Powerline

Daniel Pipes at NRO

Jihadwatch

Redstate

Sometimes, inhuman as it sounds, the numbers do matter, and you can and should put a price on a single human life, a lesson that I fear Israel is going to learn the hard way, when it pays 100-fold for retrieving a single soldier.

UPDATE:  A friend emailed and suggested that the Israeli Defense Force is having trouble filling its ranks, and so the IDF felt that getting this solider back, even at the cost of more terrorist killings of civilians, was worth it to encourage people to serve in the IDF.  I don’t know…  but thought it an interesting idea to pass along.

The White House said Wednesday there was no danger of an imminent attack on airplanes after reports that terror groups were mulling implanting bombs into the bodies of passengers.

The assurances came after news that the US administration warned airlines that extremist groups were considering surgically implanting explosives into people to try to beat tight airport security measures.

Passengers flying to the United States could now face even tougher screening measures, a spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration, Nicholas Kimball, told the Los Angeles Times.

“These measures are designed to be unpredictable, so passengers should not expect to see the same activity at every international airport,” Kimball said, adding existing methods could not detect plastic explosives under the skin.

“Measures may include interaction with passengers, in addition to the use of other screening methods such as pat-downs and the use of enhanced tools and technologies.”

I warned about this possibility here around 18 months ago.  The salient points:

In the meantime, ever more restrictive airport boarding regulations seem a certainty, and ever more intrusive searches, until we figure out that we have no choice but to identify who is more likely to have evil intent, and give them more scrutiny, because we surely don’t have the resources or the time to give the necessary scrutiny to everyone, including your grandmother in a wheelchair from Peoria, or Trenton, who may choose not to visit you next Christmas due to a distaste for body cavity searches and x-ray glasses (like the ones they used to sell in D.C. Comics, except these will work) in the hands of prurient security types.

Sooner or later, someone is going to figure out how to make high-explosive dentures and hip/knee replacements.  While Christian “fundamentalists” will be getting only fluoride treatments, young adult male Islamic fanatics will be lining up to have all their teeth pulled and get dental implants made of enamel coated plastique.   I predict an influx of wealthy foreign nationals, of Islamic extraction, into European schools of orthopedic surgery, particularly focusing on lower extremity joint replacements.  Our too-faithful recent oral surgery patients, who will not have flossed much, will enter airplanes with a slight limp.  It’s tough to recover from double knee/double hip transplants, especially when it hurts to eat.

The other passengers will feel sorry for them, briefly.

Eventually, the only people on airplanes will be strip-searched people with no scars, who just endured body cavity searches and had their stomachs pumped.  But they will be very, very safe, wearing their airline-issued flying uniforms.  When they land at their destinations, they will report to the changing room/luggage area, where they’ll get their clothing back, which was sent in a transport plane.   Cost of a ticket from L.A. to Phoenix?  About $1,000.

Coming up next:  explosive hair.

There has already been at least one other report of terrorist plans to implant bombs.

We’re moving way past having to look for bombs in your Nikes and Fruits of the Loom. 

So what can we do about this?  Will we carry the no-profiling policy to such a ludicrous extreme that random strip searches are going to be made to look for recent surgical scars, and then require CT Scans in the indicated area (and if that isn’t revealing, we can always have a team standing by for exploratory surgery, just to be sure….  brought to you by Obamacare, of course)? 

Should we just reject anyone with recent surgical scars?  That’ll be tough on the envirobabe groupies with recently acquired, uh, enhancements to the gifts of nature.  Instead of flying first class to the next climate change seminar so they can mingle with rich Goreaphiles (in search of suitable husband material among the ecopagan intelligentsia, of course), they’ll have to stay home and watch it all on Skype…  or worse yet, on Youtube.  But hey…. that’s better for the environment anyway.  And who knows what the nice Egyptian surgeon with the funny name inserted besides a little silicon…  Maybe there’s a reason something felt a bit lumpy (did he show you the photos from his relaxing summer vacation in the mountains of Pakistan?).  We’d better keep all well-endowed ladies off the planes, just in case…  unless, of course, some self-sacrificing TSA official wants to check them all, one at a time.

I think I have an idea.  We can’t profile for ethnicity/nationality/religious background, so says the great Ozbama from behind the curtain (he’s just clandestinely checking up on those TSA officers, his version of Undercover Boss).  But here’s what we can do, and indeed there is a tie-in with Obamacare’s plan to computerize all medical records for “efficiency.”  Let’s just have everyone fill out a questionaire at the airport on all recent medical procedures.  Let’s get a new generation of scanners going that can detect surgical scars.  And let’s have computer software that compares the results of the questionaire, the scan, and the complete medical/surgical record that will be online for everyone (obviously, this will give the Obama administration the pretext it needs to extend Obamacare into the entire middle east, parts of Africa, Indonesia, and other Islamic regions.  Hope and change.).  If there is a scar or a mention of a procedure that isn’t on the “universal medical record” for each individual, we yank the offender out of the queue for “special processing.”  Allah alone knows what that might entail.  I think I don’t want to know.

I was intrigued by this line from the news report above: 

“Measures may include interaction with passengers, in addition to the use of other screening methods such as pat-downs and the use of enhanced tools and technologies.”

“Interaction with passengers,” eh?  How will a “pat down” locate a surgically implanted bomb?   I’m guessing the terrorists have already done dry runs by inserting passengers with recent surgical work (maybe even something benign implanted internally), just to see how well it works.

“Enhanced tools and technologies”?  Hmm….  maybe TSA has developed the tricorder.

Staying home is looking better and better.  With Skype, Youtube, Netflix and satellite TV, what else do you need?  International travel is over-rated, anyway.  You can only tolerate being referred to as the “ugly American” so many times, and everyone knows the world hates America….  that’s why they all want to come here.

The Flawed Theology of N. T. Wright « Commentary Magazine

One of the world’s leading New Testament scholars, N. T. Wright is a man from whom a great deal can be learned about church history and Christian theology. When he ventures from his specialty into areas he does not know very well—international affairs, for example—Bishop Wright is unfortunately prone to silly statements motivated by a brittle political ideology.

In the aftermath of the killing of Osama bin Laden, Wright criticized the United States for practicing a “form of vigilantism” and providing “ ‘justice’ only of the crudest sort.” America acts as the world’s “undercover policeman,” according to Wright, and he doesn’t much like it. And then he added this:

And what has any of this to do with something most Americans also believe, that the God of ultimate justice and truth was fully and finally revealed in the crucified Jesus of Nazareth, who taught people to love their enemies, and warned that those who take the sword will perish by the sword?

Wright is falling into a common error, which is to assume the Sermon on the Mount was intended to articulate a political philosophy and blueprint for how the state must conduct itself. In plain fact, the moral duties placed on persons are, in important respects, different from those placed on the state. Indeed, within Judaism and Christianity the state has invested in it powers and responsibilities that are different from, and sometimes denied to, persons.

In Romans 13, for example, St. Paul—to whom Wright has devoted several books—makes it clear that human government is divinely sanctioned by God to preserve public order. If the standards of the person are simplistically applied to the practices of the state, it would follow that, because persons are called to “turn the other cheek,” the state must do the same—thereby making the criminal-justice system unworkable and invasions by foreign powers inevitable.

Collapsing the distinction between person and state represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of government, which has granted to it powers of life, death, and coercion denied to individual persons. And these powers can be used to defend innocent lives and establish social order. They can also create the conditions that allow the church to exist, Christians to minister, and good works to be done. For this reason, the callings of soldier, policeman, and president are not merely permissible for Christians, but honorable.

By the logic of Wright’s argument—Jesus told us to love our enemies and those who take up the sword will perish by the sword—we should never retaliate under any circumstances: not against bin Laden, Mugabe, Pol Pot, Saddam, Hirohito, Hitler, or anyone. Proportionate and discriminate force would never be justified. What kind of moral world does Bishop Wright conclude would emerge from his political theology? And would he, who attended Oxford and now teaches at St. Andrews, be willing to live (or to ask his children and grandchildren live) in it?

The Christian response to tyranny is not nearly so simple-minded. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor and theologian during the time of Hitler’s rise to power. His American friends helped him escape in 1939, but he believed that he had to return to Germany to stand in solidarity with persecuted Christians there. “I shall have no right . . . to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people,” Bonhoeffer wrote to his friend Reinhold Niebuhr.

Once an avowed pacifist, Bonhoeffer joined an organization that was at the heart of the anti-Hitler resistance, became an advocate for the assassination of the Nazi dictator, and was eventually executed for his role in the plot. The camp doctor who witnessed the execution wrote:

I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer . . . kneeling on the floor praying fervently to his God. I was most deeply moved by the way this unusually lovable man prayed, so devout and so certain that God heard his prayer. At the place of the execution, he again said a short prayer and then climbed the steps to the gallows, brace and composed. His death ensued after a few seconds. In the almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.

Bonhoeffer’s decision reflected “the finest logic of Christian martyrdom,” Niebuhr declared, and belongs “to the modern Acts of the Apostles.”

Quite apart from his obvious valor, Bonhoeffer displayed tremendous integrity, sophistication, and deep understanding when it came to Christian ethics. It would be beneficial for N. T. Wright to reflect upon, and to learn from, Bonhoeffer’s example.

It’s probably dangerous for we mere mortals to criticize the likes of Rev. Wright, with his amazing contributions to New Testament scholarship and the like.  But that very erudtion is what prompts me to wonder how such a brilliant person can fail to see the distinction between personal ethics (and a person acting only AS an individual person) and governing necessities.  If all the Muslims in Britain decide to organize and burn down every church in the Isles, not to mention every Christian seminary and institution, at what point will Rev. Wright’s disdain for violence in response to violence give way to recognizing the responsibility of governments to protect their citizens?

On another occasion I plan to discuss what seems to be included in the “turn the other cheek” metaphor, and what does not.  But it surely is not intended as a charge to renounce all violence, when that’s what is necessary to protect the innocent.

And so shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al Qaeda, even as we continued our broader efforts to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat his network.

A Palestinian national has been arrested in South Florida after he was accused to attempting to purchase hundreds of stolen weapons.

On Sept. 1, President Barack Obama met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in order to discuss peace in the Middle East, mainly in the West Bank, where the terrorist group Hamas recently killed two Israeli civilians.

Less than a week later, Abdalaziz Aziz Hamayel, a Palestinian national with deep ties to the West Bank, was arrested and accused of trying to buy a large amount of weapons. According to a criminal complaint against Hamayel, the suspect attempted to purchase 300 weapons, which he knew were stolen, and the weapons were headed to “his people.”

The criminal complaint said, “Hamayel contacted the confidential source to discuss the weapons and explosives he was requesting for purchase…Hamayel specifically requested a quantity of 300 M-16 rifles, 9mm handguns, UZI sub-machine guns, silencers and grenades.”

Hamayel was also interested in buying remote detonation devices, like a cell phone detonator.

The criminal complaint also said Hamayel has a family friend from his village in the West Bank who lives in Miami. Hamayel’s associate informed an undercover investigator that he believed the person who was going to purchase the weapons for Hamayel lives in Coral Gables.

Investigators had been on the case for over a year. On Aug. 29, federal agents busted Hamayel in the US when he boarded a flight that had originated in Amman, Jordan, made its way through Chicago and landed in Miami.

Hamayel was taken into custody when he arrived at Miami International Airport. Hamayel was never able to purchase the weapons.

Authorities are still continuing their investigation.

But don’t worry. Obama has our borders under control.

America is defined by the last phrase of its national anthem: The land of the free and the home of the brave. Freedom, in all its forms, is its greatest legacy, which the nation has bravely fought many wars on many fronts to preserve against the unceasing assaults of totalitarianism of all stripes. Time and again, the heroes of the nation bravely sacrificed their lives to protect freedom and liberty.

Currently, America is faced with the insidious, multifaceted, and most deadly threat of Islamism. Since Islam has been around for centuries, there is a tendency to ignore or even deny the threat it poses to humanity. Various concessions are made, some of them as good faith offerings and some in the hope of placating the Islamists. Yet, concessions to threats are appeasements. And appeasements have never solved any problems. They only whet the appetite of the aggressor, give it more power, and make it even more dangerous.

Very unfortunately, in today’s world, Islamists [including political Islam] are set as Islam’s locomotive that takes the Islamic train on its demolition course. Instead of promoting peace, many of the so-called leaders of the ‘Muslim Ummah’ are engaged in fuelling Jihad and killing innocent people in the name of religion. And sadly, such elements are gradually growing influence everywhere in the world as well brainwashing some of the naïve global leaders like Barack Hussain Obama, who continues to appease Islamists without sensing the degree of threat it poses to his very own country.

Islam and democracy are incompatible. As democracies practice their magnificent accommodating belief, they knowingly or unknowingly lay the track for the advancing train wrecking that is Islam. Radical Islamism threatens to set a new record for brutality, contrary to the contention that there is no reason to worry about it. Jihadist Wahabism’s tentacles are reaching out from its cradle in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf Arab Emirates. The Petrodollar flush Sunni-Shia zealots are liberally financing mosques, Madrassas [Islamic indoctrination schools], Islamic centers at universities, front organizations and lobbyists to promote the Wahhabi or Shiite virulent Islamism in every part of America. That makes America the Vulnerable.

Activities of Tablighi Jamaat is gradually increasing in United States, and according to recent statistics disclosed during last year’s largest Tablighi congregations in Bangladesh, more than four hundred Tablighi groups are actively working in various so-called community mosques or in disguise mostly targeting young Americans with the goal of converting them initially to Islam and later giving them Jihadist provocations.

So begins a rather lengthy and detailed article on the various ways that radical Islamists are pursuing their agendas in the USA.

Ask yourself this simple question: is the mosque at Ground Zero being paid for with money from America’s Muslims?

Not likely.

Do you think “moderate Muslims” are paying for it?  (Here is one who probably is not.)  Is it being paid for with money from the same people and nations who fund worldwide radical Islamism?

What do you think?  And do you think they would spend their money if they didn’t expect it to produce a result in the USA?  What do you think is the result they intend?

Entertaining.  And educational.

Operation Defensive Shield in 2003, the Hezbollah war, and the Hamas war should have been moments in which liberal Zionists stepped forward to say: Israel took the risks for peace that we demanded. Israel committed itself to a diplomatic process, offered a Palestinian state, and withdrew from Lebanon and Gaza. The terrorists who attack Israel will find no defenders among us. Instead, talk of war crimes filled the airwaves, investigations were demanded, arrest warrants for Israeli officials issued, and now Peter Beinart says that he must question Zionism because civilians were killed in Gaza. Carried away by his own moral indignation, he never asks two fundamental questions: who started the war, and why was it fought from civilian areas?. . . .

Because the history of the peace process repudiates so many of liberalism’s most cherished premises, liberalism is increasingly repudiating Israel, and doing so in a perfectly logical fashion: with people like Beinart now saying that Israel is not in fact an admirable country and that it deserves to be thrown out of the company of liberal nations. In this way, the failure of the liberal vision is transformed from being a verdict on liberalism to being a verdict on Israel. . . .

The distilled pleading of Beinart is merely a series of demands that Israelis refuse to learn from experience: how dare they allow any hostility to Arabs creep into their politics; how dare they vote for Avigdor Lieberman, a populist who plays to the less-than-perfectly liberal Russian immigrants; how dare they lose faith in the peace process and the liberal hopefulness that animated it. Most important: how dare they upset the comfortable ideological existence of American Jews, whose acceptability to their liberal peers depends in no small degree on their willingness to join in pillorying Israel over the failure of the peace process — a failure, alas, that is not Israel’s but liberalism’s.

This is just a sample. Click the link at the top and read the whole thing. Highly recommended.