The Harping begins

The new song of the left is that the attacks in London disprove Bush's claim that by fighting terrorists there we won't have to face them here. Of course they ignore the point that Britain's Muslims are less assimilated into British society than those here and that they have ignored radical preachers in British mosques fomenting terrorism and hatred of the very society that harbors them.

This will supplement the "Bush lied about WMD!" chorus. Long live polyphony.

The NYTimes counsels fear and blames the "quagmire":

That fear has already led to questions about why the British security agencies did not anticipate the attacks, why the wealthy nations have not done enough about the root causes of terrorism and why Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden continue to function after almost four years of the so-called war on terrorism. Many will wonder why the United States is mired in Iraq while Al Qaeda's leader still roams free.

Hugh Hewitt calls for taking the GWOT seriously as a war, but isn't hopeful that the left will get it, ands asks what it will take, if 9/11 and all the terrorist attacks before and since haven't done it. All that really matters to them is that they've been shut out from controlling any part of the Federal Government. There no longer seems to be anything on the left like the loyal opposition. Oops! Sorry. Did I impugn your patriotism?

The Book of Mormon was written for our time, as a heads up for the kinds of attacks on our freedom and faith that will arise in the latter days. This situation is there.

James Taranto has a great collection of the anti-war reaction to the London bombings, including claims that "the wealthy nations have not done enough about the root causes of terrorism." Bush's strategy is aimed directly at the root causes of terrorism, but the NYTimes seems to think that those roots are actually in Africa's poverty. If we were to overthrow every dictator and warlord in that continent, it would do a great deal to end poverty, but the left always wants to fight poverty by pouring money down the same old rat holes.

A Hymn for the Times

I grew up singing "Come, Come Ye Saints" in church. It was a pioneer hymn, composed during the trek of the LDS people to Utah. The events of yesterday and the past 4 years give it a new meaning

Come, come, ye saints, no toil nor labor fear;
But with joy, wend your way.
Though hard to you this journey may appear,
Grace shall be as your day.
’Tis better far for us to strive
Our useless cares from us to drive;
Do this, and joy your hearts will swell
All is well! All is well!

Why should we mourn or think our lot is hard?
’Tis not so, all is right.
Why should we think to earn a great reward,
If we now shun the fight?
Gird up your loins; fresh courage take;
Our God will never us forsake,
And soon we’ll have this tale to tell,
All is well! All is well!

We’ll find the place which God for us prepared,
In His house full of light,
Where none shall come to hurt or make afraid;
There the saints will shine bright.
We’ll make the air with music ring,
Shout praises to our God and King;
Above the rest these words we’ll tell,
All is well! All is well!

And should we die before our journey’s through,
Happy day! All is well!
We then are free from toil and sorrow, too;
With the just we shall dwell!
But if our lives are spared again
To see the saints their rest obtain,
O how we’ll make this chorus swell,
All is well! All is well!

Who's Afraid?

The We're Not Afraid website strikes me as unlikely to deter any terrorists. They know that these people won't do anything to stop them, and their governments generally won't either. Most people on the left will just chalk the 7/7 attacks up to a failed foreign policy. Maybe it is time to deport all Arab nationals and seize their property. Somehow we've got to get Muslims to clean their own house, particularly the Saudis. Maybe if we kicked out their students, embargoed trade with them or the other things that we make available to their rich classes, they'd turn on the Wahhabis. Any mosque leader or sheik or other Muslim leader who advocate jihad against Western nations should be locked up or deported.

Maybe we need a "We're coming for YOU!" website, sending this message:

The preachers of this faith have taken care to warn us that they love death more than we love life. Their wager is that this makes them unstoppable. Well, we shall have to see. They certainly cannot prove their point unless we assist them in doing so.. . .

We know very well what the "grievances" of the jihadists are.

The grievance of seeing unveiled women. The grievance of the existence, not of the State of Israel, but of the Jewish people. The grievance of the heresy of democracy, which impedes the imposition of sharia law. The grievance of a work of fiction written by an Indian living in London. The grievance of the existence of black African Muslim farmers, who won't abandon lands in Darfur. The grievance of the existence of homosexuals. The grievance of music, and of most representational art. The grievance of the existence of Hinduism. The grievance of East Timor's liberation from Indonesian rule. All of these have been proclaimed as a licence to kill infidels or apostates, or anyone who just gets in the way.. . .

And for the masthead:

We shall track down those responsible. States that shelter them will know no peace. Communities that shelter them do not take forever to discover their mistake. And their sordid love of death is as nothing compared to our love of London, which we will defend as always, and which will survive this with ease.

Second entry: This column by Tom Friedman:

Because there is no obvious target to retaliate against, and because there are not enough police to police every opening in an open society, either the Muslim world begins to really restrain, inhibit and denounce its own extremists - if it turns out that they are behind the London bombings - or the West is going to do it for them. And the West will do it in a rough, crude way - by simply shutting them out, denying them visas and making every Muslim in its midst guilty until proven innocent.

And because I think that would be a disaster, it is essential that the Muslim world wake up to the fact that it has a jihadist death cult in its midst. If it does not fight that death cult, that cancer, within its own body politic, it is going to infect Muslim-Western relations everywhere. Only the Muslim world can root out that death cult. It takes a village. . .

To this day - to this day - no major Muslim cleric or religious body has ever issued a fatwa condemning Osama bin Laden.

Here's another entry.

Journalist's Privilege

Mickey Kaus awards a "Nice try!" to Instapundit and Matt Welch, for their attempts to define a privilege that would give bloggers the same status as reporters. Kaus himself has proposed that a certain group of reporters be chosen by popular vote to be allowed to claim the reporter-source privilege. Nice try, Mickey.

It seems to me that there has to be a factual pattern that a court can apply. Sometimes reporters are exercising free speech and freedom of the press and sometimes they're just libelling people and carrying out personal vendetta's. Of course, anybody's opinions on matters of public debate shouldn't be iced by the threat of lawsuits. But what about publishing lies on the internet about someone who's not a public figure? I guess the question is whether there is any real damage involved. First rule: Consider the source.

Next, is there an apparent reason on the face of the report that would justify protecting the identity of a source? This is the whistleblower scenario. If the allegation is one of malfeasance that could subject the source to retaliation, fine--keep it out. If it's just some leaker using the reporter to play political games, he/she takes the chances that he may be unmasked if a court orders it.

It's really a question of groundrules. How many sources are really providing a public service by spilling things to reporters anonymously? Not all that many. Yes, the reporters might have to work harder to get stories, but what's wrong with that? They would be doing their jobs far better, i.e. provide accurate reporting, if they didn't have easy access to the thoughts of a few insiders who may or may not really know what's going on.

We are all Londoners

This is a test for the British people. Will they choose the course of Chamberlain or Winston Churchill. George Galloway is demagoging it.

We urge the government to remove people in this country from harms way, as the Spanish government acted to remove its people from harm, by ending the occupation of Iraq and by turning its full attention to the development of a real solution to the wider conflicts in the Middle East.

Lord Ha Ha lives.

Schumer's Epitaph . . .

should be this line from Powerline:

He's the one who pretends most sickeningly to be fair-minded.

Schumer reeks of insincerity, scheming and conniving. He gets my Zeezrom Award as the slimiest hypocrite on the left. May he follow Zeezrom's path.

A New-Old Tactic

I wonder what it would do to the confirmation fireworks if a nominee refused to testify before the Senate. I certainly think they should go back to refusing to answer questions about how they would rule on specific issues they are likely to be called to rule on, but I wouldn't mind foregoing the whole media circus.

Who are the real Jihadists?

The leader of the Iraqi resistance has identified the Iraq army as its enemy. As I recall, the original Jihad was when the followers of Mohammed were attacked by the infidels from Mecca and were enjoined to fight to protect their fledgling religion as well as their society in Medina. Why then does everybody assume that only the terrorists are the Jihadists?

If I were leading the Iraqi Army, I'd be invoking Jihad as the fight for the rights and freedom of the Iraqi people including their right to practice the religion they prefer as individuals. If God will judge each of us individually, does it make any sense to argue that any of us should be forced to live something that we don't believe? Cannot God see our hearts and minds?

Sunshine Patriot

Molly Ivins will not allow anybody to impugn her patriotism, but she believes that the U.S. has killed more Iraqis than Saddam ever did.