Obama as Lincoln? Let’s Hope So

February 7th, 2009

On Tuesday, Barack Obama will be sworn in as America’s 44th president.  It will be a poignant moment as America’s first black president takes the oath of office facing the Lincoln Memorial and with his hand on the same Bible used by Abraham Lincoln at his inauguration in 1861.

Much has been made of Obama’s decision to use Abe’s Bible, as well as Obama’s ambition to model his presidency after that of Lincoln, America’s first Republican president and historically one of its most beloved.

I hope President Obama succeeds, and in two ways in particular.  I hope Obama follows Lincoln’s example in steadfastly fighting a difficult but winnable war.  And I hope Obama emulates Lincoln in recognizing that all America’s citizens are entitled to the constitutional right to life.

During the Civil War, President Lincoln made many decisions that were criticized harshly by the press, Democrats and even the U.S. Supreme Court as affronts to civil liberties.  Shortly after the war started, Lincoln declared martial law and authorized military tribunals.  He unilaterally suspended habeas corpus, the constitutional right to appear before a judge before being imprisoned.  Overall, as many as 15,000 people were arrested without a prompt trial.

Lincoln also increased the size of the Army and Navy, hiked military spending and instituted a blockade, all without congressional approval.

Lincoln wasn’t the only president to take bold and prompt action in a time of war.  Consider the other president Obama hopes to emulate, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  FDR authorized the FBI to investigate suspected fascists and communists in America.  And in 1940 he signed the Smith Act into law, which required resident aliens to register with the federal government.  Roosevelt also signed executive order 9066, which authorized the relocation of 110,000 persons of Japanese ancestry to protect military bases and manufacturing plants from possible sabotage.  Two thirds of those relocated were American citizens.  We now recognize that this was a human rights mistake, but at least everyone understood that Roosevelt was putting national security first.

When it was discovered that eight Nazis had made their way to the U.S. to blow up power plants in 1942, all eight were captured, tried and convicted by a military court.  Two of the men received 30-year sentences while the other six were executed by electrocution.  And it was all done within two months of them entering the country.

Like other wartime presidents, President Bush has been criticized by political opponents, scolded by the courts and demonized in the media for real and perceived infringements on personal freedom.  But then again, the Bush Administration’s tactics, such as surveillance of suspected terrorists, helped produce its greatest achievement:  keeping America safe from terrorist attacks in the years since 9-11.

Many Americans doubt whether Obama recognizes that his first job as president is to keep Americans safe from terrorists, not to appease his party’s leftwing base.  Recent events have not been reassuring.  The Obama transition team leaked this week that the president-elect intends to issue an executive order shortly after Inauguration Day ordering the closure of Guantanamo Bay.  But Obama has not yet explained what he would do with the over 200 suspected terrorists if GITMO were closed, not to mention other enemy combatants held in military prisons across the world.

Last year, when the liberal majority on the Supreme Court granted certain constitutional rights to foreign terrorists, Justice Antonin Scalia warned, “America is at war with radical Islamists. …today’s opinion … will make the war harder on us.  It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed.” Justice Scalia’s commonsense warning was prophetic.
The Pentagon announced this week that 61 former GITMO prisoners released in recent months have rejoined their holy warrior colleagues on battlefields around the world, where they are doing their very best to kill our sons and daughters serving in the U.S. military.  While presidents must walk a fine line between protecting civil liberties and safeguarding our nation’s citizens, in times of war and crisis, the nation needs a strong chief executive.

Obama should also emulate Lincoln in the 16th president’s recognition of the value of all human life.  Abraham Lincoln was elected president four years after the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its infamous Dred Scott decision, which affirmed slavery and defined slaves as property, not citizens.  Lincoln was a strong, prudent, opponent of slavery and often voiced his concern that Dred Scott would lead to a Supreme Court ban on state abolition of slavery.

Just as slavery was an assault on human dignity, the slaughter of millions of unborn children is an assault on the most basic human right, the right to life.

Obama’s inauguration will take place just two days before the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that claimed to find a constitutional right to destroy the life of an unborn child. Unlike Lincoln, Barack Obama does not believe in the right to life and citizenship for all Americans.  Obama’s pro-abortion record is well known.  He has promised that the first thing he’ll do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), a law that would overturn the few existing state and federal restrictions on abortion.  Researchers estimate that FOCA would generate at least 125,000 more abortions a year in a nation already devastated by 4,000 a day.

With its Roe decision, the court again wrongly declared that some Americans are not entitled to the constitutional right to life and that they can be destroyed at the discretion of others.  Sadly, that evil philosophy of death will be given new life under President Obama, unless he embraces Lincoln in affirming the equality of all human life.

Barack Obama has indicated he will look to Abraham Lincoln as a role model for principled leadership in a time of war and instability.   Let’s hope he has the audacity to do just that.

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Gaza Needs A Regime Change

February 7th, 2009

Imagine a world in which a democratic nation surrounded by hostile enemies is attacked daily by rockets and mortars aimed at its civilian centers.  Then, after enduring months of assaults of increasing intensity, the besieged nation responds with surgical strikes directed at the sources of the attacks.  In response to these defensive measures, thousands of people from dozens of nations rally to condemn the democracy.  Its flag is trampled and set ablaze.  Its expatriates are mocked and attacked.  The wounds of historical injustices are re-opened.

Hard to imagine, isn’t it?

It’s happening right now in the Middle East, of course, where Israel has once again been cast in the role of evil villain oppressing the defenseless Palestinians in the tragic play that is the war in Gaza.

Ever since Hamas ended its ceasefire with Israel (a ceasefire to which it never fully adhered) and ever since Israel finally responded, much of the so-called “world community” has strongly, and often violently, condemned Israel.  A burning car was driven into a synagogue in southern France, where an arson attempt was thwarted.   A Jewish congregation was attacked in Stockholm, Sweden, where demonstrators attempted to burn down the Israeli embassy.

In Denmark, two Jewish men survived being shot by Muslim youths who had taunted them for months with verbal and physical assaults, once shouting “slaughter all the Jews.”  In Athens 5,000 pro-Palestinian protestors demonstrated in front of the Israeli embassy.  Some threw stones and fire bombs at police.

In Britain, the Community Security Trust, a Jewish group, said it had seen a rise in anti-Semitic incidents since the war in Gaza, 20-25 incidents in the past week alone, including an attempted arson on a synagogue in London.  Protestors in Holland chanted “gas the Jews.”  Other anti-Israel protests have taken place in Antwerp, Paris, Madrid, Cologne, Moscow and elsewhere.

In America, hundreds of pro-Palestinian demonstrators took to the streets in Tampa, Florida.  Some shouted, “Bring back the ovens,” at Jewish counter-protestors.

Such outrage stems in part from Israel’s so-called “disproportionate” response to months of Hamas attacks.  But what exactly would the international community have Israel do?  Give up more land?  That’s been tried in Gaza, from which Hamas now launches its attacks.

Should Israel simply put up with the daily attacks that hold it hostage?  It is becoming increasingly clear that much of the international community believes as the Hamas charter clearly states, that Israel ought to cease to exist altogether.

Hamas has held southern Israel hostage in the year and a half since it took over in Gaza. But it has also destroyed the lives of its 1.5 million subjects.  In fact, Gaza’s economic plight has gone from bad to worse under Hamas rule.  Most Gazans rely on food handouts from international organizations, and 97 percent of Gaza industry has shut down for lack of raw materials.  Nearly half of the work force is unemployed, including tens of thousands of factory workers. Fuel shortages regularly cause hours-long power outages, and most businesses have been forced to shut down.

In a revealing development, physicians have noticed a disturbing trend of drug use among Gaza youths since Hamas took over. In an attempt to deal with the anxiety and stress of life under a terrorist regime, up to a third of young Gaza men have become addicted to pain-killers.

To listen to Hamas and its apologists is to believe that its failures are the fault of the Israeli embargo.  But the embargo would be lifted if Hamas simply stopped attacking Israel.

A major reason why so many more Palestinians than Israelis have been killed is that Israel puts its people’s safety first and has developed a sophisticated system of bomb shelters and warning systems to protect them.  In contrast, Hamas has done nothing to protect its people.  In fact, as has been noted, Hamas hides among its civilians so that more Palestinians die and so that Hamas can use those deaths as propaganda to cultivate sympathy across the globe.

The Islamists, who have stated clearly and repeatedly that they value death as much as the West values life, have no qualms about killing their own people for the sake of propaganda.  That is why they send women, children and even persons with disabilities out to do their bidding as homicide bombers.

It is fair to say that the Israeli military values the lives of Palestinians more than Hamas does, a fact that is evident by Israel’s routinely warning Palestinians before striking civilian areas where terrorists are hiding or stashing weapons.

Regime change is a prerequisite to peace in Gaza.  While the Hamas leadership was democratically elected, not all democratically-elected leaders (see: Hitler, Adolf) are legitimate.  Hamas’s mission is to wipe Israel off the map, and it has done nothing to show it is willing to deviate from that goal.

But, amid the devastation, there may be a glimmer of hope in Gaza. In June, a brave Gaza shop owner, put out of his business by the poor economic conditions, perhaps spoke for others as he lamented Hamas’s presence.  Speaking to a New York Times reporter, he said, “Everything that has happened here has been a terrible mistake.  It is a mistake for Islamist to get into power.  But what can we do?  Hamas is even stronger than a year ago.  They can take me and put me away whenever they want.”

This week, amid reports of dead and injured civilians in Gaza, reporters quoted a mother of a teenage girl whose body was cut in half in the fighting.  “May God exterminate Hamas!” she screamed.

If it is possible for any good to come of the war in Gaza, perhaps we can hope that discerning Palestinians begin to realize that their hope for a better future does not rest with the jihadists and their promises of another Holocaust.  Until and unless that day comes, Israel must, and will, defend itself.

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Has Israel Gone Too Far?

February 7th, 2009

Has Israel gone too far?

To judge by much of the world’s response to Israel’s actions since being besieged by Hamas rocket attacks is to answer in the affirmative. But while much of the media and political Left continue to present the radical Islamists as “David” and Israel as “Goliath,” a closer look shows that Israel waited as long as it could before responding to an enemy whose sole reason to exist is to ensure that the Jewish State won’t.

For months, Hamas thugs in Gaza have fired missiles and mortars into southern Israel, subjecting hundreds of thousands of Israelis to a campaign of 24-hour terror. This was done in clear violation of an Egyptian-negotiated cease-fire to which Hamas had agreed. Hamas ended the truce even against the wishes of some Muslim heads of state. Then after pounding Israel for a week, and after Israel warned it would respond, Hamas did nothing but continue bombing, targeting civilian centers across southern Israel.

So while the world collectively yawned during months of Hamas attacks against Israel, when Israel did what any sovereign nation would do under the same circumstances — striking back at those responsible for the aggression — it was met with a chorus of condemnation. The American Left is planning to hold “Gaza solidarity” rallies today in 26 states; thousands demonstrated in Washington D.C.; protestors met outside the Israeli embassy in London; and 2,000 Germans demonstrated against Israel in Berlin.

The Israel-bashers argue that, since most rockets and mortars fired by Hamas into Israel have missed their targets, Israel should not respond effectively. But under international law, any nation can respond at a level sufficient to meet the threat. Hamas rocket attacks are destroying normal life and have made daily routines impossible for countless Israelis whose children cannot go to school. Israel has every legal and moral right to demolish the terror infrastructure that supports the daily rocket attacks on its people.

Of course, we’ve seen this movie before. The same scenario has been played out numerous times. In August 2005, Israel spent billions of dollars relocating thousands of its own citizens from settlements in Gaza, only for that act of beneficence to be interpreted by Hamas as validation of their brutal terrorism. Gaza was transformed into, in Benyamin Netanyahu’s words, “a huge base for terror.” In February 2007, Hamas used Gaza to launch thousands of rockets that hit civilians in Ashkelon.

And, just as night follows day, each time Israel responds with force, it is condemned for its “disproportionate response.” This time around, more than 300 Palestinians have been killed, against four Israelis. But here’s why. Gaza is one of the most densely populated areas of the world, and Hamas is infamous for hiding among its constituents, using them as human shields. Weapons are being stored in mosques. The only university in Gaza has turned its labs over to the terrorists, who are using them to make bombs and mortars. These cowards intentionally set up their bases near schools and hospitals to maximize the number of casualties to gain sympathy in the media.

Gaza is hell, but not because of Israel. Its conditions are unbearable because its people elected Hamas — an organization with no economic plan, no educational ideas, nothing to offer at all except to kill the Jews, kill the infidel and destroy Israel.

Gaza, in recent years, has been turned into “Gazastan,” an Islamic republic that educates its own children to seek death in martyrdom operations. Gaza TV airs children’s shows that teach six and seven year-olds to kill Jews. The Gaza government just instituted a new legal code based on Sharia Islamic law that permits crucifixion for certain crimes against Islam.

Hamas exists to wreak havoc and destroy Israel. And it has acted accordingly since its inception. Between 2000 and 2004, Hamas was responsible for the deaths of 400 Israelis, according to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Hamas charter states that “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.” And, “[t]here is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.” Hamas also is a proxy of Iran, whose president denies the Holocaust and vows to “wipe Israel off the map.”

Tuesday, Israel rejected international pressure to end air strikes against Hamas, which continues to hit Israeli civilian centers across Southern Israel. Though the number of Israeli casualties may be small, Hamas doesn’t really mind if its missiles fail to hit their targets. As long as Israel hits its targets, and as a consequence more Palestinian civilians are killed, Hamas is content, because images of dead Palestinians helps Hamas in the eyes of its real target, public opinion.

The New Year will bring nothing new to Gaza so long as Hamas is allowed to perpetuate the same old vicious cycle of provocation, reprisal and international outrage against Israel.

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Islamo-Fascists Won’t Negotiate

February 7th, 2009

What do Mohammed Sadique Khan, Ajmal Amir Kasab and Omar al-Bashir have in common?

It’s not race, socio-economic status, geography or politics.  Khan was a middle class British primary school teacher.  Kasab is an impoverished Punjabi day laborer, and Bashir is Sudan’s president.  What they have in common is that they’ve all committed horrendous acts of terrorism and justified their actions by claiming that their Muslim faith required them to act in the manner they did.

Now, what do the mainstream television and print media have in common in reporting these and other terrorist acts around the world? It’s not lack of coverage:  the media routinely devote hours of coverage and pages of column space to terrorist acts.  But they share an unwillingness to mention that these individuals are operating on the belief that they are praising Allah.
It is a glaring fact that radical Islam is the common denominator in many of the most violent places in the world.  It is a sad fact that in India, as in almost every other place where radical Islam has revealed itself, few in the media or in politics are willing to identify what the real problem is.

The media’s reluctance to identify the Mumbai attackers as “Muslim” has been scandalous.  As the terrible events unfolded last week, CNN commentators repeatedly referred to the attackers simply as “terrorists” or “extremists.” In one three-hour period, the word “Islamic” was used only once. Statements by many world leaders were no better. The typical statement merely pledged to defeat terrorism without ever specifying who the terrorists were or what their motives might be.

Even the Bush Administration has cooperated in this suffocating political correctness, which prevents us from naming the enemy that wants us all dead. At the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security, decisions were made last year to ban the phrase “Islamic terrorists” and to replace it with terms such as “militant.”

Many commentators tried to place the Mumbai attacks in the framework of the Pakistani-India dispute, which is an implausible assertion given that relations between the two countries have become increasingly cordial as the dispute over the Kashmir region has diminished.   While Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group responsible for the attacks, was created to fight the Indian army in Kashmir, as the Wall Street Journal has reported, “[o]ver the years it has expanded its cause into the rest of India and aims to establish Islamic rule.”

The Mumbai massacre was yet another reminder of an evil ideology whose adherents are willing to violate every rule of war and all societal norms in their quest for power. We have seen their work time and time again – here on 9/11; in the London subway attacks; in Spain; in Indonesia; in Beslan, Russia, where helpless school children were shot in the back; and in scores of other attacks too numerous to list.

These are not random acts of violence and hatred.  The perpetrators always fit the same profile – young Muslim extremists raised on a steady diet of hatred and death lust.

Although the media dare not name the terrorists’ religion, the terrorists themselves are not so reticent to identify what compels them to carry out their ghastly deeds.  In Mumbai, they referred to themselves as “mujahideen”—Islamic warriors.   Lashkar-e-Taiba is a known Islamic terror group that intelligence agencies believe has trained in camps with the Taliban.

Clearly, there are millions of Muslims who disagree that Islam justifies terrorism.  We should do everything we can to encourage these moderate Muslims to speak out against terror.  Those who do often put themselves and their families at great risk. The prospects for peace in the world for all people will depend in large part on whether moderate Muslims or Islamo-fascists win the theological battle over who is being true to their faith.  But we aren’t helping anyone when media and government elites increasingly will not acknowledge the Islamo-fascist component to a great deal of the violence taking place around the world.

The jihadists who are attacking civilization are educated in madrasses – Islamic religious schools. They cite the Koran as their authority, and they follow the teachings of Muslim imams, who issue fatwas, religious decrees justifying the murder of infidels and moderate Muslims. They praise “Allah” as they kill and die. These clues make it fairly clear that they aren’t merely militants, and that their motives stem from their faith.

It is disgraceful that while our enemy screams who he is, we are more concerned mainly with not appearing intolerant.  President-elect Obama’s foreign policy vision is built on the need for diplomacy and negotiations. I hope he will quickly learn that the Islamo-fascists couldn’t care less about words and diplomats.

Osama bin Laden has no desire to negotiate.  His followers are working tirelessly right now to bring to the U.S. and to our allies sorrows much greater than the sorrows we have already experienced.  Iran’s Ahmadinejad doesn’t tell Israel that he wants to talk.  He regularly promises that Israel will soon cease to exist while he continues moving toward obtaining nuclear weapons.

A few years ago, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, when asked about the possibility of negotiations with Israel, responded that Hezbollah had no desire to talk, and that it wanted only to kill its enemies.

All of this recalls the famous scene in the James Bond film Goldfinger in which the villain Auric Goldfinger prepares to cut Bond in half with an industrial laser, leading Bond to ask “Do you expect me to talk?”  The irritated Goldfinger replies: “No, Mr. Bond.  I expect you to die.”

In the same way, the Islamo-fascists don’t want to negotiate (unless, perhaps, it is to discuss our unconditional surrender).  They expect us to die.  For our enemies, it is that simple: They will impose their version of Islam on the entire world or die trying.   And for us it’s just as simple: We need to be willing to defend western civilization or die trying.

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The Hamas – Carter “Love-In”

January 28th, 2009

Jimmy Carter is back in the news, this time promoting the cause of his newest friends - Hamas - otherwise known as “thugs incorporated.” Carter went on The Today Show earlier this week and told Meredith Viera that yes, “some people” think Hamas is a terrorist group but he believes they can be trusted. After all, Carter assured her, they never broke any promise they made to him.

The Today Show interview was only the latest in a Carter media offensive whose purpose is to get us to buy his latest book, bash Israel and accept Hamas as peace partners. A few days ago, Carter had a guest editorial in The Washington Post in which he referred to the weapon smuggling tunnels dug by Hamas in Gaza as “defensive” only!

The former president is a walking disaster when it comes to the Middle East. If you want to know what Hamas is all about, click the video below, to hear their own leaders speak.

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