Forget the furor over which book he should swear on,  Keith Ellison has been reported to be associated with an extreme Muslim sect  that recognizes no law as superior to Sharia, the Islamic code, and that preaches no Muslim can swear allegiance to the US Constitution, something required of Congressmen. He is also associated with American Open University, a radical Islamic school [ interesting choice of  a name don't you think?] whose founder has denounced the US system of democracy as antithetical to Islam, and announced that laws contrary to their faith are prohibited. This a scary article and you should read it.

Assuming all this is verified, and I don't know if any of it appears to be disputed, should Ellison be allowed to take office, which according to scholars, is the perogative of the Congress to decide?  Can Ellison in good conscience to his beliefs swear even on a Koran to uphold the laws of our land , and even if he does, will it mean anything? And in a legislative body which eschews overt religion as a basis for law making, do we want a man who subscribes to the belief that everything is subject to his faith, and all legislation must abide by it, especially when that faith is in many respects not only foreign to , but in conflict with , our own values and morals?  These are questions that must be decided soon, and the decisions made could have reverberations for a long time. We better get this right.

Daniel Pipes has written a piece which attempts to lay out a strategy for defeating terrorists. If my reading of it is correct , it concludes that the "Islamists" have perverted Islam into a Utopian philosophy which is utilizing terror, and to defeat it we must , well, defeat it by all means possible, while the "good" Muslims purify themselves of these miscreants and their fanaticism. I obviously have simplified his ideas, but not all that much. Please take the time to read it.

While I respect Mr. Pipes, I find this article, to put it mildly, a fluff job, another attempt to excuse Muslims while blaming a few bad apples, and yet in reading it, it is difficult not to draw the exact opposite conclusion.  His only real defense of his contention is that Muslims were not blowing themselves up a generation ago, hence the religion is not to blame, only some vague "political ideas". Well if that is valid reasoning, then North Korea can't be all that bad since 75 years ago they weren't threatening the world either. Just because tactics or aspirations change doesn't mean that aberrant behavior is involved. A generation ago suicide bombings hadn't been introduced into the world by the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka as an offensive weapon.  Now that it has, Muslims have adopted it quickly and efficiently, maybe the only thing that we can say they've done successfully in the last thirty years. I guess they just had to find their talents.

As for the lack of aggression by Islam in the recent past, Mr. Pipes is extremely short sighted. Ask the Serbs about Muslims, or the Greeks, and I think you will get an earful about their historical war on Christianity. Fourteen hundred years of trying to subjugate the world can not be ignored or forgotten because  for the past few decades they have been "peaceful' [again, ask the Israelis about that. You might get a different answer].

What has changed is that after WWI Islam was an exhausted ideology, attacked from within by Kermal Ataturk as he attempted to secularize Turkey. But after getting a second wind, the radicals began preaching, as Pipes references. The creation of Israel was a big motivator, but over the years the victories over the Shah in Iran, the Russians in Afghanistan, and the various unanswered attacks against the US have emboldened those seeking to reimpose the caliphate. This is an idea that started with Mohammed, and just because it was not always able to be pursued doen't mean it was gone, only hibernating,waiting for fertile soil to germinate. Today is a very fecund time.

Are there peaceful Muslims? Sure, I guess. But so what? Does anyone refer to the peaceful Christians when they refer to the Inquisition? Yes, it would be nice if the decent people would stand up and take a hand in helping to bring their ideology into the twenty first century, but I don't see that happening.  Waiting for that to is a formula for suicide. We have to defeat the enemy by any means possible, with that I agree with Mr.Pipes. This is a war not just of cultures, and certainly not a struggle against a distorted and hijacked Islam. This is a battle of ages, with our century engaged with a medieval enemy who has stayed remarkably true to its ideals and beliefs. The Art of War says to defeat your Enemy, first you must know them. So far we have failed miserably at that.

Some months ago I wrote about a NYC proposal to allow people to change their sex on their birth certificate without having any surgery, thereby including gender among those facts that are relative and arbitrary and subject to personal choice as opposed to , let's say, what Nature had planned for you.  The geniuses in New York decided that it would be so wonderful if you could just decide to change from a woman to a man without going through the detail of changing your genitalia. I mean, what could that have anything to do with the true, inner you anyway?

Well, after careful consideration, the idea has been, no doubt  reluctantly, rejected ,  the authorities [how can anyone considering this be called an Authority] having realized there were some, shall we say , problems with the consequences which they hadn't envisioned. In their infinite wisdom, they now say they probably  should have consulted some of the institutions and people who would have been affected by the change, such as prisons and hospitals, instead of just leaving it up to a bunch of medical experts, but , hey , we all make mistakes. And of course , the bleeding heart Liberal supporters, who for a moment saw paradise materializing before their eyes, are denouncing the "cave in " to moral police.  I wouldn't expect any less of them.

I admit It was fun to play "what if" with this regulatory change. For instance, if the man in a marriage decided one day to be a woman, would the marriage now be "gay" and therefore illegal in NY? Or on a lighter note, would I be able to get in free to a "Woman's Night" bar if I decided I was a woman? And I am not positive, but I don't believe there was a limit to your changes [why should there be. A man/woman has the perogative to change his/her mind doesn't he/she?], so I guess your gender could become an accessory worn to fit the occasion. Dear should I wear my black tux or that strapless evening gown?

This whole thing is   absurd, and probably should be a skit on some late night show, but it is also scary because it almost happened and Liberals are , if nothing else , persistent, and will keep trying. If they ever succeed, I guess  one of the casualties will be the question" is it a boy or girl " for an expectant mother , since the answer would always be  "Could be".

Mort Kondracke is not bad as Liberals go, at least he doesn't elicit  the usual cursing and threats of violence that people like James Carville evoke in me, but I disagree strongly with his stance on Darfur, which is that the US should basically declare war on the Sudan to enforce peace [see  article ].Now at the risk of sounding politically correct, I want to make clear that what is happening over there makes me sick, and if the option of dropping a nuclear bomb on the Sudanese government was being bandied about I would be the first one to cheer. But that kind of overwhelming and decisive force is not really being discussed, and instead we are getting the usual watered down internationally sanctionable suggestions which include some bombing and blockading  which will probably be ineffective, with the longterm possibility that we will act as human shields for the population under attack, interceding our soldiers bodies between them and the marauding arab militias who we hope will be cowed by our presence.  This has disaster written all over it.

And to make matters worse, what is , to use the Liberals favorite term, our exit strategy? To get the African peacekeepers in there, who are so ineffective that they can't take positions without our force behind them, so that they can then do what when we leave ? And since there is no talk of actually forming a new country with a new government, I am still trying to figure out what is going to happen over time to  make this a permanently pacified area. We are seeking to stop genocide, which is admirable, but merely sending our soldiers over there will, at best , obtain a temporary cessation of hostilities and at worse get us involved in a war in which we have only humanitarian aspirations, and absolutely no national interests involved.  This is truly a "let's all make the world a better place " kind of action, which , if looked upon with the cold calculating eyes of reality makes no sense for the US, who will just wind up fighting another Arab enemy with no strategic reason to justify it..  Talk about an open ended and ill defined mission with unclear objectives during which we will no doubt be constrained by  popular opinion and for which we will probably  receive the disdain of those who are now demanding our action! And  where are all those Liberals who denounce Iraq , where we have major strategic interests and where we have saved twenty five million people from tyranny, and why aren't they pointing out the futility and hubris of this proposal?    I guess since they  now adopt their kids from there they consider Africa  part of America and therefore ours to protect.

And to be fair, Condi Rice and Bush have also denounced what is happening over there. But, again, while no decent person can help but be disgusted with the situation, this should not be on the US's shoulders. If ever the UN should prove itself, along with the African Nations who always talk a good game about their independence  and self sufficiency, this is it. The world is outraged, and rightfully so, and the world should respond. It's time for the UN to put up or shut up ,and if it cannot find the resources and determination to stop the wholesale slaughter of innocent people, then what good is it?  I am tired of us always pulling the heavy load while the rest of the world throws stones at us. Darfur is a calamity that must be stopped,  but it should be up to Kofi Annan and the boys on East 42nd Street to do it.  Let them show they are capable of doing something besides running up unpaid parking tickets.

Before the elections I read about concerns regarding the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine if the Dems got power, a move that might very well cripple Conservative talk radio . For those who don't know what it is, it was the law that required equal on air time for competing views, making it almost impossible to have partisan shows . It was repealed in 1982, when talk radio was still a distant thought, in an attempt to save the AM radio business which was dying. We all know what happened, as Conservative talk radio flourished while Liberal efforts were like trees falling in the forest with no one around to hear or care. Now the Liberals, having given up trying to compete on a level  field, are threatening to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine and win not by playing fair but by taking the ball and going home. To read more about this potential threat, you can go to National Ledger - Preserve Talk Radio: The Threat of the So-called Fairness Doctrine. I guess the attacks on Conservatism are really going to come from all sides, just as we feared.

 Here is an insightful article by a research librarian at the Library of Congress which carefully analyzes the Muslim belief that they are justified in conquest while any resistance is heretical, and shows that  the Western attempt at conciliation is reinforcing this dogma and leading us down a path of destruction. For anybody who believes the terrorists are aberrant Islamicists who are distorting the Koran, this will be an eyeopener which puts into historical context the imperialistic  underpinnings of Islam. It is becoming clear that for Muslims, conquest and domination are as important as charity or prayer, and that the Liberal attempt to paint it a "peaceful" religion is an exercise in self delusion.

 Tony Blair is now trying, over resistance from his Labor Party, to get Parliament to extend the life of Britain's nuclear deterrent which is on the verge of becoming obsolete [see  article ]. There are a couple of ironies in this situation, one being that Blair, at one time, was staunchly  against his nation's nuclear arsenal , but  I guess his stint in office has awoken him to the reality of power politics. The other more important thing to realize here is that while the rogue nations of the planet are doing everything in their power to obtain nuclear forces [for no doubt humanitarian reasons], the Liberals in the West are  seeking to disarm themselves in a gesture of goodwill and enlightenment which I am sure will cause Kim Jong Il and Ahmadinejad to reconsider the error of their ways and turn them to peaceful pursuits  that will benefit mankind [yeah, right!].

We live in an amazing time when madmen threaten our existence, our Allies are unilaterally disarming, and our Liberal quislings are doing all in their power to emasculate us in the name of reason and human rights and leave us at the mercy of our enemies' discretion.  Even in 1938 the Allies maintained defensive military capabilities even if they refused to confront Hitler. At no time in history have nations chosen to leave themselves defenseless in the face of such an obvious threat. This is the Progress Liberals so proudly trumpet, but it may very well turn out to be national suicide.

I have seen recent posts which are shocked that some military experts are proposing that the War against IslamoFascism could last forty years. Actually, the West has been engaged in this battle for about 1400 years, so why anyone is incredulous about it continuing seems a little naive to me. Islam is the most dangerous enemy Western culture has ever fought, and we have never been less prepared to fight them.

Why do I consider them more dangerous than Nazism or Communism? The former was a radical ideology centered essentially on one person, Hitler, and its effective lifetime was about twelve years [1933-1945]. While a horrible philosophy which subjected the world to perhaps the worst six year period in history [1939-1945], it was easily eradicated because it was so new and hadn't really entrenched itself in human psychology. It was a terrible aberration which it took a world war to destroy, but it was destroyed, and even before its ultimate downfall the people under its sway were losing faith in it.

Communism lasted about seventy years [1917-1989] as a governing ideology, with the sole large power still clinging to it [China] actually trying to be a large Singapore, practicing an authoritarian capitalism. Soviet Communism probably would have met its demise much sooner if not for WWII, which gave it a level of legitimacy its economic policies never warranted through its leadership of the nation during a life and death struggle. Having lived through the Cold War, and its image of the mighty Soviet Empire, once it fell and we got to peek behind the curtain, we were surprised to see a morally, militarily and economically bankrupt system where alcoholism was rampant and the basics of life rare. This attempt to create Marx's secular religion had left its practitioners bereft of any spirituality or material rewards and deservedly was abandoned. Aside from its nuclear arsenal, it had never really been a threat, but we had to defeat it to find that out.

Which brings us to Islam, something all together different. Mohammed was the only founder of a religion who was also a military leader, and his secular empire went hand in hand with his spiritual dominion. Islam has never been a religion predicated on peace, unless you mean by that a peace imposed by subjugation. And over the 1400 years that is has waged war against those who refuse to bow to it, it has maintained its fervor and fanaticism because it has as its bedrock belief faith that God supports it. While the semi mystical Nazism and atheistic Communism attempted to create faith in its followers, Islam IS Faith, and , tied to its militancy, it motivates and comforts its believers like none of the other enemies of the West has ever been able to do. Muslims believe they are special, and that gives them a fearful strength.

Now they have been defeated in the past. The Mongols decimated them [the Mongols decimated everyone!], but they always seemed to bounce back. After WWI the secularization of Turkey after the breakup of the Ottoman Empire seemed to herald the "Reformation" of Islam, when its harsh tenets would be "softened" by the modern world's values. However, what happened was that after centuries the exhausted ideology went into hibernation for a while , awaiting its wakeup call, which came when the  radical Wahhabi strain made its appearance and gave birth to fundamentalist movements  which sought to recapture past glories.With the geopolitical realities of the world, the Arab population was ripe for a belief system which told them they were "special" and "chosen", and so as the West grew wealthy and satisfied, the people of the Middle East licked their wounds and sulked and plotted, comforted and motivated by the only kind of ideology capable of sustaining men in hard times, religious belief, coupled with their knowledge of the past worldly success of bygone empires.

And so today we face this enemy and threat yet again, but today we are a people without the comfort of our own faith, or the strength that brings. As  children of the Enlightenment, we cherish Reason, and treat religion as a quaint relic of a superstitious time. But reason does not provide that inner fortitude which comes from believing you are special, and that what you represent is worth fighting and dying for. Reason moderates your sense of self, and as listening to any Liberal will prove, results in relativism, and if you really see no true difference between yourself and your enemy, why die fighting him? So as we  face Islam [I am getting tired of saying IslamoFascism, which is just another attempt to avoid the truth] as have countless of our ancestors before us, we do so with better weapons and more wealth, but lacking the resolve  and determination that comes with faith. Because of that we should be very scared.

James Biga has written a series of posts on the Islamic threat which I think are excellent, and can be read at http://bigasrants.townhall.com/. His latest has a link to a website which is trying to organize action against the Muslim Enemy.

 The recent radio "hoax" during which the host suggested that Muslims in this country be "marked" in some way  has stirred up a hornet's nest because so many callers agreed [see article ]. The host expressed amazement and disgust that we could devolve so quickly to the behavior of Nazi Germans. I guess he was hoping his little prank would have generated a whole bunch of angry righteous callers who were going to prove the moral superiority of Americans.

Instead he got the gut  responses of a  frustrated, attacked, threatened people who are living with the knowledge that our enemy is amongst us, and that we seem to have little we can  do about it. Attempts at border enforcement are turned aside,  racial and other forms of profiling are disparaged as "discriminatory" and  when suspicious behavior results in action being taken, as it was recently with the infamous Six Imans, the Liberal establishment decries the end of the American way of life.  While all those Democrats in Congress pay lip service to enforcing security , they still demand "due process" and "probable cause" before allowing steps to be taken, ignoring that the guilt implied by these terms would mean thousands, maybe millions, have been killed. Is it any wonder the American people want to do anything, even if it is only making Muslims wear armbands?

In honesty, when I first heard about this, I too felt a little shocked [I guess a lifetime of being inundated with Liberal dogmas has had its effects], but in thinking about it, I realized that this response is the easy way out, like most Liberal judgements are.  There is much to consider  here.

Firstly, Muslims chose their ideology, and go out of their way in dress and appearance to separate themselves from the infidel, so having them wear an armband, for instance, seems trivial [would we even see it under the burkha?].  By the same token, I suspect the real evil guys wouldn't announce themselves as Muslim, so really what good would "marking " them do, other than make the rest of ourselves feel a little better, but that is something, isn't it?

But let us really get into the tough stuff here, and that is the suggestion of callers that internment camps be used to isolate Muslims. Again, this is something that conjures up WWII.  The question is, is this justified, and would it accomplish anything?

For all those who immediately decry this idea, and point an accusatory finger at the government for what happened to the Japanese in this country in the 1940's, my response is: how many sabotage and terrorists attacks did we thwart by using internment camps? I suspect the answer is more than we will ever know. Were innocent people held there? Without a doubt, but in war a presumption of innocence is suicide, and you have to assume your enemy wants to hurt you. Sometimes the net you cast takes in non belligerents, but that is called erring on the side of safety. Again, if you wait for proof of guilt, someone has already died.

Coming back to today, even if most American Muslims are good people, they provide protective coloration and indirect support for the terrorists , who can just blend in to the local Islamic community until the day they emerge to attack us.  If segregating and isolating Muslims protects us from a nuclear attack, are you willing to do that? When I look into my soul, the answer comes back "yes".

So what is the difference between us and Nazi Germany, if any? First, the Jewish population of that country was targeted strictly on racial grounds. They were not terrorists, they did not threaten attacks, and in many cases they sought to assimilate, and the only way to identify them as Jewish was to do a family tree. They were people who considered themselves German, who valued that nation, and who longed to be accepted as such. When they were used as scapegoats by the Nazis, the anger released was the historical AntiSemitism of Europe, and the solution was not internment , but death camps.

Muslims choose Islam, they seek to convert or kill the infidel, and proudly advertise their separateness. They are the principle, if not sole, reason for terrorist attacks in the world today, and they continue to pursue their jihad against the rest of the world with pride  and fanatical vehemence. The "warriors" are supported by the "good" Muslims, and the "innocents" cheer when an American or Italian or Israeli is killed is a restaurant or church or wedding.  They envy us and hate us, and seek to subjugate or destroy us and our children.

Compared to all that, is making them wear an armband or tattoo, or even segregating them in camps, all that horrible to consider? Not really, regardless of how knee jerk Liberalism will try to cower us into shame with facile and inaccurate comparisons to other times and other peoples. An action is justified by its causes,  and reflexively deriding something because it has been used injudiciously or wrongly in the past is not only foolish, it can be dangerous if it restricts actions to improve our safety.  We are engaged with an enemy who is ruthless and respects only power, and we must consider all options rationally before accepting or rejecting them, not be cowered by Liberal reproach. The terrorists must be laughing as they watch as we paralyze ourselves because of concern about offending them. They have a much simpler strategy; they just want to kill us.