Israel Update...And The End

As I pondered what to do for my last post, I decided that it really should be the thing I considered the single most important issue going on in the world today. Environmentalism, illegal immigration, overspending, expansion of government...most of the many political hot buttons floating around now are basically just different slices of the pie of liberalism. The basic tenets of the founding of our nation are fundamentally different from that liberalism, and that fundamental difference is what causes so many conflicts in this nation. It is a question that must be resolved if America is to remain free and prosperous. While there are many issues that are more than worthy of your consideration, however, I believe there is none more critical than that of Israel and the Middle East. First, let's check in on the latest events. (h/t to Melekiop for several of these links - thanks!)

Iran is now sending some ships to Gaza this week with 'relief'. Right. This kind of 'relief' would be like the relief your mouth would get from eating glass. In reality, this is probably just the next step in the radical Islamists' efforts to provoke Israel into international isolation (made all the more possible by Obama's lack of support for Israel after Turkey's flotilla). Watch for more problems and conflict to come.

Someone really needs to clue in our Secretary of State, who clearly hasn't followed these events over the past few days, and thinks that Iran might try something fishy. Way to be on top of it, Hil.

Of course, someone in Israel has not only a sharp sense of political awareness, but also a sense of humorous irony:

Student Union chairman Boaz Torporovsky, who has been leading the reverse flotilla charge, told The Jerusalem Post on Monday, “Hundreds of people have volunteered for the flotilla, and many more are contacting us all the time for ways they can help.

“Our plan is to deliver much-needed humanitarian assistance to the Kurds of Turkey, who by the way outnumber Israelis and Palestinians combined,” he said…

Another sea-bound venture is being organized in an effort to draw attention to Turkey’s own controversial policies – this time to Cyprus, to “call for an end to the Turkish occupation” of the island’s northern half – and is being organized by Meretz activist Pinchas Har-Zahav, and his son Haim, who has also signed on for the voyage…

Har-Zahav added that the ship’s passengers were not looking for a violent confrontation and if told to turn back, they would.

“But we feel that it’s important for us to show and remind the world that Turkey is not a righteous country, but a near-rogue state, and that we, the Israeli people, are not suckers.”

Sweet! Well played!

Still, perhaps the most unfortunate thing about this series of events is that Barack Obama is using them to revise American policy on Israel, and not in a way that will improve relations or Israeli security.

Kyle-Anne Shiver offers some words of encouragement with which I heartily agree:

I must now ask whether Barack Obama is signaling to the entire Muslim world that Israel is theirs for the taking, that America will stand aside and twiddle our collective thumbs while Iran and her Muslim neighbors finally get to carry out Holocaust II.
...

The only thing I can add is that I now declare myself, a devout Catholic, Jewish too. And it would seem the only moral thing any of us can do is to proclaim this as loudly and as furiously as we can.

Amen! Regardless of the official position, you and I can boldly proclaim support and love for Israel, and do our small parts to stand with them. On that note...

The bottom line is that we need to understand the dangers from radical Islam. The pope apparently does, which is a very good thing. Unfortunately, the Obama administration does not. Politically speaking, the Middle East is a powder keg that is likely to explode due to the simple fact of diametrically opposed ideologies. For example, Hamas' official charter explicitly professes the extermination of Israel and the Jewish people as its reason for existence; much of the radical Islamic world agrees. There's simply no negotiation possible with that mindset. As long as the Middle East exists, there will be conflict, and as long as the U.S. is a major world leader, the politics of the Middle East will affect us, if nothing else but for the simple demographics of it.

But I believe there's even more to it than that.

Even more critical is to understand the role of Israel in the world. Let me recap a bit on my understanding of things. Based on my Christian beliefs, I obviously hold Israel in a special place in my heart, and I believe that it is God's chosen land for His chosen people. The Bible is mostly a story about Israel and the Jewish people, and the rest of the world is only brought into their blessings and inheritance after Jesus Christ graced this world. Make no mistake: we are all included, if we accept His gift of salvation. But, Israel and the Jewish people are the primetime, and I believe there is a reason that the Middle East is flush with critical natural resources...to guarantee that that part of the world remains prominent, and becomes more so as our time on this planet comes to an end.

Thanks to the theology of smart people like Joel C. Rosenberg and Dr. David Jeremiah (and their study of the events written about in Ezekiel 38-39), I believe that we're careening toward another world war, called the War of Gog and Magog; on one side will be a coalition of Russia, Iran, and a bunch of Arab nations, and on the other side will be Israel. Of more concern to us, perhaps, is the fact that there is absolutely no mention in the Biblical record of a powerful nation to the West (us) helping Israel once this war is fully joined...they will be completely on their own. The Bible is silent on exactly why the U.S. is a non-player, but it's not too much of a stretch to see any number of scenarios that might play into current events:

1. the U.S. chooses not to participate --- given the Obama administration's pullback from our long-time ally, this is certainly plausible
2. the U.S. is unable to participate because...
...a collapsed economy destroys our ability to do anything
...a devastating terrorist attack renders us unable to do anything
...some combination of those, or some unknown circumstance

For whatever reason, we don't help Israel. But God does, and Israel wins a decisive victory that triggers the sprint to the end of the world as we know it and the return of Christ.

For a vastly more comprehensive set of details on this whole thing, check out the Rosenberg and Jeremiah links above. The nuts and bolts of the situation is that while we don't know the exact timing of these events, the Bible does give us a series of general road signs that we will pass leading up to this climax. While the exact timing and precision of details are subjects for much debate, it seems plain to me that we are seeing a whole lot of those general road signs nowadays, so it would be wise if every one of us investigated these prophecies and takes them seriously.

Why do I bring this up? To scare you? To predict gloom and doom? To get all preachy on you?

No, that is not my intent. My intent is to encourage you to think. You know I've always been a proponent of looking at the evidence and making up your own mind on things, and that hasn't changed with this subject. If you're familiar with these topics and have come to your own conclusions on them (and thus, how you should live your life in relation to those conclusions), I applaud you. If not, then now's a great time to start. Don't dismiss this as mere religious hocus-pocus...I think that if you'll take but a small amount of time to objectively examine the facts first, then the prophetic clues, suggestions, and predictions made by the likes of Rosenberg and Jeremiah suddenly become immeasurably more plausible and worthy of serious consideration that could have major ramifications for your life.

As Christians, we are called to understand our faith, to live it out, to be in prayer for Israel, and to rest confidently in the anticipation of Christ's ultimate victory over all evil in the world. In reality, the exact unfolding of the end times -- both the ways and the timing -- is irrelevant, because if we do what we're supposed to do, then we're standing with God's people, and with God Himself. And really, if you're on God's side, what else matters?

It's time to bring it to a close. No matter how dark the days get, remember who ultimately wins this battle. Always strive to conduct yourself as if you represent God...because you do. When you're bone-weary of the struggle and you wonder why you should bother to keep going, just remember the words of Galations 6:9:

"And let us not get tired of well-doing; for at the right time we will get in the grain, if we do not give way to weariness."

In closing, I wanted to post something that really captured this message, both in an overarching sense and in the sense of how we in the West need to recover our roots. I could think of none better than this clip of one of my favorite movie franchises, from a moment when the heroes are surrounded and outnumbered, and facing obliteration at the hands of their enemies:

It's just a movie, but that spirit is very real, and one that we should live with each day.

It's been a tremendous journey...thank you for making it with me.

There's my two cents.

Insane, Offensive, American Insanity

In New York:

Founder of Ground Zero mosque part of group that helped fund Gaza flotilla

More specifically, he’s part of a group that’s funding another group that helped organize the flotilla. Too far removed for culpability? Let’s see.

The imam behind a proposed mosque near Ground Zero is a prominent member of a group that helped sponsor the pro-Palestinian activists who clashed violently with Israeli commandos at sea this week.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is a key figure in Malaysian-based Perdana Global Peace Organization, according to its Website.

Perdana is the single biggest donor ($366,000) so far to the Free Gaza Movement, a key organizer of the six-ship flotilla that tried to break Israel’s blockade of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip Monday.

Here’s Rauf’s bio at the Perdana website. Reuters confirmed with the Free Gaza Movement — whose supporters include William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, natch — that its biggest donation did indeed come from Perdana.

Not only is it an abomination to have any mosque at Ground Zero, but to have a mosque funded by the same organization that is currently funding active terrorist operations is the absolute height of offensive insanity!

But yes, by all means, let's let these people build a temple to their violent and murderous religion on the very patch of ground representing their most successful attack on our soil. What could possibly be wrong with that?

On a related note, some dedicated Leftists are openly calling for another holocaust.

There's my two cents.

Speaking Of Radical Islam: Anti-Civilization

Whoever he is, this Dr. Zero guy keeps hitting home runs:

Look at the world through the eyes of Hamas and its apologists, and ask yourself: what’s the point of sending a couple of boats full of terror “activists” to run the Gaza blockade?

The short-term benefit is obvious. Israel is placed in another no-win situation. If the Israeli military had allowed the Terror Flotilla to cruise on its way, they would have displayed a dangerously provocative weakness. Enforcing the blockade brought the Israelis into contact with armed and determined terrorist agents. When the IDF commandos defended themselves, a credulous global media was ready to write stories of “peace activists” being “massacred,” as Hamas desired. Within twenty four hours, regimes noted for the regular murder of their captive subjects were at the podium of the United Nations, denouncing a democracy for defending its borders. I have yet to see a major media figure ask how many of the countries denouncing Israel would respond to an invading flotilla by sending in a squad of guys with paintball guns.

The long-term strategy behind the Terror Flotilla is more troubling, because the pieces in that game are moved by the skeleton hand of anti-civilization… and it is winning.

The central flaw in Western liberal foreign policy is the naïve belief they can construct a civilization without enemies. No amount of multicultural babble, foreign-aid payoffs, or servile bows before foreign leaders can accomplish that task. Every society has both rivals and enemies. Rivals have plans which extend beyond victory in any given contest or campaign. The conquerors of old were looking to assemble empires, and the most successful of them made efforts to incorporate the people and cultures they overwhelmed. Not even the rowdiest English king planned to exterminate the French.

Anti-civilization is different. It destroys without assimilation. It learns nothing from its enemies, studying them only to find weaknesses it can exploit. In ancient times, it took the form of barbarian reavers, who looked upon graceful cities full of art and music and felt nothing but hunger and contempt. The industrial age refined anti-civilization into a powerful black oil, fueling massive engines of murder. It learned to wear crisp uniforms, and build concentration camps. It orchestrated decades of mechanized slaughter, with an atomic finale. By the end of the twentieth century, it had learned to manufacture terror, and transform the wonders of the civilization it hates into firebombs that could level mighty skyscrapers.

Anti-civilization stands opposed to the crucial idea that animates civilization: the belief that human life has value. It took a long time for both Western and Asian civilizations to fully understand this concept, but even in their infancy, they were dimly aware of its power. Mankind tended a garden of thought that grew for thousands of years, nourished by growing concepts of limited rule and transcendent rights, until it finally produced the most succulent fruit of the Enlightenment, the United States Constitution. Civilization begins with respect for the lives of others… the recognition that other people cannot be casually butchered for the slightest of reasons. Focusing this understanding to the elegant modern respect for individual dignity is the work of centuries, but the very concept of law is rooted in the most primitive incarnation of that respect.

It is this core value of respect for life that anti-civilization rejects. It dreams of Final Solutions and drowning its enemies in blood. It’s not just carless of civilian casualties… it deliberately inflicts them, as a matter of policy. It is ravenous for innocent blood, because it knows it can only defeat the superior intellectual and physical power of civilized nations through atrocities. It defeats mighty nations by murdering their children, and mutates its own children into bombs to achieve that purpose.

Anti-civilization can only succeed with the assistance of traitors from within the ranks of its civilized enemies… and it never has trouble finding them. Every society breeds people who refuse to see anti-civilization for what it is, rendering it invisible because it exists beyond the limits of their imaginations. There are also those who grow weary of the constant challenge to defend the society they have built, weakly accepting the comfort of a quiet grave for their civilization. Worst of all, every civilization produces those who eagerly cooperate in the task of burning them to the ground, with plans for rebuilding from the ashes tucked into their back pockets. The barbarians can always be defeated, if their allies within the city walls can be kept from opening the gates.

Industrial technology allowed the creation of Israel, a tiny democracy floating in a sea of barbarism, able to defeat all of its hostile neighbors in an incredibly short war. That same technology produced the media apparatus that anti-civilization relies upon, to commune with its allies and dupes around the world. In a very short time, atomic technology will put genocide back on the table in the Middle East… and our civilization will face a challenge that certain elements are already preparing themselves to lose.

The long-term significance of the Terror Flotilla is that it gives the worldwide Left one more dose of sedative to deal with the possibility of a coming horror in Israel. They’ve long since grown weary of dealing with the problems that tiny nation creates, and begun telling themselves it might just be better for everyone if it ceased to exist. Look how quickly the Left agrees with the Palestinian narrative that every problem in the Middle East is caused by the Jewish state… with the implied conclusion that all those problems would disappear if Israel does.

Anti-civilization wishes to convince the elite of the civilized world that its crimes are understandable, and the victim had it coming anyway. It’s already delighted to know the democracies of the world are less than enthusiastic about standing beside the little democracy it plans to drown. What we’re seeing now is part of the long prologue to something the global Left is slowly, quietly convincing itself will be the tragic but inevitable end to a complicated story. In truth, it will only be the beginning. Anti-civilization is both merciless, and relentless.

Given the strictly dogmatic, violent, and yes, even evil nature of anti-civilization, I believe there's no proverbial Switzerland in this battle, and no one will be able to remain neutral. You're either with the forces of anti-civilization, or not. I choose not.

Sadly, those who are quietly, inevitably enabling anti-civilization will be destroyed just as surely as those of us who plan to go down fighting. They may be destroyed last, but they will still be destroyed. Unfortunately, it will be too late to change their minds at that point.

There's my two cents.

Decline Into Madness

Scary stuff:

Over at the Wall Street Journal, Robert Pollock has an important piece about Turkey’s “national decline into madness.” Demonic images of the United States, Israel, and the Jews, are the daily fare of the Turkish press. Turkey’s leaders are both captives of this propaganda and its perpetuators. Their behavior in the flotilla fiasco, which according to Pollock includes instigating the provocation, is leading the region to disaster. Concludes Pollock:

Good leaders work to defuse tensions in situations like this, not to escalate them. No American should be deceived as to the true motives of these men: They are demagogues appealing to the worst elements in their own country and the broader Middle East.

And of course, Turkey is among the more moderate of the countries of the Muslim world, its demagogic leaders among the most reasonable. Elsewhere, across the great arc from the Maghreb through the Middle East to Pakistan, the delusions and the viciousness are far more entrenched among both the populace and the elites. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Iran, where Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has issued yet another call for Israel’s annihilation on the same day that the UN reports that Iran has amassed enough uranium to make, with further enrichment, two nuclear bombs.

The reaction of the democratic world to the Gaza flotilla debacle suggests that the barbarians are making impressive headway. The outpouring of condemnation from Europe—so outsized, so hypocritical, so ready to ignore the plain truths evident in the videos of the incident, so ready to pounce on embattled Israel—truly does reveal a world gone mad—the headline of a Jennifer Rubin post over at Contentions. One hopes that we are not yet in 1939. But we are unquestionably somewhere in the 1930s, a decade in which few and lonely voices were willing even to recognize the looming catastrophe.

Scary stuff, though not at all unexpected, if you understand the reality of the conflict. Unfortunately, the White House's cautious reproach of Israel from a few days ago has now blossomed into what appears to be hardening opposition:

“There is no question that we need a new approach to Gaza,” said one official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the policy shift is still in the early stages. He was reflecting a broadly held view in the upper reaches of the administration…

[W]orld powers have grown increasingly disillusioned with the blockade, saying that it has created far too much suffering in Gaza and serves as a symbol not only of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians but of how the West is seen in relation to the Palestinians.

“Gaza has become the symbol in the Arab world of the Israeli treatment of Palestinians, and we have to change that,” the senior American official said. “We need to remove the impulse for the flotillas. The Israelis also realize this is not sustainable.”

Hot Air points out the obvious:

You’ll never remove the “impulse for the flotillas.” The real impulse is, as it has been for 60 years, Islamic regimes wanting to incite and exploit their populations’ sense of grievance over the Palestinians to further their own regional ambitions. If the blockade lifts and Iranian weapons start to flow and, inevitably, a new war erupts between Israel and Hamas (and likely Hezbollah too), then that’ll be the next thing to exploit, replete with Erdogan pandering for even more votes by screeching about how Israel’s betrayed Turkey’s “friendship” or whatever.

And, ultimately, it all boils down to the core conflict: radical Islam's primary purpose is to see the eradication of the Jews. In fact, Hamas, the likely intended recipient of the weapons aid contained on this flotilla, actually states in its formal charter that they don't believe Israel has the right to exist. Simply put, there is no possible peace here unless one side or the other is wiped out.

I should take this opportunity to once again point out that things appear to be headed toward another war in the region. As you know, I'm a big fan of Joel C. Rosenberg, and I put a lot of stock in his writings about Biblical prophecy. Here's his latest take on these events:

A pastor friend of mine who is helping us set up the 2010 Epicenter Conference in Philadelphia later this month just sent me an urgent text message with this headline from Israel National News: Rabbis: Flotilla Clash Similar to Gog and Magog Prophecy. As you might expect, it caught my attention right away. Excerpts:

• “The Rabbinical Council of Judea and Samaria issued a statement Thursday in which it said that the results of the incident in which Israel intercepted a flotilla trying to break the naval blockade of Gaza seem like the Biblical description of “the beginning of the Gog and Magog process where the world is against us, but which ends with the third and final redemption….
• “The Council was formed by Rabbi Zalman Melamed of Beit El and includes leading religious Zionist rabbis who are the spiritual leaders of communities in Judea and Samaria….
• “‘Gog and Magog’ is a reference is to chapters 38 and 39 in the book of Ezekiel, a part of which is read on the intermediate Sabbath of Sukkot (Tabernacles). These chapters describe a vision of a war where the world is united against Israel that will precede the final redemption of Israel and the world. The prophecy’s symbolism involves a prince called Gog of Magog, leader of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal, who leads a coalition that includes Persia (Iran), Cush, Phut, Gomer, and Beit Togarmah against Israel. There are various opinions regarding the modern identity of these nations.
• “As a sampling of passages from Ezekiel 39 shows, the prophesy predicts that the coalition will be defeated by Israel, at a time following Israel’s gathering from its exile….”
• Meanwhile, an intriguing new article on the Jerusalem Post website today that also feels ripped from the Ezekiel prophecies: “ISRAEL SET TO BECOME GAS EXPORTER.”
• FRIDAY UPDATE: Israel says doesn’t want clash with ‘Rachel Corrie’ – Foreign Ministry calls out to last flotilla ship en route to Gaza, asking it to sail directly to Ashdod. ‘We have no interest in boarding ship,’ statement says. ‘If cargo contains no weapons we will convey it to Gaza’
• Tensions rachet up as Hamas fires 4 rockets at Israel from Gaza
• Prime Minister Netanyahu makes first formal remarks on the Gaza crisis
• President Obama calls Israeli raid on aid flotilla was ‘tragic,’ unnecessary
• Israel risks losing ‘sole friend’ in Mideast, says Turkish PM Erdogan
• FRIDAY UPDATE: Turkey mulls cutting Israel ties to ‘minimum’ over Gaza flotilla
• Turkish protestors: We’re all soldiers of Hamas
• Videos of the Gaza flotilla incident
• Al-Qaida Orders Abduction of Christians, Saudi Royals
• Must-read column by Charles Krauthammer: Those Troublesome Jews — excerpt: “The world is tired of these troublesome Jews, 6 million — that number again — hard by the Mediterranean, refusing every invitation to national suicide. For which they are relentlessly demonized, ghettoized and constrained from defending themselves, even as the more committed anti-Zionists — Iranian in particular — openly prepare a more final solution.”
• FRIDAY UPDATE: “Guns may have been thrown overboard”: Gun-sights, cartridges and coded plans found on ‘Marmara.’
• FRIDAY UPDATE: Israel Navy: 3 commandos nearly taken hostage in Gaza flotilla raid — According to preliminary navy investigation, some passengers on the Mavi Marmara boat dragged three unconscious commandos into one of the passenger halls below deck.
• FRIDAY UPDATE: Israel obeyed international law: Legally, the Gaza flotilla conflict is an open-and-shut case, writes Alan Dershowitz
• Wall Street Journal editorial: Turkey’s Radical Drift

There is growing interest in the Ezekiel prophecies and whether they could play out in our lifetime. I believe it is still too early to say anything definitively. But I agree that current events are strikingly consistent with the prophecies and I believe it is possible that we could see these events unfold soon. The mention of “Gomer” in Ezekiel, for example, refers to the modern-day State of Turkey which will be an enemy of Israel and part of a Russian-Iranian alliance against the Jewish state. I’m not saying the prophecy will necessarily come to pass soon, but I can’t rule out that possibility. We’ve never seen a convergence of geopolitical and spiritual events so consistent with Ezekiel 38-39 in history like we are seeing today. We need to be prayerful, sober, alert and prepared.

Are you?

There's my two cents.


Related Reading:
Religion of peace activists
Israel, right and long
The Muslim Brotherhood's flotilla
Essential Krauthammer on Israel

Israel Vs. Turkey: Condemnations And Insanity

In case you missed what happened, here's a great recap:

A motley crew of Turkish Islamists, European leftists and Israeli Arab leaders yesterday succeeded in provoking a bloody clash with Israeli forces that were enforcing an arms embargo against Hamas terrorists in Gaza. Six ships with more than 600 “peace activists” left Cyprus bound for Gaza but were intercepted by the Israeli Navy and special forces commandos before they could land in Gaza. The first five ships complied with Israeli forces, but the passengers aboard the sixth vessel, the Mavi Marmara, attacked Israeli commandos with steel poles, knives and pepper spray, provoking a battle that claimed at least nine lives.

According to an eyewitness account by a reporter:

Navy commandoes slid down to the vessel one by one, yet then the unexpected occurred: The passengers that awaited them on the deck pulled out bats, clubs, and slingshots with glass marbles, assaulting each soldier as he disembarked. The fighters were nabbed one by one and were beaten up badly, yet they attempted to fight back.

However, to their misfortune, they were only equipped with paintball rifles used to disperse minor protests, such as the ones held in Bilin. The paintballs obviously made no impression on the activists, who kept on beating the troops up and even attempted to wrest away their weapons.

One soldier who came to the aid of a comrade was captured by the rioters and sustained severe blows. The commandoes were equipped with handguns but were told they should only use them in the face of life-threatening situations. When they came down from the chopper, they kept on shouting to each other “don’t shoot, don’t shoot,” even though they sustained numerous blows.

Caught off-guard by the violent attacks of the “peace activists,” the Israeli commandos were compelled to use firearms in self-defense. Many of the passengers on board the Mavi Marmara were believed to be members of a Turkish Islamist charity organization, the Humanitarian Relief Fund, that has a long history of support for radical Islamist causes and deploying jihadists to Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya. The Humanitarian Relief Fund is part of an umbrella group, the Union for Good, that was created by Hamas leaders in 2000 to aid fundraising for Hamas’s radical Islamist agenda. The U.S. government has designated the Union for Good as a terrorist organization.

The biggest surprise in all this is that the Israeli soldiers were so unprepared for violence. Really?? Strange, because the jihadists-turned-peace-activists released a video the day before pledging to use violence to provoke the Israeli Defense Force into making martyrs out of them. Oh, and ships going from Islamic nations to Israel are so often just so darned peaceful, aren't they? And sure enough, several dozen of these peace activists have now been determined to be Al Qaeda members. Go figure. I think this is just another case of Israel trying to defend itself while walking on eggshells, and coming off badly because of it. Cassy Fiano offers this analysis with which I agree completely:

Of course, the left will do anything they can to demonize Israel, so they will ignore and manipulate the facts of the situation. (Don’t call them anti-Semitic, though!) The fact is this: Israel’s actions were perfectly justified. The Gaza blockade was in effect, the flotilla knew this, and was intent on running the blockade after being told to turn back. IDF soldiers boarded the ship, and we all know what happened. What were they supposed to do? Let the ship run the blockade without knowing if there were weapons on board that could be smuggled to Palestinians and then used to kill innocent Israeli civilians? (And of course, several caches of weapons were found on board.) Once faced with violence on board, should they have just stood there and let themselves be slaughtered? Apparently, these are the only two options for Israelis from the left: let people smuggle whatever they want into Palestine, a country filled with backwards, bloodthirsty, homicidal maniacs intent on eradicating all Jews from the planet, or when confronted with violence, choose not to fight even in their own self-defense. (Again, don’t call them anti-Semitic though! They love Israel!) Because Israel chooses to not allow themselves to be annihilated, they are always the bad guys in the eyes of the left, no matter what. This case is just another example of that.

In my initial post about this incident, I wrote this:

As Israel's strongest ally, it is now time for the U.S. to step up and help them out. Will we? With Barack Obama in the White House, I'm not so sure.

Ahem:

I suppose the fact that the Obama administration waited for a whole day before condemning our ally should be considered good news. Then again, is any condemnation of one of our allies for defending itself against radical Islamic terrorists actually a good thing?

Not in my book.

As if this wasn't enough to worry about, we now see news that Iran has enough enriched uranium to make not one nuclear weapon, but two. Oh, and Syria is has also confessed to conducting nuclear weapons experiments, too. This happened at the mysterious facility that Israel took out a couple years ago.

Are things spinning out of control?

There's my two cents.


Related Reading via Drudge:
Activists send new boat to challenge blockade...
Thousands of Gazans rush for Egyptian border...
Turkey's PM says Israel should be punished...
...Israeli gov't defends
'Next time we'll use more force'...
Passengers were armed, 'no peace activists'...
VIDEO...
U.N. Security Council Condemns 'Acts'...
Ahmadinejad: 'Israeli commandos are wild dogs'...
...wants Netanyahu to face trial
JERUSALEM POST News Feed...
REPORT: Lebanon fires on Israeli warplanes...
Turkish lawmakers urge govt to review Israel ties...
Says Israel has 'criminal status'...
'Activists threw stun grenades'...
US consulate issues advisory...

The Hope Of Hope-N-Change

Unfortunately, it's significant:

Yesterday the White House unveiled its national security strategy. It came in basically three parts.

Part One is the “anything but Bush” part. Where the goal is to put as much distance between Obama and Bush – even where there is not a lot space. Renaming the War on Terrorism, the war on al Qaeda is a case in point. Did the Bush administration not know it was fighting al Qaeda? Did Obama stop doing Predator strikes?

Part Two is an overwhelming desire to substitute soft power for hard power. The problem is that soft power – like diplomacy – is not a substitute for hard power. Obama has already given us an object lesson in how this really works with the New START treaty. The US gave the Russians everything they wanted and in return got nothing other than ensuring Russia will be a dominant nuclear power for the next half century while the US nuclear deterrent continues to atrophy.

Part Three of the strategy is living in the world of wishful thinking. It emphasizes engagement and cooperation. But the strategy has no strategy for when the other side chooses not to cooperate as in the case of Iran. The US opted to engage Iran. Iran opted to make parodies about US foreign policy.

Hope is not a strategy…but it is the Obama national security strategy.

Feeling safer yet?

There's my two cents.

Danger, Will Robinson!

Heritage gives us yet another reminder of potential disaster:

We've been warned. In 2004, the Commission to Assess the Threat of the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) reported that "EMP is one of a small number of threats that can hold our society at risk of catastrophic consequences." Yet, Congress has done next to nothing to protect the U.S. from an EMP attack.

As my colleague, Baker Spring explains an EMP can occur when a nuclear weapon is detonated high in the atmosphere above the Earth. The resulting explosion interacts with the Earth's magnetic fields, sending a pulse, or current, throughout all electrical systems. Nearly everything we depend on from day to day would be affected. Imagine a world without computers, ATMS, cell phones, water systems, the internet, ambulances and even cars. The U.S. would essentially be knocked back to the 19th century.

The idea may seem abstract, but the threat is real. Nearly 30 nations have the ballistic missile capabilities needed to launch such an attack, and reports have circulated that Iran, North Korea, Russia, and China have worked towards achieving EMP capabilities.

Given the magnitude of the threat, it is due time for the U.S. to work towards building a suitable defense against EMP attacks by hardening the nation's critical infrastructure. If properly shielded, the nation's infrastructure could survive even the strongest attack.

Join The Heritage Foundation tomorrow at 11 a.m. in Lehrman Auditorium at "Keeping a Finger on Electromagnetic Pulse," part of the Science and Technology series, as experts discuss technologies available to help harden critical infrastructure and defend the nation from the EMP threat.

Remember, it won't take an arsenal of nuclear weapons to reduce America to ashes.  It will take three.  At most.

Are our oh-so-competent leaders cognizant of this fact?  What are they doing to protect us from this threat?  These are questions worth asking, and questions that deserve an honest answer.

There's my two cents.

No, Actually, The System Didn't Work

So says the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, after studying the Christmas Day bombing attempt:

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has released an unclassified summary of its investigation into the attempted terrorist attack on Christmas Day 2009. The committee's bottom line is that the system did not work.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab should have been prevented from boarding Flight 253, but there were "a series of human errors, technical problems, systemic obstacles, analytical misjudgments, and competing priorities" that enabled Abdulmutallab "to travel to the United States on December 25, 2009."

The committee outlines "fourteen specific points of failure," but two are particular worrisome. A third and equally troubling point of failure was also identified by Senators Saxby Chambliss and Richard Burr in their addendum to the report.

First, even though Abdulmutallab's father walked into a U.S. embassy in Abuja, Nigeria, and told officials that his son may be a terrorist, Abuldmutallab wasn't watchlisted. Why? The committee offers this explanation:

Although U.S.  Embassy officials in Abuja recommended that Abdulmutallab be placed on the No Fly List, the determination was made at CIA Headquarters and at the NCTC [note: National Counterterrorism Center] Watchlisting Office that there was only sufficient derogatory information to enter Abdulmutallab's information in the general "Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment" (TIDE) database, but not sufficient derogatory information to place him on any of the watchlists. Because of the language of the watchlisting standard, the manner in which it was being interpreted at the time, or both, analysts responsible for making the watchlisting determination did not believe they had the ability to give additional weight to significant pieces of information from the field, such as the report that resulted from the meeting with Abdulmutallab's father.

So, State Department officials thought Abdulmutallab should be added to the watchlist, which would have prevented him from boarding Flight 253, but other officials at the CIA and NCTC decided against it. That was a significant misjudgment, to say the least.

The report goes on...

This brings us to the second point. The committee found:

Analysts' competing priorities contributed to the failure of the Intelligence Community to identify Abdulmutallab as a potential threat. Prior to the 12/25 plot, counterterrorism analysts at NCTC, CIA, and NSA were focused on the threat of terrorist attacks in Yemen, but were not focused on the possibility of AQAP attacks against the U.S. homeland. These other priorities contributed to the failure of analysts to recognize and collate the several pieces of intelligence reporting that mentioned Abdulmutallab.

Again, this is remarkably bad. These agencies still do not understand the basics of al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden's strategy. Al Qaeda's chief has worked hard to fold so called "local" jihadist groups into the al Qaeda network. The strategy has worked.

And finally...

Finally, we come to the third particularly noteworthy point of failure, which was identified by Senators Chambliss and Burr in their "Additional Views." The senators argue that in the wake of the September 11 attacks "several investigations" concluded that intelligence stove piping and the like were serious problems. Consequently, the senators write, the NCTC "was created to be the central knowledge bank for all terrorism related information" and is therefore "responsible and accountable for all terrorism related intelligence analysis."

That is not how NCTC sees itself, however. The senators write (footnotes omitted): 

Instead, the Committee found in this review that no one agency believes its analysts are responsible for tracking and identifying all terrorist threats, essentially the same problem identified six years ago by the 9/11 Commission, which found "the intelligence community's confederated structure left open the question of who was really in charge of the entire U.S. intelligence effort" to combat terrorism.  

Elsewhere in the report the Committee found that having multiple agencies working to counter the terrorist threat is beneficial in some ways. That is certainly true, but the entirety of the Committee's report makes it clear that no one agency in the U.S. government pulled together all of the available information on Abdulmutallab, even though the NCTC was specifically built to do so.

And yet, despite all this, we see the Obama administration continue to insist that the system works, so they're not going to bother with changing anything.

Whose side are they on, anyway?

I'm not sure I want to know the answer to that question.

There's my two cents.

Obama Signs New Freedom-Of-The-Press Bill, Then Ignores The Press

You really just can't make this stuff up:

To save you some nauseating lecturing by The One, I'd recommend just watching the first 30 seconds or so, then skipping ahead to 4:00. That's all you really need to watch. For the readers among us, here's the key excerpt:

After the signing of the Freedom of Press Act on Monday, President Obama declined to take any questions from the press.

During a pooled press event in the Oval Office, President Obama was asked if he would take a couple questions.

“You’re certainly free to ask the question,” Obama told the reporters in the room. “I won’t be answering, I’m not doing a press conference today, but we’ll be seeing you in the course of the week.”

Nice.

One other note on this...Obama said that Daniel Pearl's very brutal and very public murder "captured the world's imagination". Does that strike anyone else as a very strange way to put it? To me, a Disney production or an epic Olympics contest might "capture the world's imagination", but the beheading of an innocent reporter?? I'd call that more along the lines of barbaric or evil myself. Is this how he really views what happened to Pearl?

Also, Gateway Pundit reminds the President that Daniel Pearl was clearly and obviously murdered because he was an American Jew, not because he was a reporter. Kind of a big difference, especially in the context of a war with radical Islam.

Oh, I see the problem - no one in the Obama administration is even willing to say radical Islam, much less admit to the fact that it's real and they're trying to kill us. Ah, mystery solved. I'm not sure I'll sleep a whole lot better tonight, though.

There's my two cents.

Racial Profiling? Yeah, I Wish They'd Actually Do That...

Here's why:

Anyone who thinks that the illegal immigration problem is just about anti-Mexican sentiment is either a complete idiot, completely uninformed, or both. It's an issue with many components. The economic impacts are huge, as many illegal immigrants suck resources (food stamps, health care, etc.) out of the American economy without putting anything back in through taxation. A disproportionately high number of illegal immigrants commit violent crimes against innocent Americans. A disproportionately high number of illegal immigrants come from third world countries (not just Mexico) where diseases are untreated and rampant, thus introducing additional risk to Americans. And since when is simply ignoring the law for political purposes a good thing?? This should be the most obvious, and should be a deal breaker all by itself. It is for the American people...it's only those who (ironically) write the laws that want to ignore those laws.

And, finally, it's terrorism thing. As the video above indicated, terrorists have been using our porous southern border as an entry point for years. What's interesting about the report above is that this TV station pulled this information from Congressional reports. That means Congress knows exactly what these terrorists are doing, even to the point of knowing their most common routes across the border!

Remind me again why we can't shut this down...!

This is an unconscionable failure of the political class in Washington. They have completely failed the American people, allowing this huge vulnerability for decades. Especially after the most recent attacks on American soil, starting with the WTC bombing in 1993, this should have been one of the first things to be fixed. The fact that they haven't done it should tell you just how important Washington thinks national security is. I wonder if their actions would be any different if they were assured that it was their own homes and cities that would be the target of the next successful 9/11-style attack rather than anonymous American families living outside the Beltway?

I think the answer to that goes a long way toward explaining who should be re-elected and who should not.

There's my two cents.

Obama Administration Introduces New Honorary Medal Of Suicidal Insanity

Apparently, the Obama administration is now suggesting that soldiers commit suicide via enemy weaponry, all in the name of political correctness.  You just can't make this stuff up (emphasis mine):

I'm going to exercise restraint and let you all comment on this one, via the Navy Times:

U.S. troops in Afghanistan could soon be awarded a medal for not doing something, a precedent-setting award that would be given for "courageous restraint" for holding fire to save civilian lives.

The proposal is now circulating in the Kabul headquarters of the International Security Assistance Force, a command spokesman confirmed Tuesday.

"The idea is consistent with our approach," explained Air Force Lt. Col. Tadd Sholtis. "Our young men and women display remarkable courage every day, including situations where they refrain from using lethal force, even at risk to themselves, in order to prevent possible harm to civilians. In some situations our forces face in Afghanistan, that restraint is an act of discipline and courage not much different than those seen in combat actions."

Soldiers are often recognized for non-combat achievement with decorations such as their service's commendation medal. But most of the highest U.S. military decorations are for valor in combat. A medal to recognize a conscious effort to avoid a combat action would be unique.

Consideration of such an award, first reported by an Associated Press reporter in Afghanistan, doesn't mean that, if approved, troops would be pressured to prevent such casualties at risk to themselves, Sholtis said.

"We absolutely support the right of our forces to defend themselves," Sholtis said. "Valuing restraint in a potentially dangerous situation is not the same thing as denying troops the right to employ lethal force when they determine that it is necessary."

A spokesman for the 2.2 million-member Veterans of Foreign Wars, the nation's largest group of combat veterans, thinks the award would cause confusion among the ranks and send a bad signal.

The American Legion has also weighed in:

Calling a proposal to award U.S. troops medals for holding fire in a war zone "misguided," the head of the nation's largest veterans organization voiced concern that overly restrictive rules of engagement would ultimately cost lives.

"Nobody likes to see innocent civilians killed in a war zone but the blame for these tragedies lies with the terrorists who caused the war in the first place," American Legion National Commander Clarence E. Hill said. "The proposal to award medals for holding fire is troubling because it is symptomatic of a growing culture in the military that will punish troops for making split-second decisions while they are expected to defend themselves and their comrades. This proposal is an insult to our men and women in combat who already do an extraordinary job of exercising restraint. Too much restraint will get our own people killed."

Hill also worried that rewarding those who don't use force sends the wrong message to those that do. "Vietnam veterans were outrageously slandered as 'babykillers,'" he said. "This was tragic because the overwhelming majority of those who served there tried to prevent innocent casualties. Now, by awarding those who supposedly practice restraint, we would be implying that our heroes who have to fire their weapons are somehow failing in their mission or coming up short. It's a bad idea and the Pentagon should kill it."

Rush calls it the "Yellow Heart" medal.

Armitageblogger tweets: "It will need to be awarded posthumously almost 90% of the time."

Diana West: "Meanwhile, where are the Purple Hearts for the jihad-war dead at Ft Hood and the Little Rock recruiting station?"

...?!...

*sigh*

There's my two cents.

Friday Update: Radical Islam

The good news: this isn't Barack Obama, the Commander-in-Chief. The bad news: this is Eric Holder, head guy at the Department of Justice, and the guy Barack Obama chose to run his legal division. Behold the teeth-pulling session:

What's the fuss about? Well, it's pretty simple, really:

Excruciating, not least of all because he ends up basically agreeing with the premise of the question. Yes, of course Shahzad “might have been incited” by radical Islam. He’s an Anwar al-Awlaki fan who went to Pakistan for bomb-training, didn’t he? And yet … he can’t quite bring himself to say that. The best he can do is a clumsy, heavily qualified admission that while Awlawki’s version of Islam is wrong, “people who espouse a radical version of Islam have had an ability to have an impact on people like Mr. Shahzad.” So palpably uncomfortable is he that I honestly feel a little sorry for him. Pathetic. Says Andy McCarthy, “How can you ever hope to stop something when you refuse even to speak its name?”

Bingo. Thus, these people are utterly incapable of actually defending the nation against radical Islamic terrorism.

Speaking of which, it seems that the Obama administration is funding those same unnameable radical Islamic terrorists now:

The U.S. Department of Labor gave millions of dollars to a joint venture that included a Yemeni charity with extensive links to Al Qaeda.

At least $3.5 million was allocated by the Labor Department to fund a three-year partnership between the Charitable Society for Social Welfare (CSSW), based in Yemen, and CHF International, a Maryland-based foundation, to fight child labor and child trafficking starting in fiscal year 2008[...]

CSSW, based in Yemen, was founded by *Abdul Majid Al Zindani, a veteran of the jihad against the Soviet Union and its civil war aftermath. Zindani was an associate of Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, according to published reports and exclusive documents obtained by INTELWIRE. The U.S. government believes he is an Al Qaeda recruiter and fundraiser.

At the same time, the Obama administration is also cutting the funding of domestic anti-terrorism efforts:

Eleven days after the botched plot to bomb Times Square, the Obama administration on Wednesday slashed some $53 million from the city’s terror-fighting budget.

“For the administration to announce these cuts two weeks after the attempted Times Square bombing shows they just don’t get it and are not doing right by New York City,” fumed Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

To top it off, the news arrives as President Obama comes to town today amid buzz he will meet with the very cops who helped thwart the bombing.

Obama will also be tapping the city’s deep pockets for the Democratic Party.

“The President seems more interested in raising money for political campaigns than providing New York the money it needs to defend itself against Islamic terrorism,” said Rep. Pete King (R-L.I.), the top Republican on the Homeland Security Committee.

Wow...it's not often that Sen. Schumer and Rep. King agree on something! But hey, relax - it's not like New York is much of a terrorist target or anything.

The bottom line: the biggest danger facing America right now is our own political leadership.

There's my two cents.

The Religion Of Peace In Action

'Peace' being the operative word, of course:

Lars Vilks, a cartoonist who drew this crude (in the morally-neutral sense of that word) depiction of Muhammad, was attacked at a lecture by a Muslim man who "head butted" him to the ground before police intervened:

I'm just saying...if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck...then how about we just call it a duck, shall we?

There's my two cents.

Times Square Terrorist Attack Recap

Now that the dust has settled a bit on the Times Square attack, I wanted to revisit it with a bit more analysis that should be very useful for the future protection of America.

First, this guy Shahzad was on the terrorist watch list for a decade, he had no job, his house was in foreclosure, and he'd just returned -- with a load of cash -- from a trip to Pakistan for several months where he associated with a known terrorist maker, but we didn't stop him? Why not?? We need to demand answers from Congress and the White House.

Oh, and as to his motive...he told the authorities exactly why he did it: as retribution for drone attacks in his home country. And yet, the liberal Left has gotten extremely creative in fabricating just about any other motives they think might fit their template. He hated DemCare, he was crazy, we deserved it for attacking him first, he was stressed because of his financial troubles, he was a suicide bomber who chickened out, he was stupid, or he had no motive at all and it's a complete mystery. This is like asking why a starving wolf feels the need to go hunting for a rabbit, and it is precisely the kind of willful blindness that is going to cost American lives. Luck makes a pretty awful security policy, but Democrats seem pretty happy with it so far.

How did he get here? Well, there are a few tried-and-true ways jihadists get into the U.S. (besides being picked up on the battlefield, given an ACLU lawyer at YOUR expense, and being sent up for a show trial), including fraudulent marriages and student visas. If the federal government was serious about securing the nation from terrorists, they'd dismantle both programs, at least in terms of nations that are known to be hostile to the U.S. Clearly, they're not serious about it.

The other thing we need to be asking ourselves is: was this simply a test mission? What did terrorists learn, even from this failed attack?

Here are some things al-Qaida could have found to be true:

• A U.S. national moved back to Pakistan, lived in areas controlled by terrorists and was trained by them, then easily re-entered the United States.
• After returning to the United States, their OPERATIVE easily moved about the New York area without detection by intelligence or law enforcement agencies. He was able to buy equipment, albeit rudimentary, to construct a bomb.
• OPERATIVE was easily able to enter one of the MOST celebrated locations in America, to do a test run of the bombing.
• Days later OPERATIVE was able, again without detection, to drive an SUV stuffed with bomb making materials and park it directly in Times Square. OPERATIVE escaped safely.
• Despite the fact that Times Square has been talked about as a major terror target for years, authorities reacted only after local vendors saw a suspicious car. [ Judith Miller reports in her blog post, “10 Questions About Shahzad and Times Square,” about 80 surveillance cameras that dot Times Square never captured him leaving the scene. She wonders why the New York police never invested in surveillance cameras like London has. Such cameras are relatively inexpensive.]
• Though capture of OPERATIVE took place relatively quickly after the attempt, nothing authorities did would have PREVENTED a major terror attack in Times Square. Al-Qaida could have successfully detonated a weapon of mass destruction using OPERATIVE’s SUV.
• Authorities successfully apprehended OPERATIVE in a short period, though OPERATIVE used limited effort to avoid detection.
• OPERATIVE was captured on outbound jet at JFK airport. OPERATIVE came close to exiting the U.S. without detection, as the “No Fly List” system did not work as planned. Had OPERATIVE tried to leave the United States within 24 hours of his bomb attempt, OPERATIVE may have exited the country without being captured.
• Authorities quickly accepted OPERATIVE’s claim he acted alone.
  

Personally, I find this list pretty disturbing. The thought that this was all gathered from a failed attack makes it even worse - what happens when the big boys utilize this information to create a real-deal plan like the 9/11 attacks? Luck won't cut it.

In a completely unsurprising move, the Obama administration, when faced with a mountain of evidence disproving their initial reflexive denial that this had anything to do with a network of terrorists or the Muslim faith, actually admitted their error...though they did it with so much spin that it appeared they had been saying that all along:

The Washington Post calls Eric Holder’s admission that the Pakistani Taliban plotted the Times Square bombing a “sharp escalation,” but it’s more like a U-turn. Initially, as the Post notes, the White House tried claiming that Faisal Shahzad had acted alone and that the Taliban claim of responsibility was hogwash. That U-turn hasn’t kept the White House from pushing its other favored response, that the system supposedly worked ...

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said investigators had “developed evidence that shows the Pakistani Taliban was behind the attack,” a sharp escalation from the initial assessment that Faisal Shahzad had acted alone and without sophisticated training. Holder’s remarks, coupled with similar statements by other senior U.S. officials over the weekend, highlighted the emerging role of an al-Qaeda-affiliated group that appears to have only recently moved to follow through on its ambition, expressed for years, of striking inside the United States. …

In the first place, an “escalation” is an increase in direction or scope. That’s not what Holder did yesterday. He and the Obama administration changed directions, thanks to an avalanche of evidence that Shahzad had traveled to Pakistan for five months, trained with the Taliban, and suddenly had a lot of cash to spend on his return in February. The White House wanted to spin the attack right away as one conducted by a one-off lone wolf, which would not prompt the kind of questions the Obama administration wants to avoid at the moment. That brings us to Brennan’s laughable statement, that the system worked because Shahzad’s an idiot. That’s not exactly the full expectation of counterterrorism. We have had three attacks now in six months, two of which failed only because of dumb luck and poor design. The goal of counterterrorism is to stop plots before they get to the point of exploding in mid-air or Times Square. It’s nice to be lucky, but it’s better to be good, and eventually our luck will run out.

It really says something that the enemy of our age is being enabled more by our own government than by anyone else. It says we're in serious trouble, and it says that we need to throw out that government NOW.

There's my two cents.

Cheerful Thought Of The Day: The Next War Against Israel Creeps Closer

Courtesy of Gateway Pundit:

Armed with Scud Missiles, Hezbollah fighters announced recently that they are eager for war with Israel and more ready than ever before. The Lebanese terror group Hezbollah is reported to have received over a hundred M600 ballistic missiles from Syria.
The Christian Science Monitor reported:

Nearly four years after Hezbollah fought invading Israeli troops to a standstill in south Lebanon, the militant Shiite group says it's prepared for a fresh conflict and confident of victory.

"We are ready for another war and we eagerly await it," says veteran Hezbollah fighter Abu Hadi on a drive through the Bekaa Valley. "We expect the next war to be short. The Israelis will not be able to endure what we will do to them."

Hezbollah's leadership insists it does not seek a war and that its military preparations are a defense against potential Israeli aggression. Yet, the inconclusive outcome of the 2006 war has stoked a feeling here that another war is inevitable.

War drums have been beating faster in recent weeks amid allegations that Syria has supplied Hezbollah with Scud ballistic missiles – a development that has enraged Israel, forced Lebanese leaders to seek international support, and complicated a gradual US-Syria rapprochement. On May 3, President Obama renewed sanctions on Syria for a year because of its "continuing support for terrorist organizations and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and missile programs."

Hezbollah's strongholds in the Bekaa Valley are likely to be one of several front lines during another war with Israel – a war that threatens to be far more destructive than the one in July 2006. Hezbollah says lessons learned from that conflict have been implemented, including new battlefield tactics and the acquisition of improved weapons systems, surface-to-surface rockets, and possibly advanced antiaircraft missiles.

Remember, this talk of not wanting war is coming from the same people who believe they have divine permission to lie about wanting peace while they re-arm for the next war.  Thus, the next war is not a question of if, it's a question of when.  At that time, we need to exert some monster-sized pressure on our government to support our ally, Israel.  They sure as shootin' aren't going to do it on their own, and they may ignore us then, anyway.  They've been doing a lot of that lately, but we still need to do the right thing.  Just be ready - it's coming.

And let's pray that Russia and a bunch of Arab nations aren't involved, too.

There's my two cents.

The Times Square Terrorist Attack

Thank God it failed!

Still, the attack isn't the only thing that failed. Here's the nutshell of what happened.

A Pakistani man who was a naturalized American citizen had been under close watch by the FBI for suspected terrorist ties suddenly disappeared. An SUV showed up in Times Square packed with explosives, but with the wrong kind of explosives, and a timer that was set incorrectly. The bomb didn't go off, and some observant citizens reported the SUV. Authorities secured it, and the hunt was on for Faisal Shahzad. They finally found him on an airplane -- despite being on the no-fly list -- taxiing out of JFK International Airport on the way to the Middle East. Shahzad claimed to be working alone, but several others have been arrested in Pakistan in relation to the failed attack. Oh, and by the way, Shahzad had traveled to Pakistan just months ago, and trained in a terrorist camp.

No one was harmed, but let's examine some of the problems and lessons learned here. First, how did this guy slip his FBI observers? Second, how did he get on the plane after buying a plane ticket with cash, carrying no baggage, being a young Middle Eastern man heading toward the Middle East, and being listed on the no-fly list? Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano refused to answer that second question when asked. Remember how real airport security works? Yeah, if only we'd done that here.

It should be noted that CNN and the liberal Left immediately jumped to his defense, claiming that he was a 'lone wolf' domestic terrorist, simply disgruntled [at Bush] because the bank foreclosed on his house not too long ago. And that's after a whole lotta' Leftists wrung their hands and hoped against hope that the failed attack had been perpetrated by a Teabagger. Victor Davis Hanson points out the obvious:

The jihadist symptoms of Major Hasan were ignored; General Casey lamented the possible ramifications of Hasan's killings to the army's diversity program; the warnings of Mr. Mutallab's father about his son's jihadist tendencies were ignored but the latter's Miranda rights were not; and the Times Square would-be bomber was quite rashly and on little evidence falsely equated with a "white" bomber with perhaps domestic-terrorism overtones (when it looks like there is a Pakistani radical-Islamist connection) — a sort of pattern has been established, one both implicit and explicit.

It's only a matter of time until this pattern is going to get Americans killed. Mark Steyn has a related take on the Left's spirited defense of yet another radical Muslim terrorist:

Whenever something goofy happens — bomb in Times Square, mass shootings at a US military base, etc. — there seem to be two kinds of reactions:

a) Some people go, "Hmm. I wonder if this involves some guy with a name like Mohammed who has e-mails from Yemen."

b) Other people go, "Don't worry, there's no connection to terrorism, and anyway, even if there is, it's all very amateurish, and besides he's most likely an isolated extremist or lone wolf."

Unfortunately, everyone in category (b) seems to work for the government. ...

Why do public officials so reflexively dissemble and misdirect every time? In the end, all they're doing is undermining confidence in the integrity of their own institutions. That doesn't seem a smart move.

Because it would be politically incorrect to do anything else, that's why. Speaking of which, it is interesting that Michael Bloomberg, the Mayor of New York City, stood up (before we knew whodunnit) and suggested that the perpetrator was probably some 40-year old white guy who didn't like the health care bill; after Shahzad was discovered and captured, Bloomberg again took to the microphones to chastise us that we shouldn't allow one little bit of bias or prejudice to allow us to leap to unfair conclusions. When you bottom-line it, the Left is still convinced that old grandmother Tea Party right-wingers are much more dangerous than young Muslim males from Pakistan. This cognitive dissonance would be really funny stuff if American lives didn't hang in the balance!

Jonah Goldberg attempts to be even-handed in his treatment of the situation. Hit the link for his full thoughts, but I really like his conclusion:

This liberal tendency is not just offensive because it assumes that American citizens – including vets – are somehow an under-appreciated terrorist threat. Though that is plenty awful in and of itself.

It is also disgustingly undemocratic. Why? because so many of these people, starting with Obama himself but including former Presidents Clinton and Carter, the Democratic Party, the editorial pages of the New York Times, and much of the rest of the liberal dominated media, use this talk about the “rhetorical climate” on the right as a means to bully it into silence. That’s what Obama did in his recent commencement address and that’s what hundreds of commentators and bloggers have been doing in response to the tea parties.

They’re saying, “You people need to shut up because you’re aiding and abetting terrorists.” They’re also trying to say to independents: “If you think the rightwingers are persuasive, you need to think again. They’re all just mouthpieces and stalking horses for the homegrown terrorists and the mentally deranged.”

And, last, it’s also dangerous. Not because it will breed frustration and anger among Americans who feel unfairly demonized for simply voicing their objections ( though if liberals really believe the nonsense they spew about conservatives, they might ponder that). No, it’s dangerous because it causes the country to look for terrorists where they aren’t while telling them not to look for them where they are.

Yep, that's liberalism, cloaked in political correctness. Or, as it would be more accurately described, that's a suicidal death wish through cultural ignorance to the degree of fatal stupidity.

I'm sure more will come out on this in the next few days, and I'll post the best stuff.

There's my two cents.



Sources:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/05/05/security-slip-let-nyc-bomb-suspect-plane/
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/05/nyregion/05profile.html?scp=5&sq=shahzad&st=cse
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/05/04/alleged-bomber-gone-pakistan-ied-training/
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/05/nyregion/05plane.html?hp
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/how-did-shahzad-get-plane-if-he-was-no-fly-list
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/05/04/pakistan-arrests-eight-in-connection-to-times-square-attack/
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/05/04/video-how-shahzad-almost-got-away/
http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2010/05/pelosi-jost-and-bloomberg-need-to-apologize-to-conservatives-after-pakistani-american-democrat-arrested-in-nyc-car-bomb-case/