We cannot understand how sane, adult, educated, intelligent people can believe in the supernatural.

It’s astonishing to us that such an astute observer of the political scene, so witty a commentator as Ann Coulter can believe in creationism – the belief that the universe was created by a supernatural being: “God”.

Some creationists say that the supernatural being created the earth with the fossil remains in it of creatures who were never actually alive; bones that seem to prove the earth is much older than creationists absolutely know for sure it is; and which may also seem to prove that evolutionary changes have happened over time. They seem to, but they don’t, the creationists say. They were put there by God in the form they have now – as a sort of joke he wanted to play on archaeologists? Creationists don’t put it that way; they don’t ascribe a sense of humor to their God.

In fact there are many versions of creationism, some of them acknowledging that a certain amount of evolution does occur, but denying that human beings evolved from older species. All versions of creationism are equally apodictic. They who demand absolute proofs for every claim that evolutionists make, declare without any proofs at all that God made everything; designed and created the universe out of nothing.

The nearest they come to offering the sort of evidence that science recognizes is by “disproving” evolutionary explanations. They argue: “If some phenomena cannot be incontrovertibly explained by evolutionary theory, it proves they were designed by a superhuman intelligence.”

They believe they have found such phenomena. Not easily, though. Evolution is such a good explanation for Things Being As They Are that, to find anything which challenges its explanations, creationists have probed deep into the structures of life through powerful microscopes. And one of the “gotcha” things they found under the glass was a thread on certain cells, including bacteria such as Ecoli, that enables them to swim. It is called the flagellum.

The flagellum has a complex structure that has set creationists gloating in triumph. There is no way, they say, that the flagellum could have evolved from simpler structures because without every single one of its parts being present and operating exactly how they do, it couldn’t work at all.

In a recent column, Ann Coulter waves the flagellum (so to speak) in the faces of evolutionists. It proves, she believes, that evolution is not true. Its discovery is a supreme achievement of “advances in science” which have, she says, “completely discredited Darwin’s theory of evolution”.

She claims there is now a “mountain of scientific evidence disproving this mystery religion from the Victorian age”. And from the mountain she has plucked “one small slice” – the flagellum.

It is a mathematical impossibility … that all 30 to 40 parts of the cell’s flagellum … could all arise at once by random mutation. … Nor would each of the 30 to 40 parts individually make an organism more fit to survive and reproduce, which, you will recall, is the lynchpin of the whole contraption.

The authority she cites for these assertions is a religious scientist [now there’s an oxymoron for you] named Michael Behe who “proved” them to be the case.

In fact, Michael Behe’s proofs have been disproved, the claims made for the “irreducible complexity” of the flagellum shown to be fallacious. (You can find the counter-arguments for this special case here, and for this and many other anti-evolution claims here.)

We quote a short summary of the refutations of Michael Behe’s “proof”:

Based on similarity in structure and partial similarity in amino acid sequence, it is generally accepted among scientists that the eukaryotic flagellum and cilium have evolved from the cytoskeleton, while the eubacterial flagellum has evolved either from the type III secretion system or from a more ancient secretion system from which the type III secretion system has evolved as well. The archaeal flagellum has probably evolved from the type IV pili. …

In his 1996 book Darwin’s Black Box, intelligent design proponent Michael Behe, under funding from the Templeton Foundation [which exists to promote religion over science – JB] cited the bacterial flagellum as an example of an irreducibly complex structure that could not have evolved through naturalistic means. Behe argued that the flagellum becomes useless if any one of its constituent parts is removed, and therefore could not have arisen through numerous, successive, slight modifications. This claim has been strongly challenged by the work of Zvonimir Dogic. His team reported constructing active hairlike structures containing only two proteins that reproduce the beating functionality of flagella, proving that the flagellar complexity is in fact reducible. Behe’s argument is weakened by the observation that the proteins used by Dogic are all present in every eukaryotic cell in the centriole, and could easily have evolved into a flagellum through numerous, successive, slight modifications. … Exaptation explains how systems with multiple parts can evolve through natural means.

So no – evolution is not proved to be wrong by the flagellum, or by anything else, and “most scientists” do not consider it disproved as Ann Coulter claims they do.

Now let’s briefly examine her alternative belief. In doing so, we step away from science. Science is concerned only with the natural. Anything to do with the supernatural has nothing whatsoever to do with science. “Is there a god?” is not a scientific question.

Let’s posit a Creator. Let’s imagine him designing and making the flagellum – out of nothing, remember.

Let’s translate his God language into English and catch his thoughts as he goes about his creating.

“Now I’m going to fit these bacteria with this complex structure by which they’ll propel themselves into the bloodstream of animals and human beings and make them sick and kill them.”

The question, Ann, is WHY?

A Creator, one who designed and deliberately made the universe – whether exactly as it is at this moment or long ago set upon a course of development through many ages – is a Purposer. Those who believe in him hold that he created a universe not accidentally but on purpose.

What is the purpose of the universe?

Religion absolutely requires an answer to that question. But the believers never answer it. They cannot. It has no answer.

On 24 August, 2011, Glenn Beck gave a speech in Jerusalem, at a rally assembled under the Temple Mount. The full text is here.

He strongly praised and defended Israel. It was a speech that may do Israel some good, considering that Beck has an audience in the US of millions, and Israel needs American public opinion to be on its side.

We select these excerpts from it, the parts we like best. (His many pious allusions to “God”, his references to and quotation from the Jewish Bible, we politely disregard – except for the pillar of fire.)

In Israel, there is more courage in one square mile than in all of Europe. In Israel, there is more courage in one soldier than in the combined and cold hearts of every bureaucrat at the United Nations. In Israel, you can find people who will stand against incredible odds… against the entire tide of global opinion, for what is right and good and true. Israel is not a perfect country. No country is perfect. But it tries… and it is courageous.

Today, the world needs courage more than ever.

We need it because whether you live here in Jerusalem, or in London, or in Athens, or in Washington, D.C., you know – we all know — the world is changing, the world is burning, and whatever we have known… whatever we’ve thought would never change… whatever we’ve grown to think is solid and strong and durable … is under siege.

You don’t have to be a prophet to know that things are not going well in the world. The threats are mounting. Darkness is falling.

Far too many politicians are willing to look away. The shape shifters are at work. They have turned day into night, good into evil. They have changed the very meaning of words.

In New York, the so-called leaders of the world talk about abuses of human rights. But what they will do is abuse the very meaning of the phrase “human rights.”

“Human rights,” they say. But who will they focus on? Libya? Syria? North Korea? No.

They will condemn Israel. Tiny Israel. Democratic Israel. Free Israel. Israel, which values life above all other things.

Israel, as usual, is the exception. …

When the Fogel family was killed in their sleep the world barely took note. The grand councils of earth condemn Israel. Across the border, Syria slaughters its own citizens. The grand councils are silent. It’s no wonder children light their streets on fire.

These international councils, these panels of so-called diplomats, condemn Israel not because they believe Israel needs to be corrected. They do so because it is convenient.

Everyone does it. In some countries, it’s a crime not to.

The diplomats are afraid, and so they submit. They surrender to falsehood. The truth matters not. To the keepers of conventional wisdom, a sacrifice of the truth is a small price to pay. What difference does it make if we beat up on little Israel? These are the actions of the fearful and cowards. …

The cause of human rights has been taken over by organizations who share little with the individuals who led the movement. Human rights was once a cry for justice. Now it used as a threat.

These organizations have become bullies and grotesque parodies of the principles they pretend to represent. They criticize free nations and spare the unfree. They denounce nations like Israel and America, who have high standards for freedom, and leave alone nations that have no freedom at all. They are nearly comical in their double-standards. Whatever moral force they once had is spent. …

If we want to be endowed with rights – real human rights, we have to act with responsibility. We must not be comfortable with rights. We must be comfortable with responsibility. We cannot use our few short years on this planet enjoying our rights… we must do everything we can living by our responsibilities to our fellow man. …

Link arms with others and stand with courage, and walk behind the pillar of fire.

You see evil rear its head in our time. You see the signs again. The swastikas are on display in the street marches. This week they’re holding up signs in Cairo that say: We’re building the gas chambers. They dress their children in suicide belts. They are given the choice, and they choose death. …

We won’t find the answers in some global body halfway around the world, but in ourselves. We won’t find purpose in the drumbeat of destruction and disobedience we hear in the West, but in a mission of building and honor and courage.

With his speech in Jerusalem, Beck was preparing to launch what he hopes will be a global movement in support of Israel but also, more widely, of the foundational values of the United States. From Israel he went to South Africa, to speak about the cruel policy of apartheid that had prevailed there in order to dispel the lie that Israel practises any such policy (as the Palestinians declare they will in the Judenrein state they plan to declare next month). After that he proceeds to South America to enlist support for his movement. Finally, next week, he will formally launch his movement at a mass rally in Dallas.

The founding document of the movement will be a Declaration of Rights and Responsibilities. Its full text is here.

It invokes the Declaration of Independence (but is more God-haunted than that great document). If it is endorsed by a large number of activists, it will confirm Glenn Beck in the heroic leadership role he has assumed at the head of a moral army.

We wish the venture success. We long ago learned to endure the religious decoration so often attached to causes we support.

So onward, Glenn Beck’s soldiers – we march to the same political-moral goal as you do, although to the beat of a different drum.

Thanks to a group of writers and investigators – Douglas Hagmann, Bill Krayer, Michael Travis, Paul Williams – terrorist training camps in the US have been exposed.

Even the Department of Homeland Security must know now that they exist and what they’re about.

Read about them here, where you’ll find a full and scary description of one in particular called Islamberg, established in a forest on the outskirts of Hancock, New York.

Islamberg is a branch of Muslims of the Americas Inc., a tax-exempt organization formed in 1980 by Pakistani cleric Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani, who … has been directly linked by court documents to Jamaat ul-Fuqra or “community of the impoverished,” an organization that seeks to “purify” Islam through violence.

Though primarily based in Lahore, Pakistan, Jamaat ul-Fuqra has operational headquarters in New York and openly recruits through various social service organizations in the U.S., including the prison system. Members live in hamaats or compounds, such as Islamberg, where they agree to abide by the laws of Jamaat ul-Fuqra, which are considered to be above local, state and federal authority.

Additional hamaats have been established in Hyattsville, Maryland; Red House, Virginia; Falls Church, Virginia; Macon, Georgia; York, South Carolina; Dover, Tennessee; Buena Vista, Colorado; Talihina, Oklahoma; Tulane Country, California; Commerce, California; and Onalaska, Washington. Others are being built, including an expansive facility in Sherman, Pennsylvania.

Before becoming a citizen of Islamberg or any of the other Fuqra compounds, the recruits …  are compelled to sign an oath that reads: “I shall always hear and obey, and whenever given the command, I shall readily fight for Allah’s sake.”

In the past, thousands of members of the U.S. branches of Jamaat ul-Fuqra traveled to Pakistan for paramilitary training, but encampments, such as Islamberg, are now capable of providing boot-camp training so raw recruits are no longer required to travel abroad amidst the increased scrutiny of post 9/11.

Over the years, numerous members of Jamaat ul-Fuqra have been convicted in US courts of such crimes as conspiracy to commit murder, firebombing, gun smuggling, and workers’ compensation fraud. Others remain leading suspects in criminal cases throughout the country, including ten unsolved assassinations and seventeen fire-bombings between 1979 and 1990. …

In 2001, a resident of a California compound was charged with first-degree murder in the shooting of a sheriff’s deputy; another was charged with gun-smuggling, and twenty-four members of the Red House community were convicted of firearms violations.

By 2004 federal investigators uncovered evidence that linked both the DC “sniper killer” John Allen Muhammed and “Shoe Bomber” Richard Reid to the group and reports surfaced that Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was captured and beheaded in the process of attempting to obtain an interview with Sheikh Gilani in Pakistan.

Even though Jamaat ul-Fuqra has been involved in terror attacks and sundry criminal activities, recruited thousands of members from federal and state penal systems, and appears to be operating paramilitary facilities for militant Muslims, it remains to be placed on the official US Terror Watch List. On the contrary, it continues to operate, flourish, and expand as a legitimate nonprofit, tax-deductible charity.

Why? Because that’s what the US government wants it to do and be. Is there any other possible explanation?

In 1918 Australian troops liberated Damascus from Ottoman rule. An Arab contingent, led and misled by the romanticizing Englishman T.E.Lawrence, wanted to claim that they had achieved the victory. So the British ordered the Australians to withdraw and let the Arabs march in as if they were the conquerors.

The lie fostered the notion among the Arabs that they really were great warriors. This meant that when, thirty years later, a small ill-equipped ad hoc Israeli defense force beat the five Arab armies that attacked the new state, the Arabs felt not only humiliated but incredulous. The lie, as is the way with lies, did them no good.

The Europeans – the British at least – should have learnt their lesson then, that allowing the Arabs their false pretenses is a stupid and counter-productive policy.

But it seems they did not. It’s pretty obvious that something similar is happening now with the “capture of Tripoli by the rebels”.

In our recent post Sudden victory in Libya, we quoted this question asked by DebkaFile:

How did the ragtag, squabbling Libyan rebels who were unable to build a coherent army in six months suddenly turn up in Tripoli Sunday looking like an organized military force and using weapons for which they were not known to have received proper training? Did they secretly harbor a non-Libyan hard core of professional soldiers?

Now here’s the story that is supposed to answer such a question, cooked up (so we suspect) by AP and some wily Arabs, and swallowed whole by the Washington Post:

They called it Operation Mermaid Dawn, a stealth plan coordinated by sleeper cells, Libyan rebels, and NATO to snatch the capital from the Moammar Gadhafi’s regime’s hands.

Ah, so NATO did play a part. Well, everyone knows that NATO was assisting the rebels – with air-strikes, weaponry, intelligence. So what? Nothing new there.

It proceeds in the manner of pulp fiction:

It began three months ago when groups of young men left their homes in Tripoli and traveled to train in Benghazi with ex-military soldiers.

Ex-military, eh? But – soldiers of what nationality? Is care being taken here to hide the fact that NATO soldiers put their boots on Libyan ground and took charge of the rebel forces for an advance on Tripoli? After NATO had said they wouldn’t do such a thing? Perish the thought!

After training in Benghazi, the men would return to Tripoli either through the sea disguised as fishermen or through the western mountains.

A script ready for the big screen.

“They went back to Tripoli and waited; they became sleeper cells,” said military spokesman Fadlallah Haroun, who helped organize the operation.

He said that many of the trained fighters also stayed in the cities west of Tripoli, including Zintan and Zawiya, and waited for the day to come to push into the capital.

Operation Mermaid Dawn began on the night of August 21 and took the world by surprise as the rebels sped into the capital and celebrated in Green Square with almost no resistance from pro-Gadhafi forces.

Haroun said about 150 men rose up from inside Tripoli, blocking streets, engaging in armed street fights with Gadhafi brigades, and taking over their streets with check points.

See what tacticians these rebels are? What long-sighted and meticulous planners?

He said another 200 men [came] from Misrata.

But why did the armed Gadhafi troops melt away when the rebels drove through?

Would they fear a raggle-taggle rebel army?

Fathi Baja, head of the rebel leadership’s political committee, said it was all thanks to a deal cut with the head of the batallion in charge of protecting Tripoli’s gates, the Mohammed Megrayef Brigade.

His name was Mohammed Eshkal and he was very close to Gadhafi and his family.

Close to Gadhafi? Then why – ?

Ah, there was a reason. A secret grudge nursed for many and many a long year. So the plot thickens.

Baja said Gadhafi had ordered the death of his cousin twenty years ago.

“Eshkal carried a grudge in his heart against Gadhafi for 20 years, and he made a deal with the NTC — when the zero hour approached he would hand the city over to the rebels,” said Haroun.

“Eshkal didn’t care much about the revolution,” said Haroun. “He wanted to take a personal revenge from Gadhafi and when he saw a chance that he will fall, he just let it happen.”

But Haroun said he still didn’t trust Eshkal or the men who defected so late in the game.

Haroun said that he didn’t trust any of the defectors who left Gadhafi’s side so close to August 20.

“They knew his days were numbered so they defected, but in their hearts they will always fear Gadhafi and give him a regard,” he said.

Haroun said NATO was in contact with the rebel leadership in Benghazi and were aware of the date of Operation Mermaid Dawn.

Only “aware of it”. Did NATO have no active part in it?

Oh, yes, it did.  Haroun would not deny NATO had played a role.

“Honestly …

Savor that “Honestly”!

“Honestly, NATO played a very big role in liberating Tripoli — they bombed all the main locations that we couldn’t handle with our light weapons,” said Haroun.

And AP hastens to bear out the honest confession of Haroun by adding details anyone can check out:

Analysts have noted that as time went on, NATO airstrikes became more and more precise and there was less and less collateral damage, indicating the presence of air controllers on the battlefields.

Targeted bombings launched methodical strikes on Gadhafi’s crucial communications facilities and weapons caches. An increasing number of American hunter-killer drones provided round-the-clock surveillance as the rebels advanced.

Okay, that’s accepted. But that was all?  Any suspicion that European soldiers were on the ground would be wholly unfounded?

What if European foreign offices were to give out a different tale?

Diplomats acknowledge that covert teams from France, Britain and some East European states provided critical assistance.

Oh? Of what sort?

Well, quite a variety when we get down to it:

The assistance included logisticians, security advisers and forward air controllers for the rebel army, as well as intelligence operatives, damage assessment analysts and other experts, according to a diplomat based at NATO’s headquarters in Brussels. The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.

Only advisers, not trainers, mark you. But what if European military personnel were actually spotted among the rebels? Well,

Foreign military advisers on the ground provided key real-time intelligence to the rebels, enabling them to maximize their limited firepower against the enemy. One U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, said the Qatari military led the way, augmented later by French, Italian and British military advisers.

So a foreign but Arab army was “augmented” by European advisers.

But only “later’. How much later? We’re not told, but they couldn’t have been too far behind considering the speed of the advance.

This effort had a multiple purpose, not only assisting the rebels but monitoring their ranks …

There’s a good word – “monitoring”. It implies “merely observing, merely taking note”.

… and watching for any al-Qaida elements trying to infiltrate or influence the rebellion.

Ah, watching for al-Qaida elements. That’s old policy, perfectly legitimate.

And besides, most of the observing was still being done from the air. Assistance given without the use of any actual Europeans at all:

Bolstering the intelligence on the ground was an escalating surveillance and targeting campaign in the skies above. Armed U.S. Predator drones helped to clear a path for the rebels to advance.

Baja said as the time for Operation Mermaid Dawn came close to execution, NATO began to intensify their bombing campaign at Bab al-Azizya and near jails where weapons were stored and political prisoners were held.

And then the people rose up.

The dramatization is brought to a climax with the last line.

We cannot prove – yet – that the story is a lie. But we are fairly persuaded that it is: a false account seasoned with little hints of the truth to allow the fibbers to say later if challenged, ‘But we said that NATO did this, and the British and French did that, and okay we may have left out details of what they actually did…” in a red-faced effort to minimize their deception.

The AP account serves only to confirm to us – contrary to what it wants readers to believe – that NATO troops were the commanders and effective fighters in the attack on Tripoli.

But it suits the US, Britain and France politically to pretend that it was a victory for the rebels, both in order to seem to be adhering to their declared limits of engagement, and also, most importantly, to make it seem that the Libyan people fought and won their own battle.

So yet again, Arab pride is boosted – truth be damned.

*

And here’s the latest DebkaFile report which, if it turns out to be accurate, would confirm our suspicions:

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that British, French, Jordanian and Qatari Special Operations forces Tuesday, Aug. 23, spearheaded the rebel “killer strike” on Muammar Qaddafi’s regime and Tripoli fortress at Bab al-Azaziya, Tripoli. This was the first time Western and Arab ground troops had fought together on the same battlefield in any of the Arab revolts of the last nine months and the first time Arab soldiers took part in a NATO operation.

Our military sources report that the British deployed SAS commandos and France, 2REP (Groupe des commando parachutiste), which is similar to the US Navy DELTA unit …

The main body of the rebels to the rear of the combined foreign force was nowhere near being a unified military force.

*

And one lie has already been exposed.

A story was put out by the rebels that Gaddafi’s son, Saif al-Islam, had been captured  – and then he appeared at a Tripoli hotel before foreign correspondents.

Even the Guardian was embarrassed by the apparent exposure of this lie. Its report is here:

There was no doubt about it: Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s second son and heir presumptive, had been captured. Mustafa Abdul Jalil, head of the rebels’ National Transitional Council (NTC), declared on Monday that he was “being kept in a secure place under close guard”. …

News of the supposed arrest, which came without a date or a location, was a huge boost for the rebel movement. …

Yet just hours later, journalists at the Rixos hotel in Tripoli were woken during the night by a knock at the door and told to go downstairs. There, inside a white armoured vehicle, with a mobile phone next to him and a smile playing around his lips, was Saif himself. …

The revelation that the man they had declared to be in captivity was in fact touring parts of regime-held Tripoli and doing the V-for-victory sign for a crowd of apparent supporters seemed to stun many rebels as much as it did the rest of the world. …

A spokesman for the NTC leadership, had no explanation of Saif’s sudden reappearance, and could say only: “This could all be lies.” …

The image it projects of the rebels is hardly flattering – and while Saif’s dramatic reappearance is far from the only occasion on which the international community has had reason to question the credibility of the fighters, this particular misstep could prove damning. …

A British spokesman hastened to excuse the liars.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the international development secretary, Andrew Mitchell, was keen to avoid chastising the NTC leadership. “I think it’s inevitable in this situation, with the warfare going on … that there will be some confusion.” …

We have a vision of the ghost of T.E. Lawrence hovering over Mr Mitchell in the BBC studio.

The election of Barack Obama to the presidency of the United States was a calamitous mistake. It could be the predominant factor in the collapse of our Western civilization, which seems to be underway and gathering pace.

It was a mistake made by millions of people who meant well. 

Well-meaning, unaccompanied by intelligent thinking about consequences, is all too often the cause of calamity.

Matt Patterson, in an article at Canada Free Press, calls Obama “the affirmative action president”. Here’s part of what he writes:

Years from now, historians [if there will be any- JB] may regard the 2008 election of Barack Obama as an inscrutable and disturbing phenomenon, a baffling breed of mass hysteria … How, they will wonder, did a man so devoid of professional accomplishment beguile so many into thinking he could manage the world’s largest economy, direct the world’s most powerful military, execute the world’s most consequential job?

Imagine a future historian examining Obama’s pre-presidential life: ushered into and through the Ivy League despite unremarkable grades and test scores along the way; a cushy non-job as a “community organizer”; a brief career as a state legislator devoid of legislative achievement (and in fact nearly devoid of his attention, so often did he vote “present”); and finally an unaccomplished single term in United States Senate, the entirety of which was devoted to his presidential ambitions. He left no academic legacy in academia, authored no signature legislation as legislator.

And then there is the matter of his troubling associations: the white-hating, America-loathing preacher who for decades served as Obama’s “spiritual mentor”; a real-life, actual terrorist who served as Obama’s colleague and political sponsor.

What is more, and never as far as we know pointed out: he does not seem to have had any friends or associates who were not Marxists and/or terrorists and/or America-haters.   

It is easy to imagine a future historian looking at it all and asking: how on Earth was such a man elected president?

Not content to wait for history, the incomparable Norman Podhoretz addressed the question recently in the Wall Street Journal:

“To be sure, no white candidate who had close associations with an outspoken hater of America like Jeremiah Wright and an unrepentant terrorist like Bill Ayers would have lasted a single day. But because Mr. Obama was black, and therefore entitled in the eyes of liberaldom to have hung out with protesters against various American injustices, even if they were a bit extreme, he was given a pass.”

Let that sink in: Obama was given a pass — held to a lower standard — because of the color of his skin. …

Podhoretz puts his finger, I think, on the animating pulse of the Obama phenomenon — affirmative action. Not in the legal sense, of course. But certainly in the motivating sentiment behind all affirmative action laws and regulations, which are designed primarily to make white people, and especially white liberals, feel good about themselves.

Unfortunately, minorities often suffer so that whites can pat themselves on the back. …

Affirmative action is a racist policy, he rightly says. He goes on:

Yes, racist. Holding someone to a separate standard merely because of the color of his skin — that’s affirmative action in a nutshell, and if that isn’t racism, then nothing is. And that is what America did to Obama. …

And he concludes:

Our president is a small and small-minded man, with neither the temperament nor the intellect to handle his job. When you understand that, and only when you understand that, will the current erosion of liberty and prosperity make sense.

Add his deliberate weakening of America as a power in the world – a contributary cause of numerous wars, uprisings, civil wars, persecutions, and massacres happening now – to appreciate the size of the mistake those American voters made who elected Obama in order merely to feel good about themselves.

Here’s part of a report, with questions, conjectures, and comments, about the Libyan rebels’ capture of Tripoli.

It comes from DebkaFile, an Israeli source.

We can’t know how reliable it is, but the questions it asks are interesting:

Muammar Qaddafi’s regime fell in Tripoli just before midnight Sunday, Aug. 22. The rebels advanced in three columns into the heart of the capital after being dropped by NATO ships and helicopters on the Tripoli coast. Except for pockets, government forces did not resist the rebel advance, which stopped short of the Qaddafi compound of Bab al-Aziziyah.

After one of his sons Saif al Islam was reported to be in rebel hands and another, Mohammad, said to have surrendered, Qaddafi’s voice was heard over state television calling on Libyans to rise up and save Tripoli from “the traitors.” Tripoli is now like Baghdad, he said. For now, his whereabouts are unknown.

Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said 1,200 people had been killed in the 12 hours of the rebel push towards the capital. As he spoke, Libyan rebels, backed by NATO, seized control of the capital. After holding out for six months, the Qaddafi regime was to all intents and purposes at an end.

Still to be answered are seven questions raised here by DEBKAfile’s analysts:

1. Where are the six government special divisions whose loyalty to the Libyan ruler and his sons was never in question? None of the 15,000 trained government troops were to be seen in the way of the rebel advance into the capital. The mystery might be accounted for by several scenarios: Either these units broke up and scattered or Qaddafi pulled them back into southern Libya to secure the main oil fields. Or, perhaps, government units are staying out of sight and biding their time in order to turn the tables on the triumphant rebels and trap them in a siege. The Libyan army has used this stratagem before.

2. How did the ragtag, squabbling Libyan rebels who were unable to build a coherent army in six months suddenly turn up in Tripoli Sunday looking like an organized military force and using weapons for which they were not known to have received proper training? Did they secretly harbor a non-Libyan hard core of professional soldiers?

3. What happened to the tribes loyal to Qaddafi? Up until last week, they numbered the three largest tribal grouping in the country. Did they suddenly melt away without warning?

4. Does Qaddafi’s fall in Tripoli mean he has lost control of all other parts of Libya, including his strongholds in the center and south?

5. Can the rebels and NATO claim an undisputed victory? Or might not the Libyan ruler, forewarned of NATO’s plan to topple him by Sept. 1, have decided to dodge a crushing blow, cede Tripoli and retire to the Libyan Desert from which to wage war on the new rulers?

6. Can the heavily divided rebels, consisting of at least three militias, put their differences aside and establish a reasonable administration for governing a city of many millions? Their performance in running the rebel stronghold of Benghazi is not reassuring.

7. DEBKAfile’s military and counter-terror sources suggest a hidden meaning in Qaddafi’s comment that Tripoli is now like Baghdad. Is he preparing to collect his family, escape Tripoli and launch a long and bloody guerrilla war like the one Saddam Hussein’s followers waged after the US invasion of 2003 which opened the door of Iraq to al Qaeda?

If that is Qaddafi’s plan, the rebels and their NATO backers, especially Britain and France, will soon find their victory wiped out by violence similar to – or worse than – the troubles the US-led forces have suffered in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We have often wondered why it is that the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), regularly named as an “unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case”, remains unindicted.

In April this year, Rep. Peter King (R-NY), who is holding hearings on the radicalization of Muslims in the US, wrote  to Attorney General Eric Holder to ask him why.

Here’s Peter King’s letter, from the website of the Committee on Homeland Security (of which he is chairman):

Dear Attorney General Holder:

I write to inquire about your decision not to prosecute the 246 individuals and organizations, named as unindicted co-conspirators in a Hamas terror finance case, United States v. Holy Land Foundation.

I have been reliably informed that the decision not to seek indictments of the Council on American Islamic Relations (“CAIR”) and its co-founder Omar Ahmad, the Islamic Society of North America (“ISNA”), and the North American Islamic Trust (“NAIT”), was usurped by high-ranking officials at Department of Justice headquarters over the vehement and stated objections of special agents and supervisors of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as the prosecutors at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Dallas, who had investigated and successfully prosecuted the Holy Land Foundation case. Their opposition to this decision raises serious doubt that the decision not to prosecute was a valid exercise of prosecutorial discretion.

I request that you provide answers to the following questions:

What are the reasons for the Department’s decisions not to prosecute CAIR, ISNA, NAIT and Mr. Ahmad, who is a CAIR co-founder and former head of the Palestine Committee of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States?

Who made the final decision not to prosecute? Who, if anyone, from the Executive Office of the President, consulted with, advised, or otherwise communicated with the Department of Justice, in electronic, oral or written form, regarding the Department’s decision to not seek indictments of CAIR, ISNA, NAIT and Mr. Ahmad?

How does and will the Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation address the potential for CAIR, ISNA, or NAIT to engage in terrorism financing? What policies with regard to those organizations have you implemented to address that threat?

The answers to these questions should provide some explanation for declining a prosecution that is strongly supported by the record from the Holy Land Foundation trial. As you are aware, in a previously sealed Memorandum Opinion Order of July 1, 2009, United States District Judge Jorge A. Solis declined CAIR, ISNA and NAIT’s August 14, 2007 and June 18, 2008 requests to strike their names from the United States Attorney’s list of unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation case. Judge Solis found that the “Government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR, ISNA and NAIT with [the Holy Land Foundation, “HLF”], the Islamic Association for Palestine (“IAP”), and with Hamas.” The Court found that the evidence was “sufficient to show the association of these entities with HLF, IAP, and Hamas. Thus, maintaining the names of the entities on the List is appropriate in light of the evidence proffered by the Government” ..  At minimum, FBI testimony established that Mr. Ahmad attended a meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in which participants discussed how they could support Hamas, including by raising funds for this terrorist group. NAIT was similarly unsuccessful in its subsequent request to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to have its name removed from the list of co-conspirators.

Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the Department of State since October 9, 1997, and its status was reconfirmed by the most recent annual report of the National Counterterrorism Center, issued April 30, 2010. Hamas shamefully conducts cowardly suicide bombings against civilian targets inside Israel. Hamas also, between 2008 and 2009, conducted 2,614 indiscriminate rocket and mortar attacks upon residential areas in that country, an ally of the United States. According to the State Department, Hamas finances its terrorist activities “through state sponsors of terrorism Iran and Syria, and fundraising networks in the Arabian Peninsula, Europe, the Middle East, [and] the United States”.. It raises the most serious question for the Justice Department to decline to even attempt to prosecute individuals and organizations, accused by a US Attorney and found by a federal judge, to have a nexus with fundraising for an organization which conducts terror attacks upon civilians.

I believe that in order to maintain the credibility of the Department, there should be full transparency into the Department’s decision. Please respond to this letter by April 25, 2011..

Sincerely,

PETER T. KING

Chairman

We don’t know if Eric Holder replied, and if he did what he said. But we do know there have been no prosecutions of the terrorist-supporters named  in Peter King’s letter. And we don’t think there will be any as long as the infamous Eric Holder heads the Department of Justice.

China is becoming militarily stronger, and the US militarily weaker.

An article in Investor’s Business Daily suggests that Obama is granting this alteration in the balance of power to the Chinese in exchange for their indulgence as the US’s chief creditors:

The White House suddenly announced it wouldn’t sell F-16 jets to Taiwan — a huge strategic favor to the Chinese. Was there a quid pro quo?

Explicitly or not, the U.S. seems to be offering them a deal — buy our bonds and pay for our out-of-control spending, and we’ll let you build a massive military presence and expand your influence in the Western Pacific.

China might see that as a good investment, one that will deliver them one of their much-cherished, long-term strategic goals: a weaker U.S. military.

That nation is already challenging the U.S., increasing defense spending at double-digit rates year after year, in what a U.S. Air Force website recently called “the most remarkable expansion of military power since the U.S. geared up for World War II” … is busy building a blue-water navy to challenge America, and just this month it launched its first aircraft carrier, with plans for more. It already has 2 million men under arms — a third more than the U.S.

At the same time, it’s building its unconventional warfare capabilities, extensively testing anti-satellite weapons and … engaging in a massive, five-year cyberattack on at least 50 U.S. government agencies and corporations.

China’s new generation of anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles, submarines, sophisticated new radar and minelayers is premised on … forcing us out of East Asia, leaving allies such as Taiwan, Japan and South Korea unprotected.

Some deal. They buy our bonds while we watch their defense buildup. Clearly, China’s preparing for conflict. What are we preparing for? National bankruptcy?

On China rising to space superiority, this report comes from the Heritage Foundation:

As NASA sends its shuttles to museums, China is making great strides in its space program—with preparations under way for the launch of a Chinese spacelab in the next few weeks. These advances are beginning to threaten U.S. space superiority and America’s ability to support its friends and allies and to deter aggression. …

In the past several years, China’s space efforts have become increasingly prominent. …

The PLA [People’s Liberation Army] has concluded that the high ground of space is essential to the information gathering, transmission, and exploitation necessary to fight and win future wars. …

As Beijing expands its space program, the United States must maintain and expand robust space capabilities, develop alternatives to space-based systems to reduce American vulnerability …  Only then will the United States be able to maintain its superiority in space …

Hasn’t that already been abandoned?  NASA’s mission now is “to improve relations with the Muslim world“, by order of President Obama.

Which will be worse, the US falling under Islam and sharia law, or China and communism?

To prevent either catastrophe, the US needs a president who will defend the nation – on earth and all around it.

Any government interference in the market  is bad for the economy. The Obama administration is interfering massively. The result is high unemployment.

Regulation and the new health legislation are destroying businesses, or driving them to operate outside the law – which means the rule of law itself is weakened.

Patrick Richardson writes at PajamasMedia:

CKE owns or franchises 3,182 restaurants under the Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s brand names nationwide, employing more than 70,000. Each new restaurant generates roughly 25 new jobs and pumps more than $1 million into the surrounding community.

According to the release, to comply with just one of the hundreds of new regulations in the health insurance law CKE will be forced to spend approximately $1.5 million to replace all restaurant menus. That equals 17 percent of what the company invested in new restaurants in 2010. …

Those numbers were provided by CKE’s CEO Andy Puzder. In a video sent out with the release, Pudzer said unknowns — in particular, health care — are stifling job growth:

“You generally try to come up with a five-year business plan. You have to know what your expenses are going to be and generally know what your revenue will be. People right now are very worried about taxes because the president keeps talking about raising taxes so it’s very difficult to model that in the forecast. The uncertainty in the businesses community arises from a number of factors: taxes, energy and primarily health care. …

“Health care is probably the most significant unknown at the moment. People are unsure about how much it will impact their business, but they will know it will be significant and it will be negative. It’s very hard to model the cost because the bill is so complex. The range [CKE’s economic forecasters] gave us on our health care costs increasing was between $7.3 and $35.1 million. We spent about $9 million last year building new restaurants. That would be totally wiped out.”

Puzder said he was given a best guess of $18 million on increased health care costs, double what they spent creating new restaurants and new jobs last year. …

It’s not just health care killing jobs: state and federal regulations can amount to as much as 50 cents on every dollar a business makes, according to Jennifer James of Build with Conscience in California. She said the cost of regulation per employee to them each year is about $20,000:

“We would like to hire three or four more guys, easy. We pay $15-26 per hour for new laborers and generally hire inexperienced young workers and train them because the cost of experienced men is too high. We’re not able to take on extremely qualified people, so we train young kids in the trades.

[But] she said between increased health care costs and the contractor fees, they simply can’t afford to hire. She said licensing fees in California are so high many contractors are simply not paying them and working under the table. … Fees are so high and the number of agents to enforce the law so low that it is a better risk to operating without a license for many contractors. …

Annette Logsdon from Watertite Deck Coatings, also in California, said taxes, fees, and health care are killing them as well. She said they grossed about $400,000 last year, but workers’ compensation was $21,600 for the year — nearly 6 percent of gross:

“The federal government is killing us on payroll taxes.” …

Additionally, regulations are hitting them on the inventory side. All their raw material suppliers have raised prices because government regulations have driven up their costs …

All of the business owners had basically one message: “get out of our way.” It’s clear that the more regulation the government heaps on business, the fewer jobs will be created.

Long ago, in the land of Canaan, it was the custom to sacrifice little children to the  god Moloch. The Canaanites literally fed children into the mouth of a huge bronze idol of the god. It had a human body with a bull’s head. The Canaanites made a fire inside it and heated the metal until it glowed red-hot. Then they threw babies into the furnace through the gaping mouth. Moloch had to be propitiated, they believed, with human flesh and blood so that he’d allow the tribe to survive and prosper.

In our time, Allah, the god of Islam, also requires the sacrifice of children, so that the Ummah – the community of the religion – may survive and prosper.

Here are two tales of child sacrifice by devout Muslims: The Palestinian Authority and Hamas in the erstwhile land of Canaan, and al-Shabaab in the Horn of Africa.

First, here and here are reports on Palestinians sacrificing their children:

A Palestinian Authority kindergarten showed off what its young students had learned over the past year by having the five-year-olds act out scenes of terror and death for their families. The parents were moved to tears upon seeing their children pretend to die as “martyrs” …

During the graduation ceremony two plays were performed – one based on “Little Red Riding Hood,” the second, “The Martyr’s Wedding,” a story glorifying death in battle with Israel for the sake of Islam.

“Another performance named ‘The Martyr’s Wedding’ delighted the audience due to the role-play of the children, whose acting depicted the reality of roadblocks, children, occupation, soldiers, and the children’s death as Martyrs,” wrote the PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida …

The performance was accompanied by “nationalistic” songs, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida reported. Many such songs encourage “martyrdom” and bloodshed for the sake of “freeing the land of Palestine” – a land which, according to the PA, includes all of Israel.

Under self-rule on the West Bank and Gaza, child sacrifice has turned into a normative part of the socialization process as the phenomenon of suicide bombers has escalated to epidemic proportions.

From an early age, children are fed anti-Zionist, anti-Jewish and anti-Western hate propaganda. Mosques, schools, summer camps, and even children’s television programs are exploited to encourage children to become martyrs in an act that will bring them respect and parental pride:

In Hamas-run kindergartens, signs on the walls read: “The children of the kindergarten are the shahids (holy martyrs) of tomorrow.”

A television show called “The Children’s Club” shows a young Palestinian, age 9 or 10 proclaiming, “When I wander into Jerusalem, I will become a suicide bomber.” …

A 6th grade Palestinian textbook, Our Beautiful Language, includes the “Shahid Song” that encourages death in war as a shahid or martyr. Other textbooks carry similar messages. …

An Islamic Jihad summer school massages the libidos of teenage boys by telling them they will “liberate Palestine from the Jews” by becoming martyrs, and promise the boys that they will be greeted [in heaven] by 72 virgins.

Kindergartens, schools, summer camps, and school sports tournaments (and other institutions) are named after terrorists and young suicide bombers, who are used as pedagogic role models. …

Throughout the Palestinian territories, walls are plastered with posters of young martyrs who are idolized by Palestinian youth the way other teens worship rock stars.

Parents in Gaza dress up their infants in mock suicide vests, and when one of their children dies a “martyr” death by exploding a real one, they celebrate with cakes and candy.

The PA loads buses with children to carry them to points where they throw rocks at the Israeli security forces.

In fire-fights, the Palestinians use children as human shields. They set up their guns on the roofs of schools. And in battle on the ground, men with guns stand behind rows of children.

Next the story of al-Shabaab in Somalia:

The drought in the Horn of Africa that began in 2009 is the worst in 60 years. … In Somalia that drought soon turned into a famine of unprecedented proportions. To date almost 30,000 children under the age of 5 have died of starvation … More than one million Somalis have fled to Ethiopia and Kenya, where makeshift refugee camps house hundreds of thousands.

One might expect that all Somali leaders and political parties would join forces to help their people survive this enormous tragedy; but one would be wrong. The Somali Muslim terrorists known as al-Shabaab have worked for the past two years to prevent any foreign aid from reaching their Muslim Somali co-religionists …

Harakat ash-Shabaab al-Mujahideen (the “Organization of the Youth Jihad Fighters”), or al-Shabaab (“the lads” or “the youths” in Arabic) for short, is a group of Islamist terrorist jihadis fighting to overthrow the Muslim government of Somalia in order to replace it with a government committed to a more extreme form of Islam and to Shari’a law. The group now controls large swathes of southern Somalia. Its leaders claim that they are waging war against the “enemies of Islam” which includes the present Somali government.

Al-Shabaab leaders formerly denied any connection with el-Qaeda, but early in 2010 they acknowledged that they worked with el-Qaeda forces in Pakistan and Yemen for training and deployment. … Its terrorist forces, under el-Qaeda influence, have created the single greatest obstacle to humanitarian assistance in Somalia. Thanks to al-Shabaab, the rate of malnutrition in southern Somalia is the highest in the world, approaching half the population …

In addition to denying aid workers access to the regions where the drought and famine rage, al-Shabaab terrorists force local Somali Muslim humanitarian organizations to pay “taxes” (aka bribes) in order to be able to funnel food and other supplies to the devastated areas… In some cases, al-Shabaab terrorists have burned food stocks and medicine, and have kidnapped or killed charity workers, when bribes were not paid. These “taxes” can be as high as $10,000 for access to the areas al-Shabaab controls. Then there are the “registration fees” of another $10,000, and payments of $6,000 every six months, as well as 20 percent of the value of all food and other supplies and 10 percent on all vehicles, as a form of “import duties.” Their terrorism pays well; but their extorted wealth and their Islamic jihad agenda come at the expense of the lives of hundreds of thousands, and perhaps millions, of their own people. …

Why does al-Shabaab wreck this horrific inhuman brutality against their own Muslim Somali people?

As al-Shabaab spokespersons explain it, alien non-Muslim groups cannot be permitted to enter Somalia because they might host spies, or worse, promote an un-Islamic way of life among the Somali Muslims…  Attacks on humanitarian workers … bringing food to starving Somalis are merely self-defense against foreign non-Muslim influences that might corrupt the pure Islamic way of life for Somali Muslims.

Are these devout Muslims incapable  of feeling pity?

Now comes a surprise. A strange, ironic twist in the story.

Gazans, whose walls are plastered with pictures of their sacrificed children, are so moved by the plight of the dying children of Somalia, that they are sending aid to them.

Here is the report:

In another sign that the humanitarian crisis in Gaza isn’t all it is said to be, Gazans are sending aid to Somalia.

Imams in mosques in the Gaza strip mentioned Somalia during Friday prayers last week and asked Gazans to donate to their brothers there.

Moreover, the Arab Doctors Union Gaza branch ran a campaign asking the people of Gaza to donate to people of Somalia.

The campaign, called “From Gaza hand in hand to save the children of Somalia“, will last throughout Ramadan.

The Union took out advertisements supporting the campaign in local radios and websites to encourage people to contribute to the campaign. It is planning advertisements on local television also.

Various people responded to the campaign, but most donations came from the local non-governmental organisations and some wealthy businessmen, according to the organizers of the campaign.

One of the donors, Mohammed Abd Al Latif said, “I saw the pictures of our brothers in Somalia and felt so sorry for them; I wanted to do anything to help.”

“The campaign aimed at demonstrating the extent of physical cohesion between the besieged Gaza and Somalia, showing that the Palestinian people are capable of supporting and standing by the Somali people,” said Ahmad Hathat, the public relations officer of the Union.

The charity campaign underscores the fact that Gaza is swimming in surplus aid from an international community willing to underwrite the national aspirations of Fatah and Hamas to the extent that their enclaves have become transit points, rather than a destination, for aid.

So the money comes out of aid from the West, including the US, by which the Gazans’ own existence is chiefly sustained.

But whether the aid-out-of-aid they are sending will actually reach the dying children of Somalia is uncertain. Will al-Shabaab consider Gazans – ruled by Hamas, an off-shoot of the Muslim Brotherhood – pure enough to be allowed to help the dying children without religiously corrupting them? Or will al-Shabaab pocket the bounty?