Eisner was immediately condemned by Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Israeli Defense Forces Chief of Staff. The Israeli media relentlessly covered the incident. He was suspended, has been banned from holding command posts for two years, was reassigned to a training school and is still under investigation. It is very possible that he will face further punishment.

That is the real story here. Israel’s furious reaction to the video debunks what its enemies claim it proves. If the Israelis were so inhumane, this wouldn’t be such a big story. There is no other country in the Middle East that would react the same way if roles were reversed. Ironically, the controversy is showing what is so good about Israel, even if no one notices.

Some context is also needed here. A group of about 250 anti-Israel activists were stopped as they tried to get on Highway 90, as the IDF requires advance notice of such crossings as a security precaution. Keep in mind, the group was part of the International Solidarity Movement, a group that says it is non-violent but supports “the Palestinian right to resist Israeli violence and occupation via legitimate armed struggles.” In other words, ISM supports violence.

The ISM-affiliated group began illegally blocking the road and the stand-off continued for two hours. The Israeli soldiers didn’t open fire or forcibly disperse them. Eisner was assaulted, breaking two of his fingers. You can see his bandaged fingers in the video. After a Danish anarchist got in his face, Eisner lost his temper and whacked him in the face with his rifle. The ISM got what it wanted, all on tape. A second video surfaced, showing Eisner hitting some others as they tried to force their way past the Israeli soldiers.

The founders of the ISM sought to supplement the jihadists’  violent campaign with a political and psychological campaign. Lee Kaplan, an expert on the ISM and founder of StoptheISM.com, says that a leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a group designated by the U.S. as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, was instrumental in its creation. His website describes the group as “a front group for Yasser Arafat’s PLO and its affiliated Palestinian terrorist groups, such as the PFLP and Hamas. It works in conjunction with the Palestinian Authority’s propaganda ministries by Saudi funding through the Muslim Students Association on our U.S. and Canadian campuses.”

Eight months ago the present writer discussed the probability of a nine-front war.  Despite the low-key tone of “a security measure,” Israel now seems to be close to that situation.

Almost-nuclear Iran; Hezbollah; the Sinai, with its entrenched al-Qaeda bases and other terror groups; Egypt, if the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) has its way; Syria; and the two internal fronts of Hamas and the PA if they can get their acts together, comprise seven of the nine fronts.

Let’s look first at Iran.

Iran is in deep trouble economically, as its oil production is the lowest in 20 years and its mullocracy is losing popularity with its rank and file.  The nuclear option for which it has been in hot pursuit for 10 years has now turned into a political liability with voters as sanctions slowly impair the economy. The decline is “the result of the country’s growing isolation due to its nuclear program,” so the mullahs are scared because the time may be ripe for another round of internal unrest and open demonstrations for regime change.

The mullahs’ popularity has not been enhanced by Israel’s ten years of successful covert operations against Iran’s WMDs; and Israel’s newly purchased nuclear submarine, with nuclear-armed cruise missiles giving Israel expanded “second-strike” capabilities in case of an Iranian nuclear attack, will soon be added to its Persian Gulf fleet, and offer Iranian leaders the opportunity to reconsider their disdainful attitude toward MAD.

The mullahs desperately need a distraction for their unhappy voters.

Hezbollah is better armed now than it was before the 2^nd Lebanon War, and has successfully cowed the UN “peace keepers.”  But it has suffered a loss of popularity due to its support for Assad and growing isolation.  That can be remedied most easily by opening a northern front with renewed missile and other terror attacks against Israel. Such an action would justify more Iranian efforts to achieve nuclear capacity.

And as is the case with Hezbollah, if Iran gave Syria the order, it would be a boon and a blessing for Syria to join in.  Assad could turn attention from the slaughter of its innocents and call for Syrian unity in the great jihad against Israel.

Egypt and the Sinai are a bit more complicated.

The Sinai is a haven for drug smuggling, human trafficking, gun running, and terrorist groups including al-Qaeda; but the Egyptian armed forces have not been able to clean up the mess.  Operation Eagle, almost a year old, is a total failure, for which, true to form, the Egyptian government blames Israel.

And compounding this problem is the uncertainty about Egyptian politics.  MB leaders have made clear that they want to renew the state of war with Israel. Currently the Egyptian army is still in control, but with a significant Islamofascist majority in the Egyptian Parliament and an MB candidate the front runner for presidential elections, Egypt could turn into an active military enemy overnight.

The other two fronts are internal.

Hamas is the loser in the Arab Spring: losing popularity, losing Iranian and Syrian support due to its backing of the MB’s revolt in Syria, facing competition from other more aggressive terror groups, and facing the impatience of its own rank and file due to its not killing enough Jews.  Polls taken earlier this year found “a significant decline in the popularity of Hamas in the Gaza Strip and a decrease in the positive evaluation of the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip.”

Hamas may also be losing some control over its terror cohorts who have continued rocket attacks on Israel despite Hamas-mandated cease-fires. When Hamas has exercised its authority, the results have backfired.  When Hamas forces wiped out one al-Qaeda unit supported by Iran, for instance, a serious crisis developed with Tehran.

On June 3, Al-Qaeda may have suffered its biggest blow since the killing of Osama Bin Laden when a drone strike targeted Ilyas Kashmiri, an elite commando and possible replacement for the terror chief. Pakistani officials are certain of his demise but U.S. officials are skeptical. If Kashmiri was killed, then Al-Qaeda has lost one of its most prized operatives, and the West can celebrate the loss of a terrorist whose skill earned him the nickname “the commando commander.” And on June 11, the head of Al-Qaeda’s operations in East Africa was killed in Somalia, making him possibly the third senior commander to be killed in six weeks.

The fate Kashmiri is unfortunately unclear at this time. The Pakistani interior minister was quoted as saying, “I can confirm 100 percent that he is dead,” but said to Reuters that he was “98 percent sure.” Prime Minister Gilani is similarly confident. A spokesman for Kashmiri’s group, Harakut-ul-Jihad al-Islami (HUJI), confirmed his death to the Pakistani Dawn newspaper, as has a spokesman for a Taliban commander connected to the bombed compound. A HUJI commander named Qari Mohammad Idrees also said Kashmiri is dead. The Pakistanis also arrested a man alleged to have hid Kashmiri in the days following the strike.

U.S. officials believe the odds are that Kashmiri is alive. The Pakistani Taliban has denied his death. Strangely, HUJI posted a photo online that it claimed was of Kashmiri’s corpse, but it was really of a terrorist killed in the November 2008 attacks on Mumbai. The statement announcing his death that accompanied the photo had two misspellings of the group’s name. There is reason to be skeptical of the Pakistani government’s claims. It incorrectly announced his death in September 2009, and it has an interest in declaring Kashmiri dead. He was one of five terrorists that the U.S. is demanding immediate action against, alongside Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mullah Omar, Sirajuddin Haqqani and Atiya Abdel Rahman. The Pakistanis were reportedly given until July to cooperate.

It is difficult to make sense of why HUJI commanders would confirm his death while the Pakistani Taliban would deny it. The distribution of a false photo of Kashmiri is further puzzling. “So did HUJI botch the photograph, or are they attempting to fake Kashmiri’s death?” asks Bill Roggio of The Long War Journal.

Kashmiri has been described as “the most effective, dangerous and successful guerilla leader in the world.” A look at his background shows why his death would be such a setback for Al-Qaeda. He served as a commando in Pakistan’s elite Special Services Group where he trained the mujahideen battling the Soviets in Afghanistan. He lost an index finger and an eye in the fighting. He then went on to train militants in Kashmir to fight India. He joined the HUJI and ultimately became its chief of operations.

Despite the Taliban’s denial that it uses children as human explosives, its spring offensive began with a suicide bombing by a 12-year-old boy. The attack is just one more sign that the militant group and its terrorist allies are increasing their efforts to recruit, train and utilize child suicide bombers.

The young terrorist’s suicide blast, which killed four Afghan civilians and wounded twelve in the Afghan province of Paktika, was roundly condemned by Afghan President Hamid Karzai as “inhumane and against all Islamic principles.”

Yet, it was one of two such suicide attacks carried out by child bombers in eastern Afghanistan over the past several weeks, attacks that killed over 15 people. Soon after those assaults, Afghan authorities showed off five captured would-be suicide bombers –all under the age of 13 — trained by Taliban and al Qaeda terrorists in Pakistan.

As one Afghan intelligence official said, “They have been told that infidels are in Afghanistan … and they have been encouraged to go for Jihad.” In a disturbing twist, one of the captured bombers thought he would survive the attack when he was told by his instructors that “the (infidels) will be killed and you will live.”

For its part, the Taliban denied using children as human explosives, saying they do not use “beardless” or underage boys in their militant operations. According to a statement released by the terror group, “Those who haven’t grown a beard due to being underage are prohibited to spend time with the mujahedeen in residential and military centers.”

Unfortunately for the Taliban, that statement contradicts its past claims to have trained anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand juveniles as suicide bombers. In fact, the Afghan government places the figure of trained child suicide terrorists closer to 5,000.

While the number of suicide bombers can range from as little as age seven to over forty, most suicide bombers are under the age of 18. Sadly, the recruitment and training of these children is not only extensive and well organized, but growing.

To that end, suicide training factories have sprouted up all over the Afghan-Pakistan border, with most located in the Pakistani province of Waziristan. There, it’s been estimated that the Fedayeen-e-Islam have trained over 1,000 suicide bombers at three facilities. More disturbingly, many suicide training centers have been designated into junior and senior camps.

The Pakistani army found one such junior camp, equipped with computers, video equipment and literature, where children as young as age 10, according to one army officer, “knew about the planting of explosives, making and wearing and detonating suicide jackets.”

The increased demand for child bombers comes as the Taliban have focused its efforts on attacking an expanding list of civilian targets, sites which include schools, mosques, markets, government offices and other public places.

Tragically, the results have been all too effective. In the month of February alone, Afghanistan saw suicide bombings in the capital of Kabul that killed 10 civilians; an attack in Khost that killed nine; an attack in Kandahar that killed 18; an attack in Jalalabad that killed 40; and an attack in Kunduz that killed 28.

To some, the emphasis on suicide bombings is seen as a sign of the terror group’s desperation. According to one Afghan army commander, the Taliban and its terrorist allies have “no ability to conduct large scale operations anywhere, so he has switched tactics.” As district leader Hamdullah Nazak, a reported survivor of 11 attempts on his life said, “Of course. It’s the only way for the Taliban now.”

On April 9 2011, eight years after American forces toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime, followers of the radical anti-American cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr held a demonstration in Baghdad to commemorate the end of the Baathist government and to demand an end to the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq. Some protestors waved placards bearing slogans such as “Occupiers Out!” and “No America!” as they burned American and Israeli flags.

To the sound of wild cheers from the crowds, Salah al-Ubaidi, a spokesperson for the Sadrist movement, read a speech from the influential Shi’ite cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr, affirming that any extension of the U.S. “occupation” beyond the end of 2011 will lead to an “escalation of military resistance work and the withdrawal of the order freezing the Mahdi Army.” However, the presence of U.S. forces beyond the official 31 December 2011 deadline is a real possibility in light of the belief echoed amongst Iraqi military officials that the country’s security forces will continue to need American assistance in training.

The day following the protest, a Sadrist leader claimed that a special military wing of the Mahdi Army, known as the “Promised Day Brigade,” was still undertaking operations to resist the presence of the U.S. military by “carrying out daily and qualitative strikes at [American] headquarters and the airplanes in different regions of Iraq.” He added that the U.S. embassy in Baghdad was part of the occupation of Iraq, and that the Iraqi government should break off diplomatic ties with Washington.

Playing on anti-occupation sentiments has been an essential part of the Sadrist strategy since the invasion in 2003, and it has not been an unsuccessful tactic. For example, the International Crisis Group points out that the gargantuan U.S. embassy complex in Baghdad “is seen by Iraqis as an indication of who actually exercises power in their country.” Indeed, extending over 104 acres (42 hectares), the embassy is ten times larger than the second biggest embassy complex (the U.S. mission in Beijing) and is only slightly smaller than Vatican City. However, some Iraqi politicians, such as Jalal Talabani and Hoshyar Zebari, have welcomed the embassy as a symbol of raw assertion of American power.

Following the march in Baghdad, reports emerged of militia activity. The National featured a story on Sadrist graffiti appearing in the Iraqi capital and the southern provinces, heralding the return of the Mahdi Army. In an interview, a former commander of the Shi’ite militia group said that Sadrist militiamen were preparing to fight the Americans by gathering firearms. It is yet to be seen if these reports can be verified.

So much for the new era of fiscal responsibility. The federal government’s dependency drones have been spared the chopping block. After vowing to eliminate funding for President Obama’s bloated $6 billion AmeriCorps social justice army, House Republicans retreated — and will shrink the AmeriCorps budget by a minuscule 6.7 percent.

Politicians originally sold AmeriCorps as an alternative to big government — a program to “renew the ethic of civic responsibility and the spirit of community throughout the United States.” With bipartisan support, the program has morphed into an all-purpose progressive slush fund. Instead of reining in the national service boondoggle, Washington has turned taxpayer-subsidized helping hands into a legion of Nanny State handout helpers. Goodbye, AmeriCorps. Hello, FoodStampCorps.

Yes, across the Internet, the feds are recruiting AmeriCorps VISTA (“Volunteers in Service to America”) workers to apply for jobs as publicists for the welfare state. Their mission: to sign up as many people to federal food stamp rolls as possible. Because, you know, the record-breaking 12 million that have been added since Obama took office is apparently not good enough.

Here’s a typical job ad in Boston: “AMERICORPS VISTA: FOOD STAMP COORDINATOR (INTERNSHIP) Through this project, the Elderly Commission will be able to provide information, assistance and support to senior citizens of Boston in applying for food stamps. Develop a full knowledge of the Food Stamp program and application process. Assist seniors in senior housing and community centers to fill out Food Stamp applications; assist seniors with gathering necessary proofs together for applications; follow up with the Department of Transitional Assistance to ensure seniors receive awarded benefits. Recruit volunteers to be trained on the application of the Food Stamp program.”

In New York, Philadelphia and a total of 30 sites across the country, AmeriCorps and the Department of Agriculture are funding the “National Anti-Hunger and Opportunity Corps” to “increase access to food stamps.”

National Affairs managing editor Meghan Clyne reports that the administration is roping in left-wing churches to aggressively promote food stamps. With institutional support from first lady Michelle Obama, the FoodStampCorps will train church members to apply for food stamps after religious services; and “‘encourage eligible families to enroll their children in (government-subsidized) school meal programs’; if organizations operate day-care or after-school programs, they are advised to pursue reimbursement for meals and snacks through the Child and Adult Care Food Program (a federally funded, state-administered welfare program).

Places of worship are asked to serve as feeding sites for the Summer Food Service Program — another federally funded, state-run welfare project.”

Despite international criticism against Israel following a calamitous IDF raid on an aid flotilla to Gaza, it appeared Monday that Hamas was the one preventing the goods brought by the flotilla from entering the Strip.

The army announced Monday that the humanitarian aid brought by the ships had been mostly unloaded, and estimated that the task would be completed in the next few days.

However Hamas continues to insist that the shipment not be brought in through the land crossings, and in the meantime the goods continue to pile up in the army's warehouses.

Major Or Elrom, of the office of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the (Palestinian) Territories, said there was nothing on board the flotilla's ships that Gaza's residents did not already have.

"All of these goods have been previously conveyed there, and we hope we can do the same in this case," she said.

A Defense Ministry facility adjacent to the Tzrifin army base has been turned into a temporary warehouse over the past few days, containing beds, mattresses, couches, medical supplies, shoes, clothing, and medicine - some of which has reportedly expired.

Eitan Kosto, who heads the Defense Ministry's logistics corps, said the cargo had not been loaded onto the ships according to professional guidelines and therefore some of the goods were damaged during the unloading.

"We had to work for a long time and devote many resources to unloading it all," he said. "The fact that it wasn't properly organized caused damage to some of the goods, but finally we succeeded in organizing everything so it could be transferred to the Strip."

Much of the equipment so far unloaded from the ships - mostly shoes and electric carts - was secondhand, while other products were apparently donated by various organizations and civilians, Kosto said.

He added that his personnel had not yet unloaded the cement and building materials on board, which would have to undergo security checks before entering the Strip.

However it remains unclear whether Hamas will allow the materials to enter. Last week the group kept out eight trucks carrying humanitarian supplies, which were attempting to enter through the Kerem Shalom crossing.

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One may describe Hitler as a “vegetarian” (which he apparently was) but he was still a genocidally exterminationist Jew-hater whose relentless racism and imperial ambitions led to the death of more than 60 million people.

One may also describe the Turks on board the “freedom flotilla” (Orwell himself could not have suggested a better logo) as “humanitarian activists.” But they are still pro-terrorist Turkish jihadists whose mission was to kill Jews, one way or the other. This was a mission which aimed to further demonize the already shamefully tarnished reputation of the Jewish state. This mission planned to force a violent confrontation; were Israeli soldiers to dare defend themselves and if Muslims are therefore martyred—even better public relations, even better for international lawfare against the Israel.

The so-called “humanitarians,” at least on one boat, came armed with metal bars and knives. They were fighters, not pacifists, and they called out traditional Islamic battle cries: “[Remember] Khaibar, Khaibar, oh Jews! The army of Muhammad will return!” According to Palestinian Media Watch:

“Khaibar is the name of the last Jewish village defeated by Muhammad’s army in 628. Many Jews were killed in that battle, which marked the end of Jewish presence in Arabia. There are Muslims who see that as a precursor for future wars against Jews. At gatherings and rallies of extremists, this chant is often heard as a threat to Jews to expect to be defeated and killed again by Muslims.”

“This video shows Israeli soldiers being beaten with long and heavy metal rods on one of the Turkish boats. Jeff Dunetz (“YidWithLid”) has a series of disturbing and informative videos in which we can see the planned nature and intensity of the Turkish-Palestinian violence against Israeli soldiers—an attack which involved stabbings, beatings, firebombing attempts, throwing soldiers overboard, etc.”

Earlier today, Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said that the Turkish-led flotilla was: “An armada of hate and violence in support of Hamas’ terror organization and was a premeditated and outrageous provocation. The organizers are well known for their ties with global jihad, Al-Qaeda, and Hamas. They have a history of arms smuggling and deadly terror. On board the ship we found weapons prepared in advance and used against our forces. The organizers intent was violent, their method was violent, and the results were unfortunately violent. Israel regrets any loss of life and did everything to avoid this outcome.”

Indeed, the death count currently stands at an estimated nine (mainly Turkish) dead and 34 wounded. Predictably, the Arab, European, and liberal media are viewing Israel as the vicious aggressor; as committing “obscene” acts. Al-Jazeera’s website calls what happened “a massacre.” They refer to the dead as “martyrs.”

Some say that the Israeli commandos could have used taser guns, rubber bullets, or simply sent far more soldiers onto each boat. But the Israelis initially boarded the boats armed with paintball guns. And one wonders: How many Israeli soldiers can fit on a boat? One Israeli now suggests that Israel should have surrounded all the boats, stopped them dead in their tracks, shot out their motors.

Said I: And then done what with them?

Said he: Negotiate.

Said I: Are you crazy? Negotiate with terrorists? And then feed them, house them, coddle them—terrorists who would not even agree to bring food and a note to Gilad Shalit? Incredibly, Israel has been doing just that, treating the wounded terrorists in Israeli hospitals and preparing to intern the remaining “activists” in air-conditioned tents in Ashdod.

Said he: There should have been better military planning.

I am sure that Monday morning quarterbacking is always more ingenious than what happens in the moment of battle. The problem is that, once again, the Israelis are being attacked for having defended themselves and the jihadists are still being seen as “martyrs.”

Why did Turkey attack Israel? How much Iranian support did they have? Turkey was once a haven for Jews in flight from the Christian Inquisition.

Once, long ago, Muslim Turkey gave asylum to Dona Gracia HaNasi, the noble and generous leader of the Jews who had fled from Christian Spain and Portugal. Dona Gracia, a widow, was the wealthiest Jew of her time and, after living in Italy, found final refuge in Constantinople in 1552. Some wealthy Jews still live in Turkey today—yes, despite the bombing of two Turkish synagogues in 2003. I wonder how safe they are and for how long.

As to women? Locked up in harems—but if they were lucky/most unlucky, perhaps in the Sultan’s own harem or seraglio. For example, in 1784, a French girl, Aimee Dubucq de Rivery, was kidnapped on the open seas by Algerian pirates who sold her into the Turkish Sultan’s harem. Aimee became known as “Naksh,” The Beautiful One, for her fair skin, blue eyes, and blonde hair. Improbably, incredibly, Aimee became the mother of the next Sultan, whose name was Sultan Mahmoud II, the Reformer. Some see the influence of the Sultan Valideh (The Veiled Sultan) in Selim’s letter of friendship to King Louis XVI—and in other pro-European gestures and customs.

Myths die hard. People still believe that Jews, Christians and other infidels lived safe and happy lives in Muslims lands. This is a Big Lie.

As a matter of historical fact, the Turks have a long and bloody history of cruelty and genocide. They colonized the entire Middle East, forced conversions or murdered those who resisted. Islamic gender and religious apartheid flourished.

To this day, the Turks continue to deny the Armenian genocide. And, the days of Kemal Ataturk are long gone. In the early 1920s, Ataturk imposed a secular democracy upon the Islamists and unveiled the women. Now, the Islamists are winning again: Women are veiling, honor killings are on the rise (both in Turkey and among Turks in Europe). Recently, a father and grandfather heartlessly buried a 16-year-old daughter and granddaughter alive for the “crime” of presumably talking to boys. I have also written about a great Turkish feminist hero, my friend Seyran Ates, here; Ates was shot for her work among Turkish immigrant girls and women in Berlin. Her 15-year-old client died. Ates, a lawyer, was left for dead—but miraculously survived.

And we nearly admitted Turkey into the European Union. One wonders if they would have intensified their anti-Israel Islamism had they been accepted as “Europeans,” or whether their candidacy was merely a calculated move in tandem with pre-existing pro-Iranian plans. For years, Turkey has opposed sanctioning Iran for its nuclear program. Turkey was among the first to congratulate Ahmadinejad on his re-election victory. During 2009, Turkey improved its economic ties to Iran.

I am waiting for the United Nations and for the United States to condemn this unprovoked attack on a sovereign nation.

One may describe Hitler as a “vegetarian” (which he apparently was) but he was still a genocidally exterminationist Jew-hater whose relentless racism and imperial ambitions led to the death of more than 60 million people.

One may also describe the Turks on board the “freedom flotilla” (Orwell himself could not have suggested a better logo) as “humanitarian activists.” But they are still pro-terrorist Turkish jihadists whose mission was to kill Jews, one way or the other. This was a mission which aimed to further demonize the already shamefully tarnished reputation of the Jewish state. This mission planned to force a violent confrontation; were Israeli soldiers to dare defend themselves and if Muslims are therefore martyred—even better public relations, even better for international lawfare against the Israel.

The so-called “humanitarians,” at least on one boat, came armed with metal bars and knives. They were fighters, not pacifists, and they called out traditional Islamic battle cries: “[Remember] Khaibar, Khaibar, oh Jews! The army of Muhammad will return!” According to Palestinian Media Watch:

“Khaibar is the name of the last Jewish village defeated by Muhammad’s army in 628. Many Jews were killed in that battle, which marked the end of Jewish presence in Arabia. There are Muslims who see that as a precursor for future wars against Jews. At gatherings and rallies of extremists, this chant is often heard as a threat to Jews to expect to be defeated and killed again by Muslims.”

This video shows Israeli soldiers being beaten with long and heavy metal rods on one of the Turkish boats.

Earlier today, Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said that the Turkish-led flotilla was: “An armada of hate and violence in support of Hamas’ terror organization and was a premeditated and outrageous provocation. The organizers are well known for their ties with global jihad, Al-Qaeda, and Hamas. They have a history of arms smuggling and deadly terror. On board the ship we found weapons prepared in advance and used against our forces. The organizers intent was violent, their method was violent, and the results were unfortunately violent. Israel regrets any loss of life and did everything to avoid this outcome.”

Indeed, the death count currently stands at 16 (mainly Turkish) dead and six wounded IDF soldiers. Predictably, the Arab, European, and liberal media are viewing Israel as the vicious aggressor; as committing “obscene” acts. Al-Jazeera’s website calls what happened “a massacre.” They refer to the dead as “martyrs.”

Some say that the Israeli commandos could have used taser guns, rubber bullets, or simply sent far more soldiers onto each boat. But one wonders: How many Israeli soldiers can fit on a boat? One Israeli now suggests that Israel should have surrounded all the boats, stopped them dead in their tracks, shot out their motors.

Said I: And then done what with them?

Said he: Negotiate.

Said I: Are you crazy? Negotiate with terrorists? And then feed them, house them, coddle them—terrorists who would not even agree to bring food and a note to Gilad Shalit? Incredibly, Israel has been doing just that, treating the wounded terrorists in Israeli hospitals and preparing to intern the remaining “activists” in air-conditioned tents in Ashdod.

Said he: There should have been better military planning.

I am sure that Monday morning quarterbacking is always more ingenious than what happens in the moment of battle. The problem is that, once again, the Israelis are being attacked for having defended themselves and the jihadists are still being seen as “martyrs.”

Why did Turkey attack Israel? How much Iranian support did they have? Turkey was once a haven for Jews in flight from the Christian Inquisition.

Continue reading page 2 here.

President Obama may soon discover his predecessor, George Bush, was more than correct in designating North Korea an “Axis of Evil” state.

As the United States announced on Monday it would conduct joint naval exercises with the South Korean navy in response to the sinking of a South Korean warship two months ago, North Korea, the nation deemed responsible for the disaster that cost 46 lives, raised tensions by putting its military forces on a war footing.

Asia Times reported yesterday that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, in a military broadcast, placed his million plus armed forces on “combat readiness,” causing concern worldwide about North Korean intentions as well as a drop in major stock markets.

“We do not hope for war but if South Korea, with the United States and Japan on its back, tries to attack us, Kim Jong-il has ordered us to finish the task of unification left undone during the…(Korean) war (in 1953),” the military broadcast stated.

North Korea, of course, denies that it sank the South Korean corvette, Cheonan, on March 26, but the evidence states otherwise. An international commission made up of experts from Australia, America and Sweden investigated the sinking and concluded North Korea was guilty of the atrocity after finding North Korean torpedo parts in the wreckage raised from the sea bottom.

“The evidence is quite compelling,” said Ban Ki-moon, United Nations secretary general. “There is no controversy.”

North Korea also has a long history of committing terrorist acts against South Korea. In 1983, North Korean agents bombed a South Korean delegation in Burma, killing several members. In 1987, North Korea was also blamed for blowing up a South Korean airliner in flight. In another naval incident in 2002, four South Korean sailors were killed in an exchange of gunfire with North Korean patrol boats.

Besides joint naval exercises with the United States, the South Korean government has responded with punitive measures. All trade with North Korea will be cut off as well as access to shipping lanes through South Korean waters that North Korean ships use to shorten voyages to China.

South Korea will also again name North Korea as its “principal enemy”, a designation dropped in 2004 during a warming of relations. According to a New York Times story, North Korea was first named a “principal enemy” in 1994 after threatening “to turn Seoul into a ‘sea of fire’ ” during the crisis over its nuclear weapons program.” After the Cheonan incident, Kim Jong-il has threatened South Korea with “all-out war” if sanctions are applied.

The world is now waiting to see whether Kim Jong-il will actually carry out his threat to engulf the two countries in war or whether he is simply staging a tantrum to extort aid from Western countries as he has done in the past.

Although the two Koreas are still technically at war, outwardly, the war scenario appears the most unlikely one. Both North and South Korea know the latter is not going to initiate any military action against the North over the Cheonan incident. As columnist Donald Kirk states, South Korea is doing so well economically, possessing one of the world’s fastest growing economies, it does not want to risk its hard-earned prosperity and high living standards in a destructive war. Kirk and other military analysts have pointed out a further reason for South Korea’s avoiding war over North Korean provocations like the Cheonan: Seoul would bear the brunt of any North Korean attack due to its location close to the North Korean border.

“The North still has thousands of artillery pieces within range of metropolitan Seoul and the nearby port of Inchon as well as missiles with the range to reach anywhere in the South, and nobody in South Korea really wants to challenge that,” Kirk writes.

For North Korea’s part, war also does not appear to be an option. Its army is in a very dilapidated condition. Years of sanctions and a ramshackle economy have left the North Korean armed forces with no money for training, maintenance or for purchasing new equipment. North Korea’s biggest military threat is its 60,000 commando troops, many of whom have been moved close to the border. In case of war, it is thought the North Koreans’ plan, due to their army’s movement limitations, would be to occupy Seoul and then seek a ceasefire.

Analysts, like the military news publication Strategy Page, state that the modern, well-equipped South Korean army, which produces many of its own weapons and is supported by a strong economy, has a plan to throw back such an invasion and then move into the North. Such a plan to cross the border would also be implemented if the North Korean state ever collapsed. American forces in South Korea, which numbered 42,000 before 9/11, now stand at about 30,000 and would come under South Korean command in case of a conflict.

But common sense may play no part in a Stalinist dictatorship’s decision to go to war, especially one struggling to survive. Reports have been coming out of North Korea that the people are again facing starvation like in the 1990s when an estimated two million died. A poor harvest this year, the failure of a currency reform scheme last year and the repressing of private farmer’s markets have again left the long-suffering North Koreans destitute.

North Korea also cannot look to China, its main ally, for help. China, like other countries, has refused food aid as long as North Korea refuses to give up its nuclear weapons program. Not wishing to support an economic cripple, China also vainly wanted North Korea to adopt free market reforms and become self-sufficient like it did. Like South Korea, China fears a North Korean collapse and the millions of hungry Korean refugees that would flood over its border seeking food.

Unlike in the 1990s though, North Korean citizens are reported to be more restless regarding their cruel, state-sponsored fate. The underground black market is reported as thriving, indicating a disregard for the government, as the people are becoming more aware of what is happening outside their country, especially on the North Korean-Chinese border, where smuggling and Chinese cell phones, although illegal, have connected North Koreans with the modern world.

To block this unrest from becoming a popular uprising and detract people’s attention from their misery, the North Korean government may do what the Argentinean military junta did in 1982 when faced with a similar disastrous economic situation and restless population: launch a military adventure. And with the 60^th anniversary of the start of the Korean War next month, Kim Jong-il may see that as a sign to “finish the task” of reuniting the Koreas, especially while his government still controls the population.

More on this story. "Pakistan detainees proud of role in NYC bomb case," by Asif Shahzad and Kathy Gannon for Associated Press, May 22 (thanks to Davida):

ISLAMABAD - Two men detained in Pakistan for alleged links to the attempted Times Square bombing have admitted playing a role in the botched attack and are unrepentant, with one angrily accusing interrogators of "siding with the infidels," a senior intelligence official said Saturday.

The pair are among six men officials say have been detained in Pakistan for alleged ties to Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-American arrested in the United States two days after the failed May 1 attack in New York. Like Shahzad, the detainees are all members of their country's urban elite, including several who were educated in the United States.

Details about the six were released late Friday, though officials have not said when they were detained. Five were picked up in the capital, Islamabad, and one is co-owner of a swish catering company that the U.S. Embassy said was suspected of ties to terrorist groups.

The intelligence official, part of the team questioning the men, cited the two suspects as saying they did not do anything wrong and "proudly" describing Shahzad as their friend.

The official said one of the suspects had even accused his interrogators of "siding with the infidels."

One of the suspects, identified as Shoaib Mughal, is alleged to be a go-between for Shahzad and Pakistani Taliban in their hide-outs close the Afghan border. He was running a large computer dealership in Islamabad before his detention, said the intelligence official who -- like most operatives in spy agencies around the world -- did not give his name.

The other suspect, identified only by his first name Shahid, is alleged to have helped arrange money for Shahzad. He has an MBA from the U.S. and apparently knew Shahzad from his time there....

Among those detained in Pakistan was Salman Ashraf Khan, the co-owner of the upscale Hanif Rajput Catering Service. Two other suspects "wanted him to help bomb a big gathering of foreigners" whose event his company was catering, the Pakistani intelligence officer said.

Khan's father said Saturday he was baffled by the accusations because his son is a successful businessman who lived happily as a student in the U.S. for four years. The younger Khan studied hotel management in Florida and computer science in Houston, returning to Pakistan in 2001 to take over the family business.

"How can a man who is so much involved in this business be accused for such an activity, which only a wild animal can think about?" Rana Ashraf Khan said in a telephone interview.

"He might have differences about whatever has been going on in our region for the last 10 or 11 years, we all have differences," Khan said. "(But he had) no feelings against the United States at all. He lived there happily, he studied there."...

So did Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Also detained was a former major who bought his way out of the army because of a "disagreement with its policies," said the intelligence official.

The ex-major is from Rawalpindi, where the army headquarters is situated. Last week, an army spokesman denied anyone connected to the army was arrested in the probe, saying only a retired major had been arrested on disciplinary grounds and was being investigated.

The link to the army is noteworthy because of the Pakistani military's past support for Islamist militants in Afghanistan and Kashmir, and Shazad's family ties to the air force. It was unclear whether the suspect's alleged ties to Shahzad were ongoing when he still served.

An all too unsurprising update on this story. "U.S. military tries to reassure Pakistan amid Times Square probe," by Barbara Starr for CNN, May 11:

Washington (CNN) -- The top U.S. military officer is reassuring his Pakistani counterpart that the U.S. military is not pressuring the Pakistani army to increase its operations against the Taliban there, a senior U.S. military official said.

The message comes as the United States has turned up independent evidence that ties the suspect in the attempted bombing in New York's Times Square to the insurgent group. It stands in sharp contrast to tough talk from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who warned of "consequences" if the Times Square plot is linked to elements in Pakistan.

Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, chief of the Pakistani army, to discuss the matter Sunday.

Mullen called to "reassure Kayani we are not trying to pressure him as a result of this case," a senior U.S. military official said. "Mullen didn't call to say, 'You gotta do more because this Pakistani-American was trained on your territory.' "

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, met with Kayani as well, and his spokesman denied McChrystal made any effort to pressure the Pakistani official.

Clinton publicly took a tougher line, saying on the CBS program "60 Minutes": "We've made it very clear that if -- heaven forbid -- an attack like this that we can trace back to Pakistan were to have been successful, there would be very severe consequences."

Why wait for another massacre, national tragedy, and the ensuing economic and geopolitical fallout?

The senior U.S. military official was adamant in saying the U.S. military is not trying to make the Pakistanis accelerate their timetable to move against Taliban strongholds in North Waziristan, a border region long believed to be sheltering al Qaeda and Taliban militants.

Kayani has repeatedly said his troops would not expand their operations into North Waziristan until they have finished operations in other areas.

"We are very comfortable with the work they have been doing and where they are at the moment," the senior official said...

I'm not.

Of course, the analogy breaks down where the hypothetical youngster probably isn't crafty enough to keep demanding more resources, purportedly for the task at hand, but not entirely. "Pakistan under pressure after NY car bomb," by Chris Brummitt for the Associated Press, May 10:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - U.S. claims that the Pakistani Taliban were behind last week's failed car bombing in Times Square add pressure on Pakistan's government to attack the militant sanctuary of North Waziristan close to the Afghan border, but few expect its stretched army to rush into any operation there.

New calls from Washington for the army to move into North Waziristan could backfire because they would create the impression the force was acting on the orders of America -- a perception that would undercut the public support needed for such an operation to be successful.

Aside from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's warning over the weekend of "severe consequences" if an attack on U.S. soil is traced back to Pakistan, most U.S. officials have been careful not to criticize Pakistan in their public comments since Pakistan-American Faisal Shahzad was arrested soon after the terror attempt in New York.

America is limited in what it can do to tackle the threat coming from Pakistan's tribal regions.

It is seen as highly unlikely that nuclear-armed Pakistan would ever allow American troops to operate there, meaning Washington must try to work through the Pakistani army, which has received billions of dollars in U.S. aid since 2001.

The Pakistani Taliban, which have previously not conducted attacks on U.S. soil, have been the target of several Pakistani army offensives over the last two years and been battered by scores of American missile strikes. They are allied to al-Qaida, which has also found sanctuary in the northwest, and the Afghan Taliban just across the border.

A suspected U.S. missile strike early Tuesday killed at least three people in the Doga area of North Waziristan, two intelligence officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

The identities of those killed were not immediately known.

Pakistan officially protests the strikes on its territory as violations of its sovereignty, but it is believed to aid them. The U.S. rarely discusses the unmanned-drone-fired strikes, which are part of a covert CIA program.

The army has not moved into North Waziristan, in part because powerful insurgent commanders there have generally not attacked targets in Pakistan. In recent months, however, fleeing fighters and commanders from the Pakistani Taliban -- which have launched scores of bloody suicide attacks around the country since 2007 -- have moved there.

Even before the failed Times Square bombing, many security analysts had said that the army would need to move into at least some areas of the region if it wanted to deal a decisive blow against militancy in the country.

The army has said it cannot spare the troops for a full-scale offensive this year and needs to consolidate gains elsewhere against militants, including in neighboring South Waziristan. It says it is carrying out small-scale, targeted missions in the north against insurgents, but Associated Press reporters who have visited recently say it is under militant control....

Syria has delivered advanced M600 rockets to Hezbollah militants in Lebanon within the past year, Israeli defense officials said on Wednesday.

The M600, a Syrian copy of the Iranian Fateh-110, has a range of 300km and carries a half-ton warhead. If fired from southern Lebanon it would be capable of hitting Tel Aviv.

Latest claims of arms transfers to Lebanon follow recent accusations by President Shimon Peres that Syria Hezbollah gave long-range Scud missiles, capable of inflicting heavy damage on Israel's cities.

Other government figures, including Defense Minister Ehud Barak, have since avoided repeating the claims and it is unclear whether Damascus could have delivered the 44-foot liquid-fueled missiles, handling which requires complex logistics, undetected.

Yet doubts over the Scuds have not masked growing fear in the Israeli defense establishment over Hezbollah's rapidly expanding arsenal. On Tuesday the army's head of intelligence research, Brigadier General Yossi Baidatz, told the Knesset that the Scud transfer was the "tip of the iceberg".

"Even today Hezbollah has missiles of all ranges types, including solid-fueled rockets that have a longer range are extremely accurate," Baidatz told the Knesset's foreign affairs and security committee.

Baidatz warned that arms transfers were not sporadic but reflected long-term policy in Tehran and Damascus....

But despite strong backing for Hezbollah, Syria remained keen to strike a peace deal with Israel, Baidatz said.

"A political settlement with Israel is high on Syria's list of priorities and intelligence shows a will to reach an agreement - but on their terms, meaning a return of the Golan Heights and American involvement" he said.

In other words, surrender and give us what we want, and we won't fight you anymore.

Political Correctness: The Army disinvited the Rev. Franklin Graham from praying at the Pentagon because he might offend Muslim soldiers. But isn't that the same attitude that led to the Fort Hood massacre?

The Army didn't want to offend a Muslim soldier -- Maj. Nidal Hasan -- who openly threatened "infidels" in Islamic diatribes. Brass ignored his jihadist rants and treated him with kid gloves. Hasan later opened fire on soldiers.

An internal Pentagon probe mentioned none of this, so no one should be surprised that the painful lesson of Fort Hood has not been learned -- that catering to militant Muslims does not win their hearts and minds. In fact, it can embolden them.

In the latest chapter of military PC, the Pentagon canceled the appearance of Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham, at an upcoming National Day of Prayer event because of Muslim complaints over his past "inappropriate" remarks about Islam.

After the 9/11 attacks, Graham described Islam as "a very evil and wicked religion." He explained that he thought it was his "responsibility to speak out against the terrible deeds that are committed as a result of Islamic teaching."

The Council on American-Islamic Relations called on its supporters to pressure the Pentagon to withdraw its May 6 prayer invitation to Graham. CAIR hailed the Pentagon's cave-in as a "victory."

No matter the circumstances, bowing to such a radical group -- one with proven terror ties -- is a new low in political correctness, even for the Army....

Indeed. Read it all.

And given Franklin Graham's explanation of his remarks, now the Army is abetting the whitewashing and coverup of the institutionalized mistreatment of women in Islamic law. This could have been, as Obama might say, a "teaching moment," and an opportunity to stand up for the human rights of those women and other groups oppressed by Sharia. Instead, it is just an occasion for more dhimmitude.

"Franklin Graham Regrets Army's Decision to Rescind Invite to Pentagon Prayer Service," from FOXNews.com, April 22 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Evangelist Franklin Graham said Thursday that he regrets the Army's decision to rescind its invitation to him for the Pentagon's National Day of Prayer service on May 6, but expressed "strong support" for the U.S. military.

Evangelist Franklin Graham said Thursday that he regrets the Army's decision to rescind its invitation to him for the Pentagon's National Day of Prayer service on May 6, but expressed "strong support" for the U.S. military.

An Army spokesman confirmed to Fox News that the invitation to Graham to be honorary chairman at the event was rescinded amid complaints from Muslim members of the military about his description of Islam as an evil religion....

Earlier Thursday, Graham stuck by his remarks about Islam, including that Muslims are "enslaved" by their religion, [sic]

Franklin, the son of famed evangelist Billy Graham, told Fox News that he loves Muslim people and wants them to know that God loves them, even if they can be saved only through Jesus Christ.

"I want them to know that they don't have to die in a car bomb, don't have to die in some kind of holy war to be accepted by God. But it's through faith in Jesus Christ and Christ alone," Graham said.

Graham said said he loves the Muslim people, just not their religion -- which he called "horrid" for its restrictions on women.

"I love the people of Islam but their religion, I do not agree with their religion at all. And if you look at what the religion does just to women, women alone, it is just horrid. And so yes, I speak out for women. I speak out for people that live under Islam, that are enslaved by Islam and I want them to know that they can be free," he said.

After the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Graham said Islam "is a very evil and wicked religion." In a later op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal, Graham wrote that he did not believe Muslims were evil because of their faith, but "as a minister ... I believe it is my responsibility to speak out against the terrible deeds that are committed as a result of Islamic teaching."

Army spokesman Gary Tallman told Fox News on Wednesday that Graham's "presence at the event may be taken by some as inappropriate for a government agency."

"As the executive agent of the Pentagon chaplain's office, Army leadership determined it needed further review," he said.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation raised the objection to the appearance, citing Graham's past remarks about Islam, in a letter sent Monday to Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Mikey Weinstein, president of the foundation, said the invitation offended Muslim employees at the Pentagon because Graham never retracted or apologized for his description of Islam as evil. Weinstein said the invitation would endanger American troops by stirring up Muslim extremists....

Yes, "Muslim extremists" will be downright chummy as long as Franklin Graham stays away.

After Graham's appearance, the Council of American-Islamic Relations issued a call for supporters to petition the Pentagon to drop Graham.

"To have an individual who calls Islam evil and claims Muslims are enslaved by their faith speak at the Pentagon sends entirely the wrong message at a time when hundreds of thousands of our nation's military personnel are currently stationed in Muslim countries," said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad. "Franklin Graham's appearance has the potential to harm unit cohesion and morale through the promotion of distorted, intolerant and divisive views within military ranks."...

Fitzgerald: Sabrina Tavernise, the Times, and What Would Be Fit for the Printer

Neither Sabrina Tavernise - who certainly got wind of this article - nor her editors at the newspaper, saw fit to respond. They did not see fit to explain their calamitous lapses, not to be confused with the old-fashioned lapsus calami of the ink-stained wretches. No, when the Times issues a correction, it's almost always of the harmless kind, the kind that does not call into question the knowledge, and the objectivity, of the paper, for that would never do. Instead, it's to correct a name or a date.

Now just the other day, on April 16, Sabrina Tavernise reported again from Islamabad. This time her article was about the U.N. and the findings of the commission entrusted with investigating the killing of Bhutto and the aftermath of that killing, the various ways that almost all of the evidence was destroyed, and other goings-on that apparently have to do with Pakistan's Interservice Intelligence Agency, or I.S.I., and about Pakistani police taking their orders from generals of that powerful and feared I.S.I.

Here is that article.

Read it over. There's very little to complain about, is there? Why, it seems almost acceptable. It gives the Pakistani military, the I.S.I., and the police their meretricious due. But there is a section where Sabrina Tavernise decides to veer from the matter at hand, and to reach for an analogy. Here it is:

The reason, he said, is part psychology and part national identity. Pakistan's army has long represented the central and most crucial part of this country's idea of itself, a symbol of protection against Pakistan's mortal foe, India. That narrative is taught in textbooks and reinforced in society, and going against it is like attacking yourself. "The army has a geopolitical mind that is unchanging, and that's what people love," Mr. Ahmed said.

Pakistan is not the only country like this. In Turkey, the military exerted extensive control over civilian affairs for decades, deposing elected governments, working behind the scenes to foment unrest, and even executing a civilian prime minister.

But in Pakistan the influence is more overt, and the report points it out in painstaking detail in the example of the police investigation of Ms. Bhutto's killing. The intelligence agency was portrayed as having been the invisible hand guiding the police.

Notice the question raised in the first paragraph. There is the army of Pakistan, which is a "symbol of protection against Pakistan's mortal foe, India. That narrative is taught in textbooks and reinforced in society, and going against it is like attacking yourself." But why is the Army of Pakistan the "symbol" against this "mortal foe, India"? What is it about India that makes it regarded as a "mortal foe"? Do the Indians sponsor terror groups, such as Lashkar-e-Toiba, that conduct attacks on Pakistan the way Lashkar-e-Toiba and other groups have for decades attacked targets in Kashmir and in India itself, including its business center, Mumbai, and the Indian Parliament? Has there been a single recorded attack, sponsored by either the Indian army or the Indian government, in Pakistan? No. When Pakistan and India have gone to war, is it India that does the attacking, or is it in most cases Pakistan, as in Kargil, that starts the war? In which country do the leaders call for war with the other country - India, or Pakistan? Who was it if not Bhutto herself, who is misunderstood and hailed in the West as one of us because she went to Radcliffe (lived right in Briggs Hall) and Oxford, and therefore, you see, when she can be found on Youtube screaming about "Jihad, Jihad, Jihad" to her followers we are to discount this, we are to pay this no never mind?

It never occurs to Sabrina Tavernise to explain the centrality not of the army, but of Islam itself, to the Army, to the I.S.I., to Lashkar-e-Toiba and a dozen other terrorist groups, to the people who run the tens of thousands of madrasas churning out Pakistanis whose minds are full of Qur'anic and other texts they can and have memorized, in a language, Arabic, they can hardly understand. Islam is central to everything that happens in Pakistan, including the habit of mental submission that Islam inculcates and that overlaps with the habit of political submission to the Ruler, as long as the Ruler remains a Muslim.

And then she attempts an analogy with Turkey, attempts to liken the Pakistani military to the Turkish military: "Pakistan is not the only country like this. In Turkey, the military exerted extensive control over civilian affairs for decades, deposing elected governments, working behind the scenes to foment unrest, and even executing a civilian prime minister."

But this analogy is based on a complete misunderstanding of the Turkish military. The Pakistani military has always been deeply, fervently, Muslim - don't let smooth Anglophone Pakistanis tell you the "trouble" began with Zia ul-Haq, a fanatical Muslim. It sees Pakistan as the Land of the Pure - pure Muslims, that is. During the war for Bangladesh's independence, when the Pakistani Army was raping and killing a million or more Bangladeshis, it found local allies in the razakars, the most fanatical Muslims, who responded to the idea that if Pakistan were to be dismembered, this would be damaging to Islam -- and Islam itself, the cause of Islam, was the reason for being, so it was said, so some believed, for Pakistan, West and East.

In Pakistan, power has always been held by the military. Not power to be brought to bear only when the country's system is in peril, but power that is always being deployed and felt. It is the Pakistani military that creates one vast safe haven in which such groups as Lashkar-e-Toiba may flourish and freely gain adherents to their bloody and fanatical cause. The Pakistani military does not have to work to "foment unrest," for Pakistan is in a state of permanent unrest. The Pakistan military will even, occasionally, allow some zamindar (one of the handful of rich landowning families) or some corrupt on-his-way-to-being-a-zamindar to hold a position of power, as if it were passing along a baton in a relay-race, and expecting, in due time, that baton to be passed back.

Sabrina Tavernise makes it seem as if the Pakistani military is akin to the Turkish military. She says that it engages in the same things: "deposing elected governments, working behind the scenes to foment unrest, and even executing a civilian prime minister."

But it isn't, and it doesn't. The Turkish military really does not hold onto political power for long, and does so only fleetingly, and reluctantly. When, on a few occasions, it has seized power because a civilian ruler was felt to be betraying Kemalism, the true religion of the Turkish military, one that systematically constrains Islam as a political and social force, it has always wanted to quickly hand that power over to civilians, to a secular authority. This is very different from the Pakistani case. It does not routinely engage in "deposing civilian governments," but does so most reluctantly, and has no desire to hold power for more than a few weeks, or a few months.

And as for "working behind the scenes to foment unrest" - this is the kind of remark that is based on the recent attacks on the military, and the "plots" uncovered and attributed to military men by the Erdogan government. These "plots" have not been proven. Many believe they are, like the Reichstag fire, deliberate set-ups and entrapments created by the Erdogan people to weaken the army and the secularists.

And finally, Sabrina Tavernise claims that the Turkish army is akin to the Pakistani one in "even executing a civilian prime minister." No doubt, since her article is about mysterious goings-on and destruction of evidence in the killing of Bhutto the daughter, which leads her to thoughts of Bhutto the father, who was hung, this led her to rather carelessly make allusion to the execution more than a half-century ago of the only Turkish prime minister to be executed. But does she know why he was executed? That Prime Minister was Adnan Menderes. And he was executed because of his role in betraying the secularist ideology of Kemalism. Adnan Menderes had been Prime Minister when the Istanbul Pogrom against the Greek Community was unleashed in September 1955 (the most complete account of this is by Spyros Vryonis in The Mechanism of Catastrophe). Menderes as early as 1950 had advocated bringing back the use of the Arabic language - which Ataturk had tried to banish from the Turkish practice of Islam, even commissioning a Turkish-language Qur'an and commentary or Tafsir - for the Call to Prayer. He allowed the rebuilding of thousands of mosques that had been allowed to fall into disrepair or had been closed altogether. Menderes, in short, was undoing, or was charged with undoing, Kemalism.

The young officers who in a coup overturned Menderes and then had him tried and executed were doing so in order to prevent Islam from coming back, in a big way, to Turkey. The advanced and secular element, the intellectuals in the population, supported them, as today so many of them - not all, but many -- would support an army coup against Erdogan and his troglodytes if they thought it could succeed.

The role of the Pakistani Army, on the other hand, is to keep Islam at the center of Pakistani power and Pakistani life, and to make sure that for the Pakistani state, as for the Muslims within Pakistan, it is and remains the real reason for being. For them, as good Muslims, the true object of worship in Islam is Islam itself. The Turkish army is quite different. It stands for the nation-state, Turkey, and for a particular ideology, Kemalism, that was based on distrust of Islam, and recognition of the harm that Islam, taken straight up rather than diluted in a thousand ways, could do to the Turkish state and to the people living in Turkey.

These are very different things.

I have the feeling that in this, as in so many other matters, Sabrina Tavernise would prefer not to think about, not to take into account, and certainly never to mention, the effect and the role of Islam. She doesn't do it when reporting on a Muslim raping and killing a Christian girl. And she is not about to do it when it comes to affairs of state in Pakistan, though without a grasp of Islam, almost nothing reported from Pakistan makes sense.

Three possibilities suggest themselves.

She knows this, but doesn't care.

Or,

She knows this, but is afraid to write the truth, afraid to discuss Islam, for fear that it will make her life more difficult and dangerous.

Or,

She lives in, but has not sunk beneath the surface of, life in Muslim Pakistan. And simply remains inviolably ignorant.

I won't choose for you.

You do it. You choose. You figure out what so fatally vitiates so much of what Sabrina Tavernise, and so many others like her, in the Times and in other newspapers of indiscriminate and lapsed record, write when they "report" on the world of Islam.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two U.S. lawmakers subpoenaed the Obama administration on Monday for information sought in a congressional probe of last year's shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, that left 13 soldiers dead and an Army psychiatrist charged with murder.

Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, an independent, and Susan Collins, the panel's top Republican, took the action after the departments of Justice and Defense failed to provide the materials by Monday's deadline.

The two senators have been trying for months to obtain documents and be provided access to witnesses that they say are critical to their investigation of the shooting spree at Fort Hood in November that ended with 13 soldiers killed and dozens wounded.

An Army psychiatrist, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, has been charged by the military with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted murder. The case drew heavy criticism after it became known Hasan had been in contact with an anti-American Muslim figure sympathetic to al Qaeda.

In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, who heads the Justice Department, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Lieberman and Collins wrote: "It is impossible for us to avoid reaching the conclusion that the departments simply do not want to cooperate with our investigation."

"It is with great disappointment and reluctance that we have directed service of subpoenas to you which demand disclosure of the requested information by Monday, April 26, 2010," they added....

Turkey is the biggest threat
- Walid Shoebat

I translated below a German News report showing the new tempered image of the Islamic Organization of Mili Görüs to be little but a masquerade intended to make life easier for German politicians eager for “dialogue.”

Milli Görüş is an Ottoman-Islamic movement inspired by Necmettin Erbakan’s writings and currently has around 300,000 followers in Europe. The political parties propagating Erbakan’s views were often banned in Turkey because they violated secularist legislation, but following the ban of the Virtue Party (FP) the movement split up in the Felicity Party representing Erbakan’s old guard, and the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) led by younger and more pragmatic politicians around Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, now Prime Minister of the Republic of Turkey

Today Mili Görüs is highly engaged in agitation of the Turkish immigrants living in Europe and serves as something akin to a Turk branch of the Muslim brotherhood. Their flag shows all of Europe colored in green encompassed by a crescent moon , symbolising the complete Islamisation of the continent

I have included a translation I did of an old article entitled “Green Politics – an open letter from a Muslim.” It reveals some of the most disturbing aspects of Mili Görus activities of the 90s which is also referred to in the above newsreport. It was initially published in a tiny Christian magazine in  1999 and recently rediscovered by PI-News, the largest Islam-critical blog in Germany.

It was written by someone claiming to be a Milli Görüs insider and contains some interesting details about their subversive efforts – like, for instance, the building of an army inside Germany through selective breeding of Turk daughters with German passports to cherry-picked military personnel from the homeland.

The title is a play on the fact that the socialist party of Germany literally changed their name to “The Greens” when making the strategic move away from”red.”

Green Politics

- Open letter from a Muslim

I am Muslim and I know what I am talking about!

I was the chairman of two Islamic societies, both now dissolved. Due to my knowledge of Muslim politics and languages I was able to gain access to the parts of Islamic society which are sealed off to Europeans.

I have been a keen observer of the Islamic movement in Germany since 1968, back when no Muslim thought about building mosques or having dual citizenship.

CM [presumably "Christliche Mitte" where the letter was first published] rightly states that we are now facing an unprecedented number of mosques and construction plans for future mosques. This, evidently, is not a coincidence.

The stealth occupation of German and European cities by the Muslim Brotherhood and the World Islamic Congress is taking shape steadily and in spite of all rivalries. This is the main objective of every Muslim organisation in Germany. Make no mistake about this.

The already-existing mosques and centers of Islamic societies in Germany reach well beyond the purpose of religious practice and education. They are secretly dedicated to the training of a large number of Turk military reservists within the already-established secret army of Islam.

Young Turks from fundamentalist families who have fulfilled their military service are brought into Germany by the IGMG (The Islamic Society of Mili Görüs).

Members of IGMG with German-born daughters possessing permanent residence permits are encouraged to marry off their daughters to males selected by the IGMG. Through this marriage the male Turk is granted a permanent residence permit as well. This is how a secret army is built.

Germany was chosen as the center for these initiatives because it has the greatest percentage of Turkish residents, but also because everything that even smells like immigrant hostility is banned and ostracised, and every warning, however justified, is repudiated as hatred towards foreigners, providing ideal cover for the activities of Muslim fundamentalists.

I am well-aware of the mindset of all Islamic groups within Germany. We were a small group of German Muslims who fell prey to the erroneous belief that we could somehow eliminate a considerable number of the Christian-haters from the circle of fanatic believers, but this is not possible. Even the most ordinary Muslim feels superior to all Christian Europeans. Do not expect this to change into any loving sentiments. You would be fooling yourself. It is simply not going to happen.

Lately there has been a lot of talk about the issue of dual citizenship for Turkish immigrants. The Islamic fundamentalists have demanded this dual citizenship for years, although not publicly. This was done by the Germans themselves in ignorance of the dangers related to the issue.

With the gratification of this demand the Islamists have successfully completed an important step towards the realisation of their plans for a European takeover, because if a large number of the above-mentioned Turks were ever to exceed the limits of German tolerance, they would always have the option of invoking their Turkish citizenship to avoid unpleasant consequences.

What is impossible even in Turkey is happening in Germany, aided by government institutions: the construction of a secret army of Islamic fundamentalists by the Muslim Brotherhood. And behind them stands the IKHWAN al MUSLIMIN with a headquarters in Pakistan and the RABITA al ISLAMI operating from Mecca. Both of these organisations are funded by rich oil-states.

The recent hysteria concerning “hatred of foreigners” caused by the awful killing of defenceless women and children of Turkish origin plays right into the hands of Islamists and enables them to pursue and expand their covert activities uninterrupted. Every objection towards their undertakings is effectively silenced by accusations of immigrant hostility and incitement of hatred.

Add to this the fact that many Christians are actively promoting the rise of Islam in the false belief that this might spare them as targets of persecution if the aspirations of fundamentalist Islam someday proved victorious.

But everybody should know that there is no dialogue with Islamists; there is only subservience to the fundamentalists. These people know no gratitude or appreciation with regard to services rendered. They only know the ruthless pursuit of power.

In recent times the personal relationships between Germans and Turks have become noticeably cold and distant. Internal communications within the IGMG of Cologne recommend segregating ourselves from Christians. Not only that, but assaults on Turks are even welcomed in order to provoke the well-meaning German authorities into fighting “hostility towards immigrants,” in effect making it possible to condemn any defensive efforts as incitement of hatred.

A few statements by IGMG reveal their agenda: “Down with all political systems except Islamic rule! The Power belongs to Allah, his messenger, and the believers. We will crush the skull of anyone who opposes Sharia.”

Even more explicitly, “The European is an atheist idolater, an extortionist, a capitalist, socialist, Zionist, communist, imperialist. He is constantly drunk and horny, adulterous and materialistic. He has sold himself to the devil. They are all agents and spies. They might appear to be doctors, nurses, wise teachers, or trade unionists, but they are all enemies of Islam.”

These are statements of the IGMG against the German society hosting them! Some people might accuse me of overdramatizing the situation, but I have been following these developments with ever-growing horror for years as an insider.

I feel inclined to warn against a development within German society which, if not stopped in due time, could become an all-encompassing disaster for all Europeans. And by this coming disaster I mean the subjugation of the Europeans under the dictates of Islamic fanaticism.

The expansion of fundamentalist Islam is promoted by the Germans themselves. Just think about all of the building permits granted for the construction of mosques. Almost every week a new mosque is opened.

Consider the support for Christian-Islamic dialogue through churches and clerical publications.

Let me tell you, as a knowledgeable Muslim who was able to move around in Islamic circles closed to all Christians: there is no Christian-Islamic dialogue!

From an Islamic point of view there can be no dialogue founded on mutual understanding. There is only submission. And according to authoritative Islamic teachings, all non-Muslims must submit to Islam.

What most people fail to recognise with regard to all the buzz surrounding Christian-Islamic dialogue is the inherent objective, namely, the weakening of Christianity. Do not believe any ruling politician who claims to be unaware of this.

These politicians elected by well-meaning Christians betray their own electorate. They allow the oppression of their own religion in their own country. And this is done in spite of clear biblical warnings: “Receive a stranger into thine house, and he will disturb thee, and turn thee out of thine own.” [Ecclesiasticus 11:34, King James Bible]

How shameful having to be told this by a Muslim. But I am a German Muslim, and I have to stand up against the deceptions and fairytales imposed upon otherwise clear-minded German citizens.

The Germans harbour no hostility towards foreigners. This false meme is propagated in order to silence criticism and hide the subversive activities of Muslim fanatics against Germany.

The politicians will not receive any gratitude for their multicultural sympathies. All they achieve is the advancement of powers hostile towards Christians and Germans, thus encouraging even more outrageous insults directed against German citizens.

The German politicians should be made aware of the fact that foreign Muslims are laughing scornfully at the “stupid German man.”

All who suffer from the delusion that embracing a multicultural society will somehow spare them the future consequences need to reconsider that stance. They are going to experience the same subjugation and oppression as every other non-Muslims, because fanatical Muslims are egoistical and recognize nobody as their equal.

Norman Finkelstein, the professional Israel-basher, appeared before the United Nations Correspondents Association in New York on April 7^th to hawk his newest diatribe against Israel entitled ‘This Time We Went Too Far.’ Finkelstein claimed in his book that he was providing “an accurate record” of the “suffering” that the Gazan population “endured” as a result of the “merciless Israeli assault.”  He urged the UN correspondents to publicize his message about what he called the “bloodletting in Gaza.”

Finkelstein was referring to Operation Cast Lead, which Israel launched in December 2008 to put a stop to the incessant rocket attacks launched from Gaza by Palestinian terrorists against civilians living in Southern Israel.

In his remarks to the UN correspondents, Finkelstein said that it was inaccurate to characterize what happened in Gaza as a war.  He described it as a “massacre” deliberately designed by the Israeli government and military to terrorize the people of Gaza with “disproportionate force.”  The real reason for Israel’s invasion, Finkelstein asserted, was to teach Arabs a lesson after Israel’s “defeat” in Lebanon in 2006.

To support his thesis that Israel used unreasonably disproportionate force against a defenseless civilian population and engaged in a “massacre” rather than a war, Finkelstein cited testimony from unnamed Israeli soldiers who were quoted as saying that they did not engage any combatants on the Hamas side.  He also referred, as an example of Israel’s true intentions, to former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who said at the time that “Israel demonstrated real hooliganism during the course of the recent operation, which I demanded.”

Often associated with rowdiness at soccer games, “hooliganism” is a slang word that in the worst dictionary definition of the term refers to willful wanton and malicious destruction of the property of others.  Let us suppose for the moment that this is what Livni actually meant and that “willful wanton and malicious destruction of Palestinian property” in Gaza reflected Israel’s true intentions.  Is Israel expected to stand by and let Hamas and its other terrorist allies shoot rockets into Israeli civilian centers all day and night long, day after day – following repeated Israeli warnings to stop or face the consequences – without finally inflicting real damage to Hamas’ infrastructure in return?  The use of disproportionate force to inflict damage against the enemy’s infrastructure was the only means available to stop Hamas’ campaign of aggressive violence against Israeli civilians.

If destroying the enemy’s infrastructure were considered a “war crime” or a “crime against humanity,” then Abraham Lincoln deserves to be branded a war criminal for endorsing the strategy of his general Ulysses S. Grant who took command of the Union Army with the goal of seeking “the utter destruction of the Confederacy’s capacity to wage war.”  Grant ordered his subordinates, “To strike against [the enemy] and break it up, get into the interior of the enemy’s country as far as you can, inflicting all the damage you can upon their war resources.”

Cruel, yes, but the strategy put an end to the four year Civil War.

I understand that this is a crude comparison, but Israel was at war with terrorists determined to destroy the Jewish state and who refused to heed Israel’s many warnings to stop the rocket attacks meant to kill and terrorize innocent Israeli civilians.  On the other hand, Finkelstein does not believe there was any war in Gaza at all to bring to an end, which would possibly justify what Israel did.  But he completely ducked my question concerning the Hamas Covenant’s threat of annihilation of Israel, backed by Hamas’ terrorism campaign.  Didn’t Israel have a legitimate existential fear for its survival, I asked him?  His response indicated the twisted nature of this Hamas apologist’s way of thinking.

First, Finkelstein said that my question was made up of “99% fantasy,” even though I was quoting from the Hamas Covenant:

“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it” (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).”

“There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.”

I also quoted Al-Zahar, the overall leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip who said:

“I hope that our dream of having an independent state on the entire territory of historical Palestine will be realized one day.” This dream, he added, “will become real one day. I’m certain of this because there is no place for the state of Israel on this land.”

After refusing to directly respond to my question, Finkelstein said that even if this threat to Israel’s existence were real (which he continued to deny was the case) it would not justify Israel’s actions.  This regular mocker of his fellow Jews’ Holocaust suffering (which had included his own Holocaust survivor parents) gave an incredible response to a question from another UN correspondent, who had asked him to compare the Nazi horrors with Israel’s alleged war crimes.  Finkelstein said that he saw little difference between Jewish children being murdered in gas chambers by the Nazis and Palestinian children being burnt by white phosphorous in Gaza.

The loss of any innocent child’s life – whether Palestinian or Israeli – is tragic. Perhaps Israel could have done more to avoid some deaths and serious injuries in Gaza, even though the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan observed that in its offensive against Hamas in Gaza the Israeli army “did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.”  But even assuming the accuracy of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights’ worst case figure of 313 children killed among the 1414 Palestinians who died over a 23-day period (which defined a child as anyone under the age of 18), does that really compare with the more than 1.2 million Jewish children deliberately exterminated by the Nazis during the Holocaust?

By 1945, the Germans and their collaborators killed nearly two out of every three European Jews.  In the Gaza Strip, the Arab population grew from 82,500 to 1,428, 757     between 1948 and 2006.  There were no Jews at all living in Gaza in 2006.  The Palestinians were handed a golden opportunity to govern themselves and create the foundation for an independent state.  After Israel withdrew unilaterally from Gaza, there was no blockade of the borders. Only after Hamas came to power, bringing with it the real potential to make good on its threat to annihilate Israel, did Israel take more defensive precautions that included a blockade.   Finkelstein never mentioned that Hamas smuggled arms into Gaza, crossed the Israeli border to kidnap an Israeli soldier who is still languishing in Hamas’ hands if he is alive at all, and launched thousands of rockets targeted to hit schools and other Israeli civilian centers.

After Finkelstein got through excoriating Israel for what he called a “terrorist attack on a civilian population” and denying that Israel was engaged in a real bona fide war with a terrorist enemy sworn to Israel’s destruction, he went on to defend the findings of the Goldstone Report that had been commissioned by the anti-Israel United Nations Human Rights Council.  He called the report’s findings incontrovertible and its conclusion that Israel “might” have committed crimes against humanity the most “cautious” of all human rights reports.  Finkelstein claimed that the only reason Israel and its supporters were trying to debunk the report was because they were particularly upset about the credentials of the prime author, Judge Richard Goldstone of South Africa – a Jew and a self-described committed Zionist as well as a distinguished international jurist.

First of all, Finkelstein conveniently left out of his praise of the Goldstone Report the part about Hamas’ own violations of international human rights law. Second, he neglected to mention the biased composition of the panel serving with Judge Goldstone that conducted its fact-finding mission in Gaza at the UN Human Rights Council’s behest.

The fact-finding mission had pledged to impartially assess “all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law that might have been committed” in the Israel-Gaza conflict. International law requires such impartiality – an ingredient missing in virtually every UN-sponsored investigation of Israel and sadly missing in this case.

For example, prior to seeing any evidence a panel member, Professor Christine Chinkin, had publicly declared that one of the parties—Israel—was guilty.  She remained on the panel even after this obvious bias was pointed out.  Another biased member of the four person panel, Ms. Hina Jilani, was quoted as stating in 2005: “Israel is depriving Palestinians of their basic human rights using security as an excuse.”  A third member of the panel, Irish Colonel Desmond Travers, showed his anti-Israel bias and motivation to find Israel guilty irrespective of the facts when in an  interview he accused Israeli soldiers of having killed Irish soldiers in Lebanon with “a significant number who were taken out deliberately and shot (in southern Lebanon.).” There was no credible evidence presented for that allegation either.

Poor Judge Goldstone, even assuming he brought to his task the most honorable of intentions, was outnumbered 3-1.

How was the majority’s bias reflected in the Goldstone mission’s fact-finding?  It simply ignored inconvenient evidence that contradicted the majority opinion that Israel was guilty as charged.  For example, Israel produced photographic evidence that Gaza mosques were used to store rockets and other weapons.  That could not be, said Desmond Travers.  “I don’t believe the photographs… Those charges reflect Western perceptions in some quarters that Islam is a violent religion.”

Finally, the Goldstone Report applied an outdated notion of international law that, in its interpretation, requires a democracy to sit back and wait for its citizens to be murdered in droves by armed terrorists before responding with overwhelming military force to prevent more attacks.  Israel has the right to defend its innocent civilian citizens from attack by whatever means it deems necessary after fair warning and less forceful measures were tried without success.

Norman Finkelstein said that he is working with Arab nations and others to wrangle an invitation to address the United Nations General Assembly about Israel’s alleged “crimes” against the Palestinians.  Of course, his arrogant pitch for attention and 15 minutes of fame should be rejected out of hand.  But knowing the present composition of the General Assembly, he may well get that invitation.  If he does, the United States and its allies should insist on a rebuttal address by someone like Professor Alan Dershowitz who can cut this provocateur down to size.