Fresh Tasty Ideas

Israelis don’t intentionally target civilians (in fact, they make every effort not to hit civilians if possible), and Hezbollah does:

The militant Shiite group Hezbollah committed war crimes in its deliberate targeting of civilians in the recent conflict with Israel, according to Amnesty International.

Isn’t it interesting that neither the United Nations nor Human Rights Watch have condemned Hezbollah for intentionally targeting civilians? Yet, they have both condemned Israel.

terrorism, Hezbollah, Amnesty International, civilians, Israel, United Nations

No one likes a preachy beauty queen. But that won’t stop Hammasa Kohistani, the first Muslim Miss England, from sharing her views on terrorism:

Even moderate Muslims are turning to terrorism to prove themselves. They think they might as well support it because they are stereotyped anyway. It will take a long time for communities to start mixing in more.

And who is ultimately to blame?

But at the same time, she said, “there is this hostility” which comes “mainly from the Government”.

So, in summary, Miss England is claiming that institutionalized discrimination a la the British government is driving moderate Muslims into terrorism. It’s nice to remember that Hammasa didn’t win a competition based on intelligence.

To make terrorists out as victims in today’s society is to invert reality. Islamic terrorist attacks against Western interests happened long before Bush and Blair, before Abu Ghraib and the war in Iraq, before Afghanistan, and before Desert Storm/Shield. The truth is that Muslim terrorists will use any pretext to “justify” terrorism, because useful idiots like George Galloway or Michael Moore or Cindy Sheehan, or in this case Ms. Hammasa Kohistani will go around bleating like sheep, trying to convince everyone that we are to blame for terrorism.

And that’s the great lie: that terrorism is a product of the West’s hedgemonic influence in the Middle East and not of Islam itself. One must wonder why Mohammed’s closest followers conquered many nations soon after his death; Islam has always spread by the sword because that’s what Mohammed instructed true believers to do. In fact, Mohammed told his followers that “Paradise lies under the shade of the sword.”

So long as the West remains focused on fixing itself, it will be incapable of addressing the true root causes of Islamic terrorism.

Hammasa Kohistani, terrorism, Islam, England, moderate

Here’s a good rundown of just how Israel lost the lastest conflict in Lebanon:

1. Hezbollah was still alive and kicking when the ceasefire came
2. Hezbollah successfully manipulated the media through fake pictures and fradulent death tolls. See “Green Helmet guy” for more explanation.
3. Hezbollah will win the Lebanese people’s hearts back by rebuilding Beruit and southern Lebanon (much to the chagrin of impoverished Iranians, who will be funding the renovation).

Israel is solidly to blame for item #1, they should have hit Hezbollah hard when they had the chance. Now that the UN ceasefire is in effect, Hezbollah can regroup, rearm, and talk of victory. Item #2 saddens me, because it demonstrates the complicity the American and global media had in Hezbollah’s victory. The media outlets were duped like ignorant pawns, falling all over themselves to run deliberately staged pictures. The falsification was so obvious at one point that basic Photoshop artifacts were visible in AP wire photos; only the collective screaming of the conservative blogosphere caused some retractions. But the damage had been done, Hezbollah had won the war of the media. Item #3 speaks to more international impotency. Iran and Syria fund and therefore control Hezbollah, and now those regimes will win even more hearts and minds by providing the only thing that counts for bombed-out Lebanese civilians: food, water and shelter. Looks like we’ll have a fresh new generation of Lebanese Hezbollah fighters who were galvanized for Allah in 2006, when after a Zionist blitzkrieg, Hezbollah provided for them. Just great.

And this ceasefire? It’s a joke; France will only send troops after Hezbollah disarms, which appears as likely as a diet for Michael Moore. So Hezbollah will again be allowed to go on existing thanks wholly to an unenforcable resolution dreamt up by ivory tower UN plutocrats. It’s not hard to predict that the fighting will resume maybe in a month, maybe in a year.

Ceasefires don’t create peace, wars do. After all, the Middle East has seen more ceasefires and more violence than any region over the last couple decades. And what do we have to show for it? A few of us are wise enough to realize this is just another “peace in our time” Chaimberlain-style appeasement pact which at best delays the inevitable.

Update: France is starting to show her true colors. They’re not going to send the troops they were so quick to volunteer a few weeks ago:

France is considering providing only a symbolic force for the United Nations contingent in Lebanon, and not the thousands of troops UN officials had hoped, Le Monde newspaper said on Thursday.

Pussies.

terrorism, UN, France, ceasefire, Hezbollah, Israel, Lebanon, Iran

How many times can the AP make a “mistake” in its writing before it is recognized as bias? Here’s a headline regarding the new ceasefire in the Israeli-Lebanese conflict:

Rockets hit Lebanon despite cease-fire

Hmm, who would fire rockets at Lebanon? Israel, of course! Damn Israelis, already back to terrorizing innocent Lebanese civilians, so soon after the ceasefire deal… or so you might think, if you just read the headline. But, it isn’t until you go into the article in the second paragraph that you discover:

Highlighting the fragility of the peace, Hezbollah guerrillas fired at least 10 Katyusha rockets that landed in southern Lebanon early Tuesday, the Israeli army said, adding that nobody was injured. The army said that none of the rockets, which were fired over a two-hour period, had crossed the border and so it had not responded.

Oh, so it was Hezbollah? Well how about telling us that in the headline, especially if you’re going to imply that Israeli is doing the missle launching! Here, I’ll go ahead and fix the headline:

Hezbollah’s rockets hit Lebanon despite cease-fire

That’s better. Was it so difficult? But, it was probably just another honest mistake, I’m sure…

Israel, AP, liberal bias, Hezbollah, Katyusha, terrorism

The UN Human Rights Council has issued a written condemnation of Israel’s human rights violations:

The U.N. Human Rights Council on Friday condemned Israel for “massive bombardment of Lebanese civilian populations” and other “systematic” human rights violations, and decided to send a commission to investigate.

There was nothing condemning Hezbollah for its use of civilians as human shields, for fighting from civilian areas and wearing civilian clothing, for using UN outposts as military bases, or for using civilian vehicles to transport weapons and munitions. At least some countries had the common sense not to vote for the condemnation:

European countries, Japan and Canada voted against the resolution, primarily because it lacked balance in failing to name the Hezbollah militia.

United Nations, Hezbollah, terrorism, Israel

The (conservative) blogosphere is buzzing with intrigue over the doctored Reuters photo scandal (If you need a quick rundown, visit LGF). Reuters has since fired the “freelance” photographer who had submitted hundreds of photos pertaining to the Israeli-Lebanese conflict that started last month. In addition, all of Adnan Hajj’s photos have been purged from Reuters’s archives — this is important because a lot of his other photographs (here, too) are looking tainted as well. With astounding gall, Adnan Hajj actually maintains he was only trying to remove dust from the image that he shot in poor lighting.

My question is simply this: Why did it take mostly conservative blogs pointing out obvious Photoshop artifacts for Reuters to pull Adnan Hajj’s Hezbollah fake photos? Does Reuters not have anyone proofing photographs or editing stories before they hit the press or the wire? In my book, Reuters’s credibility would’ve taken less of a hit had they acknoweldged the falsified photos themselves. That was not the case however, as conservative blogs spotted the artifacts and were on the story long before al-Reuters got around to issuing a picture kill and then withdrawing all of Hajj’s photos.

This Reuters photo scam comes only a week after CNN reporter Nic Robertson admits that his interviews in Lebanon were being controlled by Hezbollah interests. It will not catch me by surprise if we have not yet learned of other scandals in the media which allow the desemination of Hezbollah propaganda.

Many thanks to LGF for exposing the fake photos.

Update: The Lebanese Prime minister revises bombing death toll from 40 to 1. It’s getting absolutely ridiculous folks; there’s no reason to believe any accounts coming from Lebanese or Hezbollah sources at this point.

Update 2: This thing is exploding: more faked photos from Beruit. Hezbollah is fighting two wars: one of bullets and bombs against the IDF, another of staged “atrocities,” faked photographs, and phony death tolls. The drive-by media is swallowing the Hezbollah propaganda so far, making Hezbollah victorious in its media war.

Update 3: More falsified photos, this time courtesy of Free Republic. I like the headlines bloggers are generating for the faked-photos story. Among my favorites are “Extreme Home Makeover: Beruit Edition” and “Reuters calls the doctor.”

Also interesting is that as of this moment, Technorati is showing Reuters as the #1 searched-for term and Hajj at #4, yet the mainstream media and liberal blogs are wholly ignoring this story.

Hajj, Reuters, Lebanon, Qana, Hezbollah, Israel, photographs, Little Green Footballs

Hezbollah wants peace.

Hezbollah wants war.

Lebanon, Israel, Hezbollah, terrorism

Littlegreenfootballs.com has a video shot by Reuters in which Palestinian terrorists use a UN ambulance to facilitate an attack on an Israeli Defense Force ambulance. The vehicle is used to move the terrorists around while they swarm about the IDF ambulance.

The US, UK and Canada (plus Israel) all oppose an immediate ceasefire combined with UN peacekeeping troops for numerous reasons. This is just one of those reasons: the UN positions and vehicles have been and are being used against the Israelis.

Palestine, Israel, United Nations, terrorism

Israeli Extremism

Islamic Extremism

terrorism, Palestine, Israel, suicide bombing