Flying Iranians?

As the world knows, Iranians cannot operate aircraft without crashing. To overcome their airborne incompetence, the lunatic Ahmadenijad now claims the idiot nation of Iran has a unmanned drone aircraft it can use to attack other nations.

Inasmuch as the Iranians cannot build a car, there's no chance they've actually built a drone aircraft. But the leading Iranian screwball has probably got a lot of hapless Iranians believing this toy really exists.

Iran unveils 'ambassador of death' bomber
But unmanned aircraft has 'message of peace,' President Ahmadinejad

TEHRAN, Iran — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Sunday inaugurated the country's first domestically built long-range unmanned bomber aircraft, calling it an "ambassador of death" to Iran's enemies.

Speaking to a group of officials, Ahmadinejad said, "The jet, as well as being an ambassador of death for the enemies of humanity, has a main message of peace and friendship."

The goal of the aircraft is to "keep the enemy paralyzed in its bases," he said, adding that the jet is for deterrence and defensive purposes.

The president championed the country's military self-sufficiency program and said it will continue "until the enemies of humanity lose hope of ever attacking the Iranian nation."

The 4-meter-long unmanned plane, dubbed the Karrar, or striker, in Farsi, was inaugurated on the national day for the country's defense industry in a ceremony aired live on state TV.

No details were provided on the craft's capabilities.

In a speech at the unveiling ceremony, Ahmadinejad said Iran should seek the ability to make pre-emptive strikes against a perceived threat, although he said it would never strike first.

I'm Shocked, Shocked a Muslim tried to bomb Times Square

It's a good thing muslims are generally incompetent. The muslims who want to kill non-muslims seem to have spent most of their time developing their hostilities rather than their bomb-making skills. As a result, we feel a small amount of relief.

U.S. citizen from Pakistan arrested in Times Square bomb case

Washington Post
Tuesday, May 4, 2010; 6:17 AM

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced early Tuesday that an arrest had been made in the failed Times Square car bombing, saying that Faisal Shahzad, a 30-year-old American, was taken into custody at John F. Kennedy International Airport as he tried to fly to Dubai on Monday night.

Authorities said Shahzad, who is of Pakistani origin and lived in Connecticut, had paid cash for a Nissan Pathfinder that was found packed with explosives Saturday night on a tourist-crowded block in midtown Manhattan. The vehicle was set ablaze but failed to detonate.

Officials located Shahzad after a sweeping two-day investigation that yielded what senior Obama administration officials described as a flood of international and domestic clues suggesting a plot involving more than one person.

"It was clear that the intent behind this terrorist act was to kill Americans," Holder said at a rare middle-of-the-night news conference at the Justice Department, nearly three hours after the suspect was pulled from an international flight that had already left the departure gate.

Administration officials said President Obama had been repeatedly briefed on the incident -- which authorities said could have led to significant casualties if the explosives had detonated properly -- since it began unfolding Saturday night. It bore some resemblance to the attempted bombing of an airliner in Detroit last Christmas Day, with citizen watchdogs earning much of the credit for averting the crisis and the White House scrambling to discover clues about a young male suspect with apparent ties that stretched beyond the United States.

Still, within 48 hours, agents from Customs and Border Protection arrested Shahzad and took him into custody. It was not immediately clear what the charges were or where he was being held -- or whether other arrests were imminent. The U.S. attorney's office in New York said Shahzad will appear in Manhattan federal court Tuesday to be formally charged.

Authorities became aware of Shahzad's identity Monday afternoon, and he was arrested at about 11:45 p.m. Monday. Shahzad's flight to Dubai had left the gate and was headed toward the runway when authorities discovered that he was on board and wanted. He was removed from the plane and taken into custody, an official said.

Officials were reluctant to discuss Shahzad's potential ties to foreign extremists, except to say that they believed he was fleeing the country at the time of his arrest.

Shahzad recently returned from a five-month trip to Pakistan, a government official said.

The centerpiece of the investigation was evidence gathered about the sale of the car. "That was the key factor to our getting the guy so quick," a U.S. law enforcement official said. Shahzad allegedly bought the car for $1,300 about a week ago, responding to an Internet listing, the official said.

A listing on www.nothingbutcars.net that appears to match the car sold from Bridgeport, Conn., offers a "Grey 1993 Nissan Pathfinder (automatic) (sold as is) with 141,000 miles CLEAN inside and out!!"

"It does have some rust as you can see in the picture," the owner said in the listing.

An FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force had taken over the investigation Monday amid growing indications of a possible international connection, U.S. officials and law enforcement sources said.

Investigators and agents also were scouring international phone records showing calls "between some of the people who might be associated with this and folks overseas," according to a U.S. official who has discussed the case with intelligence officers. Investigators uncovered evidence -- a piece of paper, fingerprints or possibly both -- that also indicates international ties, according to a federal official briefed on the investigation. Before Shahzad's arrest, the official said the material points to "an individual who causes concern to [investigators], who has overseas connections, and they are looking for him."

An overseas angle does not necessarily mean that the incident was planned or financed by al-Qaeda or another organized group, investigators said. "Think smaller," said one senior law enforcement official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

Even as investigators emphasized that the probe was in its early stages and little was definitively known, they were pursuing what Obama administration officials characterized as a flood of new leads, both foreign and domestic. The Pathfinder's registered owner, for example, told investigators that he sold it several weeks ago to a stranger, in a cash transaction through Craigslist.

On Monday, a day of fast-moving developments from Manhattan to Washington, Holder said in the morning that it was too early to designate the failed bombing as an attempted terrorist incident. By afternoon, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs was calling it just that.

"I would say that was intended to terrorize, and I would say that whomever did that would be categorized as a terrorist," Gibbs said, sharpening the administration's tone. Holder's statement early Tuesday called the incident a "terrorist act."

Differences also emerged over the significance of a surveillance video that caught a man in his 40s changing his shirt in an alley and looking over his shoulder near where the Pathfinder was parked. New York City police officials had characterized the man as acting suspiciously, but multiple federal law enforcement officials said he may not be the focus of the investigation.

"It looks like he was just taking off his shirt because he was hot," said one law enforcement official. Investigators were seeking to find another person captured on video running north on Broadway away from the area where the smoking sport-utility vehicle caused an evacuation of Times Square on a crowded weekend night.

Police said the bomb would have created a fireball that likely would have killed or wounded many people, making it the most serious bombing attempt in the United States since the Christmas Day attack aboard a commercial flight bound for Detroit.

The growing evidence of terrorist connections in the Times Square case prompted the New York-based terrorism task force to take the lead in the investigation, which had been overseen by the New York Police Department, a senior U.S. law enforcement official said. That indicates that the failed bombing is being investigated as a terrorist incident with international connections, the official said.

FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko of the New York field office said in a statement Monday night that the "FBI JTTF [Joint Terrorism Task Force] and NYPD are working this case jointly and have been since the beginning." The New York police force, known for its expertise in terrorism matters, is represented on the task force and will remain heavily involved in the probe, officials said.

In the rear of the SUV, police found a makeshift bomb made up of three tanks of propane similar to those used in backyard barbecues; two jugs of gasoline; dozens of M-88 firecrackers, which are legal for purchase in some states; and a metal gun case holding 100 pounds of fertilizer that police said was incapable of exploding.

Some officials cautioned that the international focus did not mean that other possibilities, such as domestic terrorism or an individual acting alone, were being ruled out. Neither did it mean, they said, that international ties automatically constituted a well-formed plot.

One federal law enforcement official, for example, said international communications don't necessarily "get you to an international plot, a multi-organizational plot."

"We're just not there," the official said.

The nature of the possible international connection also remained murky.

The Pakistani Taliban had asserted responsibility for the attempted bombing in a video posted on YouTube, but New York police and federal investigators have said no evidence had surfaced linking the group to the bomb.

On Sunday night, a second video was posted by apparent representatives of the Taliban, showing the group's commander, Hakimullah Mehsud, promising to launch attacks in the United States.

Mehsud, who U.S. and Pakistani authorities initially believed was killed in a January drone strike, was recorded saying, "The time is very near when our fedayeen will attack the American states in their major cities . . . in some days or a month's time."

The video is marked with the logo of the Pakistani Taliban's official media wing, Umar Studios, and appears to be credible, according to Evan F. Kohlmann, a terrorism consultant at Flashpoint Partners.

Bring on the anti-islamic Hooligans

How do you stop muslim terrorists from disrupting the World Cup? Send in the soccer hooligans and set them loose.

Meanwhile, early warnings about terrorist attacks, especially early warnings from the terrorist group itself, are odd. If the US had had a similar warning about the events scheduled for 9/11, our security forces would have stopped the terrorists. By appearing to telegraph their plans, al-Qaeda shows it has learned a valuable lesson: It's possible to create massive turmoil among non-muslims simply by issuing threats through the media. The islamic terrorists have learned they can scramble entire cities with a few brief words about terror attacks that most likely are nothing but talk.

Seems like a Red Herring Alert to me. As a result of al-Qaeda's Public Service Announcement, security agents in South Africa, itself a relatively lawless place, will work fulltime from now till the World Cup competition is over. In other words, if planning for actual attacks is underway, then those attacks will occur in countries other than South Africa. If one were tossing out a guess about the site of the actual attacks the US -- NY City -- should probably appear on the list. Maybe London.

A good bet is any sub-Sahara African nation with a muslim population that is growing in number and power. Perhaps Nigeria, which, due to Nigeria's importance to global oil supplies, offers terrorists a bonus tied to oil prices.

AL-QAEDA have vowed to bomb the World Cup - with England players top of their hitlist.

The terror group pledged to target the match between England and the USA in South Africa in June, warning "hundreds" of fans could die.

A branch of al-Qaeda which last year killed British hostage Edwin Dyer, 61, in Mali made the threats.

Security ... England ace Lampard

They also vowed to target resorts, hotels and car parks used by supporters during the tournament. And they claimed explosive devices which cannot be detected by security scans would be used.

The threats appear on al-Qaeda-linked websites. A statement said: "How beautiful would the game between England and the USA be when broadcast live from a stadium full of spectators - when the sound of an explosion rumbles through the stands. The resulting death toll is in the dozens and hundreds - Allah willing."

Security around England stars such as Frank Lampard is likely to be stepped up as they play in Cape Town and other cities.

The threats from al-Qaeda's North African network were last night being taken seriously by terror experts.

Neil Doyle said: "They have a track record for violence."

Mu-slime Logic

If the leader of a muslim nation believes, or says he believes, the US version of the 9/11 terrorist attack is fiction, then he is either dangerously ignorant or dangerously deceitful.

In this case, it more likely that Ahmadinejad is dangerously deceitful -- from our perspective. In muslim culture, the concept of lying is very different from the Western concept. From the Islamic perspective, a story that is factually false may be accepted as truth if it offers thoughts that are presented to form a greater truth. An excellent example is the Koran, which, like the Old Testament and the New Testament of the Bible, is fiction. But it is received by almost every muslim on the planet as a collection of incontestable facts.

Iran's Ahmadinejad: Sept. 11 attacks a 'big lie'

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer Ali Akbar Dareini – Sat Mar 6, 2010

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Saturday called the official version of the Sept. 11 attacks a "big lie" used by the U.S. as an excuse for the war on terror, state media reported.

Ahmadinejad's comments, made during an address to Intelligence Ministry staff, come amid escalating tensions between the West and Tehran over its disputed nuclear program. They show that Iran has no intention of toning itself down even with tighter sanctions looming because of its refusal to halt uranium enrichment.

"September 11 was a big lie and a pretext for the war on terror and a prelude to invading Afghanistan," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by state TV. He called the attacks a "complicated intelligence scenario and act."

The Iranian president has questioned the official U.S. version of the Sept. 11 attacks before, but this is the first time he ventured to label it a "big lie."

In 2007, New York officials rejected Ahmadinejad's request to visit the World Trade Center site while he was in the city for a U.N. meeting. The president also sparked an uproar when he said during a lecture in New York that the causes and conditions that led to the attacks, as well as who orchestrated them, still need to be examined.

At the time, he also told Iranian state TV the attacks were "a result of mismanaging and inhumane managing of the world by the U.S," and that Washington was using Sept. 11 as an excuse to attack others.

He has also questioned the Sept. 11 death toll of around 3,000, claiming the Americans never published the victims' names.

Every year on the anniversary of the attacks, the names of 2,750 victims killed in New York are read aloud at a memorial ceremony.

Global Warming? How About Islamic Warning!

Dismissing existential threats to Western Civilization: It's the only thing many of today's Europeans do better than Jew-hatred

Geert Wilders is today's Winston Churchill in a world full of Neville Chamberlains and Grima Wormtongues, clueless cowards and treasonous snakes typified by people like Rory Graycrow Underclass, who asks in response to the heroic Wilders' warnings to the West regarding its Islamic Enemy Within:

In 1400 years Islam has failed to take over Europe. Why is he so afraid it will happen now?

Such a question betrays a suicidal ignorance of nearly one and one-half millennia of jihad in Europe.

After Muhammad's death, his armies exploded out of Arabia and into the Holy Land, North Africa, Persia, Greater India, etc., nation after nation throughout Africa and Asia falling to Allah's butchers. Formerly Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Zoroastrian, animist, and other non-Muslim societies were obliterated, consumed, mutilated, and subsumed by the Religion of Insatiable Bloodlust.

Neither was Europe spared. The fact is, Islamic tyranny in Europe goes back to its beginnings. In the west, Spain fought for eight hundred years to regain its freedom from its Islamic overlords, succeeding finally in 1492. If not for Charles Martel ("The Hammer"), who stopped Islam's advance into France and the heart of Europe at the Battle of Tours/Poitiers in 732, western Europe would have fallen to Allah. (And that would have meant no Michelangelo, no Beethoven, no Isaac Newton, no Albert Einstein, no Christopher Columbus, no George Washington, no Magna Carta, no Mayflower Compact, no Declaration of Independence, no Bill of Rights.)

The coastal areas of the British Isles and the Mediterranean also suffered jihad's depredations, both directly and by proxy. Part of the Vikings' notorious malevolence was due to their contribution to the Islamic slave trade. Italy, Sicily, Greece, and other coastal European regions suffered at the hands of Muslims themselves.

Eastern Europe fared no better than the rest. Turkey is the epitome of why Geert Wilders is concerned about Islam. Before it was forcibly secularized by Kemal Ataturk, Turkey was the Ottoman Empire; before that it was part of Byzantium, the great Christian empire. After centuries of jihad, the Byzantine Empire was overthrown finally in 1453 when its great city Constantinople -- the "Rome of the East" -- and its magnificent church Hagia Sofia -- the jewel of Christendom -- fell to jihad.

And that doesn't include centuries of jihad in the Balkans. Christian boys were kidnapped by Muhammad's monsters, forcibly converted, twisted into devils, and sent back to enslave and slaughter their own people. Forget neither the Siege of Vienna in 1683, where Jan Sobieski repelled the last flagrant attempt by the ummah to conquer Europe.

What does any of that have to do with today? Only this: Islam has not changed, its adherents are rediscovering what their god and prophet require of them, and rather than champions like Charles Martel and Jan Sobieski crushing jihad and halting the Islamization of their homelands, people like Rory Graycrow Underclass import the Religion of Pedophilia, Female Genital Mutilation, and Wife-beating. They implement shari'a courts. They obfuscate for, and punish criticism of, the barbaric ideology.

Why is Geert Wilders "so afraid it will happen now"?

Because it is happening now.

Muslim Schizophrenia

What drives muslims to self-destruct? The nitwits of the Gaza Strip were given full control of the land. What did they do? They put Hamas in charge and destroyed a lot of real estate. These muslims are so objectionable that Egypt wants to keep them out.

As unwanted people, where do they go? They try to sneak into Israel, the nation they hate. Is it possible for muslim self-loathing to reach a higher point? Apparently it is. Like other aspects of humanity, some things are limitless.


Israel to Build Barrier Along Egyptian Border, Government Says

Jan. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Israel will build a barrier along the entire length of its southern border with Egypt, the Prime Minister’s Office said today in a statement posted on its Web site.

The barrier is meant to keep out “intruders and terrorists,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in the statement, including “illegal workers who try to enter Israel by way of its southern border.”

The barrier will cost at least a billion shekels and take several years to construct, the statement said.

Y2K + X

Heckuva decade. It began with a nervous expectation of a worldwide computer collapse. Y2K -- The Fall of the Machines. But, despite a buildup of angst in the last years of the 1990s, the appearance of thousands of articles, hundreds of books and the media appearances of pundits from every field who predicted catastrophe -- Nothing Happened.

We had been advised to store food and water. To buy generators for electricity. To prepare to defend ourselves against roving bands of desperate people searching for supplies. To buy gold. To sell our homes. To take our money out of banks that would erase the records of our deposits after the computers failed. We were warned to hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

The clocked ticked. New Year's Day 2000 began. It began like virtually every other day that had preceded it for 10,000 years. The Sun came up and the people of the world went about their daily business without a worry in the world. Planes flew, traffic lights changed, ships sailed, elevators went up and down, and computers computed. It was just another day on Planet Earth.

However, unknown to a nation focused on the preposterous non-event of Y2K, trouble was on the way. The DotCom Bubble was inflating to epic proportions. Housing prices were climbing and lending standards were dropping.

The presidential election of 2000 was probably the most controversial election of the preceding century. By the time Gore conceded and Bush was named the winner, the country had divided itself over the outcome, proving that most Americans were intensely and deeply concerned with the election of their president. Claims that Americans were apathetic about politics did not square with the reality of the 2000 election. It was the new Civil War. Brother against brother, family against family.

Then we were hit with a true tragedy, and the madness of Islam was magnified by the madness of some people pointing the fingers of blame.

Shortly after 9/11 the nation was dealing with the appeance of conspiracy theories. The White House Let It Happen. The White House Made It Happen. Vocal nitwits claiming Bush and Cheney and their associates were responsible for 9/11 got attention. Lots of it. The 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists said the attack was perpetrated by Bush and Cheney because they were able to profit from it. They were said to have made money from the collapse of the World Trade Center and from the impact of the attack on world oil prices.

Every event, every transaction following 9/11 was said to have been a source of personal profit for Bush and Cheney and their army of traitors.

To the Conspiracy Theorists, it was irrelevant that Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda had claimed responsibility for the 9/11 attack. It was irrelevant that all 19 hijackers who commandeered the four planes that were converted into weapons of mass destruction were identified. The information was said to be false. Planted by the nefarious agents operating on behalf of Bush and Cheney.

US troops went hunting for offending members of al-Qaeda, They went to Afghanistan where many of the top 50 al-Qaeda leaders were killed. Then our troops went to Iraq to remove a dictator and plant Democracy in the middle of the middle east. Why? To change the culture of the region. Shake it free of its devotion to backwardness and turn it into a forward-looking place where peace are prosperity were given a chance.

Our forces went in and the military and government of Saddam Hussein was smashed in a few weeks during 2003. Since then it has been tought, but the new Iraq is getting closer to the ideal of a muslim democracy. Bush stands a chance of becoming the president who started the process of turning around the middle east.

But domestic problems surfaced. As a result of federal laws relaxing credit standards, real estate prices and home buying went into overdrive. It became possible for almost anyone to buy $500,000 with no money down, no job and no proof of assets. What a country! Who would dare predict that issuing lottery tickets in the form of houses would nearly bankrupt the country?

All a buyer had to do was promise to maintain his loan payments and he could move into the house of his dreams, just like a hermit crab. But for those who made no downpayment, had no skin in the game, what might happen if that owner chose to stop sending in his monthly payments to the bank? The answer -- NOTHING. Okay. Maybe he would lose his house and find himself evicted. But so what?

The owner who made a string of monthly payments was merely paying rent -- with an option to profit if the price of his house were to rise.

When housing prices began to drop, buyers began to get the feeling they had overpaid for their dream homes. If prices were falling, they reasoned, why continue to pay the mortgage? After all, what good is a house worth less than the mortgage behind it? Underwater is no place to be when you own a home.

Despite knowing that high water is a threat, most people in New Orleans decided to stay home when Hurricane Katrina hit. Little did we know how the image of the Lower Ninth Ward -- partially submerged -- was foreshadowing the mortgage crisis threatening the most populated states in the country. When the Credit Crisis hit, suddenly homeowners in the desert of Nevada were financially underwater, with debt far greater than the market value of their houses.

General Motors became Government Motors. When car-buyers spending home-equity money stopped shopping for cars Detroit became the Automakers Graveyard. Taxpayers were tapped to replace car-buyers. Taxpayers were handed the bills for the pensions and medical coverage of GM employees and GM retirees.

But the most striking development of the decade occurred in 2008. After eight years of an administration that aimed to wipe out muslim terrorism -- a huge job -- the nation acknowledged it was weary of this strategy.

Instead, voters chose a former muslim to lead the country, believing the promises of the former muslim who said he knew how to talk to the muslims of the middle east and he assured us they would respect his leadership and the goals he represented. He promised to appease muslim terrorists, and he has been true to his word.

As someone asked, "would anyone in 1999 have believed that by the end of 2009 no one running Iraq would have the name of Hussein, but the man in the White House would"?

Unfortunately for us, the former muslim in the White House is showing the usual signs of muslim incompetence. Someone might believe he has accomplished something with Healthcare Legislation. However, it is already painfully obvious that healthcare legislation will create big cost increases in our national healthcare. Big cost increases. No cost savings, and NO improvement in health.

Moreover, when it comes to managing Homeland Security, the administration of the former muslim has proven it is inept. When Homeland Security cannot respond to a 911 call from the father of a terrorist who has a bomb in his pants and is ready to board a plane heading for the US, the department is guilty of depraved incompetence.

Fortunately, given the low base from which the former muslim's administration has started, there is lots of room for improvement. On the other hand, the administration and the country are also positioned for another devastating drop. Which way will things go? No one knows. But based on the accuracy of predictions ahead of Y2K, it is hard to imagine anyone in the government getting it right.

Muhammad Cartoons -- Mockery That Keeps on Mocking

In another display of madness, a muslim tries to attack one of the cartoonists who created the Muhammad Cartoons that provoked street violence and death in 2005. Clearly this attempted attack by a muslim shows his utter contempt for free speech as well as demonstrating his desire for an Islamic government that imposes sharia law on everyone. However, general muslim incompetence undermined his plan.

Al-Qaeda-Linked Man Shot by Police in Home of Danish Cartoonist

Jan. 2 -- A Somali man with ties to al-Qaeda was shot as he broke into the home of Kurt Westergaard, the Danish cartoonist who depicted Islam’s prophet Mohammed, in a “terror-related” act, the Danish Security and Intelligence Service said.

Police shot the 28-year-old and wounded him in the knee and hand as he entered the cartoonist’s Aarhus home armed with a knife and a hatchet yesterday, the service said in a statement on its Web site. He was then arrested and charged with attempted murder, the statement said.

Westergaard, 74, drew one of 12 cartoons of the prophet Mohammed published in 2005 in the Danish newspaper Jyllands- Posten. His drawing depicted the prophet with a bomb in his turban. The cartoons sparked riots in several Muslim countries that ended with the deaths of more than 50 people.

Danish authorities did not release the name of the Somali, who they said had a residence permit in Denmark. The security service said he had close ties with the Somali terrorist organization al-Shabaab and with al-Qaeda leaders in East Africa.

“This confirms once again the terrorist threat directed against Denmark and against cartoonist Kurt Westergaard in particular,” said Jakob Scharf, the security service chief. “The security measures introduced to protect Kurt Westergaard have proven effective.”

Jyllands-Posten cited Westergaard as saying that he sought shelter in a bathroom modified into a safe room.

In 2008, three other men were arrested for plotting to kill Westergaard.

Muhammad -- Mad Bomber

Muhammad is the clown who has inspired suicide bombers for the last 30 years. That is an amazing feat for a 7th-century schizophrenic.

Muhammad: The 'Banned' Images

Gary Hull - Dec 9, 2009

For many decades now, Western intellectuals and politicians have cowed to threats of violence from Islamic radicals. Today we must all take a stand for freedom of speech and reasoned discourse.

The following is an excerpt from the introduction to Gary Hull's new book Muhammad: The “Banned” Images. Learn more about the book at www.MuhammadImages.com.

In August 2009, a New York Times headline announced: “Yale Press Bans Images of Muhammad In New Book.” The book referred to in this headline, The Cartoons that Shook the World by Brandeis professor Jytte Klausen, discusses the events around the cartoons of Muhammad that were published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in 2005. After their publication, sundry Muslim hordes “expressed” their displeasure by rioting, looting, firebombing.

Yale University Press, claiming it did not want to stoke more violence abroad, removed the cartoons, along with other images of Muhammad, that are the very subject of Klausen’s book. Its press renounced the very principles it depends on for its survival — the First Amendment and reasoned discourse — to placate the riotous behavior of nihilists.

The West has a decades-long track record of appeasing and emboldening terrorists. It started in the 1950s when the U.S. allowed Iran to confiscate Western oil.

In 1979, President Carter redoubled the appeasement by capitulating when the Islamic regime in Iran kidnapped U.S. diplomats and called for jihad against the U.S. The West submitted again in 1989 when Khomeini issued a fatwa that declared “blasphemous” Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses.

Islamists terrorized many Western bookstores into not carrying the book. President Bush, Sr. did nothing. And here are the consequences.

In the spring 1989, some Collets and Dillons bookstores that carried the novel were bombed. Bombs were discovered at numerous other bookstores. Two bookstores in Berkeley, California were firebombed. In July 1991, the Japanese translator of the novel was stabbed to death at his university in Tokyo. In 1993, the novel’s publisher in Norway, William Nygaard, was shot. In July that year, 37 Alevi intellectuals were burned to death in a hotel that was hosting a conference being attended by another translator of Rushdie’s novel.

In November 2004, Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered while riding his bicycle to work. He was considered a blasphemer because his movie Submission portrayed Muslim women being brutalized by Islamists.

Inaction by Western leaders encouraged the Islamists’ assault on free speech and reasoned discourse. Public endorsement gave them a moral sanction.

Shortly after the publication of the Danish cartoons in 2005, a spokesman for the State Department said that “Inciting religious or ethnic hatreds in this manner is not acceptable.” While in Qatar, Bill Clinton described the cartoons as “these totally outrageous cartoons against Islam.” British Foreign secretary Jack Straw outdid Neville Chamberlain: “I believe that the republication of these cartoons has been unnecessary. It has been insensitive. It has been disrespectful and it has been wrong.”

Rather than being denounced for acting like barbarians, the marauders were told that they have a moral right to feel aggrieved. And aggrieved they acted. The Danish journalists and cartoonists were terrorized. Numerous embassies in Syria were attacked and set on fire. There were violent demonstrations in Denmark. Churches were torched, and hundreds around the world were killed in riots.

The destruction of life and property, the violence to reasoned discourse and civilized behavior are the result of a long chain of events, and could have been avoided if both the Iranian hostage-taking and the Khomeini fatwa had been treated by the West as the declarations of war that in fact they were.

Iran, the world’s greatest state-sponsor of terrorism, should have been dealt with accordingly. As should have been the September 11 attacks, in which almost 3,000 Americans were murdered.

Instead, the West has engaged in eight years of mealy-mouthed policy statements (with the most outrageous being Bush’s statement that Islam is “a religion of peace”), tiptoeing around theocrats, pleading with the U.N., misdirected and anemic military responses (with the biggest joke being a protracted “war” in Afghanistan). Meanwhile, the orchestrators of world-wide terrorism in Iran remain untouched, growing more belligerent and powerful.

Tragically, the Obama presidency is even more appeasing than were previous administrations. The President saw fit to comment on an insignificant conflict between a policeman and a university professor at Harvard, but remained silent when Yale mauled the First Amendment.

A president who understands his responsibilities to the Constitution should use his moral authority to encourage Yale to publish the book in its entirety. Rather than using his power to berate American businessmen, he should denounce the pillagers of our freedoms.

He should state publicly that Yale — its employees, property, faculty, and students — will be protected fully by every security agency under his authority. And that if a foreign leader so much as mentions the words “fatwa” and “Yale” in the same sentence, that country will have three days to surrender unconditionally — or face, not the umpteenth U.N. resolution, but the righteous and unrestrained use of America’s armed forces.

George Washington warned that “If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”

Ours is becoming a self-inflicted dumbness and silence — not “taken away,” but rather given away by those who are ashamed of everything that free speech stands for.

Muslim Cuts Off Wife's Head -- in the US

There's probably a little more to the story than the financial problems of the husband. Maybe the wife was having an affair. She seems to be very good looking and he looks as though he's been eating far too many of the sweets that are account for much of the muslim diet. His butchery reveals the worst of his temperament. A murderous mean streak. A documented history of domestic violence, say the cops.

But he cut off her head. He cut off her head. Is it possible to account for his crime as the act of a psychopath? Or did he act in a way that is consistent with his religious and cultural upbringing? Chopping off heads and limbs is part of the Islamic penal code. It seems he imported the spirit of Koranic law and carried out the sentence after convicting her of a crime -- in his mind.

He's from a culture that punishes people with traumatic amputations. It appears he believes his religious law trumps America's civil and criminal law. This is a problem.

BEHEAD NIGHTMARE -- $$ WOE SPURRED SLAY: COPS



'HAPPY' COUPLE: Muzzammil Hassan, beset by financial woe, allegedly decapitated estranged wife Aasiya.

An upstate TV exec who set up a channel promoting Muslims as peace-loving people was stressed about his failing business in the days before he allegedly chopped off his estranged wife's head, a friend of the couple said yesterday.

An order of protection barring Muzzammil Hassan, 44, from the couple's upstate home had been taken out by his wife, Aasiya, 37, less than a week before she died.

The couple was in the process of divorcing after bouts of domestic violence, her lawyer told the Buffalo News.

Hassan, who founded Bridges TV in 2004 to counter anti-Islam stereotypes following 9/11, turned himself in to cops Thursday in the Buffalo suburb of Orchard Park. Police later found his beheaded wife in the TV studios.

He was charged with murder.

"He was worried about the station's future," said Dr. Khalid Qazi, a friend of the couple and president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council of Western New York, who last spoke to the Hassans a week ago.

"He was stressed, but this has left me absolutely shocked. I still cannot believe it."

Police have still not found the weapon used in the killing, an officer said yesterday.

Bridges TV was set up with $10 million in backing from more than 50 investors. Two years ago, Hassan told Arab News magazine he needed another $5 million and was reaching out to supporters in Saudi Arabia.

Hassan, a father of four who moved to the United States from Pakistan 25 years ago, worked as a banker in Buffalo before quitting to start up the station.

The family home was empty yesterday. A police note stuck to the door five hours before Aasiya's body was found asked her to contact cops.

Nobody at the Orchard Park Police Department yesterday could explain why officers wanted to speak to her.

Qazi said the killings went against the teachings of Islam and damaged the image of Muslims that Hassan worked to promote.

"Domestic violence is despicable, and Islam condones it in no way whatever," he said.

Murders are being committed in the US every day by people of all faiths."

More Muslim Madness

Defending freedom's defenders

Last week, the Israel Defense Forces issued an unprecedented directive. All Israeli media outlets must obscure the faces of soldiers and commanders who fought in Operation Cast Lead. Henceforth, the identities of all IDF soldiers and officers who participated in the operation against the Hamas terror regime in Gaza are classified information.

The IDF acted as it did in an effort to protect Israeli soldiers and officers from possible prosecutions for alleged war crimes in Europe. The army's chief concern is England. In England, private citizens are allowed to file complaints against foreigners whom they claim committed war crimes. Based on these complaints, British courts can issue arrest warrants against such foreigners if they are found on British territory and force them to stand trial. Over the past few years, a number of active duty and retired IDF senior officers were forced to cancel visits to Britain after such complaints were filed against them in sympathetic local courts.

Following the IDF's move, on Sunday the government announced that Israel will provide legal assistance to any IDF veteran prosecuted abroad for actions he performed during his service in Gaza. The legal assistance will include representation, investigation of the allegations made against veterans, attempts to have the charges against them dismissed and defense at trials.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who brought the decision before the full cabinet, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and their colleagues all asserted that by committing the state to defending its warriors, they were fulfilling their sacred duty to protect Israel's protectors.

Unfortunately, both the cabinet decision itself and our leaders' statements missed the point.

LAST WEDNESDAY, an appellate court in Amsterdam ruled that the Dutch lawmaker and leader of the anti-jihadist Dutch Freedom Party Geert Wilders must stand trial for the alleged "crime" of inciting hatred against Muslims with his short film "Fitna," released last year.

In "Fitna," Wilders juxtaposes verses from the Koran with Islamic terror attacks, mosque sermons inciting believers to murder non-Muslims, and proclamations by Islamic clerics that Muslims must kill all the Jews, conquer the world and subjugate non-believers.

The second half of the 15-minute film is devoted to Holland. It highlights the massive immigration of Muslims to the country over the past 15 years, and calls by Islamic leaders in Holland to kill homosexuals, subjugate women, stone adulteresses, and take over the country. "Fitna" ends with a call for Muslims to expunge Koranic verses commanding them to conduct jihad from their belief system, and with a call for Dutchmen to defend their country, their culture and their civilization from the rising current of Islam in Europe.

All the material presented in "Fitna" is accurate. And it is also explosive. But it is hard to see how it could be illegal. By presenting the material in the way that he does, Wilders is not demonizing Muslims, he is challenging - indeed he is practically begging - his countrymen to engage in a debate about whether or not his dim assessment of Islam is correct.

Wilders has been living under 24-hour police protection since a Dutch jihadist murdered filmmaker Theo Van Gogh in 2004. Van Gogh was murdered after he released his short film "Submission," which described the misogyny of the Islamic world and the systematic terrorization of women in Islamic societies. Since then numerous Muslim clerics have issued religious judgments, or fatwas, calling for Wilders to be murdered.

Last month Wilders visited Israel and was the keynote speaker at a counter-jihad conference at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem sponsored by MK Dr. Aryeh Eldad. Speaking to a standing-room only crowd, and under heavy guard, Wilders argued that Israel is a frontline state in the global jihad. The war against Israel, he claimed has nothing to do with territory, and everything to do with ideology. Israel, as the forward outpost of Western civilization in the Islamic world, stands in the way of Islamic expansion. Consequently, he claimed, when Israel defends itself by fighting its enemies, it is also protecting Europe and the rest of the free world.

As he put it, "Thanks to Israeli parents who see their children go off to join the army and lie awake at night, parents in Europe and America can sleep well and have pleasant dreams, unaware of the dangers looming."

Unfortunately, the Dutch court's decision to prosecute Wilders for calling attention to the threat of jihad in Europe demonstrates that the Europeans aren't particularly grateful to their defenders. Indeed, they despise them. Films like "Fitna," and Israel's use of its military to defend its citizens from Islamic supremacists, serve to remind them of the growing threat they desperately seek to ignore. Consequently, Europeans embrace every opportunity to blame any messenger.

THE RIPPLE effects of Wilders' indictment were immediately evident. In England, the British Muslim community mobilized to prevent his film from being screened in public. "Fitna" was scheduled to be shown at the House of Lords on January 29. But last Friday, with the threat of mass Muslim riots hanging thickly in the air, the House of Lords announced that it was cancelling the event.

British Lord Nazir Ahmed called the decision to prevent the thought-provoking, factually accurate film from being shown, "a victory for the Muslim community."

WILDERS' INDICTMENT is a textbook example of blaming the victim. Wilders has been forced to live a miserable life for the past four years. He has no home. Security forces move him from place to place every single day. Since Van Gogh's murder, Wilders' entire life has become one long attempt to dodge the bullet permanently pointed at his head by radicalized Muslims in Holland and throughout the world. These would-be killers wish to see him dead not to avenge any violence Wilders committed, but rather, they believe he must die for doing nothing more than talking about Islam and how he interprets its message and meaning.

Needless to say, the Dutch Muslims Wilders caught on tape in Fitna calling for an overthrow of the Dutch constitutional order and threatening homosexuals have not been arrested for inciting hatred. Likewise, Lord Ahmed, who blocked "Fitna's" screening in the British Parliament was made a British peer after supporting the late Ayatollah Khomeini's 1989 death sentence against British novelist Salman Rushdie.

AND THAT'S the thing of it. Increasingly, throughout Europe, those who point out the dangers of radical Islam are hounded - first by Muslims - and then by legal authorities. In contrast, those who seek to intimidate and physically silence them are embraced by the states of Europe as legitimate leaders of their Muslim communities.

This dismal state of affairs, where jihadists are supported and their victims are oppressed, is true not only of people like Wilders who actively fight radical Islam's encroachment on European freedom. It is also the case for people who are victimized solely on the basis of their ethnic identity.

At the same time Wilders and people like him are forced into hiding, Jews throughout Europe find themselves assaulted and under siege not because of anything they have done, but because they are Jews.

Incidents of anti-Semitic violence in Europe reached post-Holocaust record highs over the past month. Jewish children have been violently attacked in France, barred from schools in Denmark, and harassed in England, Sweden, Switzerland, Holland and Germany just for being Jews.

In Britain, Muslims have now taken to entering into Jewish-owned businesses and kosher restaurants to threaten the owners and patrons - just because they are Jewish. Synagogues have been firebombed and defaced. Calls have been issued in the US Muslim community on the Internet for Muslims in America to similarly intimidate Jews by entering into synagogues during prayer services and condemn worshippers for supporting Israel.

Jewish men have been brutalized by Muslim gangs in Britain and viciously stabbed in France, just because they are Jewish. In Sweden, pro-Israel demonstrators were attacked with stones by Muslims this week. Even in the US, anti-Semitic violence and intimidation has reached levels never seen before. And in almost all cases of anti-Semitic violence throughout what is commonly referred to as the free world, the perpetrators of the violence and intimidation are Muslims. They attack with the full backing of non-Muslim multiculturalists as well as neo-Nazis. The two groups, which are usually assumed to be at loggerheads, apparently have no problem converging on the issue of hating Jews.

And in almost all cases of anti-Semitic violence, the Islamic identity of the attackers has been de-emphasized or obscured by the media and by politicians, or used as justification for their crimes. In France, for instance, from the way government officials talk it, would be reasonable to assume that a dozen Muslim teenagers were provoked to viciously beat a ten-year-old Jewish girl by the IDF's operation against Hamas in Gaza.

HERE THEN, we arrive at the point that the cabinet missed on Sunday when it passed its decision to commit the government to providing legal assistance to any IDF veteran who runs afoul of European legal authorities during vacations in London and Brussels and Oslo and Stockholm. The point that was missed is that in the event that IDF veterans are charged with war crimes, even the best attorneys will be of little use. These veterans will not be defendants at legitimate trials. They will be the victims of politically motivated show-trials.

In an interview with Ha'aretz on Friday, Wilders claimed rightly that the Dutch court's decision to prosecute him was not a legal decision but a political one. And if he is convicted, his conviction won't be based on evidence. It will be based on the desire of the Dutch multiculturalists to make an example of him to appease the radical Muslims who seek his death, and intimidate any would-be disciples into keeping their mouths shut.

So too, if IDF veterans are indicted for war crimes, they won't be prosecuted based on facts. They will be persecuted to advance the prosecutors' and judges' goal of appeasing their homegrown radical Muslims who seek the destruction of Israel and who violently attack anyone perceived as supporting Israel.

Given this bleak reality, the steps that Israel must take to defend its citizens are not legal but diplomatic. Israel should announce travel advisories against all states that enable the conduct of show trials against its citizens. And it should threaten to cut off diplomatic ties with any country that seeks to persecute Israeli soldiers. Only by recognizing and pointing out what is really going on will Israel have any chance of protecting those who defend our freedom from Europeans who have decided to surrender to Islamic intimidation rather than protect their own liberty.

Is the Koran the original Mein Kampf?

The latest twist in the clash between Western values and the Muslim world took place yesterday in the Netherlands, where a court ordered the prosecution of lawmaker and provocateur Geert Wilders for inciting violence. The Dutch MP and leader of the Freedom Party, which opposes Muslim immigration into Holland, will stand trial soon for his harsh criticism of Islam.

Mr. Wilders made world news last year with the short film "Fitna." In the 15-minute video, he juxtaposes Koranic verses calling for jihad with clips of Islamic hate preachers and terror attacks. He has compared the Koran to Hitler's "Mein Kampf" and urged Muslims to tear out "hate-filled" verses from their scripture. This is a frontal assault on Islam -- but, as Mr. Wilders points out, he's targeting the religion, not its followers. "Fitna," in fact, sparked a refreshing debate between moderate Muslims and non-Muslims in the Netherlands, and beyond.

There are of course limits to free speech, such as calls for violence. But one doesn't need to agree with Mr. Wilders to acknowledge that he hasn't crossed that line. Some Muslims say they are outraged by his statements. But if freedom of speech means anything, it means the freedom of controversial speech. Consensus views need no protection.

This is exactly what Dutch prosecutors said in June when they rejected the complaints against Mr. Wilders. "That comments are hurtful and offensive for a large number of Muslims does not mean that they are punishable," the prosecutors said in a statement. "Freedom of expression fulfills an essential role in public debate in a democratic society. That means that offensive comments can be made in a political debate."

The court yesterday overruled this decision, arguing that the lawmaker should be prosecuted for "inciting hatred and discrimination" and also "for insulting Muslim worshippers because of comparisons between Islam and Nazism." This is no small victory for Islamic regimes seeking to export their censorship laws to wherever Muslims reside. But the successful integration of Muslims in Europe will require that immigrants adapt to Western norms, not vice versa. Limiting the Dutch debate of Islam to standards acceptable in, say, Saudi Arabia, will only shore up support for Mr. Wilders's argument that Muslim immigration is eroding traditional Dutch liberties.