by Ann Coulter
Sen. John McCain has been carrying so much water for his friends in the mainstream media that he now has to state for the record to Republican audiences: "I hold no brief for al Qaeda."
Well, that's a relief.
It turns out, the only reason McCain is demanding that prisoners like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, the beheading of journalist Daniel Pearl and other atrocities -- be treated like Martha Stewart facing an insider trading charge is this: "It's all about the United States of America and what is going to happen to Americans who are taken prisoner in future wars."
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
09/21/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
What? On Monday, Ann Coulter attended an Oval Office meeting in which the President stressed that the GWOT was not between Muslims and others, but a matter of "right and wrong." If that's all it is, then be-heading is merely criminal.
Anyone who believes that we are at war with Muslims, is at odds with President Bush.
Law enforcement officers are duty bound to examine motive, means and opportunity, as part of a criminal investigation. If Koran dictate cannot be treated as a motivating force then jihad incitement is legal. Why? The Koran tells Muslims, "Jihad is prescribed to you."
Until Western Civilization wages direct war on all terrorists - including Saudi/Pakistan harbored groups and Hamas, and Hizbollah and all their supporters - then we are spinning our wheels.
#4
And judging by the polls this week, he's doing a pretty good job. Fox News Britt Hume said last night (paraphrasing) that the Dems hopes are diminishing.
I'm looking forward to after the elections. Everybody registered to vote?
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/21/2006 6:56 Comments ||
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#5
In the most current measurement (the war in Iraq), have the Geneva Conventions protected the US and coalition prisoners? Daniel Pearl? Nick Berg? Fabrizio Quattrocci? Kim Sun-Il? Have they protected our soldiers mutilated and hung from the bridge in Fallujah? Have they protected Iraqis themselves found this week tortured to death (real torture) with power drills?
Why can't these grown men and women in Congress come up with a reasonable and clear definition of torture? John McCain, of anyone, ought to know better. And we owe it to our soldiers to clearly define for them what is and isn't allowed.
The SCOTUS decision to extend Geneva coverage to terrorists, in spite of the fact that they are specifically excluded by the conventions, is where the problem lies. That bit of faux "international law" tranzi-ism opened this never-ending can of worms. Now we must dance to a tune that has no point, no purpose, and no practical end. No US service personnel will ever be "protected" by this idiocy - they're Goddamn terrorists you SCOTUS morons. Correct this incredibly flawed decision, by whatever means necessary - and I mean whatever, and this self-destructive jerking off would disappear. Hmmm... Is it okay to pray for heart attacks? Several at once? I have 3 or 4 in mind...
Graham is a political grandstander whose JAG "expertise" is close to non-existent. I invite ex-JAG to weigh in on this topic. Graham has gotten a lot of mileage from his supposed experience, but my contacts tell me he was an insignificant clerk during his tour, not some vaunted expert, much less any sacred Voice of Conscience as he portrays himself to be. He's just decided to position himself as McCain's running mate, it seems... one dickhead from the West, one dickhead from the East. Dickhead balance.
McCain. Spit. He knows far less about torture than anyone else who resided at the Hanoi Hilton, despite all of his posturing and preaching. I'd love to see Bud Day or any of the others open up on this phoney... but they probably won't, dammit. I credit him with flying combat - enough to tolerate the political gambit - but he has abused that honorable act for self-gain and promotion, so he has flushed his honor down the drain and is now no different from Kerry or Murtha in my estimation.
McCain received special hands-off treatment from his first day when the zipperheads discovered he was that McCain - whose Daddy was an Admiral. Just as with Kerry and Murtha, so much of McCain's political persona is based on bullshit that he should be hounded out of politics by the POW equivalent of the SwiftBoat Vets.
As for the terrorists, why are we even discussing their treatment? Ah, of course: politics. If they still breathe, then they've received far more than is their due. Grill them, squeeze them, rip their toenails out one by one. Get whatever you think they have... Then snuff them with extreme prejudice.
#8
This is so stupid. Not enforcing the GC - by giving illegal combatants legal rights (Miranda rights??) will destroy the GC.
Nobody will follow it because it doesn't cost them anything. Why should China or Pakistan in some future war treat american prisoners well? It doesn't cost them anything if they don't.
#9
Okay, let me ask something - if the terrs are covered by the GC, does that not also mean they are liable to punishment under those international treaties and agreemenst that cover such things? In other words, fine - if these clowns want to cover the terrs, fine - but they had better DEMAND, PUBLICLY AND IMMEDIATELY, that al-Q's boys are committing war crimes and should be charged as such.
I know....but I can dream.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
09/21/2006 9:48 Comments ||
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#10
These misinformed senators suffer from daily MSM viewing. They have blinded themselves and they cannot be saved from political decline. This is a free country, and if politicians want to disappear, then they can, without malice, and I defend their right to do so.
#11
Anyone who believes that we are at war with Muslims, is at odds with President Bush.
Anyone who doesn't is at odds with reality.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
09/21/2006 11:36 Comments ||
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#12
and the four pathetic Republicans angling to be called "mavericks" by the New York Times
As per usual, Coulter offers a valid opinion then hurls incendiary bombs to get attention. Who could blame her really? Actually its an old media-whore tactic. But you have to admit she really has perfected her craft. Of course if she is called on it, as always, she will roll her eyes and smugly look into the camera and say Someone has to agree with me after all my books are on NYT Best sellers list. And who could argue with that logic. But on this topic whose opinion is more valid? Is it a US Senator who is a veteran naval aviator of twenty-two years and former Prisoner of war of five and a half years whose naval honors include the Silver Star, Bronze Star, Legion of Merit, Purple Heart and Distinguished Flying Cross? Is it a US Senator who is a veteran and former JAG officer? Is it a US Senator that is currently the Chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee? Is it a US Senator who is a veteran of both the Navy and Marines, former assistant US attorney, and was was appointed to both Undersecretary and Secratary of the Navy, who currently sits on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and is Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee?
Or is it a talk-show jockey that hawks her books in a black cocktail dress?
Whats the word Im searching for? Oh...its right there pathetic.
#13
Depot Guy, don't forget that McCain's missle hit another jet fighter and started the Forrestal fire...list it under loose cannon identification.
Shit like that doesn't happen for no reason, it's God's way of fingering an idiot.
#15
a Zuni rocket fired from an F-4 Phantom II by an electrical power surge hit an A-4 Skyhawk getting ready to launch with Lt. Cmdr. John McCain as the pilot. The missile struck and knocked off the aircraft's fuel tank and started a fire. His aircraft surrounded by flames, John McCain escaped from his jet by climbing out of the cockpit, walking down to the nose of the plane, and jumping off the refueling probe.
#16
"It's all about the United States of America and what is going to happen to Americans who are taken prisoner in future wars."
-what future wars? China, Syria, Iran, N.Kor, Saudi?? Do these idiots in the senate honestly f*cking believe any of those countries are going to abide by Geneva if we get into a donnybrook w/them? Does any other country except some of those homos in the EU really give a sh*t what we do or not wrt signing this law?
Trust me Sen McCain, we in the mil today know full well if captured we are prolly going to have the sh*t beat out of us repeatedly. In GW1 how many American prisoners got beat? The answer is quite a few. I do not know if Iraq was a GC signer prior to that war but it doesn't really matter. We need latitude to fight the muslims, not some legal hand cuffs on our interrogators. BTW - if every fricken' sand clown gave up good info for a tuna sub I'd be the first in line in agreement w/McCain, but that's not reality. I know for a fact some under handed sh*t (that would be according to most of the pussies in the senate) my bro's had to pull in Al Anbar to crack terrorists. Try banging pots & pans together next to some jihadi ringleader's head every couple of minutes for 16 hours straight & intimating to him that the Marines outside in the hall will slit his throat after shooting him w/porkfat greased bullets if given the oppotunity when you know he's bluffing - eventually the puke gave up accurate and timely gouge. I bet that would put ole Lynsey's panties in a wad. JHC, let the professional interrogators do their job. Let the tactic match the terrorist, not the tactic based off some law from folks who ain't been in the fight in 40 f*cking years. I only see more red tape & more bad unintended consequences from this.
I know McCain's service history real well (as everyone on here does, but I feel because of that distinguished service he gets a pass from the general public when he does other really stupid things) but he is way off on this one - just like he is on immigration. I pray the man doesn't run for pres - I'd prolly have to vote Libertarian or for Perot again.
#4
In Iran, the powerful imam Ahmad Khatami said the pope "should fall on his knees in front of a senior Muslim cleric." In no culture of which I am aware is that a posture from which brother addresses brother.
This guy has obviously never been to San Francisco's Castro District.
Similarly, on National Public Radio, a George Washington University professor, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, argued that statements such as those quoted by the pope _ expressing sentiments some Muslims may find offensive _ must be viewed as a form of violence.
Cool beans, reciprocity time, baby. All of your insanely violent ravings are now considered to be "a form of violence" against the West as well. Now, try and remember who holds all the nuclear weapons while you squawk this outrageous vomit, because this means a single speech by one of your mad-dog imams is casus belli for us to bomb the living crap out of you.
Based on shari'a law, dhimmis are meant to "feel themselves subdued," to acknowledge their inferiority compared to Muslims.
In some ways, we already have done so. For example, Muslims are welcome in the Vatican, even as Christians are banned from setting foot in Mecca. We do not object to Saudis building mosques in America and Europe even as they prohibit churches and synagogues on Arabian soil.
Which was one of Benedict's earliest points and one that I applaud the most. Islam permits no freedom of religion. Witness the case of Abdul Rahman, an Afghani Christian condemned to death, despite Afghanistan's agreement to the UN human rights accord which specifies freedom of religion.
The practice of Islam must be outlawed in all countries that provide for religious freedom until such a time where Muslim majority countries protect freedom of religion for people of all faiths. Otherwise, all we do is enable a fascist ideology to expand without the least reciprocation.
Most of the world's Muslims are neither rioting nor calling for the death of the pontiff. But quite a few may reason that if Christians and Jews haven't the confidence to reject dhimmitude and defend freedom, they would be foolish to stick their necks out. After all, a Muslim who challenges the Islamic extremeists brands himself as an apostate _ as deserving of death as any uppity pope.
BULLSHIT ALERT: This is where the buck must stop. We must ensure that the punishment for not sticking their necks out first far exceeds any potential penalty we might face.
This is why I advocate near-total disregard for Moderate Muslims until they self-motivate. We have not the time nor energy to uplift this millstone around our necks. Without any palpable ROI Moderate Muslims are worth less to us than a submarine with screen doors.
This is not to say that Moderate Muslims cannot play a positive role, but that they themselves must assume the mantle of authority in fighting jihadist imams and radicals within their religion. If they refuse or cannot bring themselves to do so, then we have far more important things at hand with respect to thwarting Islam than piddling away our time coddling a bunch of reluctant rebels.
While her security contingent waits outside the Georgetown restaurant, Ayaan Hirsi Ali orders what the menu calls ''raw steak tartare.'' Amused by the redundancy, she speculates that it is intended to immunize the restaurant against lawyers, should a customer be discommoded by that entree. She has been in America only two weeks. She is a quick study.
And an exile and an immigrant. Born 36 years ago in Somalia, Hirsi Ali has lived in Ethiopia, Kenya, Saudi Arabia and the Netherlands, where she settled in 1992 after she deplaned in Frankfurt, supposedly en route to Canada for a marriage, arranged by her father, to a cousin. She makes her own arrangements.
She quickly became a Dutch citizen, a member of parliament, and an astringent critic, from personal experience, of the condition of women under Islam. She wrote the script, and filmmaker Theo van Gogh directed, ''Submission,'' an 11-minute movie featuring pertinent passages from the Quran (such as when it is a husband's duty to beat his wife) projected on the bodies of naked women.
It was shown twice before Nov. 2, 2004, when van Gogh, bicycling through central Amsterdam in the morning, was shot by an Islamic extremist who then slit his throat with a machete. Next, the murderer used another knife to pin a long letter to van Gogh's chest. The letter was to Hirsi Ali, calling her a ''soldier of evil'' who would ''smash herself to pieces on Islam.'' The remainder of her life in Holland was lived under guard. Neighbors in her apartment building complained that they felt endangered with her there and got a court to order her evicted. She decided to come to America.
The recoil of many Dutch from Hirsi Ali suggests that the tolerance about which Holland preens is a compound of intellectual sloth and moral timidity. She was more trouble than the Dutch evidently think free speech is worth...
Holland evidently tolerates everything except skepticism about the sacramental nature of multiculturalism. One million of its 16 million residents are Islamic, and the political left has appropriated the European right's traditional celebration of identity grounded in racial and ethnic traditions and culture. But the recoil of many Dutch from Hirsi Ali suggests that the tolerance about which Holland preens is a compound of intellectual sloth and moral timidity. She was more trouble than the Dutch evidently think free speech is worth.
Her story is told in a new book, Murder in Amsterdam, by Ian Buruma, who is not alone in finding her -- this ''Enlightenment fundamentalist'' -- somewhat unnerving and off-putting. Having experienced life circumscribed by tribal and religious communities (as a girl she suffered the genital mutilation called female circumcision), she is a fierce partisan of individualism against collectivism.
She reminds Buruma of Margaret Thatcher's sometimes abrasive intelligence, and fascination with America. He is dismissive of the idea that she is a Voltaire against Islam: Voltaire, he says, offended the powerful Catholic Church, whereas she offends ''only a minority that was already feeling vulnerable in the heart of Europe.'' She, however, replies that this is hardly a normal minority. Living sullenly in European ''dish cities'' -- enclaves connected by satellite TV and the Internet to tribal societies they have not really left behind -- many members of this minority are uninterested in assimilation into open societies.
Europe, she thinks, is invertebrate. After two generations without war, Europeans ''have no idea what an enemy is.'' And they think, she says, that leadership is an antiquated notion because they believe that caring governments can socialize everyone to behave well...
She calls herself ''a dissident of Islam'' because, given what Allah supposedly enjoins and what she knows is right, ''the cognitive dissonance is, for me, too much.'' She says she is not ''a militant atheist,'' but the emphasis is on the adjective.
Slender, elegant, stylish and articulate (in English, Dutch and Swahili), she has found an intellectual home at the American Enterprise Institute, where she is writing a book that imagines Muhammad meeting, in the New York Public Library, three thinkers -- John Stuart Mill, Friedrich Hayek and Karl Popper, each a hero of the unending struggle between (to take the title of Popper's 1945 masterpiece) ''The Open Society and Its Enemies.'' Islamic extremists will be enraged. She is unperturbed.
Neither is she pessimistic about the West. It has, she says, ''the drive to innovate.'' But Europe, she thinks, is invertebrate. After two generations without war, Europeans ''have no idea what an enemy is.'' And they think, she says, that leadership is an antiquated notion because they believe that caring governments can socialize everyone to behave well, thereby erasing personal accountability and responsibility. ''I can't even tell it without laughing,'' she says, laughing softly. Clearly she is where she belongs, at last.
#2
Having experienced life circumscribed by tribal and religious communities (as a girl she suffered the genital mutilation called female circumcision), she is a fierce partisan of individualism against collectivism.
No wonder she is so implaccable. Some medical institute needs to offer her free experimental treatment to surgically regrow nerve tissue using stem cells.
Welcome to America, Ms. Hirsi, I'm certain you will become a valuable and contributing member of our society.
#3
...she is writing a book that imagines Muhammad meeting, in the New York Public Library, three thinkers -- John Stuart Mill, Friedrich Hayek and Karl Popper, each a hero of the unending struggle between (to take the title of Popper's 1945 masterpiece) ''The Open Society and Its Enemies.'' Islamic extremists will be enraged. She is unperturbed.
She certainly knows who to read. I have no doubt her book will be a fascinating and worthy read.
#4
Someone should get Van Gogh's Submission on MYTUBE for the entire Western World to see. If the folks in the media/film industry had any integrity they'd all put out copies as a show of defiance at the most barbaric attempt at censorship yet.
#7
(the Europeans) "believe that caring governments can socialize everyone to behave well, thereby erasing personal accountability and responsibility"
The great experiment failed. Time to find another experiment.
She's so cool.
Appreciate the sentiment, Zenster, but stem cell research has been losing investors (in droves) to the more promising cord blood research. None of it will be in time for Ms. Ali. But if you're interested, there are many groups working within Somalia and other countries to stop FGM (Female Genital Mutilation).
#9
"No wonder she is so implaccable. Some medical institute needs to offer her free experimental treatment to surgically regrow nerve tissue using stem cells."
Actually I think that might be putting the cart before the horse. They need to study her spine and see if they can surgically grow more because many folks in the West seem to be lacking one and hers is strong as iron.
#11
A little exposure to Mevrouw Ali's tart, no holds barred conversation would certainly improve the quality of thinking, and the dropped jaws improve the quality of conversation, in that little corner of the world, Besoeker.
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While her security contingent waits outside the Georgetown restaurant, Ayaan Hirsi Ali orders what the menu calls ''raw steak tartare.'' Amused by the redundancy, she speculates that it is intended to immunize the restaurant against lawyers, should a customer be discommoded by that entree. She has been in America only two weeks. She is a quick study.
