Remember, the only thing unusual about the Norway attacks is the location. Islamic terrorism kills this many people in other places around the globe pretty much every single day.
JihadWatch is saying that the explosion might possibly be related to terror charges against Mullah Krekar, founder of the Kurdish Islamist group Ansar al-Islam.
This was an important victory, but the war against terror continues. Al Qaeda has a decentralized command structure, so cutting off the head won’t kill the beast.
The fact that it took us just under a decade to track Bin Laden down does not reflect well on the CIA. Human intelligence takes a while to develop, but ten years is ridiculous. We’re lucky he hadn’t died from natural causes already.
It proves, once again, that Pakistan is not our friend. I suspect, fairly strongly, that members of the Pakistani ISI (and possibly higher levels of Pakistan’s government) have been sheltering Bin Laden ever since we routed the Taliban.
Unlike Dwight, I do not believe that Bin Laden’s death ensures Obama’s reelection. It certainly doesn’t hurt, but it’s over a year and a half before the election in a horrible economy upon which stagflation is now taking a firm grip. If the Misery Index is at Jimmy Carter levels come November 2012, Osama’s capture will be a very distant memory indeed.
Why has the picture of Bin Laden’s corpse not been released? Nobody cares how gruesome it is, we want to see it to silence doubters and those who will rave about “Zionist plots” to claim he’s still alive.
Why on earth did we afford Osama bin laden a “proper” Islamic burial at sea? He’s Osama Bin Freaken Laden. We should have stuck it on a spike with a dead pig carcass and let it rot a few days. Those who would get upset at such treatment for the murderer of over 3,000 people aren’t the sort we can win over anyway.
Dwight and Ann Althouse (among many others) are reporting on the vandalizing of a photographic print of Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ in France. (I’m not going to go into a history of the piece itself, whose heyday of controversy was before most of today’s college seniors were born; I suspect my readers can Google as well as anyone.) The attackers have not been apprehended, but there has been much speculation that they were disgruntled Catholics, though the proof of that is entirely conjectural. Assuming this is true (and not, as Althouse suggests, an inside job), this is like a perfect storm of fail for the attackers:
Destroying other people’s property is wrong. Even if you disagree with them. Even if they’re asshats. (I have no idea if Serrano is an asshat or merely an attention whore.) These are the tactics of left-wingers and jihadists, not thinking members of western democracies.
Andres Serrano is known for Piss Christ, and…um, hold on…let me think…uh, prints of Piss Christ. The guy had his 15 minutes of fame and slipped back into well-deserved obscurity, until you morons came along and gave him another 15 minutes. You’re doing it wrong.
Despite Instapundit’s observation that Christians are just following the examples of Muslims in suppressing blasphemous art, this attack will not actually achieve that end. This is possibly the best possible thing you could do for Serrano’s career. Indeed, I suspect legions of starving left-wing artists all across America have leapt from the futons in their parents’ basements at the news to boldly start working on art offensive to Christians, or at least fill out grant proposals for same. Destroying such art doesn’t intimidate anyone. No, as Islamists have proven again and again, you have to kill people to intimidate others into silence. Not that you should do that, and I’m in favor of the death penalty for killing your fellow countrymen for reasons of political ideology. Then again, this took place in Europe, where they’ve abolished the death penalty. Stabbing a blasphemous artist to death on the rue de martyrs would get you three hots and a cot for life…or until the state has to empty the prisons because they’re out of money.
So whoever did was either a very stupid religious believer, or a very smart guerrilla marketer…
There’s one unqualified success story in the Middle East that Arab countries could use as a template to improve their societies. The problem? It’s Israel.
This is not good news. Imagine if the governor of California or Texas were assassinated in broad daylight by his own bodyguard. Well, that’s what happened to Punjab Governor Salman Taseer in Pakistan. Of course, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was also assassinated, and Indian PM Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her own bodyguards, in large measure due to policies regarding Sikhs in the Indian portion of Punjab.
As for who is responsible, who knows? It could be a freelance jihadist, it could be al Quada, it could be Taliban, or it could be some of the Islamist elements of the Pakistani ISI. (Given the circumstances, I’m assuming it wasn’t Kashmiri nationalists, though stranger things have happened.) In any case, it’s bad news for a nuclear-armed nation that always seems to be inching ever closer to become a failed state.
I don’t have any particular insight into Pakistani, so I direct you to the odd piece by the ever-interesting Christopher Hitchens, which are long on insight and short on hope. Sometimes, as in the Middle East, there are simply no good options.
Speaking of Christmas, crosses have been banned in Bethleham.
UK Islamic group launches campaign against Christmas, saying it leads to rape, abortions, crime, pedophilia and raves. They forgot fruitcake.
In the course of a general indictment of Islam, Rule Britannia (a blog I’m not particularly familiar with; a quick perusal suggests a mainstream Euro/Islamic skepticism rather than the swamps of the National Front) cites this death toll for all of Islam from its founding to the current day of 270 million people. I don’t know enough about the history of the regions cited (Africa, India, etc.) to say how accurate this estimate is, but my initial look suggests its on the high side, with extrapolated estimate taken from of single data sources, which tends to result in distorted figures. Still, Will Durant called the Islamic conquest of India the bloodiest episode in all of history (though that was in 1935, which Hitler and Mao still to come, and the sizes of Stalin’s crimes still largely hidden).
Kosovo’s Prime Minster involved in organ trafficking. Sadly, this does not appear to be an urban legend, and The Guardian is hardly known for their fierce anti-Islamic agenda…
Here’s another Greek Orthodox prelate going off the deep end. Sayeth the Metropolite of Piraeus Seraphim: “Adolf Hitler was an instrument of world Zionism and was financed from the renowned Rothschild family with the sole purpose of convincing the Jews to leave the shores of Europe and go to Israel to establish the new Empire.”
Everyone and their dog (including Fark) has covered this story about a Gitmo detainee claiming that “Jewish guards used witchcraft on prisoners, made me feel a cat was trying to penetrate me.”
Not these Che shirts. If you can't put up funny pictures of your friends on the pretext that its vaguely related to the topic at hand, what's the point of having a blog?
And Hamas’ masters in Tehran aren’t too wild about Bahai, either. (That’s a Michael Totten piece, and as usual, it’s long, thoughtful, and full of interesting tidbits.)
Jihad waits for no man, so here’s another roundup of news:
It takes very special skills to take someone with a sworn confession of involvement in the murder of 224 people, and to bungle the prosecution so badly that you’re only able to convict him on one count of conspiracy. But Eric Holder and the Obama Justice Department are just that special.
North Korea is reportedly “supplying banned nuclear and ballistic equipment to Iran, Syria and Myanmar. Well, isn’t that just lovely?
Judges rules that no, cops didn’t violate a Somali’s families rights when refusing to let them put on hajibs during a drug bust. (Whether our time and money is best spent arresting people for possession of khat is a topic for another time…)
Secretary of State Clinton complains that Europe isn’t accommodating enough to the Religion of Peace. That would be the same Clinton that would be required to wear a burqa in Iran or Saudi Arabia, not the Clinton that could legally have multiple wives; him I figure could get used to it…
Quest for Honor is a new documentary by Mary Ann Smothers Bruni about the quest to eradicate honor killings in Kurdistan. It seems to be getting a bit of Oscar buzz.
And researching that, I came across this site http://www.stophonourkillings.com/, which I hope to take a closer look at when I have more time.
Reza Aslan is one of those “moderate Muslim spokesman,” who, when you actually examine their words and deeds, turns out not to be so moderate after all…
