Say Anything Blog

Brad Wilmouth

Finally, the MSM lets some truth slip out!

On Sunday’s “NBC Nightly News,” correspondent Pete Williams previewed details of a new book, The Terrorist Watch: Inside the Desperate Race to Stop the Next Attack, by Ronald Kessler, in which Kessler revealed information obtained by the an FBI agent who extensively interviewed Saddam Hussein and found, among other things, that the former Iraqi leader had deliberately tried to “fool the U.S.” into believing he had weapons of mass destruction because “he wanted Iranian leaders to believe that he had nuclear and biological weapons.” The FBI agent, named George Piro, also reported that Saddam Hussein “hoped the post-Gulf War sanctions on Iraq would dissolve, allowing him to pursue a nuclear capability.” (Transcript follows)

NBC News correspondent Pete Williams began his report: “Saddam Hussein told his American captors that he so feared Iran, he wanted Iranian leaders to believe that he had nuclear and biological weapons. So he planned to fool the U.S. by, among other things, stalling U.N. inspectors to make it appear he had something to hide, weapons of mass destruction or WMD. But he hoped the post-Gulf War sanctions on Iraq would dissolve, allowing him to pursue a nuclear capability.”

Then a soundbite of Kessler ran: “Saddam said that if America thought that he had WMD, then, of course, Iran would, and this would fulfill his goal of making sure that Iran did not want to attack Iraq.”

Below is a complete transcript of the story from the Sunday November 11 “NBC Nightly News”:

[...]

Read the transcript.
So, the leftie mantra, “Bush lied, people died” is yet another leftie lie.
It should be: “Saddam lied, people died.” Had we not deposed him when we did, we would be in a world in which Iraq and Iran would be developing nuclear weapons to use against each other and the rest of the world.
It’s funny that lefties consider the President of the United States a bigger enemy than our real enemies, but not so surprising when you consider the ideology of the left.

Russ Vaughn

Makes sense.

As retirees with limited incomes, my wife and I were feeling the pinch of rising energy prices like everyone else. A couple of years ago, following my Capitalist Pig instincts, of which Rush Limbaugh has made me proud, I decided to heed an age-old truism, “If you can’t lick ‘em, join ‘em,” as well as one of the Maharushie’s maxims, “When you’re handed lemons, make lemonade.”

I decided that if we were going to be contributing to the obscene profits the Democrats and Drive-by Media claim BIGOIL companies are reaping, we might as well share in them by owning some energy company stocks. After several days of careful internet research, I purchased a few thousand dollars of a Vanguard natural resources mutual fund and converted the cash accumulation of my wife’s life insurance policy from a modestly performing bond mutual fund into another high performing energy resources mutual fund from Jennison.

Now when I look at a pump and see the price has jumped several more cents per gallon, instead of my old reaction of shock and anger at those BIGOIL robber barons, I now stand there watching those digits climb higher and higher on the pump, calculating how this latest increase is going to translate into performance growth in those mutual funds. By the time I hang the nozzle back on the pump, I’m usually smiling.

You see, for the last two years the growth in value of our modest investment in those funds not only has covered all our gasoline bills for three cars but also our residential gas and electric bills, with enough left over to pay the insurance on all three automobiles. Believe me, it’s a nice feeling driving away from the gas station knowing you just got another free fill-up.

[...]

60 Minutes, if you want to do an exposé on my obscene profits as a Little BIGOIL Baron, I’m definitely available.

Individual independence, combined with the private ownership and control of capital; what makes America great.

A Stunning Report on ‘Discretionary Income’ Old Media Uses Its Discretion to Ignore

Someone needs to tell me why this news about discretionary income isn’t as significant as I believe it is.

But first, three warnings:

1. I’m not about to spend the $250 needed to read the full report from the Conference Board that backs the story (their “about” page is here).

2. I don’t feel totally comfortable with how the statistic is measured—“Households with discretionary income, as defined by the study, are those whose spendable income exceeds that held by households with similar demographic features.”

3. I don’t feel totally comfortable that the statistic has been measured consistently.

Now with the disclaimers out of the way, here’s the stunning news: More Americans have “money to burn,” technically known as “discretionary income,” than at any time in the past quarter-century, and perhaps in the country’s history.

A lot more. A whole lot more.

So many more that I went as far back as I could for comparable stats.

Here is what I found:

[...]

Summarizing, here is the progression of Americans with discretionary income:

-- 1983 - 33%

-- 1987 - 30%

-- 1997/1998 - 52%

-- 2002 - 52.1%

-- 2003/2004 - 51%

-- 2006 - 63.5%

In everyday language, this means that about 12% of the population went from just getting by to having money to spare in a span of two or three years.

Again, someone needs to tell me why this news isn’t as significant, or as remarkable, as it appears.

You might think that in the non-stop Old Media hype about how the alleged crises in housing, mortgage lending, currency strength, and who knows what else, that good news like this might be welcome, if only as a change of pace.

As has been the case almost non-stop for almost 7 years, you would be wrong.

[...]

If you’re wondering how it is that so many people are coming up with the money for all manner of iPods, monthly video game subscriptions, and scalped Hannah Montana tickets, there’s probably a very simple answer: They have it.

Old Media would prefer that you not know that.

Mark Finkelstein

When Rush Limbaugh opened today’s show by mentioning that the New York Times had relegated to page A19 the story of the ridding of Al Qaeda-in-Iraq from all of Baghdad, I actually thought he might be joking. Surely not even the Times could be so brazenly biased as to bury such a huge story reflecting the success of the surge.

But, sure enough, Rush was right. Page A19 is precisely the remote location to which the Times banished the story. And to further diminish the number of people who would learn the good news, the paper stuck this bland headline on it:

“Rebel Unit Now Out of Baghdad, U.S. General Asserts”

The headline of the online-version of the story:

“Militant Group Is Out of Baghdad, U.S. Says”

differs slightly, but the text is the same.

Yeah, it was just some “rebel unit” or “militant group” that the MNF has driven out of all of Baghdad:

AL-FREAKING-QAEDA!

And note the Times’s passive tone: AQI is “out” of Baghdad. Hey: they were driven out by the MNF. Defeated. Killed or taken prisoner. Those that escaped either fled or slinked out.

But thanks to Rush, and now with a little help from NB, many more people are going to read the story and learn that:

American forces have routed Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the Iraqi militant network, from every neighborhood of Baghdad, a top American general said today, allowing American troops involved in the“surge” to depart as planned.

Maj. Gen. Joseph F. Fil Jr. [pictured here], commander of United States forces in Baghdad, also said that American troops had yet to clear some 13 percent of the city, including Sadr City and several other areas controlled by Shiite militias. But, he said, “there’s just no question” that violence had declined since a spike in June.

“Murder victims are down 80 percent from where they were at the peak,” and attacks involving improvised bombs are down 70 percent, he said.

[...]

The Dem Ministry of Propaganda(the MSM) needs to cover up this story as much as they possibly can, lest the dreaded President Bush be given credit for what he is accomplishing against the terrorists.

Thomas Lifson

Barack Obama is letting us know the kind of welfare state he has in mind for America. In addition to government spending, he is proposing job-killing mandates for employers of all but start-up companies. As the EU social welfare states like Germany and France have discovered, making it very expensive to hire people tends to make new jobs scarce.
Margaret Talev of McClatchy reports, and uses language somewhat surprising for MSM coverage of a Democrat [italics added below]:

Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama is rolling out a cradle-to-grave tax-and-benefit program aimed at women and working-class families.

The sweeping subsidies and mandates reflect his past as a community organizer.

[....]

The result of Eurosocialism is high unemployment and low economic growth.  Do we really want to go down that road?  Our system is far superior to that.

Betsy Newmark

In my Advanced Placement Government and Politics class, we’ve been talking about the Constitutional Convention and the fight over ratification. As we were listing the objections of the Anti-federalists to the proposed constitution, it struck all of us how relevant their criticisms are still today. They feared the powers of the presidency would lead to a monarchical power grab - imperial presidency fears, anyone. They said that the “necessary and proper” clause and the “general welfare” clause were too vague and would allow the federal government to do almost anything it wanted. Who could deny that that hasn’t happened? They feared that the legislators in Congress would grow away from the people and soon govern without concern for the popular will and worried that there were no term limits on the congressmen. And they worried over giving Congress the power to tax and were concerned over how far the federal government would interfere in the economy. Does any of that sound familiar to anyone? And they worried that unelected judges would have too much power without the people having any control over the courts.

Too often we downplay the concerns of the Anti-federalists because they were the losers of the debate and we now have such reverence for the Constitution. But their legacy lives on. First of all, we owe their strong objections for the Bill of Rights. And when you hear critics today of Congress, fears of executive power, complaints about the judiciary, the desire for term limits on Congressmen and the devolution of power back to the states, remember the Anti-federalists and how they foresaw all of this.

In light of all this tribute to the Anti-federalists, Melanie Scarborough’s column yesterday seemed especially pertinent. She wrote about how people expect the federal government to do today what the Founders never dreamt of being the federal government’s rsponsibility.

Exemplifying the absurd, Congress even created a federal subsidy to help Americans buy converter boxes when television broadcasts shift from analog to digital. Where does the Constitution guarantee citizens the right to clear TV reception?

Listening to some of these candidates, one can only wonder if these people ever listen to themselves. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., wants taxpayers to give every baby born in the United States $5,000 at birth to encourage the habit of saving.

....Who would have dreamed a generation ago that citizens would let their government dictate the minutiae of everyday life such as where young children may ride in the car and what time teenagers have to be home — or that small businesses would be saddled with regulations on such things as carving butterfly shrimp?

Politicians peddle overweening government on the pretense of “keeping Americans secure.” But the Constitution requires government to provide for the common defense — not for individual safety. If you’re afraid of incorrectly carved shrimp, then stay home to eat.

Sometimes, when I’m listening to today’s politicians, I pause and wonder what the Anti-federalists would say. Heck, I wonder if those who supported the Constitution and sought to explain why the Anti-federalists didn’t need to worry about the powers of the new central government would recognize today’s federal government. Hamilton perhaps would recognize that government, but Madison? I’m not so sure.

Food for thought.  I find it especially interesting how accurately the Anti-Federalists predicted many of the excesses of govt that beset us today.

The Associated Press

Israel reports jump in Jerusalem Arabs seeking Israeli citizenship
By

The number of East Jerusalem residents seeking Israeli citizenship has risen sharply in recent months, an Israeli official said Wednesday, as talk of a possible re-division of the city gains momentum.

The Interior Ministry has received hundreds of applications for citizenship from Arab residents of East Jerusalem over the past few months, instead of the average of several dozen, said ministry spokeswoman Sabine Hadad.

Hadad was unable to provide specific figures but said there has been an increase of hundreds.

The trend appears to stem from Palestinian fears that they could lose Israeli social benefits, such as health care or welfare payments, if their neighborhoods are shifted to Palestinian control in the future.

When Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan in 1967, the city’s Arabs were given the opportunity to become citizens, yet they rejected it because they refused to acknowledge Israeli control over the city.

Instead, they were given the status of permanent residents, holding Israeli ID cards and making them eligible for many benefits enjoyed by Israelis. In contrast to West Bank Palestinians, permanent residents also enjoy freedom of movement in Israel.

The rise in citizenship applications comes as Israeli and Palestinian officials prepare for a U.S.-sponsored peace conference at the end of this month in Annapolis, Maryland.

[...]

Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed it, a move never recognized by the international community. Today, around a third of Jerusalem’s 750,000 residents are Palestinian.

Actions speak louder than words.
When given the choice, most people choose freedom over terrorism.

Here’s something you don’t see every day: a global warming alarmist coming out strongly against the use of biofuels.

Though George Monbiot isn’t a household name in the States, he is considered one of Britain’s leading environmentalists, and is regularly quoted by warm-mongers to advance climate hysteria.

Yet, despite his irrational disdain for carbon dioxide, Monbiot has long campaigned against the use of biofuels.

With that in mind, his Tuesday article in the British Guardian contained his harshest criticisms to date for this supposedly eco-friendly source of energy that global warming obsessed media in America dare not share with the citizenry (emphasis added throughout):

Story Continues Below Ad ↓

It doesn’t get madder than this. Swaziland is in the grip of a famine and receiving emergency food aid. Forty per cent of its people are facing acute food shortages. So what has the government decided to export? Biofuel made from one of its staple crops, cassava. The government has allocated several thousand hectares of farmland to ethanol production in the district of Lavumisa, which happens to be the place worst hit by drought. It would surely be quicker and more humane to refine the Swazi people and put them in our tanks.

Those familiar with Monbiot know that he has quite a flare for the dramatic:

"The cost of rice has risen by 20% over the past year, maize by 50%, wheat by 100%. Biofuels aren’t entirely to blame - by taking land out of food production they exacerbate the effects of bad harvests and rising demand - but almost all the major agencies are now warning against expansion. And almost all the major governments are ignoring them."

[...]

Of course, NBC also wouldn’t want its viewers to read Monbiot’s startling conclusion:

"If the governments promoting biofuels do not reverse their policies, the humanitarian impact will be greater than that of the Iraq war. Millions will be displaced, hundreds of millions more could go hungry. This crime against humanity is a complex one, but that neither lessens nor excuses it. If people starve because of biofuels, Ruth Kelly and her peers will have killed them. Like all such crimes, it is perpetrated by cowards, attacking the weak to avoid confronting the strong."

As amazing as it might seem, I largely agree with Monbiot’s assessment; where we part company is in who are the cowards, who are the weak, and who are the strong.

George Monbiot

Bring on the Recession

How else will the destructive effects of growth be stopped?

If you are of a sensitive disposition, I advise you to turn the page now. I am about to break the last of the universal taboos. I hope that the recession now being forecast by some economists materialises.

I recognise that recession causes hardship. Like everyone I am aware that it would cause some people to lose their jobs and homes. I do not dismiss these impacts or the harm they inflict, though I would argue that they are the avoidable results of an economy designed to maximise growth rather than welfare. What I would like you to recognise is something much less discussed: that, beyond a certain point, hardship is also caused by economic growth.

On Sunday I visited the only UN biosphere reserve in Wales: the Dyfi estuary. As is usual at weekends, several hundred people had come to enjoy its beauty and tranquillity and, as is usual, two or three people on jet skis were spoiling it for everyone else. Most economists will tell us that human welfare is best served by multiplying the number of jet skis. If there are two in the estuary today, there should be four there by this time next year and eight the year after. Because the estuary’s beauty and tranquillity don’t figure in the national accounts (no one pays to watch the sunset) and because the sale and use of jet skis does, this is deemed an improvement in human welfare.

This is a minor illustration of an issue which can no longer be dismissed as trivial. In August the World Health Organisation released the preliminary results of its research into the links between noise and stress. Its work so far suggests that long-term exposure to noise from traffic alone could be responsible, around the world, for hundreds of thousands of deaths through ischaemic heart disease every year, as well as contributing to strokes, high blood pressure, tinnitus, broken sleep and other stress-related illnesses. Noise, its researchers found, raises your levels of stress hormones even while you sleep. As a study of children living close to airports in Germany suggests, it also damages long-term memory, reading and speech perception. All over the world, complaints about noise are rising: to an alien observer it would appear that the primary purpose of economic growth is to find ever more intrusive means of burning fossil fuels.

This leads us to the most obvious way in which further growth will hurt us. Climate change does not lead only to a decline in welfare: beyond a certain point it causes its termination. In other words, it threatens the lives of hundreds of millions of people. However hard governments might work to reduce carbon emissions, they are battling the tide of economic growth. While the rate of growth in the use of energy declines as an economy matures, no country has yet managed to reduce energy use while raising gross domestic product. The UK’s carbon dioxide emissions are higher than they were in 1997, partly as a result of the 60 successive quarters of growth that Gordon Brown keeps boasting about. A recession in the rich nations might be the only hope we have of buying the time we need to prevent runaway climate change.

[...]

But because political discourse is controlled by people who put the accumulation of money above all other ends, this policy appears to be impossible. Unpleasant as it will be, it is hard to see what except an accidental recession could prevent economic growth from blowing us through Canaan and into the desert on the other side.

Blah, blah, blah.

Even though this was written by a Euro, it is the basic tenet of the lefties that prosperity is bad for us.  To make a “better world”, we should surrender our freedom to make our own economic decisions, for the common good.  Just more Marxism.
What’s good for the lefties is bad for America.
They just keep proving it over and over again.

“The Arab street knows full well that we give billions to Jordan, Egypt, and the Palestinians and are probably baffled that we don’t cut it out. They also know we have just as frequently fought Christians on their behalf as Muslims; they know if their voting feet tell them anything that no place is more tolerant of their religion or more open to immigration than the United States. Yes, (Radical) Islamists all know that opening a mosque in Detroit is one thing, and opening a church in Saudi Arabia is quite another. Hitler wasn’t interested in Wilson’s 14 Points or how nicely Germans lived in the U.S. he cared only that we “cowboys” would not or could not stop what he was up to.”

Find it here

After spending half her diary comparing America to Nazi Germany, Daily Kos diarist Granny Doc openly roots for an “economic meltdown” in America,

The parallels are undeniable, and I see only one solution if America, The Grand Experiment, is to survive.
I want to stand by and watch it all blow up.

I want the dollar to plunge to worthless paper.

I want the stock market to implode.

I want the economy to plunge into chaos.

I want the Chinese to call in all the debt they hold.

I want an economic meltdown of such staggering proportion that even that idiot on Bill Moyer’s Journal who does not know the difference between a State Constitution and the United States Constitution, is forced to look around in mild surprise and wonder what the hell happened.

Only total economic destruction will get the attention of the fools.

I want every single idiot who doesn’t think politics is any of their concern to be gob smacked by the terror of losing it all. I want a wake up call of such stunning proportion that a generation will slip from the stage before any American citizen votes on the basis of looks, or, charm, or cant - before any claim of “Free Trade” is accepted as uninteresting. Before any citizen thinks it’s cute, or hep, or stylish, to be distainful of politics.

I want every politician who places getting elected ahead of protecting the Constitution to find their corporate masters have lost interest in their little fiefdom as economic collapse makes their petty posturing even more pathetic.

I want a culture war against greed to emerge from the rubble, and the blyth acceptance of what is, in favor of the hard work of what could be to become so passe that our grandchildren will forever wonder what we were thinking.

I want every bamboozled, bubble headed, super-star chasing, reality show afficianado thrown off the island, and forced to swim in the shark infested waters of what their indifference has wrought.

And I want it now, before this inept, self-serving Congress allows the Facists one more opportunity to fully convert this from the United States of America, into the 4th Reich.

Remind you of anyone who comments on this blog?
Just another reminder that what’s bad for America is good for the lefties.
If they prayed, they would be praying for our destruction.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Six years after the Taliban’s ouster, medical care in Afghanistan has improved such that nearly 90,000 children who would have died before age 5 in 2001 will survive this year, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Sunday.

Saddled for years with one of the world’s worst records on child health, Afghanistan has seen access to health care rise dramatically since the U.S.-led invasion.

Thousands of health clinics have been built across the country, and the Afghan government and aid agencies have trained tens of thousands of doctors, vaccinators and health volunteers who now reach into some of the country’s most remote areas.

[...]

Noel Sheppard

If a middle school in Northern California had on its events schedule a cross-dressing, gender-shift day encouraging children to attire themselves as a member of the opposite sex, wouldn’t you expect liberal media members across the fruited plain to be all over the story?

Yet, according to Google News and LexisNexis searches, not one press outlet, including those near the situation in California, thought this matter was at all newsworthy.

Fortunately, as announced Tuesday by the Pacific Justice Institute, the event was canceled

Following parent complaints, a middle school on the outskirts of the Bay Area has reversed course and canceled a cross-dressing or “gender switch” day.
The mother of a seventh-grade student at Adams Middle School was alarmed when she heard that on the last day of the school’s “Spirit Week,” students were being encouraged to dress like the opposite sex. Perhaps even more disturbingly, parents were given virtually no advance notice from the school and found out about the event after flyers were posted throughout the campus. When this parent met with the principal to express her concerns, she was told the event would continue this Friday as planned, and she could keep her son home from school if he did not want to participate. The parent contacted Pacific Justice Institute on Monday, which advised her on enlisting other parents’ support and communicating with the school. PJI also began laying the groundwork to hold the school accountable to the public if it did not reverse course by Tuesday.

[...]

Would you like your eleven-year-old to be encouraged to cross-dress?

[...]

After all, depending on your political leaning, it would be easy to make this town a poster-child either for rampant homophobia in the suburbs, or growing tolerance for sexual-preference discussions in our public schools.

Think about it.

More typical leftie lunacy from the Bay Area, but this time it’s real.
The social engineers keep trying to strike at our society through our children.

Christopher J. Alleva

The estimable Michael Barone wrote an excellent book in 2005 titled Hard America, Soft America: Competition vs. Coddling and the Battle for the Nation’s Future. Inspired by a column he wrote in 2003, the book posits that there are two Americas: soft America and hard America. (Perhaps this is where John Edwards got his two Americas idea).

Barone argues that hard and soft America metaphorical proxies of the never ending struggle between New Deal Liberalism and Free Market Conservatism. The settlement last month of an old 1999 lawsuit over emissions from coal-fired power plants in the Ohio River Valley is a good example of Barone’s thesis in action.  It was reached among American Electric Power ("AEP"), nine Northeastern and Midatlantic states, the EPA and a number of environmental groups, including the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club. The settlement requires AEP to meet annual sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions limits for its fleet of 16 coal-fueled power plants in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia.

[...]

The lawsuit was a spoiled leftover from the Clinton’s litigious approach to everything.  From terrorism to the environment, their first impulse was always call the lawyers.  This lawsuit came out of their politically-motivated interpretation of the New Source Review (NSR) rules concerning maintenance and pollution control upgrades of coal fired power plants. Like all spoiled leftovers from Clinton, this on has that familiar pungent aroma.

Before Clinton and his trial lawyers pals came on the scene, the rule was interpreted to allow plants built prior to NSR’s adoption in 1977 to be “grandfathered,” only required to install pollution controls when they are expanded or substantially upgraded. Plants were permitted to undertake routine repair and maintenance without triggering NSR’s requirements. Under Clinton, changing a light bulb at the plant could trigger an NSR giving Clinton’s trial lawyer cronies a pretext to make a claim.

The effect of the Clinton policy was to increase pollution from these power plants because they were discouraged from doing routine maintenance like replacing worn-out boiler tubes or boiler fans. This made the plants less reliable, less efficient and more polluting. In 2003, President Bush finally got around to ending this failed policy. Writing at the National Review in October 2003 Jonathan Alder covered the President’s announcement of his new policy at Michigan’s largest coal fired plant in Monroe. The plant is very important to Michigan, producing 3000 megawatts of power.  Adler describes the adverse impact of Clinton’s NSR policy on the environment:

“For years Detroit Edison has sought to replace the turbines at the facility to increase its operating efficiency. Now that some of the President Bush’s NSR reforms are finalized, the replacement will proceed. A more efficient plant will produce more energy without increasing its emissions. As this energy needs to be produced somewhere, the net result of the Detroit Edison upgrade will be less air pollution, not more.”

Clinton’s soft America produced tons of legal briefs and legal fees but not one ton of reduced emissions or any environmental clean up. Bush’s hard America derailed Clinton’s lawyer gravy train and implemented policies that will tangibly reduce air pollution. AEP has been a favorite punching bag for the self-appointed environmentalists.  They are one of the largest electric utilities in the United States, delivering electricity to more than 5 million customers in 11 states. AEP is the target because most of their generating capacity is coal fired because it is the least expensive available fuel in their service territory. But remember, eco-dogma, coal is bad, solar, wind good.

[...]

Bush undertook an Augean task of undoing the damage caused by Clinton’s soft America energy policies. Once again, the voters have a choice. They can vote for soft America and let the lights go out or they can vote for hard American and keep the lights on. This shouldn’t be a difficult choice, just ask former California Governor Gray Davis.

So, adversarial environmental policies produce more pollution and less electricity at a higher cost.  Nothing new here.
The market, driven by the need to produce the most at the lowest cost, actually provides the best outcome, not endless environmental litigation.
What a surprise!  /sarcasm

Gary H. Johnson, Jr.

A review of
The Al Qaeda Reader
Raymond Ibrahim, Editor/translator.
$15.95, 282 pp.

Recently, Raymond Ibrahim edited and translated into English a decade’s worth of public releases by al Qaeda’s leadership.  Published by Broadway Books, with partial proceeds donated to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Ibrahim’s The Al Qaeda Reader is not only a timely fountainhead for the United States citizenry’s understanding of our Jihadi enemies, it is also a necessary release for all Muslims living under secular governments to grapple with in the coming years.

The text focuses on the prepared statements of both Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leading authority figures of the Al Qaeda forces, which coordinated and carried out the devastating attacks of 9/11/2001.  Since Muhammad’s definition of war is “deceit”, and al Qaeda has declared war against America, we can only assume that these al Qaeda releases hold a two-fold purpose:  to provide sound, doctrinal justification for terrorism; and to gather popular support for their cause.

[...]

Al-Zawahiri confirms that all Muslims are ordered to wage jihad against infidels, apostates, and hypocrites by the consensus of the ulema (jurists of accepted hadith).

[...]

This is the logic that America needs to understand.  America must come to grips with the fact that the jihad is obligatory to the Islamic faithful. Thus, with a sweep of historic citations, Ayman al-Zawahiri, utilizes the sheik of Islam, Ibn Taymiyyah, whom all Muslims adhere or respect, to define defensive jihad as second only to faith in Islam, and at the same time justifies suicide bombing in the measure of antiquity… via ijma, or parallels, to Muhammad’s battle of Ta’if.

[...]

In full, Raymond Ibrahim’s release The Al Qaeda Reader is a necessary addition to the scholarship of jihad.  The text begs the question: does the doctrine proclaimed by al Qaeda’s leadership, now widely known among the world’s Muslims, guarantee a state of perpetual war against the whole of humanity?  And if so, what is the process of eradication of these elements from the Ulema consensus in order to defuse this ticking bomb of world-wide genocide?

Read the whole thing; better yet, read the book.

For those who are still in denial of the real threat of world jihadist terrorism, this should serve the same purpose as a dash of cold water to the face.