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ith this headline, Salon launched its story about Obama’s executive orders yesterday directing that Guantanamo be closed within a year, ending the CIA’s use of secret overseas prisons, and banning “coercive” interrogation methods:

The Power of the Pen

When a nation is involved in fighting an enemy that has promised to destroy that nation, a pen can be powerful. It can sign acts of war and bigger military budgets, and can put into law new bills and executive orders that give the nation what it needs to execute its defense successfully.  It can even sign orders bestowing honors on its citizens who have given their lives in defense of the land they love.

But what power did Pres. Obama’s pen have yesterday as it took away some of the more extreme procedures we’ve  used in fighting the Islamists jihadists?  Perhaps Salon’s subhead can give us an idea:

On Day 2 of his administration, President Obama reverses key Bush “war on terror” policies, signing orders that end torture, close the CIA’s black sites and phase out Guantanamo

When did the war on terror get quotes around it? If they understand the subtleties of our language, jihadists around the globe must be firing off their Kalashnikovs with joy, especially when they realize that it’s not just Salon that’s used quotes to minimize our actions against their war. Here’s WaPo:

Bush’s ‘War’ On Terror Comes to a Sudden End

President Obama yesterday eliminated the most controversial tools employed by his predecessor against terrorism suspects. With the stroke of his pen, he effectively declared an end to the “war on terror,” as President George W. Bush had defined it, signaling to the world that the reach of the U.S. government in battling its enemies will not be limitless.

Apparently the WaPo editors can’t decide exactly where the quotes should go, as they’ve allowed different styles in the headline and the lead.  The headline, interestingly enough, makes the terror real, but the war against it somehow phony.

And how happy the bad guys of the world must be to learn that under Obama, all the powers of the American superpower will not be used to wipe them out.  But they’d better not let too much happiness seep into their dour, fatalistic selves because Scott Ott at Scrappleface has found some more quote marks:

‘War On Terror’ Ends, Obama Starts ‘Case Against Terror’

With the signing of executive orders to close the terrorist detention center at Guantanamo Bay, to prepare to grant full U.S. citizen legal rights to foreign enemy combatants, to end the threat to ‘high value targets’ of ‘enhanced interrogation’ techniques, and to shutter so-called ‘black sites’ operated by the CIA in foreign countries, President Barack Obama sent a clear signal yesterday that George Bush’s ‘War on Terror’ is over, and Barack Obama’s ‘Case Against Terror’ has begun.

“America’s enemies should not view these moves as surrender,” said an unnamed White House spokesman, “but rather as an effort to level the playing field and to make sure that our enemies get a fair shake.”

“The battle will now be joined in the Case Against Terror,” he said, “not with lethal weapons, but with subpoenas and motions and detailed arguments. The next time one of these criminals destroys one of our skyscrapers, detonates himself in a shopping mall, poisons our water supply or unleashes a dirty bomb in a crowded subway station, he does so with the knowledge that the full power of the U.S. legal system will be unleashed on him, with no limit to the cash damages that his victims’ families can collect.”

Meanwhile, unless Barry & Michelle take in the Guantanamo detainees as West Wing house guests, signs are Obama’s lefty pen might just lead to some really big problems:

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The emergence of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee as the deputy leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch has underscored the potential complications in carrying out the executive order President Obama signed Thursday that the detention center be shut down within a year.

The militant, Said Ali al-Shihri, is suspected of involvement in a deadly bombing of the United States Embassy in Yemen’s capital, Sana, in September. He was released to Saudi Arabia in 2007 and passed through a Saudi rehabilitation program for former jihadists before resurfacing with Al Qaeda in Yemen. (source)

Wow. This guy got the best we and the Saudis had to offer and he still went back to the dark side, like he really believed in it or something. And:

Terror suspects who have been held but released from Guantanamo Bay are increasingly returning to the fight against the United States and its allies, the Pentagon said Tuesday.

Sixty-one detainees released from the Navy base prison in Cuba are believed to have rejoined the fight, said Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell, citing data from December. That’s up from 37 as of March 2008, he said. (Navy Times)

You know, this isn’t all that shocking.  What do you think our soldiers and Marines would do in similar circumstances?  Freed from enemy prison camps (yeah, that would happen!), do we really think they would docilely say that the jihadists aren’t all that bad and they’ll just sit this one out from now on?  Hardly! So why do we expect something different from jihadist enemy combatants?

Liberals, though, always expect the best from everyone, and always refuse to base their expectations on what history and experience have taught us.

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“Thousands” of Jihadists Ready to Attack UK

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he (UK) Telegraph is heralding a leaked government report today that says thousands of jihadists – many of them converts to Islam or native-born Muslims – are poised and ready to carry out terror attacks in London, Birmingham and elsewhere in the UK. Says the leaked report:

Since 2001, over 1,200 terrorist suspect have been arrested, over 140 have been charged and more than 45 have been convicted of terrorism offences, according to Home Office figures. It is also estimated that there are some 200 terrorist networks functioning in Britain today who are involved in at least 30 plots.

But this latest security assessment appears to suggest that the number of individuals who now pose a threat to the UK is even higher.

The report continues: “The majority of extremists are British nationals of south Asian, mainly Pakistani origin but there are also extremists from north and east Africa, Iraq and the Middle East, and a number of converts. The overwhelming majority of extremists are male, typically in the 18-30 age range.

Many of them have visited Pakistan (remember Obama’s covered up trip to Pakistan?) and other locations for crash courses in jihad terrorism.

Meanwhile, in Indonesia, the bodies of the three jihadists executed yesterday for planning the Bali nightclub bombings were flown home and greeted with the sort of celebrations we’ve come to expect from the religion of death:

The crowd shouted “Allahu Akbar!” (God is greater) as the helicopter bearing their bodies landed in a nearby field.

“God is great, God is great! God is showing his greatness. I’m so happy,” shouted one supporter.

“This is God’s grace. The mujahedeen (holy warriors) will fight on!” shouted someone else in the crowd. (source)

That’s not my God, Bub. That’s not the one God who abounds with lovingkindness. Continue Reading »

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nother three despicable jihadists have discovered Hell – not virgins – awaited them in the afterlife, and I wish I had been there to see the looks on their faces.

Imam Samudra, Amrozi Nurhasyim and Ali Ghufron were shot by an Indonesian firing squad today for their roles planning the Bali nightclub bombings, which killed 202 and wounded more than 100. And for what? Did it further their dream of a new caliphate? Hardly. did it spread Islam? Not on your life.

But they still accomplished one of radical Islam’s primary goals: Removing non-Islamic people from the planet. A fine religion, Islam.

More at BBC.

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ood old Yankee know-how has been on display in Waziristan lately, as drone-fired missiles are slamming into rat-filled hovels. The latest report claims 20 “militants” – al-Qaeda and taliban terrorists – were killed.

A fine thing indeed, but what’s with this paragraph?

One attack in Mohammadkhel village about 28 miles west of Miran Shah, the region’s main town, killed about 19 people, most of them alleged militants but also including about a half-dozen foreigners, the officials said, citing agents in the field.

You mean the foreigners weren’t also terrorists? Were they perhaps European tourists on an eco-tour? Hollywood stars and Parisian fashion models on a round-the-world Smug Quest?

More likely they were jihadis from Saudi Arabia and Yemen, or Euro-Muslims on the only real kind of tour that reaches those parts, jihad madrassa tours. A half-dozen foreigners? A half dozen more dead terrorists, most likely.

Since this is evidence of stepped-up efforts to win the war in Afghanistan by taking  out the terrorist dregs that dragged that sorry butts back to the mountains after we took out most of their compadres in Iraq, one would think that Barack “The Kabul Kid” Obama will be singing the praises of the attack.  Bets anyone?  Anyone think he’ll actually praise a successful military action?

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“The Chinese have haughtily ignored our warnings. The Turkestan Islamic Party volunteers… have started urgent actions.”

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o said Commander Seyfullah, head of the Turkestan Islamic Party, a Uighur separatist/Islamist group in China’s Muslim-dominated XinJiang province, in a recently released tape, “Our Blessed Jihad in Yunnan.” The tape arrived along with bombs – bus attacks that killed five in Shanghai and Yunnan last week, and today – four days before the start of the Olympic Games:

Sixteen Chinese policemen have been killed in an attack on a border post in the restive Muslim region of Xinjiang, state media say.

Two attackers reportedly drove up to the post in a rubbish truck and threw two grenades, before moving in to attack the policemen with knives. …

Both attackers were captured during the raid near the city of Kashgar, Xinhua state news agency reported. (BBC)

Another much less violent demonstration occurred in Beijing, in which people who had homes destroyed in order to build Olympic facilities clashed with police.

Which is more troubling to Beijing: violent jihad in the far-flung west, or demonstrations almost under the nose of Olympic visitors? Certainly Jihad poses a greater risk, but hometown demonstrations pose the potential for greater loss of face.

The Turkestan terrorists get no sympathy from me, but it’s interesting to watch and compare China’s response to homegrown Jihad with that of the West. Multiculturalism and deeply entrenched and fair judicial systems define our response; a heavy fist clamping down from on high defines that of the Chinese.

I’m rooting for the West. It would be great if a good society, reacting firmly but fairly, is able to squelch Jihad. But just in case the Chinese approach works better, let’s pay attention and learn lessons.

Art: The Smallest Minority

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B

ud Day, Medal of Honor winner and “POW buddy” of John McCain, is taking some heat today for these comments:

“The Muslims have said either we kneel or they’re going to kill us.

“I don’t intend to kneel and I don’t advocate to anybody that we kneel, and John doesn’t advocate to anybody that we kneel.”

Talking Points Memo called the comments incendiary and asked,

Here’s a test for the McCain campaign: Will it disavow the incendiary comments that a key McCain surrogate made about Muslims on a campaign conference call?

I sure hope not. “Disavow” is too strong an reaction. A “nuanced rephrasing” is all we need, so here’s my talking points memo for the McCain camp:

“Muslims who believe in violent jihad may be a minority of all Muslims, but they are the cause of the war we have been drawn into. And only Muslims are demanding that we convert or die; no one else is. Of course, we realize that the jihadists represent a small minority of Islam, and we also know the best way to end the war on terror is for Muslims around the world to end it by demanding that their religion reject violent jihad and condemn those who pursue it.”

You know the Muslims will get all uppity about Day’s comments, so put the challenge right back on them. Behave like blithering idiots rioting in the street at the least whiff of truthful criticism, or get your act together and join the civilized world.

But those aren’t the talking points of the left. Ben Smith’s Blog at Politico says Day “seems to have cast McCain’s foreign policy in stark, religious terms.” Well, shucks, Ben, don’t you think that’s how Osama bin Laden sees it? President Bush was right to make the war a war on terrorism – as we saw in the drubbing FARC’s gotten recently – but that doesn’t take away the fact that jihad is a uniquely Islamic concept.

Careful PC wording doesn’t change reality; it only masks it.

Pandagon, always good for a fresh breath of extremist putrefaction, took one listen to Day’s call that we not kneel to Islamofascist jihad and is already waving the white flag:

May I recommend kneepads? I’m sure you’ll find some on the Straight Talk Express.

I thought that we’d understood several years back that the War on Terror is not, in fact, a War on Islam, particularly prescient in light of the fact that unofficial counts of Muslims in the world put their numbers somewhere north of eleventy bajillion and the numbers of the strong-kneed Americans at decidedly less than that. If at some point the two groups do decide to go to full out war with each other, I do not hesitate to say that the collected might of Islam will f*** the Bud Day Brigade’s s*** up.

The collected might of Islam? Maybe the collected meat of Islam, because they’ve got the stuff for human wave attacks, but their might is a bit 17th century compared to the military and economic might of (pick your own word) “the West,” or “Christiandom.” And the left may be weak-kneed and has certainly proved itself as such nearly every single day since 9/11, but it should not paint us with its brush.

I’m a 57 year-old with a spreading body and no military training, but my knees are still plenty strong and will be there in the unlikely event that one old POW’s accurate statement about the nature of many of the followers of a certain religion were to lead to full out war.

McCain has been a wuss so far in this campaign, backing away from comments he should be standing by. Let’s hope this is a turning point, and he doesn’t kneel to PC dogma.

hat-tip: memeorandum

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