Pundits who follow middle east news were saying even before the election that once Obama’s appeasement failed to effectively engage Iran and other thugocracies, that he would turn his attention to bullying Israel.  And so he has.  His recent – and shockingly disingenuous, even for him – interest in Jerusalem real estate is the most recent example.

Issues in which Obama apparently has no interest:

• Islamic child marriages
• Gays being executed in Iran
• Women being stoned or whipped for the crime of having been raped
• Palestinian rocket attacks against Israel
• Palestinian desecration of Jewish holy sites
• Gilad Shalit
• the non-massacre at Jenin
• Palestinian television shows for children that glamorize suicide bombing
• Pallywood propaganda that would make Leni Riefenstahl blush

I could go on, but… you get the idea.  All of those things are less important to him than the entirely legal and normal construction of some apartments in Jerusalem.

Like water, bullies follow the course of least resistance.  When the Islamic thugocracies thumbed their noses at Obama, he turned to Israel as a more attractive target.  Here’s hoping Bibi Netanyahu chooses to stand his ground, both rhetorically and literally.

Yes, that title is pretty low-hanging fruit, but I couldn’t resist after Tom Hanks said this:

Back in World War II, we viewed the Japanese as ‘yellow, slant-eyed dogs’ that believed in different gods. They were out to kill us because our way of living was different. We, in turn, wanted to annihilate them because they were different. Does that sound familiar, by any chance, to what’s going on today?

Since he’s asking, I’ll answer. No, it doesn’t sound like what’s going on today.  Nor is that a particularly fair or accurate description of what started WWII.  But as for the circumstances today,  “they” – in this case, radical Islamists – are out to kill us because our way of living is different.  We choose, aside from far too many appeasers, not to submit to Islam.  The ultimate remedy for that according to the Quran is to kill us, and a fair few of these Muslims are walking out their faith accordingly.  We, on the other hand, are not trying to annihilate them because they’re different.  We’re not even trying to annihilate them, really – the current rules of engagement disprove that theory pretty conclusively.  But we are returning fire against those who are making war against us, as one group after another has done in one fashion or another since 1979.   It’s very perplexing why the left objects to that.

Friday is “Tiger Day” at the base where my son in law is completing his training before being deployed to Iraq next week.  So I’m working to get ahead, so I can take Thursday and Friday off.  I finally opened my RSS reader to catch up a bit on what I’ve been missing, and I’m profoundly depressed.  A barbaric attack (by Muslims, natch) on a town in the Phillipines – 13 dead.  It just baffles me how people tolerate the “religion of peace” whitewashing by the press and our political leaders, even while textbooks from our erstwhile ally, Saudi Arabia, spread the hate here in the west.  Of a billion or so Muslims, of course most would not dream of conducting a terror attack.  But many do give to charities that support terror – why aren’t they conducting the same kind of due diligence I do, before I give?  And my biggest concern is some scam artist uses up on the money on “administration costs,” not that he will use it to kill people.  Their denial is very tiresome. Are all these peaceful Muslims terrified of a mere handful of radicals?  Or do they agree, but lack the nerve to act on their beliefs?

Even the “tiny percentage” the media likes to point out every time a poll shows that “only” x number of Muslims polled support terrorism still numbers in the millions.  The most recent study I’ve seen was 7% – which maths out to about 91 million terror supporters.  I’ll repost most of what I wrote last year below the fold – even reduced down to people who are willing and able to conduct a terror act, it’s still a dangerously high number.  And they all have people in their lives – family, friends, or coworkers – know who they are and fail to report them. [Read more...]

Finally, someone’s calling out the radicals, and high time, too.