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Barry Bows to Blasphemy

Reminder:

Caption Time

“Infidel”

Military.com — In the wake of the recent setbacks in Afghanistan, American commanders are working overtime trying to instill sensitivity among U.S. troops toward their Afghan counterparts and their Islamic culture. But many American servicemembers already wear their feelings on their sleeves – sometimes literally – choosing a powerful term to represent the way they believe they’re perceived by the Muslim world: “Infidel.” There are infidel hats, infidel T-shirts and infidel uniform patches – an entire genre of morale wear that emerged from the ashes of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. (H/T: Mandy)

“Infidel” is a versatile term. It describes our servicemen in Afghanistan, and it also describes the tongues of Hollywood liberals who visit Cuba.

I Call Bullshit

Waco, TX — An AWOL Soldier accused of plotting to detonate bombs in a restaurant filled with Fort Hood troops and then shoot any survivors was expected back in court Thursday to be arraigned on six new charges. Among the new charges Pfc. Naser Jason Abdo faces is trying to use a weapon of mass destruction, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. He also was indicted last week by a federal grand jury in Waco on one count of attempted murder of officers or employees of the United States, two counts of possession of a firearm in furtherance of a federal crime of violence, and two counts of possession of a destructive device in furtherance of a federal crime of violence. …

You can read the whole thing at Military.com News (H/T: Mandy), but it here’s the part that stuck in my craw, from the very end:

Abdo, 21, was approved as a conscientious objector this year after citing his Muslim beliefs, but that status was put on hold after he was charged with possessing child pornography. He went absent without leave from Fort Campbell, Ky., in early July.

We no longer have the draft. “Conscientious objector status” is an obsolete relic of a bygone era,¹ when people were conscripted against their wills. We now have an all-volunteer fighting force. If you’re a “conscientious objector,” you don’t enlist. If you enlist, you have made an informed choice as a legal adult, and have sworn an oath. Nobody held a gun to your head. If you join up, you are not a “conscientious objector.” Period.

As for “citing his Muslim beliefs” – exactly who the fuck does he think the US Army’s been shooting at for the last ten years?! Anybody who has joined up in the last decade knows they will probably face action, and that said action will probably take place in a Muslim country and that the people against whom they will have to kill or be killed will be Muslims. Unless you’ve been living in a cave (which I suppose is possible in his case) you know that the US military has been in Afghanistan for ten straight years now, and for most of that time was in Iraq as well (not to mention “kinetic actions” against Libya, and various sundry actions taken in Yemen in elsewhere).

Anybody who enlists knows this. There is absolutely no justifiable excuse for signing up in the military now, and then complaining that you can’t fight, or that you can’t fight muslims. If those are a problem for you, you don’t enlist.

¹like labor unions and the UN.

Can They Tell Uranus From a Hole in the Ground?

Jerusalem Post — The Muslim world is in turmoil over the possibility that it may have misread the skies and mistaken Saturn for the moon when it declared Ramadan and its daily fasting over last week, causing the devout to starting feast a day early. Sighting of the new moon crescent has always been difficult and a special Hilal panel, or moon-sighting committee, receives testimonies from veteran Muslim moon gazers that in fact the lunar month is over. Religious authorities in Saudi Arabia declared Ramadan ended last Monday August 29 and the three-day Id al-Fitr festivities could begin. … In Indonesia, there was such doubt that the astronomers and Muslim bodies extended the Ramadan fast for another day and didn’t celebrate the Id until sundown Tuesday. Saudi and Egyptian astronomers, too, questioned the veracity of the moon sighting and issued a statement saying there was no way it could have been sighted last Monday because it had eclipsed before sunset. If they saw anything, it was the planet Saturn and not the moon, the astronomers said. In Saudi Arabia, conservative religious scholars were so galled that their veracity had been questioned they threatened to take legal action for creating the uncertainty… (H/T: Big Peace)

That’s no moon!

How exactly do you confuse the moon with the planet Saturn? Without any special expertise in the matter, and without any special equipment (a telescope, a sextant, a copy of the Quran in case it’s a cold night and I need to burn something for warmth) I guarantee you that I could the tell the two apart. Maybe they should have asked someone from NASA for advice; after all, NASA’s main job these days is keeping Muslims happy. (Anybody could have built Bill Clinton’s bridge to the 21st century; but it takes our Community Organizer in Chief to build a bridge from America to the 7th century.) Then again, Ramadan is all about fasting; and what could be faster than ending a month a day early?

Thank You, Hollywood

The Islamist who killed two US airmen in Germany was inspired by Hollywood propaganda…

(Telegraph) — A Kosovo Albanian Islamic extremist has confessed to murdering two American airmen and has blamed a faked jihad video showing US soldiers raping a Muslim girl for inspiring his crime. In an emotional confession to a Frankfurt court as his murder trial began on Wednesday, Arid Uka said he had become radicalised by online extremist propaganda before carrying out a lone gun attack US Air Force bus in March. … Uka blamed a video purporting to show American servicemen raping a young Muslim girl for prompting him to try and stop other US soldiers from getting to Afghanistan. … But the rape footage, billed as an authentic video entitled “what was done to our sisters,” turned out to be … from the 2007 anti-Iraq war film “Redacted,” directed by Hollywood’s Brian de Palma. (H/T: WeaselZippers)

I’ll bet they’re proud on the Left Coast today!

They’re Lumberjacks and They’re OK

HOQUIAM, WA — A community festival in Hoquiam is attracting attention with a T-shirt mocking Osama bin Laden. Logging remains an important part of Grays Harbor County, and the loggers’ Playday festival celebrates that heritage every September. And every year, a special shirt is made. Known for being edgy, previous designs have mocked environmentalists and hippies. “The shirt in no way, shape or form was intended to be racist, or bigotry and anything along those lines,” said Don Bell, the festival T-Shirt creator. But this year, a brouhaha erupted when Osama bin Laden made the cut on the front of the 2011 T-shirt, strapped to a log, with the caption – “Osama bin Loggin.” …

I have heard, enough times that it makes me vomit, that Osama bin Laden was not a true member of the “Religion of Peace”, but that he hijacked it for his own purposes. In any event, the only muslims (or other liberals) who should be offended by this shirt are (a) those who support Osama bin Laden, agreeing with his goals and methods; and (b) those who think poor sheikh Osama was framed by the CIA and the Mossad for an inside job. And you know what? I honestly don’t give a fuck if any of those groups are offended. In fact, I hope they are.

The Obama Downgrade, Alphabetically

This one is by Bret Stephens at the WSJ (H/T: HillBuzz) and contains an entry for every letter of the alphabet. I’m just going to quote a few of my favorites, but you should read the whole thing.

A	is for the Arab world, and our standing in it: This year, Zogby International found that 5% of Egyptians had a favorable view of the U.S. In 2008, when George W. Bush was president, it was 9%. Wasn’t Obama supposed to make the Arab world love us?
D	is for—what else—the federal debt, which grew to $14.3 trillion this month from $10.7 trillion at the end of 2008. D is also for the dollar, which has lost almost half its value against gold since Aug. 2008.
E	is for energy. The average retail price of a gallon of gas hovered near the $1.80 mark when Mr. Obama was inaugurated. It has since more than doubled. E is also for ethanol, the non-wonder fuel the U.S. continues to subsidize to the tune of $5 billion a year.
G	is for Guantanamo, which remains open, and for Gadhafi, who remains in power, and for Greece, which offers a vision of America’s future if we don’t reform our entitlement state.
I	is for Israel, a Middle Eastern country the president claims to support even as he routinely disses its prime minister, seeks to shrink its borders and—why not?—divide its capital. I is also for insane, for all the Jews who vote for Obama’s reelection next year.
J	is for jobs. In November 2008, president-elect Obama promised he would create 2.5 million jobs by 2011. By October 2010 the economy had shed 3.3 million jobs. For the seventh time, he’s now claiming to have shifted his attention to creating jobs.
M	is for Mexico, a country that manages 5.4% unemployment and 4.2% annual growth even as it fights a war against the drug cartels. Obama, meanwhile, is arming those cartels.
Q	is for QE2, the most disastrous experiment in monetary policy since Fed Chairman William Miller’s low-interest rate policy crashed the dollar in 1978. There is talk of QE3 coming soon.
T	is for taxes, which Mr. Obama would like to see raised for “millionaires and billionaires”—curiously defined as people making $200K and up.
X	is for Liu Xiaobo, an example of what a deserving winner of the Nobel Peace Prize looks like. X is also for Xanax, likely to be remembered as the drug of choice of the Obama years.
Z	is for zero, which is the likelihood that one of the current GOP hopefuls will defeat Mr. Obama in 2012. I hope this is wrong, but I fear it isn’t.

(Comments in red by yours truly.)

Random Bits

Just a few quick comments on this morning’s C2 Daily Grind:

[CSM via WZ] A ship jointly owned by Swedish, Greek, and Norwegian activists hoping to join a flotilla of activist vessels challenging Israel’s economic blockade of Gaza, had its propeller cut while in Athen’s [sic] harbor today. A spokesman contacted by the Monitor said that the damage was a deliberate act of sabotage.

We need to hunt down the person or persons responsible for this criminal attack … and give them cake.

[DC] Obama admin political appointee takes heat for trips home on taxpayers’ dime. Obama political appointee Ron Sims is under scrutiny for trips he made to Seattle during the first several months after his appointment.

He’s wasting money that the Obamas need for their vacations.

[HA] Media pretty excited over Bachmann’s John Wayne gaffe in Iowa… She claimed in an interview with Fox News that she shares the spirit of another famous Waterloo, Iowa, resident, John Wayne. But John Wayne never lived in Waterloo; John Wayne Gacy did

Don’t worry; I’m sure she’ll do better in the other 56 states.

[Trib] Blagojevich on guilty verdict: ‘I, frankly, am stunned’ … In its 10th day of deliberations, the 11-woman, one-man jury convicted Blagojevich of several shakedown attempts, including allegations that he brazenly tried to sell President Barack Obama’s old U.S. Senate seat in 2008.

I’m surprised, too. This is Chicago; how could the fix have not been in?

[NB] Name That Party: Blago’s Dem Affiliation Left Out of Seven AP Stories

Talk about an “unexpected development”…

The Raids Will Continue Until Morale Improves

Pakistan Army Warns U.S.: Don’t Raid Our Country Again

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan’s army broke its silence Thursday over the U.S. commando raid that killed Osama bin Laden, acknowledging its own “shortcomings” in efforts to find the al-Qaida leader but threatening to review cooperation with Washington if there is another similar violation of Pakistani sovereignty. The tough-sounding statement was a sign of the anger in the army. It also appeared aimed at appeasing politicians, the public and the media in the country over what’s viewed by many here as a national humiliation delivered by a deeply unpopular America. … (H/T: C2)

Fuck you sideways, Pakistan. You had Osama for years and there’s absolutely no way that you didn’t know it. If anything, further raids on Pakistan are required.

Daily Mail — American bloggers have hit back at Europeans who have criticised the outpouring of joy over the death of Osama Bin Laden. While thousands of U.S citizens took to the streets to celebrate the killing, the reaction in Europe was far more muted. And some are so angered by what they see as a judgmental stance from across The Pond, they have gone online to hit back at the “cheese-eating surrender monkeys.” …

I should just call this post the “fuck you sideways” edition, if that expression weren’t more suitable elsewhere.

Ding Dong, the Bitch is Dead

I’m sure everybody (even Adolf Hitler) knows by now that Osama bin Laden is dead, dead, dead. I for one couldn’t be happier… for a variety of reasons.

First, I’m glad the bastard is dead. Some may have complained that his death was “too quick,” but any other suggestion just isn’t reasonable. Torture him first? Try to take him alive so that Eric Holder can hold his trial in New York City and get him released on a technicality? Just kill him and be done with it. I don’t begrudge the fact that he body was treated “in accordance with Islamic beliefs”, meaning that he was buried (at sea) within 24 hours of death – Yes, I’m sure we’d all prefer that he were buried in a shroud of bacon; but isn’t that just a waste of good bacon? I’m not sure exactly what they meant to accomplish by granting him this “honor”, but hey. As long as he’s not merely dead, but really most sincerely dead, we can afford to be magnanimous.

Secondly, I’m quite happy to see the lack of a groundswell of conspiracy theories surrounding the event. During Bush’s presidency his opponents frequently implied that he knew exactly where Osama was, and that he was just waiting for the right time (before his reelection in 2004, when his polls numbers hit rock bottom or he had a story to distract the media from) to capture/kill bin Laden for personal political gain. If Osama had been killed during the Bush presidency, regardless of the time and details; the media, academia, and left-wing blogosphere would have been abroil with innuendo and lies. Regardless of who gets the credit, I’m glad to see more maturity among the circles within which I move – For the most part, we’re just all happy to see him dead. Can I say “dead” again? A tingle goes up my fingers whenever I type the word… Osama is dead, dead, dead… (This must be Chris Matthews feels all the time since 2008.)

Third,