Posts Tagged ‘Michael Totten’
Monday, February 7th, 2011
I saw this dandy Michael Totten piece on Israeli military preparation (including building an entire town for training exercises) a few weeks ago, and meant to write something about it, but got busy with other things.
Being a curious sort, I went searching for that training center on Google maps, and think it might be at 31.163869, 34.532279; you may have to zoom out or scroll south and to the west to see it, since Google Maps centers on the nearest road. (I don’t think anything visible on Google Maps is a military secret, and I doubt anyone in Hamas reads my blog anyway.)
However, even more interesting is the structure due south of it at 31.139718, 34.531937:
There are a lot of structures in the Nagev with a sort of circular berm around them, and I guess those are just oases or something equally benign. But the interesting thing about this one is the big X across the top of it. what is that? Storage facility? Secret silo? For all I know it could be a hazardous waste dump.
But given the Big X, I’m guessing this is the entrance for Professor Charles Francis Xavier’s secret Israeli academy for mutants…
Tags:Israel, Jihad, Michael Totten
Posted in Foreign Policy, Jihad | No Comments »
Saturday, January 29th, 2011
Not a lot of news coming out. The longer it takes things to happen, the more likely Mubarak is to hold onto power. Yesterday brought scattered reports that the army may be wavering in support of Mubarak. Today? Not so much. There are sporadic reports of gunfire, and lots of reports that citizens groups are banding together to prevent looting.
The old links down the page stopped updating at the end of the day. The new links are:
The BBC.
The Atlantic.
Egyptian blogger Sandmonkey’s Twitter feed
As for what an actual popular Egyptian government might look like, Michael Totten reminds us that the answer might be pretty ugly:
In Egypt, 82 percent want stoning for those who commit adultery; 77 percent would like to see whippings and hands cut off for robbery; and 84 percent favor the death penalty for any Muslim who changes his religion.
Asked if they supported “modernizers” or “Islamists” only 27 percent said modernizers while 59 percent said Islamists.
Elsewhere in the Middle East, there are reports of unrest in Yemen. Conversely, yesterday’s reports that Syria had also taken down nationwide Internet access appear to have been false.
Tags:Egypt, Islamist, Jihad, Michael Totten, Middle East, Muslim Brotherhood, Syria, unrest, Yemen
Posted in Global Warming, Jihad, Media Watch | 1 Comment »
Thursday, January 27th, 2011
The big Jihad news this week, of course, was the Moscow bombing. But that was hardly the only thing of note:
The Moscow bombers were evidently trained in Pakistan. “An al-Qaeda linked website said that the group Islamic Caucasus Emirate, led by the rebe Doku Umarov, was poised to claim it had staged the attack. It said that Russia’s harsh military measures against independence activists in the Caucasus had provoked the attack. It said: ‘You disbelievers are the firewood of Hell. You will enter it.'” (I’m guessing “rebe” is short for “rebel,” though I have not heretofore heard it used.)
Short, interesting analysis of successes and failures of Russia’s own war on terrorism.
Dokka Umerov has repeatedly made it very clear that he wants nothing to do with al Qaeda, or bin Laden.
The latter point reveals the following about the global War on Terror. First, the US and British efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq have succeeded in destroying al Qaeda’s reputation amongst Islamist organizations. If an Islamist cause as major as the Caucasus Emirate wants to stay clean of al Qaeda, it means that al Qaeda equals trouble. Al Qaeda involvement means interference from the world’s great powers.
Second, Russia’s situation reveals that the US and British efforts have failed to do significant damage to the ideology of Islamism. If a nationalist movement turns itself into a movement with Islamist objectives in order to make itself stronger, then it proves that the ideals to which al Qaeda subscribes have not been significantly damaged.
UK man arrested “on suspicion of using racially aggravated threatening words or behaviour,” i.e., burning a Koran.
Pro-Jihadist forces organizing in North Africa. Wait, did I say “North Africa”? I meant “Norway.”
JihadWatch (from whom I regularly steal a very significant fraction of the stories listed in these weekly Jihad roundups) interview Robert Reilly, author of The Closing of the Muslim Mind.
Hezbollah moves closer to control of the Lebanese government.
Lots more on that subject from the invaluable Michael Totten (just keep scrolling).
UK Jihadists evidently don’t like being filmed.
Australian artist receives death threats from left-wingers and islamists for anti-burqua mural. Once again we see the alliance of the left and radical Islam.
Danish Judge to Kurt Westergaard: Don’t you dare call the man who tried to kill you with an axe a terrorist.
U.S. border authorities arrest Jihadi Muslim cleric who was deported from Canada to Tunisia three years ago when he tried to sneak into California inside the trunk of a BMW.
Jihadists kill four in attack on army base in Thailand.
Also in Thailand, nine Buddhist wild pig hunters were killed by a roadside bomb. In other news, there are Buddhist pig hunters.
Jihadists also killed six in Nigeria. With machetes.
Wyoming joins Oklahoma in proposing law outlawing Sharia.
A similar law has been proposed in South Carolina.
New Imam of Ground Zero Mosque says that all apostates from Islam should be jailed. This is a great improvement from the standard clerical opinion that they should be killed…
He also says that most gays were abused as children. Strangely enough, some people have a problem with this.
All you Islamophobes who say Mohammed was a pedophile are way off base. Sure, Mohammed married a 6 year old, but all Islamic experts agree that he refrained from having sex with her until she reached the ripe old age of 9.
Islamic man in Buffalo texts his wife that he can’t live without her. Twenty minutes later he beheaded her.
Batman to get Muslim sidekick. Presumably one that doesn’t murder Muslim girls for daring to date non-Muslim men…
Muslim Minneapolis police officer arrested for assaulting his wife.
Bin Laden threatens France. Insert your own joke here.
Tags:al Qaeda, Batman, Buffalo, Canada, Caucasus Emirate, Denmark, Dokka Umerov, France, Jihad, Kurt Westergaard, Lebanon, Michael Totten, Minneapolis, Moscow, Norway, Osama bin Laden, Pakistan, suicide bombing, Thailand, Tunisia, UK
Posted in Foreign Policy, Jihad, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Thursday, December 16th, 2010
Lots of Jihad news of note this week:
- Just in case you were busy Saturday and didn’t hear, a suicide bomber struck central Stockholm on Saturday.
- That bomber, Iraqi-born Taimour Abdulwahab Al-Abdaly, was yet another product of British schools.
- But don’t worry, there are only about 200 Islamic extremists total in all of Sweden!
- Except that train bomber guy wasn’t among them. Might need to do some more counting there, guys…
- Not News: Middle Eastern religious leader declares that there’s a Zionist conspiracy against Arabs. News: It was the the patriarch of the Church of Antioch and the entire Levant for Melkite Greek Catholics. (Hat tip: The Corner.)
- Kuwait general says Iran’s nuclear program is military, not civilian. On behalf of non-liberals everywhere: Duh.
- Unclear on the concept: Feminists protesting in favor of Islamic extremists. You’re doing it wrong. (Sadly, the impulse seems inexplicably common in feminist circles these days.)
- Al Qaeda is planning suicide attacks against Christmas shoppers in the U.S. and Europe. Honestly, I just assume al Qaeda is planning suicide attacks year-round. It’s pretty much what they do. It’s like saying the New England Patriots work on winning football games year-round.
- Usually you hear about Iranian-sponsored suicide bombers blowing up people in other countries, not Sunni suicide bombers blowing up Shi-ites in Iran itself.
- Danish MP Jesper Langballe fined for telling the truth about Islamic rapes and honor killings. Indeed, he was denied the opportunity to defend himself.
- Did you know that Feisal A. Rauf, the guy trying to build the Ground Zero Mosque, is a slumlord?
- Weimer Istanbul. (Hat tip: Michael Totten.)
- And speaking of Michael Totten, he has an interview with Giulio Meotti, the author of A New Shoah: The Untold Story of Israel’s Victims of Terrorism. Lots of bracing, disheartening information in that interview. “Europe is an anti-Semitic continent.” “The current European anti-Semitism is a powerful mix of Islamist pressure on Europe by large Muslim communities in its midst and a leftist-progressive ideology.”
- The 2010 Jihad Watch Award Winners. If you haven’t noticed, JihadWatch is one of the sites I
steal reference stories from for this roundup.
- Finally, Dwight’s essay on the Iranian Revolution may be of interest to many readers.
Tags:al Qaeda, Denmark, Dwight Brown, Feisal A. Rauf, feminism, Ground Zero Mosque, Iran, Iraq, Istanbul, Jesper Langballe, Jihad, Kuwait, Michael Totten, nuclear weapons, Sweden, Taimour Abdulwahab Al-Abdaly, This Week in Jihad, Turkey, Weimar Germany
Posted in Foreign Policy, Jihad | 3 Comments »
Thursday, December 9th, 2010
Another week, another batch of news from the world of Jihad:
Tags:Alcohol, Communism, Gaza, Guantanamo Bay, Hamas, Iran, Islam, Islamist, Jihad, Michael Totten, Prohibition, This Week in Jihad
Posted in Communism, Foreign Policy, Jihad, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Thursday, November 11th, 2010
Another week, another roundup of the World of jihad:
- Arabs would evidently prefer to see a little Arab boy die rather than have his life saved by an Israeli ambulance
- Jihadists try to blow up airplanes by stuffing dogs with bombs. Killing the dogs in the process. Angries up the blood, it does.
- My congressman, Rep. John Carter, wonders why the Pentagon still has not acknowledged that “radical Islamic terrorism” was the cause of the Ft. Hood rampage. (At some point I should put up pics from Carter’s picnic. He got a lot of pictures with my dog…)
- The Turkish media seems happy to keep their own citizens in the dark about what really happened with the Peace and Happiness Flotilla earlier this year.
- Reza Aslan is one of those “moderate Muslim spokesman,” who, when you actually examine their words and deeds, turns out not to be so moderate after all…
- Pope: Hey, how about some religious freedom in Islamic countries? I wouldn’t hold your breath…
- Especially in Hamasistan, who have declared that they’re not going to let any of those filthy, stinking Shi’a into their country, much less Christians, Buddhists or (ha!) Jews. (Which, of course, won’t prevent them from taking money from the Shi’a theocracy in Tehran.)
- The latest group of racist, bigoted Americans to oppose the Ground Zero Mosque: Muslims.
- A Somalia sex-slave ring is operating out of: A.) Mogadishu, B.) Cairo, or C.) Minneapolis?
Tags:Ground Zero Mosque, Hamas, Islam, Israel, Jihad, John Carter, Michael Totten, Palestinians, Reza Aslan, sexual slavery, Turkey
Posted in Foreign Policy, Jihad, Media Watch, Republicans | No Comments »
Thursday, November 4th, 2010
Just because the U.S. has an election doesn’t mean Islamic fundamentalists rest. So here’s a roundup of Islamic- and Jihad-related news from around the world.
Tags:Bill Mahar, CAIR, Democrats, Elections, Iran, Islam, Islamist, Jihad, Keith Ellison, MEMRI, Michael Totten, Oklahoma, Saudi Arabia, This Week in Jihad
Posted in Democrats, Elections, Jihad | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, October 13th, 2010
Though I’m going to be concentrating heavily on election coverage the next three weeks, the rest of the world doesn’t stop just because the U.S. is having an election. Here’s a roundup of this week’s problems with Jihad, Islamists, Sharia, Islam, and the Middle East in general. (You might also have noticed that I’ve added a Foreign Policy/Jihad links section.)
So here’s a week’s worth of (mostly depressing) developments:
- Michael Totten notes (by way of the the Gloria Foundation) that The Muslim Brotherhood has declared war on the United States. (If you’re not familiar with the Muslim Brotherhood, they are, if not Patient Zero, then Patient One or Two of the modern Islamist movement, founded in Egypt in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna.) Here’s the text of the declaration via MEMRI. As Totten notes, the Muslim Brotherhood has “one hundred times more activists than al-Qaida.”
- The Jawa Report on a homegrown Jihadi who recently defected to al Qaeda in Yemen.
- Advice Goddess Amy Alkon recently got in touch on Facebook via a mutual (non-political) friend. (Yes, I’m on Facebook. No, I don’t take friend requests from people I don’t already have some sort of personal connection to, which excludes most political figures; as one friend put it, “I don’t friend anyone on Facebook who couldn’t pick me out of a police lineup.” I also don’t post political links on my Facebook feed. What would be the point?) Anyway, she’s been doing a lot of coverage on the Jihad front. This week she links the complete text of this Geert Wilders speech that’s well worth reading.
- Thinking of eating at a Washington, DC restaurant? Congratulations: you’re now a Jihad target.
- Not this week, but I only recently became aware of the honor killings of Amina and Sarah Said, teenage sisters, by their own father in Irving, Texas. Updated: Dwight emailed to note that not only was the father/killer Yaser Said still at large, but that he’s been featured on America’s Most Wanted.
Tags:al Qaeda, America's Most Wanted, Amy Alkon, Facebook, Geert Wilders, honor killing, Irving, Jawa Report, Jihad, MEMRI, Michael Totten, Muslim Brotherhood, Texas, Yaser Said, Yemen
Posted in Crime, Jihad, Texas | 1 Comment »
Monday, October 4th, 2010
Michael Totten’s pieces are always worth reading, and this piece on the Druze of the Golan Heights is no exception.
I especially liked this bit on the religious beliefs of the Druze:
They’re monotheists who emerged from Islam a thousand years ago, but their religion changed so drastically it became something else. They don’t proselytize or wage wars of conversion or conquest. No one is even allowed to convert. That door closed in the year 1043. You’re either born a Druze, or you aren’t a Druze. And if you die a Druze, they say you’ll be reincarnated as one. Their religious texts are kept secret, not only from non-Druze, but from most Druze, as well. The “uninitiated” majority aren’t required to observe any rituals. They aren’t even allowed to know much about the religion.
Why is it that this one reader-funded world traveler always seems to bring back more interesting and detailed stories than all the Middle East bureaus of The New York Times combined?
As always with Totten’s work, read the whole thing and hit the tip jar if you feel so inclined.
Tags:Golan Heights, Israel, Michael Totten, Middle East, Syria
Posted in Foreign Policy, Jihad | No Comments »
Wednesday, August 4th, 2010
So I saw the link for this Michael Totten interview on Instapundit, and the name Benjamin Kerstein rang a bell. He was the one that penned this excellent essay on Zionism as a refutation of liberalism, which I cited in some of my Helen Thomas coverage.
This interview talks about, among other things, the “reality bubble” English speakers in Tel Aviv walk around, the Arab-Israeli conflict, options for dealing with Iran, and more. It’s quite fascinating. Read the whole thing, and remember than Totten depends on reader tips for his funding.
Tags:Benjamin Kerstein, Islam, Israel, Jihad, Michael Totten, Zionism
Posted in Foreign Policy, Jihad | No Comments »
