Posts Tagged ‘War on Terror’

Dear Mr. al-Awlaki: I formally request to be included in your Fatwa…

Posted: July 12, 2010 by datechguy in internet/free speech, opinion/news, war
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…in response to this nonsense:

A charismatic terror leader linked to the botched Times Square car bomb has placed the Seattle cartoonist who launched “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” on an execution hitlist.

The Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki – the radical who’s also been cited as inspiring the Fort Hood, Tex., massacre and the plot by two New Jersey men to kill U.S. soldiers – singled out artist Molly Norris as a “prime target,” saying her “proper abode is Hellfire.”

I formally declare you a barbarian preaching a barbaric version of a false religion. Only the fact of your humanity and creation in God image combined with the Christian requirement to love your enemy prevents me from wishing you damned.

Although I wasn’t a fan of Everybody draw Mohammad Day; as an American

I can't draw but I defy you barbarian bastards! (used with permission)

who believes in the first amendment I am ethically compelled to stand with Molly Norris. If you come for one of us you are coming for all of us, and we will defend ourselves against both you and your minions.

Therefore in that spirit I formally request to be included in your Fatwa, because if you get Molly Norris I will host my own Everybody Draw Mohammad and Al-Awlaki Day here and ask my readers to send drawings of Mohammad and of you to be posted and laughed at as you deserve.

I also formally call upon other bloggers to pledge to host an Everybody draw Muhammad and Al-Awlaki day if these barbarian bastards manage to get her and suggest that you put up a post with the tag I stand with Molly Norris as soon as possible to show your support for both her and the first Amendment. I particularly call on our friends on the left who claim to value free speech so greatly to prove it.

I further call upon every US Mosque to publicly denounce this Fatwa and call for its removal.

We are Americans, we stand together Mr. Al-Awlaki. We defy you and your utmost malice.

More at Memeorandum. If we don’t fight back loudly we will not only suffer the same fate as England but we will deserve it.

Update: Hotair headlines sees it

Update 2: Treacher nails it:

She also told a Seattle new station, ”I regret that I made my cartoon the way I made it.”

The thing is, people like Anwar al-Awlaki don’t accept apologies. If you don’t believe what they believe, they don’t care about your regrets. They don’t want you to talk at all. Even if you live in Seattle and you live liberally and you draw cutesy little cartoons and you congratulate yourself for being “progressive.” Even if you’re just kidding. These thugs don’t care. They want you dead.

Hey, look over there! A Tea Party! I’m scared!

That says it all doesn’t it?

Update 3: WordPress has announced support for something called the 1forall campaign in favor of the 1st amendment. Strangely enough although some commentators mentioned Bush and the patriot act and the oil spill nobody had mentioned Molly. I’ve put a challenge in comments to join me in Supporting Molly Norris and opposing Al-Awlaki. I’ll let you know what they say.

Update 4: Edward Cline at Big Hollywood

But — Molly Norris was criticized. Islam answered. Muslims demonstrated. Shut up. Molly Norris recanted. She didn’t mean to offend Muslims. She was only expressing her right to freedom of speech. But — Molly Norris was criticized. Islam answered. Muslims demonstrated. Shut up.

Too late. Contrition doesn’t carry much weight in Islam. No one has a right to offend Islam, or blaspheme against it. Whether Mohammad is depicted as a pedophilic ogre, as a knock-off of Charlton Heston’s Moses, or as a teacup, it matters not. It is forbidden. “Sorry” doesn’t cut it. Facebook also caved to Muslim demands and took down the page.

And as for that challenge about the 1st amendment. HA!

and Nasr makes three

Posted: July 7, 2010 by datechguy in internet/free speech, media, opinion/news
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For the third time in a month a member of the MSM has lost a job for saying what they actually think:

CNN on Wednesday removed its senior editor for Middle Eastern affairs, Octavia Nasr, from her job after she published a Twitter message saying that she respected the Shiite cleric the Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, who died on Sunday.

Ms. Nasr left her CNN office in Atlanta on Wednesday. Parisa Khosravi, the senior vice president for CNN International Newsgathering, said in an internal memorandum that she “had a conversation” with Ms. Nasr on Wednesday morning and that “we have decided that she will be leaving the company.”

Ms. Nasr, a 20-year veteran of CNN, wrote on Twitter after the cleric died on Sunday, “Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah … One of Hezbollah’s giants I respect a lot.”

Ayatollah Fadlallah routinely denounced Israel and the United States, and supported suicide bombings against Israeli civilians. Ayatollah Fadlallah’s writings and preachings inspired the Dawa Party of Iraq and a generation of militants, including the founders of Hezbollah, The New York Times reported on Sunday.

It’s the lead on memeorandum at the moment, and the ‘sphere is reacting…

Hotair:

Nasr had a role that helped shape CNN’s overall news coverage of the Middle East. As a senior editor that apparently reported to a senior VP, Nasr presumably had a hand in story selection, assignment, and editing and shaping the final product from her reporters.

Neither Thomas nor Weigel had anywhere near that kind of influence over news reporting at their respective outlets, which makes the credibility issue much more serious than in the previous two scandals.

That CNN is worried about credibility is amazing.

Ed Driscoll wonders why this is a problem at CNN:

She’s merely toeing the party line at CNN, which, from Saddam Hussein to Yasir Arafat to Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, has never met a terrorist or dictator the network didn’t admire and wish to prop up.

I think it will be very interesting to see the reaction worldwide to this.
Tim Blair highlights some tweets on the subject:

Various instant reactions, one of them brilliant:

• Damn! 20 years in, but 140 characters and your fired!

• Shocking, Outrageous! Zionists succeed in getting @OctaviaNasrCNN fired for Fadlallah tweet

• 20 years and fired over a tweet??

• Is she joining NASA?

I’m going out on a limb to say that he likes the last one.
Don Surber gives Kudos:

Congratulations CNN for doing the right thing.

That one goes on the good side of his count.

Big Journalism gets to the heart of the matter:

As if further proof were needed that a sizable segment of the Fourth Estate is now effectively the Fifth Column, this one is right up there. Apparently it’s no longer enough that reporters and correspondents pretend to be neutral, even about the good guys — now, they’re not only not neutral, they publicly express their admiration for sheer, malevolent evil — a man who, according to the obits, was “known for his staunch anti-American stance.”

Good Lord, is this what American journalism has come to?

No this is where American journalism already was.

Pam Geller is brief:

Today the Nazi lover resigned. In a word, GOOD!

Well Pam wait till you see what the left says:

Crooks and liars plays the moral equivalence card

Evidently, if you’re CNN, it’s perfectly fine to hire commentators who refer to a US Supreme Court justice as a “goat f@$king child molester”, but God forbid an emotional, somewhat easily misinterpreted tweet should be granted similar mercy.

Apparently the difference between senior editor and a commentator is lost, but the most fun actually comes from two other sites:

Balloon Juice:

I have no idea whether Nasr was any good, but it’s pretty harsh to fire someone over one tweet without a second chance.

Talking Points Memo:

But a twenty year run down the tubes over 140 characters?

That just doesn’t seem right to me.

Oh so 140 characters aren’t enough to get someone fired? Ok lets try this…

“Barack Obama is actually a secret Muslim who was born in Kenya and supports terrorists”

That’s 76 characters. Now myself, if the senior white house editor at CNN expressed such an opinion I’d give them the boot, but according to Balloon Juice and TPM’s arguments they should not be fired.

The real problem for CNN is how significantly the loss of Octavia Nasr effects the Hotness Gap but to paraphrase Jon Sable:

I never did like the terrorist sympathizers, not even the pretty ones.

I’m sorry positive position on Honor Killings not withstanding if you back suicide bombing you are a terrorist and no amount of side stuff will change it.

5 Years is all it took

Posted: July 6, 2010 by datechguy in opinion/news, war
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On Jan 30, 2005 back in the days before I was blogging anywhere Glenn Reynolds put up a post about the Iraqi elections and printed this e-mail:

I’m remembering the coy saying about the French resistance. “If everyone who claimed to be in the resistance really had been, there would have been nobody left to collaborate.”

I make the following prediction: In 20 or 25 years (it might not even take that long) all the people who where saying that the war was wrong and Iraq was wrong will talk about how America brought democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan and how they were a part of it due to their protests and desire for democracy and the end of tyranny. (of course they will not mention that the tyranny that they meant was us.) If the same people who write the current history books write them again be sure that this will happen.

Well it’s been 5 1/2 years and here via Gateway Pundit is Joe Biden:

Vice President Joe Biden said after a three-day trip to Baghdad that the American people will see President Barack Obama’s Iraq policy as a success when the “combat mission” ends on schedule Aug. 31. Biden said the administration “will be able to point to it and say, ‘We told you what we’re going to do, and we did it.’”

“I think America wins,” Biden told POLITICO in an end-of-trip interview at the ambassador’s residence in the sprawling U.S. Embassy complex. “I sound corny, but I think America gets credit here in the region. And I think everybody gets credit, from George Bush to [President Obama].

Now for myself as long as we actually win I don’t care and in fairness given his previous statements the President had great potential to mess things up, and didn’t.

Hot air pundit is quite correct that they are mostly taking credit that they don’t deserve for victory, but it’s a lot better than them getting proper credit for our defeat.

Two nasty thoughts…

Posted: July 2, 2010 by datechguy in Afghanistan war, opinion/news, war
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…one about the past and one about the present.

Nasty Thought #1: All this draft nonsense:

Do you get the feeling that MSNBC and the left are pushing and talking draft right now because they are afraid of Gen Petraeus? Not afraid of him politically but afraid of him as a general. I have the horrible and uncharitable feeling that they are afraid he will actually win this war.

Success in the war would mean a more powerful US. One more likely to act rather than talk. The concept of the US military as a force never to be used is even more sacred to the left than the first black president. They aren’t in a position to attack Petraeus so the only way to counter him is to get the country talking draft. With a high unemployment rate and college so expensive it is a tempting solution to several social/economic problems but it would scare the britches off of many in the ME generation.

The left has never lost their love of 60’s radicalism, it was their greatest moment, it is their dream to bring it back in living color.

Such an appraisal is not very fair to most of the left and is as I said a nasty thought, but right now it is stuck in my head and won’t come out.

Nasty Thought #2 Al Gore

For years I’ve wondered why Al Gore didn’t assert himself during the Clinton Impeachment stuff. It would have been up to Gore to talk to the president and say it was time for him to go. If he had conventional wisdom says he would have easily won election in 2000 and maybe even in 2004. Not only did he not assert himself but he after the impeachment vote made that ludicrous speech calling Mr. Bill “One of our greatest presidents” (talk about grading on a curve)! In my mind the question has always been: Why did he play along?

I have the nasty feeling that question has now been answered. Does anyone believe for one moment that if the Clintons knew Gore had some ahem “interesting diversions” they wouldn’t have held that over him? Al understood that people judge a Rogue differently than a “strait arrow”. It’s the expectations game. People were not surprised that Clinton was messing around and judged him accordingly, but Gore? He would be judged by his strait arrow image.

Again this is a nasty thought and assumes Gore’s guilt but I can’t get it out of my head.

Are these thoughts a sign I am becoming paranoid or am I just becoming more street savvy? What do you think?

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