Category: War (Page 3 of 18)

Flashback: Bill Whittle articulated clearly after the Jihadist assault on Charlie Hebdo, what the subsequent Jihadist atrocities in Paris and San Bernardino further demonstrated — and what Germany’s Angela Merkel, Australia’s John Howard, and Spain’s Jose Maria Anzar have themselves ceded. (See also here.) Multiculturalism’s anti-assimilationist streak, when combined with a militantly political religion of conquest, produces unassimilated populations that end up violently hostile to their naive and increasingly disarmed host cultures. “Tolerance” of such hostility is not noble; it is nothing short of suicide.

Sunni Muslim Raheel Raza makes the case for serious concern about Islamic Jihadist violence more effectively than I can, in this must-see video:

(via @RyanMauro)

Bill Whittle, Steven Green, and Scott Ott get it exactly right:

We’ve had some time now to learn more about those who planned and perpetrated the murder of 14 in San Bernardino on December 2nd. And what’s been demonstrated along the way about our own state of denial regarding such things has only reinforced my existing state of gloomy concern.

The pattern of public behavior is frustratingly predictable by now, to those of us who’ve been paying attention. Immediately as news of the shooting broke, the usual suspects went into narrative-reinforcement mode without hesitation. We were admonished not to jump to conclusions, not to assume this was Jihadist violence or in any way connected to Islamic beliefs. CAIR, going into preemptive damage-control mode and ever-committed to dissembling and disarming us with our own tolerance, immediately trotted out Syed Farook’s brother-in-law, who claimed he had “absolutely no idea” why Farook, a very religious Muslim, would do such a thing. None whatsoever. The mainstream press, likewise, seemed willfully and obligingly clueless for some time — alternately seeking to place blame on everyone and everything except for the actual perpetrators, and professing no clue what the shooters’ motives could possibly be. In the spirit of “never let a crisis go to waste”, the New York Times seized on the heat of the moment to publish a prominent editorial blaming the availability of guns, instead of blaming the character of the people who wield them to inflict such grievous harm.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced that her greatest fear in the wake of the attack was not, amazingly enough, the occurrence of additional attacks, but the “incredibly disturbing rise of anti-Muslim rhetoric”, which she vowed to prosecute before outrage over her statement forced her to back down. (Hey, Loretta: Want to tamp down suspicion about Muslims? Put a decisive stop to those who produce well-warranted suspicion by repeatedly murdering in the name of Islam.)

As uncovered facts percolated slowly through the haze of PC denial, we learned that the attack had indeed been carefully planned and provisioned, that Farook Saeed and Tafsheen Malik had assembled a collection of arms and IEDs, and that they were indeed motivated by loyalty to ISIS and Jihadism. Farook’s in-law and arms supplier Enrique Martinez had spoken of terrorist sleeper cells, telling others, “When it happens, it’s going to be big.”

More troubling, we learned that at least one person had noticed suspicious activity around the home where Saeed & Malik’s IED factory was hidden, but refrained from reporting it for fear he would be accused of profiling. As Mark Steyn wrote before the San Bernardino and Paris attacks, “‘If You See Something, Say Something’ – unless it’s something that might get you accused of Islamophobia, in which case keep it to yourself.” Tragically, it seems that’s exactly what we’ve been browbeaten into doing against our own best interests.

And probably most troubling of all, we learned that the U.S. agencies entrusted with screening new arrivals and visa applicants are operating under specific orders not to look at applicants’ social media postings — postings that, in Tafsheen Malik’s case, would have clearly indicated her allegiance. The San Bernardino attack could have been prevented, if those in charge of “homeland security” weren’t actively restrained from using common sense.

Meanwhile, we were told that employees at the San Bernardino facility had been through “active shooter” drills, that strove to prepare them for such an event. Twitter user @Cristotokos aptly noted: “Active shooter training consists of advice on how to hide. We’re a nation of mice.” I’d have to agree that this is a better strategy: “The active shooter drill should be – EVERYBODY-Turn-aim-FIRE!! These massacres would be shorter with minimum losses.”

Tragically, we seem to live in a time whose chief preoccupation is disarming ourselves — mentally, culturally, and physically — against a menace that won’t go away on its own. I’ve pleaded about this stuff before. Unfortunately, it seems we’re determined to look away from what too many don’t dare see.

Forget Paris? It seems we already have.

I took to Twitter in the aftermath of November 13th’s horrific, barbaric Jihadist attacks on Paris and her people, rather than posting here. To my resigned dismay, I am at a loss to see what more can be said at this point, or what will change the state of deep denial about such things that we seem to be stuck in. It’s excruciating watching this horror recur so predictably, and I wonder, as I have for so very long now, what it will take for the West to wake up, stop making excuses for Jihadist atrocities, and really and truly stand up for its values.

The Charlie Hebdo massacre, less than a year ago, should have been more than enough to make that happen — as, to be honest, should any of the innumerable prior acts of Jihad against the West. Much of the world briefly united, declaring “Je suis Charlie!” in a sincere but symbolic defiance and resolve that evaporated after a time, ultimately returning us to our slumber. This time around, it was “Cette fois, c’est la guerre.” But that sentiment, too, has already faded, and it’s unclear to me that it will have any lasting consequence for our actions. Before the day was over, the usual suspects in the press were dutifully reinforcing The Narrative, wringing their hands about mythical anti-Muslim backlash that fits their perpetually low opinion of their countrymen, rebranding a deliberate, premeditated atrocity as a “tragedy”, and generally doing the enemy’s propaganda job for them. We’re back to rearranging the deck chairs. We’ve learned (or have we?) that “Holding hands for a feel-good photo opp. gets us nowhere in the fight against terrorism.” “In a month most of Europe will be back to giving cultural sensitivity training and talk of ‘war’ will be forgotten.” Lather, rinse, repeat.

As has been rightly said before: It’s not a wake-up call, if we go back to sleep. Mark Steyn’s reflection on the Paris attacks was among the most apt: The Barbarians are Inside, and There Are No Gates. James Delingpole’s assessment was likewise on target.

Whether or not we are interested in war with Jihadis, they have made quite clear, time and time again, that they are profoundly interested in war with us. Dreamy-eyed insistence on “peace” in the face of acts of war (which the iconic Eifel-Tower-recast-as-peace-sign graphic that circulated in the wake of the attacks seems to ask for) is an act of pure, blind surrender. Honestly, “It must be incredibly frustrating as an Islamic terrorist not to have your views and motives taken seriously by the societies you terrorize, even after you have explicitly and repeatedly stated them. … It’s like a bad Monty Python sketch” — one that would be funny, if the consequences weren’t so grave. It no doubt comes as quite a devastating surprise to ISIS that they are “not Islamic”.

“We in the West have reached such a low in self-esteem that we do the job of defeating ourselves even better than the enemy,” noted Allen West. Make no mistake, that low in self-esteem is by design — the result of dedicated work by many, over a long period of time. It’s been wrought by people who sincerely believe that we are worse than our enemies.

I’ve pleaded for an end to this willful blindness, as have others with far greater eloquence, dedication, and courage. By now, we’ve been shown more than enough to be able to see that shunned and vilified critics of the Islamic world like Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, Tarek Fatah, Brigitte Gabriel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and others have been right to sound the alarm. “Tolerance” is all well and good in theory, but “When tolerance becomes a one-way street, it leads to cultural suicide.” You can’t tolerate people whose chief ambition in life is to kill you.

Below was the scene in the Bataclan Theater, where people were gunned down and tortured by having their stomachs slit open, where survivors pleaded for the lives of their loved ones and waited helplessly as tens of minutes went by, wondering whether they and theirs would be next to be systematically murdered by Jihadis who stood there, methodically reloading without any apparent fear of being stopped. It grieves me to have to post something like this. There is a temptation to look away. We mustn’t. This is the face and work of an enemy that will not relent until we decisively confront and unconditionally subdue its murderous, bloodthirsty army. This is utterly barbaric. There is no excuse for it. We must at long last find the moral courage to commit to decisive actions that match our ephemeral and easily uttered words of defiance, or those words will have had no meaning.

Indeed we should, as I’ve said before.

A stirring article by Nicole Gelinas in the New York Post, courtesy of Instapundit.