And then you have two hit wonders. Two big hits, spaced not that far apart, and then nothing. One such a band was The Shirts. From what I heard this Brooklyn outfit was never much of a success in the States, but I remember well how for a brief period in the late seventies they were HUGE in the Low Countries, and then especially in The Netherlands. They formed in 1975 and comprised at some point no less than nine musicians. Initially a cover band, in 1975 they performed at CBGB, the famous Country, Blue Grass and Blues music club in Bleecker Street, Manhattan, where a producer found them. The founders were Robert Racioppo and Artie Lamonica, the lead singer Annie Golden. From their first album, The Shirts (1978), was drawn their first single, Tell me your plans. Hit no. 2, Laugh and Walk Away, came from the subsequent album, Streetlight Shine (1979). And that was it. The success that they enjoyed in Europe, however briefly, eluded them in their home country, and their third album, Inner Sleeve (1980) was basically a deadborn, with only 10,000 LP's pressed. The Shirts split the year after and its members pursued various solo careers, with Golden having a degree of success in the film industry and on stage. Curiously, most members of the group, with the notable exception of Golden, reformed in 2003, and in 2006 they released Only the dead know Brooklyn - to the best of my knowledge, without any significant hit on it. Life's weird and can be sad and unfair. The magic touch can blossom further or simply flicker. Now and then it flickers twice, like with The Shirts. Maybe it's better to let old matters rest. For one member of The Shirts, singer and guitarist Ron Ardito, that has come out rather literally, since unfortunately, in 2008 he died from cancer.
Well... as for me, I will forever be grateful to these guys, as I am for all good music. Thirty years after the Outlaw Mike Nerd Era, when he sported thick glasses and uncool trousers and was hopelessly out of sync with life, I was overjoyed when yesterday I stumbled upon Youtube videos of both singles. Don't know how it is or will be with you, but the following sounds bring back fond memories.
I admit that the videos suck, especially the latter one, but then you have to remember that at the time Carter was POTUS. Splains all.
Geert Wilders is not the only brave Dutchman out there. Far away, in Afghanistan's central Uruzgan province, the Dutch ISAF contingent has been fighting battles far more fierce and costly than Dutch troops ever did in Iraq, and despite the sad human cost this almost invariably implies, these engagements also bring out the best in the men. One such outstanding individual who proved more than up to the task is Captain Marco Kroon of the Dutch Commandos. For his courage and leadership during a 2006 operation in Uruzgan's Baluchi Valley, he will be awarded the highest decoration of The Netherlands, the Militaire Willemsorde (the Military Order of William). A truly remarkable event, since the last time the Militaire Willemsorde was awarded to an individual was... fifty years ago, to a soldier who had distinguished himself during the Independence War in Indonesia. Via Gates of Vienna:
TARIN KOWT — Platoon commander Captain Marco Kroon serving in Korps Commandotroepen (KCT) will be elevated on 29 May as knight in the Military Order of William, fourth class. Queen Beatrix awards him for bravery, courage and loyalty. This was announced by Prime Minister Balkenende to the troops in Tarin Kowt. The 38 year old inhabitant of ‘s Hertogenbosch Marco Kroon led a platoon of commandos during a mission from March until August 2006, in the period Task Force Uruzgan was set up. The men serving under him as well as his superiors mentioned him for this award. During his term of six months he was involved along with his platoon in several severe and sometimes lengthy fights, which he concluded in his favor without personal losses. He didn’t shy away from personal risks, for example by helping wounded allied soldiers out of battle. On another occasion he lead his unit fighting out of an ambush, while the gunner of his vehicle was wounded.
Some hard info on Captain Kroon's military career and his stint in Afghanistan can be found here. It's in the form of an interview, which in this occasion does not suit itself to a smooth translation.
Captain Marco Kroon started his military career in 1989. He was involved in exercises in Scotland, Norway, Belize and Guadeloupe, but took also part in missions in Iraq ('91) and Cambodia. Subsequently, first as an NCO and then as an officer he participated in several missions in Bosnia and Afghanistan, alternatively in the armoured infantry and as a commando. In January 2007, he was promoted a captain.
After a friendly remark concerning Dutch marines, Captain of Commandos Marco Kroon started his impressive story, during which he clearly revived the intense moments he and his men went trhough. Using an operation in the Baluchi Valley as an example, he described in his own inimitable style his choices, feelings and adrenalin level during this engagement. As a "field man" he used for this the "5 W's" (who, what, when, where, why). On day X he had to sweep clean this valley with his Special Forces platoon in cooperation with Australians and Americans in order to take out a number of important Taliban leaders. To this end, they'd have to slice through enemy lines.
Surprisingly, the action did not involve motorized transport, which meant that all equipment would have to be carried. The action would last 7 days. Fire support was to be provided by an AC-130 gunship (a Hercules plane with a 105mm howitzer and a fast firing 40mm gun) and later A-10's (planes with a Gatling gun). This action would be different from previous missions. During preparation Kroon and his men pondered that this time, the following day already, there'd likely be own losses. The tension could be read off Kroon's face even now.
The first choice facing the commander was what had to be taken with them. In order to carry more water and ammo Captain Kroon decided to leave the food rations at home. Not everybody was pleased with this. In order to maintain optimal combat readiness, Kroon let the stronger ones carry more than the others (80 lbs and more). In the dark of night the Taliban controlled territory was penetrated whereby their night vision equipment gave them a leading edge on the enemy. Contrary to the plan a neighboring motorized unit could not press on because of IED's. Halfway the advance to the first targets, returning Taliban fighters, not suspecting anything, crossed the platoon's advance vector. When contact seemed unavoidable Kroon ordered an encircling movement and maintained a safe distance using own laser spotting. When the distance to the Taliban fighters had shrinked to less than thrity meters, it became clear to him that he would have to give the order to fire. Knowing that a few seconds hence there would be many dead clearly felt quite different from a "fire away" order during an exercise! Albeit the first adversaries were taken out using silencers, the ensuing cries of wounded made the Taliban realize the seriousness of the attack they were under. It was clear to Kroon that the slowly escalating resistance would ultimately lead to an ammunition shortage and eventually the wiping out of his platoon. "Coming up with a plan while under fire, in the dark, is less evident than it seems, but still you have to keep thinking." Somewhat to his own surprise even theoretical parlance like "retake the initiative" and "maintain momentum" crossed his mind. He described his decision at the time as "one I won't forget for the rest of my life." He decided to call for fire support "with own troops in the vicinity" and subsequently, using the cover of this fire, advance in the resulting corridor. Knowing the capabilities of the C-130 gunship's excellent fire control systems, he decided to call in an airstrike on adversaries only 5O meters away between him and the target. In flashes he saw images of home and his children. After he had ordered everybody to take cover he let the FAC (Forward Air Controller) call in an airstrike. At the same time he realized constant adjustment would be needed. "On such a moment you have to, as a commander and together with your FAC, expose yourself and take your responsibility and give an example, while there's a serious risk of being hit." The incoming shells fell well and resistance in the planned direction lessened. Thereafter he gave the order to press on with the advance; and everybody stood up and went. For him a moment to ponder things. Of course he had informed everybody about his plan and knew everybody that staying put wat no option. But looking back it's a peculiar feeling that your people, who realize full well the deadly risk under Taliban fire, stand up and advance because you order it.
Without losses the designated target, a quala, was reached and used to spend the rest of the night in. During the night a vicious counterattack was warded off with own fire and fire support [CAS or artillery, that is not clear from the interview - MFBB]. At dawn came the order to control the results of the encounter and gather as much information as possible on the identity of the Taliban's dead and wounded. As a commander, he had to intervene at some point against the "blurring out of norms". He saw to it that the Taliban wounded were decently treated. Their dead were covered to take at least a measure of the existing proscriptions of muslim culture. "Even as the antipathy after events like I just described is understandable, as a commander you will have to act forcefully on such moments".
Congratulations to Captain Kroon!
While of course small with regards to the American, British, Canadian and even German contingents, the Dutch military presence in Afghanistan packs a lot of firepower. They don't have their Leopard tanks with them like Canadians (and the Danes) do, but they have state of the art mechanized artillery in the form of a small number of the excellent Panzerhaubitze 2000:
One round costs between 2,000 and 3,300 EUR!
And here is some footage of Dutch Apaches in action over Uruzgan in 2007. Towards the end you can clearly hear American ground troops call in their support, an excellent example of interallied cooperation:
If you discount Geert Wilders, the best Dutchmen are in Afghanistan.
The unthinkable has happened. An elected Dutch politian visiting the UK has been arrested at Heathrow and deported back to Holland on the first plane.
Thursday, Februari 12 2009, should be marked in the collective memory as a day as infamous - possibly even more infamous - as that other fateful day, September 30, 1938, when British PM Neville Chamberlain returned from Muenchen with a worthless scrap of paper and the hollow phrase "peace in our time". When Mr. Wilders, upon being arrested, claimed that the British government was "the biggest cowards in Europe. They are more Chamberlain than Churchill", he was in my opinion actually making a howler of an understatement. An incompetent metrosexual asshole with porridge for brains like UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband may delude himself, like Chamberlain once did, that his government has bought "peace" - but it is the peace of that lull of time before all hell breaks loose. But whereas Chamberlain may to some small extent be forgiven, given the lack of a high profile historical precedent, there is no such excuse for scoundrels like Miliband, Brown and Smith.
Their responsibility is astronomical.
But even that adjective does not suffice to describe the double standard at work here. Just consider that while the British government yesterday denied entry to a democratically elected politician from a neighboring country with a blank criminal record... barely two years ago they let in a certain Mahmoud Suliman Ahmed Abu Rideh, linked to Al Qaeda and suspected of being a money man for this and other terrorist organizations. He was invited to the House of Commons by ... the same Lord Ahmed, who btw was never elected, should actually be in jail now for killing a British citizen through reckless driving, is a member of the socialist Labour Party, and threatened to mobilize 10,000 muslims to riot in front of British Parliament should Wilders' movie ever be shown there.
INSANITY
DUTCH POLITICIAN. DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED.
TERROR SUSPECT. LINKED TO AL QAEDA.
ARRESTED UPON ARRIVAL IN THE UK. CONSIDERED A SECURITY RISK. DEPORTED WITHIN HOURS.
INVITED TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. GIVEN SECURITY STICKER FOR HIS VISIT.
Thank you for inviting me. Thank you Lord Pearson and Lady Cox for showing Fitna [see it here], and for your gracious invitation. While others look away, you seem to understand the true tradition of your country, and a flag that still stands for freedom.
This is no ordinary place. This is not just one of England’s tourist attractions. This is a sacred place. This is the mother of all Parliaments, and I am deeply humbled to speak before you.
The Houses of Parliament is where Winston Churchill stood firm, and warned – all throughout the 1930’s – for the dangers looming. Most of the time he stood alone.
In 1982 President Reagan came to the House of Commons, where he did a speech very few people liked. Reagan called upon the West to reject communism and defend freedom. He introduced a phrase: ‘evil empire’. Reagan’s speech stands out as a clarion call to preserve our liberties. I quote: If history teaches anything, it teaches self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly.
What Reagan meant is that you cannot run away from history, you cannot escape the dangers of ideologies that are out to destroy you. Denial is no option.
Communism was indeed left on the ash heap of history, just as Reagan predicted in his speech in the House of Commons. He lived to see the Berlin Wall coming down, just as Churchill witnessed the implosion of national-socialism.
Today, I come before you to warn of another great threat. It is called Islam. It poses as a religion, but its goals are very worldly: world domination, holy war, sharia law, the end of the separation of church and state, the end of democracy. It is not a religion, it is a political ideology. It demands your respect, but has no respect for you.
There might be moderate Muslims, but there is no moderate Islam. Islam will never change, because it is built on two rocks that are forever, two fundamental beliefs that will never change, and will never go away. First, there is Quran, Allah’s personal word, uncreated, forever, with orders that need to be fulfilled regardless of place or time. And second, there is al-insal al-kamil, the perfect man, Muhammad the role model, whose deeds are to be imitated by all Muslims. And since Muhammad was a warlord and a conqueror we know what to expect.
Islam means submission, so there cannot be any mistake about it’s goal. That’s a given. The question is whether the British people, with its glorious past, is longing for that submission.
We see Islam taking off in the West at an incredible speed. The United Kingdom has seen a rapid growth of the number of Muslims. Over the last ten years, the Muslim population has grown ten times as fast as the rest of society. This has put an enormous pressure on society. Thanks to British politicians who have forgotten about Winston Churchill, the English now have taken the path of least resistance. They give up. They give in.
Thank you very much for letting me into the country. I received a letter from the Secretary of State for the Home Department, kindly disinviting me. I would threaten community relations, and therefore public security in the UK, the letter stated.
For a moment I feared that I would be refused entrance. But I was confident the British government would never sacrifice free speech because of fear of Islam. Britannia rules the waves, and Islam will never rule Britain, so I was confident the Border Agency would let me through. And after all, you have invited stranger creatures than me. Two years ago the House of Commons welcomed Mahmoud Suliman Ahmed Abu Rideh, linked to Al Qaeda. He was invited to Westminster by Lord Ahmed, who met him at Regent’s Park mosque three weeks before. Mr. Rideh, suspected of being a money man for terror groups, was given a SECURITY sticker for his Parliamentary visit.
Well, if you let in this man, than an elected politician from a fellow EU country surely is welcome here too. By letting me speak today you show that Mr Churchill’s spirit is still very much alive. And you prove that the European Union truly is working; the free movement of persons is still one of the pillars of the European project.
But there is still much work to be done. Britain seems to have become a country ruled by fear. A country where civil servants cancel Christmas celebrations to please Muslims. A country where Sharia Courts are part of the legal system. A country where Islamic organizations asked to stop the commemoration of the Holocaust. A country where a primary school cancels a Christmas nativity play because it interfered with an Islamic festival. A country where a school removes the words Christmas and Easter from their calendar so as not to offend Muslims. A country where a teacher punishes two students for refusing to pray to Allah as part of their religious education class. A country where elected members of a town council are told not to eat during daylight hours in town hall meetings during the Ramadan. A country that excels in its hatred of Israel, still the only democracy in the Middle-East. A country whose capitol is becoming ‘Londonistan.’
I would not qualify myself as a free man. Four and a half years ago I lost my freedom. I am under guard permanently, courtesy to those who prefer violence to debate. But for the leftist fan club of Islam, that is not enough. They started a legal procedure against me. Three weeks ago the Amsterdam Court of Appeals ordered my criminal prosecution for making Fitna and for my views on Islam. I committed what George Orwell called a ‘thought crime.’
You might have seen my name on Fitna’s credit role, but I am not really responsible for that movie. It was made for me. It was actually produced by Muslim extremists, the Quran and Islam itself. If Fitna is considered ‘hate speech,’ then how would the Court qualify the Quran, with all it’s calls for violence, and hatred against women and Jews?
Mr. Churchill himself compared the Quran to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. Well, I did exactly the same, and that is what they are prosecuting me for.
I wonder if the UK ever put Mr. Churchill on trial.
The Court’s decision and the letter I received form the Secretary of State for the Home Department are two major victories for all those who detest freedom of speech. They are doing Islam’s dirty work. Sharia by proxy. The differences between Saudi Arabia and Jordan on one hand, and Holland and Britain are blurring. Europe is now on the fast track of becoming Eurabia. That is apparently the price we have to pay for the project of mass immigration, and the multicultural project.
Ladies and gentlemen, the dearest of our many freedoms is under attack. In Europe, freedom of speech is no longer a given. What we once considered a natural component of our existence is now something we again have to fight for. That is what is at stake. Whether or not I end up in jail is not the most pressing issue. The question is: Will free speech be put behind bars?
We have to defend freedom of speech.
For the generation of my parents the word ‘London’ is synonymous with hope and freedom. When my country was occupied by the national-socialists the BBC offered a daily glimpse of hope, in the darkness of Nazi tyranny. Millions of my country men listened to it, illegally. The words ‘This Is London’ were a symbol for a better world coming soon. If only the British and Canadian and American soldiers were here.
What will be transmitted forty years from now? Will it still be ‘This Is London’? Or will it be ‘this is Londonistan’? Will it bring us hope, or will it signal the values of Mecca and Medina? Will Britain offer submission or perseverance? Freedom or slavery?
The choice is ours.
Ladies and gentlemen,
We will never apologize for being free. We will never give in. We will never surrender.
Freedom must prevail, and freedom will prevail.
Thank you very much."
Geert Wilders MP Chairman, Party for Freedom (PVV) The Netherlands
As we now know, this speech was never to be. May its words be preserved for future historians as prophetic reminders of what happens when a civlization loses faith in itself. Instead of what certainly would have been a proud defence of our core values, we got the following abomination:
Eternal shame on Britain and its pathetic, impotent and coward politicians for pissing on the bones of millions of its countrymen who died for freedom. Mr. Pat Condell is probably best placed to comment on this tragedy. Some would call the following perhaps an eulogy for Freedom of Speech...
... but that sounds far too pessimistic. The followers of an insane and perverted belief system and their leftist lackeys who want to deliberately replace us with barbarians in order to stay in power, should know that there are those of us who, at some point, will no longer resort to vocal or written objections.
Before you jump on me for my coarse language, take a good hard look at this excrement of a letter, submitted by a dhimmi apparatchik called Irving Jones, acting on behalf of the UK Secretary of State for the Home Department, Jacqui Smith.
In case that you spent the last two weeks on one of Jupiter's moons, the issue at hand is the fact that a short while ago, Lord Pearson, a member of the House of Lords, invited Geert Wilders, the Dutch MP for the Freedom Party, to show his 15-minute movie "Fitna" before the British Parliament. A muslim member of the House of Lords, Lord Nazir Ahmed, then threatened to gather 10,000 muslims to deny Wilders access to the Parliament's buildings. At first, the UK's MPs backed down. In Pakistan, his native country, Nazir Ahmed proclaimed that his undoing of the showing was a "victory for the muslim community". Perhaps in a rare flash of shame for having put down their pants so quickly, British Parliamentarians again allowed the showing of Fitna inside Parliament's premises. However, upon Wilders stating he would present the movie in person, he received the above letter, which effectively barred him from setting foot on the British Isles.
"The Secretary of State is satisfied that your statements about Muslims and their beliefs… would threaten community harmony and therefore public security in the UK.”
THIS MAN IS NOT WELCOME IN THE UK.
THESE WOMEN ARE WELCOME IN THE UK.
Over at Gates of Vienna, there is a magnificent op-ed from British author Paul Weston, titled "Wilders in Wonderland". You got to read it all. Here are some exerpts:
"When Alice fell down a rabbit hole and embarked on her adventures in Wonderland, she discovered a thoroughly surreal environment in which the White Queen was able to advise the Mad Hatter that… “quite often subjects are punished before they commit a crime, rather than after, and sometimes they do not even commit it at all.” Welcome to Wonderland, Mr Wilders, where Holland’s sober lawmakers appear intent on out-fantasizing Lewis Carroll on acid. The fact that they are hell-bent on subjecting Geert Wilders to a criminal prosecution is more than just absurd. It is insane. Totally, utterly and mind-bendingly insane.
Take a look at a criminal photo-file log book. The faces glowering out at you are uniformly suited to violence and mayhem; the close set eyes, the curious haircuts and the ubiquitous facial tattoos sympathetically framing the studded visage.
Mr Wilders does not look like such a criminal to me. I suppose he could possibly be a white-collar embezzler but he lacks the lean and hungry look of the rapacious city banker, (many of whom, I understand, are still at large).
If one uses one’s imagination it is not entirely impossible to picture an ancestral Wilders doppelganger storming up a Kent beach with his fellow Vikings, blond mane flowing over his animal-skinned jerkin, battle-axe at the ready, his mind aflame with rape, pillage and destruction.
But the 2009 version of Geert Wilders is not intent on taking over a foreign land. Today, he is simply defending his own land against a new generation of foreign destroyers, pillagers and rapists. And for this he is smeared as a criminal by his very own countrymen.
....
Islam, by dint of being a minority religion is a protected interest, whilst Mr Wilders, despite being one in a million, is the majority of one, and therefore an unprotected interest. In his own country. Dear God, what has the liberal/left come to?
Geert Wilders is our modern day Winston Churchill, he who railed at the deaf and blind politicians of the late ’20s and early ’30s as to the swelling danger one particular “ism” posed to Europe, just as Wilders does today.
There is one crucial difference however. The ’30s politicians were not on Hitler’s side, they did not actively seek to colonise their country with Nazi followers and nor did they attempt to imprison Churchill.
Can one compare Churchill and Nazism with Wilders and Islamism? Liberals would probably disagree, but liberals need a few basic lessons in reality. Islam is war with Europe. Right now. Today.
It is easy to tell if you are at war. The leaders of the other side encourage their foot soldiers to invade you, kill you, take your territory, impose their religion and culture upon you and rape your women.
It is equally easy to tell if you are losing a war. The other side succeeds in invading you, killing you, taking your territory, imposing their religion and culture upon you, raping your women, and most importantly, seizing control of the political apparatus to advance their cause whilst denying resistance.
Which is why Wilders is being criminalised for pointing this out.
When Churchill toured the country during the Blitz, his tin hat was not there to ward off attacks from crazed air-raid wardens, Methodists or Mancunians; but Geert Wilders’ metaphorical tin hat, aka his 24 hour security, is absolutely necessary to defend himself against Islamic assassins.
It is a sobering thought that Wilders, in ostensibly a time of peace, is more exposed to assassination than Churchill in a time of war, but with previous Dutch critics of Islam permanently silenced, we really are only ostensibly at peace.
There are plenty of Dutchmen who understand this. The Perth property market in Australia is virtually reliant on them. Faced with their purported leaders’ casual acceptance of Sharia Law for Holland in the not too distant future, Dutchmen are flying out. It is estimated that a full 4% of middle class Dutch aged 25-45 are legging it every year.
Within 20 years they will have all left, and they are the tax paying backbone of Holland. Their replacement? The jubilant Jihadists, if they get their way, which seems likely if only by demographic growth, a scenario most demographers project.
When the Germans finally began Blitzkrieging their way across Europe, everyone got behind Churchill. In Holland, faced with Islamic defeat — which is what Piet Hein Donner’s acceptance of Sharia Law actually means — the leaders attempt to silence resistance.
The idea that fellow Europeans, indeed fellow Dutchmen, have deliberately imported and protected an alien and totally unassimilable culture whose core ideology is the antithesis of the liberal democracy that is Holland, would have Alice in need of Prozac rather than a nice cup of tea, such is the manifest insanity of it all.
To take it one stage further, to admit our future is Islamic and to then enact a lunatic law whose sole intention is shut down the freedom of expression of Geert Wilders, and others like him, in order to muzzle their warnings of an ideology that threatens the total and utter destruction of our way of life, is not just normal liberal lunacy. These politicians are guilty of treason.
If the prosecution team find Wilders guilty, it will be a massive victory for those who wish to destroy us. Without freedom of speech it becomes infinitely harder, especially in Europe, to advance a serious resistance. And not just with regard to Islam, but anything, literally anything you may believe in, that our rulers would rather you did not.
It is imperative that everyone does something, no matter how little, to ensure the traitors’ class who currently run Europe are made to realise they are not just up against one lone man, albeit with a Samsonesque head of hair, but thousands upon thousands of ideologically similar people who stand full square behind him.
Geert Wilders is not the criminal here. It is our criminal, quisling, treacherous rulers who deserve such a mantle. Indeed they deserve a great deal more. The treason laws and treason penalties were enacted for a reason, something our rulers should bear in mind when they view the ever-growing public anger they seem intent on stoking."
It is possible that you are still reeling from me qualifying Jacqui Smith as a dhimmi whore. But then it's about time you wake up, for good manners won't do you any good when the muezzin wakes you up at five in the morning and bearded assholes call YOUR DAUGHTER what I call Jacqui Smith. Ladies and gentlemen, the time to mince our words in the interest of civilized discourse has passed. In its place has come the time to yell loud and bang on the table. If we let the ludicrous assortment of castrated or otherwise impotent traitors who represent us have their way, it won't be long before the only right you will have is the right to shut up and pay jizya. Again, remember "Mrs." Smith's reasoning in denying Geert Wilders entry to the UK: "...that the Dutch politician’s “[…] presence in the UK would pose a genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat to one of the fundamental interests of society...” and remember that this is the country that for fifteen years or more has allowed the likes of Abu Hamza al-Masri and Yusuf al-Qaradawi to enter. But then, what can you expect from a woman who has said:
“Terrorism has no place in Is-lamic thought, teaching or tradition. It is the opposite of everything that Is-lam stands for: Peace, Tolerance and Obedience to God.
“The ideology promoted by terrorists is a perverse rewriting of history and politics, and a misreading of a great religion.”
In the meantime, the Belgian wing of four F-16 fighter bombers operating from Kandahar Airfield is into its fifth month. Currently, the personnel manning the planes and the ground crews are drawn from the Kleine Brogel-based 10th Tactical Wing, a "Flemish" unit (the first shift was from a "Walloon" wing, the 2nd Tactical Wing). It's very, very hard to obtain hard information about the operational deployment of the F-16s. Contary to the 2006 operation, this time it's a fighting mission which means the planes are called in not only for reconnaissance and "scare" flights but also for CAS (Close Air Support). If necessary they can be embedded in an OEF mission.
One of our Herculeses resupplying the Kandahar detachment. Typically, a C-130 is uploaded and gone again in about 35 minutes, I suppose in order to avoid the attention of Taliban rocket attacks. These old workhorses from the 15th Transport Wing still perform extremely well and have seasoned and through and through experienced crews. While they will be around for some time yet, their successor has already been chosen, the Airbus A 400-M. As good as the good ole Herc is/was, this successor will represent a quantum leap in performance, what with e.g. a maximum payload of 37 tonnes (vs the 20 tonnes or so for our C-130 H's).
The photo shows a trooper working on an Iveco Light Multirole Vehicle (LMV), say a European variant of the Hummer. Belgium has ordered 440 of these Italian vehicles, with an option for a further 400. They replace the dangerously vulnerable Bombardier Iltis jeeps, with which a.o. the Canadians have had some nasty experiences. The LMV on the photo belongs to the small Kunduz detachment (including a demining squad), embedded with German troops in Afghanistan's north. Currently, Belgium has four commitmments in Afghanistan: the small 300-strong battalion guarding Kabul International Airport (a task it has been performing since 2002), the Kunduz detachment, the fighter bombers in Kandahar (the sole fighting mission) and, since mid-January, a team of instructors also in Afghanistan's north training an Afghan National Army (ANA) battalion. When the latter mission will be fully operational in mid-March, the total of Belgian military personnel in Afghanistan will be about 500. Still a far cry from the Dutch contingent, but finally, from a distance of about three kilometers, the Belgian contribution is starting to look like something halfway decent. It is ironic that, with finally our F-16's bombing and strafing Taliban positions and instructors patrolling alongside ANA soldiers in war zones, the US's new administration will likely scale down its efforts in Afghanistan (forget an AF "surge"). And elsewhere.
Over at The Brussels Journal, Takuan Seiyo is up to his seventh installment in the "From Meccania to Atlantis" series. As always, it is a must read. An exerpt:
It was a town of peaceful ethnic neighborhoods and eateries, and exotic, for America, churches like the Holy Trinity Orthodox Cathedral. It was charming, beautiful and diverse. But not “diverse.” San Francisco is “diverse” now. And this is what it means:
In Vertigo, the character Scottie Ferguson, played by James Stewart, is a police detective who once dreamed of becoming Chief of Police. A traumatic experience when dangling from a rooftop has ended that dream, and leads him into a hallucinatory adventure with a twice-dead blonde beauty, Madeleine/Judy, played by Kim Novak.
Flash forward 50 years. A lanky blue-eyed Scot from Pennsylvania, whose ancestors fought in the American Revolutionary War, as James Stewart’s did, has a lesser chance of becoming San Francisco’s Police Chief than he has becoming the chief ballerina of the SF Ballet. This is no hyperbole, what with the T in the ubiquitous GLBT.
Scottie in a 2009 Vertigo would not dare harbor such an audacity of hope as becoming Chief of Police. Just to be hired as policeman is difficult now if you are a white heterosexual male.
San Francisco’s actual Chief of Police now is an affirmative-action diminutive Chinese-American female from the accounting department who is the laughingstock of the police force. The rate of unresolved murder cases in San Francisco is so high that the city has tried, unsuccessfully, to solicit help by offering $100,000 rewards to people who would come forward with information.
At a loss, the city’s leaders elected what else but a transgender person, Theresa Sparks, as President of the San Francisco Police Commission. Mr./Ms. Sparks’ qualifications for the job consist in his/her managing a vibrator company which was recently running a special under the slogan, “August is Anal Sex Month; 15% off select Anal Toys.”
To bolster this team with some serious dose of law-enforcing testosterone, San Francisco got itself a female District Attorney who bestows additional glory on the city by being half Tamil-Indian and half-black. Kamala Davis Harris refuses to seek the death penalty for murder, which is the law of the land, plea-bargains murder cases, and fails to prosecute criminals arrested with firearms. San Francisco police officers take a dim view of this, what with their own being murdered by criminals that the District Attorney has failed to prosecute. But the need to keep their jobs muzzles their mouths.
Of late, Ms. Davis Harris has made the news due to her office’s failure to prosecute Edwin Ramos, a vicious Mara Salvatrucha gangbanger and illegal Honduran alien, who had been arrested on illegal gun possession charges, and then released instead of being at the least deported. One month later Mr. Ramos would be arrested for the murder of Tony Bologna, 48, and his sons, Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16. The murder weapon has since been linked to two other murders.
San Francisco’s metrosexual mayor is given to utterances like, “You know we're the only city -- I think we're the only big city in America ... there may be an exception or two ... that women are running the Police Department, Fire Department and our emergency services. That's why I feel so safe.”
In a town where reserved, well dressed men once wooed elegant, alluring women, in a society whose genders 45 years ago were still unmixed and whose cultural reference was still coherent, now weird hermaphrodites prance, proud penises parade, and penetrations of pumped-up poofters peek in public venues at perturbed families with children who just came for the baseball game or the Disney movie.
It’s because homosexuals and other gender-benders have colonized San Francisco. After the hippies’ Summer of Love in 1967, people with deviant (2) sexual preferences started streaming into the City by the Bay from all over North America and turned it into an orgiastic Anustown.
Now, 15.4% of San Francisco’s population of 800,000 calls itself by the confusingly adopted synonym of ‘joyful.’ And their impact on the city and those who live in it is as though they were 54% of the population. You can find out more about that in the Passionate Struggle exhibit of the “GLBT community,” including the aspiration for “hot living in the face of disease and sex negativity.”
As for Mr. (?) Newsom feeling so safe, I looked up some stats for you:
Yup. San Francisco is safer than 11% of cities in the USSA. Congratufuckinglations asshole.
Also megatotallycompletely fed up with the religion of piss and a socialist for president? Here are some hits by Belgian pop band Novastar for a change. It ain't bad.
Here are the names of the Dutch judges who ruled that Geert Wildersmust stand trial for "inciting hatred" - while among those who asked them to do it is the board of the salafist As-Sunnah mosque in Rotterdam.
Mr. J.P. Splint Mr. Tom M. Schalken Mr. F.A. Hartsuiker
Take a GOOD, HARD LOOK at these names.
The Dutch rightwing blog Het Vrije Volk has much more on the identity of this scum, as well as on the extreme leftwing/islamist bunch of scoundrels who complained at the Amsterdam Court to reopen the case and overturn an earlier decision (summer 2008) not to charge Geert Wilders. But perhaps none other than Pat Condell can nail it so eloquently:
"Look at what you're doing: you're prosecuting a man who lives under 24 hour protection from attack by violent muslims yet he's the criminal for expressing an opinion."
It is indeed true. In his own country Geert Wilders has to move from secret location to secret location, under the protection of at least four bodyguards. Last week, FOX News had a good take on the story, and in the interview this rare example of a brave European politician NOT willing to lean over backward to muslim barbary stood by his statements which may now land him... in prison.
The Freedom Party (PVV) and Geert Wilders are faced with an all-out assault. Exploding legal expenses might cripple the continuation of the battle for our liberties. The survival of the Freedom Party and Geert Wilders’ struggle for the defense of the West are now in jeopardy.
Therefore, we need your financial support urgently. There are three ways of donating money:
1. Via PayPal: Use the button at the top left of this page.
2. Via International Money Transfer: Deposit money into account number: 67.04.72.344 on behalf of our Foundation “Stichting Vrienden van de PVV”. IBAN: NL98 INGB 0670 4723 44 BIC: INGBNL2A
3. Via Cheque: Send your cheque to our Foundation "Stichting Vrienden van de PVV", PO Box 20018, zip code: 2500 EA The Hague, The Netherlands
"In a democratic system, hate speech is considered so serious that it is in the general interest to... draw a clear line."
Shit and baloney, of course. What we have here is a trio of leftist judges:
a.) with brains so hopelessly fucked up that they actually believe they are doing The Netherlands a favor by raping the country's century-old tradition of freedom of speech.
b.) shitting in their pants and groveling in the dirt for their muslim overlords
The brave reactions of the usual mavericks notwithstanding (Vlaams Belang, Wilders himself and his party, an isolated columnist here and there), the deafening silence of Europes MSM with regards to the umpteenth assault on a key democratic feature was once again appaling. I do appreciate very much the sharp-edged rebuke by the Wall Street Journal, but at the same time it saddens me that for MSM reactions like this one has to look across the Atlantic:
"The court yesterday overruled this decision [an earlier decision not to prosecute Wilders - MFBB], arguing that the lawmaker should be prosecuted for "inciting hatred and discrimination" and also "for insulting Muslim worshippers because of comparisons between Islam and Nazism." This is no small victory for Islamic regimes seeking to export their censorship laws to wherever Muslims reside. But the successful integration of Muslims in Europe will require that immigrants adapt to Western norms, not vice versa. Limiting the Dutch debate of Islam to standards acceptable in, say, Saudi Arabia, will only shore up support for Mr. Wilders's argument that Muslim immigration is eroding traditional Dutch liberties."
It is interesing to note that the three judges argued "that they had weighed Mr Wilders’s “one-sided generalisations” against his right to free speech," and come to the conclusion "that he had gone beyond the normal leeway granted to politicians." It is therefore most surprising that on the other side of the political spectrum Geert Wilders' political opponents can get away with things that, imho, go far further beyond the "normal leeway granted to politicians." What to think e.g. about Harry Van Bommel, Dutch MP for the Socialistische Partij (SP), who participated in the violent muslim riots which took place in the first half of January all through The Netherlands following Israels incursion in Gaza. As his cronies were torching cars and busting shop windows, this fine fellow loudly chanted along "In-ti-fa-da! In-ti-fa-da!" while on the background the popular motto "Hamas! Hamas! Joden aan het Gas!" (Hamas! Hamas! Jews to the Gas!)resounded. While we are at it, listen to this audio file documenting how fine integrated muslim fellas rampage through the centre of Utrecht, shouting "Allahu Akbar", "Hamas! Hamas! Joden aan het gas", and "Hitler! Hitler! Hitler!".
However, to the good enlightened judges calling for administering a new batch of Jews with Zyklon B doesn't qualify as "inciting hatred".
The crazy bitch on Van Bommel's side is Gretta Duisenberg, widow to the late Wim Duisenberg, Trichet's predecessor as President of the European Central Bank. Gretta Duisenberg, who hangs up Paleostinian flags on her mansion for a sport, is an extreme leftwing econutter who is so mad as a hatter that it makes a sane person shudder with fear for western civilization (watch that movie and look at her eyes).
DUTCH COURT ADOPTING SAUDI BLASPHEMY LAWS
SAYING 'KORAN IS FASCIST BOOK, SHOULD BE FORBIDDEN.'
SHOUTING 'HAMAS HAMAS! JEWS TO THE GAS!'
HATE SPEECH. INCITING HATRED. TO BE PROSECUTED.
UNDERSTANDABLE GRIEVANCES. OKEY-DOKEY.
MSM polls state that give an take half of the Dutch population supports Wilders. As with the MSM in other western countries, everything the Dutch whorenalists say is to be taken with a rather large grain of salt. I'd rather have confidence in a poll conducted by Holland's superpopular group blog GeenStijl (literally NoStyle), which says it is actually 85%.
So who filed the complaint against Geert Wilders? GeenStijl provides us with the following list. Always the same song. An alliance of extreme leftists and muslims. Here are the names of the scoundrels:
"Oh God here are Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Van Gogh. You will visit them with Your rage and disgust. Oh God, give Van Gogh a disease that not a single inhabitant of Earth will be able to cure. He would as a result long for death and not receive it. Oh God, let misery visit Van Gogh so that he longs for death and not receives it. Oh God, blind the sight of Ayaan Hirsi Ali as you have blinded her heart. Oh God, blind her sight. O God get a cancer in her brain. O God, make her get tongue cancer..."
In case you wonder whether a rant like that, which is as ludicrous as it is hateful, was actually ever recited in a mosque, I am sorry, IT WAS, and there are audiotapes to prove it.You will find the complete text, and much more, here. As you can see this "prayer" was recited before Van Goghs murder, which means we are at this moment a couple of years further down the road. It hasn't gotten better. When I tell you that the Dutch state even designated a salafist bulwark as the as-Sunnah mosque as an ANBI (Algemeen Nut Beogende Instelling, Charity for the General Good), which means that financial gifts to it are tax-deductible, you must think I'm making this up. But alas, that is also true. So let's summarize:
* among the group of leftozoid econutters and islamists who filed a complaint against Wilders before the Amsterdam Court is the Board of the As-Sunnah Mosque in The Hague
* The As-Sunna Mosque in the Hague, a salafist hotbed, is the "place of worship" where Imam Sheik Fawaz Ineid regularly treated the faithful to "prayers" like above
* The Amsterdam Court decided Wilders must be prosecuted for "inciting hatred", while it turns a blind eye on the hate sermons at the As-Sunnah mosque (and other mosques), and the crowds of "youths" shouting verbal abuse at jews
One last thing. The swinging Dutch royals, that is to say, heir to the throne Willem Alexander, the son of Queen Beatrix, and his wife Maxima (who is Argentinian and who was born a Zorreguieta, the daughter of a minister under Videla's government), just paid a royal visit to Oman. Here is a photo of Maxima, the future Dutch Queen:
Maybe the future Queen Fatima al-Zorreguieta is rehearsing?
MFBB.
P.S.: Photo via GeenStijl. Some data via our Virginian pals over at Gates of Vienna.
Apparently Ted was not the only one with a seizure.
Every cloud has a silver lining though. On its first day, the new US Administration got at least something right. Below is a screenshot from the Vlaams Belang website:
20.01.2009 14:58 - Three weeks ago all fraction leaders and the members and the mandatory members of the Foreign Affairs commission of the Senate, received an invitation to witness the taking of the oath by Obama at the Embassy of the United States in Brussels. This morning it suddenly seemed that Vlaams Belang was not welcome, when our Senate fraction received a last minute call from the Embassy to inform them it was a “mistake”.
By suddenly making a distinction between members of parliament on the basis of their political affiliation, the U.S. steps de facto into the Belgian logic of the “cordon sanitaire”. Apart from the fact that the manners of the Embassy do not testify to very good manners, and are improper for the largest democracy of the World — as Joris Van Hauthem expressed in a reaction — it must be noted that it is not the task of an Embassy — even if it is that of the United States — to mingle actively in internal politics of another nation. Or are we “mistaken”?
Personally, I think that Mr. Van Hauthem, who acted as VB spokesman to condemn the calling off of the invitation, is acting a tad too emotionally. Imho, a cold shoulder to Vlaams Belang from any American official representing the new administration is an honor rather than an insult.
"If Muslim Americans are to participate in such a critique of American policy, however, they will only be effective if they do it, according to the Prophet’s words, in a “brotherly” fashion. This implies a high degree of loyalty and affection. This does not mean, however, that citizenship and religious community are identical commitments, nor that they demand the same kind of loyalty. People of faith have a certain kind of solidarity with others of their faith community that transcends the basic rights and duties of citizenship."
Translation from Cuntspeak to Outlaw Mikese: "Being a muslim trumps being an American." In 2007 and in July 2008, federal prosecutors in Dallas filed court documents proving that Mattson's ISNA, based in Plainfield, Indiana, has ties with Hamas, which, last time I checked, was considered a terrorist organization by the US. Last July, prosecutors wrote that they had "a wide array of testimonial and documentary evidence expressly linking" ISNA and Hamas. Read THIS and puke.
To all those who voted Democrat, CONGRATULATIONS YOU FUCKWADS!!!! AAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!! I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS!!!
From my Nov. 4 post I will simply repeat:
"As for those who voted for Obama, I personally have no congratulations to offer you. Mssrs. Qaddafi, Mullah Omar, Ahmadinejad, Chavez, Morales, al-Sadr, an estimated 500 million impotent Zeropeans and the Federation of Chairmans of Socialist Parties from NORK over La Paz to Byelorussia are right now doing that in my place. Enjoy the glow. To vote for someone who could live with twenty years of God daaaaaaaaaaaaamn America sermons in his local church, sit for years on end on the boards of two "charities" with a guy whom he KNEW had MURDERED innocent American citizens, and publicly regretted there hadn't been more of them, funneled money to a PLO operative, thought it was cool to choose his friends among Marxist professors, and to top it all off married a woman who was NOT proud of the Moon Landing or bringing the Iron Curtain down, is the height of folly. I shall have zero tolerance for your fucking wir haben es nicht gewusst excuses when the elephant's bowel contents will hit the Osprey rotors because you all had an internet connection and a mouth to ask questions during the terrible ordeal of 7 years of having to watch uniforms on TV. You had the choice between victory and baloney, you chose baloney and you will get taxes. You were sooooooooooooo angry at PRESIDENT BUSH because your fucking Oprah show was interrupted now and then with flashes from the front, basically your only nuisance. By contrast, the men and women who year after year risked their lives to preserve your right to listen to that cunt, hunting down islamic terrorists who would kill you in a heartbeat if they could, voted massively not for your Golden Boy, but for his contender... and still it doesn't ring a bell. Well then, change is what you wanted, and you will get plenty of it. You just hope that at the end of it, you have some change left."
History's judgment will be very harsh indeed... for the many who let you down when the country was at peril. I never thought I would borrow a line from Oliver Stone, but here I do: "The enemy is in ourselves".
Thanks for avenging the innocent. Thanks for making the world safer. Thanks for saving the lives of millions. Thanks for freeing millions more. Thanks for standing up for freedom, liberty and human dignity.
An interesting article in the Wall Street Journal of January 13, 2009 by Gunnar Heinsohn, Head of the Raphael Lemkin Institute at the University of Bremen, Europe's first institute devoted to comparative genocide research.
ENDING THE WEST'S PROXY WAR AGAINST ISRAEL.
"As the world decries Israel's attempt to defend itself from the rocket attacks coming from Gaza, consider this: When Hamas routed Fatah in Gaza in 2007, it cost nearly 350 lives and 1,000 wounded. Fatah's surrender brought only a temporary stop to the type of violence and bloodshed that are commonly seen in lands where at least 30% of the male population is in the 15-to-29 age bracket.
In such "youth bulge" countries, young men tend to eliminate each other or get killed in aggressive wars until a balance is reached between their ambitions and the number of acceptable positions available in their society. In Arab nations such as Lebanon (150,000 dead in the civil war between 1975 and 1990) or Algeria (200,000 dead in the Islamists' war against their own people between 1999 and 2006), the slaughter abated only when the fertility rates in these countries fell from seven children per woman to fewer than two. The warring stopped because no more warriors were being born. In Gaza, however, there has been no demographic disarmament. The average woman still bears six babies. For every 1,000 men aged 40-44, there are 4,300 boys aged 0-4 years. In the U.S. the latter figure is 1,000, and in the U.K. it's only 670.
And so the killing continues. In 2005, when Israel was still an occupying force, Gaza lost more young men to gang fights and crime than in its war against the "Zionist enemy." Despite the media's obsession with the Mideast conflict, it has cost many fewer lives than the youth bulges in West Africa, Lebanon or Algeria. In the six decades since Israel's founding, "only" some 62,000 people (40,000 Arabs, 22,000 Jews) have been killed in all the Israeli-Arab wars and Palestinian terror attacks. During that same time, some 11 million Muslims have been killed in wars and terror attacks -- mostly at the hands of other Muslims.
What accounts for the Mideast conflict's relatively low body count? Hamas and their ilk certainly aim to kill as many Israelis as possible. To their indignation, the Israelis are quite good at protecting themselves. On the other hand, Israel, despite all the talk about its "disproportionate" use of force, is doing its utmost to spare civilian deaths. Even Hamas acknowledges that most of the Palestinians killed by Israeli air raids are from their own ranks. But about 10%-15% of Gaza's casualties are women and minors -- a tragedy impossible to prevent in a densely settled area in which nearly half the people are under 15 and the terrorists hide among them.
I do actually not agree with the gist of the author's article, but then Mr. Heinsohn is a European academic and generally, persons of this category outside the technical and scientific sphere are even more liable to mindclouding than their American counterparts. Towards the end of the article Mr. Heinsohn even advocates that the West should take in a couple of hundreds of thousands of young Gazan males to ease tensions in that hellhole. Mr. Heinsohn also fails to grasp the paramount importance of one factor in the Gazan equation yielding the unstoppable body count among young males, namely islam plain and simple. To be sure, he does mention the muslim religion, but almost as an aside, and basically focuses uniquely on the anthropogenous character of the self-inflicted bloodletting. This argument of his fails to explain why there are then no more violent mini-genocides among the world's poor populations with an unhealthily high percentage of testosterone driven jobless teens and tweens.
That being said, I DO feel sorry for a fifteen year old who had the misfortune to grow up in a barren overpopulated strip of land under the shadow of a barbaric "religion". He can't help it either. But it's no use crying over his fate as long as the core problems are not correctly diagnosed and addressed. Let us repeat the one paragraph where Gunnar Heinsohn comes closest to the ultimate truth as can be. Wait... let me put it in bold for you:
"In the six decades since Israel's founding, "only" some 62,000 people (40,000 Arabs, 22,000 Jews) have been killed in all the Israeli-Arab wars and Palestinian terror attacks. During that same time, some 11 million Muslims have been killed in wars and terror attacks -- mostly at the hands of other muslims."
There was a truly excellent op-ed in Dutch daily "De Volkskrant" by Geert Wilders and Martin Bosma of the Dutch PVV, the Partij voor Vrijheid (Party for Freedom). As much as I resent simple cut-and-pasting, I thought it worthwile to simply use the excellent translation made by poster VH over at Gates of Vienna, because the case Wilders and Bosma make is so convinving that this article deserves far more attention than the "Low Countries Sphere"! So here goes. Thank you, Baron Bodissey, Dymphna and VH! (first follows demi-screenshot from De Volkskrant, since it is they who gave Wilders a forum in the first place):
Directly from GoV:
Below is a Below is a magnificent op-ed from De Volkskrant, written by Geert Wilders and Martin Bosma, who are both PVV members of the Dutch Parliament. The translation is by our indefatigable Flemish correspondent VH:
LAND FOR PEACE DOESN'T WORK by Geert Wilders and Martin Bosma
"It is one of the central doctrines of the Leftists’ church: “land for peace.”
That was supposed to put an end to the conflict in the Middle East. These days we encounter the definite end of that dream. The Israeli army last Sunday returned to Netzarim. Three years ago, Netzarim and other so-called ‘settlements’ were abandoned as a part of the framework of disengagement. This withdrawal should have then led to peace. But 5,000 arguments for a different reality rained down in the form of Kassam rockets on the residents of the Negev.
“Land for Peace” is a medicine based on the wrong diagnosis. The war against Israel is not a territorial conflict and thus can not be solved with territorial concessions. Giving away an area does not help. Hamas cum suis are not fighting for pieces of land but for the total final victory of Islam, to which the rapid destruction of Israel is only a transitional stage. The conflict is jihad, the violent duty of every Muslim. Israel is located on the fault line of the dar-al-Islam and dar-al-Harb. To Islam, all of Israel is occupied territory and Tel Aviv is as much a “settlement” as was Netzarim. The Hamas charter doesn’t know the word ‘polder model’.
Encouragement
The withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 was a huge encouragement to aggressive Islam. What the West convulsively tried to view as a step towards peace is translated by true Muslims as a sign of weakness. The 5,000 rockets from Gaza were therefore the logical consequence of an ideology that seeks to destroy the West. Samuel Huntington, who ironically enough died in the week before the first bombing of Hamas, already wrote it: “Islam has bloody borders”. You can move those bloody borders of Islam, but with that you only shift the jihad. What does it show? “Settlements” are no barrier to peace, but a barrier against terror.
Muslims view the conflict as an Islam-related conflict. It is not without reason that during pro-Hamas demonstrations over the whole world “Allahu akhbar” is prominently chanted. Saturday this was illustrated when Muslim colonizers demonstrated in Amsterdam, together with the extreme Left. The SP (Harry van Bommel), the Olive Trees Campaign/ICCO (from Doekle Terpstra), and the inevitable Gretta Duisenberg showed how much the Left in the Netherlands has merged with Islam and hatred of Israel.
My colleague Van Bommel showed without the slightest embarrassment his true extreme face by publicly and loudly calling for another intifada against Israel. The Left demonstrates with flags of Hamas and Hezbollah, along with portraits of Khomeini and the Hezbollah leader Nasrallah.
The fight against Israel is a fight against Europe and the Netherlands
Seventy years after Auschwitz, in the streets of Amsterdam, partly at the expense of the taxpayer, sounds the cry “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas.” This is what Doekle the Dhimmi [Doekle Terpstra, Christian Democrat] apparently means with his “benoemen en bouwen” [“naming and building”]. Would he view the Jew Haters of Saturday as moderate Muslims? - - - - - - - - -
Therefore, never give away any more land to the Arabs. But what then? To begin with, there is already a Palestinian state, and that is Jordan. This land covers nearly eighty percent of the historic Palestine. Most residents of Jordan are Palestinians, for instance queen Rania. Those who are looking for a territorial solution have thus found it. An eventual second Palestinian state is no improvement, but rather an encouragement for more jihad and thus more bloodshed. Judea and Samaria, the heart of Israel, must therefore remain in the hands of Israel whatever the cost, with Jerusalem as the undivided capital of the Jewish state.
Deterrence
The war against Israel is permanent because it is jihad. However, the conflict can be made manageable and the Netherlands can play a role in this. To begin with, deterrence should again be the cornerstone of the Israeli security policy. That used to be so until Israel in 1992 surrendered to the Oslo wishing dream. The Netherlands must help to press forward the notion that Israel is fighting for the West and therefore must not give in to the Arabs. Not an inch. If Israel falls, Europe is next. Israel is our first defensive frontline. The fight against Israel is a fight against Europe and the Netherlands.
The billions that the EU and the UN in past years dumped down the endless drain in Gaza must be reversed. The Palestinians have done nothing positive with the money, apart from making it serve the madly popular Hamas terror. It would be good to invest that money in masterful Israeli science and high-tech. The tiny state of Israel has grown to become a global center where the brightest minds in the world are creating inventions on a daily basis that have been a blessing for all mankind. Such a change will provide a boost to the Israeli economy. This success shows the whole world that Israel is not of transitory nature, but a persistent source of progress.
Would it not be great if the money that now goes to the terrorist infrastructure of Hamas, might be used by, for example, the Weizman Institute in Rechovot to find a cure for Alzheimer’s disease or multiple sclerosis? International aid money, not for death and destruction but for a future to our sick and elderly. A more beautiful beginning of the new year is cannot be imagined.
And to the Israeli army: kol hakawod, all success! You fight for us too."
Geert Wilders and Martin Bosma are respectively fraction leader and member of the Party for Freedom (PVV) in the Parliament of The Netherlands and recently visited Israel.
Spearpoint in the War on Islamic Terror: the Israeli Army. "Israel is our first defensive frontline." Kol Hakawod!!!
Some would say it's "just" demonstrations. I say it's a challenge to the police, a reconnoitring mission, testing how far they can go. There are of course the usual leftwing airheads - or maybe not, "airheads" implies they are naive, but I fear it's becoming crystal clear they are deliberately siding with islamists - who claim these are rightful demos against Israels incursion in Gaza. But then one can ask why on earth Europes muslims have to export their problems to our cities. What we are increasingly seeing is a deliberate attempt to impose their point of view on the indigenous population. When interviewed, the spokesmen of the muslim organizations - invariably posing as the "moderates" - claim they are sooooo sorry for the mayhem, the destroyed shop windows, the terrorized locals, the damaged infrastructure etc etc etc BUT in the same breath DEMAND we should understand "muslim anger". The following video is from Mulhouse. Truth to say, all seems quiet. Yup, the quiet of submission. No sane Frenchman would dare to venture out. All those flag-wielding Turks, Algerians and Moroccans claim it's their democratic "right" to demonstrate in favor of Palestine - but I GUARANTEE you they would DENY that right to Frenchmen demonstrating for Israel. Anyone bearing a flag with the Star of David round these barbarians would be lynched. From the website of François Desouche:
More from Desouche, a scene in a Parisian neighborhood:
"21,000 persons demonstrated in Paris against the situation in the Middle East. Certain vandals threw stairs taken from cafes to the security forces, who responded with tear gas. Some persons mounted vehicles, others destroyed public infrastructure. On the Boulevard Haussmann, several cars were torched, some fifteen others were turned upside down, then smashed apart. Shop windows were thrown in.
In Lyon, between 8,000 and 15,000 persons. In Marseille, there were 15,000 according to the organizers, 4,000 according to the police. In Bordeaux, there were between 2,000 and 3,000 demonstrators, in Lille 3,000, in Toulouse between 600 and 800 accooriding to the source, in Nantes between 1,700 and 4,000."
It's not that French security forces were unprepared. Galliawatch reports that:
Seven thousand men will be mobilized in France to reenforce the usual deployment on New Year's Eve, announced Interior Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie. The government had already decided to reenforce security in the big cities on December 17, following the discovery of explosives with no detonator in the Printemps department store in Paris. [Note: The event in question took place on December 16 when the police, alerted by a letter signed by the "Afghan Revolutionary Front", found 5 sticks of dynamite in the public toilets of the department store. In their letter they demanded the withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan before the end of February 2009, "otherwise we will strike again in your capitalist department stores and this time without giving you warning." (Source: 20 Minutes)]"
From Denmark, Danish blogger Snaphanen reports that the following reaching out posters from the country's successfully integrated muslim minority are adorning the square in front of Copenhagen's Town Hall:
In Brussels, Belgium there were demos which turned violent, with cars burnt and public and private property destroyed. But it was in Antwerp, home base of the terrorist-related Arab European League, that the most havoc was wrought:
The caption from Het Laatste Nieuws reads:
"JEWS DARE NO LONGER CROSS THE STREETS IN ANTWERP.
Because of the totally derailed demonstration of the Arab European League (AEL), many Jews in Antwerp dare no longer venture out on the streets whenever protestors are around. They fear vandalism and violence. An internal sms service of Antwerps Jewish community warns jewish people to steer clear off the Turnhoutsebaan and the Diamond District, writes Michael Freilich of Joods Actueel."
"In the course of the day [Sunday January 4] it became known that in the night from Saturday to Sunday a fire bomb was thrown at a house in Antwerp. The house belongs to a Jewish family. As if by a miracle the fire extinguished itself. The consequences could otherwise have been disastrous because at the time of the attack 12 children were sleeping in the house.
The targeted house is located in the Oedenkovenstraat in Borgerhout, within walking distance of the Turnhoutsebaan. The Turnhoutsebaan was in 2002 the location of serious riots after an AEL [Arabisch Europese Liga, “Arabic European Legue”] demonstration went out of control."
More pics from the pro-Palestinian demo in Antwerp on January 4:
If we are to preserve our freedom and prosperity, we must prepare our armies for battle against our muslim minorities BEFORE they turn into majorities. If ever that critical treshold is reached, Europe is done. I am sorry that I have to put it so bluntly, but 1,400 years of history teach us that wherever the followers of the vile "Prophet" have spread, violence and loss of rights and human degradation for "non-believers" have invariably followed. Why would it be different this time? It is too soon to judge whether the prodigious American experiment in the Middle East, started by President Bush, will bear fruit and if it does in decades to come, it may be too late for Europe and our magnificent civilization. It is thus better to err on the side of caution. It is with pain in my heart that I therefore state that Europes armed forces must prepare for battle in the streets, with heavy armor, artillery and ground attack aircraft, against muslim usurpation of power and the challenge to our democratically chosen representation.
Anyone who, in light of the very clear trend towards destabilization of our societies and the erosion of democratic values at the hands of our muslim minorities, the most radical elements of which who don't even hide their aspirations anymore, is either a fool, a liar, or a traitor of his people.
I must emphasize again that I do not write this down lightly. I am a hard-working small business owner and tax payer and a law-abiding citizen. I try to be a good husband and father. I'm not your run of the mill trigger happy fanatic. I would PREFER, and ENCOURAGE, that our muslim minorities adapt to our ways and laws and try to become good contributing citizens, like the truck driver from Niger who delivered goods to my business this afternoon. I sense - know - that he is not challenging our systems and institutions. He is welcome here, and I wish him all the best and a long and happy life in our country.
It is however clear but to the fools among us, that Europes islamic communities have a different agenda than my truck driver from Niger.
MFBB.
PS: hat tip for some of the stories to the inimitable Gates of Vienna.
The Dutch are completely nuts about Luca Prins, an instant starlet who participated in the traditional "New Years Dive" on January 1 in Egmond aan Zee, a Dutch coastal town. The reason: see above. Dutch daily De Telegraaf reports: "Ladies and Gentlemen, we got her!". The popular blog GeenStijl has more pics.
Geert Wilders is not the only brave Dutchman out there. Far away, in Afghanistan's central Uruzgan province, the Dutch ISAF contingent has been fighting battles far more fierce and costly than Dutch troops ever did in Iraq, and despite the sad human cost this almost invariably implies, these engagements also bring out the best in the men. One such outstanding individual who proved more than up to the task is Captain Marco Kroon of the Dutch Commandos. For his courage and leadership during a 2006 operation in Uruzgan's Baluchi Valley, 
