Whatever Happened to Flight 370? And what can be done about it?

Back in 2009 when I started writing on air disasters, even a plane flying into the middle of the ocean could expect to be found within days, its black box recovered even from the bottom of the abyss. Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 has changed all that; three years after it disappeared from radar, no crash scene has ever been identified, nor will it probably ever be found using currently available technology. When whoever was at the controls of MH370 made its final turn into the Indian Ocean, it was with the intention that the plane never be seen again.

I have written on this air disaster before, both five days and nine months after it was first reported. I haven't had anything further to report, until now. While I stay with my original theory that MH370 was hijacked, I've let go of my secondary theory, that the USA was behind its disappearance; I've now run across a much more likely theory.

There is no question, now, that some sinister person was at the controls of MH370 at the time the transponder was turned off just after clearing Malaysian traffic control; the only question has been, who? The general consensus seems to focus on the pilot, based mainly on three lines of evidence:

1. The plane had to have been taken over by someone aboard. Since Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah was the last voice heard just before the plane went dark, under this scenario he took control of the plane, dismissed the copilot, locked the cockpit door (another unintended consequence of post-9/11 regulation is that a member of the flight crew can now hijack his own flight unimpeded), turned off all communication devices, flew the plane into radar dead zones along international borders, and turned left to fly southward across the Indian ocean until the plane's fuel was exhausted. Prime evidence for this scenario is that Zaharie had cleared his social calendar following the flight.

2. The Inmarsat satellite system picked up ACARS signals that, as interpreted, indicated that MH370 continued on a southern track until 8:19 am.

3. A piece of a Boeing 777 wing floated ashore Reunion Island in July 2015. A part number inside the piece was traced back to the airplane lost on March 8, 2014. Another identified piece of the aircraft was found on Pemba Island in June 2016.

Now, taken together, these three lines of evidence are extremely damning. There is now only one other scenario that fits the evidence, and it hugely fails Occam's Razor. It was proposed in a book I read recently by Jeff Wise. Its scenario is that the two Ukrainian nationals aboard MH370 were Russian agents disguised as scuba divers, who used their carry-on oxygen tanks to stay alive while commandeering the plane via its. The agent inside the electronics control center turned off oxygen to the cockpit and decompressed the plane, resulting in the deaths of the flight crew. He then not only reprogrammed the autopilot, but tampered with the ACARS signal in such a way as to send a false signal that the plane was headed south, when in fact it was headed northeast, toward the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakstan--which it reached after several hours, at the end of its fuel endurance, having evaded the military radars of several more countries along the way. To compound the difficulty of this scenario, the Russians would then have had to dispose of all the crew and passengers' bodies, and part out the plane so they could then dump pieces of it at an appropriate location in the Southern Indian Ocean--where submarines would have had to broadcast phony pings from the plane's black boxes. Jeff Wise didn't have a convincing reason why Russia would go to all this work, and all evidence that has come to light since his book came out has made his scenario less and less likely.

I'm going to go with the pilot-suicide theory, and note that the overwhelming majority of deaths attributed to pilot suicide--not even including the 9/11 flights--resulted from Muslim pilots flying their planes into the ocean. Now that it's so easy for a pilot to fly his plane into the sea, this is what I would recommend: Putting a device outside the cockpit by which cabin crew can communicate directly with authorities, and rolling back regulations that make the airline cockpit such an impenetrable fortress, so that non-suicidal crew members can not only report the attempted murder-suicide, but actually do something to thwart it. In the meantime, you may want to avoid flying with certain flag carriers.

Update 2019: The Atlantic wraps up the story with all the available evidence compiled to date, especially the flotsam being found wherever Gibson looks for it.

Revival Now--but what follows?

“It is a delicate matter, to write up revival!” wrote Dr. Joe Church, who, by his own account, seeded the East Africa Revival in 1929 by studying the Scofield Reference Bible with Simeon Nsibambi in Kampala, Uganda. Full revival was then launched from Gahini, Rwanda in the early 1930's as preachers fanned out with the message of repentance unto salvation.

Nay, counter the Ugandan Anglicans. The Balokole Revival started there in 1922, and spread to Rwanda from there in the late 1930's--and it was in spite of, rather than due to, Joe Church and his associates, who objected to their revival being taken over by unruly natives.

And an unruly revival it did become. As the Balokole threw aside both Anglican liturgical ceremonies and the animistic syncretism that had crept into them, they had to contend with a rash of new hyperspiritual fads, such as meeting naked (to demonstrate a complete freedom from lustful desires), ecstatic utterances (which had actually begun in 1916 in the Uriya Forest, and 1912 among the Luo), and dramatic physical signs such as collapsing, hyperventilating, quaking, grunting, shrieking, and thrashing--behaviour usually associated in those climes with demon possession. Muslim evangelists produced similar manifestations in their disciples, but without the public prayer and confession of sins that characterized the Anglican revival.

So, like revivals tend to be, it was messy. Yet it swept across East Africa for decades until it finally burned out in the 1950's. Lasting legacies of the East Africa Revival are numerous indigenous religious movements, still outside the mainstream of Christianity. And although Rwanda and Burundi remained over 90% professing Christian, what good did that do in the decades that followed, when both nations reeled under one genocidal bloodbath after another, that cost upwards of a million lives?

Be careful what you pray for, as you may just get it--and its typical aftermath. It's difficult to see how the countries at the epicenter of the East Africa Revival--Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, and Burundi--could be any worse off now, had revival never swept their land.

[Random] Thoughts on the Latest Chechen Terrorist Bombing

Well, I've spent the better part of the day following the Boston Marathon Explosion, and have tried to pull back a couple of times and think this through. Some questions have finally been answered, such as:

Was this an attack by undercover agents of a foreign government, or Americans? Americans.
Did the perpetrators skip the country immediately, as foreigners were, or stay local? They were locals.
Were they using sophisticated military-grade explosives, or IED's? They used pressure-cooker IED's.
Was this an isolated attack, or part of a general war on America?

Aha. Now once we get to this question, it gets a little stickier. That the two bombing suspects are also accused of robbing a 7/11 would indicate that this wasn't an isolated incident, while on the other hand it also pretty much guarantees that they were lone wolves. Somebody being funded by an outside agency isn't going to resort to armed robbery to raise cash, especially not in their own local neighborhood.

On the other hand, this also demonstrates once again (The Beltway Sniper did if for us a decade ago) that a single pair of terrorists can literally immobilize a major metropolitan region. This was the first time probably since the Revolutionary War that the entire city of Boston was, to some extent or another, under a 24-hour curfew. I believe it's also the first time tanks have been used on American streets. And all this, brought on by a few household chemicals and easily obtained handguns.

Just imagine what this country would look like if, instead of a couple of Muslims taking out their religious angst on the Great Satan, a couple dozen--or couple hundred--gun owners methodically took out their rage on a government that tried to disarm them.

That thought must give the gun-grabbers a churning feeling in the pits of their stomachs.

I should add that although these Chechen terrorists are in fact Americans local to the Boston area, their father at least lives back in the Caucuses, and was hoping to see them there this summer. Muslim Americans who regularly travel to terror-stricken regions of the globe to visit Muslim members should probably be rated considerably higher on the suspect list for crimes like these than non-Muslim Americans who like to blow up stumps on the back 40. A mass-murdering terrorist could emerge from either group, but one is way more likely than the other.

April 20:
Well, I have a few more thoughts. One, if somebody did put these guys up to it, they cut them off after the bombing; these guys were out of cash and desperate to clear town.
Secondly, these guys were determined not to be taken alive.
Thirdly, the FBI is probably going to scale back their terrorist conspiracy sting program. There's a least a hint that this may have been a sting gone terribly wrong when they hired someone actually capable of pulling it off.

Okay, here's a report showing it most likely that Tamerlan at least was a stooge for the FBI. His brother most likely was just going along with him.

UPDATE AUGUST 2013:
More information has come out on the details, but not such as would change the overall picture; for example, their mother also lives in the FSU, and apparently it was only Tamerlan who was determined not to be taken alive; his brother was shot while unarmed and unthreatening. 

Persio-Israeli war update

I try not to overburden my readers with the latest updates on the impending Persio-American war (now in its third year of immanency), but there's another twist to the situation that isn't being talked about much: the proxy nature of the Syrian Civil War. With offensive weapons from Iran and a Russian missile shield, Bashir al Assad had nearly succeeded in wiping out his opposition. But then the Saudis stepped in, with more arms trucked in across Jordan.

So what is shaping up is a Shia-Sunni struggle for the control of the Caliphate, with the Shia forces of Iran and Syria on one side, and the Sunni-ruled states of the Gulf Coast Cooperative on the other. And this is already a hot war, even without Israel and America joining the Sunni side. But things are looking better and better for a Saudi air corridor opening up for Israeli jets to fly unimpeded to within a few minutes flight of Iran's nuclear reactor.

One other twist: it's in Russia's best interests, as an oil exporting nation, for turmoil in the Mideast to cut off the flow of oil through the Straits of Hormuz and thus drive up the price of crude. The present conflict plays right into their hands, so now we have an erstwhile Superpower interested in keeping up the conflict with or without the involvement of their erstwhile rival, the United States.

Geert Wilders on the Islamic conquest of Europe

An email has been making the rounds allegedly containing a speech by Geert Wilders, a Dutch Member of Parliament. It's variously titled Report from Holland or Warning from Holland, and, according to Snopes, it's correctly attributed. Snopes also notes that Geert was finally acquitted just this past June (2011) of inciting racial hatred in his own country, the Netherlands. The actual address was given in 2008, in the USA, and has suffered from severe truncation and liturgical editing since then. I give it here, in its entirety, as it appears on EuropeNews.

Geert Wilders, chairman Party for Freedom, the Netherlands Speech at the Four Seasons, New York September 25, 2008

Dear friends,

Thank you very much for inviting me. Great to be at the Four Seasons. I come from a country that has one season only: a rainy season that starts January 1st and ends December 31st. When we have three sunny days in a row, the government declares a national emergency. So Four Seasons, that’s new to me.

It’s great to be in New York. When I see the skyscrapers and office buildings, I think of what Ayn Rand said: “The sky over New York and the will of man made visible.” Of course. Without the Dutch you would have been nowhere, still figuring out how to buy this island from the Indians. But we are glad we did it for you. And, frankly, you did a far better job than we possibly could have done.

I come to America with a mission. All is not well in the old world. There is a tremendous danger looming, and it is very difficult to be optimistic. We might be in the final stages of the Islamization of Europe. This not only is a clear and present danger to the future of Europe itself, it is a threat to America and the sheer survival of the West. The danger I see looming is the scenario of America as the last man standing. The United States as the last bastion of Western civilization, facing an Islamic Europe. In a generation or two, the US will ask itself: who lost Europe? Patriots from around Europe risk their lives every day to prevent precisely this scenario form becoming a reality.

My short lecture consists of 4 parts.

First I will describe the situation on the ground in Europe. Then, I will say a few things about Islam. Thirdly, if you are still here, I will talk a little bit about the movie you just saw. To close I will tell you about a meeting in Jerusalem.

The Europe you know is changing. You have probably seen the landmarks. The Eiffel Tower and Trafalgar Square and Rome’s ancient buildings and maybe the canals of Amsterdam. They are still there. And they still look very much the same as they did a hundred years ago.

But in all of these cities, sometimes a few blocks away from your tourist destination, there is another world, a world very few visitors see – and one that does not appear in your tourist guidebook. It is the world of the parallel society created by Muslim mass-migration. All throughout Europe a new reality is rising: entire Muslim neighbourhoods where very few indigenous people reside or are even seen. And if they are, they might regret it. This goes for the police as well. It’s the world of head scarves, where women walk around in figureless tents, with baby strollers and a group of children. Their husbands, or slaveholders if you prefer, walk three steps ahead. With mosques on many street corner. The shops have signs you and I cannot read. You will be hard-pressed to find any economic activity. These are Muslim ghettos controlled by religious fanatics. These are Muslim neighbourhoods, and they are mushrooming in every city across Europe. These are the building-blocks for territorial control of increasingly larger portions of Europe, street by street, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, city by city.

There are now thousands of mosques throughout Europe. With larger congregations than there are in churches. And in every European city there are plans to build super-mosques that will dwarf every church in the region. Clearly, the signal is: we rule.

Many European cities are already one-quarter Muslim: just take Amsterdam, Marseille and Malmo in Sweden. In many cities the majority of the under-18 population is Muslim. Paris is now surrounded by a ring of Muslim neighbourhoods. Mohammed is the most popular name among boys in many cities. In some elementary schools in Amsterdam the farm can no longer be mentioned, because that would also mean mentioning the pig, and that would be an insult to Muslims. Many state schools in Belgium and Denmark only serve halal food to all pupils. In once-tolerant Amsterdam gays are beaten up almost exclusively by Muslims. Non-Muslim women routinely hear “whore, whore”. Satellite dishes are not pointed to local TV stations, but to stations in the country of origin. In France school teachers are advised to avoid authors deemed offensive to Muslims, including Voltaire and Diderot; the same is increasingly true of Darwin. The history of the Holocaust can in many cases no longer be taught because of Muslim sensitivity. In England sharia courts are now officially part of the British legal system. Many neighbourhoods in France are no-go areas for women without head scarves. Last week a man almost died after being beaten up by Muslims in Brussels, because he was drinking during the Ramadan. Jews are fleeing France in record numbers, on the run for the worst wave of anti-Semitism since World War II. French is now commonly spoken on the streets of Tel Aviv and Netanya, Israel. I could go on forever with stories like this. Stories about Islamization.

A total of fifty-four million Muslims now live in Europe. San Diego University recently calculated that a staggering 25 percent of the population in Europe will be Muslim just 12 years from now. Bernhard Lewis has predicted a Muslim majority by the end of this century.

Now these are just numbers. And the numbers would not be threatening if the Muslim-immigrants had a strong desire to assimilate. But there are few signs of that. The Pew Research Center reported that half of French Muslims see their loyalty to Islam as greater than their loyalty to France. One-third of French Muslims do not object to suicide attacks. The British Centre for Social Cohesion reported that one-third of British Muslim students are in favour of a worldwide caliphate. A Dutch study reported that half of Dutch Muslims admit they “understand” the 9/11 attacks.

Muslims demand what they call ‘respect’. And this is how we give them respect. Our elites are willing to give in. To give up. In my own country we have gone from calls by one cabinet member to turn Muslim holidays into official state holidays, to statements by another cabinet member, that Islam is part of Dutch culture, to an affirmation by the Christian-Democratic attorney general that he is willing to accept sharia in the Netherlands if there is a Muslim majority. We have cabinet members with passports from Morocco and Turkey.

Muslim demands are supported by unlawful behaviour, ranging from petty crimes and random violence, for example against ambulance workers and bus drivers, to small-scale riots. Paris has seen its uprising in the low-income suburbs, the banlieus. Some prefer to see these as isolated incidents, but I call it a Muslim intifada. I call the perpetrators “settlers”. Because that is what they are. They do not come to integrate into our societies, they come to integrate our society into their Dar-al-Islam. Therefore, they are settlers.

Much of this street violence I mentioned is directed exclusively against non-Muslims, forcing many native people to leave their neighbourhoods, their cities, their countries.

Politicians shy away from taking a stand against this creeping sharia. They believe in the equality of all cultures. Moreover, on a mundane level, Muslims are now a swing vote not to be ignored.

Our many problems with Islam cannot be explained by poverty, repression or the European colonial past, as the Left claims. Nor does it have anything to do with Palestinians or American troops in Iraq. The problem is Islam itself.

Allow me to give you a brief Islam 101. The first thing you need to know about Islam is the importance of the book of the Quran. The Quran is Allah’s personal word, revealed by an angel to Mohammed, the prophet. This is where the trouble starts. Every word in the Quran is Allah’s word and therefore not open to discussion or interpretation. It is valid for every Muslim and for all times. Therefore, there is no such a thing as moderate Islam. Sure, there are a lot of moderate Muslims. But a moderate Islam is non-existent.

The Quran calls for hatred, violence, submission, murder, and terrorism. The Quran calls for Muslims to kill non-Muslims, to terrorize non-Muslims and to fulfil their duty to wage war: violent jihad. Jihad is a duty for every Muslim, Islam is to rule the world – by the sword. The Quran is clearly anti-Semitic, describing Jews as monkeys and pigs.

The second thing you need to know is the importance of Mohammed the prophet. His behaviour is an example to all Muslims and cannot be criticized. Now, if Mohammed had been a man of peace, let us say like Ghandi and Mother Theresa wrapped in one, there would be no problem. But Mohammed was a warlord, a mass murderer, a pedophile, and had several marriages – at the same time. Islamic tradition tells us how he fought in battles, how he had his enemies murdered and even had prisoners of war executed. Mohammed himself slaughtered the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza. He advised on matters of slavery, but never advised to liberate slaves. Islam has no other morality than the advancement of Islam. If it is good for Islam, it is good. If it is bad for Islam, it is bad. There is no gray area or other side.

Quran as Allah’s own word and Mohammed as the perfect man are the two most important facets of Islam. Let no one fool you about Islam being a religion. Sure, it has a god, and a here-after, and 72 virgins. But in its essence Islam is a political ideology. It is a system that lays down detailed rules for society and the life of every person. Islam wants to dictate every aspect of life. Islam means ‘submission’. Islam is not compatible with freedom and democracy, because what it strives for is sharia. If you want to compare Islam to anything, compare it to communism or national-socialism, these are all totalitarian ideologies.

This is what you need to know about Islam, in order to understand what is going on in Europe. For millions of Muslims the Quran and the live of Mohammed are not 14 centuries old, but are an everyday reality, an ideal, that guide every aspect of their lives. Now you know why Winston Churchill called Islam “the most retrograde force in the world”, and why he compared Mein Kampf to the Quran.

Which brings me to my movie, Fitna.

I am a lawmaker, and not a movie maker. But I felt I had the moral duty to educate about Islam. The duty to make clear that the Quran stands at the heart of what some people call terrorism but is in reality jihad. I wanted to show that the problems of Islam are at the core of Islam, and do not belong to its fringes.

Now, from the day the plan for my movie was made public, it caused quite a stir, in the Netherlands and throughout Europe. First, there was a political storm, with government leaders, across the continent in sheer panic. The Netherlands was put under a heightened terror alert, because of possible attacks or a revolt by our Muslim population. The Dutch branch of the Islamic organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir declared that the Netherlands was due for an attack. Internationally, there was a series of incidents. The Taliban threatened to organize additional attacks against Dutch troops in Afghanistan, and a website linked to Al Qaeda published the message that I ought to be killed, while various muftis in the Middle East stated that I would be responsible for all the bloodshed after the screening of the movie. In Afghanistan and Pakistan the Dutch flag was burned on several occasions. Dolls representing me were also burned. The Indonesian President announced that I will never be admitted into Indonesia again, while the UN Secretary General and the European Union issued cowardly statements in the same vein as those made by the Dutch Government. I could go on and on. It was an absolute disgrace, a sell-out.

A plethora of legal troubles also followed, and have not ended yet. Currently the state of Jordan is litigating against me. Only last week there were renewed security agency reports about a heightened terror alert for the Netherlands because of Fitna.

Now, I would like to say a few things about Israel. Because, very soon, we will get together in its capitol. The best way for a politician in Europe to loose votes is to say something positive about Israel. The public has wholeheartedly accepted the Palestinian narrative, and sees Israel as the aggressor. I, however, will continue to speak up for Israel. I see defending Israel as a matter of principle. I have lived in this country and visited it dozens of times. I support Israel. First, because it is the Jewish homeland after two thousand years of exile up to and including Auschwitz, second because it is a democracy, and third because Israel is our first line of defense.

Samuel Huntington writes it so aptly: “Islam has bloody borders”. Israel is located precisely on that border. This tiny country is situated on the fault line of jihad, frustrating Islam’s territorial advance. Israel is facing the front lines of jihad, like Kashmir, Kosovo, the Philippines, Southern Thailand, Darfur in Sudan, Lebanon, and Aceh in Indonesia. Israel is simply in the way. The same way West-Berlin was during the Cold War.

The war against Israel is not a war against Israel. It is a war against the West. It is jihad. Israel is simply receiving the blows that are meant for all of us. If there would have been no Israel, Islamic imperialism would have found other venues to release its energy and its desire for conquest. Thanks to Israeli parents who send their children to the army and lay awake at night, parents in Europe and America can sleep well and dream, unaware of the dangers looming.

Many in Europe argue in favor of abandoning Israel in order to address the grievances of our Muslim minorities. But if Israel were, God forbid, to go down, it would not bring any solace to the West. It would not mean our Muslim minorities would all of a sudden change their behavior, and accept our values. On the contrary, the end of Israel would give enormous encouragement to the forces of Islam. They would, and rightly so, see the demise of Israel as proof that the West is weak, and doomed. The end of Israel would not mean the end of our problems with Islam, but only the beginning. It would mean the start of the final battle for world domination. If they can get Israel, they can get everything. Therefore, it is not that the West has a stake in Israel. It is Israel.

It is very difficult to be an optimist in the face of the growing Islamization of Europe. All the tides are against us. On all fronts we are losing. Demographically the momentum is with Islam. Muslim immigration is even a source of pride within ruling liberal parties. Academia, the arts, the media, trade unions, the churches, the business world, the entire political establishment have all converted to the suicidal theory of multiculturalism. So-called journalists volunteer to label any and all critics of Islamization as a ‘right-wing extremists’ or ‘racists’. The entire establishment has sided with our enemy. Leftists, liberals and Christian-Democrats are now all in bed with Islam.

This is the most painful thing to see: the betrayal by our elites. At this moment in Europe’s history, our elites are supposed to lead us. To stand up for centuries of civilization. To defend our heritage. To honour our eternal Judeo-Christian values that made Europe what it is today. But there are very few signs of hope to be seen at the governmental level. Sarkozy, Merkel, Brown, Berlusconi; in private, they probably know how grave the situation is. But when the little red light goes on, they stare into the camera and tell us that Islam is a religion of peace, and we should all try to get along nicely and sing Kumbaya. They willingly participate in, what President Reagan so aptly called: “the betrayal of our past, the squandering of our freedom.”

If there is hope in Europe, it comes from the people, not from the elites. Change can only come from a grass-roots level. It has to come from the citizens themselves. Yet these patriots will have to take on the entire political, legal and media establishment.

Over the past years there have been some small, but encouraging, signs of a rebirth of the original European spirit. Maybe the elites turn their backs on freedom, the public does not. In my country, the Netherlands, 60 percent of the population now sees the mass immigration of Muslims as the number one policy mistake since World War II. And another 60 percent sees Islam as the biggest threat to our national identity. I don’t think the public opinion in Holland is very different from other European countries.

Patriotic parties that oppose jihad are growing, against all odds. My own party debuted two years ago, with five percent of the vote. Now it stands at ten percent in the polls. The same is true of all smililary-minded parties in Europe. They are fighting the liberal establishment, and are gaining footholds on the political arena, one voter at the time.

Now, for the first time, these patriotic parties will come together and exchange experiences. It may be the start of something big. Something that might change the map of Europe for decades to come. It might also be Europe’s last chance.

This December a conference will take place in Jerusalem. Thanks to Professor Aryeh Eldad, a member of Knesset, we will be able to watch Fitna in the Knesset building and discuss the jihad. We are organizing this event in Israel to emphasize the fact that we are all in the same boat together, and that Israel is part of our common heritage. Those attending will be a select audience. No racist organizations will be allowed. And we will only admit parties that are solidly democratic.

This conference will be the start of an Alliance of European patriots. This Alliance will serve as the backbone for all organizations and political parties that oppose jihad and Islamization. For this Alliance I seek your support.

This endeavor may be crucial to America and to the West. America may hold fast to the dream that, thanks tot its location, it is safe from jihad and shaira. But seven years ago to the day, there was still smoke rising from ground zero, following the attacks that forever shattered that dream. Yet there is a danger even greater danger than terrorist attacks, the scenario of America as the last man standing. The lights may go out in Europe faster than you can imagine. An Islamic Europe means a Europe without freedom and democracy, an economic wasteland, an intellectual nightmare, and a loss of military might for America - as its allies will turn into enemies, enemies with atomic bombs. With an Islamic Europe, it would be up to America alone to preserve the heritage of Rome, Athens and Jerusalem.

Dear friends, liberty is the most precious of gifts. My generation never had to fight for this freedom, it was offered to us on a silver platter, by people who fought for it with their lives. All throughout Europe American cemeteries remind us of the young boys who never made it home, and whose memory we cherish. My generation does not own this freedom; we are merely its custodians. We can only hand over this hard won liberty to Europe’s children in the same state in which it was offered to us. We cannot strike a deal with mullahs and imams. Future generations would never forgive us. We cannot squander our liberties. We simply do not have the right to do so.

This is not the first time our civilization is under threat. We have seen dangers before. We have been betrayed by our elites before. They have sided with our enemies before. And yet, then, freedom prevailed.

These are not times in which to take lessons from appeasement, capitulation, giving away, giving up or giving in. These are not times in which to draw lessons from Mr. Chamberlain. These are times calling us to draw lessons from Mr. Churchill and the words he spoke in 1942:

“Never give in, never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy”.

Niggerhood in Iraq

Imagine not being allowed to attend school with the other children in your neighborhood because of what your ID card says. Imagine being told that your rent is going to go up simply because of who you are. Imagine losing your job when your employer finds out that you're one of "those people."

As explained in an earlier post, I've appropriated the word "nigger"--no longer allowed to be used by outsiders to describe those of a particular race--for a new use, one for which no suitable word previously existed (one of the many ways languages evolve). A "nigger" is anyone who is discriminated against because he belongs to a suppressed class. Crucial to this discrimination is being able to identify "niggers." In Iraq, it's a matter of which word one has on his ID card under the heading "Religion."

Iraqi society is strictly segregated by race and religion. Until recently, the two were one and the same. Assyrians were Orthodox; Chaldeans were Catholic; Armenians were Apostolic; and other than a smattering of Zoroastrians and Yezidis, everyone else was Muslim. Much as the two groups were at each other's throats, no distinction was made between Shia and Sunni; both classes enjoyed, at least in name, the full benefits of citizenship. For the others, a certain level of second-class citizenship was readily available, and as long as one did not aspire to anything higher than two stars in the military or a cabinet level position in the government, he was free to advance as long as he kept to his proper place.

But, ah. The 'uppity' Muslim who tries to become a Christian! Instant niggerhood.

Getting paid to recite Muslim prayers

Thirty-four Muslim car transporters were caught praying on the job. And they got in big trouble for it--but not because Hertz has anything against Muslims or anyone else praying while they work. The problem was that these workers weren't working while they prayed. And that wouldn't have been a problem, either, if they had managed to whip through their memorized prayers in 10 minutes or less each of the 5 times a day they recite them. The problem was that:

1. Hertz hired drivers who were observant Muslims.
2. The drivers asked that Hertz accommodate their religious need to quit work for a few minutes 5 times a day.
3. The Teamsters Union, which takes a cut out of the $9 or so an hour Hertz is paying the drivers to drive, demanded that Hertz comply, and pay them to pray every day instead of driving.
4. Some drivers took advantage of these paid prayer breaks and extended them past the allotted 10 minutes.
5. Hertz warned drivers who didn't drive when they were supposed to be that they couldn't work for Hertz.
6. The drivers still took over-long prayer breaks, expecting to get something out of their union dues.
7. Hertz suspended 34 drivers for breaking their agreement with Hertz.
8. The shocked drivers looked to Teamsters to get them reinstated with back pay.

You can see that Christians have a distinct advantage over Muslims, Bhuddists, and Jews when it comes to getting a driving job: Christians can, and often do, pray while on the road (with their eyes open of course). Muslims and Jews can't. This makes the Christians much more employable as drivers than the Muslims, and slightly more employable than Jews (who can typically get their prayers in while off the job).

The solution: either discriminate against employers who prefer to hire workers who actually work, or discriminate against the more employable workers by not employing them as fully.

There are no other options.

NATO intervention in Libya: The first step in a wrong direction

Libyan rebels sold Hizballah and Hamas chemical shells
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report 

31 March: Senior Libyan rebel “officers” sold Hizballah and Hamas thousands of chemical shells from the stocks of mustard and nerve gas that fell into their hands when they overran Muammar Qaddafi’s military facilities in and around Benghazi, DEBKAfile’s exclusive sources report. The rebels offloaded an estimated 2,000 artillery shells carrying mustard gas and 1,200 nerve gas shells for cash payment amounting to several million dollars negotiated by Iran. The consignments may still be in Sudan en route for Lebanon and Gaza.
Tehran threw its support behind the anti-Qaddafi rebels because of this unique opportunity to get hold of the Libyan stock of poison gas and arm Hizballah and Hamas with unconventional weapons without Iran being implicated in the transaction.

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I've studied the history of the Muslim conquest of Spain, and the Spanish re-conquest, and one thing stands out: when non-muslim nations start taking sides in a dispute between muslim nations, inevitably it results in the defeat of the non-muslims, once the muslims patch up their differences and once again join forces against the infidel.

Martyrdom as a weapon: it works both ways, Efendi.

The Main Square of Zawiyah, Libya has been re-named Martyrs Square in honor of the protesters killed by forces loyal to Muammar Gadaffi. "People want martyrdom. There were children out protesting," reported a resident.

For decades, Islamist propaganda has urged young Muslims to aspire to martyrdom--that is, risking, or in many cases deliberately losing, their lives to kill the evil forces of Judaism and Christianity. But it appears that this pedagogy is coming back to bite, as evil forces perceived within the Dar as Salaam are its new targets.

There is absolutely no way to stop someone who's not afraid to die. And there is no greater danger to the powers that be than a populace that doesn't fear them. Gadaffi is determined not to go down without a fight, but as long as only a few thousand of his people--say, around one-half to one per cent of all Libyans--are willing to walk into firing range and keep going as he mows them down, he will run out of ammunition before they run out of resolve.

And of course, it only takes one person, not afraid to risk seeing his entire family slaughtered if he fails, to fire the deadly shot that will take out Gadaffi for good.

Latest twist in the Iran crisis: Foment in Bahrain

Bahrain is an island nation in the Persian Gulf, connected to Saudi Arabia by a causeway and to the rest of the world by a major sea port. It's just across the Gulf from Iran, and about 15 per cent Persian by population. For this and a variety of other reasons, it represents the first line of defense against Persian expansion in the region. If Bahrain falls to Iran, we're all in trouble.

One thing nobody is writing about is the security situation for the US Fifth Fleet Headquarters. Most assigned Americans are housed not on the base itself, but in surrounding apartment buildings. This has got to have somebody in Central Command worried.

developing . . .

This is the video I referred to in the previous post

Islam will not take over the world after all, it appears

This video shows that the changes I predicted would happen in Muslim countries are already underway.

UPDATE DEC 20, 2012
The overall US birth rate decreased by 8% between 2007 and 2010, with a drop of 14% among foreign-born women. The overall birth rate has fallen to 63.2 births per 1,000 women who are of childbearing age. That is down from 122.7 births in 1957 at the peak of the Baby Boom.

UPDATE NOVEMBER 15, 2016
I may have spoken prematurely.  A closer look at the Pew Report shows that, whether they be way above replacement rate, or just barely, Muslim birthrates top those of non-Muslims in every area. So Muslims continue to grow as a proportion of every population.

What about equal rights for CMOC (Christian men on campus)?

Nearly four years ago, I wrote about the burkini and wondered what could be done to provide equal protection to Muslim men. The takeaway message from the ongoing concern over covering up Muslim women seems to be that there is no need to protect Muslim men from lusting after women--just to protect Muslim women from being lusted after. This, of course, is fully in keeping with Islamic doctrine, which encourages men to beat their unsubmissive wives, and allows them to have as many as they can afford, provided the number never exceeds four at any one time.

So, now the women at George Washington University--Muslim or otherwise--can enjoy one hour a week free from the ogling eyes of men--Muslim or otherwise. But note that no one seems to be concerned about the men--Muslim and otherwise--who have to be exposed to all the barely covered bodies of their female fellow swimmers during coed swim time the rest of the week.

Ironic it is that it was even Muslims who finally raised the issue. It should have been Christians. Feminine modesty is enjoined in their scriptures, which also prohibit looking lustfully at women--modest or otherwise.

OK, CMOC, where are you?

"Allah" is not a Muslim word; Allah is not a Muslim god.

As is well known, Christian Arabs use the word "Allah," and "Allah" is found throughout the Arab Bible. But the contentious question for at least the past couple of decades has been, Did pre-Islamic Christians use the word "Allah?"

Well, a doctoral thesis recently made available online has finally put to rest the idea that "Allah" is a Muslim idol. The author analysed a medieval Arabic manuscript and was able to prove that it is a copy of a pre-Islamic Classical Arabic Gospel translated from an ancient form of Aramaic. It has proper nouns in forms that became extinct in the Islamic era, even among Christians. It even uses a spelling for 'Jesus' not used since among Christians or Muslims. But--guess what--it uses 'Allah' for God.

Allah is not an idol, any more than God is an idol. 'Allah' and 'God' are just two different ways of translating the word 'Theo' which, in turn, is the Greek word that translates "Elohim." 'Allah' is, in fact, much closer to 'Elohim' than 'God' or even 'Theo' are. Pre-Islamic Arabs were no strangers to the idea of one true God--they were, after all, descended from Abraham, who thought nothing of referring to God as "El Elyon."

Just because you name your teddy bear Theo, doesn't mean that God is a Greek teddy bear. Just because Muslims retained the pre-Islamic Arabic word for deity in their theology and creed, doesn't mean that Allah is a Muslim idol.

But alas--minds, once hardened, cannot be molded, even with the truth.

Living in the Calm Before the Storm

The full moon is already shining down on the darkened half of the sphere, which means that we have entered the final half of Ramadan. It's time for another Middle East War update.

I've referred to this upcoming war as one between the US and Iran, or Israel and Iran. That much is inevitable; Iran will not take on 'the lesser satan' without going on to deal with 'the greater satan'. But it also appears virtually inevitable that the conflagration will extend beyond these parties. Hizbullah, Iran's proxy in Lebanon, sits across a barricaded border, armed to the teeth and with an itchy finger spasmodically tightening on the sub-ballistic trigger. Hamas is launching more and more sophisticated missiles into the populated areas of the Levant. And a conglomeration of rabid islamists either have set sail or or are making final plans to pierce the Israeli blockade of Gaza, with more bloodshed inevitable. This is shaping up to be a regional war, with the US and Israel on one side and everybody without a standing peace treaty with Israel on the other.

And now comes news that Secretary of State Hillary has scheduled 'peace talks' for September 2 in Washington. Need I point out that a Japanese delegation was busy 'talking peace' in Washington the entire time their carrier fleet was steaming its way across the Pacific to launch a devastating raid on Pearl Harbor? The talks were broken off only hours before the first attack wave took to the air. And the PLO has already threatened to break off these talks before they have even begun.

I've written a bit about how Israel may go about launching their planned and practiced attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. What I haven't mentioned are the attacks on Israel that have also been planned and practiced. For the first time since Yom Kippur in 1973, Israel will face simultaneous attacks on several fronts; and this time, from a greatly retracted battle line. Israel has given up all the land occupied in all its previous wars post-independence, other than the city of Jerusalem and the Golan Heights--both of which have long been made part of Israel proper--and a few heavily armed outposts scattered throughout the West Bank.

So far I have been reluctant to make any specific predictions about the timing, duration, or outcome of this conflagration, but at this point--the first tripwire having been passed over peacefully and the second barely a week away--I'm willing to concede that Israel may very well have chosen to allow itself to be attacked first. Should that happen, I predict that the counterattack will be devastating, like the colonies' response to the first shot fired at Lexington, or the American response to Pearl Harbor. But quicker--it will have to be. And I'll even make a prophecy about the outcome: It may take a long time, but Israel is going to win this one. I'd love to be able to predict more than that, but I don't want to be a millionaire.

The non-combatant woman and warfare

The Army Recruiter's television advertisement shows young men and women graduating from training, getting exercise, taking orders, operating machinery--anything but actually fighting in a war. Yet in today's volunteer army, the battle zone is the most likely destination of the new recruit. Much has changed in Western culture from only the century before last, when going to war, fighting in war--even dying in war--was the goal of every red-blooded male, and the aspiration every sweetheart held for her wooing warrior. North Americans and Europeans going forth to war against Islamists would do well to read this mid 19th-century poem by Johan Ludvig Runeberg, translated from the Swedish. It shows that the mentality that is still the driving force behind Islamic warfare is not all that far removed from where Western Culture is today.

THE VILLAGE MAIDEN

The sun went down and evening came, the quiet summer even,

A mass of glowing purple lay between the farms and heaven.

A weary troop of men went by, their day's hard labour done,

Tired and contented, towards their home they wended one by one.

Their work was done, their harvest reaped, a goodly harvest truly,

A well-appointed band of foes all slain or captured newly;

At dawn against this armed band they had gone forth to fight,

And all had closed in victory before the fall of night.

Close by the field where all day long the hard hot strife was raging,

A cottage by the wayside stood, half-desolate and ageing.

And on its worn low steps there sat a silent girl, and mused

And watched the troop come slowly by, in weary line confused.

She looked like one who sought a friend, she scanned each man's face nearly.

High burned the colour in her cheek, too high for sunset merely;

She sat so quiet, looked so warm, so flushed with secret heat.

It seemed she listened as she gazed, and felt her own heart beat.

But as she saw the troop march by, and darkness round them stealing,

To every file, to every man, her anxious eye appealing

Seemed muttering in a shy distress a question without speech,

More silent than a sigh itself, too anguished to beseech.

But when the men had all gone past, and not a word was spoken.

The poor girl's courage failed at last, and all her strength was broken.

She wept not loud, but on her hand her weary forehead fell,

And large tears followed one by one as from a burning well.

"Why dost thou weep? For hope may break just where the gloom is deepest!

O daughter, hear thy mother's voice, a needless tear thou weepest;

He whom thy eyes were seeking for, whose face thou couldst not see,

He is not dead: he thought of love, and still he lives for thee.

He thought of love; I counselled him to shield himself from danger,

I taught him how to slip the fight, and leave them like a stranger;

By force they made him march with them, but weep not, rave not thus,

I know he will not choose to die from happy life and us."

Shivering the maiden rose like one whom awful dreams awaken,

As if some grim foreboding all her soul in her had shaken;

She lingered not, she sought the place where late had raged the fight.

And stole away and swiftly fled and vanished out of sight.

An hour went by, another hour, the night had closed around her;

The moonshot clouds were silver-white, but darkness hung below there.

"She lingers long; O daughter, come, thy toil is all in vain.

To-morrow, ere the dawn is red, thy bridegroom's here again!"

The daughter came; with silent steps she came to meet her mother.

The pallid eyelids strained no more with tears she fain would smother;

But colder than the wind at night the hand that mother pressed.

And whiter than a winter cloud the maiden's cheek and breast.

" Make me a grave, O mother dear; my days on earth are over!

The only man that fled to-day, that coward, was my lover;

He thought of me and of himself, the battle field he scanned.

And then betrayed his brothers' hope and shamed his father's land.

When past our door the troop marched by, and I their ranks had numbered,

I wept to think that like a man among the dead he slumbered;

I sorrowed, but my grief was mild, it had no bitter weight,

I would have lived a thousand years to mourn his noble fate.

O mother, I have looked for him where'er the dead are lying.

But none of all the stricken bear his features, calm in dying;

Now will I live no more on earth in shame to sit and sigh.

He lies not there among the dead, and therefore I will die."

Today's English Lesson

Today's sample of incorrect and misleading English comes from Avi Issacharoff:

The Palestinian Authority, as well as the leaders of the Palestinian popular protests in villages such as Bil'in, Na'alim, Umm Salmuna, have been trying to keep the following story away from both public knowledge and the media's eye: One of the more prominent Umm Salmuna activists – a village south of Bethlehem, long entrenched in a battle against the West Bank separation fence – is suspected of the attempted rape of an American peace activist who had been residing in the village as part of her support of the local protest.

Omar Aladdin, who had been arrested three months ago over suspicions he had attempted to rape the U.S. citizen, was subsequently released after agreeing to apologize to the young woman. However, Haaretz had learned that representatives of both the popular protest movement and the PA have since applied pressure on the American peace activist as to prevent her from making the story public.

The incident allegedly took place last April, as Aladdin, who had served a term in the Israeli jail in the past, arrived one evening at the guest house in which many of the foreign peace activists were staying. The European and American female activists reportedly agreed to let Aladdin stay with them after he had told them he feared the Israel Defense Forces were on his tail, adding that he had been severely beaten at an IDF checkpoint only a week before.

During his stay Aladdin allegedly attempted to rape a Muslim-American woman, nicknamed "Fegin" by fellow activists. The woman escaped, later accusing the popular protest man of the attempt. One villager who had encountered the American following the incident said she had been in a state of shock.

Aladdin then refused to apologize for the incident, when news of it reached the village's popular committee, the popular protests' governing body, allegedly saying that the incident had been marginal and normal. The American activist then asked the committee to notify authorities of the attempted rape, a request which resulted in the man being arrested by security forces in Bethlehem. After agreeing to apologize for the incident, Aladdin was released from custody by the PA police.

The U.S. citizen was then convinced to retract her complaint, as to avoid tainting the image of the popular protest, which had attracted praise from around the world in recent months.

The pertinent portion of this story is the following imbedded sentence:

One of the more prominent Umm Salmuna activists – a village south of Bethlehem, long entrenched in a battle against the West Bank separation fence – is suspected of the attempted rape of an American peace activist who had been residing in the village as part of her support of the local protest.

Let's break it down.
Subject: one
Predicate: is suspected
Appositive Subject: village
Appositive Predicate: entrenched
Indirect Object: rape

Now, let's switch the appositive with the subject and see what we get:

A village south of Bethlehem, long entrenched in a battle against the West Bank separation fence - one of the more prominent Umm Salmuna activists – is suspected of the attempted rape of an American peace activist who had been residing in the village as part of her support of the local protest.

Now, obviously a village is not suspected of attempted rape. This is how the sentence should have been framed:

One of the more prominent activists in Umm Salmuna – a village south of Bethlehem, long entrenched in a battle against the West Bank separation fence – is suspected of the attempted rape of an American peace activist who had been residing in the village as part of her support of the local protest.

See how easy that was, Avi? Breaking it down again:

Subject: one
Predicate: is suspected
Subordinate Clause Subject: village
Subordinate Clause Predicate: entrenched
Indirect Object: rape

One step closer to Sharia in America

This is rather odd. Or is it? President Obama, America's first president not to grow up in an American family, has appointed two foreign-born Muslims to head the Department of Homeland Security.

Even more concerning: One of them has a track record of arresting Christians for evangelising Muslims.

Crossing the Sahara still isn't easy--especially for a woman on a motorcycle

It's been over forty years since the first man crossed the Sahara Desert by motorcycle, but less than four years since this was finally done by a woman. And in both cases, the majority of their trip--and the majority of the hassle--involved transiting the country of Algeria.

U.S. shifts gears to tackle homespun terrorism

Just to show you how bad it has gotten in this country, I was surprised to find that such a headline actually referred to American Muslims, not American Christians:

DEARBORN, Michigan (Reuters) – At a recent congressional hearing on homespun terrorism, Indiana Representative Mark Souder tore into a little-known Los Angeles County sheriff named Lee Baca.

Souder, a Republican member of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing and Terrorism Risk Assessment, pointedly asked why Baca had attended several fund-raisers for an American Muslim group that some describe as a front for Hamas, which is designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization.

"The question is, at what point do you start giving legitimacy to groups who fund Hamas?" Souder said. He was referring to Baca's association with the Council On American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, which says it does not support terrorism.

Raising his voice and pointing his finger at the congressman, Baca exploded: "For you to associate me (with terrorism) somehow through some circuitous attack on CAIR is not only inappropriate, it is un-American."

In an interview with Reuters afterward, Baca said the congressman was playing politics. "Souder doesn't have a solution for dealing with extremism in the United States," he said. "I have a solution. I have a vision. I have relationships with the Muslim community and am working to make that vision a reality."