A powerful tea party ad

Here's a powerful and very clever TV ad that unfortunately sums up my feelings completely. If we don't want the United States to decline, we've got to do something about our dreadful fiscal situation.

My fellow Americans, please vote for sanity!

Some weekend reading

If anyone is looking for some good reading, here are two new books I highly recommend:

-- Daniel Hannan's The New Road to Serfdom is a plea by a British conservative for Americans not to forget what makes the United States unique. He warns: "The U.S. Constitution was both a product and a protector of American optimism. When one is disregarded, the other dwindles." His book also contains a devastating critique of the EU's complete lack of democracy.

-- Mark Durie, in The Third Choice, lays out clearly the discriminatory rules that Islam applies to non-Muslim peoples and how those rules have been enforced over the centuries. Durie warns that Westerners, often acting either out of a desire to be conciliatory or out of fear, adopt a submissive position that Muslims interpret as accepting Islamic superiority.

The weekend is only half over, so enjoy reading them tomorrow!

While you were sleeping

Mideast expert Barry Rubin highlights here that: "Indian investigators have confirmed that Pakistani intelligence was deeply involved in the massive, bloody Mumbai terror attack in 2008, killing 166 people." As he notes, this report has garnered virtually no notice, including from the U.S. government.

Rubin speculates: "The strategy of ignoring this problem fits into the broader strategy of the Obama administration: buy short-term quiet and apparent popularity at the price of strategic decline and future crises." And he asks, "does the Obama administration want to be an ally of those who murdered 166 people in Mumbai, the equivalent of backing those who carried out the September 11, Lockerbie, Spanish train, and British underground attacks?"

I think the Obama administration has two additional motivations for its silence. First, at least some officials won't or can't admit that "outreach to the Muslim world" won't solve all our problems. Second, I think simple cowardice is also a factor.

Our relationship with Pakistan is certainly complex and we have a lot to lose if relations deteriorate. But there are already reports that Pakistani officials have been helping the Taliban kill Americans in Afghanistan. Now we learn that Pakistani intelligence was behind the recruitment of an American to go to India to identify terrorist targets, including Americans.

Just what more do the Pakistanis have to do to get our attention?

Something else for a change

Joe has told me I need to add more commentary to my blog, but in this case, I truly believe this clip will speak for itself. Enjoy! And no, it has nothing to do with foreign policy...although it is French.

What's going on Down Under

Rachel sent me this video news clip of a convicted Islamic terrorist who lived 19 years in Australia, all the time on the dole, while plotting to blow up various Australian targets and create mayhem. Watch it and weep! Western countries are their own worst enemy - the United States included.

America and Israel

In contrast to yesterday's entry about European anti-Semitism, here's an article by American-Israeli journalist Caroline Glick about recent U.S. public opinion polls measuring U.S. support for Israel. Some highlights:

-- "93.5 percent of Americans believe that the United States should be concerned about Israel's security."

-- "Whereas 78 percent of American Jews voted for Obama in 2008, today a bare majority of 51 percent approve of his performance in office . . . This is directly related to Obama's hostility towards Israel."

And for those, like me, who missed it, she recounts an appalling exchange:

"On Tuesday State Department Spokesman P.J. Crowley was asked, "Do you [i.e. the administration] recognize Israel as a Jewish state and will you try to convince the Palestinians to recognize it?

As Rick Richman at Commentary's blog noted, Crowley repeatedly tried to evade answering the question. Reporters were forced to repeat the question six separate times before Crowley managed to say, 'We recognize that Israel is a --- as it says itself, is a Jewish state, yes.'

As for whether or not the administration will try to convince the Palestinians to recognize the Jewish state, Crowley could not bring himself to give a simple affirmative answer."

So, what do you think? Will President Obama at some time will change his Mideast policies because he realizes they are wildly unpopular? Or, as with ObamaCare, will he assume the problem is that we're all just too dumb to understand how brilliant his policies are?

Wilders on trial

Geert Wilders, the Dutch politician who has spoken out against Islam, is on trial in The Netherlands, although the exact charges against him seem to be moving around a bit. According to FrontPageMag, the prosecutors recommended dropping the group defamation charge against him, admitting that he has criticized Islamic texts and teachings but not Muslims themselves.

However, the prosecutors still want him to face charges of inciting hatred; the fact that what he said was true is apparently not relevant. Of course, when the state can determine which truths may be told in public and which may not, there isn't much left to freedom of speech. Or to freedom, for that matter.