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While US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama leads rival Hillary Clinton in the polls, Palestinians in Gaza are launching their own attempt to boost his campaign. See video Gaza's Obama campaign

In Lebanon, the Iranian-backed vanguard of terror known as Hezbollah has again drawn its weapons to provoke the worst crisis since it launched a war against Israel in the summer of 2006. The fighting that began last week in Beirut, and then relocated east to the Chouf Mountains and north to Tripoli, is the latest act in the relentless smothering of the Lebanese democratic state. At best, we might next see an uneasy respite in the killing while the usual players haggle, President Bush trolls the region for that oh-so-elusive Middle-East-peace legacy, Hezbollah further stocks its arsenal and from behind...

Professors Against the War on Terror by: Bethany Stotts, May 09, 2008 The complaint that the Iraq War is the result of a neoconservative conspiracy to unduly expanded U.S. interests abroad has become popular among professors and antiwar activists, as is the assertion that the War on Terror has undermined American civil liberties and destroyed America’s reputation abroad. A new policy report by Politics professor Ian Lustick, published by the Independent Institute, is no different. However, the University of Pennsylvania professor’s report is unique in that he derives most of his inflammatory material from news outlets, including ABC News, the...

Perhaps some insiders (or those unwillingly part) of the Clintonistas’ administration realized that what we (the USA) were doing was just not right - and so the award/medal could not be called/designated in more accurate terms as the “Re-establishment of the Islamic Caliphate” Medal… So better to have sent in the Girl Scouts - as things would have ended up basically the same as they have, except perhaps with less loss of innocent life. Anyway, it’s is also off of my uniform forever. My only desire is that in some very small way it may help people to become aware...

He rose through the ranks and paid his dues. He beat the odds to become not only the top Canadian military man, but a key cog for NATO in Bosnia-Herzegovina and subsequently became the point-man in the Free World’s War on Terror with his successful tenure as Commander of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. Not only did he work tirelessly to rebuild the Canadian Armed Forces to a level of respectability, he instilled a long-lost pride in our military by spearheading the change from ‘peacekeeping force’ to actual ‘military’. In some nations, they would give him...

It is interesting to note that CAIR director Nihad Awad will soon be sharing center stage in a major conference with Mohammad Akram al-Adlouni, the probable author of the most damning documents made public during the Holy Land Foundation trial. The conference in Denmark, heavily populated with Muslim Brotherhood figures, is, according the program, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Nakbah or catastrophe, as they refer to the founding of the state of Israel. the old gang is getting together again, in the service of the Muslim Brotherhood and its armed wing, Hamas. It was al-Adlouni who penned the...

Sixty years after its establishment by an internationally recognized act of self-determination, Israel remains the only state in the world that is subjected to a constant outpouring of the most outlandish conspiracy theories and blood libels; whose policies and actions are obsessively condemned by the international community; and whose right to exist is constantly debated and challenged not only by its Arab enemies but by segments of advanced opinion in the West. During the past decade or so, the actual elimination of the Jewish state has become a cause célèbre among many of these educated Westerners. The “one-state solution,” as...

It is my profound honor, and undeserved privilege, to present this months featured Patriot of the Month at the Thompson Coalition. It has been a blessing to have conversed on two occasions, through email, with Lieutenant Colonel Allen B. West (US Army, Ret). In reading candidate West’s emails, reviewing his web site, and reading articles about this contemporary American hero, I feel a sense of profound gratitude. I struggle to put into words how this man of strength, conviction, and humbleness has touched my life from three thousand miles away. His words and sincerity stir me to strive at being...

Lt. Col. Allen West is a candidate for the U.S. Congress, 22nd District of Florida. To learn more about Col. West, see: Allen West for CongressCandidates: selfless or selfish? Ponder the difference between a "politician" and a "statesman" Strategic Observations of World Affairs (Part 1) Strategic Observations on World Affairs (Part 2) Strategic Observations on World Affairs (Part 3)

Can Canada’s mail carriers be trusted to deliver the mail to Israel’s embassy in Ottawa, its consulate in Toronto, or any other location affiliated with the Jewish state? It’s a valid question: At its national convention earlier this month, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers passed a resolution that included the following provision: “CUPW will … support the international campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions until Israel recognizes the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination.” I’m no labour expert. But doesn’t this mean that a mailman who, say, slips the new Eddie Bauer catalog through the mail slot at 180 Bloor...

Current Events Glad Bush Is Still AroundPaul Johnson 05.05.08, 12:00 AM ET I don't regard George W. Bush as a lame-duck president. Between now and next January all sorts of challenging and unexpected events may take place. We can rely on President Bush to react promptly and decisively to them.We saw this on Sept. 11. The President was as surprised as everyone else, as we grasped from the dramatic photograph of him taken as he was given the dreadful news at an elementary school. But he buckled down quickly to this unprecedented attack on America, determined that such a treacherous...

War On Terror: Caving to Muslim pressure groups, the Bush administration has banned the term "jihadist" to define the enemy. Islamic terrorists will now be known as "violent extremists." Our war on radical Islam has been hamstrung by political correctness from the start. First, we couldn't call the campaign to strike back at al-Qaida a "crusade" because Muslims found it historically offensive. Then we couldn't define the enemy as "Islamic terrorists" because it insulted Islam — even though it accurately described the Muslims committing murder and mayhem in the name of Islam. To appease critics, we narrowed the terminology, confining...

The Army wife whose husband and three sons are ALL fighting in IraqLast updated at 18:01pm on 24th April 2008It is the astonishing story of one family's determination to serve Queen and country. And while most families would say having a single son serve in Iraq would be enough, one mother faces the heartache of watching three of her boys deployed to the war-torn nation. Not only that, Wendy Mackness also has to wave off husband Danny who is poised to depart on his tour of duty. Scroll down for more ...I'll miss you: Major Danny Mackness with his...

Sons of Islam everywhere, the jihad is a duty - to establish the rule of Allah on earth and to liberate your countries and yourselves from America’s domination and its Zionist allies, it is your battle - either victory or martyrdom. Sheikh A. Yassin According to Robert Spencer, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is revamping the State Department Lexicon with the orders to eliminate the words jihad and jihadi. The argument, of course, is the old Streusand/Guirard claim that by using the word jihad, we’re validating the jihadist claim to be waging jihad. Of course, it’s ridiculous to think that...

A reliable source has informed me that Condoleeza Rice has approved a new lexicon for State Department usage, absolutely forbidding the use of the terms "jihad" and "jihadist" by any State Department official. The argument, of course, is the old Streusand/Guirard claim that by using the word jihad, we're validating the jihadist claim to be waging jihad. Of course, it's ridiculous to think that the U.S. State Department carries any validating authority within the Islamic world to determine what is Islam and what isn't. This would be the first time that unbelievers have set the meaning of Islamic theology for...

Uncovering embers of cultural life in Baghdad as the city struggles out of civil war is a little like watching Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle in action: The closer you observe things, the more hidden and elusive they seem. At the simplest level, routine details such as the time, place and duration of rare piano recitals or art openings are shrouded in mystery for security's sake. In a town almost comprehensively segregated into sectarian areas, where one man's performance is another's blasphemy, such information is intelligence hard to come by. You are just as likely -- especially if you're Iraqi -- to...

The house blended into its quiet eastside neighborhood, marked only by a blue star in the window and a small, square sign reading "Welcome Home Tim." Somewhere a vacuum cleaner's rumbling voice broke the sunny afternoon hush. The setting hardly could be more different from the patch of Iraqi desert where Army Specialist Timothy Sazueta stood two weeks ago when an improvised explosive device exploded next to him. "It didn't hit me, initially, that I'd been blown up," said Sazueta, 22, of Lancaster. "I was still standing. You don't go flying" like in the movies. His teammates yelled at Sazueta...

In response to a direct and clear question from Charlie Gibson, Hillary Clinton said tonight that she would withdraw military forces from Iraq no matter the circumstances on the ground, even against the advice of her military leaders. She was clear and unequivocal.

"A woman reacts after hundreds of policemen threw a tight security ring around the courthouse and chased away the families of the defendants during a trial session of the Muslim Brotherhood leading members at a military court in Cairo, Egypt Tuesday, April 15, 2008. A security official at Egypt's military trial of 40 top members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood group says that 25 of the Islamists on trial have been sentenced to up to 10 years in jail.""A veiled woman holds a sign reading in Arabic 'Freedom for the hostages of reform' after hundreds of policemen threw a tight...

It would be wrong to say that some vital information is ‘lost’ in the barrage of feel-sad stories the main stream media throws our way each night when it come to the ongoing struggle in Afghanistan. The term ‘lost’ would imply something was actually there to begin with. That doesn’t apply here.

The Democratic Party's preoccupation with the question of when America will leave Iraq rather than with how America will win in Iraq reminds me of how and why this nearly lifelong liberal and Democrat became identified as a conservative and Republican activist. I have identified as liberal all my life. How could I not? I was raised a Jew in New York City, where I did graduate work in the social sciences at Columbia University. It is almost redundant to call a New York Jewish intellectual a liberal. In fact, I never voted for a Republican candidate for president until...

This is kind of odd, driven by a couple of movies I've seen and a book I've read in the last couple of weeks. No particular theme holding them together. Lions for Lambs. Ok, I knew this was an anti-war film (Robert Redford directed it, after all) and I didn't figure there would be much redeeming in it, but after being pleasantly surprised by "The Kingdom," I thought what the heck. Wow. Talk about pathetic. A two-hour sermon by Al Franken probably would have been less painful. The story is that Redford, as Prof. Steven Malley, is trying to talk...

The captain and first officer of the anti-sealing ship the Farley Mowat were due to appear in court in Sydney, N.S., on Sunday, a day after their arrest off the west coast of Newfoundland. They have been charged with interfering with the seal hunt after a confrontation with a Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker two weeks ago. Their vessel was boarded and seized Saturday in the Gulf of St. Lawrence by RCMP officers, working with officials from the federal Fisheries Department and the coast guard... Paul Watson of the international group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which owns the vessel, said its...

In the latest episdode of Covert Radio, Brett talks to Aaron Klein from World Net Daily, about some of the outreach Syria is attempting in the Mid East. Brett also spoke to Rohan Gunaratna, from Signapore. He is the world's foremost authority on Al Qaeda, Dr. Gunaratna, author of Inside Al Qaeda contends that if the US leaves Iraq, it will be forced to return to fight Al Qaeda in 2-3 years. Finally gets the latest from NY Sun Correspondent Eli Lake, on the latest kookiness at the UN!

Two Palestinian employees detained mere days before they planned to lace food at Ramat Gan grill bar with tasteless, odorless toxin Efrat Weiss Published: 04.10.08, 16:38 / Israel News The thwarting of an alarming terror plot was cleared for publication on Thursday, almost three weeks after a joint Shin Bet and police operation led to the arrest of two Palestinian employees of the 'Grill Express' restaurant in Ramat Gan. The men, Eihab Abu Rial and Anas Salum, both 21-year-old residents of the West Bank city of Nablus, had planned to lace dishes served at the establishment with a powerful toxin...

Muhammad Al-Munajid: Some of these heretics say: "Islam is not the private property of anyone." So what do they want? They say: "No sect has a monopoly on Islam." So what do they want? They say: "We want to issue rulings." Someone who is ignorant, who does not know any Arabic, or who has no knowledge of Islamic jurisprudence wants to issue rulings?! They say: "We reinterpret the texts." There is a very dangerous conspiracy against the religion of Islam in newspapers and in what these people say. A journalist, or one of those lowlifes, wants to... These people are...

Many in America want the Iraq war to end now and believe if we "leave Iraq to the Iraqis," the Islamic extremists will leave us alone. That position recklessly ignores how America's decade-long refusal to deal more decisively with Islamic terrorism led to 9/11 and all that followed, and how every time America flinches in the face of Islamic aggression, the terrorists see it as a weakness to be exploited. In this environment, Gen. David Petraeus must have expected he would be criticized for recommending the suspension of further U.S. troop withdrawals in the face of the recent flare-up of...

A growing number of Democrats have falsely accused Sen. John McCain of “promising” 100 years of war in Iraq. In fact, McCain’s point was that the presence of American forces promotes stability. That’s been the case in Europe and Asia, where Americans have been stationed for more than half a century. It’s been true in the Balkans since the 1990s, when President Clinton sent troops there. America’s military plays a beneficial role when it eliminates America’s enemies; it does so also when it stays on to prevent those enemies from reemerging. But there is a hard truth that McCain did...

As we mark the fifth anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, it is important to reflect on the journey we have embarked upon. Liberation offered us the opportunity to construct a new state, based on the rule of law and democratic principles. Unlike in the past, this Iraq would acknowledge and build upon its diverse ethnic and religious identities. That promise has not yet been fulfilled. Mistakes have been made, and few Iraqis doubt that political and economic reconstruction could have been handled better. Yet, against all odds, Iraq has closed its fifth year of freedom with tangible...

Mauritanian police have stormed a building in the capital Nouakchott, searching for fighters suspected of links with al-Qaeda. The suspects, however, managed to flee before the security forces arrived. A bomb-making factory was found but the gunmen, who're suspected of killing four French touists in December are still on the run. The raid followed a gunfight between police and fighters on Monday night, at the same house. The attack on the house followed street clashes in which 2 persons were killed and at least 8 members of the security force were injured. Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, the president of Mauritania...

Disabled soldier goes back to war in Afghanistan Six months after losing a leg, Corporal Stuart Hale has returned to the battle zone in Afghanistan   Sonia Verma at the Kandahar Airbase A British paratrooper who lost his leg to a landmine has become the first amputee to return to military service in Afghanistan, in the war zone where he was disabled. Corporal Stuart Hale arrived with the 3rd Batallion, The Parachute Regiment last month for a joint operation against the Taleban with Canadian forces in Kandahar province. It is a fight that he was forced to leave on...

At the beginning of last year, we were engaged in a great debate about what to do in Iraq. Faced with the prospect of defeat, we had two fundamental choices. We could retreat from Iraq and accept the horrible consequences of our defeat. Or we could change strategies and try to turn things around. It was a critical moment in our nation’s history, and a time of testing for our nation’s political leadership. Within six months, our troops have made such enormous sacrifices for the rest of us and dramatically turned around the situation in Iraq. The dramatic reduction in...

One of our most faithful readers writes from Baghdad, where he is serving as an officer in the Army Reserve: I'm back over here for my fourth Army Reserve stint since 2004. What a difference a year makes. In late 2006 and early 2007, just after surge had been announced, many commentators and thinkers -- in uniform and out -- thought that Anbar was hopeless, a lost cause. Just google "Anbar Lost" to see what I mean. Nowadays, it has been weeks since we lost a soldier in Anbar. More incredibly Iraqi Army units, composed of Anbari Sunnis, have deployed...

Ayman al-Zawahiri, from his online chat a few days ago (scroll down for post): As-Sahab: And what is the most important field in which this Mujahid vanguard is wrestling with the enemies of Islam? Zawahiri: Iraq is the most important of these fields. Nancy Pelosi, from her press conference yesterday: As we've said before and I'll end by saying: How is this war in Iraq helping us fight the war on terrorism, the real war on terrorism, Afghanistan?

The War on Terror is going to continue to be about hunting the Islamofascist terrorists down in whatever country they are holed up in. That is just the reality of facing an enemy who doesn’t belong to a distinct geographical location. But a necessary element for victory is one that is found in the most unlikely of places: right here at home. On the political left. Ouch.

LESS THAN 48 HOURS AFTER Iraqi security forces began their campaign against militant Shia factions in Basra, the media had already declared the operations a failure. The operations, which were initiated on March 25, were designed to quell rogue factions of Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army. In covering the fighting, the press displayed its previously seen penchant for quickly throwing in the towel when a military operation does not instantaneously meet its goals. Of course, the expectation of immediate success for an operation aimed at clearing densely-populated urban terrain is highly unrealistic. Recent history in Iraq shows this: it took months...

Was just over on IMDB and saw the trailer for an upcoming flick titled "Standard Operating Procedure." It's about Abu Ghraib. Another anti-American, anti-military film coming our way. Hey, no worry though - they support the troops./sarc. On a related note, I'm sure everyone has heard the latest inane utterings of the insane Ted Turner. Not the idiotic bs about us being canibals ten years from now but his slanderous comments on our troops, our mission, our military. But hey, we can never question their patriotism, right! It makes me boil with anger.

In his first interview since the release Tuesday of a 2003 memo he authored providing legal authority for the use of aggressive interrogation techniques by the U.S. military, John Yoo denied to Esquire that his memo applied to soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan or that it authorized the kinds of abuses that were revealed at Abu Ghraib. “I did not think as a matter of policy that it was a good idea for the military to use aggressive interrogations of the kind that would be permitted to the CIA,” he said, adding that he expressed those reservations “to officials higher...

On the day that Pakistan saw a new prime minister sworn into office, one of Pakistan's leading newspapers, The News, led with the headline, "Hands Off Please, Uncle Sam." The article was a response to the arrival of two senior American envoys, Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte and Assistant Secretary Richard Boucher. They were hoping to foster ties to a new government, true, but their more immediate mission was to convince the new prime minister to preserve President Pervez Musharraf's policies of partnering with the U.S. in the war on terror. One can hardly blame the Bush Administration for...

My fellow bloggers at The Jawa Report have crafted a petition to defend filmmaker and Dutch politician Geert Wilders. As I mentioned in a previous post, his film “Fitna” is making waves... IT IS RESOLVED that, in the event that the Dutch government attempts, in any way, to punish or prosecute Geert Wilders, civilly or criminally, for exercising his freedom of expression, the undersigned will initiate a boycott of any and all Dutch goods.

A report posted on Islam Watch, a site run by Muslims who oppose intolerant teachings and hatred for unbelievers, exposes a prominent Islamic cleric and lawyer who support extreme punishment for non-Muslims — including killing and rape. A question-and-answer session with Imam Abdul Makin in an East London mosque asks why Allah would tell Muslims to kill and rape innocent non-Muslims, including their wives and daughters, according to Islam Watch. "Because non-Muslims are never innocent, they are guilty of denying Allah and his prophet," the Imam says, according to the report. "If you don't believe me, here is the legal...

No group in the history of warfare has acted in a more vile fashion than Al Qaeda. These thugs would make Reinhardt Heydrich (the Chief Operating Officer of the Final Solution) proud. By Al Qaeda, I include all the derivations, regular old Osama Bin Laden Al Qaeda and its bastard offspring, Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). They are not just murderers they are also liars and cowards. Al Qaeda are liars because, when they pull a particularly nasty terror attack, they don’t take the credit like the Samara Golden Mosque bombing in February 2006, and they take credit for things...

Among the worst mistakes of the Iraq war has been starting battles we weren't prepared to finish. Think Fallujah in 2004. We hope Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki absorbed that lesson before he began his campaign last week to defeat rogue militias in Basra. Yesterday's political maneuvering amid a new cease-fire offer by radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr is hard to read from afar. "Anyone carrying a weapon and targeting government institutions will not be one of us," Mr. Sadr said. The government welcomed the offer while saying it would continue its Basra campaign, and it wasn't clear how many in...

Muslims and naive Western liberals don't like it, but here's modern Islam in all its glory. WARNING: CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES

Welcome to the 2008 thread of the Merry Band of Patriots! Our grassroots group of troop supporters started in the summer of 2001 by sending VHS movies and Snickers candy bars to the 101st Airborne and later the 10th Mountain at Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo. We are not an organized charity as no one of us has the time or energy to do all that paperwork, and any contributions made are not tax deductible. Our specialty in the past has been movies, books, snacks, personal care items, holiday decorations and some appliances like DVD players, microwaves, and Playstations; and we...

Iraqi sprinter Dana Abdul-Razzaq has dodged bullets to pursue her love of running, her determination to succeed pushing her to become Iraq's only female athlete at the Beijing Olympics. Few athletes will have faced the obstacles 21-year-old Abdul-Razzaq has overcome to reach Beijing, from a sniper's bullets to a paucity of adequate training facilities and religious and cultural opposition to female athletes. "I love running, I have the persistence to keep practising and I have ambition despite all the problems that I face," she told Reuters at Baghdad's crumbling Shaab stadium.

The President travelled to Ohio today and delivered a speech on the war on terror at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton. Later he met privately with a group who includes our very own Dr Deb - we await her report of the event. Pray for President Bush -- Day 2751 Today Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, met with Haitian Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis. Enjoy your visit to Sanity Island

Law enforcement officials and security experts are warning against the threat of homegrown terrorism as several cases involving alleged American jihadists enter the courts. "The public is getting complacent," New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly tells FOX News. Full article

Over the past sixteen months, the United States has altered its trajectory in Iraq. We are no longer headed toward a catastrophic defeat and may be on the path to a remarkable victory. As a result, the next President, Democrat or Republican, may well find it easier to adopt the broad contours of this administration’s current strategy than to jeopardize progress by changing course abruptly. That would be an ironic, but satisfying, outcome to the tortuous journey on which the Bush administration’s policy toward Iraq, and this nation’s views of Iraq, have been traveling over the past three years.