We took this map from Dry Bones, the Israeli cartoonist. The Islamic states colored yellow all passionately desire the elimination of Israel. Turkey is warming its diplomatic relations with Iran. Iran is not only actively building up its own military power, including a nuclear capability, but also arming proxy forces on Israel’s borders in Lebanon and Gaza. Two more neighboring Islamic states, ostensibly less aggressive towards Israel but in fact no less desirous of its destruction, are Jordan and Egypt. Beyond Jordan lies ruthlessly jihadist Saudi Arabia. Now imagine the whole of Europe as equally hostile Muslim territory, as it almost certainly will be in just a few decades from now. Bear in mind that the present decider-in-chief of US foreign policy is the son of a Muslim, emotionally pro-Islam, and reluctant to take any action to prevent Iran becoming a nuclear-armed power. What are the odds that the tiny sliver of a state called Israel will survive to the end of this century, do you think?

It’s hard to see what America has to gain by fighting any kind of war in Afghanistan. But if a war is to be fought at all, it should be done with overwhelming force, sustained until victory is complete. Anything less is an expense of lives and dollars in a waste of shame.

We appreciate this splendid stinging scorn for the fiasco of a war that Obama is waging, from the ever sharp pen of Diana West:

Barack Obama is sending 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, to come home again starting in 2011.

Madness.

Worse is the conservative reaction. The futility of “nation-building” in the Islamic world lost on the poor infidels, they deem the president’s plan correct even if undermined by the exit date.

This means the leftist White House and the conservative opposition have signed the same suicide pact to sink this country ever deeper into the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.

For no achievable thing.

Not that our military, unleashed, couldn’t achieve whatever it wanted. Four years to roll back Nazi-occupied Europe, but eight years and counting to roll back Taliban-occupied bedrock? Today’s military, of course, is and will continue to be tightly leashed, bound by criminally restrictive rules of engagement and strategies to serve an unproven theory of “counterinsurgency,” a demeaning campaign to make 20-plus million Afghans like us more than jihad-happy Taliban drug-thugs, no matter what it takes in terms of billions of dollars and the blood of our bravest.

But this isn’t a conventional war, critics say. There’s no comparison between World War II and today.

You can say that again.

But why isn’t there? Why couldn’t there be? Or, to turn the question around, what if World War II had been fought as a counterinsurgency?

What if, instead of waging total war on the Axis powers — firebombing and nuking German and Japanese cities and, in the process, killing tens of thousands of Germans and Japanese — the Allies had tried something a little more postmodern? What if they had tried instead to win “Kraut” hearts and “Jap” minds?

What if Gen. Eisenhower, like Gen. McChrystal today in Afghanistan, had wandered through German towns, asking das volk, “What do you need?” What if Gen. MacArthur, like Gen. McChrystal today, had emphasized Japanese population protection over U.S. force protection, ordering troops to guard “the people” from everything that could hurt them? What if U.S. forces had bought and paid for a Sunni-style “Nazi awakening”? What if Gens. Patton and MacArthur had rewritten constitutions to enshrine Nazism in Germany and Shintoism in Japan? What if the United States remained to protect the new governments from “extremists” who, as President Obama said this week, “distorted and defiled,” respectively, their ideology and religion?

The East Coast would be speaking German, and the West Coast would be speaking Japanese.

Luckily, we didn’t have proponents of “armed social work” pulling the levers back then, commanders who today see in every Taliban redoubt lollipop-ready customers for micro-loans — if, that is, the troops can only survive the booby-trapped house-to-house searches to complete the necessary paperwork.

Take Marjeh, for instance. An enemy stronghold in Helmand province that doubles as a hub of the opium trade and a manufacturing center for IEDs (which cause more than 80 percent of U.S. casualties in Afghanistan), Marjeh is a much-discussed potential target for incoming reinforcements.

This promises to be a moral if not a strategic blunder. If Marjeh is so vital to the American war effort it should be bombed into surrender or smithereens, whichever comes first — not seized in a casualty-costly ground assault.

And even then, as the Washington Post notes, any Helmand Province “gains will be transitory if U.S. forces do not build effective local police forces and foster a government that is relatively free of corruption and able to provide for the Afghan people, U.S. officials said.”

Is that all? Anything else U.S. forces should do while they’re at it? “Build” Hamid Karzai into Abe Lincoln? “Foster” the Taliban into the Viennese boys choir?

“This will be a credibility test for the (Afghan) government to see if it can deliver,” said a spokesman for McChrystal.

A credibility test. To see if the government can deliver. Using flesh-and-blood Americans as game pieces. This is sickening and sick. …

Is it just stupidity and ignorance, or is it something more sinister that motivates US army commanders to tolerate treason in their ranks and invite the enemy to indoctrinate their soldiers? Either way, what they are doing is surely intolerable, and possibly treasonous in itself?

‘The Fort Hood base commander,’ writes Andy McCarthy at the corner of National Review Online, ‘should be fired right now.’

He is rightly outraged at what is going on at Fort Hood after soldiers were murdered there by a Muslim traitor. Here’s an extract:

It’s been brought to my attention by several reliable sources that the Defense Department has brought Louay Safi to Fort Hood as an instructor, and that he has been lecturing on Islam to our troops in Fort Hood who are about to deploy to Afghanistan. Safi is a top official of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), and served as research director at the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT). …

ISNA was identified by the Justice Department at the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing conspiracy trial as an unindicted co-conspirator. The defendants at that trial were convicted of funding Hamas to the tune of millions of dollars. This should have come as no surprise. ISNA is the Muslim Brotherhood’s umbrella entity for Islamist organizations in the United States. It was established in 1981 to enable Muslims in North America “to adopt Islam as a complete way of life” — i.e., to further the Brotherhood’s strategy of establishing enclaves in the West that are governed by sharia. As I detailed in an essay for the April 20 edition of NR, the Brotherhood’s rally-cry remains, to this day, “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Koran is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.” The Brotherhood’s spiritual guide, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who issued a fatwa in 2004 calling for attacks on American forces in Afghanistan, openly declares that Islam will “conquer America” and “conquer Europe.”

Also established in 1981, the IIIT is a Saudi funded think-tank dedicated, it says, to the “Islamicization of knowledge” … Years ago, the Saudis convinced the United States that the IIIT should be the military’s go-to authority on Islam. One result was the placement of Abdurrahman Alamoudi to select Muslim chaplains for the armed forces. Alamoudi has since been convicted of terrorism and sentenced to 23 years in federal prison. …

In a 2003 publication, “Peace and the Limits of War,” Safi wrote … “It is up to the Muslim leadership to assess the situation and weigh the circumstances as well as the capacity of the Muslim community before deciding the appropriate type of jihad.”

Commenting on this, Paul Mirengoff writes at Power Line:

Safi apparently has assessed that in this country, where the leaders are fools and a bizarre culture of political correctness allows a suspected jihadist to provide psychological counseling to its soldiers, jihad is best pursued by accepting invitations from the military to indoctrinate the troops.

President Obama’s speech on what he is planning to do about the war in Afghanistan was the speech of a deeply committed radical with a mind soaked in the toxic ideology of the Left, challenged to explain to himself and his ideological comrades just why he was continuing to wage war in a Third World country in defiance of all their passionately held ideals.

Pity the man! What a task he was forced to set himself!

As president of the United States, addressing men serving in his country’s military, he had to present his decision to commit 30,000 more troops to the war as a move reflecting an unswerving appreciation of their willing sacrifice, a determination to win, and a passion for upholding the honor of the country he leads. In  none of this he believes, but he had to say he did. He had to come across as encouraging, dedicated to the cause, intent on achieving goals for which his audience were willing to give their lives. He had to sound sincere when he was not. As part of the act, but making his task even harder for himself, he chose to announce his new strategy for the war at the Military Academy at West Point, which Chris Matthews of MSNBC called, speaking for peaceniks of the left everywhere, the ‘enemy’s camp’.

At the same time he had to be true to his political faith, which is in absolute opposition to any war waged by the United States on or in a Third World country, especially against an Islamic movement. His speech had to signal to the pacifist faction of the American left, the whole of the international left, and to Muslims world-wide that he was in principle against the war, against all war, against America being militarily strong, against America being the mightiest power and the most successful capitalist country in the world.

No wonder it took him months to work out what to do and how to spin it. Did he succeed? Superficially, yes. The speech, amazingly, so well fulfills his contradictory needs that it could almost be called a masterpiece of equivocation. At least until it is scrutinized in detail. Then the irreconcilable bits show up all too plainly.

How did he do it?

Pick the speech apart and you can see how it was done. For instance, for the voters and the patriots, for the generals and the soldiers, for the fulfillment of the duties of his office – let’s put all of these into a category headed Patriots –  he says:

‘On September 11, 2001, 19 men hijacked four airplanes and used them to murder nearly 3,000 people. They struck at our military and economic nerve centers. They took the lives of innocent men, women and children …’

Then for the left revolutionaries, for the pacifists, for Islam, for America-haters, for the panel of Marxist advisers in his White House, for his dead communist father, his  hippy mother, his wife, his best friends, for his Marxist professors and mentors and benefactors, his pastors, his erstwhile Alinsky-team employers,  for his  terrorist associates, for ACORN and the SEIU, for his whole revolutionary base, and for Islam their ally – let’s put all these into a category headed the Left – he says:

‘… without regard to their faith or race or station.’

What could this mean?  What faiths or races or stations in life could have been regarded, taken into consideration, which would have qualified the evil of the act? We know the answers. If the only people to be hit had for certain been white, been captains of the ‘military-industrial complex’, been Christians and Jews, then the attack would have been more understandable, perhaps excusable, perhaps even justified. No, it isn’t said. But it is implied. What other meaning can be found in the words?

In paragraph after paragraph the pieces stand out as these for the Patriots, these  for the Left. (And there are a few that do for both, such as those strongly condemning al-Qaeda – safely enough since many Islamic states are fervently against it.)

First for the Patriots: He tells the soldiers that he has been very good to them; they really have nothing to complain about. He has ’signed a letter of condolence to the family of each American who gives their life in these wars’; he has read the letters sent to him by ‘the parents and spouses of those who deployed’; he visited wounded warriors at Walter Reed; and he ‘traveled to Dover to meet the flag-draped caskets of 18 Americans returning home to their final resting place’. And here are more sops to Patriots: ‘A testament to the character of our men and women in uniform’; ‘thanks to their courage, grit and perseverance’; ‘as cadets you volunteered for service during the time of danger’; ‘as your commander in chief I owe you a mission that is clearly defined and worthy of your service’; ‘I make this decision because I am convinced that our security is at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan’; ‘we will pursue a military strategy that will break the Taliban’s momentum’; ‘to abandon this area now would significantly hamper our ability to keep the pressure on al-Qaeda, and create an unacceptable risk of additional attacks on our homeland and our allies’; ‘the struggle against violent extremism will not be finished quickly’; ‘it will be an enduring test of our free society, and our leadership in the world’; ‘where al-Qaeda and its allies attempt to establish a foothold – whether in Somalia or Yemen or elsewhere – they must be confronted by growing pressure and strong partnerships’; ‘we have to improve our intelligence so that we stay one step ahead of shadowy networks’; ‘our country has borne a special burden in global affairs’; we have spilled American blood in many countries’; ’we have not always been thanked for these efforts’; ‘more than any other nation, the United States of America has underwritten global security for over six decades’; ’unlike the great powers of old,  we have not sought world domination’; ‘we do not seek to occupy other nations’; ‘we are still heirs to a noble struggle for freedom’; ‘men and women in uniform are part of an unbroken line of sacrifice that has made government of the people, by the people and for the people a reality on this Earth’.

Most of the rest of the speech is primarily to placate the Left and Islam. It would be tediously long to quote, so here’s a summary and interpretaion:  Al Qaeda  has ‘distorted and defiled Islam’; it has even attacked Muslims, for instance in Amman and Bali; our use of force in Afghanistan was fully sanctioned by both Congress and the UN’s international approval;  then we were distracted from pursuing it properly by  the unjustifiable, illegal war that Bush (not named but fully blamed) waged on Iraq;  although I am going to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, after 18 months all our troops will begin to come home; after that we’ll keep a kindly eye on the progress the Afghans make in becoming a country that is not corrupt, holds elections without fraud, and grows something more desirable than opium;  we must exercise restraint in the use of military force; in any case we cannot afford to wage war because we have an economic crisis and what resources we have must be used to change America to you-know-what; I don’t really like bothering with foreign affairs at all very much, but since I  have to let me remind you that we’ve got other tasks to do in the world, for instance in ‘disorderly regions’ (such as, not needing to be named to those who know, the Middle East); we’d rather negotiate peace than fight for it, even with the Taliban; but if the Taliban has to be fought let Pakistan do the fighting, we’ll pay them to do it; I am pursuing the goal of a world without nuclear weapons; I’ve prohibited torture; I’ll close the prison at Guantanamo Bay; I’ll speak out for human rights everywhere in the world (okay, not in China, or Cuba, or Venezuela, or Saudi Arabia, or … No, he doesn’t imply this, it just happens to be the case.)

But he fears he might not have pleased both sides after all. He anticipates disagreement and rebukes it:

‘This vast and diverse citizenry will not always agree on every issue — nor should we. But I also know that we, as a country, cannot sustain our leadership nor navigate the momentous challenges of our time if we allow ourselves to be split asunder by the same rancor and cynicism and partisanship that has in recent times poisoned our national discourse.’

He ends with a series of grandiose but entirely empty rhetorical flourishes designed to elicit applause, which they did as a mater of courtesy and custom, though most of the speech was listened to without it. No wonder. It was a self-serving exercise, not improved by the flattery bestowed on the audience.

‘America, we are passing through a time of great trial. And the message that we send in the midst of these storms must be clear: that our cause is just, our resolve unwavering. We will go forward with the confidence that right makes might, and with the commitment to forge an America that is safer, a world that is more secure, and a future that represents not the deepest of fears but the highest of hopes. …’

Are the Patriots deceived? Is the Left placated and are Muslims appeased?  It remains  to be seen.

Jillian Becker  December 2, 2009

At last! Some feminists take a stand against Islam-creep in Europe upon their noticing that Islam subjugates and oppresses women. A small step but at least it’s in the right direction.

From the Times Online:

A right-wing campaign to outlaw minarets on mosques in a referendum being held in Switzerland today has received an unlikely boost from radical feminists arguing that the tower-like structures are “male power symbols” and reminders of Islam’s oppression of women.

A “stop the minarets” campaign has provoked ferment in the land of Heidi, where women are more likely than men to vote for the ban after warnings from prominent feminists that Islam threatens their rights. …

“If we give them a minaret, they’ll have us all wearing burqas,” said Julia Werner, a local housewife. “Before you know it, we’ll have sharia law and women being stoned to death in our streets. We won’t be Swiss any more.” …

A poll suggested the Swiss would narrowly reject a ban but the feminist involvement is having an effect: according to one poll, 39% of women were in favour of a ban, but only 31% of men.

Tatiana, a teacher who had previously voted for the left, was quoted in a newspaper as saying she would vote for the minaret ban as she could “no longer bear being mistreated and terrorised by boys who believe women are worthless”.

Socialist politicians have been furious to see icons of the left joining what is regarded as an anti-immigrant campaign by the populist Swiss People’s party, the biggest group in parliament.

One of them, Julia Onken, warned that failure to ban minarets would be “a signal of the state’s acceptance of the oppression of women”. She has sent out 4,000 emails attacking Muslims who condone forced marriage, honour killings and beating women. …

Islam is waging war on the non-Muslim world. The West cannot defend itself only on the battlefields of Afghanistan and the Middle East (though we believe a bombing of Iran’s nuclear installations and strategic centers would shock the whole Islamic world into a long pause at the very least).

There also has to be a new type of warfare, fought within our own Western countries by vigilance, intelligence, legislation and enforcement, and by words. The enemy fighters in our midst have to be found, identified (‘profiled’), disarmed, and put where they can do no harm. In addition, and most importantly, their cause has to be recognized  and named for what it is: jihad for the domination of the world by Islam.

At present, the enemy in our midst feels almost invulnerable. Liberalism in power is its ally and protector. Government spokesmen (if not positively sympathetic to the enemy’s cause), military chiefs, religious leaders, journalists and academics and teachers and opinion formers of every kind, are  under the spell of political correctness, which distorts their thinking, censors their speech, and ties their hands.

Meanwhile, the enemy speaks out in triumph –

From the Jawa Report:

A U.S. based jihadi forum has issued a statement calling Nidal Hasan [ the Fort Hood army-base murderer] a hero and urged Muslims in the U.S. Army to follow his lead and attack their fellow soldiers:

‘We hope other “Muslims” in the US army repent from their apostasy and take [Nidal Hasan] as a role model, instilling fear in the enemies of Allah and taking them by surprise wherever they may be.’

The statement also condemns Muslims in the West for speaking out against the attack. …

The Ansar al-Mujahideen forum is hosted in Brussels, but the English side of the forum is run out of the US. It is internet based, which means that its editorial staff is decentralized, but we do know that North Carolina’s Samir Khan helps run it. His blog is now hosted by them, he uses it to distribute his internet magazine, and his clique of friends and al Qaeda fellow travelers congregate there. …

Samir doesn’t officially take credit for the statement, but it looks like his work. But given his other treasonous writings, why not take credit?

Inasmuch as this statement is about as far over the line of sedition as they come — they actually urge others to follow in Hasan’s footsteps — I think he’s afraid of legal repurcussions. We all know that no one at the Justice Department has the guts to try a traitor like Samir for sedition, but to the paranoid mind U.S. agents are constantly on the prowl to arrest Muslims for far less. …

‘[We congratulate] our heroic brother Nidal Malik Hasan, for indeed he has raised our heads and made us proud. He realized the truth about the “war on terror”, and waged his own war on terror. When he realized the sin of being in the army, and when he came to know he may be sent overseas to fight Muslims, he instead chose to fight those who truly deserved to be fought. He risked his life to show that the Muslim Ummah is one Ummah indeed, and that Muslims must target their enemies wherever they may be, even in their own lands. We hope other “Muslims” in the US army repent from their apostasy and take him as a role model, instilling fear in the enemies of Allah and taking them by surprise wherever they may be.’

Feminists of the Western world – have you anything to say about this?

Below:

Shahnaz Bibi, 35, poses for a photograph in Lahore, Pakistan, Sunday, Oct. 26, 2008. Ten years ago Shahnaz was burned with acid by a relative due to a familial dispute.

If you can bear to see more pictures of Muslim women who have suffered the same fate at the hands of Muslim men, find them here, posted by Phyllis Chesler.

Muslims of the Middle East, Far East, North Africa and anywhere else, your attention please!

Great good news – if you haven’t already heard it! Just get yourself into Britain and say you’re a ‘refugee’ and ask for ‘asylum’, and you will immediately be given money and a place to live; you can import a wife or several wives, and they’ll all be given ‘benefits’ including ‘child-support’; your children will be given a free education and all of you will have free medical treatment. When you feel nicely settled you can carry out your duty of jihad by demanding that Britain adopt sharia law, or, if you fancy martyrdom, by suicide-bombing trains and buses to kill some British infidels.

From the Mail Online:

Migrant gangs [of Muslims – JB] in Calais are targeting British holidaymakers in terrifying ‘highway robberies’.

Would-be illegal immigrants are forming human roadblocks to force motorists passing through the French port town to stop. Travellers are then robbed at knifepoint by the migrants, who are desperate for funds to help them sneak into the UK. …

Since the closure of the Red Cross refugee centre at Sangatte in 2002, would-be migrants have been sleeping rough in and around Calais while they attempt to sneak on board cross-Channel trains and ferries. There are currently around 2,000, many living in a squalid camp known as the Jungle, which the French government has said will not be cleared away until next year.

In April immigration minister Eric Besson vowed to bulldoze the litter-strewn shanty town … after admitting it had become a hotbed for people smugglers and criminal gangs. But he has now said the camp must remain in place until it can be dismantled ‘in a dignified manner’.

French politicians have blamed Britain for the return of migrant camps to Calais.

The mayor of Calais, Natacha Bouchart, said the lure of the UK’s ‘enormous’ state handouts to asylum-seekers was the reason why thousands of foreigners are using the French port as a staging point to get across the Channel.

Mrs Bouchart said the UK Government’s policies were ‘imposing’ thousand of migrants on the town, costing the local economy millions of pounds.

'Witch' being decapitated in Saudi Arabia

From Asia News:

Ali Sibat, a Lebanese psychic who made predictions on a satellite TV channel from his home in Beirut, was arrested by religious police in the holy city of Madinah during a pilgrimage in May 2008 and then sentenced to death by decapitation on 9 November this year.

“He was the most popular psychic on the channel,” said May al-Khansa, Sibat’s lawyer. “The number of callers, including from all over the Gulf, spiked in number when he appeared,” she added. “He was told if he confessed to witchcraft, he will be released and allowed to return to Lebanon.”

Seems he ‘confessed’ and was not released.

Sibat’s case is not unique. Dozens of people are arrested each year on charges like witchcraft, recourse to supernatural beings, black magic and fortune telling. These practices are considered polytheistic and severely punished according to Sharia rules.

The Prophet Muhammad claimed that the angel Gabriel dictated the Koran to him. Did Muhammad not have ‘recourse to a supernatural being’?

And Allah himself, ‘the greatest’, what is he if not ‘a supernatural being’?

Ah, well! The religious mind is necessarily an inconsistent mind.

By Andrew Walden:

Earlier this month, the Obama administration moved to transfer alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed from the military justice system at Guantanamo Bay to the jurisdiction of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. Behind this move away from the military tribunal system, which delivered justice so effectively at Nuremburg, is an $8.5 million lobbying effort by the so-called “John Adams Project” launched in April, 2008 by the American Civil Liberties Union.

With the endorsement of Clinton Attorney General Janet Reno, former boss of Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder, as well as former President Jimmy Carter, FBI and CIA chief William Webster, and others from both Republican and Democratic administrations, the ACLU‘s victory on behalf of the man sometimes described as “al Qaeda’s CEO” is also a defeat in the U.S.-led war on terror. Thanks to the ACLU, a terrorist like KSM will now enjoy the constitutional rights reserved for American citizens.

The civilian trial of a leading terrorist is the culmination of a years-long campaign by the ACLU to handicap U.S. efforts in the war on terror. The ACLU responded to the 9/11 attacks with the formation of its so-called National Security Project. Under the leadership of the ACLU and its ideological affiliate, the so-called Center for Constitutional Rights, hundreds of lawyers from top law firms have worked without pay to “serve the caged prisoners,” as they call the terrorist detainees in American custody. Their assault on the courts, combined with Democratic electoral gains in 2006 and 2008, has seriously undermined the military commission system. …

Their excuse is that they are safeguarding civil and constitutional rights. But as such rights do not extend to alien attackers, it’s  a thin and feeble pretext for doing what they are so passionately engaged upon that they do it free of charge. Their real aim is deeply malign: to damage America.

To the ALCU and its liberal allies, the al-Qaeda defendants are merely pawns in a larger game aimed at shackling the American and international forces who have been fighting al-Qaeda since 9/11.

Many of the ACLU’s campaigns have taken place under the “National Security Project.” Led by its CAIR-affiliated director, Jameel Jaffer, it reveals a broader picture of ACLU’s ongoing sabotage of American national security. …

Walden gives a number of examples to back up what he’s saying, including –

ACLU v. DOD –the ACLU seeks to … to go after individual US and international military and intelligence personnel — and after defense contractors if the right kind of precedent is created in Mohamed et al. v. Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc . John Adams Project operatives are also photographing CIA agents and giving the photos to Guantanamo detainees in order to generate torture allegations.

In Amnesty v. McConnell, the ACLU seeks to eliminate the right of the US government to spy without warrant on international telecommunication traffic. This is a right exercised by Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Bush and now by Obama–as well as many Presidents before them. An ACLU victory in this case could subject numerous US military and intelligence personnel telephone companies and military contractors to criminal or civil prosecution by or on behalf of jihadists in US or foreign courts. …

The ACLU is seeking to extend constitutional rights to hostile foreign nationals living outside the US and to protect armed activities conducted partly or wholly outside the US. As the KSM trials suggest, it also has a sympathetic ear in the Obama administration.

For instance, Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder was a senior partner in the Covington & Burling law firm, which currently represents 16 Guantanamo detainees. Holder’s C&B law partner David Remes stripped to his underwear at a July 14, 2008 Yemeni news conference to demonstrate the strip-searches he claims are the most serious “torture” inflicted on detainees. Strip searches are a daily standard procedure in US and international prisons housing common criminals. But in the eyes of Holder’s former partner, this procedure is too debasing to be applied to jihadists. Remes soon left the firm to work on so-called “human rights” cases full time. …

The ACLU … wants to see all the Guantanamo detainees given civilian trials. The ACLU strategy has the potential to create a web of interlocking decisions and precedents that would serve to establish a basis for criminal prosecutions and more civil lawsuits by al Qaeda members against the US military personnel, contractors, Bush administration officials, and intelligence officers who have pursued them since 9/11.

If the ACLU is even partially successful, Americans and foreign allies who have risked their lives to pursue al Qaeda may find themselves in court answering to charges brought by the jihadists. With the civilian trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the ACLU is one step closer to that destructive goal.

Is this not civil war being fought by lawyers through the law courts? Or is it revolution?