Prince Charles; Syrian war caused by global warming

Ever since he became self aware Prince Charles has struggled to find something to give him that sense of relevance that he craved.  Mummy was queen, Dada was consort, and young Chilla had little to do other than navel gazing.

For some time back in the 60s and 70s, he took an interest, or at least a disdain for British architecture, becoming the constant critic of everything new; sort of an English version of Ellsworth Toohey.  After becoming involved in alternative agriculture, he finally found something in common with his old dad; reincarnation.

Prince Phil decided that he would like to come back as a virus that would wipe out most of humanity, especially the lower classes.  Chilla had more modest, or perhaps Modess aims to return as Camilla’s tampon, although given the ladies age, this would probably result in him being tossed into the bottom drawer and forgotten about.

Now he has a new cause, preventing global warming induced wars: 

The Prince of Wales used his keynote speech at the 9th World Islamic Economic Forum in London this evening to warn of the political and economic dangers of climate change, and used Syria as a "terrifyingly graphic" example of the adverse effects of climate change on vulnerable populations. 

Opening the forum, Prince Charles said drought, poor food security and rapid urbanisation contributed to the social tension that ignited into the 2011 uprising. 

"The tragic conflict in Syria provides a terrifyingly graphic example, where a severe drought for the last seven years has decimated Syria's rural economy. Driving many farmers off their fields and into cities where, already, food was in short supply. 

"This depletion of natural capital, inexplicably, little reported in the media, was a significant contributor to the social tension that exploded with such desperate results.”

So, apparently all of that stuff we believe about an authoritarian hereditary dictatorship being challenged by global jihad is wrong, and the real problem is GW.

The good news is, that since they stopped marrying their cousins, the latest generation of royals appears to be relatively normal.

Political correctness catches up with the Unknown Soldier

Around fifty years ago, Protestants seemed to be the people who opposed drinking, smoking, fornication, and most of the simple pleasures available to all of us.  Catholics on the other hand were pretty laid back, possibly due to their ‘sin now, confess and repent on Sunday’ policy.

In this day and age though, things have turned around with the churches lightening up a bit, but in their place, atheists have become the new wowsers.  Now, rather than simply ignore the church or maybe poke a bit of fun at it, these people seem to be demanding the removal of all religious symbolism everywhere.

The proposed removal of the words, “Known unto God” from the tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the Canberra War Memorial has not been explained other than it seems to be a good idea, but is probably designed to avoid offending atheists or Muslims, both of whom might regard the words with outrage: 

IN 1999 the words "Known unto God" were carved at the northern end of the plinth surrounding the tomb of the Australian Unknown Soldier in Canberra. It is the epitaph Rudyard Kipling advised the Imperial War Graves Commission to adopt in 1917 to mark the graves of soldiers whose remains could not be identified. It is inscribed on the headstones of more than 212,000 Commonwealth soldiers. 

Six weeks ago, on the day Tony Abbott was being sworn in as Prime Minister, the War Memorial's director, Brendan Nelson, told the National Press Club that the inscription was being removed. The words of explanation at the opposite end -- "He symbolises all Australians who've died in war" -- also would be going under the hammer and chisel. 

"We are removing those," Nelson let slip towards the end of an unscripted speech.  There was no press release; no announcement on the memorial's website; no draft plans: no period of consultation: indeed nothing resembling a proper explanation. ...
... In its place were to be inscribed the words of our 24th prime minister, the Honourable PJ Keating.  "Into one end we will engrave: 'We do not know this Australian's name, we never will,' " said Nelson. "At the end, as you walk into the hall, it will say: 'He is one of them, and he is all of us.' " … 

… It was only when Abbott spoke directly to Nelson that compromise was reached.  "Known under God" would stay but the inscription "He symbolises all Australians who've died in war" would go. It would be replaced by Keating's phrase "He is one of them, and he is all of us." … 

… What next? Will they be sending the masonry police to every foreign field where Commonwealth soldier, name unknown, rests beneath the inscription "Known unto God"? There are 212,000 of them by the way, although for obvious reasons there is no way of knowing how many of them are Australians. … 

… In the end, however, what we think of God is irrelevant. The men and women who chose the words "Known unto God" were contemporaries of the fallen. They experienced the consequences of a horrible war and knew the pain of loss. Who are we to change them? 

The words of Charles Bean, whose vision inspired the War Memorial, leave no room for ambiguity. "Here is their spirit, in the heart of the land they loved," Bean said in 1948, "and here we guard the record which they themselves made." …

Nelson was one of the most useless opposition leaders the Liberals ever foisted on this country, being replaced after nine months when he couldn’t get it through his head that his role wasn’t to agree with Rudd on all issues.  Still, replacing the traditional inscription with words from a Keating speech is bizarre. 

Palin slaps down NSA

The head of the National Security Agency (NSA Gen. Keith Alexander has claimed that the need for wholesale violations of Fourth Amendment rights was done in the wake of 9/11 owing to an absence of information on terrorists involved.  He has claimed a need to be able to track back on contacts of suspects which means treating everybody as a suspect. 

Sarah Palin, who we have not featured for some time has slapped down any contention that this action is keeping Americans safe, claiming that the NSA couldn’t stop two ‘pot smoking deadbeats with terrorist ties’: 

“Our government spied on every single one of your phone calls but couldn’t find two pot-smoking deadbeat Bostonians with a hotline to terrorist central in Chechnya. Really?… And it’s built an apparatus to sneak into all of the good guys’ communications but…whoopsi-daisy… It missed the Fort Hood murderer of our own troops despite this Islamic terrorist declaring his ideology in numerous army counselling sessions and on his own business cards. But, whoops, no red flags there. Really?"

The Boston bombing could have been prevented had the authorities followed up on Russian requests for information on possible terrorist links of one of the perpetrators. 

9/11 was in part allowed to occur by the same people failing to address suspicions of flying schools over gentlemen of Middle Eastern appearance who wanted to fly airliners but had no interest in takeoffs or landings.

It is highly unlikely that those who missed such simple clues are competent to get useful intelligence out of such a complex operation.  If they do, they will probably screw it up again.

US to back al Qaeda in war against Hezbollah

It seems like the urging of Bill Clinton has done the trick in getting President Obama to commit to aiding the rebels in Syria.  We should not forget the campaigning for intervention by John McCain who just loves to see the troops deployed, and Lindsey Graham who can think of a dozen good reasons to invade most countries, from Austria to Zimbabwe and in a pinch, even Hutt River Province. 

Reports indicating that up to 100 – 150 rebels may have suffered injuries from chemical weapons have helped him make this decision as well.

Several months ago there were clear indications that the rebels also possessed chemical weapons, which seems to have been forgotten. With the relatively small number of injuries by these weapons, it is not inconceivable that they were caused by weapon strikes on their own stocks, unless it is assumed that Assad is not very good at targeting.

Owing to the fact that the Syrian government is backed by Hezbollah, and the rebels are backed by al Qaeda, it makes no sense at all to be involved.  Putting advanced weapons into the hands of radical Islamists is a recipe for having them used against you in the future and regardless of who wins they will be opposed to the West.

Anzac Day; QX 5005 Cpl Harry Skyring Baylis

As a personal touch to the day, Cpl Baylis was my mother’s cousin.  He was killed in action on the 10^th of November 1942, which according to the history of the 2/33 would have been at Gorari in PNG (7-11 Nov 42).

While this was going on, my father was involved in the battle of El Alamein.

Roll of Honour - Harry Skyring Baylis

Service number: QX5005

Rank: Corporal

Unit: 2/33rd Battalion (Infantry)

Service: Australian Army

Conflict: 1939-1945

Date of death: 10 November 1942

Place of death: Papua

Cause of death: Killed in action

Cemetery or memorial details: Port Moresby (Bomana) War Cemetery, Papua New Guinea

Hanoi Jane ‘repents’

Hanoi Jane appears to have regrets over the infamous photo of her on a North Vietnamese anti aircraft gun: 

“I made one unforgivable mistake when I was in North Vietnam, and I will go to my grave with this,” Jane Fonda says on the Oprah Winfrey Network. 

The actress and activist made an infamous trip to North Vietnam in 1972 in which she was photographed singing with North Vietnamese military members as she sat on an anti-aircraft gun.  She was criticized then — and ever since — and says she understands the anger. 

Fonda said she knew immediately that she had made a mistake and has apologized repeatedly, both privately and publicly.  

She told OWN program “Oprah’s Master Class” that the event happened on the last day of her visit. She was tired, she said, and didn’t want to attend.  "I don't know if I was set up or not,” she said. “I was an adult. I take responsibility for my actions."  

The soldiers sang a song and Fonda joined in with her “feeble Vietnamese.”   As everyone was laughing and singing, Fonda was led to a gun site, where she sat down. 

“And I was laughing and clapping, and there were pictures taken."  As she walked away, Fonda says she suddenly realized that the pictures would be seen in the United States — and they would not look good.

She seems to have more regrets about the appearance than of her support for the North Vietnamese, but stars tend to be rather full of themselves and utterly narcissistic.  On the other hand, she has at least some regrets, unlike domestic terrorist Bill Ayers who still feels that he didn’t do enough.

Islamic truthers more nutty than Western ones

Image: Is Sigfried running Mossad?

Western truthers are a bottomless pit of amusement to most of us with their insistence that everything that goes wrong is the result of devilish and sinister plots.  From the Kennedy assassination plot to the faked moon landing, right through to George Bush ordering 9/11, they provide us with non-stop entertainment.

Islamists though come up with some doozies, the latest being the claim by Sudan that the Israelis have mobilized Zionist vultures to spy on their facilities: 

Sudanese officials announced Monday that they have captured an electronically-tagged vulture suspected of being dispatched by Israel on a spying mission. 

The suspicious bird was found to be tagged with an Israeli GPS chip, which is capable of broadcasting images via satellite, as well as a leg band labeled "Israel Nature Service" and "Hebrew University, Jerusalem", the Egyptian El Balad newspaper reported. 

Israel's National Parks Service dismissed the allegations, saying that both the band and the GPS chip were standard migration trackers. 

Tensions between the two countries become increasingly tense after Sudan accused Israel of carrying out the bombing of a munitions depot near the Sudanese capital of Khartoum in October.  The depot was reportedly supplying Hamas terrorists with weapons to use against the Jewish state. Israel has not commented on the raid.

Islamists have a habit of finding the hand of Israel in just about everything they see, although most totalitarians have a tendency toward paranoia: 

Turkish authorities believe they have found a bird used by Israel for espionage purposes, the country’s media reported. 

According to reports, a Turkish farmer found the already dead bird, commonly known as the European Bee-Eater, with markings indicating it came from Israel.   The bird’s left nostril was reportedly three times the size of its right nostril, leading Turkish officials to believe the Israel had implanted the animal with a surveillance device in its beak. …

In 2008, Mahmoud Abbas's official news agency, Wafa, reported that Israel had released poison-resistant rats to drive Arab residents of Jerusalem out of their homes. … 

In October of 2008, Iranian officials captured two 'spy pigeons' near the uranium enrichment facility in Natanz, alleging that the birds were being used to spy on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear advancements. In 2007, the regime detained over a dozen squirrels believed to be spies of Western powers seeking to undermine the Iranian regime. 

In June of 2010, Egyptian officials blamed a wave of shark attacks on Israel’s foreign ministry intelligence, asserting,” We must not discount the possibility that Mossad threw the shark into the sea, in order to attack tourists who are having fun in Sharm al-Sheikh.” 

Furthermore, in January of 2011, Saudi Arabian security forces detained a vulture carrying a global positioning satellite (GPS) transmitter and a ring etched with the words "Tel Aviv University." Officials exclaimed that the creature was part of a "Zionist espionage plot.

It is to be hoped that these fanatics come to their senses and release the bird rather than put it in front of a firing squad as a spy.

Song to help Israeli kids overcome trauma

Nobody copes well with constant danger, although some manage to control their fear better than others. In Israel there has been plenty to fear lately with constant rocket attacks aimed randomly at the civilian population. Most adults have through long experience, learned to cope, and through long practice, learned how to respond.

Children though, have to learn fast in order to survive despite a feeling of helplessness as the missiles fly around them. A song has been produced to assist them to overcome their fear and react as needed when they have to:
 

 Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best and most effective. It would require a psychologist to really assess the benefits of this approach, or in the case of a government assessment, several of them, along with representatives of several departments, child care and refugee advocates, and a couple of climate scientists just in case.

H/t Breitbart

Gaza; Oz Foreign Minister stuffs up again

The Israel Palestinian conflict tends to follow a familiar course.  First, Palestinians launch rockets, suicide attacks, or other incursions against Israel during which the Israelis are urged to show restraint while the talking heads tut-tut about it, generally propounding on what Israel must do to seek a lasting peace in the region.

The second phase is where Israel gets sick of it and responds.  This is met by accusations of unacceptable escalation, calls for restraint, some of them directed at both sides, but in the main, directed at Israel.

This time around, the same thing seems to be applying, although this time Australia has Bob Carr as Foreign Minister.  Bob, who tends not to register anything coming through his right eye, feels that it is the Israeli threat of a ground war that is responsible for the Palestinian rocket barrage: 

Australia's Foreign Minister Bob Carr has urged Israel and the Palestinians to exercise restraint, saying the rocket attack on Jerusalem signifies a dramatic escalation of the worsening Middle East conflict. 

Senator Carr says both sides should draw back from the brink of war.  "I understand Israel was already considering ground action,'' Senator Carr told Sky News today. 

"That was before these rocket attacks, so it's extremely serious and a dramatic escalation that has us again, as Australians, calling for both sides to exercise a high degree of restraint.'' 

Israeli Ambassador to Australia Yuval Rotem acknowledged the calls for restraint.  "The question is if we exercise restraint and the rockets continue to come all the way from Gaza, how are we going to stop it?'' he told Sky News.  "The rockets need to be stopped.”

Bob isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed and there has been a great deal of speculation on why the government picked him out from the relative obscurity of his role as a failed New South Wales Premier from some time back, to elevate him into the Senate and give him the plum Foreign Affairs portfolio.  Bob is a guy who justifies the expression, promoted beyond his level of incompetence.

The rocket attacks he refers to, are the long range ones which have been the most recent ones, after a long string of short range rockets were fired into Israeli territory. 

For Australia to be a credible participant on the world stage in the area of peaceful relations between nations, we have to be honest in our approach.  What Bob is doing weakens our integrity in this area and cheapens our contribution on the international stage.

Andrew Sullivan; ‘keeping the skeer’

The left hand side of politics, both here and in America tend to follow the aphorism of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, "Git 'em skeered and keep the skeer on 'em." 

While not admitting to being terrible in government, they recognize that the public thinks so and as result resort to tactics based on painting the opposition as worse than they are.  The main method of doing this is to use scare tactics, by painting the opposition as misogynists, racists, maniacs, destroyers, old people killers, slayers of Bambi’s mother, and eaters of puppies and kittens while demanding to be treated with civility themselves.

Leftard political commentator and gynecological conspiracy theorist, Andrew Sullivan has come up with the rather exotic theory that if Virginia and Florida go to the Republicans, the South will rise again with a new Confederacy: 

SULLIVAN: If Virginia and Florida go back to the Republicans, it's the confederacy, entirely. You put the map of the Civil War over this electoral map, you've got the Civil War. 

GWEN IFILL, PBS: I don't know. 

STEPHANOPOULOS: You're rolling your eyes, George. 

SULLIVAN: Am I wrong? 

George WILL: You are, and I'll say why. 

WILL: Democrats have been losing the white vote constantly since 1964, so that's not new. 

IFILL: John Kerry lost the white vote. 

WILL: Here's -- right. Here's what we're trying to talk about. 2008, from Obama, gets that many white votes. This time, the polls indicating may get this many. We're trying to explain this difference. Now, there are two possible explanations. A lot of white people who voted for Obama in 2008 watched him govern for four years and said, "Not so good. Let's try someone else." The alternative, the confederacy hypothesis, is those people somehow for some reason in the last four years became racist.

The left have been pursuing gutter politics for some time, parsing and spinning every statement, comment, event, and possibility through filters of racism, misogyny and anything else that has a nasty sounding ism they can use.  Sullivan tends to hyperventilate while being hyperbolic about wild conspiracy theories that exist only in his own mind, presuming that he is not just making it up as he goes along (and that he has a mind.)

Democrats would be well advised not to fret about all those Rebs down below the Mason Dickson Line digging out their old Civil War arsenals and stashes of Confederate dollars in anticipation of a new ‘War of Northern Aggression.’ 

Karzai’s Aussie troop meltdown; so why are we still in this shithole

Image: Three soldiers were murdered and two died in a chopper crash.

In the wake of the green on blue killing of three Australian soldiers in Afghanistan, the first reports of an action by Australian troops in the village of Sola village in Uruzgan, was a statement by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, expressing ‘outrage’ at the actions of our troops hunting the killer. He was claiming that troops acted outside their authority and killed a 70-year-old man and his son:

He claimed that the troops had acted outside the agreement with the coalition on how to conduct night raids. This agreement states that all such operations must be Afghan-led. He went on to claim that the Australian troops launched the raid "unilaterally. It now appears that Karzai seems to be getting his information from the Taliban and ignoring the facts:

A Western diplomat in Kabul described Mr. Karzai's statement as "insensitive.” (A senior NATO source described President Karzai's statement as "bizarre" and they were speculating about his motivation.) A spokesman for the coalition insisted that the Friday operation involved Afghan and Australian forces working "side by side.”

There were 12 Afghans detained and "two insurgents were killed during a small arms engagement as coalition troops entered a compound," said coalition spokesman Charlie Stadtlander. On Saturday, he added, all the Afghans detainees were released except for one, believed to be a "facilitator" who enabled the insider attack on the Australians and was also responsible for placing roadside bombs in the area.

A tribal elder in Sola village in Uruzgan, where the operation occurred, said he witnessed the raid and saw the presence of Afghan forces alongside Australian troops. According to Mr. Stadtlander, the two Afghans killed in the raid were insurgents, aged roughly 50 and 30 years old.

Mr. Karzai, by contrast, described the two dead men as innocent civilians—a "70-year-old man, Haji Raz Mohammad, and his 30-year-old son, Abdul Jalil.”

While our politicians are telling us that we ‘have to stay the course’, the Australian public are becoming increasingly sick of seeing our troops arriving home in coffins as result of the actions of our so called friends.

It is especially galling though that this piece of shit is quite relaxed and comfortable about attacking the integrity of our forces that are keeping him in his palace, that he doesn’t even bother checking the facts before he lets fly with an outburst. He appears to have swallowed the story of the other side lock, stock, and barrel, without bothering to discover the facts.

He has probably recruited another thousand Taliban with this statement.

Al Qaeda's failed Eurovision attack; Reason notices.

Image: ‘Jedward’; you would have to be piss weak to see them as a threat.

Nick Gillespie from Reason has written on a failed al Qaeda plot to kill Irish pop artists ‘Jedward’ and wreak havoc at the Eurovision song contest. It is unusual for the hard line libertarian media to notice such events but in this case, kudos to Nick.

There is a fair possibility that the failure of the plot was due to some extent as stated, to the disorganization of Al Qaeda itself. On the other hand, good intelligence probably played a part, and it is also possible that local populations in places like Azerbaijan are sick and tired of these weirdo’s in their midst and are reporting them to authorities.

Radical Islam tends to be outraged by popular music, claiming it’s ‘ungodly’ and distracts the faithful from their religious observances. What they are really afraid of is that the mass appeal of Western music, which is difficult to block given modern electronic devices, will bring the appeal of our lifestyles to the young.

Authoritarian clerics will lose their influence. This point has been raised here on a number of occasions. Gillespie has commented. It will be people like Jedward who liberate the Arab world because it’s this kind of pop craziness where you could be whatever you want to be, even if you’re from Ireland.

Perhaps this clip is appropriate:


From the Irish Times:

Forty people linked to Al-Qaeda have been arrested over a plot to kill Jedward at the Eurovision song contest.

Security services in host city Azerbaijan also recovered a major arms cache in the operation in which a number of key personnel and property were also targets, including Azeri President Ilham Aliyeve, the £100million Baku Crystal Hal and other major hotels which housed acts and officials connected to the song contest.

Azerbaijan has been targeted in a number of terror plots in recent months and Eurovision bosses confirmed they had spent hours devising a detailed emergency strategy in the event of an attack.

A police statement said: “The armed group set itelf the aim of mounting terror attacks, creating a mood of powerlessness and lawlessness, sowing ethnic and religious enmity and damaging Azerbaijan’s international image.”

Had these fascists been successful they would have probably have done incredible damage to their own side. Mass killings of singers, audiences, and the destruction of the venue would have filled the liberal entertainment industry, fans, and probably the liberal media with revulsion.

This in turn might have caused reporters to take their blinkers off and start noticing things like honour killings, stonings, beheadings, genital mutilation, and any number of other ‘cultural practices’ they seem to miss at present.

Hostage rescue, and no “Gutsy call” statement from VP?

Four hostages have been rescued by Special Forces who carried a long nighttime forced march and a firefight to release them. Oddly there are no ‘tense’ situation room scenes, nor ‘gutsy call’ statements from the leadership, and the only kudos apparent was given to the troops involved. A possible explanation might be; this one was carried out by the British SAS:

BRITAIN'S Special Air Service made a daring night-time march across the mountains in Afghanistan in a “breathtaking” operation to free the British aid worker Helen Johnston and three other hostages, David Cameron has revealed. … More than 10 of the heavily armed kidnappers were killed.

The SAS opted for what Mr Cameron called their “long route march at night” because they did not want to tip off the hostage-takers by arriving in a helicopter. A helicopter raid to rescue another British aid worker, Linda Norgrove, in 2010 backfired disastrously. The Taliban panicked when they heard the helicopters and Norgrove was killed in the ensuing chaos. …

In a significant toughening of the government's stance towards those who kidnap Britons, Mr Cameron said the outcome served as a warning that such groups could expect “a swift and brutal end.”

The action was part of a joint UK/ US operation in which the American Special Forces attacked another area where it was thought hostages could be located:

A contingent of British and American special forces supported by a dozens more paratroopers had been flown by helicopter into the area early in the week. While the American special forces headed towards the cave complex, about 30 British SAS undertook a long march to the mud hut compound.

The Americans found a group of kidnappers in the caves and killed them. But there were no hostages.

At about the same time the British SAS came across all four hostages being held by the second group. Although the kidnappers were armed with heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47s, the SAS killed them after a firefight.

A little late on Rememberance Day

Some years ago some of the fathers old mates were visiting and remarked that they had visited New Guinea and had tried to find the grave of my mothers cousin who was killed in action there. It seemed to have disappeared.

This year I happened to run into an image of it in Bomana War Cemetery to which it had been moved. I was intending to post it as a tribute to him but can't find it again. Instead I will go with this one.

Australian Muslim radical starts hate page.

Cartoon: by Pickering.

Ibrahim Siddiq-Conlon is up to his old stunts again, this time starting a Face book page, “The Australian Defence Force: The Real Terrorists” in which he listed every Australian killed in the Afghanistan campaign and accused them of being terrorists because of their military service.

We have mentioned Siddiq-Conlon in these pages before owing to his establishment of the Sharia4Australia movement. Conlon who sees democracy as a ‘challenge to Gods law’ wants to live under Sharia, and wants it imposed on all of us to stop us drinking beer, eating pork, and all the rest of those things his cult is intolerant towards.

It is uncertain what the attraction for such a drab and wretched lifestyle is with its women covered from head to toe, and most fun things like drinking booze, rock and roll, chatting up chicks, banned. Perhaps it’s the opportunity to be a member of the morals police, who get their jollies by whipping chicks who show a bit too much ankle, sort of like a male dominatrix force with the consensual aspect omitted.

His hate site has been taken down after the ADF received complaints and notified the Australian Federal Police and Facebook. If it were not the hurt it has caused the families of soldiers who have lost their lives there, it may have been for the best to leave it up. There is something positive in allowing the public to see it and assess for themselves just what a piece of shit he really is:

The unapologetic Muslim convert, who received death threats soon after creating the site, has continued to trash dead Diggers by posting hate-fuelled messages on other Facebook pages.

"May they rot in hell," he wrote in one message. In another posting he wrote: "I hope I got your blood boiling. That's what I like. It's my hobby. My fun. My pleasure.”

Australian-born Mr Siddiq-Conlon, formerly known as Shannon James Conlon, also labelled his grandfathers terrorists because of their service for the Australian Army in Kokoda and the Middle East. He has said he was proud of being referred to as an "extremist" and "terrorist supporter."

There is nothing new in Muslim antipathy towards those who fought against the Axis powers. There has been a long standing friendship between Muslims and fascists as depicted in this image of Hitler with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Mufti Haj al-Amin al-Husseini. Husseini spent most of WW2 in Italy and Germany and actively helped recruit Muslims into the Waffen SS.

Even our old mate Sydney cleric Sheikh Taj Din al-Hilali, (the thick Sheik) who created controversy when he referred to ‘immodestly’ clad women as ‘meat’ and inviting rape is concerned about extremists like Conlon:

Hilali told The Australian: "I am worried for our community and our society. I am worried for that because this will encourage the youth to act against elections and act against dealing with others, which is dangerous." He warned of Rambo-style preachers whose aggressive sermons appealed to "the way of youth."

"The louder they speak, the more youth they gather around them," he said.

Welcome news; Afghan traitor shot dead.

Image: Australian soldier Lance Corporal Andrew Jones, who was shot dead by a rogue Afghan soldier in Afghanistan.

Every battle casualty is a tragedy, but to have troops murdered by the very people they are attempting to train and protect is galling. Lance Corporal Jones was shot in cold blood when another Afghan soldier left for a few minutes, leaving him alone with the killer. He has now been tracked down and killed:

UPDATE 4.05pm: THE cowardly Afghan soldier who murdered army cook Lance Corporal Andrew Jones has been shot and killed by coalition forces.

Shafidullah Guhlamon was cornered by coalition troops near his home village in the Khost Province of eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistan border and told to surrender.

He refused and drew a weapon and was killed by the joint American-Afghan International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) patrol.

Defence Minister Stephen Smith confirmed Shafidulla's death today, saying he was killed by a coalition special forces operation with "limited Australian involvement".
Mr Smith said Shafidullah had "placed himself in a position where he was a direct threat to coalition forces and was shot dead as a result".

He said it would have been preferable if the murderer had been captured so he could have been interrogated, and that the investigation into the causes and reasons behind the death of Lance Cpl Jones would continue.

Shafidullah's brother, who was with him when he was shot dead, has been detained by US forces and will be questioned.

Time the US cut Europe adrift.

Cartoon: Ken Catalino.

A Washington Post opinion piece by George Will, “Libya and the Potemkin Alliance,” began as a criticism of the refusal of the Obama Administration to abide by the War Powers Resolution with regard to their action in Libya. He then went a lot further in criticizing, not only the war but the lack of judgment in the US policy of propping up Europe militarily when Europe seems to have little desire to accept responsibility itself for its own defense.

When, in March, Obama said, “building this international coalition has been so important,” he meant merely that a minority of the members of a 62-year-old alliance would seriously participate. Eight of NATO’s 28 members are attacking Gaddafi’s ground forces.

Obama, a novel kind of commander in chief, explained in passive syntax that, “it is our military that is being volunteered by others to carry out missions.” These “others” would rather finance their welfare states than their militaries, so they cannot wage war for 10 weeks without U.S. munitions and other assets.

Last month, this column noted that NATO was created in 1949 to protect Western Europe from the Soviet army; it could long ago have unfurled the “Mission Accomplished” banner; it has now become an instrument of mischief, and when the Libyan misadventure is finished, America should debate whether NATO also should be finished. …

… Hence Gates warned that “there will be dwindling appetite and patience in” America for expending “increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources or make the necessary changes to be serious and capable partners in their own defense.” Already, U.S. officers in Afghanistan sometimes refer to the NATO command there — officially, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) — as “I Saw Americans Fighting.”

While there may be some legitimate reasons to have a strategic presence in various parts of the world to protect American interests or to assist allies, or forward defence, it is becoming increasingly obvious that the US is being left to look after the security of the entire free world. While Britain has shown a willingness to assist, albeit on a much-reduced scale, it seems that Continental Europe is happy to leave it to stupid while they spend on welfare, bread and circuses rather than its own security.

The Libyan action is illogical in any case, even for Europe to be involved in. While the whole world was concerned about the real probability of a massacre by Guddafi’s forces, the intervention was launched when the Arab League called for it. This creates the ridiculous situation where the regional powers, some of which are among the wealthiest and best armed in the world, are able to be onlookers while someone else goes to the aid of their fellow Arabs.

In any case there is little benefit to be had by the US in supporting over a hundred thousand troops and masses of expensive equipment for the defense of Europeans, an action that appears to be counterproductive. Rather than use the US willingness to help hold back the threat of invasion by the USSR to rebuild their defensive capability, European countries have wound back their capability while using the resources thus freed to engage in an orgy of welfarism resulting in them being not worth the effort.

It is probably time for the US to give Europe a few years to get its act together, and then pull out.