The Council Has Spoken!! Our Watcher’s Council Results

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The Council has spoken, the votes have been cast, and the results are in for this week’s Watcher’s Council match up.

“I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.” “ – Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher

“I have neither curiosity, interest, pain nor pleasure, in anything, good or evil, they can say of me. I feel only a slight disgust, and a sort of wonder that they presume to write my name.” – Percy Bysshe Shelley

“The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.” – Malcolm X

“Republicans and Democrats are obsessed with making sure that illegal aliens are granted citizenship. The American people are not. They’re concerned about jobs, the economy, debt. They’re concerned about a plundering country. They’re concerned about a decaying, dying country.”
– Rush Limbaugh

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This week’s winning essay,Bookworm Room’s The Wall Street Journal’s hatchet job on Ted Cruz is pretty much about what the title implies it is. As Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz continues to rise in the polls, like Donald Trump he becomes a target for character assassination and trial by media…not just for his conservative principles but in particular for his positions on illegal migration. That’s an issue dear to the heart of both Leftist Democrats and as we see here, the GOP establishment. Bookworm takes this effort by Kim Strassel apart in her usually erudite fashion. Here’s a slice:

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I support Ted Cruz. I realize he’s not perfect, but no candidate is. What matters to me is that his political values most closely align with mine, that he’s not scared of a fight (and, especially, he’s not scared of the media), and that he is truly smarter than just about everyone else out there. I learned yesterday, though, that Kimberley Strassel at the Wall Street Journal most definitely does not like Cruz. She wrote a savage hit piece on him essentially blaming him for ISIS’s ability to spread throughout the United States. (That spread, of course, has nothing to do with Obama’s open borders policy and the contempt he shows for every person and idea that suggests that Islam might have a problem.)

But before honing in on her perception about Cruz’s alleged security failures, Strassel first lambastes him as a rank opportunist who cares only about self-aggrandizement and refuses to take care of the GOP’s needs:

The senator’s supporters adore him because they see him in those moments when he has positioned himself as the hero. To them he is the stalwart forcing a government shutdown over ObamaCare. He’s the brave soul calling to filibuster in defense of gun rights. He’s the one keeping the Senate in lame-duck session to protest Mr. Obama’s unlawful immigration orders.

Mr. Cruz’s detractors see a man who engineers moments to aggrandize himself at the expense of fellow conservatives. And they see the consequences. They wonder what, exactly, Mr. Cruz has accomplished.

ObamaCare is still on the books. It took the GOP a year to recover its approval ratings after the shutdown, which helped deny Senate seats to Ed Gillespie in Virginia and Scott Brown in New Hampshire. Mr. Obama’s immigration orders are still on the books. The courts gained a dozen liberal judges, all with lifetime tenure, because the lame-duck maneuver gave Democrats time to cram confirmation votes through. Mr. Cruz’s opportunism tends to benefit one cause: Mr. Cruz.

So it’s Cruz’s fault we have Obamacare and it’s his fault because . . . he took a principled stand against it? (I admired that stand when he took it and I still do.) The fact is that Cruz is one of the few Republicans in Congress who actually stood by the party planks and actual promises he and other alleged conservatives made to voters since 2008. He is the only one in Congress on the right who shows the slightest bit of spine. So when Strassel writes, “but Obamacare is still on the books,” the real question shouldn’t be “How do we blame Ted Cruz?” Instead, the real question should be “How did this happen when Republicans control Congress and the purse strings?”

Strassel’s claim that, following Cruz’s principled stand, it took Republicans “a year to recover,” is patently ridiculous. Republicans have enjoyed greater electoral success in the past six years than the party ever has — and she is going to blame defeats in Virginia and Massachusetts on Cruz. That is infuriating.

The above insults are just throat-clearing for Strassel’s real issue: Ted Cruz has made us less safe than we should be because he refuses to authorize the government to turn America into even more of a police state with endless spying on citizens:

Mr. Cruz regaled the crowd about how he had opposed a proposal to intervene in Syria and how he doesn’t support “nation building.” To this he could add a few others: He has consistently voted against defense reauthorization bills that enable troop funding. And this spring he ginned up support to pass a law that undercuts the National Security Agency’s ability to use metadata to root out terror plots. Mr. Cruz, citing “privacy rights,” co-sponsored the bill, along with Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin, Al Franken and Barbara Boxer.

[snip]

It may have seemed like a good idea to Mr. Cruz at the time. But after Paris, he finds himself with a national security agenda that is increasingly at odds with the public will. Florida’s Marco Rubio (who opposed the NSA bill) had fun this week reminding Americans of the stark foreign-policy differences between himself and the Texan, noting that Mr. Cruz has supported laws that “weaken U.S. intelligence.” Mr. Rubio, who has delivered at least 10 major foreign-policy addresses in the past few years, is running as the unabashed hawk, calling for robust new U.S. world leadership. Mr. Cruz may have walked himself into playing the counterpoint—a Rand Paul stand-in.

Strassel is snide — and she is wrong. Cruz is absolutely right to place limits on the NSA and meta-data. As is developed at some length my post about a talk by Mary Theroux of the Independent Institute, all of us should be deeply suspicious about our government at this point — a government that hoards people’s information like a miser and that is becoming ever more out of control and the master, not the servant, in this country:

The government’s spying on American citizens is so enormous we literally cannot comprehend its scope. The data collection (which is in the multiple zetabytes) grossly violates our inherent Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. NSA employees before Snowden tried to blow the whistle on this beginning around the year 2000, and got ferociously persecuted by the government because of their efforts. Snowden’s spectacular leak broke that log jam.

But here’s the really important thing that Theroux said: The government gets so much data, it’s useless for the stated purpose of crime and terrorism prevention. As it comes in, it’s simply so much white noise. It certainly didn’t stop 9/11 or the Boston bombing. In this regard, think of England, which has more CCTVs per capita than any other country in the 1st world, and maybe in any world. Nevertheless, these cameras do nothing to prevent crime. As the number of cameras has increased, so has the crime rate. The data is useful only after the fact, to help (sometimes) apprehend the criminal.

Well, one can argue that ex post facto apprehension is a good thing — but it’s a good thing only if there’s been a clear violation of a pretty well known law (e.g., don’t beat people to death or don’t rob a jewelry store). We’re looking at something much more sinister here. Think of the volume of law in America and, worse, think of the staggering volumes of rules interpreting those laws.

As Theroux noted, Stalin’s chief of police famously said (and I’m paraphrasing) give me the man and I can find the crime. We Americans have a government that’s sitting on data that can be used to criminalize us after the fact the current government (Republican or Democrat or Third Party) doesn’t like us. It’s like a landmine under every American.

No thinking citizen should trust a government that produces a Lois Lerner and then protects her from indictment, even though at least one of the charges against her is that she released private data the IRS held to Democrats for partisan purposes. Nor are abusive employees the only problem. Don’t forget that the government is so dysfunctional that the Office of Personnel Management allowed personal information for millions of employees (including social security numbers and security check information) to get into hackers’ hands. Our government has proven itself to be both corrupt and incompetent, yet Strassel excoriates Cruz for refusing to give it an even longer leash.

Here’s the reality: All that meta-data the government collected has yet to be used to stop a single terrorist incident. All it does is collect more and more information that our government can use against us. It is an Orwellian nightmare that Stalin and other authoritarians of whatever stripe could only dream of having. If it had stopped the Tsarnaev brothers, or any of the other attacks on our soil, perhaps we should feel differently, but there is no evidence that it has made any real difference.

Our Founding Fathers had several guiding principles, one of which is that the good intentions of a benevolent government could not be trusted in perpetuity. The Founders loved George Washington and would have elected him King, but they were worried that a George Washington III might prefer to be a tyrant.

Much more good stuff at the link.

In our non-Council category, the winner was Victor Davis Hanson with Obama Has Just Begun submitted by Fausta’s Blog. Hanson, a classist and historian as well as a stunning writer tells us baldly that this last year of Barack Hussein Obama’s presidency is likely to be the most dangerous for the country – and why. This is a must read.

Here are this week’s full results. A number of our members – Fausta, GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD, Nice Deb,The Noisy Room and Puma By Design were unable to vote this week, but were not subject to the 2/3 vote penalty:

Council Winners

Non-Council Winners

See you next week!

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum. and every  Tuesday morning, when we reveal the weeks’ nominees for Weasel of the Week!

And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council, and the results are posted on Friday morning.

It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere, and you won’t want to miss it...or any of the other fantabulous Watcher’s Council content.

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Our Watcher’s Council Nominations – Origin Of The Species Edition

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(Graphics by Rick McKee)

Welcome to the Watcher’s Council, a blogging group consisting of some of the most incisive blogs in the ‘sphere, and the longest running group of its kind in existence. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council.Then we vote on the best two posts, with the results appearing on Friday morning.

Council News:

Bookworm scored big this week. She was cited and linked once by the one and only Mark Steyn and once on by talk radio star Mark Levin’ website, thus proving the intelligence and good taste these gentlemen possess. Council Akbar!

This week, The Pirate’s Cove, Powerline, The People’s Cube and Blazing Cat Fur earned honorable mention status with some great articles.

You can, too! Want to see your work appear on the Watcher’s Council homepage in our weekly contest listing? Didn’t get nominated by a Council member? No worries.

To bring something to my attention, simply head over to Joshuapundit and post the title and a link to the piece you want considered along with an e-mail address (mandatory, but of course it won’t be published) in the comments section no later than Monday 6PM PST in order to be considered for our honorable mention category. Then return the favor by creating a post on your site linking to the Watcher’s Council contest for the week when it comes out on Wednesday morning

Simple, no?

It’s a great way of exposing your best work to Watcher’s Council readers and Council members while grabbing the increased traffic and notoriety. And how good is that, eh?

So, let’s see what we have for you this week….

Council Submissions

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Honorable Mentions

 

 

 

 

Non-Council Submissions

 

 

 

 

 

  • Ron Fournier/The National JournalLeaderless submitted by The Glittering Eye

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving everyone! And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that!And remember to tune in Friday for the results!

Everything Bad Skyrockets Under Obama, Part II

Have you ever caught yourself saying, “Obama’s policies are going to get a lot of people killed” – only to correct yourself – “actually, I’m sure they’ve already gotten a lot of people killed.”

Well, you were right. Terrorism across the globe has skyrocketed during the Obama years and the carnage has been quantified. Obama’s weak foreign policy has led to the slaughter of approximately 63,214 people over just a three year period.

Via Breitbart:

The worldwide number of annual terrorist deaths has more than quadrupled since President Barack Obama was inaugurated in January 2009.

Deaths from terrorism increased 80 percent last year to an all-time-record of 32,658 people killed, compared to 18,111 in 2013. The number is up about 426 percent from the 7,654 killed by terrorists in 2008 under President Bush, according to the latest report from ‘Vision of Humanity.’

The 2014 economic cost of 13,370 terrorist attacks in 93 countries included property damage, medical costs, lost income for victims, and the indirect costs of preventing and responding to terrorist acts. The annual “Global Terrorism Index” report estimated those costs hit an all-time-high in 2014 of $52.9 billion.

Boko Haram and Islamic State of Iraq and Levant were jointly responsible for 51 percent of all claimed global terrorist fatalities in 2014. About 57 percent of all the attacks and 78 percent of all the deaths occurred in the five nations of Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan and Syria.

It’s horrifying. For eight years, the left chanted, “Bush lied, people died.” Many, many more people have died as a result of Obama’s corruption, incompetence, lies and deceit.

Obama has probably never heard this John Stuart Mill quote, but it pertains to him and his miserable cohorts.

“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice, — is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.”

In May of 2014, I wrote, Have You Noticed? Everything bad ‘Sky-Rockets’ Under Obama:

 Everything that hurts people, weakens the economy, and undermines the culture, has sky-rocketed under Obama. Not good things. Only bad things.

Unless you consider government dependency to be a good thing: Government programs are sky-rocketing: Tracfone (Obama-phone) usage, foodstamp usage, medicaid expansion, welfare expansion, and the number of people on disability — all have sky-rocketed.

Insurance rates,  unemployment, racial division, non enforcement of  immigration laws, government workers, government corruption, “public sector millionaires”, homelessness,  tuition costs, inflation, taxes, debt, and intolerance for people who dare to voice non-liberal views – all have sky-rocketed.

As a result of all this, distrust in government has (you guessed it) sky-rocketed.

Name one good thing that has sky-rocketed under Obama.

Everything this president does when he’s not golfing, fund-raising or on vacation,  is geared toward his endless campaign of  political agitation and division.  Traditional enemies of America – like Communist and Islamic tyrants are not his enemies. If the enemies of his enemies are his friends – they are in fact Obama’s allies.

His enemies are those who threatens his great passion – big government. That’s why we’ve seen him sic the bureaucracy on them. No, I don’t think he’s clueless about what is going on in the Leviathan. He either enables it through neglect because he really doesn’t care: the VA scandal.

Or he is knowingly enables it: the IRS scandal.

Incompetence and bureaucracy can only explain so much failure. In Obama’s case – there is also malice.

It was something I had been noticing for a long time because it was just one thing after another and another and another and finally the VA scandal spurred me to make a list. Throughout 2015 I have often been reminded of that post: the nationwide spike in crime the distressing increase in racism (both ways), the growth of violent crimes against whites, and finally the spike in worldwide terrorism deaths –  made me think of it. 

Government waste, fraud and abuse continues to skyrocket too, with the Federal Government failing to collect $50 million in fines in their Obamaphone program.

And the  VA, one year after the scandal broke, is still a mess:

Last year, it took a courageous whistleblower, Dr. Sam Foote at the Phoenix Veteran’s Administration facility, to focus national attention on a ‘cook-the-books’ wait-times bonus scandal. At the Phoenix facility alone, Dr. Foote suggested that up to forty veterans died while waiting to see a doctor and up to 1,300 veterans had to wait up to six months for an appointment.

Although the Phoenix facility was the touchstone, the scandal was national: Memphis, Hines-Chicago, Biloxi, Albuquerque, Miami, Gainesville, Central Alabama and many other facilities were cited as ‘troubled.’

Yet, during and after the worst scandal in Veterans Administration history, not only did the VA continue the practice of doling out bonuses, but nearly half the bonuses in 2014 were paid to the exact same employees as the previous year.

Notice how they were “cooking the books” at the VA.  That’s an Obama era mainstay. In fact, it’s part of the reason why bad things are skyrocketing.

Corrupt, lazy, stupid, agenda-driven Obama officials are very big on cooking of books. They fudged deportation numbers for years in order to fool the public into thinking that Obama had deported more illegals than any other president. Meanwhile, “Credible fear” asylum applications have skyrocketed, adding hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers – many from terrorist countries – to the 2.5 million illegal immigrants who have joined the US population under Obama.

According to a U.S. News and World Report report last week, an astounding backlog of 450,000 credible fear cases are currently clogging immigration courts.

They cooked intel too, as the “skewed intel” scandal demonstrates.

Whether it was because they understood that the president was determined to ignore inconvenient threat assessments, or because they were under direct orders, top Obama officials pressured analysts to downplay  “multiple assessments” from military intelligence and the CIA regarding the “rapid rise” of ISIS in Iraq and North Africa in the year before the group took over huge swaths of Iraq in 2014.

They cooked the false Benghazi talking points, too if you remember.

Climate change quackery involves all sorts of manipulation of data – something leftists excel at – not to mention fake-ass studies like the “97% of climate scientists agree with the liberal politicians” hokum.

I guess you could say “cooking the books” has skyrocketed under Obama, too.

Good God, and then there’s the flurry of “How-To” articles instructing special snowflakes and SJWs how to survive Thanksgiving dinner with the troglodyte conservatives in their families –  or how to take the opportunity to push the latest left wing enthusiasm – like Obamacare (which is unraveling as we speak – Uncle Fuddy-Duddy was right all along about that) or gay marriage, gun control, or BlackLivesMatter on them. The left never sleeps.

So, oh joy – the politicization of the holidays has also skyrocketed under Obama.

Jeez, I don’t know how much more of this malignant tumor on the body politic that is this toxic A-hole, Barry H. Obama, this formerly great nation can stand.

We’ve got over a year to go – and in 2016, he’s promised to go after our guns – the only good thing that skyrocketed under him.

 

 

Saturday Movie Matinee: Failure of Intelligence

Apologies in advance for the death of content for this week’s matinee. I’m on the road, and my motel has terrible internet service.

Bill Whittle, PJ Media: Failure of Intelligence: How Liberals Cause ISIS Terror Attacks:

But the way, be sure to check out the new design at PJ Media if you haven’t already.

PJ Media Trifecta: Post Paris: Liberals Can’t Blame Terror Attack on Muslims:

YAFTV: Ben Shapiro: Toughen Up Spoiled Children:

Colin Flaherty: Black on white crime Spree in St. Louis. Does anyone notice?

The Council Has Spoken: Our Watcher’s Council Results

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The Council has spoken, the votes have been cast, and the results are in for this week’s Watcher’s Council match up.

““We took the liberty to make some inquiries concerning the ground of their pretensions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury, and observed that we considered all mankind as our friends who had done us no wrong, nor had given us any provocation.

The Ambassador [of Tripoli] answered us that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.” – Thomas Jefferson, 1786 in a report to John Jay, then US Secretary of Foreign Affairs

“Liberty and freedom are so very precious that you do not fight and win them once and stop. They’re prizes awarded only to those peoples who fight to win them and then keep fighting eternally to hold them.” – WWI Medal of Honor winner Alvin York,from a speech in front of the Tomb of The Unknown Soldier on Memorial Day, 1941.

“I studied the Quran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction that by and large there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as that of Muhammad. As far as I can see, it is the principal cause of the decadence so visible today in the Muslim world and, though less absurd than the polytheism of old, its social and political tendencies are in my opinion more to be feared, and I therefore regard it as a form of decadence rather than a form of progress in relation to paganism itself.” – Alexis de Tocqueville, author of ‘Democracy In America.’

“I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them” – Qu’ran, 8:12

“And fight with them until there is no more fitna (disorder, unbelief) and religion should be only for Allah” – Qu’ran,8:39

“Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, even if they are of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.” – Qu’ran 9:29

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This week’s winning essay,Joshuapundit’s Why The West Is Doomed… is my reflection on recent events in Paris and elsewhere, the response of our political elites, the inherent danger in referring to rthe Paris attacks as ‘terrorism’ and what must be done in order to change course. Here’s a slice:

Unless we make a major corrections and entirely change direction, what happened in Paris is just the beginning of the end, and the West is headed for horrendous consequences and perhaps even defeat.

It’s been just a few days since the atrocity in Paris, and the response to it has been similar to other jihadist attacks. They range from the usual suspects actually excusing the brutality and talking about how it has nothing to do with Islam ala’ Mrs. Clinton  to misdirected remarks for ‘action’ that resemble nothing so much as the old carny game of whack-a-mole, this time with ISIS as the target d’jour.

Walk with me awhile and let’s examine the real problems we face, along with what’s really involved in solving them.  I guarantee you won’t be bored. I haven’t seen much real analysis anywhere on how to actually win this conflict for obvious reasons,because they involve dealing with some uncomfortable realities. Here’s a small spoiler preview…ISIS is neither the main problem nor even the main target.

From the first, we were lied to. According to President George W. Bush post 9/11, we were fighting a war on ‘terrorism’. To President Obama and Mrs. Clinton, we’re at war with ‘extremism.’ They all have their own reasons for misdirecting the American people, most of which have nothing to do with either the good of the United States or making any real progress in actually winning the conflict against the faux target they’ve created.

We’re in a war, all right. And ISIS is just one of the players.It’s high time we realized that rather than an ISIS problem, we have a major problem with Islam..in particular, with Islamic fascism and its adherents.And even worse, we have problems that could very well doom civilization and freedom as we know it if we continue along the present course.

The idea that we’re fighting ‘terrorism’ or ‘extremism’ is especially ludicrous and using the terms are   a gross insult to our collective intelligence. ‘Extremism’ is a vague, dubious and deliberately subjective term designed to cloak reality in fog, and  ‘terrorism,’ after all, is a common tactic of war, designed for one purpose and one purpose only – to erode an enemy’s desire and ability to make war.

In the Middle Ages, a common tactic of waging war was to try to destroy the wealth of an enemy and its ability to support warfare by sacking towns and farmlands. Another example more familiar to Americans was General William T. Sherman’s March To The Sea through the most productive part of the Confederacy, leaving a swath of destruction and desolation in their path. They burned Atlanta and other cities and towns  to the ground, destroyed not only military targets but civilian property and infrastructure, and lived off the land by ‘foraging,’ which essentially meant stealing whatever they found and leaving the civilians with a bare minimum to survive on if they were fortunate.The idea was to end the war by degrading the South’s ability and will to fight, and it was very successful in that regard.

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We are not only fighting armies, but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war, as well as their organized armies. I know that this recent movement of mine through Georgia has had a wonderful effect in this respect. Thousands who had been deceived by their lying papers into the belief that we were being whipped all the time, realized the truth, and have no appetite for a repetition of the same experience. – General Sherman in a report to Union Chief Of Staff  General Henry Halleck, December, 1864.

Similar tactics were used in both world wars by both sides for similar reasons.

French President Hollande was entirely correct that the attack on Paris was an act of war, but it was not ‘terrorism’ or mindless carnage to no purpose. After all, France has been committing acts of war against ISIS by flying 200 air support missions against both combatants and civilians in ISIS territory since September of 2014.

The tactical idea involved also made sense – to remind the West that their cities and their civilians are also vulnerable and can be reached by ISIS.

Every master of strategic thinking whether its Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, General MacArthur or Napoleon has shared certain basic principles in common. They’ve all agreed that in order to successfully wage and win a war, you must have clear goals, know whom your enemy is and secure your base. To that, I’d add utilizing effective leadership and motivated forces.

Not only is the West not doing any of these things, it’s doing its best to do the exact opposite. To really get perspective on that, let’s look at how ISIS and other jihadist entities, both Sunni and Shi’ite are waging their war against us as opposed to  how we’re doing whatever it is we’ve  been doing for the past decade and a half or so.

They have secured their bases, and there’s little or no fifth column within. Anyone they even suspect of betrayal or less than full commitment to victory is immediately and ruthlessly dealt with. Both their enemies and their goals are clearly defined and marked out with formal declarations of war after the Islamic tradition, which both Osama bin-Laden and ISIS adhered to. On the Shi’ite side, Iran makes no secret of their hostility to us. They want death to America and President Obama is helping them get the tools for the job.

ISIS leaders and their fighters are dedicated, brave and more than prepared to fight and die for Allah and the Caliphate. The Paris attacks were carried out by young fighters willing to give their lives to accomplish their mission. So were their successful attacks on Iraqi forces who on paper outnumbered them and were far better equipped, courtesy of the American taxpayer.

In contrast, our leaders resort to the most tortuous euphemisms to avoid actually mentioning our real enemy or even establishing more than the most vague and general goals. Unlike al-Qaeda in it’s heyday, The Muslim Brotherhood, The Taliban, Hizb’ al-Tahrir and ISIS, there’s no declaration of war by us and no defining of whom or what we’re fighting at all.

Not only have they not secured our base, but our current leadership has actually enabled the breaching of those bases, encouraging mass migration from questionable Muslim countries where Islamism and jihadist thought are quite popular.

As a result of that migration and in particular America’s tolerance and even appeasement of  Saudi and Emirate funded Muslim Brotherhood  front groups like CAIR, The North American Islamic Trust, The Muslim Public Affairs Counsel, The Islamic Society Of North America and others, a fifth column in America is rampant. Not only are young Muslims radicalized in mosques and madrassahs here by radical imams, but jihadist web sites and platforms like al-Jazeerah, or Jihad TV as I call it are readily accessible.

As opposed to the militaries of our opponents in this war, our severely scaled back forces have seen much of their best combat leaders and experienced combat troops forced into retirement or out of the service to make way for a military that  appears to be far more concerned with transgender rights, ‘diversity’ and placing women in combat roles regardless of whether they meet physical requirements to do so than concentrating on defeating our enemies.  Retention is at an all time low. And as for faith, even mentioning G-d is likely to get you reprimanded or even bounced out of the service – unless of course, you’re talking aggressively about Islam’s ultimate victory  over the Infidels and putting ‘Soldier of Allah’ on your official business card like Major Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood murderer did.

Finally, our lack of decisive leadership speaks for itself. We have no strategy and no clear goals  and we haven’t for years. President Obama isn’t even following the old rule of  ‘at the very least, do no harm.’  His destabilizing the Middle East and paving the way for Iranian nuclear weapons is a nightmare his successors in office as well as the American people will have to face and it will not be pretty.

Again – and I can’t emphasize this enough – we are in a war with Islamic fascism, and it’s supporter are far from being as much of a minority as certain people would lead you to believe. And yes, is does have everything to do with Islam. There is nothing Boko Haram, Hamas,  Hezbollah, ISIS, the Taliban, Hizb’ al Tarir, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Iranian regime or any of the other so-called ‘extremists’ are doing that is not sanctioned by the Qu’ran. Nothing.

That, by the way is very different from being in a war with Muslims. Many of them are decent and peaceful people. But Islam itself is not going to be reformed. It is a violent religion that brutalizes women and non-believers and was designed for world conquest. As Mohammed told his followers before he died in 632 CE, they are commanded to fight the infidels until they died, became Muslims or paid massive protection money or other tribute for their lives to Muslims and “felt themselves subdued.”

Much more at the link.

In our non-Council category, the winner was Sultan Knish with Sultan Knish Why Islam is the Religion of War submitted by The Independent Sentinel.

Here are this week’s full results. Only Puma By Design was unable to vote this week, but was not subject to the usual 2/3 vote penalty:

Council Winners

Non-Council Winners

See you next week!

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum. and every  Tuesday morning, when we reveal the weeks’ nominees for Weasel of the Week!

And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council, and the results are posted on Friday morning.

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