It’s absurd to keep repeating, every time a Muslim tries to kill as many non-Muslims as possible in Islam’s war against the rest of us, that ‘most Muslims’ are not doing it. There are well over a billion Muslims in the world, at some estimates as many as 1.4 billion. If only 10% of them actively engage in violent jihad, that’s a huge horde. Islam demands that all Muslims engage in the jihad, either violently or by assisting the actively violent. Islam itself is the cause of the war.

Islam does not deserve respect just because it is a religion. Quite the opposite. Even if it were a ‘religion of peace’, which it explicitly is not, there’d be nothing respectable about it. What is respectable about belief in the supernatural? But its being a creed of massacre and cruelty in the name of its vicious beliefs makes it positively inimical to civilization, liberty, tolerance, peace, everything that makes life supportable. Islam is the enemy of mankind.

The Islamic hordes of death are conquering Europe by slowly repopulating it as the indigenous Europeans die out. From there, especially from Britain, they are striking against America. The president of the United States does not want to admit this is happening – a wilful blindness that greatly increases the peril.

Mark Steyn, who was one of the first to raise the alarm about Islam’s conquest of Europe by demographic means, writes:

It’s good to know the President has abandoned his laughable assurances that the Pantybomber was an “isolated extremist”. After all, when the leader of the global hyperpower says things that any reasonably informed person at home and abroad knows are complete twaddle, he makes his country look stupid to the world. But I think we’re still missing the larger point here.

So the President’s conceded Mr Abdulmuttalab was in Yemen. Good. But, by the time a guy gets on the plane to Sana’a, he’s already on board for jihad. All they do in Yemen is the training. So where was he radicalized and recruited and when did he decide to embrace a life of terror? … Whom should the traveling public thank for these impositions? The 9/11 killers were mostly Saudi. But the Shoebomber was a British subject. So were the Heathrow plotters. And the Pantybomber was educated in British schools – first in Togo; then at University College, London – and there is plenty of evidence he was radicalized while in the UK. …

That ought to prompt astonishment – and great shame in Britons. Yet Timothy Garton Ash, Hoover panjandrum and eminent British complacenik, wrote in The Guardian only three weeks ago:

‘Not all Muslims, all of the time, will be able to support all these minimum essentials of a modern free society. There is a real tension between some of the essentials (for instance, the equal rights and dignity of homosexuals) and what is habitually taught even in mainstream, conservative Muslim communities. But most British Muslims, most of the time, will support most of them.’

Even if that’s true (and it’s by no means clear that it is), is that enough? I said a few years back that Britain had been so hollowed out by Islamic radicals that it was becoming Somalia with chip shops. Mr Abdulmutallab supposedly got the ol’ jihad fever while at university. I see The New York Times reports the remarkable statistic that one-fifth of students at British universities are Muslim. As Professor Garton Ash would say, most British Muslims most of the time will be most unlikely to self-detonate over most American cities. So that’s okay, right? Up to a point. A poll by the Centre for Social Cohesion found that one-third of Muslim students in Britain believe killing in the name of religion is justified and are in favor of a global caliphate. That’s a lot of potential airline tickets.

It turns out that two of the terrorist leaders, now in Yemen, who plotted Abdulmutallab’s intended Christmas Day atrocity over Detroit, were released from Guantanamo in November 2007.

Their names: Said Ali al-Shihri and Muhammad Attik al-Harbi (since changed to Muhammad al-Awfi).

They were flown off to Saudi Arabia, there to be healed of the tragic affliction of their souls which, compassion junkies believe, compelled them to be torturers and killers.

The magic cure was ART THERAPY.

Yes. Designing tiles or whatever non-representational art Islam permits.

Michelle Malkin tells us more about them:

In January 2009, the two “rehabilitated” recidivists released a video vowing to wage jihad to “aid the religion,” “establish the rightly guided caliphate” and ” fight against our enemies.” One of the duo, Said Ali al-Shihri, is suspected of involvement in a deadly bombing of the United States embassy in Yemen’s capital, Sana, in September 2008.

So art therapy doesn’t work for terrorists?

Can we think of anything else that might be worth a try?

McCLATCHY reports:

As the U.S. and its allies try to overcome logistical hurdles and rush [?] some 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan in 2010, intelligence officials are warning that the Taliban-led insurgency is expanding and that “time is running out” for the U.S.-led coalition to prove that its strategy can succeed.

‘Succeed’ at what? What will constitute success? Can anyone describe what Afghanistan will look like when ‘the US-led coalition’s strategy’ has succeeded?

The report goes on:

The Taliban have created a shadow “government-in-waiting,” complete with Cabinet ministers, that could assume power if the U.S.-backed government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai fails, a senior International Security Assistance Force intelligence official said in Kabul, speaking only on the condition of anonymity as a matter of ISAF policy.

As the Obama administration and its European allies face dwindling public and political support for the eight-year-old Afghan war, the Taliban now have what the official called “a full-fledged insurgency” and shadow governors in 33 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, including those in the north, where U.S. and other officials had thought the Islamic extremists posed less of a threat.

The Taliban’s return to the northern provinces, including Baghlan, Kunduz and Taqhar … poses serious security, logistical and political problems for the U.S.-led ISAF and Karzai’s government.

The northern region is under the command of German forces, but they and other European contingents operate under restrictions imposed by their governments that limit offensive operations against the Taliban.

The Taliban now threaten the northern supply route that the ISAF established to supplement the vulnerable routes that run through Pakistan, where the U.S.-backed government is battling its own Islamic extremists and growing sectarian violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.

The Taliban in northern Afghanistan are sheltering among and recruiting from large communities of Pashtuns — descendants of settlers transplanted from the south in the early 20th century — fueling tensions with the Uzbeks and Tajiks who dominate the region.

At the same time, though, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Chechens and Arabs linked to al Qaida have moved into northern Afghanistan with the Taliban, seeking to carry their jihad to the former Soviet republics of Central Asia and alarming Russia, which is grappling with Islamic insurgencies in the republics of Chechnya and Dagestan.

As the Taliban have extended their reach, they’ve also grown more formidable militarily by developing bigger and more effective improvised explosive devices. Insurgents have mounted 7,228 IED attacks so far this year, compared with 81 in 2003, and … the homemade bombs have even destroyed some Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, the most heavily armored U.S. troop transports….

So will success be a state of peaceful, happy co-existence among the Pashtuns, Uzbeks, and Tajiks? How likely is this?

Why are they in conflict with each other? What must change so that the ‘tensions’ between them will suddenly end? How can this be brought about?

What will make the Taliban abandon its intentions? What will have changed for them?

If by some remote chance the Karzai government found itself with an effective native fighting force, what would it do to achieve a pacified Afghanistan? Or will there be perpetual internecine war?

What might the US have gained by the time its army is pulled out? What does it want to gain?

We beg for enlightenment. Would someone who knows the answers please give them to us? We see nothing but a mess into which American troops have been plunged for no discernible reason, to fight and die with one arm tied behind their back, so to speak, for no defined or even definable goal.

Carol Platt Liebau, writing in Townhall, trumpets a note of optimism for the coming year:

Suddenly, the liberty and free enterprise most of us have taken for granted seem to be in the greatest jeopardy of our lifetime. Worse yet, Democrat politicians have ignored the public outcry, ramming through unpopular legislation that would put one-sixth of the economy (and every American’s health care!) under government control. Regular Americans – the ones more inclined to watch sports or go shopping than to organize protests – have taken notice. They’ve also taken umbrage.

By overreaching and arrogantly ignoring the widespread public discontent with them and their policies, Democrats from the President on down have succeeded in awakening a sleeping giant – regular Americans. They are people who may often take their freedom for granted, but who don’t intend ever to let it be taken away.

They are the male and female heirs to the Sons of Liberty of Revolutionary times, the people who understand the danger of a government leviathan, and who insisted on “No taxation without representation.” After watching the politicians they voted into power last year ignore the common good, instead seeking only power and political advantage for themselves, they’re appalled – and perhaps even a little frightened.

Certainly, 2009 was a dark and disheartening year for lovers of economic and individual liberty. But if next year shapes up in accordance with current trends, the tide is about to change. With a growing recognition of the preciousness (and fragility) of liberty and a renewed appreciation of our founding principles, America is poised for a rebirth of freedom. Hail 2010: The Year of the Citizen.

Has a year of being ruled by a Marxist community organizer and the corrupt majority in Congress made tens of millions of Americans who are not usually much concerned about what their government does, suddenly become aware that they must sit up and take notice of what’s happening to their country? Realize for themselves that eternal vigilance is the price of freedom?

If so, the horrible year will have been worth living through. Obama will have served a worthwhile purpose after all.

We would like to believe that, but we read the signs differently and remain pessimistic.

Americans will be in deeper debt. Iran will have its nuclear bombs. Islam will wage its jihad ever more fiercely against the rest of us. Environmentalists will press on towards their impoverishing, collectivist, crushing goal of world government.

If the new Sons and Daughters of Liberty decide to fight it will be a tremendous battle. Do they have enough courage, passion, and tenacity for it?

We can only hope so.

A Nigerian engineering student from University College, London, tried to blow up a plane with 278 passengers as it was approaching Detroit on Christmas Day.

Wonder what his religion is? Don’t let such a thought sully your mind.

Fox News reports:

A male passenger on an international flight bound [from Amsterdam] for Detroit Friday tried to blow up the plane with an explosive device in an incident that the White House is labeling an attempted act of terrorism.

An attempted  act of ‘terrorism‘ ?! Not an attempted  ‘man-caused disaster’?

The suspect, who ABC reported suffered second-degree burns, told federal investigators he was connected to Al Qaeda …

No … surely not?

… authorities are questioning the veracity of that statement …

We should hope so! Likely story! At any rate, nobody’s being so racist and Islamophobic as to mention the words ‘Islam’, or ‘Muslim’, or jihad’.

A federal situational awareness bulletin noted that the explosive was acquired in Yemen with instructions as to when it should be used …

Yemen? Hey! What’s going on here?

Eyewitness Peter Smith said one passenger climbed over passengers, went across the aisle and tried to restrain the alleged attacker. The heroic passenger appeared to have been burned.

Afterward, the suspect was taken to a front-row seat with his pants cut off and his legs burned. Multiple law enforcement officials also said the man appeared badly burned on his legs, indicating the explosive was strapped there. The components were apparently mixed in-flight and included a powdery substance, officials said.

Rep. Peter King (R-NY) identified the suspect as 23-year-old Abdul Mudallad [full name Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab] of Nigeria, and King said Mudallad “definitely has connections” to Al Qaeda. …

Naaa! Couldn’t have! Anyway, things like that will be taken care of in a caring way by Obama.

White House officials confirmed Friday that the attack was an attempted act of terrorism. “He appears to have had some kind of incendiary device he tried to ignite,” said one of the U.S. officials. …

One law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to discuss the case, said Mudallad’s name had surfaced earlier on at least one U.S. intelligence database, but not to the extent that he was placed on a watch list or a no-fly list.

Of course not. No profiling please. Better to risk a plane full of people than descend to that sort of thing.

President Barack Obama was notified of the incident and discussed it with security officials, the White House said. It said he is monitoring the situation … Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has been briefed on the incident and is closely monitoring the situation.

There you are! They’re monitoring. Told you it would be okay.

There’s talk in the ether that Obama has decided to allow Iran yet another year to ‘unclench its fist’ and stop enriching uranium for nuclear bombs. If so, this will be – what? the sixth or seventh extension of time that Obama has given the grim mullahs and the poisonous Ahmadinejad. The answer is always the same ‘No!’  Before Obama came along, Europe had persisted for about eight years with hinting to the Iranians that they should really try to play nice. ‘If you don’t stop’, they warned, ‘we’ll have to ask you again!’ Ignoring that withering threat, and scorning Obama’s ‘deadlines’ which they were confident would always be extended, the Iranians advanced steadily and vigorously towards becoming a nuclear-armed power.

It is also being said (less believably, we think) that Prime Minister Netanyahu has agreed to wait yet again, but only for another six months before he will use force to stop Iran getting the bomb.

Meanwhile certain Arab states which quietly hoped that either the US or Israel, or preferably both together, would act against Iran, may be running out of hope and patience. Now something dramatic seems to be developing.

Here is a mixture of fact and surmise from DEBKAfile:

The powerful Iranian speaker of parliament, Ali Larijani, arrived [last Sunday, December 20] in Cairo and was received at once by Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak for a conversation lasting two hours.

DEBKAfile’s Iranian sources report that the Iranian visitor carried with him a wide-ranging proposal to ease the strained relations between Tehran and the moderate Arab governments.

Without wasting a moment, the next day, the Egyptian president flew to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the Arab emirates to discuss the momentous turn of events.

The octogenarian Mubarak travels very infrequently these days because of his failing health except in extraordinary circumstances. He was galvanized this time by the message Larijani brought from Tehran containing the offer of “a new Iranian approach to resolving outstanding issues.” Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has already offered to open an embassy in Cairo for the first time since ties were broken off after Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution.

Aware that any breakthrough with the Arab governments was contingent on allaying their fears of its nuclear drive, Iran’s offer of a new beginning is reported by our sources as including a form of Iranian-Arab nuclear cooperation. Its immediate objective is to close ranks with the Arab nations in order to outmaneuver the US-Israeli campaign against its nuclear drive, thereby derailing the US president Barack Obama’s plans for … sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

The expeditiousness of Mubarak response to Tehran’s overture and the promptness of his Gulf consultations indicated that the bloc of Arab nations, which he and Saudi king Abdullah lead, has given up on effective action by America or Israel, including force, for throwing Iran off its current nuclear course.

Within the region today, coexistence with Iran looks like a safer bet.

If this burgeoning realignment of Middle East partnerships goes forward, the region’s strategic balance will be pulled out of shape, Washington’s influence heavily downgraded and Israel isolated.

And Obama’s pacifist policy towards Iran will have increased the probability of war.

Are  Muslims to be allowed to erect a victor’s monument at Ground Zero? A permanent symbol of Islamic gloating and mockery? That is what a huge mosque next to the site of  9/11 would be.

Surely it would be intolerable! Will New Yorkers tolerate it?

From Hudson New York (read it all here):

An identified group with unknown sponsors has purchased building steps away from where the World Trade Center once stood — to turn it into potentially one of the largest New York City mosques.

At the moment the building, the old Burlington Coat Factory, already serves as a mini-mosque: an iron grill lifts every Friday afternoon for a little known Imam leading prayers a few yards away from where Osama Bin Laden’s airborne Islamist bombers killed nearly 3000 people back in 2001.

The Imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf, told the New York Times — which put the story on its front page Wednesday — that he has assembled several million dollars to turn it into ‘’an Islamic center near the city’s most hallowed piece of land that would stand as one of ground zero’s more unexpected and striking neighbors.’’

What is going on in the US Defense Department? There are people in it who seem to be positively on the side of the enemy.

From Investor’s Business Daily, by Paul Sperry:

The internal threat from Muslim extremists in the military extends to high-level Defense Department aides who have undermined military policy. In fact, one top Muslim adviser pushed out an intelligence analyst who warned of the sudden jihad syndrome that led to the Fort Hood terrorist attack.

An honored guest of the Ramadan dinner at the Pentagon this September was Hesham Islam, who infiltrated the highest echelons of the Ring despite proven ties to U.S. terror front groups and a shady past in his native Egypt.

As senior adviser for international affairs to former deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, Islam … persuaded brass to sack a Pentagon analyst, Stephen Coughlin, after he advised cutting off outreach to ISNA, which he accurately ID’d as part of a covert terror-support network in the U.S. — something the Justice Department recently confirmed in a major terror finance trial.

Islam invited ISNA [Islamic Society of North America] officials to lunch with the avuncular England, known by insiders as Gullible Gordon, who in turn spoke at ISNA confabs. Islam also helped set up a Pentagon job booth at one recent ISNA convention to recruit Muslim chaplains and linguists.

Most disturbing, Islam met regularly with Saudi and other embassy officials lobbying for the release and repatriation of their citizens held at Gitmo. He in turn advised England, who authorized the release of dozens of Gitmo detainees. Some have resumed terrorist activities.

No one really knew who Islam was when he was promoted — in fact, the Pentagon removed his bio from its Web site after reporters noted major inconsistencies in it — yet he was allowed to get inside the office of the Pentagon’s No. 2 official.

“In effect,” a senior U.S. Army intelligence official told me, “we’ve got terrorist supporters calling the shots on our policies toward Muslims from the highest levels.”

Meanwhile, politically incorrect prophets like Coughlin have been frozen out. …

Coughlin … warned that by using ISNA and other radical [Muslim] Brotherhood fronts to endorse Muslim chaplains and recruit Muslim soldiers, they were courting enemies of the U.S. — and courting disaster. But they were too drunk with political correctness to listen. …

The Fort Dix terrorists …  talked about joining the U.S. Army so they could kill U.S soldiers from the “inside.” …  Some of them [like Nidal Malik Hasan, the Muslim terrorist of Fort Hood -JB] were inspired by al-Qaida preacher Anwar Awlaki, who on his Yemen-based Web site calls for jihad against U.S. military targets inside and outside the U.S.

But so do so-called moderate American clerics like Zaid Shakir. … Frequently booked by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as a guest speaker at its events, Shakir tells his Muslim audience: “Jihad is physically fighting the enemies of Islam to protect and advance the religion of Islam. This is jihad.”

Acceptable targets of jihad, he says, include U.S. military aircraft. “Islam doesn’t permit us to hijack airplanes filled with civilian people,” he said, but “if you hijack an airplane filled with the 82nd Airborne, that’s something else.”

The 82nd Airborne is based out of Fort Bragg, which is part of North Carolina state Sen. Larry Shaw’s home district. Shaw is CAIR’s new chairman. He is also a minority contractor who operates Shaw Food Services Co. near Fort Bragg. According to the legislator’s financial disclosure form, Shaw Food customers include the Defense Department. …

CAIR, like ISNA, is an unindicted terrorist co-conspirator. The FBI says CAIR is a terrorist front group and has cut off formal ties to it. So should the military. …

This enemy is hiding behind a religion, making it easier for them to infiltrate our sensitive security agencies. Communist spooks did not have such an advantage. …

Military command must stop currying favor with suspect Muslim groups and start beefing up counterintelligence activities. It must institute a policy of zero tolerance for Jihad Joes in the ranks.

And while we’re trying to digest that, here’s another piece of information we must swallow to make the heartburn worse – an Obama program making it easy for foreign Muslims to join the US armed forces:

Illegal aliens with “special skills,” such as speaking Arabic, Dari, Pushti and other languages are now allowed to enlist in the U.S military. There is NO requirement that these people be in the United States legally. No background check! A Muslim Pushti speaker could sneak across the Rio Grande today and be getting 3 hots and a cot (meals and a place to sleep) in the U.S. Military tomorrow! Even worse, he would be on a path to get citizenship in less time than any other naturalized citizen in history! Special “citizenship expediters” at military bases across the country rush their citizenship papers through in as little as 10 weeks.

Does Obama mean to pack the army with potential traitors?

From IMED:

David Miliband has stated that the procurement of an arrest warrant for Tzipi Livni will not happen again.

This follows anger from pro-democracy, pro-Israeli groups and the Israeli government itself at this outrageous use of unjustified and perverted ‘legal weapon’.

This is not the first time that anti-Israeli campaigners have attempted to use such a tool:

•                October 2009: Former military chief Moshe Yaalon was forced to cancel a visit to the UK after being warned that he might face arrest.

•                October 2009: An attempt to obtain an arrest warrant for the Defence Minister Ehud Barak failed after the court ruled that he had diplomatic immunity

•                September 2005: An arrest warrant was issued for former IDF head General Doron Almog. He received warning before leaving an aircraft at Heathrow Airport, and was forced to fly straight back to Israel.

While we at IMED of course believe that there is no justification for such a warrant, and that to accuse Israeli leaders of war crimes is tainted with great hypocrisy and irrational hatred; we are more alarmed at the mob’s increasing acquisition of legal powers.

The state of Israel demonstrated great foresight when she declared that she would not be part of the International Criminal Court. Anti-Israeli groups and Governments immediately decried this decision as that of a guilty party. And so what an impeccable decision Israel made in view of recent events.

What fragments of sovereign statehood remains when an international court – answerable to no-one – has jurisdiction over all countries and peoples? And as Israel foresaw, abuse of such power is rife; what could be more important to the State of Israel than that of sovereignty? – it is the fundamental tenet on which she subsists; the guarantee that a Jew can be protected is promised by Israel’s existence. This unchallenged power, that of these deified international law courts, that allows the arrest and trials of persons anywhere, clashes with the very principles of liberty and democracy.

It is eerily reminiscent of the fall of the Roman Republic – a once proud democracy brought to its knees by the sham trials of its leaders – legal executions by the mob, egged on by cruel, ambitious dictators-to-be.

In what sane world can an individual be tried for a crime based on evidence provided by terrorist groups and circulated by the unwitting media? This is what has happened – Hamas weeps crocodile tears for one lost Palestinian child, while forcing another child at gunpoint to carry their weapons.

As Sam Westrop wrote in an earlier IMED post:

Mashaal may visit Britain without worry – despite his personal involvement with countless murders, including the barbaric slaughter of Holocaust survivors – while Barak faces the prospect of arrest.

Here is an excellent article on the subject in the Jerusalem Post:

The latest episode in which, to paraphrase Karl von Clausewitz, law is used as the continuation of war by other means…

Israel’s enemies still come away with a propaganda victory because reports that a high-ranking Israeli was accused of such heinous charges chip away at Israel’s legitimacy. Note that al-Jazeera on Monday headlined the Livni warrant story instead of immediately going live to Gaza for Hamas’s anniversary rally…

The British legal system adheres to “universal jurisdiction” in the matter of war crimes. A magistrates’ court need only be convinced to issue a warrant – based on claims by advocacy groups supporting the Palestinian Arab cause – for an Israeli official to be taken into custody for events that had nothing to do with Britain…

Some suggest Brown and Miliband have purposefully not fulfilled this promise to chastise Israel. Others say they simply lack the political capital to face down their own rabidly pro-Palestinian backbenchers and – just months before national elections – do not want to be dependent on the Tories to pass a law.

Whatever the explanation, this has not been Britain’s finest hour.

We also recommend this article by Joshua Rozenberg in Standpoint magazine:

There is an important safeguard against inappropriate use of the Geneva Conventions Act. English law says that criminal proceedings in respect of alleged offences occurring after August 2001 cannot be instituted without the Attorney General’s consent.

But that safeguard does not extend to arrest. Anyone may obtain a warrant from a magistrate without notice by producing information, substantiated on oath, that a named person is suspected of a serious offence. Broadly speaking, the police must then arrest the person concerned.

Brown and Miliband have both frantically contacted Livni and the Israeli Government, reassuring them that Israeli politicians and representatives are welcome in the UK, but unless the law is changed, Britain will let the law be perverted in the name of a supreme international authority that so cynically claims to uphold the law, while it discharges only injustice.

Could anyone explain why a jailed al-Qaeda terrorist deserves to have his every wish gratified, every demand for his greater comfort and convenience supplied?

From The Sun:

Hate preacher Abu Hamza has got huge new wardrobes in his prison cell – after he whinged about his robes getting creased.

Taxpayers paid hundreds of pounds for the Ikea-style furniture after he moaned a lack of storage was crumpling his Islamic prayer garments.

Belmarsh prison staff ordered and built the flat pack just days after the request by hook-handed Hamza, who is wanted in the US over al-Qaeda-linked terror charges.

A source at the South East London nick said: “Once again, Hamza demands special treatment and the authorities cave in. Everyone’s joking about what they’ll do next for him – perhaps a butler.”

Hamza, 51, jailed in 2006 for inciting hatred, had £650 lever taps put in his cell this year.