Fortress Australia Outpost: September 2007

Time to get real

On the march again!

Disney 1943 democracy on the march

Political Interests Tracked

Google tracks our political interests
By Mark Schliebs
September 28, 2007 07:55am

A VARIATION of TV's famous election 'Worm' could be used to determine which party Australian voters were more interested in, following the release of Google Trends locally.

Metering the internet search terms used by Australians, Google’s new tool can compare voters searching habits.

“Liberal” is currently more searched for than “Labor”, except in the ACT. According to the tool, Australians were also more interested in finding information on health care and the economy than they were in learning about climate change and interest rates. While the number of Australians using the search engine to find information on many key election issues has fluctuated throughout 2007, health care was the most consistently searched for term.

But people in the Northern Territory, the ACT and Tasmania are searching more for climate change than any other election issue. According to the data generated by Google Trends, Australians are currently Googling “economy” more than health care, despite the two issues jostling for position as most popular domestic issues to search for.

Interest rates sporadically rise to the hottest searched for subject, peaking in the middle of speculation that the Reserve Bank may raise them. NSW has been the only state where industrial relations was the most searched for issue on Google.

In Western Australia, the most commonly searched for election issue was the economy. Google Australia’s Head of Engineering Alan Noble recently said the internet was an increasingly powerful tool for politicians and voters alike.

“(Our election tools) enable Australian voters to research detailed political information and share their views whenever they want,” Mr Noble said.

According to the company’s website, Google Trends is updated daily, even though it’s still in its early stages of development.

http://www.news.com.au/

Religious Apartheid Tyranny

The foreign minister of the religious apartheid tyranny of Saudi Arabia, Prince Saud al-Faisal, says Israel should

commit suicide as a goodwill gesture to Arabs.

Learning from the past

Diagram from "Armor of Imperial Rome" by H.R. Robinson
Illustration by Peter Connolly

www.legionxxiv.org/corbridgbenlrg/

A voice from Imperial Rome.

“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.

For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear".

Marcus Tullius Cicero. 45 BC.

Afghan Action

The Australian army hunting Taliban

Cat looses it...

Pinky the Cat

h/t: http://newportcity.blogspot.com/

National Security

Terrorism greater threat than climate: Howard
Article from: AAP
September 28, 2007 10:25am

PRIME Minister John Howard says terrorism is a far more immediate threat to national security than climate change.

In a speech to a criminology conference on Monday, Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty said climate change was the greatest national security risk because of the threat of water and food shortages and an influx of refugees.

Mr Howard today rejected the claims and said terrorism and Islamic extremism were greater national security risks.

"Terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism are far more immediate threats to Australia than the mass movement of people from China as a result of water shortage,'' Mr Howard told Southern Cross Broadcasting.

However, Mr Howard said climate change also was an important national security issue. "

Terrorism is a far more immediate threat but unless countries like China solve their climate change and water problems there could be significant movements of populations.''

"But I don't think it's a question of an either, or.

They are both big challenges and they are both things that we should worry about.''

Afghan Police Outpost

Australian and American soldiers battle Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

Video

Diggers in marathon Taliban battle
September 27, 2007

AUSTRALIAN soldiers in Afghanistan have seen their heaviest fighting yet, holding off an attack from about 50 Taliban extremists.

The four-hour firefight happened about eight kilometres north of Tarin Kowt in the Oruzgan province some time in the past week, defence said. From the cover of an orchard, the Taliban fighters fired rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons at Australian soldiers helping to construct an Afghan police outpost.

Defence said the Taliban suffered heavy casualties in the attack, but would not release details.

No Australian soldiers were wounded, nor were there any civilian casualties, and there was no damage to Australian vehicles, officials said. Intense fighting went on for about four hours, with the Australians helped by Dutch F16 fighter aircraft and Apache helicopters.

“We were engaged with some very accurate fire from a range of about 300 metres and there were a lot of bullets coming our way,” Lieutenant Glenn Neilson said in a statement.

“Making use of all the weapons we had at our disposal, including the Australian Light Armoured Vehicle and Bushmaster Infantry Mobility Vehicle, we held our ground.”

Local Afghan troops, who had been trained by the Australians, helped fight off the Taliban soldiers, who established strong firing positions and were reinforced with more men as the attack progressed, defence said.

The Taliban attack was the latest in a series of recent assaults in both Oruzgan Province and the neighbouring Helmand Province, in which defence said the insurgents had been defeated each time.

Commanding officer Lieutenant Colonel Harry Jarvic said the soldiers' success was due to their skill and determination.

“Over the last few months Australians have been regularly tested by Taliban extremists.

In every case they have performed magnificently,” he said.

Footage of the firefight has been released on the defence force website.- AAP

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au

Tough Questions

"Help me, Doc, I'm suffering from Islamophobia!"

"Read these two books by Karen Armstrong, and call me in the morning!" The coinage of the term "Islamophobia" is an exercise in blaming the victim. If Muslims want to end "Islamophobia" instantaneously, here's how: 1. Focus your indignation on Muslims committing violent acts in the name of Islam, not on non-Muslims reporting...

JW

HA HA Gun Wins

Indiana Jones : Sword vs. Gun

PC History

THE HISTORY OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
22min but well worth it...

Free Congress Foundation

Cartoon History

Reason and Emotion
Disney World War 2 Propaganda film

Banned Cartoons

Good Score!

“No Substitute for Victory”

Read the article
by Dr John Lewis

> & < Jihad

Steve Emerson: Jihad is jihad

Yes, yes, he knows all about the "greater jihad" and the "lesser jihad" -- read the whole interview, "One on One with Steven Emerson: 'Jihad is jihad," by Ruthie Blum in the Jerusalem Post

Full article: <http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/018232.php>

The Threat to Western Gays

Yes, this means YOU!

WAKE UP!

SUPPORT THE TROOPS!

Counterjihad Websites - Australia

The Counterjihad Calendar: November

click to enlarge

From : http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/

The month of November in the Counterjihad Calendar is represented by Australia.Australia has shown stalwart resistance to Islamization. Yes, it has its dhimmis, its PC brigades ready to crack down on “racism” at the drop of a burnoose, but its national character seems to have pushed all the Multicultural nonsense to the sidelines.

In this characteristic Oz is rivaled only by Denmark among the countries of the West. Shall we call the Aussies the Danes of the Antipodes?

I’ve chosen the Sydney Opera House as the iconic monument for Australia (click for a larger image):

Many thanks to Darrin Hodges, who sent me most of the links, and for all the other Aussies who contributed.

Here’s the list of Australian Counterjihad websites for the calendar:

http://abandonskip.blogspot.com/

http://auspundits.typepad.com/

http://aussie_news_views.typepad.com/

http://beforeithappens.wordpress.com/

http://colonelrobertneville.blogspot.com/

http://crusader-rabbit.blogspot.com/

http://www.democracyfrontline.org/

http://democracyfrontline.org/

http://didgeman.wordpress.com/

http://eloivsdiablo.blogspot.com/

http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/

http://fortressaustralia.blogspot.com/

http://www.ideologyaus.com/

http://www.islammonitor.org/

http://www.israellycool.com/

http://laras420.blogspot.com/

http://www.mandateministries.info/

http://milkbarjihad.blogspot.com/

http://www.pommygranate.blogspot.com/

http://rightwingdeathbogan.blogspot.com/

http://rwdb.blogspot.com/

http://sheikyermami.com/

http://silentrunning.tv/

http://squalidshoebox.blogspot.com/

http://www.taoofdefiance.com/

http://www.themidnightsun.org/

http://timblair.net/

http://voiceoftheshire.blogspot.com/

http://www.whackingday.com/

http://worldwar111.blogspot.com/

Last But Not Least the Heavy Weights of Australian Sites!!!

A Western Heart

Dissecting Leftism

Read further...

Kind thanks to all for the listing. Great Idea!

F-35 Lightning 2 Video

F35 Lightning II Flight Testing

h/t: http://www.strategypage.com/

Australian SAS Elite

Our SAS elite

Mark Dodd September 22, 2007

WHAT makes the Special Air Service elite may not be what you expect, reports Mark Dodd.

While the memory of his Vietnam homecoming is unlikely to fade, this week -- the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Australian SAS -- the commander of the Australian Defence Force's Special Operations Command, Major General Mike Hindmarsh, pays Barnby and his fellow Vietnam SAS veterans the ultimate tribute: they were the best in the world.

"The SAS Regiment, in an incredibly difficult operating environment in Indochina, quickly stamped itself as probably the finest exponents of clandestine reconnaissance and harassment in the world at that time and perhaps since," Hindmarsh tells Inquirer.

"It's record of losing only one soldier to enemy fire in six years of highly effective counter-insurgency operations endures today as a phenomenal record and testament to the skills and professionalism of the soldiers and officers. I remain in awe of their achievements."

The origins of the Australian SAS date from 1957, with the raising of two army companies whose role remains virtually unchanged to this day, a parachute-capable force specialising in reconnaissance, surveillance and harassment deep in enemy territory.

The unit's humble beginnings derived from a need to replicate the British army's success with a special air service formed in 1941, during World War II, an all-volunteer outfit conducting deep penetration raids behind enemy lines in North Africa and whose the motto was: Who Dares Wins.

Indeed, the first SAS instructors in Australia were mostly hardened veterans of World War II and the Korean War, many of whom had served with British airborne and special forces units.

"It is a tribute to the original guys with whom we stand in awe that they set the standards, trained very, very hard and developed our capability," says regiment historian Greg Mawkes, who joined the SAS as an 18-year-old private after passing selection in 1966 and retired as a major in 1987. He continues to serve in the special forces reserve.

"What we are today, we can trace back to those early warriors."

It was not until 1964 that the Australian SAS, sometimes referred to as the SASR, evolved into a fully fledged regiment and the famed sandy beret with winged dagger was introduced.

Post-Vietnam, the regiment fell into relative obscurity and only began to regain a public profile in the 1980s with the introduction of a counter-terrorism role, spurred in part by the 1978 Hilton Hotel bombing in Sydney and the spate of Middle East-linked plane hijackings.

But the lessons learned at such cost in Vietnam and before that in Borneo endure today. Selection standards for the regiment, the Australian Defence Force's most elite fighting formation, remain the most demanding of any army entry. It is not unheard of for an entire draft of potential recruits to fail.

While entry demands require a superb level of physical fitness, mental toughness is tested equally. "The characteristics of the SAS soldier remain unchanged: emotional and physical resilience, mental toughness," Hindmarsh says. "An Olympic athlete may not necessarily have the mental toughness or be able to handle the emotional pain."

Sheer physical size and fitness by themselves are no guarantee of success at selection. More often than not, it is the scrawny guy and not the hulking rugby forward type who passes.

One example of a mental toughness test provided to Inquirer by regiment officers is the offer of a truck ride at the end of several forced marches, including night navigation trials.

An exhausted recruit will gratefully struggle on to the back of a truck, only to be ordered to walk back to the original destination, which could be 20km to 30km away.

This is a test of mental pain. Some recruits throw it in and refuse to go on. Others spit in their hands, accept the order and begin what they think is going to be another gruelling march, only to find the truck parked around the corner with the real offer of a lift back to base.

"We are testing personal integrity," says an officer with the Special Operations Command (SOCOM). The facts speak for themselves, although the nicknames of individual course tests convey little of the physical and mental pain they contain, names such as "lucky dip", "happy wanderer" and "lone warrior".

The SAS is reluctant to speak about specific numbers but confirms that of the "several thousand" aspirants for the sandy beret since 1968, about 25 per cent passed the three-week selection, now conducted at Bindoon in Western Australia. "You may get 100 guys turn up. You cannot pick who will get through. It is not (typically) the big strapping guy and can be the little weedy guy. It's a real lottery," says the SOCOM official.

The size of the SAS is classified but comprises hundreds, not thousands, formed into three Sabre squadrons similar in size to a regular infantry company of about 120 troops.
Since its inception, 4250 sandy berets have been awarded.

"The recruitment and management of high-quality personnel is imperative to SASR's continued success. SASR strives for quality, not quantity, and they will never drop their standards," Hindmarsh says.

Since September 11, 2001, the focus of the regiment has turned more towards a counter-insurgency role and demands for its unique services have never been higher since Vietnam, he says.

"The interesting thing is in 2003 we were still the Davids taking on the Goliaths when we went into the western desert against Iraqi main force units. Now our main focus is against insurgents. And because of 9/11 you have seen that happen, we're more in counter-insurgency mode now."

But SAS operators, as they like to be called, have also been active closer to home. Only last year they were deployed ahead of the main Australian-led force ordered into East Timor to restore order and put an end to weeks of bloody street violence.

And they were put on notice again for a possible intervention in Fiji following last year's military coup.

"So we have to be able as we can to maintain our capability and we have to be very careful to ensure we are not over-committed in Afghanistan and the Middle East to ensure we can fulfil all our roles that can pop up regionally," Hindmarsh says.

This week the SAS celebrated the 50th anniversary of its founding with an awards and medal ceremony led by Governor-General Michael Jeffery, a former regiment commander.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/

Australia/NATO Pact

Canberra to sign security pact with NATO

David Nason, New York correspondent September 22, 2007

AUSTRALIA will sign a treaty with NATO in a move that will boost security and intelligence ties and assist the evolution of the 60-year-old Cold War alliance of democracies into a global force.
The treaty is due to be signed in New York next week by Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.

Australia is officially a NATO "contact country", but the expression does not cover the depth of the relationship, which has strengthened considerably since Diggers deployed in Afghanistan began operating under NATO command two years ago.

A spokesman for Mr Downer said yesterday the treaty would give Australia access to NATO security assessments, including those on international terrorism, and to operational matters affecting Australian Defence Force personnel.

He said the document would go before parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Treaties for final ratification.

The treaty breakthrough comes a week after Defence Minister Brendan Nelson criticised the NATO countries for failing to carry their share of the military burden in Afghanistan. Dr Nelson said NATO's deployment of 40,000 troops in Afghanistan was unacceptable, given that it had more than two million troops under its command.

In New York, UN ambassador Robert Hill, a former defence minister in the Howard Government, said closer ties with NATO were clearly in Australia's best interests.

"As NATO has looked to operations outside its original geographic area of responsibility -- particularly as it has sought to play a part in addressing global challenges such as the terrorist threat -- we have a vested interest in getting closer to NATO," Mr Hill said.

"We have shared values -- they obviously have an established and ongoing military capability, and for the first time we have gone into an operation under NATO leadership.

"In conjunction with that, we have sought to build the mechanisms to enable adequate sharing of intelligence and interactive ability in operations."

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation was created in post-war Western Europe to guard against the threat of Soviet expansion. But since the collapse of communism, NATO has extended its geographic reach and the range of its operations.

In recent years, NATO has fought the Taliban in Afghanistan, been involved in training security forces in Iraq, providing logistical support to the African Union mission in Darfur, and assisting in tsunami, hurricane and earthquake relief operations in Indonesia, New Orleans and Pakistan respectively.

Mr Downer said last October Australia would develop interoperability with NATO forces. This was to include the sharing of classified information and training in how to respond to a "dirty bomb" attack.

But Mr Downer rejected the idea that Australia should become a full member of NATO, saying that geography and Australia's significant regional commitments meant it could be difficult to service a formal membership arrangement with the military alliance. That position had not changed, the minister's spokesman said.

Mr Hill said yesterday it was uncertain how the Australian-NATO relationship would evolve in the future.

"There hasn't been a suggestion from either side that Australia should join as a full member," he said.

"But both sides see an interest in Australia working more closely with NATO and participating in certain operations with NATO, as we are in Afghanistan."

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au

#654

h/t: Texican Tattler

http://www.passtheammo.com

The Cowboy Code

http://www.americantruckersatwar.com/

Taze Rage

Can't Tase This

Civilized Act

Carrying a gun is a civilized act
by Marko Kloos

Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that's it.

In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.

When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force. The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gang banger, and a single gay guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats.

The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.

There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we'd be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a [armed] mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger's potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat--it has no validity when most of a mugger's potential marks are armed.

People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that's the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly.

Then there's the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser. People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don't constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst.

The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level. The gun is the only weapon that's as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weight lifter. It simply wouldn't work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn't both lethal and easily employable.

When I carry a gun, I don't do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I'm looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don't carry it because I'm afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn't limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force.

It removes force from the equation...and that's why carrying a gun is a civilized act.

Links:

http://munchkinwrangler.blogspot.com/2007/03/why-gun-is-civilization.html

http://www.armedfemalesofamerica.com

Hi Mum

Meanwhile at the UN

UN Watch challenges permanent indictment of Israel

http://conservativethoughts.us/

Death of Civilization

The Death of the Grown-Up

By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com
Thursday, August 30, 2007

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Diana West, a regular contributor to CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight" and "Lou Dobbs This Week." Her weekly column, which appears in numerous papers including the Washington Times every Friday, often examines the war and Islam through a cultural lens. She is the author of the new book, The Death of the Grown-up: How America's Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization.

George F. Will has called it "penetrating and witty," and Steven Emerson says it's "a must read for anyone who wants to understand...what we need to do to win the war on terror."

She has a new blog at dianawest.net.

FP: Diana West, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

West: Thank you, Jamie. I am delighted to participate.

FP: What inspired you to write this book?

West: My first thought is to say what didn't inspire me to write this book, living, as I think we do, in the Era of the Perpetual Adolescent. But I can be more specific about several occurrences.

I first began thinking through the death of the grown-up theory in the mid-1990s, which seemed to be embodied by Bill Clinton, that presidential phenomenon whose tastes and behaviors, from fast food to quickie sex, seemed flash-frozen in a punky adolescence from which he never evolved.

Back then, I thought the theory offered a novel, possibly useful take on the cultural shifts that had brought us the Clinton years, and also a way to understand the era through its defining death of the grown-up moment. This, I submit, took place on the day the former president's lewd liaison with an intern was revealed--the day Bill Clinton thought he was a cooked goose. At least, if you recall his first filmed reaction to the breaking scandal, he looked as though he thought he was a cooked goose.

More important, he acted like one, doing everything he could to cover up a scandal for which the American public, it turned out, had no intention of penalizing him. But Clinton didn't know that. He didn't know there would be no collective wrath--despite the best efforts of the "vast, right-wing conspiracy"--and not even a collective frown.

The fact is, Bill Clinton thought the country was more grown-up than he was. It wasn't. The United States slouched its way through the 1990s--the decade Charles Krauthammer dubbed "our holiday from history"--as if to prove the point. Rather than censuring Clinton (as Clinton had clearly expected), the electorate acted more like his posse, circling the wagons because we, as a nation, were no more grown-up than he was.

Well, how did that happen? I found this question quite intriguing, particularly because by that time my husband and I had young children, and were discovering first hand the extent to which social and cultural distinctions between children and adults--who dress the same, all say "cool," and even watch cartoons--had disappeared.

I began to realize I was witnessing at a personal level the same displays of perpetual adolescence in reluctant adults around me ("I'm too young to be called 'mister' ") that I was observing in society at large. This led me to make all sorts of connections between the emergence of youth culture in the 1950s, its tantrums in the 1960s, the so-called culture wars that followed, the establishment of multiculturalism, the ascendance of non-judgmentalism and more, but, due to some twists and turns of life (my own), this initial attempt at the book was something of a false start.

Fast forward several years to September 11, 2001. We were living outside New York City, and, frankly, the thought of getting back to a more or less theoretical book on cultural decline when the world was almost literally falling apart seemed very much beside the point.

But then it hit me: The death of the grown-up was quite suddenly much more than a theory to explain a largely academic culture war; it applied directly and, I thought, most urgently to what had shockingly become a real culture war between the West and Islam--a civilizational struggle that our society doesn't want to acknowledge precisely, I argue, because of society's extremely immature, in fact, downright childish, nature.

FP: What is your book’s main argument?

West: The organizing thesis is that the unprecedented transfer of cultural authority from adults to adolescents over the past half century or so has dire implications for the survival of the Western world. In other words, what I call the death of the grown-up is not just about sophomorically bad music or babyishly dopey movies (although it's about that as well). Having redirected our natural development away from adulthood and maturity in order to strike the pop-influenced pose of eternally cool youth--ever-open, non-judgmental, self-absorbed, searching for (or just plain lacking) identity--we have fostered a society marked by these same traits, which are usually associated with adolescence.

This may not have seemed to matter much in a country at peace (when I began work on the concept), but it becomes potentially fatal to a country at war with a foe that is wholly intolerant, rigidly doctrinaire, and globally expansionist.

FP: What is unique and original about your book?

West: The book makes a connection between what seem to be superficial trappings of fashion and custom and what are the most significant challenges a civilization must contend with--war and survival. In linking the death of the grown-up with our failure to assess frankly, prosecute forthrightly and therefore win the (immaturely named) "war on terror," it also argues that we need to grow up and out of our childish fantasies about Islam being a religion of peace and other PC fairytales.

FP: Can you kindly expand a bit on the traits of an adolescent and of an adolescent culture? And why exactly has this shift occurred in our own society?

West: We often associate adolescence with a lack of confidence. I would say our adolescent culture suffers from a severe lack of cultural confidence. We think of adolescence as being a time to search for identity. Our adolescent culture is marked by a bona fide "identity crisis." I went back to the definition of "identity crisis," the term coined by Erik Erikson in 1970, and found that it describes an adolescent phase marked by "a loss of the sense of sameness and historical continuity of one's self."

On a cultural level, we see that loss in spades.Also, according to the definition, there may be "confusion over values." Well, such confusion is famously universal in our culture. Such confusion includes "an inability to accept the role the individual perceives as being expected of him by society."

This last symptom is also familiar to us on a cultural level, given our split personality as both world policeman and, in many people’s eyes, world villain. Lacking what you might call "parental guidance," this infantile culture of ours could be doomed not only to perpetual adolescence, but to a perpetual identity crisis. Of course, the glib pop terminology doesn't begin to capture the ravages of a culture that has lost its core.

It is as if the openness of the adolescent, which can be a very winning trait, has been taken to a extreme on the cultural level. This has had the effect of making us, as a culture, open to everything and closed to nothing--even, when it comes to an ideology such as that propagated by Islam which is antithetical to Western-style liberty and openness. What we seem unable to grasp--and quite immaturely, I think--is that only by closing ourselves to intolerance, rejecting intolerance, will we be able to preserve the tolerance that has come to define our civilization.

FP: In many respects, the socialist faith is one that mandates adolescence, no? A real grown-up, ultimately, could never be a leftist or believe in the political faith. Your thoughts?

West: I would agree with you, although I didn't say it exactly that way in the book. In considering the strong links between an increasingly paternalistic nanny state and the death of the grown-up, I found that Tocqueville (of course) had long ago made the connections. He tried to imagine under what conditions despotism could come to the United States.

He came up with a vision of the nation characterized, on the one hand, by an "innumerable multitude of men, alike and equal, constantly circling around in pursuit of the petty and banal pleasures with which they glut their souls," and, on the other, by the "immense protective power" of the state. "Banal pleasures" and "immense state power" might have sounded downright science-fictional in the middle of the 19th century; by the start of the 21st century, it begins to sound all too familiar. Indeed, speaking of the all-powerful state, he wrote:

"It would resemble parental authority if, fatherlike, it tried to prepare its charges for a man's life, but, on the contrary, it only tries to keep them in perpetual childhood."Perhaps the extent to which we, liberals and conservatives alike, have acquiesced to our state's parental authority shows how far along we, as a culture, have reached Tocqueville's state of "perpetual childhood."

FP: Crystallize for us why a childish vision cannot absorb the civilization struggle between the West and Islam. If grown-ups had not died, and controlled the culture, why and how would the true nature of Islam be able to be more easily accepted?

West: One of the things we all enjoy about childhood is getting lost in the world of pretend. But such flights of fancy are not supposed to govern us as adults formulating geo-political strategy. I write at length in the book about how our understanding of the struggle underway between the West and Islam begins and ends in the world of pretend: the PC, multicultural, "non-judgmental" outlook on life that insists all cultures, religions, and peoples are equally benign and equally valuable, with the great exception being that of Western cultures, religions and peoples, which, according to multiculti cant, cause all evil in the world.

This is why our most important policies related to self-preservation are constrained by a rulebook more suited to regulating a school playground: be nice; be "inclusive"; don't be "judgmental"; never say anything that could possibly be construed as (horrors!) "mean-spirited" or "offensive."

This, of course, puts a damper on discussing or even acknowledging the more "mean-spirited" or "offensive" traditions of Islam itself (jihad doctrine, kill the infidel, Jews are descended from apes and pigs, Islamic slavery, Islamic conquest, repression of women and non-Muslims, etc.).

On the contrary, we stick to a PC script that consigns all dangerous aspects of jihad violence and the Islamization of the West to a nasty, sort of mythical "band of extremists" who have no connection to Islam's teachings, history and goals. This explanation, while comforting as a bedtime story, is demonstrably absurd, as I show in the book. But such is the prevailing wisdom in our 21st-century Age of Faith--multicultural faith.

What I finally realized was that growing up enough to reactivate our critical faculties regarding the differences between the West and Islam wouldn't only enable us to preserve our liberty-based civilization (and prevent us from becoming the Western territories of the new caliphate).

Because the multiculturalism that dominates our PC times is one of the leading factors of our infantilization, growing up would not only mark the rebirth of the adult, but the end of multiculturalism as well.

FP: Diana West, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview.
West: Thank you, Jamie, for the opportunity.

Jamie Glazov is Frontpage Magazine's managing editor. He holds a Ph.D. in History with a specialty in U.S. and Canadian foreign policy. He edited and wrote the introduction to David Horowitz’s Left Illusions. He is also the co-editor (with David Horowitz) of The Hate America Left and the author of Canadian Policy Toward Khrushchev’s Soviet Union (McGill-Queens University Press, 2002) and 15 Tips on How to be a Good Leftist. To see his previous symposiums, interviews and articles Click Here.

H/T:http://www.frontpagemag.com/

Clouds part2

Tool Time

Tool - Sober

Tool - Stinkfist

Please, Let's Roll.

Aurora has a post up at The Midnight Sun about the worrying direction Russia's taking, making her look more and more like the "old" Soviet Union.

Francis Porretto at Eternity Road has reached the conclusion that the only choices when dealing with the islamists are quarantine or genocide--a remarkable statement, coming from a man known for his intellect and reasoned approach.

We're at a turning point in history.

Right now.

Not next year or the next.

Right now.

Consider these: Our societies are under attack from within, from islamists preaching hate of the culture that shelters them, to a media which seems determined to devalue and emasculate the very qualities that made Western culture great.

Teachers are indoctrinating kids with the filth of Marxist theory and parents are being systematically disempowered, the effect of which is raise kids ignorant of history, ignorant of the traditions upon which a culture relies for it's self-esteem and therefore it's survival.

Institutions such as marriage and the Christian churches face a constant barrage of ridicule and denigration, leaving people adrift and prey to whatever the latest leftist fad may be--and the latest lefty fad is never anything that strengthens our societies.

China is becoming wealthy enough to undermine Western interests in Africa and the Middle East, pouring arms and destabilisation into both regions.

A nutter in Tehran has openly stated his intention to wipe Israel off the map and the West is paralyzed.North Korea plays games of terror and nuclear blackmail and we appease them.

The U.N. is no more than a club for totalitarians and we finance them, even as millions die as a result of their corrupt inaction.

We tolerate traitors in the media and academia who are doing their best to impose their rotten Marxist agenda on the West. Convergence, people.

Communism, islamism, progressivism, liberalism--no doubt lefties will argue about the labels, because that's what they've learned to do. But labels are just a distraction. They are allies and they form the Enemy because their goals in just one important respect are IDENTICAL--the destruction of Western civilisation.

As Mr. Porretto says, "quarantine or genocide". We're out of options.

Prediction: the first mushroom cloud will appear somewhere within the next five years.

H/T To All: http://crusader-rabbit.blogspot.com/

Ted & Common Sense

Ted Nugent

So while you watch our country crumble and sip from the toxic tea of the Leftstream media each evening, do you find yourself pretty much perpetually nauseated? Throw their garbage from your mind. The cure is to stand up and speak out. Do not be silenced. You are not alone. Take inventory of those patriots who have not been swayed and can still clearly recall what and why America IS! Surround yourself with intellect and definition. Purge your mind of the filth the left continuously purveys. Absorb some good, old fashioned common sense... and then pass it on.

H/T: http://defiant-infidel.blogspot.com/

Crusader Art

Crusader
lifesize - plaster, leather, found objects

.

I said No No No

They tried to make me go to Jihad, I said No, No, No.
Effing brilliant....

h/t: http://theospark.blogspot.com

Footbaths for All

Footbaths on the March
The Indianapolis airport has joined several other airports and universities in installing footbaths, at taxpayer expense, for Muslims to use in preparation for their prayers. Robert Spencer brings us the story.

Don’t forget to read Robert’s excellent Blogging the Qur’an series, with new posts arriving each Sunday morning.

Jihad Watch

Clouds - part 1

Dream Crusade

More Muslims Being Led To Christ Through Dreams

August 24th, 2007 in Christian Persecution, Islam, Christian Church Issues, Freedom of Religion, Ethiopia
by Inspire Staff/TN : Aug 19, 2007 : Inspire Magazine (Ethiopia)http://www.inspiremagazine.org.uk

“People always seek the money and the wealth of the earth, but what I seek is from God.”Inspire Magazine has reported on a former Islamic leader in Ethiopia describing how he found faith in Christ after Jesus appeared to him in a dream.

Notes the report: “‘Robel’ was expelled from the mosque he helped to lead in 2003 for asking questions about Jesus. That same night he had a dream in which Christ appeared to him. Continue reading ‘More Muslims Being Led To Christ Through Dreams’

From: http://catchthefire.com.au/blog/

Evil Gun Bans

gun bans UK/Aust

Must see video

Worth Fighting For

Diggers - Brutal Engagements

Diggers take it straight to Taliban
By Mark Dodd
September 19, 2007

Taliban insurgent heartland struck

Diggers 'threw Taliban off balance'

Afghani suicide bombings have soared in 2007

AUSTRALIAN special forces in Afghanistan have struck at Taliban insurgents in their heartland in a series of secretive, brutal engagements waged across some of the most hostile terrain the commandos and Special Air Service troopers have ever fought in.

The fight for south-central Oruzgan province was a pivotal battle and one with crucial security implications, the commander of Australia's special forces, Major General Mike Hindmarsh, said yesterday.

In a rare interview, Major General Hindmarsh said SAS operations had thrown the Taliban "off balance", helping prevent insurgent attacks on the key provincial centres of Tarin Kowt and Kandahar.

"The Taliban, they're tough resilient fighters, but they're also a nasty bunch of bastards and our guys are very happy about the work they're doing there," he told The Australian.

The hard fighting has come at a cost, with 14 Australian special forces soldiers wounded since deploying to Afghanistan in 2005.

This year, emboldened Taliban insurgents have mounted repeated attacks against NATO-led coalition forces, resulting in the worst violence in Afghanistan since the Islamic extremists were ousted from power in 2001.

Suicide bombings have soared and about 4000 people have been killed over the past 12 months, a quarter of them civilians.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates warned yesterday that Afghanistan was a "litmus test" for NATO and would be "a mark of shame on all of us" if the alliance faltered in laying the foundations for democracy there.

The fact that there have been no Australian fatalities owes as much to good luck as the intensive training special forces undergo.

In several injury cases, a "few millimetres" difference would have resulted in certain death, Major General Hindmarsh said, referring to recent close fighting.

"One thing we can't be accused of is being obsessed with force protection - in other words, staying in base camp and venturing out every now and again," he said. "We like to patrol, and patrol in depth, which means well out, and we like to do it for lengthy periods of time.

"Our special forces modus operandi in Afghanistan is to get out there - get among the enemy and spend a long time in their (the Taliban's) safe areas, becoming as familiar with that environment as the enemy."

That involved gruelling patrols lasting a week or more into rugged mountainous terrain where the temperature ranged from 50C in summer to minus 15C in winter.

The environment was hard on vehicles and harder on the soldiers, requiring extreme levels of fitness and mental toughness, Major General Hindmarsh said. Every aspect of a patrol was meticulously planned.

The secret war pitting Australian special forces against the Taliban was classic counter-insurgency involving small, long-range patrols pushing deep into enemy territory, he said.

The effect had been "unsettling" for the Taliban and had helped thwart attacks on the city of Kandahar and the town of Tarin Kowt, where the Australian reconstruction taskforce is based.

Major General Hindmarsh was unapologetic about the level of secrecy surrounding SAS operations in Afghanistan. The Taliban were technically savvy, had access to the internet and closely monitored any news involving the movement of Australian special forces, he said.

The elite Perth-based Special Air Service Regiment marks its 50th anniversary this week.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22442265-2,00.html

The Blob Returns

Peru meteor illness deepens
September 18, 2007

About 200 villagers have fallen ill from mysterious gases that spewed from a crater after a meteorite crashed in southeastern Peru, but no radiation has been detected, officials and scientists say.

Scores of residents of the farming village of Carancas began vomiting and complaining of headaches and dizziness after the space object struck the area Saturday, creating an eight metre deep, 20 metre-wide crater.

"We have determined with precision instruments that there is no radiation," engineer Renan Ramirez of the Peruvian Nuclear Energy Institute told AFP.

Ramirez said the illnesses may have been triggered by sulfur, arsenic or other toxins that may have melted in the extreme heat produced by the meteorite strike.

"It is a conventional meteorite that, when it struck, produced gases by fusing with elements of the terrain," he said. He also ruled out that the object was a satellite.

Nestor Quispe, mayor of the nearby town of Desaguadero, said about 200 sick villagers are being treated and that Carancas residents fear that they fear long-term side effects.

There is also "a lot of panic and fear because villagers are afraid that other space objects could fall," Quispe told AFP.

The director of the health ministry in the Puno region, Jorge Lopez, said none of the patients was in serious condition but that they would have to undergo blood and neurological tests as a precaution in three to six months.

A medical facility was installed in Carancas to treat the patients, and "if necessary, some will be sent to hospitals in Puno," the nearest big city, he said.

Police have cordoned off the crater. Lopez said that despite wearing a mask while he approached the crater, the fumes irritated his nose and throat.
AFP

The Scam

Man, has Islam got a great scam going or what?

Education Jihad

Muslims attack $1m Saudi gift to uni
Richard Kerbaj September 17, 2007

UP to $1 million will be pumped by Saudi Arabia into an Australian university, sparking fears the money will skew its research and create sympathy for an extremist Muslim ideology espoused by al-Qai'da.

Muslim leaders and academics have attacked Queensland's Griffith University for accepting an initial $100,000 grant from the Saudi embassy, which they accused of having given cash in the past to educational institutions to improve the perception of Wahhabism - a hardline interpretation of Islam.

The Australian understands the Griffith Islamic Research Unit will in coming years receive up to $1 million from Saudi Arabia, which has injected more than $120 million into Australia's Islamic community since the 1970s for mosques, schools, scholarships and clerical salaries.

A former member of John Howard's Muslim reference board, Mustapha Kara-Ali, accused the Saudis of using their financial power to transform the landscape of Australia's Islamic community and silence criticism of Wahhabism. "They want to silence criticism of the Wahhabi establishment and its link to global terrorism and national security issues," he said.

Read the rest:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/

Related Links

Send us your syllabi. It will provide observers insight into what they're calling education in Islamic Studies these days, and give us a chance to recommend readings that many others might find useful as well.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/

Some of our universities employ Muslims to do da'awa instead of ME studies.

We have Asshats like this one here-
http://sheikyermami.com/2007/09/04/aussie-diversity-director-calls-for-muslim-prayer-rooms-in-all-universities/

and this one here:

Gary Bouma, a professor of sociology at Monash University, told a Muslim students’ conference that the secularist stance of universities was no longer appropriate at a time when religion played a more important role in public life. He said secularism was not a neutral stance but was itself an ideology that was inimical to religions.

These creeps even look like they hatched from the same egg.

What's needed is a comprehensive report from every University in the country. We have a right to know who aids and abets the global jihad and who employs Muhammedan agit props to spread Islam instead of free enquiry.

CampusWatch, a link is provided at JW home page, has a list of colleges and universities that offer middle east and islamic studies.

here:http://www.campus-watch.org/recommends.php

Fortress Australia Outpost

Sunday, September 30, 2007