Amnesty's International Disappointment

Amnesty International once arguably chronicled the effects of policies on people. This was useful, as it provided a sort of a benchmarking mechanism to tell the truly horrible regimes from the merely odious. This is all Amnesty International can do.

Somewhere along the way, Amnesty began to think that they mattered more than those they claimed to represent. They began to be as worried about fundraising dollars as much as they cared about accuracy, and by then accuracy wasn't as important as projecting the right message.

When I read of Amnesty International's William Schulz slamming the United States as, "a leading purveyor and practitioner of the odious human rights violations," I rolled my eyes, and lost what little respect that I still had for the organization.

Vice President Cheney rightly called Amnesty on their falsehoods and exaggerations, and cited a long and distinguished record of the United States freeing more people than any nation in the 20th Century, including 50 million just during the past four years.

Army Gen. Bantz Craddock, the individual in the best position to know what is actually occurring at Guantanamo Bay, flatly rejected Amnesty's characterization of the U.S. detention facility as a "gulag." Either Amnesty does not know what a gulag is, or they simply don't care to be accurate. Whether their excuse is ignorance or apathy, their image as an honest broker is now broken, their only true capital, credibility, destroyed in many eyes.

Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard B Myers, called the Amnesty report "absolutely irresponsible."

I call it an end to credibility.

Austin Bay, Red State, and The Conservative Voice have more.

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Buried Alive By Illegals

Quite an accurate title, don't you think? Sadly, that title could describe dozens, if not hundreds (or thousands, or tens of thousands) of situations across American today.

"Buried alive by illegals" applies literally in this case, and figuratively when discussing the gutting of American hospitals of billions of dollars by illegals swarming across our poorly controlled borders in an unchecked invasion divisions strong. The threat to the healthcare of legal American working men and women and legal immigrants became so overwhelming that taxpayers like you and I are paying a one billion dollar bailout of local hospitals nationwide.

This is money taken away from our children; money that could have been used to vaccinate our rural and inner city poor against crippling, potentially fatal childhood diseases, money that could have helped our working and middle class parents find quality affordable childcare so that they can be sure that their kids are in a safe and supportive environment while the parents work hard to give them a better life.

Every illegal alien crossing the border to abuse our overburdened public assistance programs is stealing from out poor, our weak, our needy--and many illegals steal far more than social services.

Among the legions pouring over our poorly defended borders are all manner of criminals, from shoplifters and petty criminals to rapists, murderers, brutal narcotics organizations and human slave-traders.

American jails are overflowing with the flotsam and jetsam of other nations. Attacks on Border Patrol agents are increasing at a record pace, and public safety for increasingly in doubt along the border. The situation is so bad that the U.S. State Department has been forced to issue warnings because of heavily-armed narcotics traffickers running drugs across the border.

What's worse is that the internal policies within government agencies hamper the apprehension of illegals to such an extent that Border Patrol agents are rarely allowed to pursue and capture illegal aliens in almost any situation.

“If anyone runs from us, we don't chase them,” said one California-based border patrol agent who requested anonymity. “We could have information that there is a nuke in the back of a van but we don't have authority to chase them,” the agent said. “We've had radiation pagers go off and we're still not allowed [by our supervisors] to give chase,” he said. “They are scared to death something will go wrong and there will be a huge liability.”

Shades of Norm Mineta.

Government bureaucrats and lawyers are so worried about liability lawsuits that they open the borders not only to criminals flowing over the borders, but terrorists potentially armed with vanloads of just about anything.

Bioweapons like anthrax, chemical weapons like cyclosarin, radiological "dirty" bombs--all of these can easily be driven into the heart of San Diego or other American cities and detonated, because elements of the government from the Border Patrol, to the Department of Homeland Security, to the House of Representatives, to the Senate, to the White House, have all made a conscious decision not to pursue illegal aliens, not to pursue potential terrorists, not to pursue vehicles even when they set off radiation detectors.

Please tell me what your threshold in dollars and blood is, Uncle Sam.

How much money should we allow illegals to siphon away from our childcare and education system, Senator Clinton? How many hospitals must close under the weight of illegal's unpaid medical bills, Dr. Howard Dean? How many Criminals are you going to allow to waltz across our borders and either sell drugs or detonate in our schoolyards, Director Chertoff?

How many Americans need to be literally and figuratively need to be buried alive by illegals before you'll act, President Bush?

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American "Hostage" Indicted

Naturalized US citizen Mohammed Monaf was the sole American taken hostage with three Romanian journalists in Baghdad several months ago. A couple of weeks ago, all four hostages were released. Romanian prosecutors have now issued an warrant for Monaf's arrest on suspicion that he was involved in the kidnapping of the three Romanian journalists.

An inside job? Read all the rest all at the Jawa Report.

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Larks and Poppies

In Flanders Fields
Lt. Col. John McCrae, 1915

In Flanders fields the poppies grow
Between the crosses row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders Fields.

Remember.

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And Finally, They Came For Our Sporks

The English, long since too cowardly to trust their citizenry with firearms, have determined that in the interest of safety, citizens should also give up their kitchen knives:

A team from West Middlesex University Hospital said violent crime is on the increase - and kitchen knives are used in as many as half of all stabbings.

They argued many assaults are committed impulsively, prompted by alcohol and drugs, and a kitchen knife often makes an all too available weapon.

The research is published in the British Medical Journal.

The researchers said there was no reason for long pointed knives to be publicly available at all.

They consulted 10 top chefs from around the UK, and found such knives have little practical value in the kitchen.

None of the chefs felt such knives were essential, since the point of a short blade was just as useful when a sharp end was needed.

The researchers said a short pointed knife may cause a substantial superficial wound if used in an assault - but is unlikely to penetrate to inner organs.

In contrast, a pointed long blade pierces the body like "cutting into a ripe melon".

So now the English are going to be forced to do without melons?

Then again...

that may not be much of a change...

Update: While I mock the English on one hand, American doctors seem to agree with the knife control theory... at least for this one blogger... okay, maybe two.

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Confirming A Suspicion

Just one more bit of evidence proving that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms shouldn't be responsible for anything more threatening than recommending what kind of wine goes with well with a nice Cuban cigar after a nice day in the field with your L.C. Smith.

At least Laurence didn't end up like some of their victims.

This is an archive post. Please visit the main page for more.

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Crapperquiddick : Fake, But Accurate...But Fake?

So we've gone from Newsweek's flushed Koran story being a supposed true story of religious intolerance that started a riot that left 15 people dead, to a fake story that didn't cause the riots that left 15 people dead, to a fake story that didn't cause riots that left no one dead.

I supposed all that is left is to tell us that Afghanistan itself was made up... Yup. It figures.

This is an archive post. Please visit the main page for more.

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Republicans Back Off Restricting Women in Combat

Last week I wrote about a Republican-sponsered plan to limit the role of women in combat service and support positions. The House has now thoroughly defeated that proposal, 390-39, leaving those decisions in the hands of the Pentagon. I'm starting to have mixed feelings about this entire issue.

I had originally said:

Democrats rightly highlight that this could limit military flexibility, but I'd opine that their real reason for opposition to this bill is the inability of some of the American public to handle female losses in a combat zone. Republicans want women out of the combat zone for exactly that reason, as Rep. McHugh notes. It's about PR, not competency.

I concluded the post by saying:

American women want to serve. Some have died. More will die, whether we want them to, or not. If we've learned anything, it is that there is no frontline in modern warfare, and the enemy can strike a brigade-level base with mortar and rocket fire, as easily as they can a support convoy, or an infantry combat patrol.

My advice to Congress? Let them fight. America's female soldiers earned that right, even if you don't have the stomach for it.

As you can imagine, I got a few responses to this post. All of them were polite, but none of them were supportive of my position.

Several people responded in the post comments or in email with comments condemning the concept of women in combat positions on for several reasons. Some claimed a respect for femininity or motherhood, and others seemed to combine those feelings with a longing for more genteel times.

While I'm sensitive to those closely held beliefs, and realize that are probably shared by a majority of Americans, I find these sentiments to be a kind of soft, sweet bigotry.

It is a form of discrimination, and no less wrong than the once firmly-held beliefs that other minorities couldn't fight. It was wrong to be prejudiced against the "Fighting 99th" and the 332rd "Red Tails, " that never lost a single escorted bomber to enemy fighters. It was wrong to be bigoted against the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the highest decorated military unit in all of U.S. military history.

Some female soldiers can perform to the same level of physical and mental standards as their male counterparts. Admittedly, the number of female soldiers that can physically compete with men is just a fraction of female soldiers, but some can do it, nevertheless. With modern physical training methods, some female soldiers will undoubtably be in better physical condition than many frontline soldiers of previous wars.

For these reasons, I feel that female soldiers should be given the opportunity to serve as equal members of not just combat service and support units, but frontline combat teams. I just don't think that the military has thus far provided a sufficient level of training for female soldiers to carry out any of these roles competently on the modern battlefield.

There seems to be lesser physical standards and a general lack of advanced combat training for women, which would put them at a severe readiness disadvantage in the event of enemy action (I'm basing these on anecdotal evidence from a handful of veterans. Feel free to confirm or deny these in the comments if you have supporting evidence).

Othr anecdotal evidence shows that female soldiers are capable of performing well in combat, but until the military and politically correct collection of incompetents in Washington decides to present a uniform level of training standards and allow access to all military specialties based on ability instead of gender, they won't be able to.

You see, I was wrong. It is about compentecy. And we're standing in the way of it.

This is an archive post. Please visit the main page for more.

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An Interview With Zell (Part 2)

Part 2 of Red State Rant's multi-blogger interview with Zell Miller is up.

Go read it.

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Prayers For Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

al Qaeda in Iraq is asking the Muslim world to pray for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who they claim has been wounded, "in the path of God." I'd like to make the observation that if al-Zarqawi was in the path of god, he'd be but a burnt cinder by now, or perhaps a burnt cinder covered with boils.

Nevertheless, I am hoping that al-Zarqawi survives his wounds. I want him to fully recover, for I have other prayers for him.

I pray al-Zaraqwi leaves Iraq, and slyly retires Devon, England to jog through gorse bushes on Woodbury Common.

I pray his desire for a vacation leads him to scenic Uige, Angola.

But most of all, I pray for al-Zarqawi, stuffed on eastern NC barbeque and drunk on Manischewitz, to be caught as the "bottom" in Pam Anderson/Tommy Lee-type video with the brutish Muqtada al-Sadr. I pray that the video is broadcast on al Jazeera--just after al-Sadr is diagnosed with both Chlamydia trachomatis and an untreatable and highly-contagious form of scrapie.

Perhaps al Qaeda should be more specific in their prayer requests.

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An Interview With Zell

Red State Rant was able to secure an interview with famous (or infamous, if you're liberal) Senator and former Georgia governor Zell Miller, and graciously offered several influential bloggers (and me, believe it or not) the opportunity to ask him questions. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first multi-blogger interview of a political figure on the national stage.

Read it.

Part 2 will be posted at Red State Rant tomorrow.

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My Congressman Is--Well, You Know...

The problem with having a Congressman like Maurince Hinchey is that you can title just so many posts, "My Congressman is an Idiot."

Check out Federal Review to see Hinchey once again blame Karl Rove and the evil Republicans for something stupid he's done. Hinchey's $160,000+ in questionable travel junkets makes Tom Delay's "scandals" (all of which have proven baseless so far, I may add) look like child's play at corruption.

Perhaps Delay could take notes from Hinchey...

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I'm Not Dead Yet...

A lame Python reference is better than none right?

It is official: Confederate Yankee is now (though it always sort of was) a red-state blog. North Carolina is now my official base of operations, and you know what that means... live hurricane blogging! And a whole new crop of politicians to harrass... life is good.

Sorta.

After a relaxing 1,220 mile round trip over the weekend from NC, to NY, and finally back to NC, I'm home. Or as close to "home" as it will be until my daughter finishes school and she and my wife can finally follow me down in six weeks. Without them, no place is home. Once they get here for good and we're finally moved in to our new place 4th of July weekend, life indeed will be good. Until then, life will be exhausting, and a bit of an unknown.

Madre y padre have let me bunk up in a spare room until my new place is ready, and so I'll have nice 168-mile round-trip commute five days a week until July 1.

I should have been a trucker.

The commute, as you may imagine, is to my new job. I start tomorrow. I won't blog about that much, if at all. Blogging about work tends to get people in trouble, as I've seen on more than one occasion.

Anyhoo, while I adjust to my new schedule, blogging will be sporadic and light. I'm not dead yet, but getting used to dancing to a new tune.

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Un-Unemployed

Now I have the honor of saying, with sadistic glee, the scariest sentence in the English language:

"I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."

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Give Them Equality

Via CNN:

...In a nearly 15-hourlong committee hearing, the most contentious issue was the role of women in combat.

The language would put into law a Pentagon policy from 1994 that prohibits female troops in all four service branches from serving in units below brigade level whose primary mission is direct ground combat.

"Many Americans feel that women in combat or combat support positions is not a bridge we want to cross at this point," said Rep. John McHugh, R-New York, who sponsored the amendment.

It also allows the Pentagon to further exclude women from units in other instances, while requiring defense officials to notify Congress when opening up positions to women. The amendment replaced narrower language in the bill that applied only to the Army and banned women from some combat support positions.

The Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps currently operate under a 10-year-old policy that prohibits women from "direct combat on the ground" but allows the services discretion to open some jobs to women in combat as needed.

"We're not taking away a single prerogative that the services now have," McHugh said.

Democrats opposed the amendment, saying it would tie the hands of commanders who need flexibility during wartime. They accused Republicans of rushing through legislation without knowing the consequences or getting input from the military.

"We are changing the dynamic of what has been the policy of this country for the last 10 years," said Rep. Vic Snyder, D-Arkansas.

Added Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri, the committee's leading Democrat: "There seems to be a solution in search of a problem."

The Democrats are right in opposing this bill, but more than likely for the wrong reasons.

Democrats rightly highlight that this could limit military flexibility, but I'd opine that their real reason for opposition to this bill is the inability of some of the American public to handle female losses in a combat zone. Republicans want women out of the combat zone for exactly that reason, as Rep. McHugh notes. It's about PR, not competency.

Nobody wants women coming home in body bags (or men, for that matter), but Democrats and Republicans alike are simply using this bill as a weapon in political infighting. Cynical anti-war Democrats want women in combat, because their deaths (and assured overblown media hype surrounding the same) can be used as political pressure against the war effort.

Republicans in Congress know this, and, being just as cynical as their foes across the aisle, seek to limit enemy contact so that women in the military so that can't be used as political pawns against them. The American public doesn't like the thought of women being wounded or killed in combat. Perhaps more importantly, we saw with the Jessica Lynch incident that the American public cannot stomach the depraved treatment that women face if captured alive.

Gang rape, sexual torture... these are some of the horrors that people do not want to directly mention by name, but flow through the dark recesses of our minds when we think of women in combat--and it is a risk. Yet while we prefer not to think of it, many of these same dangers are also faced by male American combat forces.

For how many years have we been told that rape is about power and domination more than sex? Women are perceived as being more at risk for this kind of treatment, and with just cause, but the fact remains that all of our soldiers know that this is a risk if they are captured, and yet they still lace up their boots, armor up, and do their duty.

And never, ever forget, women can fight.

For example, Raven 42.

On a Sunday afternoon in March, a convoy of 30 civilian tractor trailers ran into an ambush by an estimated 40-50 heavily-armed insurgents at Salman Pak, Iraq. Three armored HMMWVs of MPs from the Kentucky National Guard that had been shadowing the convoy, charged into the kill zone, upset the ambush, and turned the tables on the Iraqi forces despite intense return fire.

Seven Americans (three of them wounded) killed a total of 24 insurgents and captured 7 others. The ambush was completely routed; the vast majority of the attackers wiped out. Of the 7 members of Raven 42 who walked away, two are Caucasian Women, the rest men-one is Mexican-American, the medic is African-American, and the other two are Caucasian.

One female E5 claimed four killed terrorists killed directly with aimed shots, and the other sergeant claimed she killed another with an aimed M-203 grenade. Who wants to be the one to tell her that she did, "all right... for a girl." Not I.

And it isn't as if American women in combat are a brand-new phenomenon. They've been there, from the beginning. And women have ably served well in other countries, in other wars, both in support roles and on the front lines.

Large numbers of women served in the Soviet Army during World War II--nearly one million-- to great effect. Most did not see front line combat duty, but many did. They flew bombers, performed as snipers, and fought a guerilla war behind German lines. They served, and they served well.

But this isn't about other countries. This is about America.

American women want to serve. Some have died. More will die, whether we want them to, or not. If we've learned anything, it is that there is no frontline in modern warfare, and the enemy can strike a brigade-level base with mortar and rocket fire, as easily as they can a support convoy, or an infantry combat patrol.

My advice to Congress? Let them fight. America's female soldiers earned that right, even if you don't have the stomach for it.

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Michael Moore's Latest Project Thwarted

Already broken in mind and spirit and abandoned by the Democratic Party, Michael Moore's latest documentary project was disrupted in New York City by an alert citizen. "Fahrengrate 88th and Lexington" was to be produced by Moore for these guys in exchange for a stale blueberry bagel, half a hoagie, and a bottle of the "red grape wine flavor" M/D 20/20.

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Trump Must Build

When Daniel Libeskind's Freedom Tower design was accepted as a replacement for the World Trade Center, I felt a kick to the pit of my stomach. It was an impressive piece of architecture, but could not contain what the World Trade Center was, and should be again. The Libeskind design, though sincere, lacked even it's own soul. It was an empty shell, a skeleton, nothing more. If the WTC site has anything, it is souls--thousands of them.

Only one profile deserves to occupy the hallowed ground in lower Manhattan. No substitute, no matter how impressive, could ever be appropriate for all that was won and lost that day.

Thousands died that bright blue September morning, many of those because they simply got up, kissed their children goodbye, and went to work. Other's died in the most noble of human efforts, placing their very lives on the line in a gamble to help those who could not help themselves. For those victims that never had a chance, and for those brave men and women who turned toward the fire and ran into the inferno, there is only one fitting monument. There has only ever been one fitting monument.

Trump gets this visceral truth.

The people of New York and America at large, all wounded to some extent that day deserve, no demand, than a new Twin Towers rise like a phoenix from the ashes of the old; bigger, stronger, and better than it was before. The City That Never Sleeps should be home to nothing less than the Towers Than Would Not Die.

Manhattan can never move forward with a lesser skyline. Trump must build.

Note: Added to the Beltway Traffic Jam. Ace and Scott also have takes on the issue.

Update: Father Jim Chern also has a moving argument for rebuilding the Twin Towers.

Update: More details of the Twin Towers II design.

Further Update: Lawhawk has lots more.

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Off The Deep End

Some people seem to think that I'm a bit hard and a bit unfair on liberals, but as Ace informs us, liberals tend to bend over backwards to make stupid and arrogant statements without any grounding in fact.

Norman Mailer is a case in point:

At present, I have a few thoughts I can certainly not prove, but the gaffe over the Michael Isikoff story in Newsweek concerning the Koran and the toilet is redolent with bad odor. Who, indeed, was Isikoff's supposedly reliable Pentagon source? One's counter-espionage hackles rise. If you want to discredit a Dan Rather or a Newsweek crew, just feed them false information from a hitherto reliable source. You learn that in Intelligence 101A.

Counter-espionage often depends on building "reliable sources." You construct such reliability item by secret item, all accurate. That is seen by the intelligence artists as a necessary expenditure. It gains the source his credibility. Then, you spring the trap.

As for the riots at the other end, on this occasion, they, too, could have been orchestrated. We do have agents in Pakistan, after all, not to mention Afghanistan.

Obviously, I can offer no proof of any of the above.

I have a strong suspicion that Mailer spends his afternoons servicing blind syphilitic Filipino dwarves with a patched and worn Love Ewe while drinking Miracle-Gro cocktails to feed the potted geraniums growing out of his rectum while listening to Zamfir, Master of the Pan Flute, though obviously, I can offer no proof to any of the above.

Update: This Norman Mailer is probably more reliable, and accurate.

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Defending Robert Spencer

Via a link from Instapundit, I find a post titled "Tiananmen, Uzbekistan?" from Bidisha Banerjee, which a Slate roundup of today's blog news with the inspired title of "today's blogs: The latest chatter in cyberspace."

Uzbekistan has been in crisis since protestors raided a prison and government offices over the arrest of 23 men in Andijan, and the government apparently responded with Stalinist tactics, shooting hundred of people, seemingly at random according to some reports. If you noticed, I've provided very few links, as truly credible information is very, very difficult to come by due to a near press blackout.

Among the bloggers mentioned in the report is Robert Spencer, a Muslim scholar and founder of Jihadwatch.org, a site dedicated to:

...bringing public attention to the role that jihad theology and ideology play in the modern world and to correcting popular misconceptions about the role of jihad and religion in modern-day conflicts. By shedding as much light as possible on these matters, we hope to alert people of good will to the true nature of the present global conflict.

Robert gets ripped by blogger Serdar Kaya at Socioeconomics for this post, in which Mr. Spencer opines:

Learned analysts have long insisted that Uzbekistan was a bastion of Islamic moderation. I have responded the way I always do: by asking how these moderates counter jihadist recruitment. The response: silence or abuse. But it looks as if the answer these learned analysts did not want to give was: they don't, and they can't -- except by force of arms.

Kaya states:

Robert Spencer (of Jihadwatch.com), who devoted his site to the loathing of Muslims in every possible way, preferred to call this a 'Muslim riot'.

Because, to him, a Muslim, first of all, is a Muslim; and Muslims are people who do only wrong; and if a Muslim is involved in a violent incident, then he must definitely be the one who is responsible for it - since Muslims never suffer; they exist only to make others suffer.

This is quite an analogy to run a web site.

It would be... if Kaya's description of Spencer or Jihadwatch was true. But these descriptions are false, verging on outright lies.

I've been a reader and commenter of Jihadwatch for over a year, and Kaya's heavily-biased description of Mr. Spencer could not be further from the truth. Robert Spencer, and by extension, Jihadwatch, are dedicated to counterbalancing the Muslim holy war doctrine known as jihad.

Jihad takes fficial&oi=defmore&q=define:jihad">many forms. On a personal level, jihad is a struggle within the self to live a devout Muslim life, and is in many ways analogous to the personal struggle within many faiths to lead a more pure life. The another type of jihad has become synonymous with the word "jihad" in western eyes, and that is the militant struggle for Islamic domination of the world at the expense of all other world religions and secular governments.

This theofascist jihad is Spencer's chief complaint, which has been thoroughly documented in a substantial body of articles and books in addition to his web site that would , if Kaya took the time to read them, clearly show Spencer is against the radical Islam of terrorists and tyrants, and clearly for an Islamic moderate Reformation.

Spencer has not "devoted his site to the loathing of Muslims in every possible way;" quite the contrary, Spencer's family has roots in Islamic countries, and Spencer's first book Islam Unveiled was written to counter some of the misconceptions about the religion after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on America.

Does Spencer hate Islam, as Kaya intones? Spencer's FAQ answers that question directly:

Q: Do you hate Muslims?
A: Of course not. Islam is not a monolith, and never have I said or written anything that characterizes all Muslims as terrorist or given to violence. I am only calling attention to the roots and goals of jihad violence. Any Muslim who renounces violent jihad and dhimmitude is welcome to join in our anti-jihadist efforts. Any hate in my books comes from Muslim sources I quote, not from me. Cries of "hatred" and "bigotry" are effectively used by American Muslim advocacy groups to try to stifle the debate about the terrorist threat. But there is no substance to them. It is not an act of hatred against Muslims to point out the depredations of jihad ideology. It is a peculiar species of displacement and projection to accuse someone who exposes the hatred of one group of hatred himself: I believe in the equality of rights and dignity of all people, and that is why I oppose the global jihad. And I think that those who make the charge know better in any case: they use the charge as a tool to frighten the credulous and politically correct away from the truth.

Q: Do you think all Muslims are terrorists?
A: See above.

Q: Are you trying to incite anti-Muslim hatred?
A: Certainly not. I am trying to point out the depth and extent of the hatred that is directed against the United States, because I believe that the efforts to downplay its depth and extent leave us less equipped to defend ourselves. As I said above, the focus here is on jihad; any Muslim who renounces the ideologies of jihad and dhimmitude is most welcome to join forces with us.

Spencer's comment in the disputed article, is entirely correct, in context:

Learned analysts have long insisted that Uzbekistan was a bastion of Islamic moderation. I have responded the way I always do: by asking how these moderates counter jihadist recruitment. The response: silence or abuse. But it looks as if the answer these learned analysts did not want to give was: they don't, and they can't -- except by force of arms.

But Kaya prefers to take Spencer's statement out of context in order to practice a bit of taqiya.

Spencer does clarify his point in an update:

The presence of jihadists in Uzbekistan, which is still disputed by some, does not justify the brutal and bloody response of the Karimov regime. Uzbeks are between a rock and a hard place. My condolences to the victims.

Perhaps Spencer is unclear and imprecise in his skepticism towards a situation with decidedly uncertain facts and unclear press coverage, but for Kaya to says Spencer, "looks quite OK with the Muslims being indiscriminately killed when all they want is a better life," is not only intellectually dishonest, but a full and willing misrepresentation of Spenser's body of work and the educational goals of Jihadwatch.org.

Note: I'd further add that Mr. Spencer's educated hunch about a militant Islamic jihad arising in Uzbekistan appears to be correct on some level.

Update: Serdar Kaya has now linked in with a response (via trackback) on his/her blog that is anything but an actual targeted response to the points I made in this article about his criticism of Spencer, specifically refusing to support Kaya's five contentions that:

• Spencer devoted his site to the loathing of Muslims in every possible way;
• Spencer thinks Muslims are people who do only wrong;
• Spencer thinks if a Muslim is involved in a violent incident, he triggered it;
• Spencer thinks that Muslims exist only to make others suffer;
• Spencer is okay with Muslims being killed when all tehy want is a better life.
  

These were all Kaya's constructs, not mine, and once again he refuses to make a case for any of his arguments, though his refusal is rather long-winded, off-topic, and tedious.

Kaya's defense for his apparent libel of Spencer is a series of emails he says he sent to Spencer--though he never explains why his opinion of Spencer, expressed to Spencer, matters. At best, this would establish a nonsensical, "You're guilty becuase I sent you a letter saying your guilty" defense of his accusations.

Kaya never establishes any sort of credible defense for any of his five claims.

When someone makes a claim such as those above, he has a duty to provide evidence to support his claim. Kaya provides no factual support of the five key claims he made above.

Period.

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Hinchey: "Castro is harmful to no one"

The New York Sun carries a report of Cuban-American anger at six New York Democrats who were among 22 Representatives who voted against a measure expressing American solidarity with Cuba's democratic activists. The resolution, H.R. 193, passed 392-22.

Among the Congressional boneheads was my favorite communist-coddling congressmen Maurice Hinchey, who last graced Confederate Yankee when he was the keynote speaker for a Marxist anti-war group on the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.

What did gems of wisdom did Hinchey have to offer?

Mr. Hinchey, too, said he objected to the language of the legislation, which he said "originates with the descendants of the Batista regime, who trace their origins back to the 1950s."

"It does nothing to improve the situation in Cuba ... it just continues the same old worn-out, tired, silly policies," the upstate Democrat said.

"Castro is harmful to no one," Mr. Hinchey said.

"To the extent that any harm is being done, it's the continuation of this policy over the last five decades now," he said, referring to the American embargo. An aide to Mr. Hinchey later called to clarify the congressman's statement, saying the Cuban strongman had done no harm "in a national security sense."

Three words: Cuban Missile Crisis.

In 1962 Castro and Khrushchev plotted to place Russian ICBMs with nuclear warheads within 90 miles of the U.S. mainland, which led to a standoff that nearly ended in global thermonuclear war. Perhaps Congressman Hinchey might have come across this tidbit of information at some point in his life?

But beyond the possible incineration of billions by nuclear fire that Castro almost triggered, we can look to the very real tens of thousands of deaths caused by the man Hinchey claims is "harmful to no one."

NoCastro.com lists the following in a November 27, 1998 Washington Post Letter to the Editor:

In a book in progress by Dr. Armando Lago an attempt is being made to list Castro's deaths. With Castro still in power, obtaining information is very difficult, but, so far, the deaths of 97,000 persons have been counted, each confirmed by at least two sources. Some 30,000 executed by firing squad, 2,000 judicial assassinations, 5,000 deaths in prison due to beating by guards and denial of medical care and 60,000 deaths while trying to escape Cuba by sea.

Among the victims are 20 US citizens: Armando Alejandre, Jr., Howard Anderson, Rudolph Anderson, Jr., Leo Francis Baker, Carlos Costa, Mathew Edward Duke, Robert Ellis Frost, Robert Otis Fuller, Wade Carrol Gray, August K. McNair, William Alexander Morgan, William Horace Patten, Bill Paterson, Mario de La Pena, Rafael del Pino Siero, Mike Rafferty, Thomas Willard Ray, Anthony Salvard, Riley W. Shamberger and Allen Dale Thompson (the remains of some are on display in Cuban museums). He has also found 6 Spaniards, 1 British, 1 Dane and 1 Haitian.

NewsMax reports that Castro was not only a Cold War threat to the world, but also a major supporter of international terrorism, and participated in a war against at least one U.S. ally:

Since very early on Castro has been involved in arming, training and offering sanctuary to terrorists from all over the world. Dr. Ehrenfeld says in her paper that the 1979 edition of the "Soviet Military Encyclopedia" recommends "the use of biological weapons, narcotics, terrorist activities, poisons and other methods. This definition accords with a decision made at the Tri-Continental Conference of world revolutionary groups held in Havana in January 1966. The decision called for the planned destabilization of the United States and explicitly detailed such activities as the exploitation and undermining of American society through the trafficking of drugs and promotion of other corrupting criminal activities."

According to Irving Louis Horowitz's Preface of David J. Kopilow's 1985 paper "Castro, Israel and the PLO," this Tri-Continental Conference, heavily attended by more than 500 delegates from radical leftist groups and terrorists, led "a series of moves ranging from Cuban co-sponsorship of the U.N. General Assembly resolution condemning 'Zionism as Racism' to manifest training and support for PLO efforts." Castro provided tank crews that fought alongside the Syrians against Israel in the 1973 Syrian-Israeli "war of attrition." At a point, Cuba had 3,000 troops deployed in Syria.

Wikipedia offers:

Cuba supported communist movements throughout Latin America (Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Colombia and Chile, among others) and Africa (Angola, Mozambique and Ethiopia). In Angola alone, Cuba had over 50,000 troops.

Please explain, Mr. Hinchey, how a man who once nearly triggered a global thermonuclear war, who was and is a major state sponsor of terrorism, and has provided material support and soldiers to communist insurgencies across Latin America and Africa is "harmful to no one" or as your aide later backtracked, "no harm, in a national security sense."

We know you don't have the correct answers, Mr. Hinchey.

You never do.

Note: Slant Point is also providing coverage of this story.

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