Media coverage of Israel’s refusal to let a stunt backed by Turkey and the Muslim Brotherhood break its blockade of Gaza is standard fare, when you consider that most news outlets employ people who hate Israel. Take, for instance, an AP story today about another “aid” ship seized by Israel, “Israel remains defiant, seizes Gaza-bound aid ship:”

A defiant Israel enforced its 3-year-old blockade of Hamas-ruled Gaza on Saturday, with naval commandos swiftly commandeering a Gaza-bound aid vessel carrying an Irish Nobel laureate and other activists and forcing it to head to an Israeli port instead.

The bloodless takeover stood in marked contrast to a deadly raid of another Gaza aid ship this week. However, it was unlikely to halt snowballing international outrage and demands that Israel lift or at least loosen the devastating closure that confines 1.5 million Palestinians to a small sliver of land and only allows in basic humanitarian goods.

Israel’s blockade is the only defense of a nation beset on all sides by enemies who want to push them into the sea. Wouldn’t it be more intuitive to label the continued “aid vessel” traffic as “defiant,” instead of the Israeli government? Hamas - the elected governing party of Gaza – is dedicated to Israel’s destruction. The useful idiots crying about Israel’s blockade have no excuse save ignorance for siding with genocidal maniacs, but they do so proudly.

As for those truly suffering in Gaza – how is it that Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Hamas escape blame? Why is Israel the only nation demonized for the suffering of people used as pawns in an ongoing effort to destroy the Jewish state? To read the Associated Press take on the situation, you’d think enforcing a blockade was worse than regularly launching rockets at Israeli civilians. Don’t worry, the AP mentions that pesky “rockets and mortars” issue… in paragraph 28.

Charles Krauthammer’s weekend article at National Review provides invaluable context. A highlight that I found more than a little shocking:

Oh, but weren’t the Gaza-bound ships on a mission of humanitarian relief? No. Otherwise they would have accepted Israel’s offer to bring their supplies to an Israeli port, be inspected for military materiel, and have the rest trucked by Israel into Gaza – as every week 10,000 tons of food, medicine, and other humanitarian supplies are sent by Israel to Gaza.

The plight of Gaza’s people can be blamed on many parties. Israel may be on the list, but they’re definitely not at the top. Nonetheless, the Associated Press continues reporting as if Israel is the root cause of every problem in the Middle East. Who will clueless Westerners blame if Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran (but I repeat myself) have their way?

The Washington Post reports on President Obama’s West Point graduation speech:

President Obama on Saturday offered a glimpse of a new national security doctrine that distances his administration from George W. Bush’s policy of preemptive war, emphasizing global institutions and America’s role in promoting democratic values.

That’s the first paragraph of the Post summary, and already it’s clear Obama’s national security doctrine stretches no further than whatever was programmed into the teleprompter yesterday. How has America promoted democratic values on Obama’s watch? By waiting months before even paying lip service to Iranian dissidents dying in the streets? By criticizing Arizona to the hapless Mexican president, the Communist government in China, and anyone else who will listen? By betraying the Poles, Czechs, and Israelis at every opportunity?

“Yes, we are clear-eyed about the shortfalls of our international system. But America has not succeeded by stepping outside the currents of international cooperation,” he said. “We have succeeded by steering those currents in the direction of liberty and justice — so nations thrive by meeting their responsibilities, and face consequences when they don’t.”

This is, to apply my favorite British phrase, bollocks on stilts. The currents of international cooperation are flowing nicely for anyone President Obama fears may not support toothless UN sanctions against Iran. If you’re wondering what sort of consequences nations face for failing to meet their responsibilities, just ask the Iranian mullahs.

And yet, as he calls for global cooperation, Obama has intensified the U.S. war in Afghanistan. And his administration has repeatedly confronted the dangers of Islamic terrorism on U.S. soil, including unsuccessful attempts to down a Detroit-bound airliner and explode a car bomb in New York’s Times Square.

Emphasis mine. The Obama administration has done everything in its power to avoid confronting the danger of Islamic terrorism. The Attorney General is scarcely willing to utter the phrase “radical Islam.” Based on the Post’s summary, Obama’s West Point speech was an exercise in revisionist history and empty rhetoric.

Turning to the full transcript, one sentence in particular stands out:

“But more than any other nation, the United States of America has underwritten global security for over six decades — a time that, for all its problems, has seen walls come down, and markets open, and billions lifted from poverty, unparalleled scientific progress and advancing frontiers of human liberty.”

This is absolutely true, and incredibly important. And President Obama, whose domestic goals guarantee America will no longer be able to afford anywhere near the military might necessary to assist allies and deter enemies, does not care.

My contribution to today’s geeky online defense of free speech, for reasons I discussed here, here, and here:

Yesterday’s Washington Times has a story from Mark Steyn about the increasing ridiculousness of government regulations, contrasted with America’s refusal to do anything about the threat from Iran:

It is certain that Tehran will get its nukes, and very soon. This is the biggest abdication of responsibility by the Western powers since the 1930s. It is far worse than Pakistan going nuclear, which, after all, was just another thing the CIA failed to see coming. In this case, the slow-motion nuclearization conducted in full view and through years of tortuous diplomatic charades and endlessly rescheduled looming deadlines is not just a victory for Iran but a decisive defeat for the United States. It confirms the Islamo-Sino-Russo-everybody-else diagnosis of Washington as a hollow superpower that no longer has the will or sense of purpose to enforce the global order.

Sure, there are people who insist the Iranian mullahs are saving their oil for later in order to focus a huge portion of their crappy economy on nuclear power. This is based, apparently, on little other than the cute way Iran follows every insane Ahmadinejad rant about nuclear enrichment with a speech by some diplomat about their peaceful intentions.

Oh, right, like the guy in a $4,00-dollar suit is gonna nuke anyone. COME ON!

So long as there are a few isolationist libertarians and pantywaist liberals insisting Iran’s just trying to keep up with the Joneses and not trying to incinerate the Joneses, Obama and the State Department seem content to mix the occasional harsh word in with their flowery diplomatic rhetoric. That would be totally fine, if dictatorships always meant the peaceful things they said and were only kidding about the violent stuff.

But when you’ve authorized successful mob hits on Salman Rushdie’s publishers and translators, when you’ve blown up Jewish community centers in Buenos Aires, when you’ve acted extraterritorially to the full extent of your abilities for 30 years, it seems prudent for the rest of us to assume that when your abilities go nuclear, you’ll be acting to an even fuller extent.

Read the full Steyn article, and remember that President Obama is busy trying to resurrect a leftist health insurance plan that a majority of Americans don’t want and zero Americans can afford. Foreign policy? He’s already not George W. Bush; what do you people want?!

This story being reported by the New York Times seems like a start…

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan began legal action on Thursday to seize properties in Queens and across the country where several mosques are located in a broad move against a nonprofit organization that was accused of illegally providing money and other services to Iran.

I’ll take any sign that we’re being serious about our enemies as a good one at this point. There is, of course, concern about Islamophobia.

“Because information is lacking, this might well cause yet another wave of fear in the Muslim community,” said Adem Carroll, chairman of the Muslim Consultative Network, an advocacy group. “It would be sad if word in our community starts spreading that the government will shut us all down. Already some think this is a war against the religion; that is a very unhelpful perception.“

That would be sad, but what’s sadder is that any time something like this happens there always seems to be a Muslim advocacy group ready with warnings and excuses. Know what lends to the perception that there’s a religious war going on? Muslims in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Texas, Chicago, and New York plotting and carrying out the murder of infidels.

Meanwhile, back at the State Department:

She [Secretary Clinton] spoke of “consequences” — tougher international sanctions — if Iran spurned the offer. German counterpart Guido Westerwelle said the six powers’ patience was “not infinite.”

Diplomats say Western powers will reconsider sanctions if there is no breakthrough with Iran by the end of the year.

The UN is so cute! You ignore sanctions, they threaten you with new sanctions unless you’ll talk to them. You string them along for awhile, they say, “hey, you guys had better not stop stringing us along, or we’re going to enforce those old sanctions you’ve been ignoring this whole time!” Then you bat your eyelashes and the UN says, “aw, shucks, what’s another six months among mortal enemies whose spineless diplomats talk like friends?”

Sadly, I’m not real sure infinity minus one is a threatening deadline. Ah, well… two steps forward, three steps closer to being nuked. Israel, far more likely to be on the receiving end, has less infinite patience.

Wouldn’t you know it, we elected the guy despite conservative complaints about his apparent lack of interest in all things military, and his “policy” after nearly 10 months in office is still to whine about everything President Bush did wrong. From the Los Angeles Times:

President Obama and his war council today plan to review four basic strategy options for Afghanistan that could increase the number of U.S. troops there by as many as 40,000 or fewer than 10,000.

The White House insisted Tuesday that Obama has not decided how many additional troops to send or how he will deploy them, though the White House has narrowed the options to those outlined by his national security team, the Pentagon and Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. and allied commander in Afghanistan.

So now, in mid-November, President Obama is going to convene a meeting to have a discussion about making a decision based on General McCrystal’s recommendation from early October. Good news though, they’ve narrowed down the list of options to… the list of options being considered a month ago. Lest we forget…

When Obama took office, he ordered an Afghanistan review of his own. Led by former CIA official Bruce Riedel, the Obama review team looked at Afghanistan and made its recommendations. On March 27, the president announced his new Afghanistan strategy–one that included many of the recommendations of the Bush administration’s review. And that is another indignity. Not only did the Obama administration understand full well that the Bush administration had conducted a comprehensive assessment of Afghanistan, and not only had Jim Jones asked that the Bush review be withheld from the public–but Obama’s “new” strategy bore an uncanny resemblance to that prescribed by the Lute review.

The next time some hippie is bashing President Bush because he finished reading to children on the morning of 9/11, remind ‘em that President Obama took nearly a year to develop a policy for the “necessary war” that President Bush allegedly ignored. Don’t even bring up the transparency thing, because only fascists like George W. Bush should be taken to task for the sort of things Obama’s people do on a weekly basis.

Veterans, God bless you, and thanks for all you’ve done. Men and women currently in uniform, we can only pray for leadership worthy of your service…

From CNN, “Spate of terrorism arrests not connected, analysts say,”

“The profiles of the people… generally speaking is much closer to what we see among European Muslims,” he said. “They tend to be less well integrated” into mainstream society, and in many cases have faced economic difficulties and unemployment, Bergen said.

If there is a link among the suspects, Bergen said, “it’s a feeling of exclusion from the American dream.”

Emphasis mine. I’m not sure why CNN needs to ask analysts. Isn’t the root cause of terrorism always the same? If only we could wring some more money out of the Haves, the Have-Nots would stop trying to blow things up.

Consider Najibullah Zazi. He can afford gallons upon gallons of explosive reagents. He can pay for a rental car to drive across the country. He has connections in Colorado and in New York. Seems like he and his pals could get by pretty well, if they’d invest their money in something other than bombings and spend a teensy bit less of their time planning the murder of infidels.

But no. If Muslims rich and poor are killing their neighbors all around the world, it only proves that we need to work harder not to exclude people.

At this rate, maybe we’ll all be dead before the country goes bankrupt.

The Obama administration launched a criminal investigation Monday into harsh questioning of detainees during President George W. Bush’s war on terrorism, revealing CIA interrogators’ threats to kill one suspect’s children and to force another to watch his mother sexually assaulted.

So now we’re not allowed to say mean things to suspected terrorists. Another guy was pinched! Pinched so hard he passed out! We’re basically barbarians.

In one instance cited in the new documents, Abd al-Nashiri, the man accused of being behind the 2000 USS Cole bombing, was hooded, handcuffed and threatened with an unloaded gun and a power drill. The unidentified interrogator also threatened al-Nashiri’s mother and family, implying they would be sexually abused in front of him, according to the report.

The interrogator denied making a direct threat.

Another interrogator told alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, “if anything else happens in the United States, ‘We’re going to kill your children,’” one veteran officer said in the report.

Death threats violate anti-torture laws.

These are the ACLU’s poor, downtrodden examples of prisoner abuse? Couldn’t they find a few people not responsible for hundreds of American deaths? I’ve compiled a list of questions acceptable to ask of, say, hapless innocent Saudi Arabians nabbed in Afghani huts full of bomb-making materials, schematics for American bridges, and fake passports:

1. Are you planning to kill Americans?
2. If detainee responds “yes” to (1). Could you stop, maybe?
3. Please?
4. Would you like another cappuccino?

The board of experts being assembled by the White House will have to be mindful of tone when asking the third question, but I think this is a list that will totally keep America safe while respecting the inalienable rights of foreign combatants captured overseas.

Because it looks like the Iranian mullahs will continue doing as they damn well please, because the Obama administration is infuriating beyond words in its dealings with terrorists, and because I can…

It’s time foooorr: Fun With the Ayatollah! Play dress-up with everyone’s favorite totalitarian representative of a violent political system masquerading as a religion!

The ayatollah as:
Disney devotee
Francophile
Fatwa waiting to happen
Philosophizer
(Groucho) Marxist
Piratollah
Cross-town rival

Happy Independence Day!

Only crazy neocons want to foist republican principles upon the wonderful countries who know better, but that doesn’t mean foreigners nabbed overseas shouldn’t be treated as party to our Constitution.

Change we can believe in, if we really insist on being that stupid.

Little by little this administration is turning things around. We’re going to kill ourselves our enemies with kindness!

Can’t you picture it? Some raging Imam in Riyadh or Peshawar or Detroit is halfway through a rant shrieking for “Death to the Great Satan!” and the guy in the third row stands up to say, “Actually, America treats Arab fighters dressed like civilians as if they were covered by the Geneva Conventions, and even reads them Miranda rights! It’s like they think jihadists captured overseas deserve the same protections as American citizens!” The audience laughs off their former grumpiness, then they take the Rabbi across the street to the local Ben & Jerry’s to watch the weekly Obama Success Hour on ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN, or HLN.