Crossed lines

I don't know about you, but the reactions of certain members of the public at Glasgow Airport on Saturday have made me feel a lot better about us. There is the by-now superstar John Smeaton with his

You’re nae hitting the polis, mate. There’s nae chance.

There's also a taxi driver, Alex McIlveen, who had just dropped off a passenger. He saw the jeep crash and the two terrorists jump out and start on everyone around them as if they were on something chemical and noxious. One of them

kicked and punched a man to the ground before punching a policeman square in the face. That’s when I saw red. That sort of thing just isn’t on.

As Mark Steyn does not tire of pointing out, the only ones to fight back on 9/11 were the people on United 93 who didn't rely on the authorities. They did what they had to do and what they had to do, they did.

But Smeaton and McIlveen also remind me of special kind of American hero. Specifically, of Will Kane in High Noon. Not big on the exegesis or the footnotes is Will. When it comes to expressing himself, he does it by acting, not by talking. The rest of the town talks and talks and does nothing. Kane knows what's right, and so he does it. Very simple really. At a certain point, you stop understanding or making excuses; a line is crossed, and you act. But the line must be clear (see the post about Magdi Allam below).

It seems that Glaswegian taxi drivers and baggage handlers have a certain clarity of vision that is denied to so many of their 'betters'.

Save the Christians

Called by a Muslim, several thousand people gathered in Rome last night for a "national demonstration against the exodus and persecution of Christians in the Middle East and for religious freedom in the world" (in the words of the poster). Politicians were not asked to speak, though a good number attended, mostly from the Centre-Right, among them Silvio Berlusconi (who in another place yesterday called Margaret Thatcher "una bella gnocca", which I refuse to translate).

It was Magdi Allam, an Egyptian who calls himself a "secular Muslim" and who is now a senior editor in Italy's premier daily Il Corriere della Sera, who made the original appeal and who was the keynote speaker of the evening. He is scandalised by the Italian state's inadequate efforts to gain the release of Padre Giancarlo Bossi, a missionary kidnapped in the Philipines on the 10th of June and spoke about hostages of the Serie A (journalists) and those of the Serie B (priests).

But the theme was wider than that of hostages and religious intolerance. A more accurate description of the slogan (Salviamo i cristiani) is 'Let's save the Christians'. Yes, that means the Christians of the Middle and Far East, but Allam is concerned most by those he lives among, those in a Europe "weakened by relativism and blinded by the ideology of multi-culturalism [which] betrays its own values and denies its own identity". How does it do this?

It allows a situation in which

ordinary Muslims dare not approach certain mosques because they have been transformed into nests of Islamic extremists; non-practising Muslims go in fear of their lives as do others who convert.

The preroration.

Let's free ourselves from our prejudices, cast off deseased ideologies, overcome the fear that makes us imagine that, just to save our skin, to somehow survive, to escape the cut-throats, we should submit to silence and accept the status of dhimmi and the state of zombies, individuals deprived of their dignity and their liberty. That is why the battle for the freedom of Christians in the Middle East and for religious freedom everywhere is also the battle to reconquer our own dignity and freedom that have sunk low with the spread of the relativism of intellect, values, culture, religion and politics...Before the systematic persecution of and the mass exodus induced or imposed on the Christians of the Middle East, we cannot not say 'We are all Christians'.

Our words, or rough soldiers and their guns

Michael Yon has been wondering why, when major media are all too glad to give publicity to politically correct massacres (whether real or not), they turn their eyes from al-Queda slaughter.

In response, Glenn Reynolds has received this email from a "journalist whose name you'd recognize":

Yon's story doesn't get attention because it is humiliating.

It is humiliating because it is obvious that we media – and our allies in the state department, the legal trade, the NGOs, the Democratic Party, the UN, etc., - can’t do squat about such determined use of force.

Our words, images, arguments and skills can’t stop the killing. Only the rough soldiers and their guns can solve the problem, and we won’t admit that fact because the admission would weaken our influence and our claim to social status.

So we pretend Yon’s massacre – and the North Korean killing fields, the Arab treatment of women, the Arab hatred of Israel, etc. - doesn’t exist, and instead focus our emotions and attention on the somewhat-bad domestic things that we can ‘fix’ with our DC-based allies. Things such as Abu Ghraib, wiretapping, etc. When we ‘fix’ them, then we get status, applause, power, new jobs, ego, etc.

Please don’t be surprised. We media are an interest group not much different from the automakers, the unions, and the farmers.

Is that why we get to hear so little about Operation Phantom Thunder? It just doesn't fit the right narrative?

Who's oppressing you?

I love the tone of his voice near the end, when you just know he'd like to use language that is so much more vivid and immediate.

The Girls are back in town

"Batan-wielding, burka-clad, sharia-enforcing women of the Lal Masjid", as Bill Roggio puts it.

They look like militant masochist feminists.

Muslims protest honour killings

A cartoon in today's Telegraph shows a crowd of bearded and hijabed figures marching under banners emblazoned with NOT IN MY NAME, OSAMA BIN LIAR, NO MORE MURDER, DROP TERROR NOT BOMBS. The caption reads, "Coming to a high street near you?" It's all in the question mark and it's been asked many times before. Where are the Muslim protests against Islamic terror that make as much noise as the ones against cartoons and popes, or any noise at all?

Well, last Thursday there was a small noise outside the courthouse in Brescia (Italy), even if the terror in this case was that exercised by men over women inside the four walls of a house. The occasion was the first hearing in the trial of four Pakistani men for the murder last August of Hina Saleem, a 22-year-old. It was an 'honour killing'. One of the four is her father, the others close relatives. The girl's crime was that she wanted to live like an Italian; she had gone so far as to (secretly) move in with her Italian boyfriend and get a job in a pizzeria. She had also refused to marry the Pakistani man that her family had chosen for her. So her father cut her throat and buried her in the garden with her head towards Mecca.

The men were rounded up in short order and are now on trial. Last Thursday, 200 people gathered outside the court to voice their feelings, among them the Imam of Turin, Abdellah Mechnoune, and many Muslim women from various volunteer associations. Dounia Ettaib, on behalf of a Moroccan women's group (Acmid-Donne), had requested that her association be allowed to take civil part in the prosecution in order to sue for damages. The request was refused, but the protest gained national coverage and one other less desirable reaction.

Last Friday Dounia Ettaib was assaulted by two Moroccan men near a mosque in Milan. They had a message or two for her - "Stop talking about Islamism" - "Hina is a prostitute like you". One of them grabbed her face and sneered, "Beauty doesn't last long". Miss Ettaib reported them and was immediately granted a bodyguard and Italian citizenship.

Operation Phantom Thunder - Background

Michael Totten links to this excellent background to Operation Phantom Thunder by Frederick and Kimberly Kagan. They look at the failures and successes in the period 2004-6 and how the lessons have been applied to the current operations. It's fascinating. In Falluja, Najaf Karbala and Sadr City, military success was turned into civil failure by quick withdrawal - the baddies were beaten, but the law didn't hang round. Whereas in Tal Afar to some extent, and then most notably in Ramadi, control was maintained, links were forged with the local population and extraordinary results were achieved.

Thus the slow and methodical preparation for Operation Phantom Thunder and the misunderstanding over what the Surge was and when it took place. Until a couple of weeks ago, just as Kilkullen said in that interview with Austin Bay, the ground was being very carefully prepared not only by gathering intelligence, as in Tal Afar and Ramadi, but by repositioning American units in forward operating bases that will be held.

Bill Roggio sets out the stages like this:

Disruption: U.S. and Iraqi forces do not have forces established in the region or have not conducted clearing operations. Security forces are conducting raids and other shaping operations to “disrupt” enemy activity and gain intelligence on the terrorist and insurgent networks.

Clearance: Security forces are in the process of conducting large-scale operations, sweeps, and searches to find and secure weapons caches, detain insurgents, and establish a permanent presence in the area.

Controlling: Security forces have a presence in the area, and neighborhood watches and police forces have been established. The areas are now considered secured.

Retention: Neighborhoods are under control and have been fully transitioned to Iraq control.

But get it from the horse's mouth. David Kilkullen has an article here where he explains the logic behind the Surge. In a sentence, it is this:

The "terrain" we are clearing is human terrain, not physical terrain.

It is, indeed, quite different from anything that has happened so far in Iraq, taking what was to be learnt from Tal Afar and Ramadi, but on a huge scale.

I would just add that none of this, I repeat, none have I learnt from the media. It's all been through bloggers such as Instapundit, Pajamas Media and Michael Yon, Michael Totten and Bill Roggio.

I thought He said, 'The fire next time'

Just to demonstrate that Muslims do not have a monopoly on silliness, the Church of England speaks. No wonder it has such moral authority.

While those who have been affected by the storms are innocent victims, the bishops argue controversially that the flooding is a result of Western civilisation's decision to ignore biblical teaching.

The Rt Rev Graham Dow, Bishop of Carlisle, argued that the floods are not just a result of a lack of respect for the planet, but also a judgment on society's moral decadence.

"This is a strong and definite judgment because the world has been arrogant in going its own way," he said. "We are reaping the consequences of our moral degradation, as well as the environmental damage that we have caused."

And re-writes history into the bargain.

The bishop, who is a leading evangelical, said that people should heed the stories of the Bible, which described the downfall of the Roman empire as a result of its immorality.

He has just re-dated the New Testament to after 476. Now that's news.

Michael Yon report

Michael Yon shows how al-Queda leave a village. It is not nice. He was taking these photos as the second car bomb was discovered in London.

Bill Roggio corrects the New York Times on its estimation that only 29% of Baghdad is secured.

Doing our propaganda work for us

Hassan Butt, ex-member of Al-Muhajiroun, in today's Observer.

When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network, a series of semi-autonomous British Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideology, I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy.

By blaming the government for our actions, those who pushed the 'Blair's bombs' line did our propaganda work for us. More important, they also helped to draw away any critical examination from the real engine of our violence: Islamic theology...

For example, yesterday on Radio 4's Today programme, the mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, said: 'What all our intelligence shows about the opinions of disaffected young Muslims is the main driving force is not Afghanistan, it is mainly Iraq.'

He then refused to acknowledge the role of Islamist ideology in terrorism and said that the Muslim Brotherhood and those who give a religious mandate to suicide bombings in Palestine were genuinely representative of Islam...

It may be difficult to swallow but the reason why Abu Qatada - the Islamic scholar whom Palestinian militants recently called to be released in exchange for the kidnapped BBC journalist Alan Johnston - has a following is because he is extremely learned and his religious rulings are well argued. His opinions, though I now thoroughly disagree with them, have validity within the broad canon of Islam.