And lock up your Ronald McDonalds.
The forgotten Mohammed cartoon.

Strategy Page;

The Israeli strategy appears to be to allow the UN deal to self-destruct. If the UN peacekeepers can disarm Hizbollah, fine. If not, Israeli ground troops will come back in and clear everyone out of southern Lebanon. At that point, it will be obvious that no one else is willing, or able, to deal with the outlaw “state-within-a-state” that Hizbollah represents. Hizbollah will still exist after being thrown out of southern Lebanon, and it will be up to the majority of Lebanese, and the rest of the Arab world, to deal with Hizbollah and radical Shias.
Hizbollah suffered a defeat. Their rocket attacks on Israel, while appearing spectacular (nearly 4,000 rockets launched), were unimpressive (39 Israelis killed, half of them Arabs). On the ground, Hizbollah lost nearly 600 of its own personnel, and billions of dollars worth of assets and weapons. Israeli losses were far less.
While Hizbollah can declare this a victory, because it fought Israel without being destroyed, this is no more a victory than that of any other Arab force that has faced Israeli troops and failed. Arabs have been trying to destroy Israel for over half a century, and Hizbollah is the latest to fail. But Hizbollah did more than fail, it scared most Moslems in the Middle East, because it demonstrated the power and violence of the Shia Arab minority. Sunni Arabs, and most Arabs are Sunnis, are very much afraid of Shia Moslems, mainly because most Iranians are Shia, not Arab, and intent on dominating the region, like Iran has done so many times in the past. Hizbollah’s recent outburst made it clear that Iran, which subsidizes and arms Hizbollah, has armed power that reaches the Mediterranean. This scares Sunni Arabs because a Shia minority also continues to rule Syria (where most of the people are Sunni). The Shia majority in Iraq, which have not dominated Iraq for over three centuries, is now back in control.
Hizbollah did enjoy a victory in its recent war, but it was over Sunni Arabs, not Israel.

But are their ankles covered?
(Keep the comments clean, please.)

… the Islamic Republic has now specifically announced that should their nuclear dossier be voted for referral by the United Nations Security all political prisoners, whether on furlough or in prison, will be summarily executed.

Via Michael Ledeen at NRO.

One of those places on the globe that always seems poised to answer when the question “How could it be worse?” is asked;

The African front line in the West’s war on terrorism has collapsed as mass resignations from Somalia’s fragile government have all but handed power to hard-line Islamists.
Twenty senior officials quit the United Nations-backed transitional administration this week. That brought to 39 – a third of the government – the number who have abandoned the struggle to stabilise the country and ward off the threat of an Islamist regime giving succour to al-Qa’eda in east Africa.
[…]
The prospect of the wholesale collapse of Mr Gedi’s government has sent shockwaves through the Horn of Africa, where many people blame a botched attempt by the United States to oppose the Islamic militia. Washington has denied that it backed a loose alliance of warlords and businessmen that opposed the militia but lost the battle for control of Mogadishu in June.
That defeat paved the way for the militia to sweep through the south of the country, imposing sharia law, closing down cinemas and banning fans from watching football.

Michael Totten was in southern Lebanon last year. He has a photo gallery of what the place looked like prior to the Israeli action. Not a lot to recommend it, sadly.

Submission.

Memri;

Iranian President Ahmadinejad Addresses Rally & Warns the U.S. & England: The Fire of the Wrath of the Peoples is About to Erupt & Overflow & the People Will Soon Rage; Today the Iranian People is the Owner of Nuclear Technology

Things go downhill from there.
Video

An idea whose time has come;

At any rate, it seems as though there are plenty of people who aren’t at all happy here in the West. I have it on good authority that there are people who are none to keen on living in repressive dictatorships.
With all this talk of prisoner swaps, I’d like to go one better. I’d like to exchange the Islamists bent on destroying my country from the inside with the democracy advocates being tortured in Iran. Sounds fair to me.
The people worship oppressive dictatorships can just go live in one. The people who will not choke on the sweet air of freedom can come live here.
That’s about all I have to say to you folks. If things continue as they are, you’ll be looking back on this and wondering why you didn’t take me up on it.
In other words, I’m tired of the worst 5th Column in the history of 5th Columns running around my country. They openly support a terrorist organization. They openly praise Hitler. They openly support the destruction of Israel. However, to make mention of this in public makes you an “islamophobe” and may get you charged with a hate crime.

The “Tottenham Ayatollah” isn’t so keen on martyrdom, after all.
More.

Bill Whittle, in Strength (an essay from May 2004, you should read or read again);

Finally, consider this: Muslims are angrily at war with Buddhists in East Asia. Muslims are enraged with Animists in Africa. Of course, none of this approaches the sheer hatred that Muslims bear towards Hindus in the South Asia peninsula. And this foaming hatred blanches compared to the white-hot fury Muslims feel for the Christian American Crusaders. And this fury is but a candle to the incandescent, boiling, supernova of murder they feel toward the Jews.
Does anyone beside me detect a pattern here? You know, my Dad told me once, “Bill, if more than three people in your life are utter, total assholes, then maybe it’s you.”

Developments in the under-reported situation in Somalia;

Ethiopian troops in armored vehicles rolled into Somali Thursday and set up a camp near the home of the interim president, residents said, less than a day after Islamic militants reached the outskirts of the base of a U.N.-backed, but largely powerless government.
A leader of the Islamic group controlling large parts of southern Somalia demanded that Ethiopian troops withdraw. “We will declare Jihad if the Ethiopian government refuses to withdraw their troops from Somalia. They must withdraw as soon as possible … We will wait for some time to see if they respect our demands,” Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed told The Associated Press.
A spokesman for the Ethiopian government had said that his country would protect Somalia’s transitional government from attack by the Somali Islamic militias. Numerous witnesses told The AP that Ethiopian soldiers arrived Thursday afternoon in Baidoa, the only town held by the government, 240 kilometers (150 miles) northwest of Mogadishu and about 150 kilometers (100 miles) east of the Ethiopian border.
[…]
Militia loyal to Supreme Islamic Courts Union reached within 35 kilometers (20 miles) of Baidoa on Wednesday, prompting the government to go on high alert in anticipation of an attack. The militia was expected to pull back on Thursday, court officials said.
The Supreme Islamic Courts Council militia seized Mogadishu and most of the rest of southern Somalia last month and has shown signs of planning to install strict religious rule, sparking fears it was a Taliban-style regime. The U.S. has accused the militia of links to al-Qaida that include sheltering suspects in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Burqa blogging;

” [I]f he ever refuses a clear opportunity to leave for jihad, then i want the choice of divorce.”

Scott Atran: What are the conditions for Islam to be strong?
Abu Bakar Bashir: The infidel country must be visited and spied upon. If we don’t come to them, they will persecute Islam. They will prevent non-Muslims converting.
SA: What can the West, especially the US, do to make the world more peaceful?
ABB: They have to stop fighting Islam. That’s impossible because as Allah has said in the Koran. If they want to have peace, they have to accept to be governed by Islam.

More thoughts on achieving peace in our time from the man who brought you the Bali bombings.
Abu Bakar Bashir was released from prison in Jakarta last week.

The governor of Pattani (Thailand) wants to offer a bounty on Islamic terrorists;

The governor of Pattani wants to offer cash rewards of 50,000-100,000 baht to civilians who kill or injure insurgents in gun fights. He says rewards would give people an incentive to fight back, but academics and law experts argue it would just encourage more extra-judicial killing.
However, caretaker Justice Minister Chidchai Wannasathit and army chief Sonthi Boonyaratglin appeared to second the idea yesterday.
Pattani governor Panu Uthairat said his proposal was a security measure aimed at protecting the lives of innocent people in the province. ”In some cases, people want to retaliate. Some have fired warning shots into the sky. Others clashed with insurgents who were killed or wounded in the process,” he said.”Some wounded insurgents were caught. In the past, we handed out 5,000 to 10,000 baht in cash to civilians to boost their morale so they will fight back in self-defence,” he said.
A source said civilians would be given 50,000 baht each if their return fire hit any insurgents, leading to their capture. The amount would double if the insurgents were killed.

Background.
Via Grim’s Hall. Read the commentary there, as well.

Begin lesson planhere.
Andrew McCarthy on the media template;

Nonetheless, the rigorous media practice in Phase One is to suppress any reference to Islam, the single thread that runs through virtually all modern terrorism—from New York, to Virginia, to Bali, the Djerba, to Baghdad, to Mombassa, to Tel Aviv, to Nairobi, to Dar es Salaam, to Ankara, to Paris, to Riyadh, to Amman, to Sharm el-Sheikh, to Aden, to London, to Madrid, and, now, to Toronto.

Christie Blatchford strikes a similar note: “I drove back from yesterday’s news conference at the Islamic Foundation of Toronto in the northeastern part of the city, but honestly, I could have just as easily floated home in the sea of horse manure emanating from the building.”
“Imagine a 1938 story about Kristallnacht that spoke of ‘German youths’ representing ‘broad strata’ of society, and never once mentioning Hitler or National Socialism.”
SDA flashback – June 30, 2005;

Thailand: 600 dead in 2 years.
I did not know that.
While I appreciate that they have their hands full pursuing the Self-Fulfilling Prophesy Project in Iraq, one would think that our khaki-clad friends covering the international “militancy” beat might have mentioned it in passing.

Flash forward – May 31, 2006;

To date, more than 1,200 people have been killed since January 2004—a date that the media cites as the start of the insurgency (in reality it began in early 2001)—and several thousand more have been wounded. There have been three beheadings this year, bringing the total to 24.

You’d think those Thais would know better than to meddle in the Middle East.
Update – From the Department Of You Can’t Make This Stuff Up:

Before the raids came the sensitivity training: Tactical-squad Mounties learned how to properly handle Korans prior to arresting 17 terrorism suspects on the weekend.
And that’s not all. The RCMP also made sure there were clean prayer mats on hand for their suspects when they were sent to jail cells.
Then, after everything wrapped up, authorities met with a number of Muslim leaders to impress upon them that officers were going after specific individuals, not the community as a whole.

A reader writes – “I wonder if they also met with the families of the Bandidos after they arrested them.”
I look forward to the reports of how the Royal Canadian Sensitive Police will handle religious needs (his and hers and hers and hers towels?) if and when they ever decide to sweep in on the poligamist colony at Bountiful. Unless you know, “sensitvity” is a gesture extended only to those religious “communities as a whole” that exhibit a tendency to self-detonate.
Use the comments for related comments and links.

Glenn Reynolds, on the abysmal quality of reporting coming out of Afghanistan, where there seems to be a concerted effort on the part of the mainstream press to convince the public that the Taliban are reasserting control;

[T]he news reports, rather exaggerated to begin with, are of the form “Dozens killed in renewed fighting,” without mentioning that most of those killed are people who should be killed.

He has links to more.

Via Confederate Yankee (where there’s a lot more), this telling quote from Hizbollah deputy chief Sheikh Naim Kassem ;

“If we assume the worst possible scenario, that Iran was completely cut off, Hizbollah would continue because it is based on faith. We are a political, ideological and jihadist party…,” Kassem said. “This is a religion we believe in whether Iran is there or not.“

Emphasis mine.

Amir Taheri stands by his story;

Regarding the dress code story it seems that my column was used as the basis for a number of reports that somehow jumped the gun.
As far as my article is concerned I stand by it.The law has been passed by the Islamic Majlis and will now be submitted to the Council of Guardians. A committee has been appointed to work out the modalities of implementation.
Many ideas are being discussed with regard to implementation, including special markers, known as zonnars, for followers of Judaism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism, the only faiths other than Islam that are recognized as such. The zonnar was in use throughout the Muslim world until the early 20th century and marked out the dhimmis, or protected religious minorities. ( In Iran it was formally abolished in 1908).
I have been informed of the ideas under discussion thanks to my sources in Tehran, including three members of the Majlis who had tried to block the bill since it was first drafted in 2004.
I do not know which of these ideas or any will be eventually adopted. We will know once the committee appointed to discuss them presents its report, perhaps in September.
Interestingly, the Islamic Republic authorities refuse to issue an official statement categorically rejecting the concept of dhimmitude and the need for marking out religious minorities.
I raised the issue not as a news story, because news of the new law was already several days old, but as an opinion column to alert the outside world to this most disturbing development.

Mark Helprin is being interviewed after 8:00 eastern, talking about Iran. Listen online live.
Station list
Another Helprin item – The Unvarnished Immigration Debate from Sunday’s WaPo.

“I feel it’s 1938 again – Bernard Lewis *

More: Joyner has been following the updates (as have readers in the comments).
Damian Penny;

The lefty bloggers, not surprisingly, are jumping up and down with faux outrage about righty bloggers (including myself) writing about this untrue story.
So, guys, has Karl Rove been indicted yet?

Jonah Goldberg;

Fascism — as opposed to its German variant Nazism — is not primarily, fundamentally or at least necessarily about bigotry, toward Jews or anybody else. It is about collectivism, in one form or another. It is about imposing — with both the carrot of socialism and the stick of the police state — uniformity on the entire body politic, to get all the oars pulling at the same time, in the same direction. The fact that the Iranian regime wants to enforce a national dress code which is “authentically” Iranian says more about their fascistic impulses than the regime’s anti-Semitism. Not only does anti-Semitism predate fascism by a lot of centuries, but anti-Semitism is not unique to fascism nor is it always present in fascist movements. What is always present is the desire to enforce conformity and uniformity on the masses. So breathe your sigh of relief if your concern is the maltreatment of Jews in Iran (though a small sigh it must be). But if your concern was that Iran might be fascistic, then the debunking of the yellow star story should not allay your fears at all.

May 23 Update: Amir Taheri stands by his story;

The law has been passed by the Islamic Majlis and will now be submitted to the Council of Guardians. A committee has been appointed to work out the modalities of implementation.
Many ideas are being discussed with regard to implementation, including special markers, known as zonnars, for followers of Judaism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism, the only faiths other than Islam that are recognized as such. The zonnar was in use throughout the Muslim world until the early 20th century and marked out the dhimmis, or protected religious minorities. ( In Iran it was formally abolished in 1908).
I have been informed of the ideas under discussion thanks to my sources in Tehran, including three members of the Majlis who had tried to block the bill since it was first drafted in 2004.
I do not know which of these ideas or any will be eventually adopted. We will know once the committee appointed to discuss them presents its report, perhaps in September.
Interestingly, the Islamic Republic authorities refuse to issue an
official statement categorically rejecting the concept of dhimmitude and the need for marking out religious minorities.
I raised the issue not as a news story, because news of the new law was already several days old, but as an opinion column to alert the outside world to this most disturbing development.