Wretchard has an absolute must-read post today called “The Blogosphere at War”. It’s a first-rate analysis of the new internet-based information system that is now maturing, citing the blogosphere as the engine of change in how news is collected, analyzed, processed, and distributed.

A brief excerpt:

There is considerable interest in the idea that “blogs” are somehow able to offset the mainstream media’s (MSM) ability to sell a given narrative to the public, a power which is of considerable interest in peace and even more so in war. It is widely recognized that molding public perceptions through narratives is nearly as important in war as the outcomes on the actual battlefield. Palestinian Media Watch convincingly demonstrates that Arab and Muslim organizations have long made influencing international publics through print and broadcast media a strategic goal, especially in any confrontation with Israel. This effort has historically followed two tracks: the establishment of technically sophisticated media outlets like al-Jazeera to sell messages directly to audiences; and mounting information operations aimed at shaping the way in which Western Media outlets cover any issue of interest.

[…]

For most of the Israel-Lebanon War of 2006 Hezbollah repeatedly accused Israel of atrocity and wanton aggression as a way of neutralizing its superior firepower; and little of this cant was rebutted in timely fashion. When on December 4, 2006 an Israeli think-tank release released a study, supported by imagery, showing that Hezbollah had fired its rockets from civilian localities all over southern Lebanon at civilian targets in Israel , the war had already been over for five months and Hezbollah had long achieved its public relations objectives. In pointed contrast to this ponderous performance, private individuals — bloggers — had managed to explode many Hezbollah atrocity accusations against Israel carried by the MSM in very rapid fashion. These blogger accomplishments included demonstrating that a wire service photograph of a bomb-damaged Beirut had been digitally altered to enhance both the smoke and the damage; that photographs of supposedly dead civilians posed artfully in the rubble were faked; and last but not least, the unmasking of an often photographed Lebanese humanitarian worker (The Green Helmet Man) as a brutal Hezbollah public relations agent callously arranging children’s corpses for maximum effect. While the actual effect of these exposes on the international diplomatic climate may have been slight, observers of the 2006 war in Lebanon had found their white knight. The rapid and often effective response of the blogosphere raised hopes that the Internet might provide a way to neutralize the massive Islamic investment in media outlets and information warfare cells. What is the truth?

The only statement I would question is this one: It is widely recognized that molding public perceptions through narratives is nearly as important in war as the outcomes on the actual battlefield.

Delete the word “nearly”. Our success on the battlefield in Iraq and Israel’s success in Lebanon have been overshadowed by the enemy’s success in manipulating the news coverage of these events.

Our soldiers are superb and their martial skills are the greatest that history has ever seen. But we may yet lose the war because the people who control the portals of public information are cowardly and treasonous.

The information war has become more important than the bombs-and-bullets war.

Since the politicians are in thrall to the MSM, the dedicated information warrior has to detour around them. This is where Wretchard’s analysis and the work of the 910 Group converge.

Half of the task is the collection, analysis, processing, and distribution of information. The other half is what we do with it.

The Counterjihad is a proactive alternative to the traditional passive acceptance of what our leaders do on our behalf. Our leaders can no longer adequately protect us; other means of protection are even now being formulated.

Distributed intelligence can be an active process. It is forming new structures and strategies for countering the mujahideen in their attempts to suborn, infiltrate, corrupt, and destroy all that we hold dear.

Read Wretchard’s whole essay. It will help clarify the situation.

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Cross-posted at Gates of Vienna.

The following is a message from Christine, the Operations Manager of the 910 Group:

I agree that Islam is, structurally, a totalitarian, fatalistic and solipsistic belief system designed like some interlocking logical mosaic pattern.

System statements include:

• Islam will prevail over all others regardless of historical, scientific, or cultural evidence to the contrary.
• Anyone leaving Islam should die or return.
• All who are not in Islam should die or convert.
• Anyone in Islam who dies wins in paradise.
• All statements criticizing Islam by non-Muslims.
• Critical Muslims or apostates are false.
• All statements by Islamists about Islam are true (even if they are contradictory).
• All lies by Islamists about Islam are permitted in order to accomplish all enumerated goals listed above.

And therefore I understand the tendency to want to break that logical knot by attacking the first premise — the fatalism of Islam, the magical realism and fantasizing aspect of Islam.

But I don’t have much time for the “Nuke Mecca” meme, especially when used with ad hominem arguments that dismiss any other approach as lacking in rigor or realism or military experience or analytic depth or whatever. I think the idea is morally bankrupt, and basically nihilistic. Like all nihilism, it is the lazy fellow’s way out of actually engaging in the hard work of working politically and using the legal tools of information warfare. It’s a reversion to the Dresden or Hiroshima bombings — a third generation warfare solution to a fourth or fifth generation warfare problem.

The Nuke Mecca meme itself is a prime example of “magical thinking,” a kind of solipsistic enjoyment of the fantasy of removing a great danger with a grand technological feat, dismissing all critics of the idea as appeasers or ameliorators. At the very least, were it actually to be done, the iron law of unintended, unforeseeable consequences would apply.

Having said that, the need addressed by the Nuke Mecca meme is real — each of us longs for a way to blast through the fatalism, the internally locked logical system of Islamic supremacism and intra-Muslim discourse.

I don’t have an answer, but I would challenge the readers of this blog to consider whether there are any other ways to break the knot — ones that don’t actually involve the deaths of tens of thousands and a nuclear holocaust in the Middle East.

I promised myself that I wasn’t going to post anymore about the necessity of working with “moderate” Muslims. With the amount of heat I’ve been taking, who needs the grief? After all, it’s not like I’m going to change anybody’s mind.

But I must have a masochistic streak. At the risk of starting another knock-down drag-out fight, here goes.

After my “Changing the Venue” post a reader sent me the following email:

Dear Baron,

If we are the leaders of this movement — the anti-Jihad movement — the first thing we must realize is that NOBODY follows a leader who’s pessimistic about his mission. At least not willingly. It’s more accurate to say that there isn’t any obvious sign that the anti-Jihad message is catching on, not that there’s no prospect for a decade or more. Soon after the election you began to display the most desultory attitude on your site — I sympathize with your frustration — but truth be told — the message will NEVER go out to a broader audience if the messengers succumb to despair. We can’t afford to despair — no matter how insurmountable the odds may seem. To do so is GUARANTEED catastrophe for all.

Buck up. Don’t give in to despair. That’s not gossamer castles in the sky. It’s strategy for war.

Sincerely,
A Fellow Anti Jihadist.

Unfortunately, my fellow anti-jihadist has confused my jaundiced view of the federal government with pessimism. Just because I think government is less helpful than a pitcherful of warm phlegm doesn’t mean that I’m not optimistic.

Last month’s election freed me up from any attachment whatsoever to the government as an active force against the Great Jihad. Here’s the way I see it:

• The legacy media control the view that most of the public has of what happens in the “War on Terror”.
• They want us to lose because Republicans are in charge.
• Therefore they threw the election to the Democrats.
• Thus we will get what we voted for from our elected officials: retreat, denial, passivity, appeasement, and dhimmitude.

But that’s just the government that I’m talking about, and the government is not where the action is now. The synchronicity of the election and my involvement with the 910 Group has opened a view into a whole new way of doing things. If we wait for the government to do things, we are doomed. If we expect the government to follow the prudent course and prosecute the Counterjihad with the appropriate zeal, we are living in a fantasy world.

The government is constrained by political reality, and political reality is conditioned (if not generated) by the MSM, so we are stuck with a useless government. Eventually the new media will supplant the old, and our viewpoints will become more like the norm. At that point elections might start to reflect what the majority of people really feel about Islam, multiculturalism, and illegal immigrants (a.k.a. “undocumented Democrats”). But we’ve got at least another ten years before that happens.

In the meantime, our Western governments — with the possible exception of Denmark and Australia — are going to be more of a hindrance than a help in fighting the information war against the Jihad. As I’ve said on numerous occasions, we’re on our own.

But that’s our big advantage. Getting the government to react to an info-attack from the terrorists (via their media or CAIR surrogates) is like trying to turn a battleship to avoid a torpedo. As we form our networks we create new response mechanisms which can assess and counter the enemy’s offensives at the same speed at which the enemy operates.

Watching the U.S. government’s response (or non-response) to all the fake stories and doctored photos coming out of the different theaters of this battle shows how useless the government is in the information war. A top-down command structure. Time-servers and CYA experts making the decisions. The utter intimidation of our leaders by Big Media. Entrenched and antiquated ways of thinking about the war… How can we expect bureaucrats and members of Congress to tackle this struggle effectively?

The best and the brightest don’t wind up in the civil service, nor are they elected to office, nor are they found in academia or the media. Those places are reserved for brown-nosers, organization men, sinecure-seekers, and leftist ideologues. To get into politics it helps to be greedy and ambitious, but brains are not required.

The most intelligent people are in business and the military. Not surprisingly, these two groups are over-represented within the new networks that comprise the Citizens’ Counterjihad.

I’ve had a lot of trouble making my point heard. This idea — using privately-based fourth-generation warfare to fight this war, in lieu of the government — seems to be so far out of the box that many people have trouble keeping it in mind.

Consider this comment from PD111 on the “Uncle Joe Redux“ thread:

Any alliance with Muslims, will of necessity require us to make some political concessions to moderate Muslims. What are these likely to be? Any concessions that further Islam will just be another success for the overall Jihad.

[…]

Placing the future of Western civilisation in the hands of Muslims by making alliances with Muslims, moderate or otherwise, will be a great mistake, as future peace will be dependent on the good will of the moderate Muslims. In other words, we would have taken the first steps to dhimmification by making such an alliance.

We have to do this on our own, otherwise we will lose.

Your idea of an alliance would be fine if the enemy was outside the city walls, as Stalin was, and not within the Gates as it is now.

We have to do this on our own.

That’s what I’ve been saying. But when I say we, I mean “We, the People”. When I say “on our own”, I mean “without the help of the government.”

The government will not do it for us. We have to do it ourselves; the problem is to figure out how.

Now back to the “moderate” Muslims.

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Up until a couple of months ago I was just another blogger shouting from the sidelines. My job was to bring information and opinion to this forum, package it for distribution, and hope that it might do some good. Cast your bread upon the waters…

I’m still doing the same job here, but I’ve got another one as well. Ordinary people are now networking their resources in order to pursue a common goal: fighting an information war against the Jihad at the grassroots level. I’m part of that effort now — not just talking, but doing.

Being involved with the 910 Group has given me a crash course in what it takes to actually get something done. A “pure” blogger has the luxury of sticking by his principles no matter what, never compromising on an issue, and always taking the moral high road. But when you work with a large number of people to try to reach a common objective, you don’t always have those options.

If your thinking leads you to the point where you say, “All Muslim immigration should be stopped,” then you’ve run up against that wall. What you say is true — it should be — but it ain’t gonna happen. That’s a government function, and we have no control over immigration policy. We will have to fight without that weapon in our armory.

Similarly, if you say, “We need to deal forcefully with Iran,” you’re right; we certainly do. But “we” — i.e. our elected representatives — are not going to deal forcefully with Iran. They’re not going to deal with it at all, if they can avoid it. Our leaders are going to waffle and procrastinate and prevaricate and pretend their way down the road to Armageddon. We have to deal with that fact.

So what can we do?

Obviously, I’m not advocating revolution. The 910 Group is predicated upon non-violence and lawful behavior in the pursuit of worldwide liberty.

What we’re doing is forming conduits of information and methods of organizing to combat the propaganda initiatives that the enemy is mounting among us every day. As I’ve often said, “the enemy within” is our biggest problem.

Intelligent and skilled people are even now building the infrastructure to respond to CAIR and similar organizations, to fight for our First Amendment rights under the coming onslaught against them, and to monitor and report on the activities of the mujahideen in our midst whilst the media ignore them. The tactics we use can be as simple as a targeted mass letter-writing campaign to a newspaper or a congressman, or they can be immensely complex.

The point isn’t any particular action, but the structure of the network. The network needs to circulate information smoothly and quickly, and react like lightning when a crisis hits. It needs to be robust and effective, able to withstand the inevitable lawsuits and threats that will come from the Jihad groups.

It will be some months before we reach this ability, but it is definitely coming.

Part of this network formation involves reaching out to Muslims who show by their words and actions that they share the same objectives. Take, for example, the case of Bassam Tibi, a German Muslim. Mr. Tibi was brought to our attention by a reader, who says this:

This is the man who challenged me to understand what was going on with Islam when I met him in June and July 2001. We were staying in the same hotel. He is shifting shortly to the States. As is Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

I note, too, in their latest newsletter, that the NZ Director of the Barnabas Fund is moving to Washington in January. Given that Patrick Sookhdeo (Director of the Fund) was dropping broad hints earlier this year about shifting to the States, it could be things are even worse in Europe than we realize.

The effect of existing and pending EU and national laws limiting free and frank expression on political and religious issues must surely be a factor here. Not to mention actual threats and physical danger to those who speak out.

So it seems that the opposition to Eurabia is gradually draining into this country. That’s good; we will need those people here.

Our reader pointed us to a Jihad Watch article about Bassam Tibi, which in turn points to a Globe and Mail article. The latter requires not just a subscription, but actual payment to be able to view the article. I’m a cheapskate, so you’ll have to make do with some of the Jihad Watch excerpts:

Dr. Tibi, a Muslim born in Syria, is persona non grata there.

He’s not too popular in Germany either, where he has been accused of inciting Islamophobia. “It is most disturbing to see how writers who try to warn about the totalitarian character of Islamism are defamed as racists,” he says. “This wrong-headed political correctness prevents any honest discussion about the subject.”

This is not the message you will hear from any Muslim leader. The standard line is that extremism has been exaggerated, the media are to blame, and that the real problem is that Muslims have been unfairly targeted. But long before 9/11, Dr. Tibi began warning Europe had become dangerously vulnerable to radical Islamists. Today, many of these movements have their logistics, as well as their support systems, in Western Europe. In the name of multiculturalism, Muslims were encouraged to build parallel societies. Now, many have no intention of integrating into the mainstream.

[…]

Dr. Tibi is impatient with the endlessly repeated nostrum that Islam is “a religion of peace.” “When you study religion, you do not study texts, you study social facts. A Muslim boy is torching cars and he is thinking he is waging jihad. Religion has nothing to do with terrorism. But you can use it to legitimate terrorism. There is a conflict — it is social and economic, but it is articulated in religious language.” And the quest of converting the entire world to Islam, he insists, is an immutable fixture of the Muslim worldview.

[…]

I asked Dr. Tibi how many of Germany’s 3.2 million Muslims share his progressive, secular views. “Maybe a few thousand,” he said.

A few thousand. You know, it would be good to have a few thousand Muslims on the ground in Germany, or any other Western country, networked into the Citizens’ Counterjihad and ready to contribute to it.

Recapitulating what PD111 said: Your idea of an alliance would be fine if the enemy was outside the city walls, as Stalin was, and not within the Gates as it is now.

But the gates open both ways. They are inside ours; why can’t we be inside theirs?

Yes, we have watch out for practitioners of taqiyyah, to beware of the double agent and the provocateur. But that’s already part of the job we’re doing.

And it’s a good thing that the government isn’t doing this job, because the first thing it would do in the face of provocation would be to compromise, appease, and submit. That’s the way to creeping shari’ah.

But we don’t have to do that. A citizens’ network can insist that its affiliates and individual members adhere to its principles. If they don’t, they’re removed from the network.

The core principles include:

• A commitment to representative government.
• Non-violence except in immediate self-defense.
• Freedom of speech.
• Freedom of religion.

None of these is negotiable. None can be compromised for the sake of “respect for Islam” or to avoid “hate speech”.

If you demonstrably adhere to these principles, the network invites you in.

If you abandon any of them, you’re out in a flash.

The uncomfortable fact is that we are unlikely to find a huge number of Muslims who are willing to accept these principles and aid us in what we do. There just aren’t that many of them; the vast majority seem to be passive, or in tacit support of the Jihad.

But we need all the help we can get. It doesn’t matter whether any Muslim is sincere or is practicing taqiyyah, any more than it matters whether a murder is also a “hate” crime.

By their fruits ye shall know them. If their fruits are good, they belong with us.

This doesn’t mean that taqiyyah isn’t an issue; internal security is always going to be an issue in a network like this. It’s fortunate that we have people on board who are experts in the field. They’ll make sure the job gets done right.

After all, the government is incapable of doing it.

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Cross-posted at Gates of Vienna.

The essay below is aimed specifically at Jews and Christians. If you are from another faith, or are uncomfortable with religious discussions, you may want to skip this post.

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One of the most important and widely-argued issues within the Counterjihad concerns moderate Muslims (or as the 910 Group prefers to call them, “Free Muslims”). Do they really exist? Are they all practicing taqiyyah? Should we take them into consideration, or are they not worth bothering about?

The “Free Muslims” really do exist; Stop the Project has a list of their organizations. They don’t get much publicity, because the MSM, in its tacit alliance with Islamofascism, prefers to focus on CAIR and similar organizations.

But these brave people put their lives on the line every day to speak out on behalf of non-violence and religious tolerance, while still remaining Muslims.

This morning I received an email from a friend of ours who has noticed the nuke-the-ragheads mentality which so often rears its head in Gates of Vienna comments:

A couple of your commenters have got Islam so deeply on the brain, they think the only good ay-rab is a dead ay-rab. People who can’t distinguish individuals from groups are by definition prejudiced.

And indeed they are.

In fact, what they are doing is arguing for the assignment of collective guilt. They believe that innocent people within a group defined as “the enemy” should not be spared the fate of the group, deserve no sympathy, and should be disregarded.

I hesitate to cite the most notorious earlier examples of such an ideological stance, for fear of invoking Godwin’s Law upon myself. Suffice it to say that these folks have some unsavory ideological companions among the blood-soaked regimes of the previous century.

Scripture provides some illumination on this topic. Genesis 18:20-33 describes Abraham’s intercession with the Lord on behalf of the “moderates” (the Bible calls them “righteous”) in Sodom and Gomorrah:

And the LORD said, “The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is indeed great, and their sin is exceedingly grave.

“I will go down now, and see if they have done entirely according to its outcry, which has come to Me; and if not, I will know.”

Then the men turned away from there and went toward Sodom, while Abraham was still standing before the LORD.

Abraham came near and said, “Will You indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?

“Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will You indeed sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous who are in it?

“Far be it from You to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?”

So the LORD said, “If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare the whole place on their account.”

And Abraham replied, “Now behold, I have ventured to speak to the Lord, although I am but dust and ashes.

“Suppose the fifty righteous are lacking five, will You destroy the whole city because of five?” And He said, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.”

He spoke to Him yet again and said, “Suppose forty are found there?” And He said, “I will not do it on account of the forty.”

Then he said, “Oh may the Lord not be angry, and I shall speak; suppose thirty are found there?” And He said, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.”

And he said, “Now behold, I have ventured to speak to the Lord; suppose twenty are found there?” And He said, “I will not destroy it on account of the twenty.”

Then he said, “Oh may the Lord not be angry, and I shall speak only this once; suppose ten are found there?” And He said, “I will not destroy it on account of the ten.”

As soon as He had finished speaking to Abraham the LORD departed, and Abraham returned to his place.

Note that Abraham is arguing a moral issue with God. Abraham is using the Lord’s own moral laws to intercede with Him and deter Him from indiscriminate retribution.

Can you imagine an Islamist supporting such a dialog with Allah? It would be, by definition, heresy.

This is what separates us from them. This is why we are different. This is why what we have is worth fighting for.

We can chew gum and walk. We can fight the vampires of Islamic fascism while supporting those Muslims who have the courage to speak out on behalf of values we share. Both jobs can be done.

If there be but ten righteous, let the city be spared.

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Cross-posted at Gates of Vienna.

This is the final word from a good man. His absence from the U.S. Senate is one more reason why the political class in the United States is unlikely to take action necessary to stop the Great Islamic Jihad.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about why I voted against Dr. Gates and lay out in detail the concerns I have about the security posture of the United States today and how I do not believe that Dr. Gates is the appropriate choice to confront them. While I think he certainly has a lot of positive qualities, and in normal times I would certainly defer to the President’s judgment on this, we are not in normal times. I believe we need a Secretary — and I think we need leaders in this country, particularly the Secretary — who has insight into the nature of our enemy and is willing to provide the vision necessary, not just for our people in the military but the country, on how to defeat them. On one particular vital aspect of that vision I think he is in error, and that error causes me to object and to vote no to his nomination.

What I would like to do is lay out what I see as the problem confronting America and the complexity of that problem, which I think has grown more complex since the last time that we have been in this Chamber, over 6 weeks ago. I would like to go back to two speeches I gave last summer, one at the National Press Club, and the other at the Pennsylvania Press Club — one obviously in Washington, the other in Harrisburg. I gave those speeches because I thought it was important that at a time when our country is at war and our country is struggling with this war that we have a better definition as to who the enemy is and what we need to do about it. I made that issue, the issue I discussed in these two speeches and subsequent speeches during my campaign, the centerpiece of the campaign. Many political advisers suggested to me that this was a wrong tactic in a State where the favorabilities for the war and the President were in the low thirties to make this the centerpiece and, in fact, draw divisions between myself and the President where I put myself in a position which some suggested was to the right of the President. But I thought it was important for the country and for me personally as a U.S. Senator to address the issues that I thought were critical to the time.

So I went out and gave two speeches about the importance of defining our enemy. If there has been a failing — obviously, for the last several weeks and months we have been talking about the failings of the administration with respect to the policies within Iraq — I would make the argument that the larger failing, not just of the administration but of the Members of Congress and leaders in this country, is that we have not had the courage to stand up and define the enemy as to who they are and study and understand them and explain to the American people who they are.

I defined the enemy back at the National Press Club speeches as Islamic fascism. I said that is the biggest issue of our time, this relentless and determined radical enemy that is not just a group of rag-tag people living in caves but, in fact, people with an ideology, a plan, and increasingly the resources to carry out that plan, as well as, increasingly, a bigger and larger presence throughout the Islamic world, these radical Islamic fascists.

As I said, I understand this is an unpopular war. When I stepped forward to define the enemy as radical Islamic fascists, I was ridiculed by the media and others, saying that my words were too harsh, saying that at worst my defining the enemy was incorrect, at best it was inflammatory. But I did so because I believe words matter. If you are going to confront an enemy you have to understand who that enemy is and you have to communicate that to the people of America. And we must do that.

Many people talk about this war as if it is an attempt simply to create fledgling democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan. While this may be an appealing possible outcome, we all must recognize that Iraq and Afghanistan are battlefields in a much more complex and broader war. That includes every continent with the exception of Antarctica. The war is at our doorstep, and it is fueled, as I mentioned, literally and figuratively by the evil of Islamic fascism.

Whether we know it or not, they have been at war with us, and the State of Iran specifically has been at war with us, since 1979 when they declared war against the United States. They have not rescinded that declaration. So when we talk about engaging Iran as the Secretary, the new, future Secretary of Defense has talked about, we are talking about engaging someone who is at war with us, who has declared war with us, and who has been at war and, and as I will talk about here, and I think it has been widely reported in the press, has been doing a lot to substantiate the claim that they have been at war with us.

But this threat is not exclusively based in Iran. It is gaining strength and spreading throughout every region of the world. I have addressed the issue of Islamic fascism but have not yet spoken to the subject of Iraq. Iraq is the central front in the war on Islamic fascism. However, contrary to the Iraqi Study Group, the Baker-Hamilton commission, the answer to this problem can be found — the answer to Iraq can be found not in Iraq but in Iran. It is Iran and its client State of Syria that serve as the principal instigators and fomenters of the conflict in Iraq today.

The President gets advice from the CIA that the opposition in Iran is weak and divided and therefore we should do nothing in Iran because we have no alternative. We have no one we can use in Iraq to confront the Iranian Government to cause any kind of changes. So the President gets advice from his intelligence team that we are without options in Iran.

The Pentagon advises the President and says we don’t know if we have the resources to open up a new battlefield or confront, militarily, Iran, and therefore we have limited options in Iran.

The State Department — yes, State Department — they think that Iran is the solution to the problem; that negotiating with them and getting them to be our pals can in effect solve the problems; so confronting Iran would be the absolutely wrong thing to do in solving the problem in Iraq.

So the President is being advised by all of his minions that Iran and confrontation with Iran is not an option, as we heard from the testimony of the new Secretary of Defense.

Let’s look at other interested parties as we look at how we solve the problem in Iraq and dealing with Iran. The American media seems to be very focused and spends a lot of time talking about how poorly things are going in Iraq. They report daily — not just recently but repeatedly for the past 3 years, daily — the body count in Iraq. It is the lead and has been virtually every single day for 3 years.

Is their interest in shifting focus and covering the problems in Iran? Not if we can drive home a story like this in Iraq.

Republicans and Democrats, leaders in the Congress, why don’t they focus and talk more about Iran? Democrats, if you look through — as unfortunately many Republicans and Democrats do — look at it through the eyes of politics, why would we change focus and focus on Iran as the problem? We saw from the last election there is grand political advantage of keeping the focus on Iraq and the problems in Iraq. Why aren’t the Republicans, then, stepping forward and pointing to the difficulty and problems that Iran is causing in Iraq and call for confrontation? If we saw anything from the last election, the American public has no appetite for a broadening of this war, increasing the complexity of this war. You might be seen as warmongering, digging us deeper and more dangerously into a region of the world that we would rather not be in the first place.

So what do we have? We have the Baker-Hamilton report which is a prescription for surrender. It is just a matter of time. It is certainly not a prescription for victory. Nowhere does it mention, other than of course that we would like victory, nor is there a prescription for victory in that report.

So now we have the slow process of how we exit ourselves because we have no option to confront the real problem. We have no willingness on the part of any level of Government to confront it. So we are destined at this point to focus on something that is insolvable without confronting Iran, and that is the war in Iraq.

Who are these Iranians? Who are these Islamic fascists? I do not mean to exclude Sunni Islamic fascists because they were the principal — or they were the first, let’s put it that way — in launching the war against the United States. I should not say the first. They were the first in recent times — certainly 9/11 — in launching the war.

So this is not just a Shia problem, but it is increasingly becoming a Shia-dominated field as they continue to spread control in Iran with their influence and money. But let’s not leave out Saudi Arabia and others that have used their resources to foment Islamic fascism all over the world with their resources — Sunni Islamic fascism.

So where are we? What can we do to confront this problem?

The interesting thing is that this problem is growing — I don’t know about exponentially, but I don’t know of a single country in the Middle East where the threat of radical Islam has not grown over the last 30 years, since Iran took over control — since the radicals took over control in Iran, the last 27 years. Every capital, every regime is feeling the pressure. And not just since 2003, but systematically over the years we have seen, particularly in Arab Muslim countries and Middle Eastern Muslim countries, this rise. But, again, not exclusive: Indonesia, Malaysia — this is not exclusive to the Arab world. Obviously Iran, which is Persia.

So what have we seen over the past 6 months? We saw a situation in the central synagogue in Prague where the Islamic fascists intended to carry out, on Rosh Hashanah, a mass kidnapping when large numbers of Jews would be celebrating the new year. When the world’s attention now was focused on Prague, they designed to make impossible demands and then blow up the synagogue and everyone within it. Those people were not marked for death because they supported the war in Iraq. They were not marked for death because they oppressed these Islamic fascists. They were targeted because they were Jews. This is evil.

Islamic terrorists organized an assault on civilian aircraft leaving London, planning to blow up 10 or more planes this summer as they flew over the North Atlantic. You may not know that two of those participants were a husband and a wife, a husband and a wife who were going to board that plane and explode that plane over the North Atlantic while holding in their arms their 6-month-old child.

This is evil.

Islamic terrorists slaughter innocent Iraqis every single day on both sides of the divide within Islam. As we know, in recent days they beheaded an orthodox priest and crucified a 14-year-old boy guilty of nothing but being Christian.

This is evil.

Almost everyone has now heard of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the fact that he denies the existence of the Holocaust and called for Israel to be wiped off the face of the Earth. But he has been remarkably clear about his mission, remarkably clear about his messianic vision of a Shiite religion, his vision to destroy the Western world and impose a caliphate on the world in which the world would submit to Islam or die in the process.

He said:

Is it possible for us to witness a world without America and Zionism?

Then he answered himself:

But you had best know this slogan and this goal is attainable and surely can be achieved.

So do we have any questions about the nature of our enemy? Do we have any questions about the capability of this oil-rich country? Yet just this past week President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent an open letter, a conciliatory letter, to the American people, addressed to the “noble” American people. He called on America to withdraw from Iraq and end support for Israel, and, of course, to convert to Islam. This man may be a fanatic, but let me assure you he is not a stupid fanatic. This man understands and studies America. The Islamic fascists respect us enough to get to know us. They respect us enough so they know what buttons to push and how hard to push them. They respect us enough to figure out what it will take to defeat us.

I wish that were the case for the American people.

He couched his warning in the words that are familiar and comfortable with Americans — “freedom,” trying to appeal that he would be free of this illegitimate regime in his mind, which is the current administration, and we would free them of this burden of fighting. It is a great appeal and many would like to see the end of this war, but we should not be fooled.

Our troops in Iraq are being killed by Iranian weapons today paid for with Iranian money smuggled into Iraq by Iranian logistics and utilized by Iranian-trained terrorists.

A couple of years ago you needed a security clearance to know this. Now, if you care to know, if you want to know this uncomfortable truth about Iran, you can know it. Iran is the centerpiece in the assault against us and other countries in the civilized world, which is why I fought so hard for passage of the Iran Freedom and Support Act.

I stood on the Senate floor at this very desk and argued in May or June of this year for passage of the Iran Freedom and Support Act. I said we should not be negotiating with Iran, that we should be confronting Iran.

Bernard Lewis tells a familiar opinion that he has. He tells a lot of them. He said that the oddity in particular of the Arab and Middle Eastern Islamic world is that the more we have strong relations with the government in an Arab Muslim country the more the people of that country hate us; and the more that we stand up and confront leadership of those countries the more the people like us. Is it no wonder he recounts on the day of 9/11 when there was but one Middle Eastern Muslim capital there was a candlelight vigil in support of those who died on 9/11, and that was in Tehran, Iran.

It is not hard to understand when you have regimes throughout the Middle East who oppress their people that when you stand up and confront those regimes and call them the evil they are the people understand and respect your honesty, agree with you, and support you.

This summer when we attempted to negotiate with Iran, we told the people of Iran that we are not on their side, that we want to make deals with people who oppress them, who torture them, who enslave them, who abuse them, and who kill them. That is why we should not have entered into any negotiations in spite of the entreaties of Europe with this evil regime in Iran. We should confront them, and only confront them. If we want the support of the people of Iran, we have to earn it with the integrity of our mission, and we are not doing that.

So I stood up on the floor of the Senate and said we needed to confront Iran, that we needed to fund full democracy groups, that we needed to use the public airwaves and the Internet to disseminate information to cause a change in the Government of Iran, and that we needed to sanction them. And this administration opposed me. The Senate opposed me by, I think, a 54-to-46 vote. That is why I continue to work on the Iran Freedom and Support Act.

Over the intervening months, what happened? Iran did as I predicted on this floor back in the spring — they played us along. They said: Well, you know we will negotiate with you as long as we can continue to produce nuclear materials and continue our nuclear program. So we negotiated and we negotiated and they developed and they developed. So finally in September of this year, enough people on both sides of the aisle and enough people in the administration finally were convinced that this was not a viable strategy anymore. What did we gain? We passed the Iran Freedom and Support Act, which probably surprised most people in this Chamber. We passed it unanimously — one of the last things we did before we broke. Most Americans don’t know it. Unfortunately, most in the Middle East don’t know it. I suspect if we went into the bowels of the State Department they may know it, but they are not going to do a damned thing about it because that is not their intent. They do not want to do anything about it. My guess is they will take that money and spend it on a lot of conferences and studies on what we should do instead of giving it to the bus drivers who went on strike as a strike fund so they can stand up to the government. Instead of giving it to dissent groups so they can disseminate information, instead of actively engaging we will appease. We will study, we will delay, and they will have time to further build.

But we did pass the bill. That would be on one of my to-do lists in the next Congress.

Is this bill going to be enforced? Are we going to confront Iran? Are we going to try to do something or are we going to sit by and allow them to develop these weapons? They are not developing them alone. No, there are a lot of reports that they are working with others around the world. Who are those others? I talk about Islamic fascism, and I keep focusing on that. But, unfortunately, over the past several months it is increasingly clear to me that the situation is becoming even more complex. We are not just facing a group of people who are in the Middle East desiring to overthrow the world and oppose a caliphate on us, but they have allies — unlikely allies in some respects, unlikely allies as the German Nazis and Japanese imperialists who had very conflicting ideologies but had a common purpose, and that was destroy the West, destroy the English-speaking world and the Western world, and put it under the domination of those countries.

So it is today. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. What Iran has found and the Islamic fascists have found is there are plenty of enemies of the United States. In fact, they had a meeting just this year a couple of months ago in Havana, Cuba. The nonaligned states met. There were 100 nations. On their agenda was to redefine the word “terror” to include “the U.S. occupation of Iraq” and the “Israeli invasion” of Lebanon. Of course, there was no mention about the incursion of Hezbollah. They found solace with these countries. We saw it played out at the United Nations just a couple of weeks later where President Ahmadinejad, President Hugo Chavez, to thunderous applause of many in the United Nations community, demonized America. But another member of that crew of nonaligned nations was North Korea.

I mentioned before that Iran is pursuing a nuclear program. They are indeed pursuing a nuclear program, and there have been many intelligence reports published that have suggested there were Iranian scientists there the day North Korea exploded their nuclear weapon. In fact, the scientist who had been working with North Korea, AQ Kahn, is the same scientist who has been working with Iran in the development of their nuclear program. Some have suggested that they are working collaboratively and jointly in their development of nuclear weapons which, of course, would have put Iran’s nuclear program well ahead of where everyone believes it to be.

So we have not only the Islamic fascists led by Iran, but we now have an alliance between Iran and North Korea; North Korea, which is a threat in their own right, now with nuclear weapons and their increasing ability to deliver them with long-range missiles, including the development of, as they hope to do, ICBMs which could reach the United States of America.

We confronted North Korea as soon as they detonated their explosives. We had a U.N. resolution confronting them. North Korea condemned that nuclear U.N. resolution and called it “a declaration of war” and threatened the United States by declaring:

We will deliver merciless blows without hesitation to whoever tries to breach our sovereignty and right to survive under the excuse of carrying out a United Nations Security Council resolution.

Not only do we have a threat of North Korea now launching a nuclear weapon, but we have the clear threat of North Korea and Iran proliferating nuclear technology. In addition, as Iran, working with North Korea, develops their nuclear program, and as the world sits fecklessly by and lets them do it, others in the region legitimately have their tensions increased and have talked about the need for those nations to develop nuclear weapons,

Thus starting an arms race in a region of the world where it is the last place we want a nuclear arms race.

Finally, we have the issue of whether this nuclear material that is being developed in both North Korea and Iran will end up in the hands of terrorists, to be delivered in a non-conventional way. North Korea is a new threat on the horizon, but it is not alone. In fact, North Korea has expressed direct support for Iran’s nuclear development program and stressed that the United States and the West have no right to defy such a program.

The Iranians have also commented officially on friendly ties between Tehran and Pyongyang after the Islamic revolution, saying Iran “highly praises North Korea for its steadfastness against the domineering policies of the United States.”

But the threat goes even further. Ahmadinejad, with Kim Jong Il, like Mussolini and Hitler, intends to conquer Western civilization. Again, that is not Hitler. But they also, like the Soviets under Nikita Khrushchev, see the advantage of placing weapons of mass destruction within short ranges of the United States.

Obviously, one likely candidate would be Venezuela. I don’t know of any regime currently that is more vehement and more anti-American than Hugo Chavez and the regime in Venezuela, so it probably comes as no surprise that Ahmadinejad and Chavez have had meetings, and they are now aligned and allies and working together and have, in fact, formed a defense pact between the two countries.

Venezuela is a serious threat not just because of their relationship within Iran but because of what it has attempted to do throughout the region, as well as its own potential threat.

Just a few weeks ago there was an election in Nicaragua, right before our election, where Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega won the election, took a congratulatory call from Hugo Chavez, who said:

We’re happy here. We’re very proud of you.

Now, like never before, the Sandinista revolution and the Bolivarian revolution unite, to construct the future, socialism of the 21st century.

Chavez made no secret about his support for Ortega or his support for the new rulers in Bolivia. Chavez is doing all he can to build military power and might and influence in the region of the world that is uncomfortably close to the United States.

As we know, Chavez has been clear about his disdain for America. What we don’t know is what Venezuela has been up to. I suspect that most Members of this Senate do not know that Venezuela is the leading buyer of foreign arms and military equipment in the world today, that Chavez is building an army of more than 1 million soldiers. I suspect most in this Senate do not know that over the next year he plans to spend $30 billion to build 20 military bases in neighboring Bolivia which will dominate the borders of Chile, Peru, Paraguay, Argentina, assembling those military bases on the borders of the countries I just mentioned. These military bases, while they will be manned by Bolivian soldiers, will be commanded by Venezuelan and Cuban officers.

How does he do this? How is he able to accomplish what Fidel Castro has been seeking to accomplish now for 4 1/2 decades? The answer to that, of course, is very simple. It is a three-letter word: oil. Oil and its huge profits are financing this, just like oil and its huge profits are advancing Islamic fascism in the Middle East. It is no wonder again that Venezuela and Iran have formed an oil pact. Why? As they have clearly said before, oil is a “geopolitical weapon,” according to Chavez. He also said:

I could easily order the closing of the refineries we have in the United States. I could easily sell that oil that we sell to the United States to other countries of the world ….. to real friends and allies like China.

They have even closer relationships with the Islamic fascists in Iran. A recent congressional report found that Hezbollah may right now have established bases in Venezuela which have issued thousands of visas to people from places such as Cuba and the Middle East, possibly giving them passports to a vague United States border security.

To make matters worse, we see, with the help of Venezuela, Cuba and China are now exploring for oil within 50 miles of the coast of the United States, while the Senate blocks a measure to allow us to explore for oil within 100 miles of our own shore. So while China, Cuba, and Venezuela draw oil from our shores, we stand idly by and let them do it to arm against us.

Let’s not overlook the role of Russia in working with all of these governments — Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela. Last summer, Russia signed an arms deal with Venezuela to the tune of $1 billion. Last month, Russia began deliveries to Iran of highly sophisticated SA-15 anti-aircraft missiles valued at $700 million. The purpose of these missiles? To defend Iran’s nuclear program. That shouldn’t come as a surprise. Russia has consistently opposed the efforts of the United States to sanction the other enemy, North Korea, for their nuclear programs, and has insisted on diluting the effects of every resolution that was passed condemning North Korea. The Russians claim sanctions don’t work. Yet, oddly enough, they just imposed sanctions on their neighbor, Georgia.

Yes, we live in a very complex time and we have enemies who are very dangerous, in which their relationships are growing, and so with it their commensurate power to confront terrorists of the world, and the rest of the world sits and hopes and hopes that we can negotiate our way out of this problem; that since we are people of reason and rational folks, we can deal with them on that level. Have we forgotten our history? We have been in this situation before.

I have titled this address “The Gathering Storm of the 21st Century.” It is not a coincidence that I do so in harkening to the book written by Winston Churchill, “The Gathering Storm,” talking about the lead-up to World War II. Just like Britain in 1940, after the fall of France, we are engaged with a struggle now with the enemy — alone. Just like Britain in 1940, we entreated the rest of the world to join us against this evil, and the world fell silent. For a year and a half until Pearl Harbor, and actually long after that, since the United States was certainly not prepared for war, Britain fought this battle alone. And with the exception of the State of Israel, we are fighting this battle alone, and I suspect we will for quite some time. So what lesson can we learn? What lesson can we learn from history? What we know is America is very reticent to get involved in wars, and rightfully so. In the First World War, we only entered after a German U-boat sank American civilian and commercial ships in the North Atlantic. World War I was the war to end all wars. After the defeat of the German armies, it seemed as if peace was going to be with us for a long time. But it did not last a generation. As I said, we ended up with the situation in World War II. But even after the fall of Europe to the Nazis and the Italian fascists, America stood by, hoping this problem would go away. It was not until Pearl Harbor that things changed.

The Cold War was only after Stalin’s aggression in the Middle East in Greece that we decided to engage and recognize that the Soviet Union was not our friend as many thought after World War II but, in fact, our new foe. And now, after the fall of the Soviet Union we thought we would have a peace dividend, peace for a long time, and we find that other forces of evil have cropped up to confront us.

If it were not for the fact of September 11, we would be allowing that to continue today. But we engaged the enemy because they attacked us directly here at home. But now we are growing tired. We are wearying of the battle. I said earlier that these Islamic fascists understand us better than we understand them. They understand our history better than we understand their history. They need not look long to see how quickly America tires of confrontation and conflict and death.

And so they plan and, more importantly, they kill, every day. It is recorded here every day, and support for this war goes down every day. And they check another box in Tehran.

Winston Churchill wrote in “The Gathering Storm” a short description of the gathering storm:

How the English-speaking peoples, through their unwisdom, carelessness and good nature allowed the wicked to rearm.

We are at such a moment. Are we going to allow the wicked to rearm? We paid a terrible price for waiting. We look at each war, each major conflict, we paid a terrible price for waiting. In many cases, it was a price paid in America. In many other cases it was a price paid in countries around the world. Are we going to pay that price at some day in the future or are we going to confront this enemy?

If we learned anything from the 20th century, it should be this lesson: When leaders say they are prepared to kill millions of people to achieve their goal, we must take them at their word. The enemy before us that I have described has said it clearly, repeatedly, and pointedly, and even more threateningly, because this is an enemy who doesn’t see death as a tragic consequence of the war; they see it as their objective of war.

The ayatollah and the mullahs of Iran have repeatedly said that the object of jihad is not success, it is death. It is reaching the next level. It is ending this miserable life which we have on Earth and in pursuit of jihad, guaranteeing yourself eternal life with Allah.

Here in America, we refuse to recognize, many, that we are at war with this great evil.

We shrink from the recognition of identifying the enemy and confronting them, whether they be the Islamic fascists led by Iran or the socialist rulers of North Korea and Venezuela. We are sleep-walking through the storm, as we have done in the past. We pretend it is not happening or that it is simply because of the incompetency of the current administration or of a member of that administration.

But how do those who deny this evil propose to save us from these people? By negotiating through the U.N. or directly with Iran? By firing Don Rumsfeld, now getting rid of John Bolton? That is going to solve the problem? These people are now going to be nice to us because we removed these people who were agitating them or causing problems? Maybe relocating our troops to Okinawa or Kuwait or some other place will get these people to simply leave us alone? Maybe if we just abandon Iraq and Afghanistan to the chaos and slaughter of Islamic fascists, their thirst for blood will be met? Or maybe it is just engaging in one-on-one discussions with Iran and North Korea and other reasonable dictators?

No, I do not think any of those things will work. And history has proved they have not worked. We need to begin to confront our enemies. And that does not mean we have to launch a military mission into the countries I spoke of. But we have to do more than just adjust tactics in Iraq. If the focus of the next year and a half is simply adjusting tactics within Iraq, it will fail. It will fail. We must go after the regimes that recruit, pay, train, and arm their surrogate militias in Iraq. Again, I am not talking about military confrontation; I am talking about political and economic warfare to bring down the terror regimes in Tehran and their satellite puppet state in Syria. The best way to do that is to work with their own people who want freedom.

I talked about the Iran Freedom and Support Act, but there is much more we need to do. We need to implement it. And we need to use the public diplomacy apparatus we have to motivate and change the hearts and minds. A free Iran will change the world because it will deprive the terrorists of the single greatest source of support and isolate the likes of Hugo Chavez and Kim Jong-il.

Why is a free Iran and a free Iraq so essential? Because neither the United States of America nor any of our Western allies can defeat radical Islamic fascism on our own. We cannot defeat radical Islamic fascism. The only thing we can do is, through democracy-building and through support of moderate Islam, give those who truly seek the true meaning, the true moderate meaning of Islam the opportunity to be successful in suppressing its radical elements. We have to create that environment, and we have not in Iraq because Iran and Syria have not let us.

I remember reading commentaries from so many people talking about that things went well originally in Iraq. It seems like things were going OK, and then, after a year or so, it really started to turn south. Well, immediately after we were there, the Iranians were scared to death of us and dared not play in that sandbox. But they quickly surmised that we were not serious, that we were not going to confront this evil, so they began what we now see.

We need to counter Hugo Chavez. We need to do more to develop closer relationships with the countries in Central and South America, through trade and through diplomatic negotiations. We must fight for the hearts and minds of Central and South America, and we must do so much more deliberately and aggressively than we have. We have to do more to confront North Korea and its threat. That includes options, particularly missile defense. Finally, we have to confront the root cause of all of this, the root cause being oil.

There is one regret I have of not coming back here. It is — and my colleagues know I can be somewhat single-minded — to focus the attention of this body and this country on energy security. It is lunacy, it is suicidal to continue to allow the energy markets at the levels they are right now given the fact that a vast majority of those energy dollars are going to people who want to kill us and destroy everything we believe in. We can no longer play games with our energy security.

I spent a lot of time talking about this war, and I have fought very hard to pass legislation, both the Syrian Accountability Act and the Iran Freedom and Support Act, that will try to hurt our enemies and strengthen our country. I will do my best, after I leave this place, to continue to confront these enemies and to give the United States the opportunity to succeed in this war.

Osama bin Laden said:

In the final phase of the ongoing struggle, the world of the infidels was divided between two superpowers: the United States and the Soviet Union. Now we —

Understand this.

Now we have defeated and destroyed the more difficult and the more dangerous of the two.

Understand what bin Laden is saying. “We,” these Islamic fascists — they claim they defeated the Soviet Union, not Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, not Pope John Paul II, but Islamic fascism, the mujaheddin in Afghanistan. History will make a plausible case for this assertion that, in fact, they had a lot to do with defeating the Soviet Union. But he continues with one final sentence:

Dealing with the pampered and effeminate Americans will be easy.

You see, they think they understand us. They think they know how to get to America. Open a paper every day and see what their tactic is. Open a paper every day, turn on a television every day, turn on your radio every day, sign on to the Internet every day and see what their tactic is and see how they believe they will defeat us.

I believe we need strong leadership to confront this greatest enemy that we have. The stakes are high, too high not to join together — Democrat, Republican, liberal, conservative, American, European — to confront this dangerous enemy. We must stop them.

Winston Churchill, in June of 1940 — I will close with this, for my colleagues who have been patiently waiting — Winston Churchill, in 1940, addressed the British people as Britain stood alone:

What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin.

Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to do our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour.”

This is the call of this generation. This is America’s hour. This is the hour that we need leadership, Churchillian leadership, who had a keen eye for the enemy and a resolve in spite of the political climate to confront it. I ask my colleagues to stand and make this America’s finest hour. I regret that the new Secretary of Defense is not up to the task, in my opinion. I hope others are.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
Thanks to 910 Group member Dan for sending us this text.

With the expansion of the 910 Group, the issue of “inclusiveness” has arisen. How inclusive is the 910 Group? Do we welcome everyone, or just the neocon theocrat right-wing-extremist Bush-Halliburton acolytes?

It’s true that the Burning Core of the 910 Group are members of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. The 910 Group was generated by readers of Gates of Vienna, which is most assuredly a VRWC blog.

But that doesn’t exclude anyone of a different political persuasion. If you’re determined to resist the Great Islamic Jihad, and support the traditions of Western Civilization, then you are in accord with the mission of the 910 Group.

I recently received an email from an avowed Socialist whose blog is dedicated to opposing radical Islam. He said, “This is one thing that you and I can agree on.” Amen to that, brother.

Other people have written to the 910 Group to say that they’re interested in our mission, but are put off by the conservative zealotry which is so much in evidence among the members of the group.

Well, deal with it.

There’s a good reason why right-wing fanatics are over-represented among 910 Group members: the leading lights of liberalism, including (but not limited to) 99% of the prominent members of the Democrat party, have refused to take on the Great Islamic Jihad, and have condemned those who do want to fight it as “racists”, “militarists”, etc.

If you’re a liberal and oppose the Jihad, this has left you with nothing but your strange bedfellows: Republicans, Christians, members of the armed forces, homeschoolers, social conservatives, and various other wackos that you’ve crossed the street to avoid for all these years.

These are strange times, and a common enemy can generate some unlikely allies.

So here’s the word: you are welcome in the 910 Group if you subscribe to these two basic guidelines:

That’s it. If you agree with these principles, you’re in.

One caveat: NO “BUTS”. These principles are non-negotiable, not contingent, and do not become inoperative under unfavorable circumstances. They are the core values, the rock-solid basis which cannot be overturned or negotiated away.

There’s no room for responses like these:

I’m opposed to radical Islam, BUT…

• You have to understand the root causes of terrorism.
• The problem of Israel and the Palestinians has to be solved first.
• It is a legacy of Western imperialism and colonialism.
• It is important to understand and be accepting of different cultural values.
• Sometimes terrorism can be a legitimate form of resistance against oppression.

Nuh-uh. Nope. No way. Absolutely not. Under no circumstances.

If you subscribe to any of the above dependent clauses (or their numerous cousins), then you don’t belong here. This is no place for equivocation; those who have come here recognize the gravity of the present danger.

Root causes don’t matter. Historical grievances don’t matter.

Violence against civilians for religious or political purposes is always, everywhere, and under all circumstances WRONG.

Asserting otherwise destroys the civic and moral fabric of our common society, and we emphatically reject it.

Resist the jihad. Encourage the overthrow of tyrannical Islamist regimes. Work to stop and reverse the encroachment of Wahhabi fundamentalism throughout the Western world.

After we’re done, and the Islamists are in the Dumpster of History, we can argue about abortion, taxes, government-run health care, school vouchers, fiscal restraint, etc., etc.

Right now we’ve got more important things to do.

This just came in from our co-ordinator, Vicktorya. She’ll eventually be posting here directly herself, but sent this to me to save time.

Hello World! — Crowd control has arrived.

This is our official blog, and our homepage is here.

I’ll begin posting more information about The 910 Group — meanwhile, here’s the latest word on ‘getting into The 910 Group’.

Send a message to 910-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

Include as much about yourself and what you want to do, can do, and how much time you can put into this fight. Include your blog, or website URLs, or point to substantive posts you have made to other blogs, etc. We need to know if you are a real person with good intentions — for your security and that of the other 910 members.

If you send a blank or vague email, we must contact you individually — and this is, of course, time-consuming. There is a handful of trusted 910 co-workers who will review your information and intentions and allow you into the forum. From there, you will then access the larger and rapidly growing group where you can immediately begin to find areas of action. We are looking for proactive, self-initiators who work well with others. (NOTE: A a sense of humor will take you a long way in 910, but we do not need debate for debate’s sake — blogs are good for that — nor do we tolerate rants of anger. If you are disruptive you will be rewarded with immediate removal.) What we want is positive offers of your talents, and an ability to coordinate efforts — in the widest range of areas. If you are creative and thinking in new ways, give us an example. If you have assets, time, skills, tell us what those are.

For those who have contacted 910 already:

If you have sent in a message and it has bounced — send a new one, with more information, as suggested above.

If you have not heard from us, it is either due to being in a queue where one of us needs to write to you (or otherwise) to check if you really are who you say you are. The more information you can give us that you are a real person with fine intentions, the more quickly you can get to the forum.

You may also post some of your background or intentions here, and if you include your email (yes) — other 910 members may be able to contact you to help you get in to the forum more immediately.

NOTE: Sending messages to Jack or Steve or me is not a good idea (unless you have a lot of cash, are an attorney, friendly-legislator, Head of State, or media mogul, etc.). Do write me if you have experience managing a global movement that is growing exponentially by the hour. Our goal is for everyone who wants to participate to join together to leverage and prioritize best action.

We are investigating and installing expanded infrastructure to help focus the efforts already underway. If you are a programmer in such things as MySQL, joomla, droopal, moodle, poodle, and tango… and can boomshakalaka with us all day long, then also write me.

Thanks for your help here; yes, the goal is to work together and get willing workers into the forum as soon as possible.

We are all volunteers on The 910 Group, and most of us have gone so far as to giving up sleeping …

For now, all I can say is that we are moving rapidly, with an unprecedented level of coordination (all factors considered), goodwill, and cooperation — AND an overwhelming response. This is all good, but time consuming for an initial small group. The 910 Group is a focusing ‘movement’, it is not a business nor does it have any formal status. (We are investigating incorporating, but this is not yet in place.) The Coalition to Preserve Civilization is not incorporated either, and I can share nothing more at this time about the exact relationship between that group and The 910 Group. What I can say is that we are cooperating closely and investigating all options rapidly.

I look forward to working with you.

Vicktorya

Welcome to the Hotel Islamia!

While Pope Benedict XVI is visiting Turkey to promote dialogue, tolerance, and interfaith understanding, Turkey is busy making sure that Muslims within its borders don’t get any ideas about converting out of the One True Faith.

The door of Islam swings in one direction only. Once you’re in, you’re in. The only exit is via the grave.

Turan Topal and Hakan Tastan are two Turkish men who had the effrontery to convert out of Islam into Christianity. Turkey is a secular state, but it has a way of dealing with people like Mssrs. Topal and Tastan. Read the story from today’s Times Online:

Protestant missionaries face nine years for insult to Islam

Suna Erdem, Istanbul

When Hakan Tastan wanted to amend the religion on his Turkish identity card, his enthusiastic championing of Christianity exasperated the official barring his way. Eventually, the official gave up trying to oppose the controversial change. “Change this heathen’s religion and make him go away,” the devout Muslim told his clerks.

More than ten years later, the missionary zeal of Mr Tastan and his fellow Christian convert, Turan Topal, has led to much graver things than being called names.

They face up to nine years’ jail after going on trial last week for “insulting Turkishness” during their religious work, under the notorious Article 301 of the Turkish penal code. It is the same law that put Orhan Pamuk, the Nobel literature laureate, in the dock, and which the European Union wants amended.

The case against two members of the tiny Turkish Protestant community has attracted criticism from the EUand cast a shadow over Pope Benedict XVI’s visit this week.

Mr Topal and Mr Tastan, who are charged with illegally gathering information on people and “insulting Islam”, have faced public anger in Turkey, where a mistrust of Christians has been growing, fuelled by the Iraq war, the EU’s critical attitude, the Pope’s comments linking Islam with violence and the Danish cartoons row.

Turkey has about a hundred thousand Christians, but most of them are from traditional Christian communities such as the Greek Orthodox Church. Those are descendents of the dhimmi Christian minorities from Ottoman times, and have been tolerated so long as they recognize their place.

But these two converts are from an exotic sect: they’re Protestants:

For Turkish Protestants, a community of about 4,000, that came into existence 20 years ago, there is no recognisable role. Mr Topal was one of the first converts 17 years ago. Mr Tastan, the son of an atheist and grandson of an Alevi Muslim, said that he read the Koran and then was given the Bible by a friend.

He converted during his mandatory military service. The pair and their lawyer, Haydar Polat, think that their indictment is part of a plot.

The three plaintiffs, young men aged 16, 17 and 23, contacted them through a friend saying that they wanted to find out more about Christianity. After two meetings, charges were filed.

The two missionaries were accused of calling Islam a backward religion and claiming that Turks would never become civilised unless they converted. They were also accused of trying to sell women and of possessing guns.

Selling women and possessing guns? Is that projection, or what?

A final word:

Mr Topal and Mr Tastan have forgiven their accusers. “We have a woman in our group who puts up with so much from her husband who is a Muslim. But even she has to love him because the Bible says so,” Mr Tastan says.

Now, once again, Turkey is a secular country. It’s ready to join the European Union and thus commit itself to human rights, equality under the law, religious freedom, yada yada yada.

But insulting Turkishness — that’s another matter entirely…

We’re all prisoners here, of our own device.

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Hat tip: Jack Wheeler. Cross-posted at Gates of Vienna.