The Enemy Speaks

from the Netherlands and France.

Asia Times Online spoke to Nada al-Rubaiee in the Netherlands. Nada is a member of the central committee of the Iraqi Patriotic Alliance (IPA), a collection of different Iraqi groups opposed to the US occupation of Iraq. It is based in Iraq, as well as in other countries, such as Syria, Jordan, France and the Netherlands.

That's some company you're keeping, Netherlands and France.

Read the rest of the article for some excellent taqiyya. These heroic resistance fighters, cowering in Paris and Amsterdam, know how to fool people fed on a strict diet of anti-Americanism. You know: Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

One Islamic view of taqiyya. Keep this in mind when speaking to any Muslim, reading articles by Muslims in the Western press, or listening to their television spokesmen (CAIR for example):

Notice that neither the above tradition nor the commentary are concerned with dealing with non-Muslims only.

Let me help explicate that without the double-negative: Lying to kuffar (unbelievers) is fine under all circumstances.

Welcome to Wahhabi World, U.S.A.

Only three miles from the former home of the World Trade Center, destroyed by Wahhabi Muslims.

Just three miles from the site of the World Trade Center, the government of Saudi Arabia is distributing hate materials expounding an extremist Wahhabi ideology, according to a new report by the Center for Religious Freedom.

The Washington-based center is part of Freedom House, America's oldest human-rights organization. While the group typically monitors the state of religious freedom under oppressive regimes abroad, the center has just concluded a year-long study of 200 documents that it said were collected in more than a dozen mosques across America, bear the seal of the Saudi government, and spread hateful indoctrination. The group called the propaganda a violation of Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

According to a press release and to the center's director, Nina Shea, the 89-page report, which was issued Friday, finds that the materials incite violence, inform Muslims that it is their religious duty to hate Jews and Christians, and even give specific instructions on how properly to express that hatred to one's infidel neighbors.

The Saudi-produced and -distributed materials denounce democracy - and democratic America - as un-Islamic. Ms. Shea said the materials are directed toward recent immigrants. According to the report, Muslim newcomers are told that, while in America, they should think of themselves as operating behind enemy lines and should use their time in America either to acquire information and resources for jihad or to convert the infidels to Islam.

Freedom House

Seymour Hersh, a true-believing Bush hater

Recently, I caught Seymour Hersh telling a huge lie.

Now I've found him admitting why he lies.

Seymour Hersh: About what's going on in terms of the President is that as virtuous as I feel, you know, at The New Yorker, writing an alternative history more or less of what's been going on in the last three years, George Bush feels just as virtuous in what he is doing. He is absolutely committed - I don't know whether he thinks he's doing God's will or what his father didn't do, or whether it's some mandate from - you know, I just don't know, but George Bush thinks this is the right thing. He is going to continue doing what he has been doing in Iraq. He's going to expand it, I think, if he can. I think that the number of body bags that come back will make no difference to him. The body bags are rolling in. It makes no difference to him, because he will see it as a price he has to pay to put America where he thinks it should be. So, he's inured in a very strange way to people like me, to the politicians, most of them who are too cowardly anyway to do much. So, the day-to-day anxiety that all of us have, and believe me, though he got 58 million votes, many of people who voted for him weren't voting for continued warfare, but I think that's what we're going to have.

It's hard to predict the future. And it's sort of silly to, but the question is: How do you go to him? How do you get at him? What can you do to maybe move him off the course that he sees as virtuous and he sees as absolutely appropriate? All of us - you have to - I can't begin to exaggerate how frightening the position is - we're in right now, because most of you don't understand, because the press has not done a very good job. The Senate Intelligence Committee, the new bill that was just passed, provoked by the 9/11 committee actually, is a little bit of a kabuki dance, I guess is what I want to say, in that what it really does is it consolidates an awful lot of power in the Pentagon - by statute now. It gives Rumsfeld the right to do an awful lot of things he has been wanting to do, and that is basically man hunting and killing them before they kill us, as Peter said. "They did it to us. We've got to do it to them." That is the attitude that - at the very top of our government exists. And so, I'll just tell you a couple of things that drive me nuts. We can - you know, there's not much more to go on with.

In other words, get Bush by any means necessary. That is Seymour Hersh's philosophy in a nutshell.

UPDATE: Max Boot of the LA Times agrees

Digging Into Seymour Hersh

You don't have to scratch too deeply to find an enormous reservoir of left-wing bias.....

.....Hersh...is the journalistic equivalent of Oliver Stone: a hard-left zealot who subscribes to the old counterculture conceit that a deep, dark conspiracy is running the U.S. government. In the 1960s the boogeyman was the "military- industrial complex." Now it's the "neoconservatives." "They overran the bureaucracy, they overran the Congress, they overran the press, and they overran the military!" Hersh ranted at UC Berkeley on Oct. 8, 2004.....

.....It's hard to know why anyone would take seriously a "reporter" whose writings are so full of, in Ted Kennedy's words, "maliciousness and innuendo." That Hersh remains a revered figure in American journalism suggests that the media have yet to recover from the paranoid style of the 1960s.

What's the world coming to when a lunatic is viewed as a respected member of the Fourth Estate? Dan Rather, any comments?

Auschwitz was liberated 60 years ago today by the Red Army

A virtual tour of Auschwitz

"The same day I saw my first horror camp, I visited every nook and cranny. I felt it my duty to be in a position from then on to testify about these things in case there ever grew up at home the belief or assumption that the stories of Nazi brutality were just propaganda."

- General Dwight D. Eisenhower

The Man Who Wanted to Bomb Auschwitz

Charles (Little Green Footballs) caused me to look this up. I continue to learn something new every day.

Thanks in part to Akzin's persistence, the WRB continued to press the War Department on the bombing issue in the months to follow. But each time Pehle presented a bombing request, it was rejected on the grounds that the department had already conducted a "study" and found that it was not militarily feasible. That claim was false. No such study had been done.

In fact, the War Department had already secretly decided, back in February 1944, that as a matter of principle it would never use military resources "for the purposes of rescuing victims of enemy oppression."

This policy was in accord with the policies of president Roosevelt and his State Department, who feared that saving Jews would create pressure to bring them to the United States. One internal State Department official specifically warned against the "danger" that the Nazis "might agree to turn over to the United States and to Great Britain a large number of Jewish refugees."

Good luck in that snakepit, Dr. Rice.

Senator Edward Kennedy is a Drunk Traitor Who Kills People

What do I really think, you must be asking. Don't hold back, you say.

Today I saw the senator who never loses at quarters say "our troops in Iraq are part of the problem." Ignoring the effect on troop morale, Teddy's full of flammable gas (a-gain).

Some Iraqis Want U.S. Troops to Stay.
Yeah, the smart ones who represent a majority of the population.

Until recently, leaders of the majority Iraqi Shiite community insisted that the Americans should leave after elections in 2005. The party platform of the United Iraqi Alliance -- the Shiite bloc expected to win the largest share of Sunday's vote -- called for a timetable for the withdrawal of multinational troops.

Now, Shiite leaders have changed their minds. In a move little noticed by the media, the alliance has dropped the call for a timetable from its platform.

The alliance has not yet publicized the change; it took me days and many trips to party headquarters to get hold of a copy of the revised version of the platform.

But the policy shift reflects a growing fear in the Shiite establishment that if the Americans leave soon, the Sunni Baathists who persecuted them under Saddam might make a comeback. The Shiite community is also under siege by radical Sunni Islamists from inside -- and outside -- Iraq who consider Shiite Muslims to be infidels. These fanatics are trying to foment civil war.

This is so obvious. Why don't idiots like Boxer, Kerry, and Kennedy get it? I fear they do get it and simply don't care. Moreover, Iran, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Syria don't want to see a democracy on their borders. Their governments are doing every covert thing they can to make Iraq fail. Lucky Iran, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Syria, the Leftist wing of the Democratic Party is helping them.

UPDATE: None Dare Call it Treason (WaTi - fairly noninvasive registration). Well, most don't dare anyway.

But wait, there's fire in the old warhorse yet. In a speech in Washington today, Mr. Kennedy became the first senator to call for the early withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

Drawing a parallel with the Vietnam war (why is it that liberals are so hot to champion U.S. failure?), he declared that "the U.S. military presence has become part of the problem, not part of the solution. We need a new plan that sets fair and realistic goals for self-government in Iraq, and works with the Iraqi government on a specific timetable for the honorable homecoming of our forces."

In other words, let's ignore the sacrifice of those who have died to defeat a brutal dictator and to establish a fledgling democracy in the heart of the Middle East, and get the hell out as quickly as we can. Now that's statesmanship. Three days before courageous Iraqis risk their lives to vote in their first-ever democratic election. Now that's timing. To appease the Saddam holdovers who are brutally killing and maiming their own women and children to return to power. Now that's the American way.

And this is the man regarded by many as the senior statesman of the Democratic Party.

Senior just means outdated, spoiled, or decomposing in this case.

UPDATE: Iraqi president says U.S. troops should stay

BAGHDAD, Iraq-- Iraq's president said Tuesday it would be "complete nonsense" to ask foreign troops to leave the country now, although some could depart by year's end. Officials began the final vote tally from elections to produce a government to confront the insurgency.....

.....During a news conference, President Ghazi al-Yawer was asked whether the presence of foreign troops might be fueling the Sunni Arab revolt by encouraging rebel attacks.

"It's only complete nonsense to ask the troops to leave in this chaos and this vacuum of power," al-Yawer, a Sunni Arab, said.

He said foreign troops should leave only after Iraq's security forces are built up, the country's security situation has improved and some pockets of terrorists are eliminated.

"By the end of this year, we could see the number of foreign troops decreasing," al-Yawer said.

Yes, it would be nonsensical. Let's not repeat what happened after the Gulf War, where the Bush Administration (41) encouraged revolution but didn't support the revolution it encouraged. I cried when I saw our soldiers pointing at the Shiites being massacred within their eyesight, but our soldiers were under orders not to act. Realpolitik created real genocide.

The experiment in Iraqi democracy may not work, but the United States cannot be the reason it fails.

Back to the present with news you can use

Janet Daley, one of my favoUrite columnists in the UK, confirms my belief that European commitment to democracy is not even skin-deep.

It may sound apocalyptic, but I do believe that the democratic experiment in continental Europe, begun just over 200 years or so ago, is coming to a close.

The European Union is creating what it hopes will be a benign oligarchy. Real political power will reside once again within elite circles (as it does already in France) which will conduct their business in the corridors rather than in the assemblies.

"Sounding apocalyptic" is only sensible, Janet. EU strategy will bring it into conflict with the United States and Israel if present trends continue. Buy some sunglasses and practice putting your head between your legs.

Why would God follow Earth days before God created the Earth?

Are you an enviro-fundamentalist?
You know at least one person like this I'll wager. I know two or three. They lecture you on the environment while driving an old car which belches smoke like a coal-driven locomotive.

Speaking of belching smoke, Mt. St. Helens is Washinton's top polluter. Anyone want to present the Kyoto treaty to the Earth's subduction zones?

We are mired in a religious war.

We are now mired in a religious war in Iraq, and elsewhere. Our enemies, as witnessed by their astonishing willingness to slaughter themselves, are not principally motivated by political or economic grievances. Anyone who imagines that terrestrial concerns account for terrorism by Muslims must explain why there are no Palestinian Christian suicide bombers. They, too, suffer the ordeal of the Israeli occupation. Where are the Tibetan Buddhist suicide bombers for that matter? The Tibetans have suffered an occupation far more brutal than any we or the Israelis have imposed on the Muslim world. The truth that we must finally confront is that Islam contains specific doctrines about martyrdom and jihad that directly inspire Muslim terrorism.

Will the civilized world awaken in time?

I can't resist posting one article by "Dan Brown".

I pick up the phone. "Monsieur?", says the voice. "Sir, an important man is here to see you, s'il vous plait?" I wish Juanita would stop putting on a French accent. "A very important man," she pressed. That could only be my friend, Sir Leigh Teabing, the Royal Historian and Ambassador-Plenipotentiary to the Exchequer. He was awarded a knightency by Queen Elizabeth the II for his amazing volume on the House of Percy, in which he revealed for the first time the ninth earl's involvement in a Rosicrucian-Illuminati-Masonic conspiracy to do, er, something or other.

Iowahawk, is that you?

DaVinci Code (Part III) - Another very strange coincidence

If you look at the monk's left (from our perspective) knee you probably can't see a signature. But there is one. I'd never noticed it my entire life. My friend found it and pointed it out to me. Ostensibly, this should be the artist. But since France didn't legislate freedom of religion until 1905, would it have been smart to sign a name on this plate? Being charged with heresy, aside from legal jeopardy, would have been socially destructive. France used to be a very Catholic country.

What is written is not easy to make out. It looks like "La Montague" "La Monteque" - or something like that.

On page 409 of my paperback copy of Holy Blood, Holy Grail it states:

There are at least a dozen families in Britain and Europe today -- with numerous collateral branches -- who are of Merovingian lineage. These include the houses of....Montesquiou....

I realize the name does not match exactly. But I'm not even sure exactly what name the artist was trying to paint. The script is unusual. I will try to get a close-up photo with my digital camera.

UPDATE: Thanks for responding, "Anonymous".

"Am I sure I cannot find another one like it?"

Yes, I'm positive I cannot find another one like it. But I know I'm not an expert on decorative plates, or art of any kind for that matter. I've contacted several experts and one appraiser, all of whom were useless. Montereau and Creil is a famous French plate company. Barluet and Company made plates for Montereau and Creil from 1876-1884. If anyone, I ask again, can find a plate or painting like it please tell me. I've done hundreds of Google searches. Maybe there is a French person living in Montereau or Creil who could do some specialized research. But I'm in Florida.

"Where is the heresy?"

Monks are not supposed to mix with women at all. Notice the plate does not depict a priest but a monk. Monks do not take confessions. Monks are regular clergy. They are supposed to remain cloistered away from the outside world.

When joining a monastery, a person must take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. This means that the aspirant must surrender all worldly goods and never own personal property, must abstain from any sexual activity; and must obey the head of the house and the rules that regulate the community.

Look at the monk's curled toes. That suggests "sexual activity". France was particularly draconian when it came to prosecuting heresy, from the Albigensian Crusade, the persecution of the Templars, until the early 20th Century.

REMINDER: This plate is EXACTLY 13" wide. In decorative plates, from what I've seen, "Wendy's" notwithstanding, that's unusual. This is a great summary of the number thirteen superstition.

Here's a quick rundown on how the day got a bad rap.

The number 13 has been linked to the fact there were 13 people at the last supper of Jesus Christ, who was crucified on Good Friday. It's also been linked to the lunisolar calendar which has 13 months in some years. However, others say it goes back to medieval times. On Friday, Oct. 13, 1307, France's King Philip IV had the Knights Templar rounded up for torture and execution.

13 is the sixth-smallest prime number, the next is 17. It is the seventh Fibonacci number. Also, 13 goes into 999,999 exactly 76,923 times, so fractions with 13 in the denominator have six-digit repeating sequences in their decimal expansions.

Am I a nutty conspiracy theorist? No. But on this topic, all the so-called experts are.

11, 13 and 33

The Illuminati / Freemason Signature

The plate is 13", marked with a 33, shows a rose line and vessel which looks like many pictures of the Holy Grail, depicts a monk with a woman, and was made in France around the time of Sauniere.

You be the judge.

One last thing, it just so happens that one of the two Great Masonic Schisms, where the Grand Orient split off from the rest of Freemasonry over the issue of admitting athiests, happened in 1877.

Remember, Barluet and Company only made Montereau and Creil plates from 1876-1884.

"Beyond the DaVinci Code" -- (Part II)

I missed the first hour and a half of the two hour History Channel show called "Beyond the DaVinci Code". But I've set the timer to catch it later today. No wonder the producer never contacted me, assuming that is the producer who was supposed to contact me. The program draws a reasonable conclusion: there is nothing to the theories outlined in the DaVinci Code.

In my case, I could call that pre-April, 2004 thinking. Perhaps I should smash my father's plate and pretend none of this ever happened? I don't want to offend strict Christian beliefs. Moreover, this has caused me nothing but stress and aggravation.

But there is so much more to discuss. I wish the photograph of the plate on my weblog showed more close-up detail. Please bear with me.

I've focused on the background of the plate, specifically the roses leading up to the vessel on the right-hand side. I'd like to consider the vessel itself a bit more. If you look closely at the photograph you might be able to see that the vessel is marked with many vertical, and twin horizontal, lines.

Remember in my previous post, rose lines are supposedly one key to this mystery: roses, rose lines, Rosicrucianism, and so on. In Beyond the DaVinci Code, narrator Edward Hermann tells us that the rose line supposedly relates to a meridian line, or a longitude line traced on the ground.

The lines on the vessel look exactly like the longitude lines on a globe. The vessel also features twin latitude lines near the equator.

So if a single rose line leading to a vessel on a 13" plate marked with the number 33 doesn't suggest something, what about the longitude lines and the two equatorial lines on the vessel itself?

THE WHITE CLOTH UNDER THE MONK'S ARM

The monk on the plate has a small bit of white, tasseled, cloth under his arm.

This little detail fascinates me. Once I began looking closely at the plate I thought there had to be some symbolic meaning to the white cloth. It took months to find this, especially since the one person willing to help me sort this out borrowed my copy of Holy Blood, Holy Grail for several months. This is mentioned briefly in Holy Blood, Holy Grail.

What do you think?

Merovingians

The origin of the Merovingian family name comes from that of their progenitor, Merovee (also styled "Merovech" or "Meroveus"). The name is reminiscent of both the French word for "mother" and the French and Latin words for "sea." The legend is that Merovee was born of two fathers - the story that is told is no doubt allegorical and refers to the alliance of two dynasties through his birth. It was said that his mother was already pregnant by her husband when she went swimming in the sea. She was seduced by a sea creature who impregnated her for a second time. When Merovee was born therefore, the blood of two sources, that of his Frankish father, the ruler, and that of a "sea animal" ran through his veins.

From that time on, the Merovingians had a reputation for the occult and the supernatural. They were looked upon as priest-kings, much as the Egyptian pharaohs were regarded. The healing powers they were said to have possessed extended even to the tassels of their robes, which were believed to be of particular curative powers. As we shall see in Chapter Four, after the death of Berenger Sauniere a procession of people passed by his robed corpse, each removing a tassel from it. The Merovingian kings were said to have had a certain birthmark that took the form of a Templar type red cross, either over the heart or between the shoulder blades.

There is more fruity, crunchy, nuttiness -- coming in Part III. This might stretch to Part X or more.

Holy Grail plate (Part I) - DaVinci Code

I started this blog several months ago hoping I might get some help unraveling the mysteries of a plate my father left me. When I'm not rhetorically fighting against the global jihad, writing about religion, or analyzing news, I'm thinking about this plate mystery. I've yet to find another plate like it.

I've been hesitant to post the early results of my plate analysis. Everything in this post I've known since mid-April of 2004.

Having spent months reading articles like this, I really don't want to be the guy with a unique relic related to the DaVinci Code. Please, no torches and pitchforks at my front door.

I'm against royalty, world government, and Satan. I believe in representative democracy, limited government, and worship God. I'm somewhere between a Deist and a Unitarian. I like dogs and gardening. Ruling the world and forcing everyone to worship what I believe would really cut into my nap time.

My father hung the plate near our dining room table my entire life. Only after I read DaVinci Code in April, 2004 did I notice anything other than a monk 'flirting' with a woman. Who knew roses and what looks like a golf trophy could be so significant? I didn't.

As I noted months ago, my father's plate was made by Montereau & Creil (Barluet & Company) between 1876-1884. That's what I know with certainty from the markings ("B&C") on the back. The back is science, while the front is religious symbolism.

Keep in mind this evidence goes to what some French people believed at the end of the Ninteenth Century. Other than that, it doesn't prove anything.

1. The plate being 13 inches wide, and having the number 33 on the back, directly links it to the Freemasons. Thirteen, of course, goes all the way back to Jacques de Molay (Knights Templar Grand Master) being burned at the stake on Friday October 13th, 1307. That's where the number thirteen superstiton comes from.

The thirty-third degree is the highest degree of Freemasonry. thirteen and thirty three are considered by experts to be key numbers in the world of Freemasonry.

This would be a mere coincidence were it not for all the other clues.

2. The rose line is always associated with the Holy Grail mystery.

"The Rose: Rosicrucianism, the Rosy Cross, and rose-line symbolism is all over the place in this mystery."

Notice the rose line on the right side of the plate? It leads up to a vessel which looks like many artistic depictions of the Holy Grail.

In summary, we have a 13" plate, marked with the number 33, including a rose line, leading to a vessel which looks just like the Holy Grail in many works of art.

That's it for Part I.

For more information, click "Resources for Researchers".

Dan Brown's list of books is useful if none of this makes any sense. It didn't make any sense to me less than a year ago. Join the club.

A Tsunami New Year

Is it fair to ask what simple systems were in place to track major seismic events and consider their impacts on the victim nations? How could a government ignore a huge earthquake thinking issuing a warning might hurt the tourism industry? Huge tsunamis, without warning, hurt the tourism industry.

Why do 'experts' say these events are once-in-a-lifetime? Each active geologic region on Earth will not produce spectacular events all the time. But as a planet, Earth has a history of major earthquakes, many producing tsunami. Human history is filled with stories of volcanic eruptions, giant earthquakes, and fire from the sky.

Indonesia produced the Krakatoa eruption of 1883.

There are many active volcanic regions in the world right now, from Mt. St. Helens, Monserrat, and Iceland, to Hawaii and Indonesia.

But the Indonesian Krakatoa eruption of 1883 was particularly spectacular:

A series of large tsunami waves generated by the main explosion, some reaching a height of nearly 40 meters (more than 120 feet) above sea level, killed more than 36,000 people in the coastal towns and villages along the Sunda Strait on Java and Sumatra islands. Tsunami waves were recorded or observed throughout the Indian Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, the American West Coast, South America, and even as far away as the English Channel.

But nothing in modern history tops Mt. Tambora eruption in 1815, also in Indonesia.

Tambora erupted in 1815 killing 92 000 people. 1816 became the year without a summer as the global climate effects were felt. Aerosols from the Tambora eruption blocked out sunlight and reduced global temperatures by 3 deg C. Europe missed a summer, and India had crop failures following the Tambora eruption. 100 cubic km of magma was erupted. Ten thousand people were killed immediately from the pyroclastic flows and the eventual toll due to starvation and diseasme may have been as high as 117,000.

The Year Without a Summer, and the Year of Famine

Even in New England, the weather was dramatically colder.

What Made 1816 So Cold?
The meteorological facts of life during 1816 have been laid out. The period March to September was marked by a series of strong and frequent invasions of dry arctic air across New England. While the movement of arctic air masses through this region is not uncommon in other seasons, their appearance in the summer as cold and frequent as in 1816 is indeed unusual. The question arises, why? Various theories have been put forward.

The most likely cause was volcanic influences. Proponents note that a number of major volcanic eruptions preceded 1816: Soufriére and St. Vincent in 1812: Mayon and Luzon in the Phillippines during 1814; Tambora in Indonesia during 1815. The volcanic theory of climatic influence relates increased volcanic activity with decreased temperatures due to the increased reflection of solar radiation from volcanic dust blown and trapped high in the atmosphere. The Tambora eruption has been estimated to be the most violent in historical times. The explosion is believed to have lifted 150 to 180 cubic kilometres of material into the atmosphere. For a comparison, the infamous 1883 eruption of Krakatau ejected only 20 cubic kilometres of material into the air, and yet it affected sunsets for several years after.

It is fair to say Indonesia has produced three of the largest geologic disasters in modern history.

So religions ask How could God let this happen?

God hates people who live near sea level? The biggest tsunami is defeated by high ground. Why didn't someone in charge tell people to get to high ground? As the bodies pile up, maybe those in charge can answer some of the obvious questions. The Indonesian government should educate its citizens on the volcanic and dangerous national history.