Fools rush in where angels fear to tread

Well, it is now official. The British electorate has thrown one fool out of public office, Gordon Brown, only to replace him with another, David Cameron.

This morning Cameron is quoted as saying that he will fight to get Turkey admitted to the EU. He conflates the EU with NATO, saying that it is not right to call upon Turkey to help defend the members of that treaty organization while keeping it out of the EU.

Does he believe NATO is a European construct? To the contrary, it was an American initiative that was shunned by the anti-American French President, Charles de Gaulle, who ordered the Americans to vacate their French airbases.

NATO membership is a non-sequitur to consideration for membership in the EU. NATO membership implies only military responsibilities and rights. EU membership permits free travel and easy immigration throughout the member countries, a not insignificant benefit to Turkey when one looks at its demographics (huge numbers of young people) and its distribution of the economic pie (low GDP per person compared to European countries).

He thinks that Turkey will be a moderating influence in bringing peace to the Middle East, but the price that must be paid for Turkey doing the right thing is to make it a member of the EU. Otherwise it will do the wrong thing and embrace the dark side, meaning -- Islam?

Hello?

You want to make it a member of the EU because it is Islamic, but you are afraid if you reject it then it will be, uh, Islamic, and therefore not a useful influence in making the Middle East peaceful.

The lights are on but nobody is at home.

What is most infuriating with this silly man is his elitist lecturing about the “real Islam” to the British public (including his own party) and other members of the EU, like France, which has now woken from its long self-induced Islamic hypnosis, and Germany.

This is what the Mail On-Line quotes him as saying during his trip to Turkey commenting on those who oppose Turkey’s entrance because it is an Islamic nation:

‘They see no difference between real Islam and the distorted version of the extremists.
‘They think the values of Islam can never be compatible with the values of other religions, societies or cultures.
‘All these arguments are just plain wrong. I want us to be at the forefront of an international effort to defeat them.’

And he criticized those who see the world as a ‘clash of civilizations’ in which Turkey must choose sides.

Europe has been fed a restricted diet of this crap for 40 years by the David Camerons of this world, and will, in 40 years, cease to exist as Europe because of it.

Was this man sleeping during the recent dust-up over the Turkish flotilla trying to crash the Israeli arms blockade that had the approval of the Turkish government, and resulted in threats by Turkey to Israel? How does that demonstrate Turkey’s neutrality and usefulness in bringing peace to the Middle East?

The man he is seen shaking hands with in the picture above is Turkey’s Prime Minister Ergodan who is on the public record as making the following statement:

"The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers..."

Yep. That would be the “real Islam” Cameron wants to bring to the U.K. and the EU.

Time for another British election before it is too late.

UPDATE: When I wrote this post I debated with myself whether to call the British Prime Minister an idiot or a moron, but I thought these were too harsh, so I opted for the more neutral "fool". Such restraint however does not enter into Melanie Phillips incisive deconstruction of Cameron's Ankara speech. See this.

Bat Ye'or and the Arab-Euro Axis

It may seem strange, given some of the posts I have published, that I am only now getting around to reading Bat Ye'or's seminal work, Eurabia,the Euro-Arab Axis. It comes about because I had an occasion recently in Toronto to hear her speak, along with Sam Solomon (a former Muslim)about the issue of Israel. This was within a week of the incident of the Israeli military forces confronting Islamists on the Gaza flotilla.

She shocked me at this event by declaring that this was the first time she was ever invited to speak at a synagogue.

I am not a Jew, but I say shame on you Jews.

If you are to be protected by anyone and preserved as a people it is because of warriors like Bat Ye'or.

Anyway, I have not yet been able to work my way through her book, which details the pact made between the Arab states and their Muslim sympathizers to write the foreign policy of Western Europe regarding Israel through the threat to oil imports.

Speaking as a Canadian, in full light of the nonsense propagated by Barack Hussein Obama, I would put an end to NAFTA and keep our tar sands oil strictly for ourselves, and tell the Muslim world and the Americans to go to hell.

Despite the fact I am not yet finished the book, I found these paragraphs quite telling. They appear on page 87 of the paperback edition. To this point she has shown the close Arab/European dialogue, promoted mainly be France, under De Gaulle, to counter American influence. By 1980 she asserts:

Srong ties were forged between the OIC, the Arab and European states, as well as between various factions of the Left, the Vatican and the World Council of Churches. They led, under Arab threats, to Israel's demonization at all levels of European society as well as in international bodies. In fact, this Euro-Arab collusion appears mainly in Arab texts; in European sources, it is carefully disguised as a humanitarian concern for "the suffering of Palestinians abandoned by the world." Anglican Canon Kenneth Craig described this identification with the Palestinians as "to be on behalf of the people in voicing despair, so that evil is not silenced,dismissed disregarded - which is the way of untruth - but held, pilloried, taken for the evil it is." Israel's metaphysical identification with evil had to be constantly exposed by shedding light on the sufferings of those who worked for its destruction (emphasis mine).

The creation and dissemination of the image of the victimized and abandoned Palestinian was therefore of pivotal importance. The coalition of churches, mosques, of European and Islamic states, was cemented in a joint attack against four million Jews living on less than half of their historical land -- survivors of the tyranny of both (emphasis mine).

Pissed off Pelosi punches up pedantic President

Sources close to Congressional House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, have confirmed a rumour that President Barack Obama recently received executive “emotive training” in Hawaii from one of America’s top professionals in the field, Edward Cunningham, of the First and Best Chance management communications consulting firm, headquartered in Houston, Texas. Cunningham was dispatched by the Democratic Party on an emergency basis to assist Obama to overcome his devotion to the “cool image” form of Presidential persona.

Pelosi, who is also vacationing in Hawaii, was reported to be incensed at Obama’s detachment from the terrifying incident on Christmas Day when a Muslim terrorist nearly blew up a Northwest Airlines airplane with nearly 300 hundred passengers on board. Obama left it to his Homeland Security head, Janet Napolitano, to walk point and handle the public relations, while he continued to golf and play tennis.

After public blowback to Napolitano’s assurances that “the system worked” and still no word from Obama, Pelosi blew up and reportedly said,

“Doesn’t that self-absorbed pedantic prick understand or care how many Democratic seats will be contested in 2010? Doesn’t he understand that the American voters want to know that he cares about these things?"

It was Pelosi who authorized dispatching Cunningham to Hawaii.

Cunningham specializes in coaching senior corporate management to appear concerned and empathetic during contract negotiations with their unions. His clientele is a who’s who of American blue chip corporations. He was recently most active in the auto makers’ contracts, being credited with gaining wage and benefit roll-backs that would unlikely be achieved without his Sincerity™ training package.

One senior negotiator with GM, who declined to be identified for this story, credited Cunningham with at least 50% of the gains by management that led to the company coming out of bankruptcy earlier than expected.

“Until I grasped the concept of always looking sincere, whether I mean it or not, I doubt I could have had the traction I had at the negotiating table. Cunningham even taught me how to ‘tear up” on cue when listening to a union patented sad story. It worked like a charm,” said the negotiator. “I think Obama will get a lot out of this training.”

Obama has recently been portrayed in the media as "sounding angry” about America’s security lapse.

Dr. Phil, the Islamists' answer to Lenin's "useful idiot"

If you want to know why we are losing the struggle with radical Islam you don’t have to go very much further than this little piece of national television fare.

It is a segment from CNN’s Larry King Live Show featuring an interview a few days after the Fort Hood event with Dr.Phil, a woman in the Veteran’s Affairs Administration, and a JAG lawyer.

Philip McGraw gets the head start, which means he gets to frame the discussion that follows. For him, this is a mental/emotional issue, full stop.

You can’t blame him for that, it is his field, it is the prism through which he views the world, and it is the thing he is most comfortable talking about.

I would venture to say he knows diddly-squat about Islam, from at least one comment he made.

Next up are two other split screen guests, Shoshana Johnson, who served in Iraq and was, for a brief period, a POW, and Tom Kenif (not sure of the spelling) a JAG officer and criminal lawyer who also served in Iraq.

Kenif disputes the mental explanation, believing the truth may lie in Islamic extremism. However, both McGraw and Johnson jump down his throat, accusing him of saying dangerous things that are simply untrue and ridiculous. It is also pretty clear from King’s interjections that he finds Kenif’s explanation suspect.

At various times, Dr. Phil says things like, “You can’t make sense out of nonsense” and “Well (mentally healthy) people don’t pick up a gun and kill their friends.”

Unfortunately for Kenif, in the ensuing argument he falls into Dr. Phil’s trap, agreeing that a person who murders people for religious reasons is mentally ill. At that point he loses the argument.

Wrong, Dr. Phil. That is music to the Islamists’ ears.

Go on spouting about mental illness and believing that the military should focus on stress and not religion. This was a one-off, an isolated incident, completely explained away by westernized notions of mental illness. It has nothing to do with Islam. Move along now, nothing to see here.

The Islamic Project will give you a big medal for that one.

There is no reason to think whatsoever that an Islamic radical who kills the perceived enemies of Allah, with the full knowledge that if he dies in that battle he will be guaranteed eternal life in Paradise -- the only guaranteed path in the Koran -- is mentally ill. There is nothing nonsensical about this if the religion makes sense.

The only way that could be true is if you were to say that all people who believe religious doctrine must be mentally ill. No American is going to say that, certainly not Dr. Phil.

You could possibly refine that last statement and say that only people who believe the religious dogma of Islam are mentally ill because of the violence it spawns. Again, no American in the mainstream media and establishment is going to say that.

If Major Hasan was acting out of purely religious motivation then the soldiers he killed or tried to kill were not his friends, Dr. Phil. They were his enemies. There is nothing irrational about that. Soldiers are supposed to kill their enemies.

And if you knew anything at all about Islam, Mr. McGraw, you would know that Muslims are not permitted to make friends with non-believers.

Mr. Kenif had the right idea even if he couldn’t follow it up properly on the King show.

The safest way to proceed after Fort Hood is to assume an Islamic influence and act accordingly, and revise your judgment only if subsequent evidence emerges that mental factors unrelated to religion are prevalent. This would be called an application of the precautionary principle, or, as we used to say, doing something simply out of an abundance of caution.

Unfortunately, the Dr. Phils in America control the high ground and more Fort Hood disasters can be expected in the future.

On a related note, here is a Washington Post story of the first post-Fort Hood interview with Hasan’s jihadist mentor.