The dumb one.

Turns out Obama was the dumb one after all. Victor Davis Hanson wraps it neatly for us in a pretty pink bow: In the recent Cairo speech, Obama’s historical allusions were . . . suspect. Almost every one of his references was either misleading or incomplete. He suggested that today’s Middle East tension was fed [...]

What Israel fights against.

This video released by the IDF illuminates the ugly nature of the enemy it faces daily and against which it finally struck back last year in Operation Cast Lead. It is the enemy that is otherwise painted as martyrs and innocents by the world press, likely in the paper you read every day. If, that [...]

About those “torture” memos.

From NRO: The memos tell a different story from the one the Obama administration and the press are pushing. Detailed and carefully reasoned, they make it clear that neither the CIA nor the Justice Department was trying to “define torture down,” but were instead determined to locate and avoid crossing the legal line at which [...]

Willful ignorance.

Hamas is a pretty disgusting organization. Backed by Iran, their sole purpose is to leverage innocent Palestinians (such as they may be) into concessions by the Israeli government by any means necessary. This is pretty obvious stuff to anyone paying even the most disinterested attention to matters there. Except of course to the AP: International [...]

Inescapable conclusion.

Did you know that Hamas is negotiating a ceasefire with Israel? There has been speculation that a cease-fire deal is close. However, Hamas official said Saturday that new problems have come up. Hamas wants an 18-month cease-fire. Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum says Israel created new obstacles by seeking an open-ended cease-fire. Yes, you read that [...]

Brace yourselves.

Peggy Noonan yesterday: Tuesday I talked to people who support a Catholic college. I said a great stress is here and coming, and people are going to be reminded of what’s important, and the greatest of these will be our faith, it’s what is going to hold us together as a country. As for each [...]

End of days.

There are no words. WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon’s senior judge overseeing terror trials at Guantanamo Bay dropped charges Thursday against an al-Qaida suspect in the 2000 USS Cole bombing, upholding President Barack Obama’s order to freeze military tribunals there. The charges against suspected al-Qaida bomber Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri marked the last active Guantanamo war [...]

Death cult.

A WOMAN suspected of recruiting more than 80 female suicide bombers has confessed to organising their rapes so she could later convince them that martyrdom was the only way to escape the shame. Samira Jassam, 51, was arrested by Iraqi police and confessed to recruiting the women and orchestrating dozens of attacks. via ‘Mum’ had [...]

Too comfortable. Too numb.

In 2002, seven years ago this past Sunday, a Jewish American journalist named Daniel Pearl was abducted in Pakistan, held captive, and beheaded. Here’s an op-ed in today’s WSJ written by his father. Neither he, nor the millions who were shocked by his murder, could have possibly predicted that seven years later his abductor, Omar [...]

Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.

What’s the President smoking? WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama said in an interview aired on Monday he worried that detainees freed from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo, Cuba, might resume attacks on the United States. But he told NBC News that closure of the prison was a matter of upholding U.S. values and [...]

Out of his league.

This from Reuters today: [Former Senator George] Mitchell, who helped to resolve the Northern Ireland conflict, was named by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week to lead U.S. efforts to end the Arab-Israeli conflict. Mitchell’s tour will also take him to Israel, the West Bank, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, France and Britain. He said he [...]

Afghan strategy.

Check this out: Strategic Divergence: The War Against the Taliban and the War Against Al Qaeda | Stratfor. It’s a nice piece describing our objectives and likelihood for success in Afghanistan. As President Obama turns our focus there from Iraq in the coming months, what should we expect? What does the President expect? How will [...]

An endless stream of cigarettes and magazines…

Guess who’s going home to plot the murder of our children? CAIRO, Egypt (AP) – A Saudi man who was released from Guantanamo after spending six years inside the U.S. prison camp has joined al-Qaida’s branch in Yemen and is now the terror group’s No. 2 in the country, according to a purported Internet statement [...]

Taking his eye off the ball?

First he’s closing Guantanamo and now he’s shutting down the “black sites”? President Obama on Thursday will order the closure of so-called black sites, where CIA and European security services have interrogated terrorist suspects, under executive orders dismantling much of the Bush admistration’s architecture for the war on terror, according to four individuals familiar with [...]

Cease fire?

How to fix this? Violence marred the cease-fire in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday as Hamas gunmen fired mortar shells into Israel and opened fire on IDF troops who remained inside the Palestinian territory. In the afternoon, IAF aircraft bombed a mortar launcher in the Gaza Strip that had been used hours earlier to fire [...]

Eyeless in Gaza.

And we get all bent out of shape when our government listens in on our phone calls to terrorists. Imagine the outrage on the left if our government did this: Hamas militiamen have rounded up hundreds of Fatah activists on suspicion of “collaboration” with Israel during Operation Cast Lead, Fatah members in the Gaza Strip [...]

January 10?

Ok, this is more than a little creepy. On January 10, the war between Israel and Hamas became a global conflict. No longer confined to the Gaza Strip, the fighting spread to cities around the world: what were billed as “anti-war” demonstrations from Los Angeles to Copenhagen and beyond were in fact overtly pro-Hamas demonstrations, [...]

More on the FISA wiretaps decision.

But the Constitution bans only “unreasonable” search and seizure, not all searches and seizures, and the Fourth Amendment allows for exceptions such as those under a President’s Article II war powers. The courts have been explicit on this point. In 1980, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals held in Truong that “the Executive need not [...]

Mobs threatening Israel-supporters in Germany.

Outrage over Demonstration in Germany: Police Remove Israeli Flag during Islamist Protest March – SPIEGEL ONLINE – News – International. As the first protesters recognized the flag, P. and his girlfriend were standing on the street nearby. He said he followed the march because he wanted to document any incidents of anti-Semitism or hate campaigns. [...]

Do you hear what I hear?

WASHINGTON — A federal intelligence court, in a rare public opinion, is expected to issue a major ruling validating the power of the president and Congress to wiretap international phone calls and intercept e-mail messages without a court order, even when Americans’ private communications may be involved, according to a person with knowledge of the [...]

Israel cleaning house.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) – Witnesses say Israeli ground troops are advancing into crowded residential areas of Gaza City and thousands of terrified residents are fleeing their homes. Israeli troops backed by helicopter gunships, tanks and heavy guns thrust deeper into the city than ever before Thursday to seek Hamas fighters, they said. It [...]

Maybe they’ll just burn pictures of anyone in Iran?

“Radicals” burn Obama posters in Iran (Wizbang). The irony for me is that when pictures of any Republican (ie. Bush) were burned in various parts of the Middle East for any one of a number of assumed offenses, it became the media’s symbol that we were not liked around the world and that this was [...]

This is heartening.

IDF: Whole Hamas battalions wiped out – Israel News, Ynetnews. Is Hamas falling apart? A senior IDF officer estimated Saturday that roughly 300 Hamas men have been killed since the army launched its ground incursion in the Gaza Strip. The military official said IDF troops were able to wipe out whole battalions belonging to the [...]

Red-handed.

Power Line – War Crimes. More on that UN School bombing the other day. Was it a school or was it a Hamas base? Watch the video and see for yourself. One wonders, too, what was going on at the UN-run school. Why were dozens or hundreds of children present? Is the UN unaware that [...]

Anatomy of a hoax.

Anatomy of a Hoax. This is stunning to see laid out as it is. With the time that Hamas spends lobbing rockets into civilian cities like Sderot and then fabricating “evidence” of “atrocities” by Israel, you’d think they’d get around to setting up a useful and productive civilization for themselves at some point. The message [...]