Islamophobia and all that

Andy Bostom has drawn up a chart of all the terrorist attacks carried out by Muslim extremists on U.S. soil. He comes up with a total of 3,308 Americans killed in 65 attacks over the last 35 years.

In retaliation for these attacks, Bostom found exactly one case: a convicted felon gunned down a Muslim four days after 9/11. The felon has since been convicted and sentenced to death.

The next time someone tells you that Muslims in America are under threat of violence from Americans, show that someone the chart.

Remember the Syrian reactor?

The German news magazine Der Spiegel has published a fascinating article about the Israeli attack on a Syrian nuclear reactor in September 2007. If you ignore some of the gratuitous slams ("as is always the case with these strikes, the bombs were far more destructive than necessary. For the Israelis, it made little difference whether a few guards were killed or a larger number of people."), it has lots of details - some of which must be true.

As for that cargo ship

The cargo ship Francop just seized by the Israelis turns out to have been carrying, in addition to hand grenades, mortars and ammunition, some 3,000 missiles from Iran which the Israelis believe were intended for Hezbollah. By way of comparison, this is 10 times as many weapons as the infamous Karine A was carrying when it was intercepted in January 2002 with 50 tons of missiles, mortars, rifles and ammunition from Iran to Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.

An interesting note: "[Israeli] Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai said the crew, led by a Polish captain, was not aware of the Francop's contents and cooperated fully."

Missing in action

Iranian dissidents celebrated the 30th anniversary of the takeover of the American embassy in Tehran with counter-demonstrations. At considerable risk to themselves, they shouted "Death to the dictators" instead of "Death to America." And, according to the Los Angeles Times, they also challenged President Obama, saying "Obama! Obama! Either you're with them or with us!" (Thanks to Investor's Business Daily.)

The White House, to mark the anniversary, issued a statement by Obama saying America “wants to move beyond this past, and seeks a relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran based upon mutual interests and mutual respect.” It then reassured the Iranian regime that the United States has no intention of interfering in Iran’s internal affairs.

Barry Rubin recounts here the Bronx cheer that Iranian supreme leader Khamenei gave Obama's attempts to make friends: "Whenever [the Americans] smile at the officials of the Islamic revolution, when we carefully look at the situation, we notice that they are hiding a dagger behind their back," he said. "They have not changed their intentions."

Conclusion: studiously ignoring the people in Iran who want to be our friends, while courting those who prefer to be our enemies, is not 'realistic' foreign policy; it's foolish, shortsighted - and just plain wrong.

More on honor killings

Here's a link to an article from the New York Post, with, as Jihad Watch notes, the first reasonably accurate discussion in a mainstream publication about Muslim honor killings in the United States. It notes: "Over the past two years, there have been about a dozen attempted or successful honor killings committed in the US."

And here, from the comment section of that blog entry, is a German website that lists the known honor killings in Germany. Even if you can't read German, you can easily get the idea just by scrolling through it.

Bottom line: honor killings may be more common in Europe, but they're happening here too.

Climate change

When historians write the definitive account of our times, I suspect they'll describe 'imminent catastrophic climate change' as the peculiar topic that distracted Western leaders precisely at the time when they needed to focus on real existential threats.

According to EU Observer, climate change will top the list of subjects to be discussed at the November 3 U.S.-EU summit - Afghanistan-Pakistan and Iran are further down the list. The Europeans want to avert a train wreck at the UN climate change conference scheduled for this December in Copenhagen and to that end will pressure President Obama to adopt a carbon dioxide emissions trading system compatible with theirs.

The perils of foreign elections

It's always risky to subordinate U.S. foreign policy decisions to the procedures or outcomes of foreign elections. Two recent cases come to mind: Afghanistan and Honduras.

In Afghanistan, opposition presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah has now bowed out of the November 7 runoff. Since much of the discussion about whether President Obama should increase U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan has centered around the legitimacy of the Afghan government, this move leaves the U.S. government with both feet firmly planted...in midair.

In Honduras, the United States has brokered a murky compromise to allow former president Manual Zelaya to return home, and to proceed with November 29 elections to choose a new president to go forward. What if, as one Honduran source suggested, Zelaya can't return to Honduras until the Supreme Court rules on the issue - and it doesn't do so until after November 29? It was smart for the U.S. government to negotiate a way around its ridiculous insistence that Zelaya be reinstated, but what a dumb position to be in in the first place.

Hint to the Obama administration: try focusing primarily on U.S. national security interests. In Honduras, there were none of which I'm aware, so we should have kept our distance rather than meddling. In Afghanistan, the government's legitimacy is important, but more important is the overall security situation in the country. Both American and Afghan lives are currently at risk, and protecting them should be the main focus.