadi.
Jay Austin and Lauren Geoghegan, 29, quit their jobs last year in order to make their trip. Austin was a vegan who worked for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development; Geoghegan, a vegetarian who worked in the Georgetown University admissions office.
Check out the picture of the couple accompanying the article. They look exactly as you’d expect such people to look. Young, idealistic, and clueless. All about rainbows and unicorns, at least figuratively.
I know, I sound cold, heartless, and cynical. Really, I’m not. I have great sympathy for their families and friends, and I’m saddened that they died such a horrible death. But ideas have consequences, and their delusional beliefs led to their demise. May others learn from that.
While in Morocco, Austin wrote:
…
… Evil is a make-believe concept we’ve invented to deal with the complexities of fellow humans holding values and beliefs and perspectives different than our own—it’s easier to dismiss an opinion as abhorrent than strive to understand it. Badness exists, sure, but even that’s quite rare. By and large, humans are kind. Self-interested sometimes, myopic sometimes, but kind. Generous and wonderful and kind. No greater revelation has come from our journey than this.
On July 29, the five ISIS men rammed their car into Austin, Geoghegan, and two other Western cyclists, hopped out, and stabbed all four to death. Thus providing Austin for one brief moment with a greater revelation.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: bicyclists, isis, islamofascism, tajikistan, terrorism | 1 Comment »
Posted by Richard on September 11, 2017
Sixteen years have passed since that awful September 11th morning. That means most of this year’s college freshmen were two. They have no memory of what happened to the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and to the Pentagon. They don’t know or understand the significance of what the passengers on Flight 93 did, and they aren’t moved, as I am to this day, by the words “Let’s roll!” They may have seen some brief video or images, but they didn’t live it. And I suspect that their parents and teachers, in many cases, didn’t spend much time on this topic.
Most of the rest of this post is, with minor changes, what I’ve posted in past years on this grim anniversary. It’s my hope that someone will stumble across this page who is too young to remember or who has forgotten, and that it will have an impact on them. If you know such a person, share your memories from that day. Show them this post and other information about what happened and why. Maybe watch United 93 with them.
Sixteen years ago this morning, we watched in horror as people jumped a thousand feet to their deaths because it was better than the alternative. Later that day, we learned that the heroic passengers of United Flight 93, knowing the fate that awaited them, had fought and died to prevent their plane from crashing into the White House or Capitol. In the ensuing days, we learned the details of that brave struggle, and “Let’s roll!” became a phrase that brought goosebumps to me whenever I heard it.
We must not forget the events of September 11, 2001. We must keep the images fresh in our memories. It’s necessary, I believe, if we’re to retain the resolve we need to understand, oppose, and defeat the ongoing Islamofascist effort to destroy our way of life, of which the attacks of 9/11 were a part.
We must not forget that there is a large, powerful, well-financed international movement dedicated to destroying Western Civilization.
On September 11, 2001, barbarians with box cutters — primitive 7th-century savages who could never build a World Trade Center or a 747, but whose insane ideology is dedicated to making the building of such things impossible — murdered 2,996 innocent people and changed Lower Manhattan from this:
to this:
Never forget.
Never forget.
Never, ever forget.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: 911, al qaeda, barbarism, flight 93, heroism, islamofascism, new york, terrorism, twin towers, war, world trade center, wtc | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on September 11, 2016
Fifteen years have passed since that awful September 11th morning. Many millennials have no meaningful recollection of it, and apparently their parents and teachers did nothing to inform and educate them. They haven’t seen the video or images (or saw just fleeting glimpses with no context) of what happened to the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and to the Pentagon. They don’t know or understand the significance of what the passengers on Flight 93 did, and they aren’t moved, as I am to this day, by the words “Let’s roll!”
That might explain (but not excuse) a mattress store advertising its “twin towers” mattress sale with a spoof in which two “towers” of mattresses collapse. Nothing can explain or excuse what Comedy Central did, as reported on Twitter by Tabitha Bliss, since apparently mature adult entertainment industry professionals approved and aired it. I refuse to view it and hope you won’t either, but here is her tweet:
Comedy Central Jokes About People Burning Alive In the Twin Towers on September 11th https://t.co/am2cNhxnfv
— Ƭαвιтнα Ɓℓιѕѕ ❤ (@BlissTabitha) September 11, 2016
Most of the rest of this post is, with minor changes, what I’ve posted in past years on this grim anniversary. It’s my hope that someone will stumble across this page who is too young to remember or who has forgotten, and that it will have an impact on them.
But before moving on to that portion, let me suggest that you read an Esquire article by Tom Junod entitled The Falling Man. It’s about one of the most horrifying aspects of that horrifying day. It’s about something that to this day wrenches my gut and makes my eyes well up when I think about it or see images of it, and which caused me some years ago to struggle to create lyrics for a song in my head that, if I had any musical talent, would have been recorded by now. It’s about this picture, and the countless others who did what the man in it did, but perhaps not quite as well.
Some people have forgotten now
It was many years ago
And peaceful here at home since then
So just let the memory go
But I close my eyes and see it still
Like it was yesterday — Oh no!
People jumping from a hundred-story building!
I can still see those Americans
Jumping from a hundred-story building …
© 2009 Richard G. Combs. All rights reserved.
Fifteen years ago this morning, we watched in horror as people jumped a thousand feet to their deaths because it was better than the alternative. Later that day, we learned that the heroic passengers of United Flight 93, knowing the fate that awaited them, had fought and died to prevent their plane from crashing into the White House or Capitol. In the ensuing days, we learned the details of that brave struggle, and “Let’s roll!” became a phrase that brought goosebumps to me whenever I heard it.
We must not forget the events of September 11, 2001. We must keep the images fresh in our memories. It’s necessary, I believe, if we’re to retain the resolve we need to understand, oppose, and defeat the ongoing Islamofascist effort to destroy our way of life, of which the attacks of 9/11 were a part.
We must not forget that there is a large, powerful, well-financed international movement dedicated to destroying Western Civilization.
On September 11, 2001, barbarians with box cutters — primitive 7th-century savages who could never build a World Trade Center or a 747, but whose insane ideology is dedicated to making the building of such things impossible — murdered 2,996 innocent people and changed Lower Manhattan from this:
to this:
Never forget.
Never forget.
Never, ever forget.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: 911, al qaeda, barbarism, flight 93, heroism, islamofascism, new york, terrorism, twin towers, war, world trade center, wtc | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on June 13, 2016
With Orlando’s hospitals and morgue filled with the victims of jihad, an Obama/Bernie supporting SJW declared that “the real victims … are Muslims,” the Planned Parenthood Black Community organization blamed the violence on “toxic masculinity” and “imperialist homophobia,” and ACLU lawyers blamed the “Christian right.” I could cite a dozen more examples along those lines, and that’s without even touching on the thousands blaming the NRA and guns for the slaughter.
Last night, best-selling thriller author Brad Thor tweeted the following, and he couldn’t be more correct:
We begin to defeat Islamic jihad when every American reads this article and admits that it is 100% correct: https://t.co/6ehQQwf0Xx
— Brad Thor (@BradThor) June 13, 2016
The article is by Sam Harris and appeared at the Huffington Post about three weeks ago. It’s a bit long, but a compelling and quick read. Here’s a taste:
The point is not (and will never be) that some free person spoke, or wrote, or illustrated in such a manner as to inflame the Muslim community. The point is that only the Muslim community is combustible in this way. The controversy over Fitna, like all such controversies, renders one fact about our world especially salient: Muslims appear to be far more concerned about perceived slights to their religion than about the atrocities committed daily in its name. Our accommodation of this psychopathic skewing of priorities has, more and more, taken the form of craven and blinkered acquiescence.
There is an uncanny irony here that many have noticed. The position of the Muslim community in the face of all provocations seems to be: Islam is a religion of peace, and if you say that it isn’t, we will kill you. Of course, the truth is often more nuanced, but this is about as nuanced as it ever gets: Islam is a religion of peace, and if you say that it isn’t, we peaceful Muslims cannot be held responsible for what our less peaceful brothers and sisters do. When they burn your embassies or kidnap and slaughter your journalists, know that we will hold you primarily responsible and will spend the bulk of our energies criticizing you for “racism” and “Islamophobia.”
But don’t stop there. Read the whole thing.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: dhimmitude, islamofascism, jihad, orlando, terrorism | 5 Comments »
Posted by Richard on March 26, 2016
Non-Muslim opponents of Islamofascism (myself included) have often lamented the fact that so few moderate Muslims speak out against the radical jihadis. It’s important to remember, however, that doing so can be dangerous. And not just in places like Pakistan or Arab countries. Extending happy Easter wishes to Christians and speaking out against the Brussels bombings proved fatal for a Muslim shopkeeper in Britain:
A popular shopkeeper who wished Christians a happy Easter on Facebook was stabbed to death in what police in Scotland say was a “religiously prejudiced” attack carried out by a fellow Muslim, it was reported Saturday.
Asad Shah, a Pakistani-born resident of Glasgow, was stabbed thirty times and his head stomped, a family friend told the Daily Mail:
Mohammad Faisal, a family friend, said a bearded Muslim wearing a long religious robe entered Mr Shah’s shop and spoke to him in his native language before stabbing him in the head with a kitchen knife.
Mr Shah’s brother, who was working next door, rushed out to find the killer laughing while sitting on the Glasgow newsagent’s bleeding chest.
‘The brother dragged Mr Shah away but the guy continued attacking with the blade,’ said Mr Faisal. ‘They struggled up to the bus stop where Asad collapsed.
‘It was just a clear-cut revenge attack. For posting messages about peace, messages about greeting fellow Christians and Jews.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: britain, islamofascism, jihad, terrorism | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on September 11, 2015
Fourteen years ago this morning, we watched in horror as people jumped a thousand feet to their deaths because it was better than the alternative. Later that day, we learned that the heroic passengers of United Flight 93, knowing the fate that awaited them, had fought and died to prevent their plane from crashing into the White House or Capitol. In the ensuing days, we learned the details of that brave struggle, and “Let’s roll!” became a phrase that brought goosebumps to me whenever I heard it.
We must not forget the events of September 11, 2001. We must keep the images fresh in our memories. It’s necessary, I believe, if we’re to retain the resolve we need to understand, oppose, and defeat the ongoing Islamofascist effort to destroy our way of life, of which the attacks of 9/11 were a part.
We must not forget that there is a large, powerful, well-financed international movement dedicated to destroying Western Civilization.
On September 11, 2001, barbarians with box cutters — primitive 7th-century savages who could never build a World Trade Center or a 747, but whose insane ideology is dedicated to making the building of such things impossible — murdered 2,996 innocent people and changed Lower Manhattan from this:
to this:
Some people have forgotten now
It was many years ago
And peaceful here at home since then
So just let the memory go
But I close my eyes and see it still
Like it was yesterday — Oh no!
People jumping from a hundred-story building!
I can still see those Americans
Jumping from a hundred-story building …
© 2009 Richard G. Combs. All rights reserved.
Never forget.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: 911, al qaeda, barbarism, heroism, islamofascism, new york, terrorism, war, world trade center, wtc | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on July 17, 2015
The gunman who attacked a recruiting station and a Naval and Marine Corps facility in Chattanooga, TN, killing four Marines before being killed himself, was identified as Muhammad Youssef Abdulazee. He was a naturalized American citizen, born in Kuwait, who came to the US as a child with his parents. The Washington Post described them as “a conservative Muslim family,” and his father was at one time investigated by the FBI for ties to a terrorist organization.
But never mind that. The President described Abdulazee as a “lone gunman” and the FBI is investigating it as “domestic terrorism.” That’s the phrase they use when there’s believed to be no connection to an international terrorist organization like al Qaeda or ISIS. It’s apparently the policy of the Obama administration to never utter the words “Islamic terrorism,” “jihad,” or anything like that.
Well, I will. Abdulazee’s “lone jihad” was a textbook example of exactly the kind of attack that ISIS has been urging its followers in the West to carry out. He may have acted alone, but he was acting under direction of, in support of, and in furtherance of the mission of ISIS and the Islamofascist movement to destroy Western Civilization and impose political Islam across the globe.
But the head-in-the-sand attitude of our leadership isn’t what made me really angry about this incident. What made me really angry was seeing this Fox News image of the recruiting center entrance:
Notice the “gun-free zone” sign on the door amidst all the bullet holes. “I don’t understand,” say what Rush calls the new castrati, “why didn’t the sign work?” The sign worked fine; what it really says is “everyone inside is unarmed and helpless.” Heck, Abdulazee shot up the recruiting center from his car outside, so he didn’t even violate the “gun-free zone” rule.
After that, Abdulazee drove seven miles to the Navy Operational Support Center and Marine Corps Reserve Center, where he killed four unarmed Marines. During that drive, he was being pursued by police, and they apparently are the ones who shot him. The Marines and sailors at the facility couldn’t have, because they too were unarmed.
Throughout the United States, all the military personnel who’ve been trained at great expense to expertly handle various weapons and fight valiantly in defense of themselves, their buddies, and their country, are disarmed and defenseless. Despite the fact that we’ve had several jihad attacks (not “workplace violence”) at military installations, and despite the fact that ISIS is explicitly urging its followers to perpetrate more such attacks.
Damn it, stop this gun control in the military nonsense! Arm our armed forces!
If you agree, tweet #ArmOurArmedForces.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: chattanooga, gun control, islamofascism, jihad, military, terrorism | 1 Comment »
Posted by Richard on March 25, 2015
Like many others released from Guantanamo, at least three of the five Taliban commanders swapped for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl seem intent on rejoining the jihad. They won’t have to wait long.
The five are currently living in luxury in Dohar, Qatar, under the alleged supervision of that alleged ally of ours in the misnamed War on Terror. But their confinement to Qatar ends in May, and they’ll then be able to go where they please. Such as back to Helmand province to rejoin their comrades in arms, or maybe to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
Bergdahl, on the other hand, won’t be rejoining the war effort.
Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was freed by Afghan insurgents last May as part of an exchange for five Taliban prisoners, was charged Wednesday with having deserted his remote base before his capture in 2009.
The military charges, resulting from a long-awaited but tightly guarded investigation, include desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. A conviction could lead to a dishonorable discharge from the military and, in the extreme, life in prison for Sgt. Bergdahl.
The Bergdahl swap is playing out exactly as anyone with half a brain predicted.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: bergdahl, gitmo, islamofascism, taliban | 1 Comment »
Posted by Richard on January 8, 2015
Yesterday, Jihadists attacked the office of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris. Twelve people were slaughtered, including a policeman lying on the ground wounded with his hands up. In the wake of that, I think it’s worth noting that almost a decade has passed since Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten newspaper published a dozen pretty tame cartoons of Mohammed, triggering worldwide Muslim outrage that resulted in many deaths. Here are those cartoons.
It’s worth rereading Bob Bidinotto’s Winter 2005 New Individualist column about those Mohammed cartoons. In particular:
Ironically, the violent and deadly response of radical Muslims worldwide to the appearance of these cartoons only confirms the validity of the newspaper’s point. By their bloody reaction, Islamic fundamentalists reveal that they have taken pages from the playbooks of Nazi and communist thugs, and thus have richly earned their new label: “Islamofascists.” Observe that while they deny everyone else the freedom to express any opinion contrary to Islam, these brutes simultaneously claim for themselves complete freedom of expression with regard to their adversaries—including threatening with death those who disagree. Observe, too, that in many Muslim nations, the media publish and broadcast the most insulting language and demeaning images directed against the symbols, beliefs, and practices of Jews, Christians, and other “infidels.” Could the hypocrisy be more transparent?
Offhand, I can think of no other major religion whose followers habitually try to silence their opponents with censorship, death threats, or death itself. Even among today’s religious, radical Muslims stand virtually alone in their unrepentant advocacy of totalitarianism.
The responses to the Charlie Hebdo attack have ranged from brave to cowardly and vile. The former category includes the reaction of many cartoonists, this Bill Maher rant, and this Andrew McCarthy column. The latter category includes:
A week ago on New Year’s Day, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, in a profoundly important speech, addressed the imams of the Islamic Research Academy at Cairo’s al-Azhar University. Yes, that’s the leading center of learning for Sunni Islam, which endorsed the Sharia manual quoted at length in the Andrew McCarthy column linked above. Al-Sisi called for a “religious revolution” to turn Islam away from “that corpus of texts and ideas that we have sacralized over the centuries” and toward a more moderate path. As Jonah Goldberg notes, this is a big deal that’s been virtually ignored by our mainstream media.
Rather than issuing pro-forma declarations of “Islam is the Religion of Peace” and weaselly “we condemn these killings, but…” statements, opinion leaders of the Muslim world would do their faith and the entire world a favor by invoking and endorsing the words of al-Sisi.
UPDATE: This latest Islamofascist assault against cartoonists engendered an online response similar to 2010’s Draw Mohammed Day (a response to threats against South Park’s Matt Stone and Trey Parker), this time mostly on Twitter. This isn’t a drawing, but it’s one of my favorites:
#EverybodyDrawMohammed #EveryoneDrawMohammed Piss be upon you. pic.twitter.com/ySbhD6uvAd
— Gun Runner (@TxWxGuy) January 7, 2015
I’m a sucker for puns.
You can find lots more under the hashtags in the tweet above, but be aware that a number of the drawings involve Mohammed as either sodomizer or sodomizee.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: france, islamofascism, terrorism | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on December 4, 2012
From ACT! for America (via email) (emphasis in original):
Time Magazine is currently accepting votes for their 2012 “Person of the Year.” One of the nominees is fifteen-year old Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani student activist who was viciously shot two months ago by the Taliban’s radical Islamists while riding her school bus.
Why? Because Malala fights tirelessly for young Pakistani girls to have the right to an education.
Amazingly enough, another of Time’s nominees is Egypt’s current President, Muslim Brotherhood-backed Mohamed Morsi, who is doing his best to turn Egypt into a hard line sharia-governed Islamist nation.
We think the right choice is abundantly clear and we need your help putting little Malala over the top and in the winner’s circle. After all she has endured, it’s the least we can do and it also will demonstrate to the world the type of character and individual who should be highlighted as a “person of the year”—and who should not.
The deadline for votes is at 11:59 p.m. (EST) on December 12th.
The winner will be announced on December 14th.
Will you help make Malala Time’s 2012 “Person of the Year?” Here’s how you can!
*** 2 Important Action Items ***
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: heroism, islamofascism, womens rights | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on October 2, 2012
In 2011, President Obama ordered the Libyan rebels to be supplied with arms, including anti-tank rockets and mortars. The Saudis were apparently persuaded to act as go-betweens, actually delivering the US-supplied weapons. This was done even though the Obama administration must have known that many of those rebels, including their commander Abdel Hakim Belhadj, were radical Islamist jihadis with ties to al Qaeda (emphasis added):
… Through the 1990s, as leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, Belhadj fought Qadhafi’s forces, plotting twice to assassinate him. When it got too hot in Libya, he moved to Sudan, working with al-Qaeda as a guest of Osama bin Laden and then returned to Afghanistan in 1998. He spent the next few years in Jalalabad, directing funds and arms for al-Qaeda training camps before he was arrested by the CIA and MI-6 in 2002. Belhadj was then, according to a lawsuit he filed against the British government, tortured brutally before being bundled on to a plane along with his pregnant wife and handed over to Qadhafi. Eventually, as part of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi’s “de-radicalisation” programme, Belhadj and other associates were freed in 2010. Within a year, he had become the commander of the Transitional National Council (TNC) rebel force.
That the U.S. cooperated with Belhadj and others like him to oust Qadhafi speaks volumes either of its broad-mindedness or its naiveté. Even as the British, French and U.S. intelligence services armed the rebels, they turned a blind eye to the troubling ideological differences they had with the forces fighting Qadhafi — from links with al-Qaeda in the Maghrib, to avowals of the harsh Sharia law they planned to implement in Libya, to the human rights violations by TNC units. Of equal concern should have been the domination of different parts of post-Qadhafi Libya by lawless militias answerable to none.
Instead, NATO leaders proclaimed themselves satisfied that the ends in Libya had been met, a brutal dictator was finished, and that was that. Until a year later, when heavily armed men launched a deadly assault on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi.
Shades of “Fast and Furious.” Was the US consulate attacked, and Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans killed, by al-Qaeda-affiliated jihadis using US-supplied rockets, mortars, and small arms?
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: al qaeda, islamofascism, libya, obama, saudis, terrorism | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on September 29, 2012
To get the taste of Obama’s disturbing UN speech out of my mouth, I read the address of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to the same corrupt body. Damn, I wish we had a president who spoke like that. Read the whole thing and/or watch the video.
Netanyahu began by challenging the claim, supported by much of the UN, that Jews are recent interlopers in the region (it was never a nation) known as Palestine:
Three thousand years ago, King David reigned over the Jewish state in our eternal capital, Jerusalem. I say that to all those who proclaim that the Jewish state has no roots in our region and that it will soon disappear.
…
The Jewish people have lived in the land of Israel for thousands of years. Even after most of our people were exiled from it, Jews continued to live in the land of Israel throughout the ages. The masses of our people never gave up the dreamed of returning to our ancient homeland.
Here he might have added that Jews continued to live throughout the Middle East in large numbers (a third of the population of Baghdad) until they were driven out or murdered by the Arabs who embraced Islamofascism.
Defying the laws of history, we did just that. We ingathered the exiles, restored our independence and rebuilt our national life. The Jewish people have come home.
We will never be uprooted again.
…
In Israel, we walk the same paths tread by our patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. But we blaze new trails in science, technology, medicine, agriculture.
In Israel, the past and the future find common ground.
Unfortunately, that is not the case in many other countries. For today, a great battle is being waged between the modern and the medieval.
The forces of modernity seek a bright future in which the rights of all are protected, in which an ever-expanding digital library is available in the palm of every child, in which every life is sacred.
The forces of medievalism seek a world in which women and minorities are subjugated, in which knowledge is suppressed, in which not life but death is glorified.
These forces clash around the globe, but nowhere more starkly than in the Middle East.
Israel stands proudly with the forces of modernity. We protect the rights of all our citizens: men and women, Jews and Arabs, Muslims and Christians – all are equal before the law.
…
Israel wants to see a Middle East of progress and peace. We want to see the three great religions that sprang forth from our region – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – coexist in peace and in mutual respect.
Yet the medieval forces of radical Islam, whom you just saw storming the American embassies throughout the Middle East, they oppose this.
They seek supremacy over all Muslims. They are bent on world conquest. They want to destroy Israel, Europe, America. They want to extinguish freedom. They want to end the modern world.
Militant Islam has many branches – from the rulers of Iran with their Revolutionary Guards to Al Qaeda terrorists to the radical cells lurking in every part of the globe.
But despite their differences, they are all rooted in the same bitter soil of intolerance. That intolerance is directed first at their fellow Muslims, and then to Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, secular people, anyone who doesn’t submit to their unforgiving creed.
They want to drag humanity back to an age of unquestioning dogma and unrelenting conflict.
I am sure of one thing. Ultimately they will fail. Ultimately, light will penetrate the darkness.
…
I think the relevant question is this: it’s not whether this fanaticism will be defeated. It’s how many lives will be lost before it’s defeated.
Outstanding. Reason, the Enlightenment, modernity: the leader who represents one of the most ancient civilizations in the world forcefully defends these values; the leader of the nation that was founded on those principles can’t bring himself to do so.
Oh, and by the way: US Ambassador Susan Rice skipped Netanyahu’s speech, thus treating him the same way she did Ahmadinejad. Moral equivalence?
Like I said: Read the whole thing and/or watch the video. Especially the latter, so you can see the marvelous visual aid he uses to illustrate Iran’s progress toward nuclear weapons and where we must draw a red line.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: islam, islamofascism, netanyahu, united nations | 1 Comment »
Posted by Richard on September 13, 2012
New York banned large soft drinks today as part of what the AP calls the “war on obesity.” First Lady Michelle Obama is totally on board. On today’s Dr. Oz show, she reiterated her contention that obesity is our nation’s biggest national security threat.
You know, that statement was just plain stupid when she first said it in 2010. Two days after al Qaeda-orchestrated attacks on our consulate in Benghazi and our embassy in Cairo, the deaths of four Americans, including our ambassador to Libya, and while al Qaeda-inspired mobs are threatening US embassies and citizens throughout the Muslim world, such a statement is not just stupid, it’s offensive. And insane.
Ms. Obama, why don’t you ask the families of J. Christopher Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty, and Tyrone Woods if they think obesity is our nation’s biggest national security threat?
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: al qaeda, egypt, islamofascism, libya, muslim outrage, obama, obesity | Leave a Comment »