 We must admire a fanaticism that inevitably leads to the demonisation and destruction of its foes:
The Taliban can be admired for their conviction to their faith and their sense of loyalty to one another, the new Bishop for the Armed Forces has claimed.
The Rt Rev Stephen Venner called for a more sympathetic approach to the Islamic fundamentalists that recognises their humanity… “There’s a large number of things that the Taliban say and stand for which none of us in the west could approve, but simply to say therefore that everything they do is bad is not helping the situation because it’s not honest really. ”The Taliban can perhaps be admired for their conviction to their faith and their sense of loyalty to each other.” Venner is, of course, just channelling Lyse Doucet, a BBC apologist for the Taliban: A BBC presenter has attacked coverage of Afghanistan’s ongoing war, claiming TV reporters are not covering the humanity of the Taliban. AP today reports on what the admirable and humane Taliban is up to at the moment in Pakistan: The Taliban has routinely attacked schools, particularly ones attended by girls.... In one month in Peshawar, 221 people were killed and nearly 500 wounded in bombings. A single truck bomb in a market that sells mostly women’s clothes and children’s toys killed more than 100. The latest attack was Monday when a bomb went off outside the courthouse in Peshawar, killing 10 people… Dr. Arif Attaullah says he does not cry easily. But when the truck bomb killed 112 people in Peshawar’s Mena Bazaar he could not stop the tears. “A father came in and he was holding a small boy. The boy’s body was burned black and his father was crying: `I sent you to school to learn, not to die,’” Attaullah says. “That made me cry. I am a tough person — a surgeon — but day after day we are seeing these things that are too horrible.”
Praise the fanaticism that can inspire such barbarity. So the bishop of Britain’s armed forces instructs. Andrew Bolt 
 Barack Obama makes a farce of the civilian trial he foolishly ordered for the sake of “justice”: A TOUGH-TALKING President Barack Obama went on the offensive today, saying that accused September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would be convicted and executed…
In interviews with NBC and CNN during his trip to Asia this week, Mr Obama said those offended by the legal privileges afforded to Mohammed by granting him a civilian trial, rather than a military one, won’t find it “offensive at all when he’s convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him”. “When”? So already this trial is delegitimised. Charles Krauthammer explains why the circus of a civilian trial is exactly what Mohammed will love anyway, allowing him to broadcast his message to the world to the joy of jihadists everywhere: Video link here. Not surprisingly: A new survey indicates U.S. President Barack Obama’s approval rating has fallen below 50 percent for the first time in his presidency. The poll, released Wednesday by Quinnipiac University in the northeastern state of Connecticut, shows Mr. Obama’s approval rating at 48 percent among registered voters, down two points from last month. Andrew Bolt H/T: gramfan
 The message is that the most savage faiths will win Hollywood’s respect. Roland Emmerich, director of Independence Day, and The Day After Tomorrow, said he’s had second thoughts about his latest film:
For his latest disaster movie, 2012, the 53-year-old director had wanted to demolish the Kaaba, the iconic cube-shaped structure in the Grand Mosque in Mecca …
“But my co-writer Harald [Kloser] said I will not have a fatwa on my head because of a movie. And he was right. We have to all, in the western world, think about this.
You can actually let Christian symbols fall apart, but if you would do this with [an] Arab symbol, you would have ... a fatwa… So it’s just something which I kind of didn’t [think] was [an] important element, anyway, in the film, so I kind of left it out.” But Emmerich acolytes need not fear that the film-maker is pulling his punches on 2012… – in order to highlight his opposition to organised religion, the director decided to use CGI to destroy the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro instead. For good measure, he also blew up the Sistine chapel and St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, plus, on a secular note, the White House (again). Seems his opposition isn’t actually to organised religions generally, but just to the one that most guarantees his safety and freedom to speak. Coward. Vandal. And the Guardian journalist who wrote that last paragraph is little better. Source: Andrew Bolt H/T: gramfan
 Source: Andrew BoltH/T: Gramfan The Age
Latest recipients of the Yellow Rag Award
 Anyone has April 20th issue? We'd love to see what The Age printed about Hitler.
Andrew Bolt. June 5th
We meet at a time of tension between the United States and Muslims around the world – tension rooted in historical forces that go beyond any current policy debate. The relationship between Islam and the West includes centuries of co-existence and cooperation, but also conflict and religious wars. More recently, tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations. Moreover, the sweeping change brought by modernity and globalization led many Muslims to view the West as hostile to the traditions of Islam.
Violent extremists have exploited these tensions in a small but potent minority of Muslims. The attacks of September 11th, 2001 and the continued efforts of these extremists to engage in violence against civilians has led some in my country to view Islam as inevitably hostile not only to America and Western countries, but also to human rights. This has bred more fear and mistrust. Note that all but one of the factors Obama cites or suggests have Muslim countries as the victims of the wicked West. The only other factor, terrorism, is described by Obama as merely a reaction to the West’s aggressive values, and even then he seems to say that the West’s fear of terrorism is a bigger problem than the terrorism itself. This is profoundly wrong and almost certainly dishonest.
Missing from this part of Obama’s analysis is the aggressive wars launched by Muslim nations on each other, on Israel and, covertly, on the West through sponsored terrorism such as the Lockerbie bombing. Missing is the tyranny imposed for so long on most Muslims by their own leaders, and the manipulation of the resentment of citizens into hatred of Jews and the West. Missing is the failure of so many Muslim nations to educate their own citizens and make them wealthy, leaving them to resent the richer West. Missing is that the Muslim world has tense relations not only with the US, but with Israel, Russia. India and Europe. This is the Big Lie of Obama’s speech, and to support it Obama marshalls a fleet of little lies, too, to flatter rather than illuminate: As a student of history, I also know civilization’s debt to Islam. Which is, in fact, small, if Obama is referring to world civilisation today, however rude that may sound. It was Islam – at places like Al-Azhar University – that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe’s Renaissance and Enlightenment. Which is grossly exaggerated. If Islam was so central, why is the Renaissance yet to be felt in so much of the Islam world even today? And throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality. It has? Which Muslim country in the Middle East today demonstrates those possibilities as they are demonstrated in almost any nation of the West? I know, too, that Islam has always been a part of America’s story. In what positive and substantial way? No doubt Obama meant to offer this bow as a sign of respect to people he hopes will then heed his message a little more closely. If it works, some small good may yet come from Obama’s speech. For instance, he tackles the persistent myth in the Middle East that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job, or no more than the US deserved. He points out that Muslim terrorists kill Muslims above all. He asserts the historical truth of the Holocaust. He is convincing in insisting the US has no designs on Afghanistan, and although he’s too apologetic over Iraq, he at least points out the Iraq is better off without Saddam. (So why oppose the war to remove not just Iraq’s tyrant, but the threat he posed to the region and beyond?) If Muslims will hear out Obama as they (allegedly) did not Bush, all this is good. And Obama’s speech then offers the usual - but welcome nevertheless, even if muted - affirmations of the need for more democracy in the Middle East and for the better education of women. He also tells Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions, warning we have “reached a decisive point”. But in all these areas he offers no concrete proposals at all, and even promises Iran in turn that the US is hoping to scrap its own nuclear weapons, an ambition the West must hope will never be fulfilled. Obama merely offers himself as an honest, almost literally disarming broker. A saint. Iran will not be scared by this speech. In one area only is Obama a little more specific, although the specifics come with no threats or inducements and little hope of fulfilment. We’re talking Israel. and once again Obama’s version of history is one that offers the Muslim world too much and truth too little: Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust… Six million Jews were killed – more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today. Denying that fact is baseless, ignorant, and hateful. Threatening Israel with destruction – or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews – is deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve. On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people – Muslims and Christians – have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. For more than sixty years they have endured the pain of dislocation. Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead. They endure the daily humiliations – large and small – that come with occupation. So let there be no doubt: the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own… Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and does not succeed. For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America’s founding… It’s a story with a simple truth: that violence is a dead end… Hamas does have support among some Palestinians, but they also have responsibilities. To play a role in fulfilling Palestinian aspirations, and to unify the Palestinian people, Hamas must put an end to violence, recognize past agreements, and recognize Israel’s right to exist. At the same time, Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel’s right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine’s. The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements… And just as it devastates Palestinian families, the continuing humanitarian crisis in Gaza does not serve Israel’s security; neither does the continuing lack of opportunity in the West Bank. The weight of the guilt is laid at the door of Israel. Obama’s view suggests that Israel was simply the imposition of a Jewish state on Muslim (and Christian) inhabitants by refugees from the Holocaust, rather than also the revival of an historical entity by people with deep roots to the land. The likening of Palestinians to US slaves is an irresponsible and inflammatory exaggeration. The portrayal of Gazan residents as mere victims of Israeli cruelty, rather than people suffering the consequences of a war waged by their own leaders, also forgives more than is wise or fair. The Arab world’s deliberate creation of a permanent and now self-reproducing refugee population of Palestinians is not mentioned. Hamas is still treated as a legitimate governing entity, rather than a terrorist group which has murdered opponents. In all, Palestinians will take from Obama’s speech the message that they are the victims and Israel the aggressor. I doubt that’s an accident. Obama’s demands are most specific when they detail what Israel must surrender or offer - an end to West Bank settlement, better living conditions in Gaza (which it does not control), a Palestinian state, “concrete steps” to improve life in the West Bank. Yes, there are also demands made of Hamas - which “must put an end to violence, recognize past agreements, and recognize Israel’s right to exist” - but these are standard demands made of a terrorist organisation that has shown not the slightest interest in obeying, and which Obama offers not the slightest hint of enforcing. To sum up: Obama’s speech is designed to tell Muslims he understands and empathises. He wants them to trust him so they will hear him. But to get that trust he tells them they are actually victims of the West Obama represents, and of the Jews. Or so he will be understood. Of actual proposals to solve anything he has few. He’s offering not plans but himself. He is the Healer. Will this work? Will Muslims, having been told they are victims, resolve to take more responsibility for peace and good governance? Will the West, having had reaffirmed a sense of their own guilt, keep any remaining resolve to defend their own interests and rights? As you can tell, I’m deeply sceptical. I think Obama has given in, and, hoping to be liked, will earn only contempt.. Source: Herald Sun
 IT took Hossein Adibi, the sociologist and “Islamic philosopher”, to finally convince me enough was enough. Yes, enough with the racial scapegoating. Enough with bashing the same old ethnic group. Adibi, a Queensland University of Technology researcher, has released a study on why our Muslims are twice more likely to be jobless. Said AAP: “Dr Adibi found that Muslims were disadvantaged due to four main factors: racism, discrimination, media bias and the lack of Muslim representation in decision-making bodies.” But how convenient: each one of those reasons involve Muslims being picked on or ignored by non-Muslims. Apparently Muslim unemployment has little to do with poor English, poor skills, poor assimilation, poor education of women or a rejection of our society. On ABC television’s Q&A last week, I was treated to yet another lecture of this kind by fellow panelist Susan Carland, born a Baptist but now a celebrity Muslim. She, too, claimed Muslims were just being “demonised” as Italian and Greek immigrants had been before. “It’s just the Muslims’ turn now,” Carland declared. No difference. Really? I come from a migrant family from Europe and my father taught English to Greeks and Italians. I do remember some scorn of “New Australians”, but not that suspicion and even fear that some now clearly feel for a minority of Muslims. And if Australians have simply grown more racist, how come our Buddhists, far more numerous than Muslims and just as exotic, aren’t feeling it, too? Might this difference be better explained by the fact that the Greek Orthodox archbishop never preached jihad, and Italian Catholics didn’t get jailed for plotting to blow up heathens? Yet even that doesn’t explain just why making white Australians scapegoats for Muslim woes no longer cuts it. As I told Carland, she herself once confessed to a strong rejectionist streak among Muslim Australians that might help to explain both Muslim disadvantage and non-Muslim fear. At a Muslim conference two years ago, this Monash University sociologist complained that Muslims bombarded converts like her with demands to give up not only Western culture, Western clothes and “unIslamic” jobs, but non-Muslim family and friends as well. Converts were often made to feel inferior by those born Muslim: “Female converts report being shouted (at), criticised and, worse, simply ignored by both other women and men the first time they nervously enter a mosque.” Tanver Ahmed, a psychiatry registrar, writer and Advertising Standards Board member, has told of growing up in such a culture after moving here as a child from Bangladesh. “What we now call extremism was virtually the norm in the community I grew up in. It was completely normal to view Jews as evil and responsible for the ills of the world. “It was normal to see the liberal society around us as morally corrupt, its stains to be avoided at all costs.” Ahmed blames not non-Muslims for rejecting Muslims, but the other way around. May this be one reason why some Muslims have trouble fitting in, getting accepted, finding work? If so, then how poisonous is it for some to push the myth of a racist Australia, doing down poor Muslims? What petrol are they pouring on the smouldering paranoia of some young Muslims - a sometimes violent sense of victimhood - that is a true source of the fear that Carland so condemns? Source: Herald Sun
 A church and its believers pay a lot of money to create a school that inculcates its faith. Then this happens: A CHRISTIAN school in Werribee has been forced to defend its refusal to offer a training placement to a Muslim teaching student on the grounds of her religion. Victoria University student Rachida Dahlal has reportedly lodged a complaint with the Equal Opportunity Commission against Heathdale Christian College, accusing it of discrimination and prejudice… Principal Reynald Tibben said Mrs Dahlal - who wears a head scarf and is a devout Muslim - may have found it difficult to work at a school where the teachers’ morning staff briefing includes prayer devotion and Bible reading. You may think this punitive nonsense will be tossed out of the commission (after the school has racked up big legal bills) on the grounds that there is an exception in these much-abused laws against discrimination for religious schools wanting to hire teachers of their faith. But that exemption may not be much protection for much longer in Victoria, headquarters of the authoritarian Left: Deputy Premier and Attorney-General Rob Hulls today announced a review of the exceptions and exemptions in the Equal Opportunity Act… “With the introduction of the Human Rights Charter, it is timely to review these exceptions and exemptions to ensure they are compatible with the Charter,” Mr Hulls said. Now observe the next step in the process initiated by Hulls - the appointing of someone to help this inquiry: Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee… met on 10 March (2009) and resolved to engage Associate Professor Elizabeth Gaze as the consultant for the inquiry. But wait a minute. Isn’t that the same Elizabeth Gaze who had earlier made a submission to Hull’s exemption review, declaring: Religious susceptibilities should not be able to be protected in situations where the offence to them would be small and the effect on the person affected would be serious. The fix is in. Religious schools - well, Christian ones, anyway - can start worrying now. PS How come Victoria’s discrimination laws are now used so often against Christians, but virtually never against real hate-preachers of other faiths? Source: Herald Sun
 Opposition Foreign Affairs spokeman Julie Bishop is right - there is no way the Rudd Government should go to the UN’s latest group hate against the West and Israel:
The Australian Government should not attend the United Nations Durban Review Conference, to be held in Geneva on 20-24 April, due to the obvious potential for a repeat of the anti-Semitism that marred the first Durban conference..
The Australian Jewish News is even more adamant:
The US has joined Israel and Canada in pulling out. Some European countries have also indicated they are considering not attending the conference in Geneva… Robert Goot, president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and Philip Chester, president of the Zionist Federation of Australia, both called on Australia to follow the US.
The US State Department agrees the draft document of the UN conference is clearly anti-Israeli, and suggests it is also biased against the West and its freedoms:
Sadly, however, the document being negotiated has gone from bad to worse, and the current text of the draft outcome document is not salvageable… It must not single out any one country or conflict, nor embrace the troubling concept of “defamation of religion.” The U.S. also believes an acceptable document should not go further than the DDPA on the issue of reparations for slavery.
So why is the Rudd Government so eager to go to such a festival of hatred against our values and allies? Writer Alan Gold is right - because a refusal to attend might offend Muslim and African countries whose UN votes Kevin Rudd is unnaturally eager to have:
Foreign Minister Stephen Smith hasn’t yet announced whether Australia will attend the review in Geneva. Much is at stake. Australia is a leading contender for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council and boycotting may affect how we are viewed at the tables of the world body.
How shameful a sell-out. As if it wasn’t enough that to toady for UN votes this Government has already voted for two anti-Israeli resolutions in the United Nations that the Howard Government wouldn’t support, and has now resumed aid even to Mugabe’s Zimbabwe.
And if you doubt that this UN conference could be as loaded and viciously anti-Western and anti-Israeli as I suggest, read its draft declaration here - a document created under the supervision of a Preparatory Committee chaired by Libya with the help of co-chairs including Iran and Pakistan, as well as a rapporteur from Cuba. (Yes, you couldn’t write a farce this absurd.)
Here are just some of the most alarming excerpts, which emphasise the sins of the West above those of the rest, blame colonialism for Third World failures, elevate “Islamophobia” above other forms of racism, propose legal restrictions on criticism of religions and Muslims in particular, single out only Israel for (extreme) criticism, recommend reparations for colonialism and (particularly colonial) slavery, accuse Israel of torture and collective punishment; attack moves by the West to protect itself against Islamist terrorism, and suggest the deletion of a reference noting the Holocaust wiped out a third of the world’s Jews.
You’d never guess from this document that in recent decades the worst genocides have been in Africa, the most savage terrorism has been launched by Islamists, the worst ethnic cleansings have been in Africa and Asia, and the people most likely to kill for their faith are Muslims:
20. Welcomes the actions taken to commemorate the memory of victims of slavery and the slave trade in particular the transatlantic slave trade [and the abolition of those historic tragedies and including the establishment of national, regional-hemispheric bicentennial committees to commemorate the bicentenary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade [and stresses the need to similarly address the trans-Saharan slave trade and the slave trade in the Indian Ocean.] [Also]Welcomes the adoption of GA Resolutions 61/19 and 62/122 related to the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade and remembrance of its victims and, in particular, the designation of 25 March as the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade …
(Note: square brackets indicate words that some delegates have suggested be removed.)
Further welcomes the initiative of the States Members of the Caribbean Community to erect at a place of prominence at United Nations Headquarters that is easily accessible to delegates, United Nations staff and visitors, a permanent memorial in acknowledgement of the tragedy and in consideration of the legacy of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade…
ALT: Appreciates the actions of those countries that have, in the context of colonialism and slavery, expressed remorse, apologized, paid reparations or restituted cultural artifacts…
[Draws attention to the impact of] [Strongly deplores the [overt and covert] discriminatory] counter-terrorism measures [on] [that have led to] the rise of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance [including the practice of racial, ethnic, national and religious profiling;]…
NEW PARA: Reaffirms that counter-terrorism strategies should not undermine the protection of human rights and the fight against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance ...
26. [[Notes with concern] [Seriously concerned at the] instances of defamation of religions, which manifests itself in [projecting negative, insulting and derogatory images of religions and religious personalities,] generalized and stereotypical association of religions, in particular Islam, with violence and terrorism, thus impacting negatively on the rights of individuals belonging to these religions, including Muslim minorities, and exposing them to hatred and discrimination…
(Holocaust) [proposal to change title]
29. [Affirms that the Holocaust, which resulted in the murder of one third of the Jewish people, along with numerous members of other minorities, will forever be a warning to all people of the dangers of hatred, bigotry, racism and prejudice; recalls again that the Holocaust must never be forgotten;]
ALT: Recalls that the Holocaust must never be forgotten; ...
30. [Expresses deep concern at the practices of racial discrimination against the Palestinian people as well as [Syrian nationals of the occupied Syrian Golan] [other inhabitants of the Arab occupied territories] which have an impact on all aspects of their daily existence and prevent the enjoyment of fundamental rights, and renews the call for the cessation of all such practices;]
31. [Reiterates that the Palestinian people have the inalienable right to self determination and that, in order to consolidate the [Israeli] occupation, they have been subjected to unlawful collective punishment, torture, economic blockade, severe restriction of movement and arbitrary closure of their territories. Also notes [with concern] that illegal settlements continue to be built in the occupied [Arab] territories [since 1967];]
32. [Reaffirms that a foreign occupation founded on settlements, laws based on racial discrimination with the aim of continuing domination of the occupied territory[y][ies], as well as the practice of reinforcing a total military blockade, isolating towns, villages and cities from one another, [totally] contradicts the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations [and constitutes a serious violation of international human rights and humanitarian law, a crime against humanity, a contemporary form of apartheid and serious threat to international peace and security] [and violates the basic principles of international human rights law];] ...
34. [Re-emphasizes the responsibility of the international community to provide international protection, in particular from racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, for [Palestinian] civilian populations under occupation in conformity with international human rights law and international humanitarian law;]
[Proposal to include reference to Gaza situation – language to be provided] ...
36. Regrets recent attempts at the [pseudo] intellectual and [allegedly] [pseudo] scientific legitimization of racism [on the grounds of descent], in particular the revival of negative stereotyping of Africans and People of African descent [as inferior to other races, as slavery and colonialism have originated in such misguided ideas]...
53. Acknowledges that a most disturbing phenomenon is the intellectual and ideological validation of Islamophobia. When it is expressed against migrants it takes the form of religious-ethnic or religious-racial tones, when it is expressed in the form of defamation of religions, it takes cover behind the freedom of expression and when it is expressed in the form of profiling, it hides behind the war against terrorism. Believes that association of terrorism and violence with Islam or any other religion, including through publication of offensive caricatures and making of hate documentaries, would purposely complicate our common endeavours to address several contemporary issues, including the fight against terrorism and the occupation of foreign territories and peoples; ...
Recognizes that individuals, groups, peoples and nations that are affected by [the violation of] [discriminatory] policies and practices, such as colonialism, slavery and ethnic cleansing based on theories of racial national superiority, hatred and distinction as to race, colour, or national or ethnic origin, as well as culture, religion and language as victims of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance and have the right to address these scourges…
Urges States that have not yet condemned, apologized and paid reparations for the grave and massive violations as well as the massive human suffering caused by slavery, the slave trade, the transatlantic slave trade, apartheid, colonialism and genocide, to do so at the earliest. Source: Herald Sun
 Andrew Bolt | Friday, November 28, 2008 at 06:08am
THE slaughter in Mumbai was a barbaric attack not just on India, but on us. On the West.
For the first time in India, Muslim terrorists have singled out Westerners and Jews, and the places they are most likely to visit.
And that makes al-Qaida a prime suspect—either as a partner with local terrorists or prime mover.
From the gunmen’s targets, it seems that al-Qaida or associated Islamist groups may have chosen a new, easier, battleground for their war against the West.
This will change all the security thinking for next week’s Twenty20 Champions League, in which Victoria and Western Australia, were to compete, and for the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi.
And a naive world will learn that the war on terror they’d hoped would die with the presidency of George W. Bush will be inherited by Barack Obama.
Mumbai has been hit by Islamist terrorists before, of course, but those were very different. The targets were locals, and so were the grievances.
The city’s stock exchange, trains and hotels and gas stations were attacked in 1993 by criminals and terrorists who killed 257 people to revenge the killing of Muslims by Hindu mobs.
Ten years later, 52 people were killed in car bombings apparently by Muslims fighting for control of Kashmir, and in July 2006 pro-Kashmiri Islamists bombed commuter trains and railway stations, slaughtering at least 187 more.
But this is dangerously different.
Most of the buildings the young gunmen stormed were places tourists would use or know.
There’s the five-star Oberoi and the Taj Mahal Hotel, right next to the iconic Gateway of India.
Also attacked were the main railway station and the exclusive Leopold Cafe, popular with foreigners and the rich, and the place where Australian Kate Anstee was shot in the leg.
Explosions have also been reported near the domestic airport.
Even more telling was that the terrorists reportedly took over Nariman House, a residential complex owned by Jews that contained a Jewish prayer hall and the local office of the Chabad movement.
Also different this time was the taking of hostages.
Again, they were mainly Westerners. British witness Ashok Patel said the terrorists at the Taj Mahal shouted out: “Who has US or UK passports?”, and guests at the Oberoi said the terrorists there also singled out Americans and Britons for hostages.
Chabad officials feared that their Mumbai emissary, Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, was also being held at gunpoint at Nariman House.
In a way, it’s pointless trying to decide exactly which Islamist group this time is formally responsible.
It may be the “Deccan Mujahideen”, which contacted Indian media outlets to take the bloody credit, but nothing is known of a group with this studiously local name, and first-timers are unlikely to have the men, organisation, experience, cash or fire-power to launch a co-ordinated strike like this on a dozen targets.
The “Deccan Mujahidin” may just be the latest incarnation of another mysterious group, the “Indian Mujahideen”, which boasted of carrying out the bombings in Delhi in September, which killed 20 people, and in Ahmedabad in July, which killed 45. But did they, too, have the resources it took to launch this attack?
The names of these outfits may shift, but it’s just a rebadging of the same kind of people inspired by the same ideology. And more telling than their temporary names are the deeds.
True, one of the terrorists in the Oberoi rang India TV to say he belonged to an Indian Islamist group wanting to end persecution of India’s Muslims, and demanding: “We want all mujahidins held in India released.”
But the attacks themselves point to another, more specific agenda as well.
It’s India’s links to the West that were attacked—its hotels, foreigners, Jews, and rail and airport links.
The aim, as with the al-Qaida-linked bombings in Hindu Bali, seems to be to split the country from the West. This would make it part of the Islamists’ global war against the West and its freedoms—a war driven by a deadly amalgam of religion and politics.
Some may see this latest horror as proof that US President George Bush has failed against the war in self-defence he launched after the 9/11 attacks of 2001, and Obama must choose more peaceful ways.
But terrible though they are, these killings are an aberration. The trend in recent years has been for fewer terrorist attacks around the world, even in Iraq, where al-Qaida has been mauled. Since 2001, Islamists have not managed one successful attack on the US. Britain has foiled every big terrorist plot since 2005.
Shambolic India was always an easier target, but one only for the desperate. And for this to be first in there against the West shows how small the appeal of jihad is even in a nation with 150 million Muslims.
Indeed, the Pew Research Centre has polled a dramatic drop in support among Muslims around the world for violent jihad and al-Qaida since 2002.
This is the struggle Obama inherits, and it will not end until Islamists horrify enough fellow Muslims by their pointless slaughter - and until Bush’s dream is fulfilled, and Muslim nations share our love for the freedom now under such savage attack in Mumbai. Source: Herald Sun
Terrible news from Mumbai:
Over 60 people have been killed and many more injured in several terrorist attacks in Mumbai on Wednesday night. Two five-star hotels - Trident and Taj - are under siege and gunmen are reported to have held the occupants hostage.
The choice of targets (some guaranteed to scare foreigners) and the coordination naturally suggest a terrorist group. UPDATE A claim of resposibility has been made via email by a group called Dekhan Hujahedin. UPDATE 2 The gunmen were specifically targeting Britons and Americans and a top police official said the gunmen are holding hostages at two luxury hotels, the Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels. UPDATE 3 At least 20 Australians have been caught up in the chaos and two Australians were injured, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said… At least 20 Australians were in the Oberoi Hotel at the time of the attack, all of them members of a NSW trade delegation organised by the Department of State and Regional Development. UPDATE 4 Photos from some of the sites: UPDATE 5 An Australian man caught up in the terror attacks in Mumbai called Channel 7, desperate for help to escape the hotel in which at least two gunmen opened fire. Steve Smith called Seven from a “dingy little room” at the back of the Taj, where he was hiding after seeing two gunmen toss grenades into the Leopold… Mr Smith said he was desperate to find a way out of the hotel with a Japanese woman and two German air stewards he was hiding with… “I’d like someone to tell me what’s going on so I can make a plan to get out of here with these guys. I’m about a block from the harbour and my plan is just to go.” Mr Smith said he became separated from an Australian man and woman when he went back downstairs to lock a door cutting off the terrorists. UPDATE 6 Four top police officials, including Mumbai Police Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) chief Hemant Karkare, were among the 10 policemen killed… UPDATE 7 There seems little doubt what was intended by this attack and who was meant to get a message: Teams of heavily armed gunmen stormed luxury hotels, a popular restaurant and a crowded train station in coordinated attacks across India’s financial capital Wednesday night, killing at least 78 people and taking Westerners hostage, police said. It’s an assault not just on India, but on the West. The killers have not just humans in their gunsights, but India’s economy - especially its tourism industry. UPDATE 8 This may be the time to remind those so frantically rehabilitating David Hick’s reputation of the letters he wrote to his family while training with al Qaida, boasting of having fought for anti-Indian Islamist terrorists by shooting across the Indian border into Kashmir: I got to fire hundreds of bullets. Most Muslim countries impose hanging for civilians arming themselves for conflict. There are not many countries in the world where a tourist, according to his visa, can go to stay with the army and shoot across the border at its enemy, legally. UPDATE 9 A local journalist told CNN he had seen evidence of an attack at the city’s domestic airport, which is on the outskirts of the Mumbai. UPDATE 10 Pictures here. WARNING: Some are graphic. One is of a suspected terrorist: UPDATE 11 An interactive site showing where the attacks occured. UPDATE 12 The gunmen also attacked police headquarters in south Mumbai, the area where most of the attacks, which began late Wednesday and continued into Thursday morning, took place. “We are under fire, there is shooting at the gate,” said a constable, A. Shetti, by phone from police headquarters. UPDATE 13 THE Australian killed in the Mumbai terror attacks has been named as Braid Gilbert Taylor, the Press Trust of India has reported. UPDATE 14 Dozens of people were being kept hostage by gunmen in India’s financial capital Mumbai today, more than 12 hours after the city suffered a coordinated series of attacks on luxury hotels, popular restaurants, a rail terminus and an ultra-orthodox Jewish centre. Maharashtra state police chief AN Roy said that the hostage situation had ended at the Taj Mahal hotel, but that there were still apparently hostages in the Oberoi hotel. The death toll in the audacious attack has now risen to 101... Pictures here. WARNING: Some are graphic. One is of a suspected terrorist: Source: Herald Sun
 By Andrew Bolt
Saturday, October 11, 2008 at 06:34am
Canada’s human rights police have rightly cleared columnist Mark Steyn of hate speech:
The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal ruled today that ... the article, an excerpt from Mark Steyn’s book America Alone in which he describes the demographic and ideological dangers posed by a growing Muslim population in the West, was not likely to expose Muslims to hatred or contempt.
The Canadian Islamic Congress, which brought the complaint, has previously failed in two other jurisdictions: Ontario, which said it did not have jurisdiction over printed material, and federally, where the complaint was rejected as without merit.
But the damage is done. Which other commentator would want the stress, legal costs, distraction and calumny involved with being hauled through one forum after another over a couple of years to defend their good name?
One cure for this cancer, of course, is to make the Canadian Islamic Council pay the costs of its attempt to kill free speech - and pay so much that it learns that free speech is a lot, lot cheaper and healthier than expensive censorship. Source: Herald Sun Mark Steyn
Latest recipient of The MASH Award
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Copyright Muslims Against Sharia 2008. All rights reserved.
E-mail: info AT ReformIslam.org
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We must admire a fanaticism that inevitably leads to the demonisation and destruction of its foes: 
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