Rescue of the Fourth Seal

Time magazine has an account of the rescue of the fourth Navy Seal in Afghanistan:

A crackle in the brush. That's the sound the Afghan herder recalls hearing as he walked alone through a pine forest last month. When he looked up, he saw an American commando, his legs and shoulder bloodied. The commando pointed his gun at the Afghan. "Maybe he thought I was a Taliban," says the shepherd, Gulab. "I remembered hearing that if an American sticks up his thumb, it is a friendly gesture. So that's what I did." To make sure the message was clear, Gulab lifted his tunic to show the American he wasn't hiding a weapon. He then propped up the wounded commando, and together the pair hobbled down the steep mountain trail to Sabari-Minah, a cluster of adobe-and-wood homes--crossing, for the time being, to safety.

The whole story can be read here.

God Doesn't Need God

When you're already God you don't need another one. Just ask rocker Liam Gallagher. On second thought maybe you better not. Just ask Bono.

Thanks to Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost for the tip.

Peace Prospects in Palestine

If only Israel would withdraw from the occupied territories we would have peace in the Middle East. That's what we're constantly told, but that's not how the major Palestinian players see things:

Hamas will not compromise on one inch of Greater Palestine, Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar told an Italian newspaper earlier this week. Speaking to the Corriere Della Sera newspaper, al-Zahar said Hamas would "definitely not" be prepared for coexistence with Israel should the IDF retreat to its 1967 borders.

"It can be a temporary solution, for a maximum of 5 to 10 years. But in the end Palestine must return to become Muslim, and in the long term Israel will disappear from the face of the earth."

Asked about Hamas's intentions to carry out terror attacks in coordination with the disengagement plan, al-Zahar said Hamas has already promised not to initiate violence, and that the group's actions would be in response to Israeli actions. "We won't disrupt the Israeli withdrawal, let them get out of here and go to hell," he said. "The problem will be afterwards, because in the hearts of every Palestinian, the liberation of Gaza must be accompanied by the liberation of Jerusalem and the West Bank."

The Israelis have three choices as far as the Palestinians are concerned. They can either leave Israel, commit suicide, or eventually fight for their lives against the Palestinians and other Arabs. The anti-semitic left in Europe and the U.S. demand they opt for choices one or two. As long as the Israelis are so inconsiderate as to decline those two alternatives there will not be peace anywhere in the Middle East, and, we will be daily reminded, it will be all the Israelis' fault.

Dar Al-Harb

MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute) has the text of an interview with a London cleric by the name of Al-Sibai. His thoughts illustrate the barbarism of modern Islam, at least as it is practiced by millions of Muslims around the world. Among other revealing nuggets Al-Sibai tells us this:

"Islamic history has no term for 'civilian' in the Western sense. This is a Western term. In our Islamic rules of war, one can be a 'combatant', a 'non-combatant', or 'protected by an agreement.' A person can be a combatant even if he does not carry a weapon. In other words, a person who came to wash and cook for the American soldiers in order to free them to fight - like the Nepalese - such a person is considered a combatant."

Elsewhere he says that, "There is no such term as 'civilians' in the modern Western sense. People are either of Dar Al-Harb or not."

That is, people are either in the House of Islam or they are in the House of War. Muslims see humanity as divided into two groups: Muslims and everyone else. All non-Muslims are infidels suitable for killing. This is conventional Muslim theology. To be sure, there are Muslims who do not fully embrace it, but they must downplay Islamic tradition in order not to.

It makes one wonder what's going to happen in Eurabia over the next decade or two as the teeming masses of unassimilated, uneducated Muslims continue to swell. It makes one wonder, too, what's going to happen in this country if the population of Muslims, seething with jealousy and resentment, continues to grow.

The Task of Radical Thought

This may help explain why a lot of people on the Left say and do the things they do:

"It is the task of radical thought, since the world is given to us unintelligibly, to make it more unintelligible, more enigmatic, more fabulous."

Jean Baudrillard, The Guardian, 3/14/2000

We always knew that leftist thought was unintelligible, but we never realized that it was purposely so.