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Muslim rebel attack kills 11 in southern Philippines [Oct. 2, 2008] Eight Muslim rebels and three soldiers have been killed in the latest outbreak of fighting in the troubled southern Philippines, a military official said. Guerrillas of the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) fired on an army patrol in Datu Piang town in the island of Mindanao yesterday, killing the three soldiers and wounding 12, local army commander Colonel Marlou Salazar said. Military reinforcements backed by armoured vehicles arrived later, prompting the rebels to flee using civilians as cover, he added. The bodies of eight rebels were recovered from...

Manila, Aug 5, 2008 / 12:28 am (CNA).- Thousands of Catholics in two southern Philippines cities on Monday demonstrated against a government agreement granting Muslims more territory and political and economic powers. One critic characterized the deal as the building of a “Berlin Wall” in the country and another called it a “virtual declaration” of a new state.Church bells rung and businesses closed for the protest in the mainly Catholic city of Zamboanga, Reuters says. About 10,000 people, many wearing red shirts to show their opposition, gathered at a demonstration where a Catholic archbishop and a local tribal leader...

Manila, May 6, 2008 / 04:03 am (CNA).- Archbishop of Manila Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales has forbidden cross-dressing homosexuals from dressing up as female saints in religious processions, calling the actions an “insult to the Blessed Mother.” Every May, Catholics throughout the Philippines hold a “Santacruzan” flower festival in honor of the Virgin Mary.Speaking to the church-run Radio Veritas on Monday, Cardinal Rosales said the cross-dressing was “horrendous” and “defeats the real purpose” of the procession.  He said that the Catholic faithful should keep religious festivals sacred and solemn at all times."Gays should not be allowed to participate in Santacruzan since...

Elephants thought extinct may have survived Pygmy elephant with radio collar. Credit: Cede Prudente The Borneo pygmy elephant may not be native to the island of Borneo after all. Instead, the population could be the last survivors of the Javan elephant race – accidentally saved from extinction by the Sultan of Sulu centuries ago, suggests an article co-authored by World Wildlife Fund (WWF). The origins of the pygmy elephants, found only on the northeast tip of the island in part of the Heart of Borneo, have long been shrouded in mystery. Their looks and behavior differ from other Asian...

The Philippine government is drafting a constitutional amendment that would authorize the establishment of a federal homeland for Muslims in the south of the country. The proposed amendment is part of a complex peace process between the government and a major Muslim rebel group. Douglas Bakshian reports from Manila. Last November, an important agreement was reached between the Philippine government and the rebel Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). The two sides agreed on the size of a proposed homeland for the country's Muslims in the south of the country. This definition of what is called "the territory" is part of...

MANILA, Dec. 27 (Xinhua) -- An animal rights group on Thursday blamed the Philippine customs for ruining their protest by confiscating inflatable sex dolls they planned to use for a global campaign against fowl cruelty. "The dolls were seized by customs officials when they arrived in the Philippines via U.S.-based package carrier UPS," the Hong Kong-based group, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), said in a statement released by its Manila office. PETA said it was hoping to use the sex dolls in its campaign against Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) for abuses of chickens. "The sex dolls would...

DATU BLAH SINSUAT, Philippines (Reuters) - When Christians in the southern Philippines heard that the government and Islamic rebels had agreed to expand a homeland for Muslims on their island, they panicked. "We started buying some weapons to defend our families and community," said Berting, a coconut farmer, whose farm sits in the heart of a mainly Muslim province in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao. Berting, who declined to give his last name, is a Catholic whose grandfather settled in the area nearly 80 years ago when Christian farmers moved to the lush jungles and valleys of mostly Muslim...

A group of lay Catholics are promoting natural family planning methods among the Philippine Muslim community to control the rising population without going against the beliefs held by the two religions. The group began its campaign in Maguindanao, southern Mindanao province, where the percentage of Muslims reaches 90 percent.     From there, the group hopes to carry its work to the rest of the country to tackle the problem of birth control without relying on artificial methods, AsiaNews reported Thursday.     The well known and much appreciated method, known as the "Billings ovulation method," is based on analysis of the female ovulation...

Is the United States out of the intervention business for a while? With two difficult wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a divided public, the conventional answer is that it will be a long time before any American president, Democrat or Republican, again dispatches troops into conflict overseas. As usual, though, the conventional wisdom is almost certainly wrong. Throughout its history, America has frequently used force on behalf of principles and tangible interests, and that is not likely to change. Despite the problems and setbacks in Iraq and Afghanistan, America remains the world's dominant military power, spends half a trillion...

A former FBI intelligence analyst who worked under two vice presidents could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison Wednesday for passing secret U.S. documents in a plot to topple the Philippine government. Leandro Aragoncillo, 48, who worked as a military aide to vice presidents Al Gore and Dick Cheney before joining the FBI as a civilian employee at Fort Monmouth, pleaded in 2006 to four charges. The most serious charge, conspiracy to transmit national defense information, can carry the death penalty, but under his plea agreement, Aragoncillo instead faces 15 to 20 years in prison. A co-conspirator,...

This is a partial transcript from "Hannity & Colmes," June 8, 2007,... SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: We go live now to the Philippines, where our own FOX News Channel's Colonel Oliver North is covering a major counter terror operation with a joint Philippine strike force and U.S. Special Op advisors on the hunt for the Islamic terror group .Colonel, what's happening?OLIVER NORTH, HOST, "WAR STORIES": Sean, today we went with U.S. Special Operations troops and Philippine troops to the scene of two recent battles with and rogue Moro National Liberation Front terrorists.For years, Islamic radicals have used this dense, triple canopy...

MANILA, Philippines (AP) - Gunmen abducted an Italian Roman Catholic priest who was on his way to a remote village to celebrate Sunday Mass in the southern Philippines, police said. Giancarlo Bossi, 57, was riding his motorcycle in Zamboanga Sibugay province's Payao township, about 500 miles south of Manila, when about 10 armed men blocked his path then seized him, said Senior Superintendent Francisco Cristobal, the provincial police chief. Cristobal said he suspected Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebels who operate in Zamboanga Sibugay, despite a cease-fire agreement with the government. He did not elaborate, but said that al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf...

PHILIPPINESFirst Mangyan priest ordained in the countrySantosh DigalA member of one of the oldest indigenous groupings in the country becomes a priest in a ceremony that draws thousands of faithful. The next day, the newly-ordained Father Oybad returned to his mountain community to celebrate. Calapan City (AsiaNews) – The first ethnic Magyan priest was ordained on April 17 in a ceremony that brought together many faithful. The new priest comes from one of the most ancient and least known indigenous groupings of the country.Although he had wanted a simple affair, Hanunuo Mangyan Gabayno Calinog Oybad’s entry into the priesthood was...

Globally, remittances make up about $230bn Money sent home by Filipinos working overseas last year totalled a record $12.8bn (£6.5bn), the Philippines' central bank has said.The remittances - a 20% rise on 2005 - account for about 10% of the country's economy, the bank added. Most of the eight million overseas workers are in the US or Middle East. According to the World Bank, the Philippines is the fifth-largest recipient of foreign remittances behind India, China, Mexico and France. It has forecast that Filipinos will send home about $14.1bn this year. Their remittances play an increasingly significant role in...

Separated by more than 7,000 miles, two different generations and two very different wars, a California Army National Guardsman in Baghdad wants to help bring Ben Waldron's World War II journal back home. The journal, rough-hewn and gray, was stolen Jan. 26, along with jewelry and cash from the Waldron home in Orangevale. In Baghdad, Lt. Col. Robert Spano, part of an engineering brigade from Sacramento, learned of the theft from a Bee story online. He felt an instant kinship -- he, too, is keeping a wartime journal -- and a duty to help. Spano is offering a $1,000 reward...

Happy Simbang Gabi to all. OK, be honest -- how many are scratching their heads? Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but those who fail today's Wide World of Catholicism pop quiz. However, fret not. It's a big church, it happens -- and while it's no easy task serving as the cheat sheet, somebody's gotta do it. In that vein, today's the fifth day of the traditional novena of pre-dawn Masses that are a revered (not to mention numerically huge) tradition in the Philippines. And where the Filipino community goes, the tradition comes along, packing parishes and...

Terror threat shuts down Asian summit: Philippine sources CEBU, Philippines (AFP) - The Philippines abruptly called off a high-profile summit of Asian leaders, blaming a looming tropical storm even as foreign ministry sources said terror threats were the reason. The cancellation came a day after six nations including the United States issued a warning for Cebu, the resort island hosting the summit, due to threats of a terrorist strike. Australia said attack plans were in the "final stages." Foreign ministers from across Asia and other top diplomats were racing late Friday to sign a series of planned agreements before leaving...

(Compiled by BangkokPost.com) Manila Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez has threatened to feed to the sharks both local and foreign activists who even think of disrupting next month’s Southeast Asian summit. The Summit of Leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations is to be held in the central city of Cebu on Dec 11-13. Allies such as Australia will also be at the meeting. The summit is likely to advance to 2015 the target date for integrating the region into a European Union-style market. The Philippines media quoted Mr Gonzalez over the weekend as saying he had received intelligence reports...

Democrats trying to make political hay out of the resignation of Florida Republican Congressman Tom Foley should take a good look at their own party. There was Bill Clinton’s last minute pardon of former Rep. Mel Reynolds, D-IL, who had been imprisoned for having sex with a 16-year-old staffer. (He was later hired by Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition; both Clinton and Jackson had also had sex with subordinates.) There is the case of Rep. Barney Frank, D-MA, whose office housed a prostitution ring. However, less known is one Hawaiian case, in which more than seven high ranking Democrat senators and...

Finding recent pictures of Mayon's current eruption isn't easy. Here are two: This picture of lava on the mountain was taken July 31. This picture of a pyroclastic flow on Mayon's slopes was taken August 12. Mayon is a beautiful mountain when it isn't being nasty, and it's amazingly symmetrical. Two views:

SPRATLY ISLANDS--Flying westward about an hour off Palawan Island in the Philippines, you come to a large, rusting ship lying grounded on a sandbank in the South China Sea. The ship is derelict, but Filipino soldiers stand guard, making a public show that this part of the hotly disputed Spratly Islands is Philippine territory. Ten minutes later, on another sandbank, white-walled, red-roofed buildings appear. This time the structures are Chinese, and a Chinese warship is stationed nearby. "Previously, an armed helicopter was on the warship," said the pilot of a Philippine air force plane that took journalists over the territory....

MANILA, Philippines (CNS) -- Divine Word Father Benigno Beltran talks about bandwidth, e-trading and income streams with the ease of a Silicon Valley technophile, yet the ever-present smell of burning garbage betrays his surroundings. Father Beltran is pastor of Manila's Parish of the Risen Christ, a congregation of scavengers who live alongside Smokey Mountain, the Philippine capital's legendary -- and ever smoldering -- garbage dump. Father Beltran, who has lived among his parishioners for 27 years, knows their desperate marginalization, so he is aggressively pushing a high-tech solution to their poverty. "Globalization is only antagonistic to those who aren't prepared...

Thousands of Indonesians with experience as Islamic militants in Afghanistan, Southern Philippines, Sri Lanka and Libya are believed to be residing in big cities in Java and West Sumatra although it is not known whether they were also part of the terrorist network led by the Malaysian terrorist duo Dr Azahari and Noordin M. Top. The statement was made by two Indonesian intelligence agents in Singapore and Jakarta on Friday following a statement by Din Syamsuddin, chairman of Indonesia's second biggest Moslem mass organization, Muhammadiyah, that some 3,000 former militant fighters from Afghanistan had been recruited since 1980 to wage...

    Denies jewels were stolen VIDEO: Fight For Gems IMELDA DEFENDS WEALTH Imelda Marcos, former first lady of the Philippines who was infamous for owning thousands of shoes, is promising a fierce fight against plans to auction her jewellery collections.  The widow of Ferdinand Marcos told Sky News' Asia Correspondent Dominic Waghorn her wealth was honestly earned and her belongings cannot legally be sold.It was her first interview since the Philippine government announced the sell-off.She told Waghorn: "It's not true that this is still stolen money, that it is ill gotten, that it's taken from corruption or taken from the people,...

THE United States is “America” to most people. But that word refers to the continent. When applied to the United States, it is better spelled with a “k,” as in “swastika.” It’s the country most Filipinos want to visit. But if you’ve ever been involved in any group or activity faintly progressive; if you have relatives or friends who have been there; or you’re from a country that its officials say harbors “terrorist groups,” you’d be tempting fate to go there. No matter how vague or past your involvement, it could earn you a strip search, an interrogation session with...

MANILA, Aug. 28 (Xinhuanet) -- The Abu Sayyaf group was the perpetrator of a blast which injured 30 people Sunday morning on a ferry in Basilan island, southern Philippines, said a Philippine official. The vice mayor of Lamitan town where the blast took place, Jimmy Andong, told local media that the blast was the handiwork ofAbu Sayyaf bandits, who were disguised as fishermen. Lamitan police also confirmed that a homemade bomb, instead of a gas tank as was earlier reported by the military, ripped through the kitchen portion of the M/V Dona Ramona around 07:00 a.m. local time Sunday morning....

"The Great Raid" was a very enjoyable, stirring, and patriotic movie about heroic Americans and Filipinos in WW II. It was the most successful raid of prisoners in our history. Some idiot at the end of the movie yelled out in the movie theatre -- "That's torture, Ted Kennedy; you shut the hell up!" Yes, that idiot would, of course, be yours truly. No wonder Mrs. DFU usually wants to avoid going to movie theatres with me and would rather rent them. I can't blame her. And during the last presidential campaign, she cringed when I demanded that the waitress...

Jakarta, 16 August (AKI/Jakarta Post) -Indonesian police are working together with their Philippine counterparts to hunt down two Indonesian members of the al-Qaeda linked Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) militant group who are believed to be undergoing military training at Camp Hubaidiyah in the autonomous Muslim region of Mindanao, in the southern Philippines. The two alleged Indonesian members of JI - blamed for the notorious 2002 nightclub bombings in Bali which killed 202 people, as well as other attacks - were identified as Ahmad and Abu Nida. The two had escaped from Indonesia to the Philippines, an Indonesian police spokesman said. The...

About 120,000 people have held a demonstration in Manila urging Philippine President Gloria Arroyo to stay in office. President Arroyo is facing allegations of election rigging and members of her family are accused of taking pay-offs from illegal gambling. With her presidency in peril, a large turn-out was crucial to Mrs Arroyo's chances of survival. Three days ago 30,000 demonstrators demanded the president's resignation. But on Saturday the president's supporters fought back with a rally of their own. Tens of thousands of people filled Rizal Park - a stretch of green in the heart of the Philippine capital. They waved...

By Scott D. Kahn Thirty-five year old Yonkers resident Fernando Sero pleaded guilty in federal court on Wednesday to illegally selling assault rifle parts to terrorists in the Philippines in March. The weapons were likely sold to communist guerillas, a Muslim seperatist group known as the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, and two terrorist groups with ties to al-Queda. The groups were based out of Mindanao Island, an ungovernable part of the Philippines that is overrun with terrorists and militants. Sero’s family owns a compound on the island. Sero had been under investigation by the U.S. government for allegedly shipping illicit...

Two men believed to be former soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army have been found on Mindanao Island in the southern Philippines, the Japanese Embassy in Manila reported Thursday. The embassy sent three officials to the southern Mindanao city of General Santos on Friday, who were to meet later in the day with the two men to determine whether they were Japanese stragglers. But the meeting was pushed back to Saturday at the earliest when the two men learned the meeting venue was ringed by about 30 members of the press. The embassy officials suggested a location out of the...

A militant Moro party-list group branded as a “prelude to an intensified military intervention” in southern Philippines the arrival in Sulu of 25 American military personnel. “We refused to believe that the US military is surveying Sulu for humanitarian reasons. The US government does not give away anything for free or charity. It gives because it wants to conquer and gain more profit for its war agenda in Mindanao,” said Cosain Naga, spokesperson for the Suara Bangsamoro Party-List. Naga stressed that the arrival of the US military personnel “is part of US plan to establish influence and forces to advance...

Manila (AsiaNews/C-Fam) -  One of the most populous Catholic countries in the world is set to significantly liberalize its laws on family planning and "reproductive health" services, stopping just short of outright legalization of abortion. The proposed legislation, which is likely to pass within months, sets in place a "comprehensive national policy" that discriminates against families with more than two children and requires the Catholic Church to provide sex education in schools and to pay for the sterilizations of its employees. House Bill 3773, entitled, "Responsible Parenthood and Population Management Act of 2005," says, "The State . . . guarantees...

AS the Vatican prepared to select a successor to Pope John Paul II, church leaders in the Philippines, Asia's largest Roman Catholic nation, urged the College of Cardinals not to elect a "liberal" pontiff. The Filipino church said that the leader of the world's more than one billion Roman Catholics must uphold church doctrine on such issues as marriage, abortion, birth control, and priesthood for women. The Philippines is one of few countries in the world where the majority Catholics are in broad agreement with the Vatican in its opposition to abortion, artificial contraceptives, and the ordination of women priests,...

The United States topples an unsavory regime in relatively brief military action, suffering a few hundred fatalities. America then finds itself having to administer a country unaccustomed to democratic self-rule. Caught unawares by an unexpectedly robust insurgency, the United States struggles to develop and implement an effective counterinsurgency strategy. The ongoing US presidential campaign serves as a catalyst to polarize public opinion, as the insurrectionists step up their offensive in an unsuccessful attempt to unseat the incumbent Republican President. These events—from a century ago—share a number of striking parallels with the events of 2003 and 2004. The Philippine Insurrection of...

Mayor Tomas Osmena yesterday admitted there is no guarantee the series of bomb attacks in three Philippine cities that left at least 12 people dead and 145 others injured last Valentine’s Day is not going to happen in Cebu City. “ I’m not saying we are in a better position. We just can’t guarantee that it won’t happen because there are some extreme radical groups that might implement it, “ Osmena said. The bombings that rocked Makati, Davao and General Santos were claimed by the Abu Sayyaf Muslim terrorist group allied with the Jemaah Islamiyah, the Southeast Asian arm of...

SO WHERE'S the Marcos loot? Anakpawis party-list Representative Rafael Mariano posed this question as he challenged President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to show proof that the $683 million in recovered assets of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos was still intact. "The multimillion-dollar question is: 'Is the ill-gotten wealth still intact? Where is it?'" Mariano asked. In a statement, Mariano said the President was turning the victims of Marcos atrocities into treasure hunters "looking and waiting for luck." He said part of the money might have been used for the campaign of Ms Arroyo in the 2004 presidential election. "We will not stoop to...

They thought becoming mail-order brides to South Koreans was their ticket to an affluent and comfortable life. The video shown to them by the broker featured smiling Filipino-Korean couples on their wedding day and ostensibly living in marital bliss in South Korea. But little did they know that a few months after the lavish weddings, the women would be divorced and forced to work in nightclubs or factories just to survive. 'It's sexual exploitation and they are using the marriage, which turns out to be fake, to exploit our women,' said Mr Romulo Asis, head of the National Bureau of...

MEXICO CITY — About 100,000 Asian slaves were brought to Mexico by the Manila galleons through the centuries, a dark side of the trade that has not been explored by historians. The slaves were captured by Spanish and Portuguese traders in India, Burma, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Mindanao, loaded on the galleons in Manila and transported to Acapulco. *** One such slave was a Filipino by the name of Nicolas Tolentino, who ended up in Chihuahua in northern Mexico, birthplace of the revolutionary hero Pancho Villa. Because the Spanish king had orders that Filipinos were not to be enslaved, Tolentino...

You can call him Al.Rosabelle Hamann did, back when she painted his portrait in the jungles of New Guinea. That was 1944, when she was a Red Cross volunteer. Al was a soldier recuperating from -- well, that part's not clear. Wounds from the Philippines campaign? Jungle rot? Probably both. In her painting, she caught the blue-gray eyes, the brown, curly hair, the hint of a smile. ``Sgt. Al Blackman,'' she wrote at the bottom. ``S.F. Phy. Cult. -- Swell guy.'' ``Phy. Cult.'' is probably a reference to physical culture or body-building; ``Swell guy'' needs no explanation. Blackman was one...

HELICOPTER gunships blasted Muslim rebel positions in the southern Philippines today after guerillas attacked an army outpost violating a two-year-old ceasefire. Fighting broke out late yesterday when about 100 guerillas of the Muslim separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) attacked soldiers on the outskirts of Mamasapano town in central Mindanao. They used mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles, spokesmen for the military and MILF said. Fighting continued throughout the night and into today and two MG520 helicopters were called in to attack MILF positions. Extra troops were also deployed to prevent the rebels from overrunning the outpost, military spokesman Colonel...

MANILA -- Two men suspected in the bombings that killed 42 people in Davao City last year have been arrested. Authorities claimed Thursday the two were linked to the al-Qaida-allied Southeast Asian terror group Jemaah Islamiyah. They are suspected of planting a bomb outside Davao airport terminal in March 2003, which killed 23 people including an American missionary and wounded 127 others, and another bomb a month later, at the southern city's busy wharf that killed 19 and wounded 39.

"Mr. President, today as we hear much rhetoric in the U.S. Senate about the spread of communism throughout the world and the need of the United States to make efforts to try to respond to that so-called threat." He said this in the context of supporting his resolution to pressure Marcos and the Phillipines for democratic reform. He may have been right on some aspects, but once again his rhetoric was naive and dangerous.

First reports. No info on damage in Manila.

I need some help, fellow Freepers... I am composing a video of graphic pictures, to be accompanied by music by "peace" loving liberals. Does anyone have a good source for pictures?

MANILA, Philippines (AP) -- Four members of a family have been arrested and charged with murder for allegedly killing and eating a relative during a wedding reception -- and serving his flesh to unwitting party guests, police have said. At the July 17 wedding of his daughter, Eladio Baule got angry with his cousin Benjie Ganay who tripped and accidentally touched the bride's bottom, said Senior Police Inspector Perla Bacuel, at Narra town in Palawan province, southwest of Manila. A few hours later, Baule, his son Gerald, another cousin Junnie Buyot and a nephew, Sabtuari Pique, allegedly confronted Ganay, then...

By Vicente B. FozInquirer News Service Editor's Note: Published on page C3 of the August 3, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer THE RECENT appointment of Peruvian Hernando de Soto, a renowned social science expert, as one of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's economic advisers, is a significant step in the government's continuing effort to alleviate poverty and promote economic growth.Known as the "poor man's capitalist," De Soto has been successful in carrying out economic reforms that empower the poor. His specific advocacy: granting the poor legal rights over lands they occupy so these can be used as collaterals to borrow...

Australia says won’t apologise to Spain, Philippines (Reuters) 27 July 2004 CANBERRA - Australia refused on Tuesday to apologise to Spain and the Philippines after blaming them for encouraging militants to issue threats by withdrawing their troops from Iraq. Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Spain and the Philippines needed “to face up to the truth” that terrorists, who were using them as examples when threatening other countries with attack, were exploiting them. Spain summoned Australia’s ambassador in Madrid on Monday to protest Downer’s comments over the past two days, which it described as “unacceptable”. “There’s no point in trying...

The Malaysian government, Malacañang and the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) yesterday refused to confirm or deny reports that $6 million in ransom was paid out to the Iraqi kidnappers for the release of Filipino truck driver Angelo de la Cruz in time for President Arroyo's State of the Nation Address (Sona) scheduled for July 26. Officials from both governments declined to give any statement and evaded media queries on the Tribune report which stated, quoting intelligence sources, that $5 million was shelled out by Malaysia while the Philippines coughed off $1 million from the Landbank of the Philippines for...

Once dubbed the "sick man of Asia" for its anemic showing during the 1980s Asian economic boom, the Philippines has now earned the title "weak man of Asia" — by caving in to terrorist demands in exchange for the release of a Filipino truck driver in Iraq. By being the first country to pull its troops out of Iraq over a terrorist hostage situation, the Philippines has, in one fell swoop: Encouraged terrorists thugs to take more hostages in Iraq — and beyond. Emasculated itself at home in the face of a growing Muslim terrorist insurgency. Stabbed its ardent counterterrorism...