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Three retired military officers, Maj. Gen. John R. S. Batiste, Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, and Col. Paul X. Hammes, spoke before a Democratic-sponsored policy forum on Monday, and, in speeches that could have been composed by the Democrat National Committee, told Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld that he wasn’t doing a good job.

WASHINGTON — Retired military officers on Monday bluntly accused Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld of bungling the war in Iraq, saying U.S. troops were sent to fight without the best equipment and that critical facts were hidden from the public.

“I believe that Secretary Rumsfeld and others in the administration did not tell the American people the truth for fear of losing support for the war in Iraq,” retired Maj. Gen. John R. S. Batiste said in remarks prepared for a forum conducted by Senate Democrats.

A second military leader, retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, assessed Rumsfeld as “incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically ….”

“Mr. Rumsfeld and his immediate team must be replaced or we will see two more years of extraordinarily bad decision-making,” he added in a statement prepared for the policy forum, held six weeks before the Nov. 7 midterm elections in which the war is a central issue. — FOXNews.com

I’m sure the inhabitants of the Reality-Based Commune™ are masturbating furiously whilst reading stories about this Democrat sponsored circus. Their absolute and unquenchable hatred for President Bush blinds them to everything that could remotely be considered sane.

Sen. Cornyn, a Texas Republican, responded nicely.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a member of the Armed Services Committee, dismissed the Democratic-sponsored event as “an election-year smoke screen aimed at obscuring the Democrats’ dismal record on national security.”

“Today’s stunt may rile up the liberal base, but it won’t kill a single terrorist or prevent a single attack,” Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in a statement. He called Rumsfeld an “excellent secretary of defense.”

I’m not going to wholeheartedly endorse Secretary Rumsfeld handling of the war. I think there are certain things that should have been handled differently. For starters, the Leftist wussies who cry foul every time the enemy gets a hangnail and who think prisoners deserve five-star accommodations should be publicly mocked, humiliated, then ignored for the remainder of their America-hating lives. Second, either the nature of the enemy was not anticipated, or it was but was not taken into account. When you’re dealing with fanatic Islam, you’re dealing with people who, above all else, believe that their god is superior. Any weakness on your part only serves to invigorate them. If you want to defeat them, you need to utterly humiliate them and their god. Thirdly, you can’t deal with rabid animals while playing Mr. Nice Guy. Some ignorant morons like to call them freedom fighters, but freedom is the last thing on their minds.

A story in the Los Angeles Times about hyper-sensitivity being shown to the prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp is illustrative of my second point. A recent article on the camp website and in the base newspaper “expressed respect and appreciation for the significance of Ramadan and explained the military’s plan to support the holy month rite of daytime fasting.” The article went on to say that “staff would work ‘around the clock’ to provide ‘Ramadan-specific’ meals that include dates, nuts and honey,” and that nighttime portions have been doubled and that medical monitoring will be provided to ensure that detainees remain healthy.

It is one thing to make minor adjustments to accommodate the prisoners’ religious beliefs, but to completely reorganize the way the camp runs is ludicrous. At most, they should wait until after sunset to server dinner. These are prisoners, not guests.

The military personnel at the camp are growing frustrated with what they consider the “overreaching religious sensitivity” as well. Guards are not even allowed to touch a prisoner’s Koran during cell searches, even though they have been used to pass messages and could be used to hide weapons. Civilian Muslim interpreters are the only ones allowed to move and inspect Korans during cell searches.

Several officers and guards at the camp acknowledge that the prisoners have used religion as a wedge to manipulate and get around the authority of camp commanders.

The military may have good intentions, but I think its quest to be ultra-sensitive to the religious desires of the prisoners is wrong. You can respect their religion, but they have to accept the fact that they’re not in Kansas anymore, and their rules no longer apply.

Further, when it comes to the radicals, they don’t look at this as being a sign of respect. They don’t see our tolerance and sensitivity as a good thing. They see it as a sign of weakness. And a weakness on our part only gives them encouragement that their god is supreme.

I would also like to point out that, while all of this sensitivity is being shown to Muslim prisoners, Christian chaplains in the U.S. military are finding it increasingly difficult to practice their faith as they feel called to. In some cases, they are told they can only offer non-sectarian prayers when they are called upon to pray. I find this very hypocritical given the treatment of certain prisoners.

I do want to give kudos the State Department, though, for rejecting the visa of Tariq Ramadan. The ACLU, naturally, is upset that the United States is exercising its right to keep the riffraff out. You have to wonder if there is any good left in that group, or if they have fully succumbed to the dark side. Perhaps the ACLU should do a little more research on the people they defend, lest they defend the indefensible.

Failure to comprehend the enemy isn’t limited to the United States, though. In Britain, a poll suggests that “almost one in 10 British Muslims would not inform police if they suspected that someone of the same faith was involved in a terror attack.” In response, British police have decided to brief “a panel of Muslim leaders before mounting counter-terrorist raids or arrests.” In addition, members of this panel “will offer their assessment of whether information police have on a suspect is too flimsy and will also consider the consequences on community relations of a raid.” Also, the members of this panel will have to promise not to reveal any intelligence they are shown, but they won’t have to sign the Official Secrets Act. I’m sure that will work out just fine for the British. Fortunately, the British military still knows how to do its job.

In Italy, Pope Benedict XVI met with Muslim envoys to try and end anger in the Islamic world over remarks he made recently in which he quoted Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus. The pontiff told the Muslim envoys that “their two faiths must overcome historic enmities and together reject violence, saying the future of humanity is at stake,” and he also “urged ‘reciprocity’ in religious freedom, calling for preserving the rights of Christians throughout the Islamic world.”

I guess I’m just a pessimist, because I don’t see any of that happening. How can I expect people to enter the modern world when their Shariah legal system says that women should be stoned to death upon allegations that they committed adultery, while men who commit murder are only sentenced to six years in jail, as Nat Hentoff reports in The Village Voice. Further, when President Ahmadinejad came to power, “he reinstituted public stonings, as a ‘religious principle,’ against women.”

Over at National Review Online, Clifford D. May, president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, opines on the threat of fanatic Islam.

Many commentators have noted the apparent irony: The pope suggests Islam encourages violence — and Muslims riot in protest.

Many commentators have pointed out the apparent hypocrisy: Muslims are outraged by cartoons satirizing Islamic extremism while in Muslim countries Christianity and Judaism are attacked viciously and routinely.

Many commentators are missing the point: These protesters — and those who incite them — are not asking for mutual respect and equality. They are not saying: “It’s wrong to speak ill of a religion.” They are saying: “It’s wrong to speak ill of our religion.” They are not standing up for a principle. They are laying down the law. They are making it as clear as they can that they will not tolerate “infidels” criticizing Muslims. They also are making it clear that infidels should expect criticism — and much worse — from Muslims.

They are attempting nothing less than the establishment of a new world order in which the supremacy of what they call the Nation of Islam is acknowledged, and “unbelievers” submit — or die. Call it an offer you can’t refuse. — National Review Online

Victor Davis Hanson weighs in on radical Islam as well. And Daniel Pipes looks at Muslim intimidation.

And from Israel, we have this appalling story.

Shades of the 1920′s: A Jewish man was hauled off to the Old City police station in the middle of prayer for sounding the shofar during Rosh HaShanah services at the area known as the Kotel HaKatan.

The incident occurred around 7:30 in the morning, at the northern-most section of the accessible Western Wall – a little-known area called the Kotel HaKatan, the Small Wall. It is considered to have extra sanctity, as it stands opposite the presumed spot of the Holy of Holies of the Beit HaMikdash.

…

The worshipers said that the police had apparently been called by an Arab woman who said the sound of the ram’s horn disturbed her children.

A Jewish resident of the Old City told Arutz-7, “How ironic. The loud Arab weddings and nightly prayers by the muazzin [over a powerful loudspeaker] at 4:30 AM disturb our sleep every night.” Similar complaints are heard from Jews living near Arab villages in Judea and Samaria.

…

The rabbi of the Western Wall, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch, told Arutz-7, “This is a very grave incident, and I have asked the local police commander, Yossi Priente, to check into it – both the violence and the prevention of the shofar blowing. It reminds us of the days of the British Mandate when Jews [had to make] super-human efforts to blow the shofar at the Western Wall.”

He was referring to the late 1920′s, when the British, in an attempt to appease the Arabs, and following violence at the Wall, forbade shofar-blowing at the Wall. In one famous incident in 1929, a man named Moshe Segal blew the shofar at the conclusion of Yom Kippur – and was immediately arrested by the British. Though he had fasted for the previous 25 hours, the British detained him without food until midnight, when he was released. It was later reported that the release came about when then-Chief Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook informed the commander that he himself would not eat until Segal was released.

Nearly 40 years later, following the first Yom Kippur service at the Wall under Israeli sovereignty, shortly after the Six Day War, the shofar was again sounded – by Moshe Segal.
— Israel National News

So, the British had to appease the Arabs way back in the late 1920′s. Isn’t it amazing how some things never change. Nevermind the fact that it was the Jews who constructed the Temple Mount, of which the Western Wall is a remnant. That doesn’t matter though, because the presence of Jews in Israel is offensive to a good chunk of Arab Muslims.

It would be nice to live in a world without war. It would be nice to live in peace with every other country on the planet. But, you know what, that’s not reality. Some people like to argue that religion is to blame, and that if the religious would just give up their silly beliefs, then we’d have a lot better chance of having a peaceful world. History is littered with religious violence, but much violence has been done in the absence of religion as well.

There are Christians who oppose the war in Iraq, which is fine, that’s their right, but I wonder how they would react if they were forced to watch as the throats of their family members were slit as an enticement for them to, or punishment for refusing to, convert to Islam. Would they sit back and accept it because they don’t want to involve themselves in a war, or would they choose to fight the enemy? Should the unthinkable happen, and the Islamic fascists gain control of the United States, don’t think for a minute that there wouldn’t be a wholesale slaughter of Christians and Jews. There is a reason why we have taken the fight to them, rather than have it brought home.

Some say that the Iraq war has fueled Islamic terrorism, and that if we hadn’t gone in, or if we pull out now, we can stem the tide of terrorist acts. One has to remember, however, that we weren’t in Iraq on September 11, 2001, when the World Trade Center was destroyed, and the Pentagon was heavily damaged. Don’t try and tell me that we’re encouraging violence when it has been here all along, whether it’s been out in the open, or waiting under the surface.

Now, let’s see what the Moonbat Brigade of the Reality-Based Commune™ would do if they were in charge of the War on Terror.

Burka Please, Mr. Terrorist, don’t hurt us, we’ll be good dhimmis. We apologize for responding to your peaceful attacks on our country with military action. We fully believe that Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance, and that you only want what is best for us. We will gladly wear burkas so as to not offend your sensibilities, as we know that you are of a devout nature. We will gladly pay the Jizyah as a sign of our subjugation.

What pansy from the moonbatosphere might we find hiding under that burka?

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