Faded Whores And Other Gifts For Christmas

The latest Sanity Squad podcast is up, and that means Christmas spirit abounds.

Our podcast is wonderful, witty and wise (as a holiday gift, we will feed your pitiful self esteem by pretending that you too, will indeed be able to absorb our collective brilliance. Yeah, right). Who else but the Sanity Squad would unearth the faded whores that plague the halls of Congress, like the ghosts of long dead frontier madams, prowling the halls of old saloons and bawdy houses.

This particular podcast, like the others that have preceded it, will mesmerize and astound you. Our podcast will once more prove Einstein’s Theory of Relativity- the pleasurable time spent with us will fly by, as you are enveloped by the eternal and timeless wisdom that is the Sanity Squad.

Dr Sanity (who has posted the latest photos from the House Bar and Grill), Neo-neocon and the ageless Shrinkwrapped have joined the three of us to present another can’t miss podcast.

That means you have to click here, Einstein.

Two Civil Wars, One Media

To some, there is a ‘civil war’ in Iraq. To some, there is a ‘civil war’ in the Palestinian territories. The situations are not the same.

We’ll deal with that later on. First, a bit of recent history.

In the most recent elections, the Palestinians have spoke, Their choice was clear and unequivocal as to which political entity was to speak for them. They elected Hamas and their obstructionist, racist and bigoted ideologies. This is not an exaggeration. The following is from the Hamas Martyrs Oath, an integral part of the Hamas Charter.

“Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious…The Movement is but one squadron that should be supported by more and more squadrons from this vast Arab and Islamic world, until the enemy is vanquished and Allah’s victory is realised…

The Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the wings of Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine. The Muslim Brotherhood Movement is a universal organization which constitutes the largest Islamic movement in modern times…

It strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine, for under the wing of Islam followers of all religions can coexist in security and safety where their lives, possessions and rights are concerned…

The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said: ‘The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him…

Resisting and quelling the enemy become the individual duty of every Muslim, male or female. A woman can go out to fight the enemy without her husband’s permission, and so does the slave: without his master’s permission… There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors. [emp-SC&A] The Palestinian people know better than to consent to having their future, rights and fate toyed with…

The day The Palestinian Liberation Organization adopts Islam as its way of life, we will become its soldiers, and fuel for its fire that will burn the enemies…

The Zionist invasion is a vicious invasion… It relies greatly in its infiltration and espionage operations on the secret organizations it gave rise to, such as the Freemasons, The Rotary and Lions clubs, and other sabotage groups. All these organizations, whether secret or open, work in the interest of Zionism and according to its instructions…

Israel, Judaism and Jews challenge Islam and the Muslim people. ‘May the cowards never sleep.”

Hamas keeps no secrets. They view the Arab-Israeli conflict as “religious struggle between Islam and Judaism that can only be resolved by the destruction of the State of Israel.”

Like the German volk that freely elected Adolph Hitler in 1933, the Palestinians believe that having rung the bell of democracy, their legitimacy is assured. In fact, the elections of the Nazis and Hamas were no more than a symbolic ringing of the bell of democracy. Real democracy is about much more than marking a paper ballot with a lead pencil. Real democracy is about democratic institutions that recognize the equality and worth of all citizens. There are no democracies that institutionalize the notion of racial, religious or cultural superiority.

There isn’t much in the way of denial. Hamas ideologies venerate the ideas found in Mein Kampf and oft repeated and reprinted fiery speeches of Adolph Hitler. They are as amuch a part of Hamas identity as is the well worn Hamas cheer, “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the Gas!” These ideas are an integral part of Hamas media, religious, and educational institutions. It is interesting to note that as the media obsesses over Iraq, they have not reported in depth the oft repeated and much cheered Hamas intent to destroy to destroy Israel, repeated in visceral and bigoted hate in mosques, schools and in the media they control. Instead, western media describe Hamas ‘rejectionism’ and their refusal to ‘recognize’ Israel.

Fatah and the Palestinian Authority represent another kind of dysfunction. As Hamas worships the god of corruption and power dressed up in religious garb and ideology, the PA worships the god of corruption dressed in garb more familiar to westerners. Thirteen years and billions of dollars after the Oslo Accords were signed, the PA did not build one school or one hospital- projects that would have immensely the Palestinian people.

(It bears repeating that Hamas campaign promises did not include major public works projects, other than their intent on building a well armed Palestinian army, one that might facilitate Hamas ‘democratic’ ideologies.)

That brings us back to ‘civil wars.’ What is a ‘civil war’ in the Palestinian territories is not a ‘civil war’ in Iraq.

The ‘civil war’ in Iraq really isn’t a civil war at all. The media desperately want the terror in Iraq to be referred to as ‘civil war,’ because that would lay the blame of conditions that led to the violence as having been created by the Bush administration policies. In fact, the terrorists in Iraq have been redefined by the media as political ‘insurgents.’

That is a bald faced lie.

Terrorists do not regard their political ideologies as primary considerations. For them, it is about power and nothing else. In Iraq and other parts of the Middle East, the power grab by terrorists might be draped in religious garb, but in fact, there is no pretense of political respectability. There are no ‘insurgent representatives’ at the UN claiming to represent the people of Iraq. There are no examples of the terrorists in Iraq that declare national unity as an ideal and there is no pretense of offers to help anyone via social services or programs.

The terrorists are not rallying people to their cause or orchestrating mass demonstrations to bring attention to their cause, as would a political ‘insurgent.’ There are no dramatic and sympathetic leaders paraded in front of willing cameras and their are no legions of ’spin doctors’ appearing on FNC or CNN. There are no discernible liberation movements- only movements that openly proclaim their love of Islam and their love for death (most often directed at other Muslims).

The violence in Iraq is not widespread. Only Bagdad and a few other small regions face daily violence. Many, if not most of the terrorists are not Iraqis, but rather, from outside the country- hardly the foundations of a ‘civil war.’

Nevertheless, the media insist on characterizing events in Iraq as a ‘civil war.’

That same media is ignoring the real civil war, being played out in slow motion, in the Palestinian Territories. What is happening in the PA is a real civil war. The current events were inevitable and long overdue. Unless and until the Palestinians can speak with one voice, there will be no Palestinian state or peace.

There cannot be a ‘unity government’ or coalition government because the ideologies of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are very different. Hamas wants a Sharia based religious regime, bent on the destruction of Israel (and Jews). The PA and Fatah want a more secular government based on a two state solution.

As Hamas and the PA are ferociously positioning themselves as ‘representative’ of the Palestinians and the media has done nothing to distinguish those two very different ideologies. The present Palestinian spokespeople as a monolithic group.

All the while, many in the media ignore these realities in favor of reporting and opining on a phony civil war in Iraq. They go out of their way to downplay or even deny the real civil war that is going in the Palestinian territories, because to do so would require the media to ‘come clean’ about the truth on the ground in the Palestinian Territories- and the deep schisms within a very broken and dysfunctional Palestinian society. Reporting on that real dysfunction might undermine the mirage of Palestinian credibility. Instead, the media are obsessed with talk of ‘root causes of terror,’ and the denial and obfuscation of Palestinian narcissism and selfishness. They are ever adding to expressions of ‘victimization’ and how that obviates responsible and civilized Palestinian behavior.

Most Islamists in the Middle East, be they Hamas or Fatah, are very upfront when they speak of their anti American and anti Israel hatreds. They want to kill us because they hate us. They refuse to accept that America and other western democracies identify and prefer a besieged democratic Israel to the corrupt, dysfunctional and despotic Palestinian Authority. The see our support and identifying with Israel and other democracies as interference into Arab world affairs.

The media would much rather have us focus on convoluted ‘root causes’ than the real problem- dysfunctional and evil behavior. Their leftist agendas have created those root causes, so as to deny reality.

In The Paradox Of Liberalism In War, Shrinkwrapped makes an astute observation:

The problem for Liberalism is that by living as if their philosophy was not only better, but was true, we have effectively made international relations much more risky and made international disaster much more likely.

His post addresses the behavior of those who engage in behavior that is destructive and the cost and burdens that behavior places on the rest of us. What is right and good is of little concern for those who declare themselves to be in ‘opposition.’

Shrinkwrapped highlights- and isolates- an obvious truth that often gets lost in the maelstrom of drivel that passes for political debate. Having an opinion, idea or thought seems for many, reason enough to believe their words to be of equal value- a notion clearly undermined by reality.

Just because the media decide the crime and terror in Iraq is are a civil war, does not make it so- and just because the real civil war in the Palestinian Territory is not described as a civil war by the media, doesn’t make that true, either.