IRIS Blog

Ohio Taxpayer money is funding Associate Professor Julio Pino.

Yesterday afternoon, I logged on to the "Global War" blog (global-war.bloghi.com) of Associate Professor Julio Pino ? a Muslim convert who teaches at Kent State University. The heading for the site used to read "The Worldwide Web of Jihad: Daily News from the Most Dangerous Muslim in America." Now it reads "Are You Prepared for Jihad?" IN THE NAME OF OBL. 2007: THE YEAR OF ISLAMIC VICTORY!"

Hardly able to believe what I was reading, I called Pino at his office in Ohio around 4 p.m. According to his secretary, he had not been at work that day (he only has office hours two days of the week). He was drawing a paycheck from the people of the State of Ohio while trying to launch a Jihad against people like me. In fact, just five minutes before I called he posted an entry under the title "Crusaders Can?t Take Anymore in Afghanistan!"

Pino began his morning of not going into his office at Kent State by penning a post under the title ?Frightened British Crusaders Rush More Troops to Occupied Afghanistan.? Using terms like ?occupation? and ?Crusaders? it isn?t really necessary to read these posts in order to ascertain who this employee of the State of Ohio is rooting for in the War on Terror.

But, just in case you were curious about the purpose of this site, it is provided in the upper right corner: "We are a jihadist news service, and provide battle dispatches, training manuals, and jihad videos to our brothers worldwide. All we want is to get Allah?s pleasure. We will write ?Jihad? across our foreheads, and the stars. The angels will carry our message throughout the world."

Incidentally, his blog's assessment of "Bushitler" is indistinguishable from the talking points of the left wing of the Democratic party (surge, Abu Ghraib, etc.).

CIA: Bin Laden In Pakistan Establishing New Camps
IRIS has said for years that Bin Laden is almost certainly in Waziristan, where we reported months ago that al Qaeda had established an Israel-sized safe haven

Martin Peretz sells interest in New Republic
Bad news--he was one of the few remaining voices of foreign policy sanity on the Left

'Lego Ban' at Seattle School Fueled by Anti-Private Property Crusaders
Leftists are successfully propagandizing in your children's schools

Wonkette is acknowledged as a leading American liberal blogger. This is what she has to say about John Edwards' statement (which he now denies) that "Israel is the greatest threat to world peace," referring to the possibility that it may attack Iran's nuclear program. Edwards now denies the anti-Israel sentiment, which is generally shared throughout the political Left. The reporter stands by the quote.

What happened? According to Bart, Edwards was asked to name the greatest threat to world peace at the moment. Instead of the simple answer, wars, Edwards had to be a smarty jones and say the increasing likelihood of an Israeli attack on Iran was the primary current threat. You know, because then Washington would start bombing somebody, and Syria/Lebanon would get involved, and Russia would start threatening everybody, and it would be a nuclear war, etc.

But stating anything so obvious requires taking your lips off Israel?s ass for a few seconds, and that?s fatal for any American politician with presidential ambitions. This isn?t because Jews get upset or Israel?s feelings will get hurt or anything. It?s because of bat?? insane evangelical American Jesus Freaks who have to love and protect Israel so Jesus will come back and destroy it.

It is extraordinary that the Left has essentially championed Muslim culture, when it is rife with mysogyny and racism like this:

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The Religious Man: ?This is another sign of the collapse of the Western civilization?

As predicted, Gaza is rapidly becoming a leading exporter of terror:

A Palestinian man wearing a suicide belt who planned to attack Israeli tourists was arrested on the Egyptian side of the border town of Rafah Tuesday after entering Egypt through a tunnel on the Gaza border, Egyptian police sources said Wednesday.

"Under questioning he said that he intended to travel to south Sinai to carry out a suicide bombing at one of the villages or resorts frequented by large numbers of Israelis," a source said.

Honor killings are a horrific outgrowth of the misogyny encouraged by Islam, which includes wife beating, sharia discrimination, child marriages, wife rape, female genital mutilation, the rape of captured slaves and polygamy. The mainstream media will likely bury this story outside of England-please Digg it using the button below to get it some coverage.

Muslim Husband who Killed his Wife and Children because of their Western Ways

Mohammed Riaz made every conceivable attempt to prevent his wife and daughters enjoying their Westernised lifestyle. He destroyed their clothes - modest by Western standards but tight fitting by his own - when they came out of the wash and he railed against plans to allow alcohol at his terminally ill son's 18th birthday party - which had been brought forward because of his prognosis.

Increasingly alienated and in despair over the illness of his son, Adam, the labourer killed his wife and four daughters by throwing petrol over them as they slept and igniting it.

At the inquest in Blackburn, Lancashire, yesterday the coroner, Mike Singleton, recorded a verdict that Caneze Riaz, 39, and her four daughters, Sayrah, 16, Sophia, 15, Alicia, 10, and Hannah, three, were unlawfully killed at their terrace home in Accrington, and that Mr Riaz, who died in hospital two days after the fire, took his own life. Adam died six weeks later.

Police investigations revealed how estranged Mr Riaz, a traditionalist and a practising Muslim who grew up in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan, had become from his vivacious wife, a high-profile community worker who had co-founded the local Aawaz women's group, mentored teenage girls at a high school in nearby Rishton, and was a school governor and board member on several diversity groups.

Mrs Riaz, whose father married an English woman after becoming one of the first Asian men to emigrate to the area in the 1960s, was sent back to Pakistan for 15 years after completing primary school, but she returned in the early 1990s with Mr Riaz, with whom she had an arranged marriage. The children flourished in Britain. The eldest daughter, Sayrah, was a "second mother" to her sisters, according to the family, and had a passion for fashion design; Sophia, 13, loved rap music and wanted to be an MC, while Alicia was the closest to her father. She embraced Asian culture the most and was a regular at the mosque....Early on 1 November last year, Mr Riaz decided the pressures were too much. As his wife and daughters slept in three upstairs bedrooms, he threw petrol over them and trailed more around the house, then lit three fires.

Police believe his wife awoke and may have tried to throw one of the two petrol cans he used away from her bed. But she died almost immediately. Mr Riaz stood downstairs and waited for the flames to come down and engulf him. When they didn't, he ran back upstairs through a wall of fire and was found by firefighters in the bathroom. He died of 65 per cent burns and smoke inhalation.

Barry Khanan, 38, Mrs Riaz's brother, said her alienation from Mr Riaz was a result of "the different ways in which they approached their lives". He said: "She had become frustrated with his lack of emotional support and involvement throughout Adam's illness. Caneze was outgoing and wanted to better herself. Her husband was more withdrawn. Words cannot express how we feel about the man we believe killed our family."

The story above is an anomaly in that it actually mentions the Muslim angle. Much of the mainstream press is covering up this textbook Muslim honor killing:

1) It is not being reported at all so far outside of the UK

2) Most of the headlines are sanitized (Man killed family in house arson, 'Tormented' husband killed Riaz family, Father murdered his family inquest rules)

3) A number of the articles have used the obfuscation of changing "Muslim" to "Asian":

She began to work with women who felt suppressed by Asian culture and many saw her as a role model for young Asian women.

4) Most of the news stories have removed all references to the word "Muslim" and the term "honor killing." Here is a classic end to one of the articles, the place where the spin of a news story is generally placed:

Speaking after the inquest, Det Supt Mick Gradwell said: "We are never going to know exactly why he did it but there are a number of issues.

"Adam went into Christies Hospital that day.

"There were financial difficulties, which were not huge but there was quite a bit of debt.

"Caneze's brother Barry told us about a distancing of Mohammed and Caneze.

"They wanted different things.

"Caneze didn't want her daughters to have arranged marriages but exactly why he did this, we can't give a reason.

Please click the Digg button below to get this story exposed.

Many are calling this a gaffe, but it is a typical opinion for left-wingers like Edwards.

Edwards' gaffe was his admitting to such views while running for president, rather than after retiring from active politics like Jimmy Carter.

Another day, another near miss...

A suicide bombing in central Israel was narrowly avoided on Tuesday say security forces after the Palestinian man and his accomplices were arrested and the explosives uncovered.

Police and security forces operated extensively to thwart the attack throughout Tuesday afternoon and evening following intelligence information of a terrorist who had already infiltrated into Israel and was planning to carry out a bombing in Israel?s coastal plain.

The Tel Aviv District Police declared a heightened state of alert and roadblocks were set up in and around the cities in the region. Detailed Shin-Bet intelligence information led forces to an apartment in the city of Bat Yam, located south of Tel Aviv, where the cell was hiding.

Forces raided the apartment, capturing the bomber and several accomplices. While the men were being questioned the building was evacuated and police sappers combed the apartment for explosives.

The would-be bomber told interrogators that he had arrived in Rishon LeZion in the early afternoon with the explosive device concealed in a backpack, but for reasons that still remain unclear he decided to dump the backpack into a garbage dumpster and head back to Bat Yam, where his accomplices were waiting in the apartment. Investigators are now trying to determine whether he changed his mind about committing suicide at the last second or if the bomb was faulty.

Israel today called on the Hamas-Fatah Unity government yet again to renounce terror, recognize Israel, and release captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

To what can this be compared? I can only think of three possibilities:

1. It's some kind of drinking game.

2. History's greatest symbol of impotence was the New York Subway token clerk whose pre-Giuliani policy manual decreed that the only response to turnstile hopping was to say the words "pay your fare." Never have words been spoken, therefore, with such levels of apathy.

3. One exercise of the Musar movement of Jewish character improvement was to increase one's level of humility through deliberate infliction of self-humiliation. The practitioner would do things like walk into Kentucky Fried Chicken and order a Big Mac (from which the Run-D.M.C. song You Be Illin' was apparently inspired).

It is rare for a presidential nominee to be opposed within the governing party, but that is what happened when George Bush appointed Harriet Miers for Supreme Court. A blog-enabled wave of revulsion passed through the conservative movement so quickly that the administration's campaign of support did not even have time to get started.

That is what needs to happen in terms of the Hamas-Fatah unity government. The Palestinian Authority is now incontrovertably a state sponsor of terror, as Barry Rubin argues:

The Mecca agreement provides for a Palestinian coalition government dominated by Hamas which maintains its genocidal aim of wiping Israel, and most of its people, off the map. The PA will continue to tolerate, and even cheer, the daily firing of rockets at Israeli civilian targets and the launching of terrorist attacks. This makes the PA a state sponsor of terrorism. By undermining Western sanctions and rewarding Hamas intransigence, the Saudi deal makes any diplomatic progress on an Israeli-Palestinian solution even more remote.

The Bush Doctrine (no distinction between terrorists and those who harbor them) now stands as pure hypocrisy. Given that the main opposition to the president's policy exists in the conservative movement, it is time for the cris de coeur like this to coalesce into a revolt. Maybe then we could have the foreign policy equivalent of Samuel Alito.

Five months after IRIS publicized that al-Qaeda had won a safe haven in Waziristan, a territory in Pakistan approximately the size of Israel, the New York Times brings this breathless report:

Al Qaeda Chiefs Are Seen to Regain Power

Senior leaders of Al Qaeda operating from Pakistan have re-established significant control over their once-battered worldwide terror network and over the past year have set up a band of training camps in the tribal regions near the Afghan border, according to American intelligence and counterterrorism officials.

American officials said there was mounting evidence that Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, had been steadily building an operations hub in the mountainous Pakistani tribal area of North Waziristan. Until recently, the Bush administration had described Mr. bin Laden and Mr. Zawahri as detached from their followers and cut off from operational control of Al Qaeda.

The United States has also identified several new Qaeda compounds in North Waziristan, including one that officials said might be training operatives for strikes against targets beyond Afghanistan.

The Muslim hysteria surrounding an Israeli repair project on a ramp to the Temple Mount is transparent to anyone with a sense for the ubiquity of these Big Lies. For those who care about the specific details of this round, here is a useful summary:

The hysterical Arab reaction to the replacement of a ramp to the Temple Mount must be understood in context. Why are Muslim religious authorities in charge of the Temple Mount anyway - Judaism's holiest site, in the heart of Israel's capital city? And who built the Temple Mount in the first place, and what makes this site holy? Furthermore, the real question is how can the Arab world be cured of its blood-lust against the Jews of Israel?

Muslims revere this site in consequence of the Temple that once stood here. The Temple was as real as the World Trade Center. No sane historian doubts its existence. It is attested in many contemporary sources, Jewish and otherwise. Simon Goldhill, professor of Greek at Cambridge University, called the Temple "the largest and most awe-inspiring religious monument in the world....There is nothing like this anywhere else in the ancient world."

Israelis created (long ago) the platform on the Temple Mount and the Temple itself, and the religious community that gave it all meaning. Thousands of years later, Israel in 1967 turned over the keys to the Waqf in a peace offering, an act of friendship. Today, Arab leaders demand (in violent outrage) that the world protect the Al-Aqsa Mosque - their precious, sacred cultural treasure - by stopping an Israeli construction project that won't go anywhere near it.

Read the whole thing...

IDF: Hezbollah Has Rebuilt Its Force
I told you this would happen

Organic Farming 'No Better for the Environment'
Another environmentalist fantasy confronts the facts

What could be better than an Axis of Evil member engaging in nuclear disarmament? Nearly every news outlet reported that this week. One small problem, however: it's a fraud.

Here is a sample of the ebullient headlines:

North Korea to disarm in energy deal

Korea to disarm nuclear ambition

North Korea Agrees to Halt Nuclear Program

North Korea yields; gives up N-plan

Caroline Glick, in yet another must-read, punctures the fantasy with her annoying proclivity toward logic. She also ties it to this week's massive US failure on the Palestinians which also being spun as a success:

It is impossible to guess the consequences of the approaching showdown between the US and Iran. But if the events of the past week are any guide, the future does not look promising.

President George W. Bush asserted Wednesday that the deal the State Department achieved with North Korea in the six-party talks "will bring us closer to a Korea Peninsula that is free of nuclear weapons." But it is hard to see how this is so.

Reached seven months after North Korea tested an intercontinental ballistic missile and four months after it conducted an underground nuclear test, the accord makes no mention of Pyongyang's nuclear or missile arsenals. Indeed all it does is pay North Korea handsomely for a promise that within 60 days it will temporarily seal its nuclear installation at Yongbyon. For this promise, the Americans agreed to supply the North with 50,000 pounds of heavy fuel oil; conduct direct talks with the North Koreans towards the normalization of diplomatic ties; and cancel banking sanctions that have effectively barred the North Koreans from international capital markets.

The last US payoff is the kicker. In 2006 the US Treasury took action against a bank in Macau that was laundering North Korean counterfeit dollars. That action was the first truly effective step the US has taken toward destabilizing Kim Jung Il's Stalinist regime.

Kim understands that the only way he can remain in power is to force the international community to subsidize his tyranny. The only way he can get foreign powers to do that is by using nuclear blackmail. By removing its banking sanctions, the US effectively destroyed its only effective bargaining chip against North Korea and so ensured that Kim's brinkmanship will continue. In light of this, as former US ambassador the UN John Bolton's noted, the message the US sent by acceding to the agreement is that "if you hold out long enough and wear down the State Department negotiators, eventually you will get rewarded."

Aside from capitulating to North Korea, this week the US took an initial step towards accepting Hamas as a legitimate actor. The unity deal between Fatah and Hamas negotiated under the aegis of the supposedly moderate Saudi King Abdullah is a stunning rebuke of US Palestinian policy. By effectively demoting the Fatah to the status of junior partner to Hamas, the agreement is a slap on the face to the Bush administration which for the past four years has based its Palestinian policy on its blind faith in Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas.

Since 2003 the administration has put all its eggs in Abbas's basket. No amount of evidence of Fatah's direct involvement in terrorism against Israel could convince Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to change their view that Abbas is a "moderate" who is willing to make peace with Israel.

The US has showered him with money, arms and legitimacy and forced Israel to do the same. And in Mecca last weekend, Abbas showed that he has played Bush for a fool. Not only did he agree not to fight against Hamas or disarm it. By accepting an agreement which does not include recognition of Israel's right to exist, Abbas demonstrated that there is no significant difference between Fatah and Hamas in terms of their commitment to bring about Israel's destruction.

Yet as with North Korea, here too, the Bush administration has chosen to pretend that in failing it has succeeded. Rather than distance herself from Abbas, Rice insists on going ahead with the scheduled three-way summit with Abbas and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Monday.

Al-Qaida in Iraq Leader Wounded
How can this be when we have been told that Iraq has nothing to do with the War on Terror?

Antarctic Temperatures Disagree with Climate Model Predictions
There is enormous evidence for skepticism on the latest environmentalist cry of 'wolf'