Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad continues to be what I would quantify as one of, if not the “Most Dangerous Man In the World.” While North Korea is a thorn in our side in terms of producing counterfeit US $100 bills and producing counterfeit American cigarettes under the name of Marlboro, etc., Kim Jong-il is not rattling nuclear sabers to the extent of Ahmadinejad.

On Saturday, Ahmadinejad said:

We ask the West to remove what they created sixty years ago and if they do not listen to our recommendations, then the Palestinian nation and other nations will eventually do this for them.

Ahmadinejad made the comments in Tehran whilst celebrating the 27th anniversary of the Islamic revolution there; he continued more to the point when the Bangkok Post reported him as saying:

“Do the removal of Israel before it is too late and save yourself from the fury of regional nations,” the ultra-conservative president said. He once again called the Holocaust a “fairy tale” and said Europeans have become hostages of “Zionists” in Israel. He also accused Europeans for not allowing “neutral scholars” to investigate in Europe and make a scientific report on “the truth about the fairy tale of Holocaust.”

Further: “Those who insulted the prophet should know that you cannot obscure the sun with a handful of dust. The dust will just get back and blind your own eyes,” he said. The crowd replied to his remarks with “Death to Denmark” slogans.

Plans Are Made:

In a prior post I indicated that, before his massive stroke, when asked if Israel would use military force to take out Iran’s weapons program, Ariel Sharon said they would not. “We are not going to do the world’s dirty work,” the Prime Minister said.

Leaving, as I pointed out, the US to once again become responsible for completing the World’s Dirty Work. From the London Telegraph News:

Strategists at the Pentagon are drawing up plans for devastating bombing raids backed by submarine-launched ballistic missile attacks against Iran’s nuclear sites as a “last resort” to block Teheran’s efforts to develop an atomic bomb.

Central Command and Strategic Command planners are identifying targets, assessing weapon-loads and working on logistics for an operation, the Sunday Telegraph has learnt.

Republican Senator John McCain said about a month or so ago, that “there is only only one thing worse than the United States exercising a military option, and that is a nuclear-armed Iran.”

So true Senator, so true. And in the meantime, Ahmadinejad does his best to fan the flames of Islamism and destabilization.

The saga continues. . .

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THIS JUST IN:

The Associated Press indicates an unidentified “leaker” says Iran has already produced a small amount of enriched uranium.

My, things have been busy whilst I’ve been gone. I just flew in from San Diego and boy, are my arms tired!

First, I visited the wonderful city of San Diego the past week, one of the few cities I’ve attended in which I can actually kinda sorta navigate — but only because I finally figured out the ocean is on one side and the hills on the other. Luckily that doesn’t change or I’d be in big trouble.

FYI, I’ll be gone one week per month on business to San Diego the rest of the year; yes, it breaks my heart to go there — NOT. Despite the local corrupt politics and it being Illegal Immigrant and Illegal Mexican Drug (and tunnel) Central for Fornicalia, no one can deny its incredible weather, beautiful surroundings and military background.

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And on to a few topics at hand:

The Cartoons Controversy Continues:

Fundamentals and/or Islamists seem to indicate that there can be no portrayals of the prophet Mohammed at all. Yeah? Says who? Seems that Islam has no hard and fast rule that The West is directly breaking.

The Koran, Islam’s holiest book, condemns idolatry, but has no direct condemnations of pictorial art. Direct prohibitions of pictorial art, or any depiction of sacred figures, are found in some hadith, or recorded oral traditions. The Koran, Islam’s holiest book, mentions nothing about pictorial art.

So why all the rioting? And why all the rioting since the original “cartoons” were printed in Denmark almost 6 months ago (September of 2005)? I would submit: a sense of entitlement. Provided, of course, by the Western World.

The U.S. Wimps Out:

Denmark printed the cartoons. France printed the cartoons. I reproduced the only funny one but, if you’d like, I’ll reproduce them all; I couldn’t care less. Come one loony Islamist, come all. Seems like our own American media, bastions of the liberal and free press, have decided to take a stand based in fright and realization.

Yes, it’s apparently just fine to portray the 1987 “art” exhibit Piss Christ and then, a short time later, take those Christians to task who had the temerity to actually object to their religious symbols portrayed in such a fashion. Those damnable Christians; they should be more accepting! Let us not forget Madonna and Child II (1989), for example, in which the subject is similarly submerged in urine but not nearly so well known as Piss Christ.

But of course that was then and this is now: we have clearly loosened our inhibitions towards the portrayal of various artistic themes in the media, have we not?

Well, it’s now 17 years later and the answer is: apparently not.

Here is where the media is hyper-hypocritical:

So: it’s okay to portray Christianity in this fashion. Apparently NOT okay to portray Islam in this fashion by merely reproducing the cartoons so that American viewers have an idea of the nature of the issue.

They are bending over backwards to accommodate Islam in an attempt to minimize heartache, or protests, or even (gulp!) overt v-i-o-l-e-n-c-e.

The MSM DEM media maintain that Islam should be understood.

Well first: what happened to the understanding of Christianity?

What This Reveals:

That those who believe we shouldn’t attempt to protect our national boundaries, that we shouldn’t be monitoring transmissions between suspected terrorist parties, somehow, now, “get it” that Islamists mean business and can kill or hurt people. Only when it was personalized (i.e., via Bob Woodruff and Doug Vogt) did the media remotely seem to understand lines in the sand. Some ridiculous reporter actually said on the radio: “Until Bob (Woodruff), this didn’t sink home for us.” Really? I suppose those 2,000 + soldiers laying down their lives didn’t mean much if we go by that man’s statement.

Islamists are killing and injuring people in other countries. Is it an act of courage not to print the cartoons? Or is it a decision based in fear and the ultimate knowledge that Islamists are actually Bad People — ?

Sorry DEM; can’t have it both ways. Sometimes things just are black and white.

Like you just discovered.

I will be out of town this week, and will return home next Monday.

If I can figure out how to post from my hotel room and not have it be prohibitive in cost, I shall.

Thanks, one and all, for visiting my blog!

It’s 2006; predictions have been made and, know what? I’ve some to make as well.

George Soros is predicting oil up to $262 a barrel (as opposed to the $65 per barrel now):

“U.S. power and influence has declined precipitously because of Iraq and the war on terror and that creates an incentive for anyone who wants to make trouble to go ahead and make it.” As an example, Soros pointed to the regime in Iran, which is heading towards a confrontation with the West over its nuclear power program and doesn’t show any signs of compromising. “Iran is on a collision course and I have a difficulty seeing how such a collision can be avoided,” he says.

Doom and gloom.

People wax nostalgic for not only what once was, but what can be.

Just as in 1979, there exists the trend for a popularist who can:

• Communicate with the electorate
• Evince they are more than the Lesser of Two Evils
• Emphasize the Buy America Trend
• Shove down government from Big to Small
• Emphasize local as opposed to state or federal
• Portray the postive instead of the negative.

Someone who can connect with the electorate on a visceral, emotional, positive level —

Will win.

Ron: we need you more than ever. . .

NewsMax.com seems to have information indicating that, if push comes to shove (at least prior to Sharon’s stroke), Israel would not be willing to partake in a pre-emptive strike against Iran, similar to the one made by the IAF on June 7th, 1981, where fighters bombed the Iraqi Osirak reactor.

The Osirak attack was censured by the UN when it passed resolution 487 which “strongly condemns the military attack by Israel in clear violation of the Charter of the United Nations and the norms of international conduct.” (S/RES/487).

History shows, however, that Iraq had purchased an MTR reactor, of French design and a type called Osiris (named after the Egyptian god of the dead). The French named the reactor Osiraq, from “Osiris” + “Iraq” (French Osirak), and the Iraqis named it Tammuz 1, for the Babylonian month in which the Ba’ath Party took control of the Iraqi government in 1968.

French involvement didn’t end there; in addition to the reactor, construction, and technical assistance, the French sold around 12.5 kg of 93% highly-enriched uranium-235 fuel (HEU) to the Iraqi government. One French worker (how odd!) was killed on Iraqi soil during the Osirak bombing.

Some Iraqis referred to the reactor as “OChirac” after Jacques Chirac (then mayor of Paris and now French President), because of Chirac’s involvement in the sale of the reactor to the Iraqis in the ’70s.

History shows that the Israelis did the right thing at the right time, for the right reason, clearly putting a crimp in Iraq’s budding nuclear program.

Now, however, some six months ago, an “influential member of the Jewish community” recently told NewsMax about a private conversation he had with Ariel Sharon.

NewsMax reports:

When asked if Israel would use military force to take out Iran’s weapons program, Sharon said they would not.

“We are not going to do the world’s dirty work,” the Prime Minister said, our source quotes the Prime Minister as saying.

Make no mistake about it: our source says Israel views Iran’s weapons program as a serious threat to the Jewish state. But our source notes that Iran also poses a risk to her Arab neighbors and the United States.

Doing what I call the “logical extension,” it seems that Sharon was saying Israel viewed this as an international problem — with the United States left, once again, to deal out the dirty work — work that Israel, at one time, didn’t mind doing.

Further: I suspect this was Ariel Sharon posturing for an individual he knew would take the information to the proper end users — America and the international community. Do the math: Israel lies much closer to Iran than do our Atlantic shores. I believe this was Sharon attempting to gather support for the strike he was being forced to consider.

Sharon had already made a major mistake by clearing Gaza, exposing his country’s “soft, white underbelly” to the PA Komodo Dragon that would see itself ripping Israel’s entrails into the dirt.

Would he or wouldn’t he?

More importantly, Ehud Olmert, 60, is Israel’s acting PM. Pending elections, Olmert left the harder Likud party to co-found Kadima with Sharon — a more “centrist” party. Would Olmert?

Binyamin Netanyahu, 56, former PM from 1996 to 1999, has thrown his hat once again into the electoral ring. A little know fact about him: his brother Yoni Netanyahu died in the July 4th, 1976 “Raid on Entebbe” — the only Israeli to die there — in the attempt to free Israeli hostages from a hijacked Air France Airbus A300. Yoni planned and led the entire rescue effort. All the hostages survived. Yoni was killed by Ugandan soldiers.

I know what Bibi would do.