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Meanwhile, Back in France ...

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:54:00 GMT

French Interior Minister Claude Gueant, truth-teller and Establishment-marked man

Silvio Berlusconi's finest 1/2 hour came shortly after 9/11 when he became the first and only Western leader to point out the duh-obvious distinctions between Western civilization and Islam -- essentially, one culture enshrines liberty, one does not -- and made the rather modest call for us to be aware of the distinction. For this he was pilloried, excoriated, heaped with scorn the world over, and beat a retreat rapido. (I discuss the episode at some length in The Death of the Grown-Up.)

This plain-as-the-nose-on-your-face observation thus successfully purged from the political mainstream, it became the hotly controversial domain of so-called "far right" political figures across Europe, from Filip Dewinter in Belgium to Geert Wilders in Holland to Oskar Freysinger on Switzerland to Heinz Christian Straache in Austria to Pia Kjærsgaard in Denmark and on into Italy, Britain, France, Germany and more.

Now, a French interior minister in Nicolas Sarkozy's government has stepped onto the chopping block with the same message, albeit with more bite. Not only should we be aware of the distinction, we should protect our pro-humanity Western civilization. He made his "outrageous" comments on Saturday. Now, watch the dunications fly.

Suspense: Will he cave?

AFP reports:

French Interior Minister Claude Guéant said on Sunday he stood by remarks that not all civilisations are equal, as critics denounced his comments as dangerous and xenophobic.

Guéant, who is also responsible for immigration and is known as a hardliner, provoked a storm of controversy with the comments on Saturday.

"Contrary to what the left's relativist ideology says, for us all civilisations are not of equal value," Guéant told a gathering of right-wing students.

"Those which defend humanity seem to us to be more advanced than those that do not," he said.

"Those which defend liberty, equality and fraternity, seem to us superior to those which accept tyranny, the subservience of women, social and ethnic hatred," he said in his speech, a copy of which was obtained by AFP.

He also stressed the need to "protect our civilisation".

The sky is blue, the pope is Catholic, Grant is buried in Grant's Tomb and the Battle of White Plains took place in White Plains.

"I do not regret (the comments)," Guéant said on Sunday, though he accused critics of taking them "out of context".

The left denounced his speech as an attempt by President Nicolas Sarkozy to woo supporters of the the far-right National Front (FN) ahead of a two-round presidential election in April and May.

Harlem Desir, the number two in the French Socialist Party, slammed "the pitiful provocation from a minister reduced to a mouthpiece for the FN".

Bernard Cazeneuve, a spokesman for Socialist presidential candidate François Hollande, denounced the remarks as "divisive and degrading" while former Socialist candidate Ségolène Royal called them "dangerous."

Sarkozy's allies were quick to defend the minister, however.

Defence Minister Gerard Longuet said it was simply "common sense" to suggest that civilisations could be ranked according to values such as "respecting personal rights, rejecting violence or abolishing the death penalty".

Finance Minister François Baroin accused the left of "exploiting the statements for electoral gain".

Foreign Minister Alain Juppé suggested that his colleague had meant to say that "all ideas, all political systems are not equal".

Speaking on BFM television, Juppé said however one should avoid talking of a shock of civilisations, suggesting the term was "inadequate".

Guéant has repeatedly linked immigration with crime in France and last month said the delinquency rate among immigrants was "two to three times higher" than the national average.

In April, he declared that an increase in the number of Muslim faithful in France posed a "problem".

Quelle probleme!

He has also said that he wants to reduce the number of legal immigrants entering France, including those coming to work legally or to join their families.

His latest comments came as the FN's presidential candidate Marine Le Pen is credited with about 20 percent support in opinion polls.

Is the Department of Defense Lying to Us Again?

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 13:04:00 GMT

The Department of Defense official announcement:

The Department of Defense announced toda annouced the death of a the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Lance Cpl. Edward J. Dycus, 22, of Greenville, Miss., died Feb. 1 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.

This incident is under investigation.

The Jackson Clarion Ledger's report:

Mississippi's first casualty this year from the war in Afghanistan died at the hands of an Afghan soldier who was guarding a joint operating base with him in the Helmand province, officials said. ...

"He's not just another dead soldier," said childhood friend Kayla Bevill. "He wasn't killed by 'the enemy.' He was killed by someone that was supposed to be helping him guard, and that's what hurts the most."

Next most hurtful thing is the DoD's Big Lie machine in action. "Combat operations"?

The Battle over Boykin at West Point

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:11:00 GMT

Sally Quinn thinking Georgetown thoughts ...

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This week's syndicated column:

Even after all these years, journalist-socialite Sally Quinn still embodies a Washington way of thinking – a heart-of-Georgetown, A-list set of salon-tested assumptions “everyone” knows that provides attitudes for any occasion.

Take the surreal state of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. One day, William G. “Jerry” Boykin, a highly decorated retired Army general and ordained minister, and a founding member and leader of Delta Force, was scheduled to speak at a West Point prayer breakfast. The next day, following a campaign to stop Boykin’s appearance by what the New York Times describes as “liberal veterans’ groups, civil liberties advocates and Muslim organizations,” Boykin was not scheduled to speak at West Point. “In fulfilling its commitment to the community,” West Point announced, “the U.S. Military Academy will feature another speaker for the event.”

Quinn’s reaction? West Point didn’t go far enough. Fire whoever is responsible for inviting Boykin, she wrote in her online Washington Post column “On Faith,” because his criticism of Islam makes him “notorious.” Why, it’s nothing less than blasphemy, as everyone who is anyone would agree – and who else is there?

No one, at least not at West Point. You can bet your last bullet the replacement speaker will not have identified, studied and himself experienced jihad – in military terms, the enemy threat doctrine – as Lt. Gen. Boykin has. This makes Boykin’s abrupt cancellation an information-war victory for the Muslim Brotherhood something few in Washington or West Point will even notice.

Muslim Brotherhood? Isn’t that in Egypt? How does the Muslim Brotherhood figure into a story about West Point?

Prominent in the stop-Boykin coalition is the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), known mainly for sound bite-ready spokesmen who present an Islamic point of view on TV. More important is CAIR’s place in the Muslim Brotherhood constellation of front groups as an entity founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian franchise, the jihad terror group Hamas.

This revelation emerged during the 2008 Holy Land Foundation terror-financing trial in a document authored by the Muslim Brotherhood itself. It attests to the presence in the United States of multiple Muslim Brotherhood front groups, including CAIR, which remains an unindicted co-conspirator in that case. The FBI cut off official contacts with CAIR in 2008.

Such information is documented in “Shariah: The Threat to America,” a book Boykin and I and 17 others, including former CIA director James Woolsey and former Reagan Pentagon official Frank Gaffney, co-authored in 2010. I wouldn’t be surprised if the book played some animating role in the Battle over Boykin at West Point, won by CAIR and celebrated in all the best bastions impregnable to fact.

That includes Quinn’s Washington Post column. Not only should Boykin’s West Point sponsor be fired, she writes, “that person should … say ‘I’m sorry.’”

If Georgetown were a revival tent, a chorus of “Amen, sister” would rise over N Street. But no. Indeed, some animus toward Boykin may form in reaction to the evangelical brand of Christianity he expresses on faith and war in churches across the country. Back in 2003, following the publication of snippets of these talks, the Pentagon investigated Boykin’s invocations of “Satan” as the enemy, and his attesting to his faith in the Christian “real God” over his enemy’s “idol.” In Georgetown, this counts as full-blown culture clash – enough to deflate the bubbles in the sparkling Vouvray.

“He has said that ‘there is no greater threat to America than Islam,’” Quinn continues, building her case. Luckily, she isn’t arguing in a Shariah-run courtroom, because her testimony would then be worth half of a man’s – one reason for Boykin’s concerns about Islam’s impact.

Then Quinn quotes “Shariah: The Threat to America”: “And in a study he co-authored, (he said) ‘most mosques in the United States already have been radicalized, that most Muslim social organizations are fronts for jihadists.’ How could this happen?” She means the West Point invitation, natch.

Quinn is quoting a description of the book by others, but never mind. What’s extremely interesting here is that she isn’t contesting the veracity of these documented claims. Conventional Washington-to-West Point wisdom is conditioned to see them as so absurd as to be beneath consideration. Doesn’t everybody? Ridiculous. Stoo-pid. Just typing them out – regardless of their accuracy – elicits guffaws of programmed outrage.

I would say the Muslim Brothers have done their public-relations job well, but frankly, this information operation was over before it began.

General Boykin and the War for Muslim Outreach Redux

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:56:00 GMT

Eight years and three months ago, I wrote a column inspired by the furor over statements by General William Boykin attesting to the religious dimension of the so-called war on terror. The thought that there might be a religious dimension to Islamic terrorism is, absurdly and disastrously, the Big No-No-No of our age (as noted once or twice in my body of work). That a devout Christian might appreciate the religious dimension of Islamic terrorism and express it in Christian terms is similarly verboten. And if he dare express it in the uniform of the country that expunges this key piece of the strategic puzzle, doctrinally, historically culturally, in its official war- and policy-making capacities,. "furor" breaks out.

Back then, I decided to imagine how future historians might explain this early controversy in the "war on terror."

"The 'war on terror,' later rechristened -- sorry, renamed -- the 'war for Muslim outreach,' began on Sept. 16, 2001, the day President George W. Bush carelessly spoke of a 'crusade.' His remark was heard neither as an echo of Dwight D. Eisenhower's World War II book 'Crusade in Europe,' nor as a sober pledge to avenge thousands of American dead still smoldering at Ground Zero -- victims, as Muslims on the outer reaches would reveal, of a joint CIA-Mossad plot. Instead, the word 'crusade' was perceived as a calculated insult to all of Islam still stewing over Holy Land incursions by Really Old Europe a millennium earlier.

"Early victories in the war for Muslim outreach were small but significant, such as forcing a new name onto 'Operation Infinite Justice,' the distinctly dis-lamic moniker for the war in Afghanistan. This was necessary, of course, since it is Allah who dispenses infinite justice, not the United States military. It wasn't long before 'Islam is love' was the word from the president, and post-Sept. 16 outreach included annual Ramadan suppers at the White House. ...

"Then along came Gen. Boykin. In every war, there are generals who want to fight an earlier war. This was true of Gen. Boykin. He wanted to fight the war of Sept. 11, the attack that is now, of course, but a tiny footnote to Sept. 16th, Death to Crusades Day, the first new national holiday since Martin Luther King Day.

"Gen. Boykin saw in the emergence of Muslim terror networks a resumption of the old wars of Islamic expansion against the Judeo-Christian West. And he saw fit to explain his vision in stark religious terms when he spoke in American Christian churches. Islamic terrorists hate the United States, he said in June 2003, 'because we're a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian. And the enemy is a guy named Satan.' When such statements became public through the now-defunct Los Angeles Times, all hell, pardon the expression, broke loose, spreading a plague of damning liberal editorials, columns and statements.

"General Boykin, the New York Times editorialized in calling for his head, 'should not be ... providing ammunition for those who portray the war against terror as a war against Islam.' (Note the implicit denial of the specifically Islamic character of the terrorism aimed at the non-Islamic West -- a semantic victory dating back to early outreach.) Fareed Zakaria, a Washington columnist of the day, suggested Gen. Boykin be fired simply to assuage Arab/Islamic suspicions of the United States. Others compared the American officer's biblical perspective with that of holy war-mongering Osama bin Laden.

"But it was the president himself who may have tipped the balance when he rejected even the basis of the three-star general's worldview -- that the war on terrorism had its undeniable religious dimension in being a response to Islamic jihad on the West, a civilization with Judeo-Christian roots.

"Some say that was the point at which outreach trumped terrorism as the war's priority. Once Gen. Boykin was history it was just a matter of time before Hamas had its AWACS, and jailed Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr was installed as supreme ayatollah of the United Nations Mandate of Iraq. Soon, the [battle] for high U.S. poll numbers throughout Muslim culture -- was ours."

In retrospect, of course, I realize outreach trumped terrorism from Day 1. General Boykin survived the squall, retiring from the military in 2007. (Full disclosure: he and I and 17 others are co-authors of the Team B II report, Shariah: The Threat to America.) Hamas doesn't have its AWACS yet, although it does has the public relations equivalent in the prominence of Hamas-linked CAIR as a public voice in the US (as seen below). Sadr is a major power in Iraq, where the UN is nowhere to be seen. But the squall -- the war for Muslim outreach -- continues to intensify.

After accepting an invitation to speak at West Point's National Prayer Breakfast on February 8, General Boykin has withdrawn from the event following what the New York Times calls "a growing list of liberal veterans’ groups, civil liberties advocates and Muslim organizations called on the Military Academy to rescind the invitation." West Point issued a statement saying, “In fulfilling its commitment to the community, the United States Military Academy will feature another speaker for the event.”

No doubt "another speaker" pre-approved by the liberal veterans' groups, civil liberties advocates and Muslim organizations.

The Times story continues (links from the original):

General Boykin, a longtime commander of Special Operations forces, first caused controversy after the Sept. 11 attacks when, as a senior Pentagon official, he described the fight against terrorism as a Christian battle against Satan. His remarks, made in numerous speeches to church groups, were publicly repudiated by President George W. Bush, who argued that America’s war was not with Islam but with violent fanatics.

...who just happened to be weaponizing mainstream, specifically Islamic teachings regarding the requirement to make war (jihad) on the infidel.

Since his retirement in 2007 and a new career as a popular conservative Christian speaker, General Boykin has described Islam as “a totalitarian way of life” and said that Islam should not be protected under the First Amendment.

I am not familiar with General Boykin's arguments regarding First Amendment protection and Islam. The short quotation attributed to him on this subject states Islam "is not just a religion, it is a totalitarian way of life," and thus not eligible for such protection. Given the "doubly totalitarian" aspects of Islam (global and personal controls) as codified, for example, in Islamic law (sharia), this point is surely debatable -- or would be in a country not already under Islamic strictures against free inquiry into Islam. But no. Boykin's opinion about a legitimate topic of discussion is cause for ejecting him from West Point. The effect is to marginalize further the quest for open debate about Islam and its threat to liberty -- and to marginalize further those who seek it.

Last week, after learning that General Boykin would be speaking at the prayer breakfast, a liberal veterans’ group, VoteVets.org, demanded that the invitation be revoked. In a letter to West Point’s superintendent, the group said General Boykin’s “incendiary rhetoric regarding Islam” was “incompatible with Army values” and would “put our troops in danger.”

Lt. Col. Sherri Reed, West Point’s director of public affairs, defended the invitation on Friday, saying that “cadets are purposefully exposed to different perspectives” and that the breakfast “will be pluralistic with Christians, Jewish and Muslim cadets participating.”

Seeking safety in pluralism. United We Stand?

Hah.

But by Monday, several other groups had condemned the invitation and concern was also reportedly being voiced by some faculty members and cadets. The Forum on the Military Chaplaincy (a liberal group of retired military chaplains), the Military Religious Freedom Foundation and the Council on American-Islamic Relations made public appeals to the Pentagon to cancel General Boykin’s appearance.

That was quick.

FYI, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is an unindicted co-conspirator in the landmark Holy Land terror financing trial in which evidence was introduced defining CAIR as a Muslim Brotherhood front organization.

A fourth-year cadet at West Point, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he feared reprisals for breaking military discipline, said in a telephone interview before the cancellation was announced that “people are definitely talking about it here.”

He feared reprisals? For what -- mopping-up operations in the war for Muslim Outreach?

“They’re inviting someone who’s openly criticizing a religion that is practiced on campus,” he said. “I know Muslim cadets here, and they are great, outstanding citizens, and this ex-general is saying they shouldn’t enjoy the same rights.”

Not to speak for the general, but the problem on campus begins when Islam's supremacist, anti-Christian, anti-Jewish, anti-female teachings are obscured and denied to a point of non-deniable parity with other religions.

The cadet asked, “Are we supposed to take leadership qualities and experience from this guy, to follow in his footsteps?”

A similar controversy erupted last week, in the days before General Boykin spoke at the mayor’s annual prayer breakfast in Ocean City, Md. The general made no inflammatory statements about Islam, instead describing how prayer had helped him through dangerous military operations.

But Peter Montgomery, a senior fellow at People for the American Way, a liberal advocacy group, said the West Point invitation was a mistake. West Point, Mr. Montgomery said, would have given “a platform to someone who is publicly identified with offensive comments about Muslims and about the commander in chief.”

Poof. Open criticism of a demonstrably aggressive and liberty-hostile religio-politico movement is reduced to "offensive comments about Muslims" and thus forbidden. And, by the way. never, ever criticize "the commander in chief." Our comissars -- CAIR, PAW, VoteVets.Org and the rest of the Islamo-Socialist Left --won't permit it.

Afghan Lawmaker to France: Quit Your Bellyaching

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 17:42:00 GMT

France has decided to pull out of Afghanistan in 2013, only one year early, following the recent killings of six French troops at the hands of their (and our) wonderful uniformed Afghan allies.

The decision hasn't gone over too well with Afghan MP Tahira Mujadedi, who argues that Afghan forces are not (all together now) ready to go it alone. As for those recently murdered sons of France, Miz Mujadedi isn't exactly overflowing with condolences or mea culpas (does that even translate into Dari or Pashto?)

"When military forces are present in a war zone, anything can happen," she said. The French troops "are not here for a holiday," she added.

Sacrebleu.

Ayaan and "Lady al Qaeda": Mirroring Moral Equivalence

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:26:00 GMT

This week's syndicated column:

No doubt Deborah Scroggins believes she just published a dual biography of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, former Dutch parliamentarian, and Aafia Siddiqui, jailed al-Qaida terrorist, and so she did. What may surprise the biographer, however, is that she also provided a third study: post-9/11 moral equivalence.

This begins with Scroggins’ outre decision to pair a peaceable writer and politician with a violent al-Qaida scientist who married Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s nephew and co-plotter after 9/11 as the “Wanted Women” of the book’s title (Wanted Women: Faith, Lies and the War on Terror: The Lives of Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Aafia Siddiqui).

Wanted by whom? Hirsi Ali is wanted for violating Islamic law against apostasy (leaving Islam is a capital offense) and criticizing Muhammad, Islam’s prophet (ditto). Siddiqui was wanted by the FBI as an accomplice of al-Qaida, an operational arm of Islamic law. How to knit the two together? Scroggins writes: “Like the bikini and the burka or the virgin and the whore, you couldn’t understand one without understanding the other.”

It’s difficult not to read this as a smear of Hirsi Ali, no less visceral for its flippancy. But it’s more than a noxious personal barb. Scroggins’ binary vision offers a new look at an old kink: moral equivalence among the intellectuals via perverse yin-yang fantasy.

A little housekeeping: No, I don’t know Ayaan Hirsi Ali. And yes, I read where Scroggins writes, “That is not to say they (Hirsi Ali and Siddiqui) are equivalent figures, morally or otherwise.” But this line appears on the last page of the book, after Scroggins has made the case that Hirsi Ali’s past political fight against Islam in Europe (highlighted as her fight for Muslim women’s rights) was somehow a self-aggrandizing version of jihad, of “tribal principle” – even, most reprehensibly, of terror-triggering extremism. Meanwhile, Siddiqui’s life of jihad-obsession unspools in alternating chapters.

The cumulative effect is an effort to even the score with Hirsi Ali. As the debate over Islam and Islamic terror erupted in Holland, Scroggins writes: “Some Dutch spoke of ‘the Ayaan effect,’ a spirit of fear and rancor that seemed to have bewitched the country.” Get it? It’s not the jihad, stupid, it’s “the Ayaan effect.”

By bizarre contrast, Scroggins regards Siddiqui’s jihad with empathy-nurturing neutrality. The result isn’t so much “Islam, the West, what’s the difference?” – the trope of moral equivalence during the U.S.-USSR Cold War. It’s more: Islam, the West, who is responsible for the violence? Who is reacting to whom? Who is putting on the burka to fend off the bikini? What virgin wouldn’t hate a whore? One more time, it’s all our fault.

Or, in this case, Hirsi Ali’s fault.

Her offense? Hirsi Ali failed to submit to the never-never cant that “moderation” is a hallmark of Islam (no sacred Islamic texts support it), while she publicly flayed its teachings of conquest and supremacism. Scroggins invokes supposed Islamic reformers – including Mahmoud Mohammed Taha and Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto (one of three heads of state to recognize the Taliban), whose rhetoric reflects anything but moderation – to try to portray Hirsi Ali as “simplistic.”

But it was Hirsi Ali’s failure to kneel in appeasement of Islam, even in her early days of quasi-media-darlinghood, that bothers Scroggins to no end – far more, it seems, than anything Siddiqui ever did, up to and including WMD-tinkering on al-Qaida’s behalf.

Scroggins reports disinterest – outrage, too – from Islamic women in the Netherlands regarding Hirsi Ali’s erstwhile efforts to emancipate them from Islam’s law. Such attitudes reveal unplumbed depths in the chasm between Islamic and Western cultures. In this signal example, Islamic women in a Western country see themselves as Shariah-compliant Muslims, not repressed women yearning for Western liberty. To Scroggins, long interested in “the treatment of women in Islam,” this almost seems personally liberating. She used to think “the control of women was as fundamental to radical Islam as racism was to the old American South or anti-Semitism was to Nazi Germany,” she writes. She still does. “But” – and here’s where we perhaps approach an evolving mainstream consensus on Shariah and other Islamiana – “I also learned that Westerners who want to keep the Muslim world under Western rule also have used Islamic attitudes toward women not so much to help free Muslim women as to justify the West’s continued domination of Muslim men.”

Huh? Women-centric worldview aside, I think what Scroggins is saying is that honesty about Islam is the New Western Imperialism. No wonder Ayaan Hirsi Ali became Public Enemy No. 1.

Beastweek vs. Wilders: No Contest

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:49:00 GMT

Beastweek decided to take a swipe at Geert Wilders this month -- no particular reason, just because he's still there. It's a singularly empty piece, a selection of complaints by Christopher Dickey rattling around, anchored by an almost comically validating chorus.

Example:

There’s no such thing as moderate Islam, Wilders insists, and he’s tired of hearing that radical Islam is something different from the mainstream faith.

BTW, Beastweek, Turkey's Erdogun goes ballistic at the very notion of "moderate Islam." The Turkish PM doesn't like assimilation, either -- calling it "a crime against humanity." But never mind. You're perfect the way you are. Don't ever change.

Beastweek:

It means nothing to him that among Muslim believers there are many different sects and currents.

Chorus:

“He makes no distinctions whatsoever,” says Robert Leiken, author of the just-published study Europe’s Angry Muslims. “He wants to throw out the whole Quran because of some things that are objectionable—but you could say the same thing about the Book of Joshua.”

Robert Leiken, an old friend of mine, is the man who brought us all "The Moderate Muslim Brotherhood," which is kind of like the Edsel, or even the Titanic, for intellectuals. "Abrogation" doesn't seem to have entered the syllabus yet.

Back to Newsbeast:

Wilders refuses to concede the point. ...

Frankly, it's not Geert's point to concede. No sacred text of Islam supports "moderate Islam."

Newsbeast:

You start to wonder if Wilders really believes what he says or if he’s just staked out a position that suits him politically. The fight against Islam, he once told a protégé, is “our core business”—and Wilders has developed it for all it’s worth. His extremist stance often smells of cynicism and self-indulgence.

Here we go, ad hominem invective substituting for brain activity.

Cue up chorus:

“His weakness is that he plays the renegade, he still wants to position himself as being outside the establishment,” says Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an author and former Dutch parliamentarian whose critiques of Islam have been ferocious in their own right.

Hirsi Ali?

“Once upon a time it was necessary for him to distinguish himself by saying, ‘I take a stand, and I am a man of clarity.’”

I guess taking stands and clarity are out of fashion. Funny, I just wrote this week's column dissecting a very, very similar book-length attack on Hirsi Ali's seemingly former self.

Newsbeast continues.

That was then. These days the country’s ruling coalition stands or falls at Wilders’s discretion. And his antipathy toward Islam goes so far that when Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands wore a headscarf during a royal visit to the Gulf monarchies last week, Wilders complained that the Dutch government should have stopped her.

It's opposition to dhimmitude -- about which Newsbeast has zero clue.

“He has to move to the middle,” urges Hirsi Ali. “He has to distinguish between violent Islamists and nonviolent Muslims. You know, there are so many shades of Muslims right now, and he could use some of them as his allies.”

Newsbeast:

But it’s as if the rhetoric has taken control of the speaker.

Chorus:

“He has always loved attention and power,” says his largely estranged brother, Paul Wilders. “He has ruled out any sense of doubt.”

Blah, blah, and so it goes. To what end? I think the answer lies in the subtitle: "Can't Someone Tell Geert Wilders to Stop His Anti-Muslim Diatribes Before Someone Gets Hurt?" Speaking out about Islam, its laws, its history, its culture, is the cardinal sin of our age. It must be demonized as "diatribes." Wilders must be slandered as cynical and self-indulgent -- just as Hirsi Ali is, by the way, in the book I mentioned above (Wanted Women). The truth must be rendered as toxic as the truth-tellers.

To that end, the acolytes of Islamic appeasement blame discourse, debate, analysis, cartoons for causing people to get hurt, putting the acolytes (dhimmi) in compliance with Islamic law. Whether it's Pope Benedict at Regensberg or Pastor Jones in the Florida scrub, the acolytes live to make them all, pope, pastor, politician, shut up -- again, in compliance with Islamic law. Most of the time they succeed. Even Hirsi Ali seems to have "evolved," certainly since she made the statements and stands cited in Wanted Women, which I discuss in this week's upcoming column as a treatise in post 9/11 moral equivalence.

But I don't think any of them can touch Wilders. Beastweek swipes in vain.

Kajaki: COIN Central

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:08:00 GMT

Soccer in Kajaki Sofla

Click "read more" to see DoD video from Kajaki Sofla bazaar, November 2011. Don't miss the motorcycles whizzing by, a chilling prefiguring of last week's suicide bomb attack.

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Military censorship only goes so far. Now we know, contrary to official reports, at least two US Marines were hit by the bomb driven into the Kajaki Sofla bazaar by a suicide-bomber on a motorcycle on January 18, 2012. Corporal Phillip McGeath, 25, was killed; Corporal Christopher Bordoni, 21, was critically wounded.

Why the official silence? And why the frustration, almost palpable in the public affairs office emails yesterday, over reports that break the silence?

Maybe it's because Kajaki is supposed to be, has been reported as a shining COIN success story. On January 12, 2012, for example, six days before the suicide bomb in the bazaar, the US government spelled it all out in a story headlined: "Soccer field, symbol of hope to Kajaki Sofla children":

Operation Eastern Storm began in October, when the men of 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment conducted a large-scale, helicopter-borne insertion aimed at routing insurgents from the valley.

The Marine casualties in the bazaar attack were from the 1st Battalion, 6th Regiment.

The happy talk continues:

Now, 3 months after the outset of the operation, the children of this small oasis, tucked between the mountains, can be seen playing soccer on a sparse patch of dirt, within Patrol Base Pennsylvania, the headquarters, for Company B., 1/6. ... Marines and members of the Afghan National Civil Order Police stand by to coach and referee, while village elders rest on the rocks or piles of sand constituting sidelines

COIN heaven, in other words. Never mind an Afghan National Army member shot and killed a US Army private playing volleyball elsewhere in Afghanistan on January 8. Kajaki Sofla was the real COIN deal.

The story continues:

Felber Field, where the daily soccer games are held, was named after Lance Cpl. Brian Felber, who was critically wounded in an IED strike shortly after the company arrived in Kajaki, explained Capt. Paul Tremblay, company commander, Company B.

The piece goes on to detail the COIN thinking that went into what the Marines saw as an effort "to build rapport and keep the positive momentum they had gained" -- setting up "Felber Field."

“We sat down and thought about what we did as kids. What were some of the most memorable things we did as children that we can do to continue the momentum for the children and hopefully, inspire the parents, said Tremblay.

Hmm. Let's see. Did you memorize the Koran? Become a child bride of an old married man?

“What’s most important to the average [person here] is perception. The kids, they’ve seen soccer on the TV in Pakistan; it’s a national past time. So for them to get excited about coming to play soccer, by default it makes their fathers and elders in the villages take ownership of their own security.”

It makes them take ownership? Captain, you can't make someone "take ownership of their own security," whatever that means, and particularly not through what sounds like the syrupy plot of a feel-good summer movie. They either want "their own security," or they don't.

As the influence of the insurgency steadily waned; soccer balls, books, coloring pencils and a host of other recreational items began to appear in the bazaar. Every afternoon, children could be seen in their family’s fields playing catch, while Marines patrolled past

Kajaki became COIN Nirvana, or Mecca, as the case may be.

“It’s a very regimented life for the kids,” explained 1st Lt. Dennis Graziosi, 2nd Platoon commander from Altoona, Pa. “When the Taliban came in here, they stopped the school, sports activities, all of that. It’s just amazing to go from Taliban kicking all that out, regimenting their life, to seeing it crop back up. Their patrolling effort has allowed the kids future to get a lot better, to establish a brighter future for the children here.”

Beyond generating goodwill among the local citizenry, the ability to host an event like this within their company position, with approximately 50 children in attendance serves as a marker for how security has increased in the unit’s area of operations. ...

It's pure COIN, by the book.

Then, disaster struck -- a suicide bomber attacks a crowd including Marines.

Now what does Felber Field, named for a Marine who died in an IED blast way back when things were bad, signify if Marines are still dying in the bazaar of "hearts and minds"?

To me, of course, it signifies the COIN strategy to win (buy) hearts and minds is still fundamentally flawed. The bazaar, the soccer field, even after successful combat operations, remains a dangerous battleground.

So don't mention American casualties in the bazaar. Maybe no one will notice the cracks in COIN: Is that the military's thinking?

Meanwhile, The Tompkins County Trust Company has set up a fund to collect donations to support Christopher Bordoni and his wife Jessica.

Donations can be mailed to:

Tompkins Trust Company
c/o USMC CPL. Christopher D. Bordoni Fund
Attention: Scott Albanese
P.O. Box 460
Ithaca, NY 14851

Camp Leatherneck Reaches Out

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:09:00 GMT

The Kajaki Sofla "bazaar"

---

From the emailbag this a.m.:

Ms. Diana West,

My name is LT Joe Nawrocki. I am a Public Affairs Officer in Regional Command Southwest, at Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan.

I just read your article titled, “Uncle Sam Hides the Truth about Kajaki” and wanted to ask whom did you try to contact at Camp Leatherneck? We never received any word that you were trying to contact us, so I apologize for that.

If you have any further questions, please send them my way and I will do my best to answer.

R,
LT Nawrocki

LT Joseph M. Nawrocki (USN)

Regional Command Southwest Public Affairs
Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan

So thoughtful! So polite! And, more interesting, no beef with my facts as written. I replied:

Dear Lt Nawrocki,

How nice of your to "reach out."

No, I am simply trying to make sense of the news as it released by the
military authorities and reported, as all Americans must do.

But now that I have you on the line, am I correct to have deduced that
Cpl. McGeath was killed in the suicide blast at Kajaki and, if so, why
wasn't that fact included in the official report that he "died in
support of combat operations"?

Were there any other NATO forces killed
or wounded in the blast?

Also, was the Afghan official quoted by the AP correct to say that NATO
forces "were also working at the construction site"? What does that
mean?

Best wishes,
Diana West

His response:

So what you are saying then is you never tried to attempt to contact
anyone in RC(SW) and your article is all opinion, based on military
authorities and what is available in open source media? Is that
correct?
R,
LT

My post couldn't be clearer about what sources are under discussion. But say, wait a minute: Who's interviewing whom?

I replied:

Is that your answer to my questions, Lt.?

(If you have any further questions, please send them my way and I will
do my best to answer...)

He wrote:

The investigating authority would be the best resource to answer the question about Cpl McGeath, our office did not conduct the investigation. Therefore it would be inappropriate to comment as to why something was or was not placed in an official report, because I would just be guessing. I can tell you that we take EVERY investigation we conduct very seriously, especially those that deal with the death of a service member. Our men and women in uniform are our greatest assets and we owe it to them to ascertain every detail of the events that transpired up to their sacrifice. Our thoughts and prayers goes out to the families of Cpl McGeath as they deal with this tragedy.

Then he restated one of my questions:

Question: Was the Afghan official quoted by the AP correct to say that NATO forces "were also working at the construction site"? What does that mean?

His answer:

I am sure the official was correct in his statement. We have many projects that are being worked at the same time, and have multiple agencies that are involved in these projects. There are USMC Engineering Battalions, USAID, and the State Department, all working very hard to provide a better future for the people of Afghanistan. We have civilian experts that assist us, and we work on many projects with our Afghan counterparts. Only by working together can we accomplish our mission and improve the lives of Afghan civilians.

Hopefully I have been able to provide some clarity to your questions. Thank you very much for contacting RC(SW). I was happy to provide you with the answers to your questions.

LT Nawrocki

LT Joseph M. Nawrocki (USN)

Regional Command Southwest Public Affairs
Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan

Well, that was unenlightening. I wonder why the PA office bothered?

I will note, sadly, that local media in Ithaca, New York have reported today that Marine Cpl. Christopher Bordoni, 21, was critically injured in the January 18 suicide attack on the Kajaki bazaar, which also took the life of Marine Cpl. Phillip McGeath, 25. Today's update on Kajaki posted at the RC (SW) website, however, still omits mention of any American casualties. I can't claim to know why.

C-SPAN "Q & A" Follow-Up

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 18:55:00 GMT

I've received kind feedback on last night's interview with Brian Lamb on CSPAN, as well as some questions related to a couple of items covered in the show.

The book I consider more instructive to non-Muslims than the Koran regarding the exercise of Islam on society is the Sunni sharia book Reliance of the Traveller.

Peter Braestrup's magnus opus on the widespread misreporting of the Tet Offensive is called The Big Story. Sadly, it is long out of print, but fairly inexpensive used copies are available here.

My thoughts on Walter Cronkite are here.