Modern Crusader

United States President George Bush was tonight accused of trying to undermine the United Nations by setting up a rival coalition to coordinate relief following the Asian tsunami disaster.

The president has announced that the US, Japan, India and Australia would coordinate the world’s response.

But former International Development Secretary Clare Short said that role should be left to the UN.

“I think this initiative from America to set up four countries claiming to coordinate sounds like yet another attempt to undermine the UN when it is the best system we have got and the one that needs building up,” she said.

“Only really the UN can do that job,” she told BBC Radio Four’s PM programme.

“It is the only body that has the moral authority. But it can only do it well if it is backed up by the authority of the great powers.”

Ms Short said the coalition countries did not have good records on responding to international disasters.

She said the US was “very bad at coordinating with anyone” and India had its own problems to deal with.

“I don’t know what that is about but it sounds very much, I am afraid, like the US trying to have a separate operation and not work with the rest of the world through the UN system,” she added.

THE political and ideological exploitation of perhaps the worst natural disaster in all our lifetimes is almost beyond belief — were it not for the fact that nothing these days is beyond belief.

Even as tears spring into the most hard-hearted person's eyes at both the unimaginable scope of the tragedy and at the wrenching individual stories of loss, opinion leaders just can't help themselves.

They are using this cataclysm as little more than cheap debate fodder about the nature and character of the United States, its president and its citizens.

Don't misunderstand.

It is fine and proper to have a debate and discussion about the degree of generosity the United States could, should and must show in the wake of this literally earth-shaking event.

But at this moment, the United States is not the issue.

The foreign-aid budget of the United States is not the issue.

Our government should not be the focal point of the discussion right now.

Don't we owe the dead, dying and injured the minimal grace not to convert their suffering into a chat-show segment — the latest left-right clash over the Bush presidency?

And couldn't the editorialists at The New York Times have forborne — even just for a week — making use of the tsunami to complain about U.S. government spending on "development aid"?

Development aid is the blanket term for American grant money handed out to other countries, supposedly to help their economies grow. Development aid has nothing — nothing — to do with what has happened.

The aid at issue now is disaster relief.

Secretary of State Colin Powell found himself in the position of having to remind the world that over the past four years the United States has provided more such aid than all other nations on the planet combined.

In the past three days I have been impressed by the originality of the latest critiques of the evil Americans. The earthquake and tsunami apparently had something to do with global warming, environmentalists say, caused of course by greedy American motorists. Then there was the rumour that the US military base at Diego Garcia was forewarned of the impending disaster and presumably because of some CIA-approved plot to undermine Islamic movements in Indonesia and Thailand did nothing about it.

The Yesha Council (Moetzet Yesha) is the Establishment organization that receives money from the Israeli Government to pay for the basic needs (education, housing, infrastructure and security) of the 250,000 Jewish pioneers who live in Yesha (Judea, Samaria and the Gaza District).

Because it is funded by Israel's Bolshevik Government, the Yesha Council never wants to oppose the Government, even if Government actions and decisions endanger the survival of the State of Israel.

Yet many Jews in Yesha believe - incorrectly - that the Yesha Council represents them and will fight for their best interests.

Thus, when Bolshevik Israeli dictator Ariel Sharon announced his treasonous plan to surrender the entire Gaza District and northern Samaria to the Arab Muslim Nazis in order to create an independent PLO terrorist state in the heartland of Biblical Israel, most Yesha Jews turned to the Yesha Council to lead the campaign against Sharon's evil proposal.

Every action which the Yesha Council sponsored to protest Sharon's suicidal plan has been a dismal failure.

The Yesha Council has spent many millions of dollars promoting nonsensical mass demonstrations such as the "Human Chain" in which 200,000 Jews joined hands in a chain that stretched from the Gaza District to Jerusalem to show that the entire Land of Israel must remain as one unbroken chain.

The "Human Chain" accomplished nothing. People forgot about it the next day. In fact, the self-hating Bolshevik Israeli news media praised the "Human Chain" as a constructive and positive way of protesting. In other words, the Judenrat media was pleased to see Yesha Jews wasting such huge sums of money and time on such ineffective actions that will never stop Sharon's surrender plans.

The Yesha Council then sponsored simultaneous demonstrations in 100 different Israeli cities and towns. This was an even bigger flop. Far fewer people than expected showed up at the demonstrations, and the Stalinist Israeli media gloated that this supposedly proves that the Yesha Jews do not have much popular support among average Israelis.

Next, the Yesha Council brought busloads of thousands of Yesha children to the Israeli Knesset (Parliament) to protest on the day when the Knesset voted on Sharon's evil plan to forcibly expel 8,000 Jewish pioneers from their G-d-given homes in the Gaza District and northern Samaria. The Yesha Council-sponsored mass demonstration had no effect whatsoever: the Knesset passed Sharon's traitorous program, and not a single Knesset member changed his vote in response to the very expensive and very ineffective Yesha Council protest.

The most glaring example of the harm that has been done to the cause of saving Yesha can be found in the mass advertising campaign sponsored by the Yesha Council. The Yesha Council spent an enormous amount of money using the ridiculous advertising slogan: "We have love and it will win." The desire to show average Israelis how "nice" Yesha Jews are, and how much "love" they have, is the root of the problem. The Yesha Council is obsessed with winning acceptance from self-hating Jews in Tel Aviv and Haifa. These evil, self-hating, assimilated Jews will never support Yesha because Yesha represents authentic Torah Judaism - and self-hating Jews detest Torah Judaism.

If anything, by constantly showing how much "love" they have, how "nice" they are, and how they will obey orders to remove their fellow Jews, the Yesha Council projects an image of weakness that makes Yesha Jews easy prey for expulsion from their land.

Unfortunately, the Jews of Gush Katif in the Gaza District have followed the advice of the Yesha Council and have also projected an image of utter weakness.

Baruch HaShem (thank G-d) that JTF's allies in Israel - the Hilltop Youth, the Chayil (Valor) Party and right-wing Jewish dissidents Noam Federman and Baruch Marzel - are finally convincing Yesha Jews to change tactics. While the Yesha Council is hopelessly obsessed with pleasing the Israeli Government, the Bolshevik news media and the Israeli public, the Hilltop Youth are only interested in stopping Sharon's monstrous retreat and do not worry about offending self-hating Jews.

The Hilltop Youth has organized demonstrations against the appeasing Yesha Council, and has urged Yesha Jews to forcefully and physically resist Sharon's expulsion plan. If tens of thousands of Jews physically resist Sharon's evil program with their bodies, it will be difficult to carry out the retreat.

Thanks to the educational campaign of JTF's allies in Israel, most Yesha Jews are now convinced that massive civil disobedience must take place in which tens of thousands of Jews physically block with their bodies the Israeli soldiers and police who will attempt to expel the valiant Jewish pioneering families of the Gaza District and northern Samaria.

Due to tremendous pressure from average Yesha Jews who now want massive civil disobedience, the Yesha Council finally announced last week that they will physically resist the Sharon expulsion. The Yesha Council also stated that they are prepared to go to prison as part of their protest campaign, and will urge large numbers of right-wing Jews to do likewise.

The reason the appeasing Yesha Council suddenly adopted this new position is obvious - the Yesha Council was about to lose all of their remaining support from Yesha Jews who were fed up with the Council's cowardly tactics.

Without support from Yesha Jews, the Yesha Council becomes irrelevant. Therefore, the Yesha Council has now decided to join the growing bandwagon of those Jews who favor massive civil disobedience - a bandwagon created by JTF's allies in Israel.

Only one day after the Yesha Council announced that they would support massive civil disobedience, they already started to backpedal to again show how "moderate" and "reasonable" and "nice" they are. The Yesha Council issued a new statement in which they clarified that they are opposed to "violence"; opposed to soldiers and police refusing to obey immoral and anti-Jewish orders; and opposed to wearing an orange Star of David to compare Sharon's expulsion plan with what happened to Jews in the Holocaust.

Let us examine these three issues where the hopelessly wimpy Yesha Council felt a need to express opposition:

"Violence"

Thousands of young Jews who have resisted attempts by the Israeli army to destroy "illegal" Hilltop Youth communities have often used more than passive resistance. In the last two years, Sharon has repeatedly ordered the Israeli army to destroy Hilltop Youth communities in Judea and Samaria. When soldiers have arrived at the Hilltop Youth outposts, they have been greeted by thousands of Jewish youth who in many cases punched and kicked and fought with the soldiers while being forcibly expelled. Dozens of soldiers and protesters have been injured during the expulsions. In addition, Jewish youth have frequently damaged army vehicles and equipment.

As a result, Sharon and the Israeli army have in effect abandoned the attempt to remove Hilltop Youth communities for now, because doing so involves so much manpower and is so physically difficult.

The Hilltop Youth intend to use the same tactics of vigorous physical resistance - including punching, kicking and fighting with soldiers, and damaging army vehicles - during the attempt to expel the Jews from the Gaza District and northern Samaria.

It is this highly effective tactic which the Yesha Council opposes. If the Yesha Council is too cowardly to engage in this tactic themselves, the least they could do is keep their mouths shut while the brave Hilltop Youth do the "dirty work."

But the traitors of the Yesha Council not only condemn the Hilltop Youth for physically fighting to prevent the Sharon expulsion, the Council has promised to physically fight with the Hilltop Youth if they see any "violence" being used against Bolshevik soldiers. In other words, the Yesha Council will not use "violence" against traitor soldiers who come to expel their fellow Jews, but will use violence against the Hilltop Youth who come to protect their fellow Jews.

Refusing to obey immoral and anti-Jewish orders

After thousands of Jewish soldiers and reservists have signed petitions promising not to obey orders to expel their fellow Jews from any part of the Land of Israel, the Yesha Council announced that they oppose the campaign to get soldiers to refuse to obey orders.

Therefore, the Yesha Council believes that if soldiers are ordered to commit treason against the Jewish people, the soldiers must obey the orders.

The orange Star of David

Jews in Gush Katif started wearing an orange Star of David last week to protest Sharon's Jew-hating expulsion. The orange Star of David is intended to remind people of the yellow Star of David that Jews were forced to wear during the Nazi Holocaust. The Yesha Council condemned wearing the orange Star of David.

However, the comparison between the Sharon expulsion and the Holocaust is completely appropriate.

The openly proclaimed objective of the Arab Muslim Nazis is to perpetrate another Holocaust against the Jewish people. Indeed, like their German predecessors, the Arab Muslim Nazis publicly boast that they intend to physically exterminate all Jews. Since the Sharon expulsion from the Gaza District and northern Samaria will help the Arab Muslim Nazis achieve their genocidal goal, the wearing of Stars of David is a perfectly suitable form of protest.

Throughout all of the drama that we witnessed in Israel last week, one fact remained indisputable: if not for JTF's allies - the Hilltop Youth and the Chayil Party - there is no way that the pathetic Yesha Council would be publicly promising massive civil disobedience. All of the good things that are happening in Yesha are happening because of JTF's allies in the Jewish homeland.

Former US attorney-general Ramsey Clark is to join Saddam Hussein's defence team, a spokesman for the ousted Iraqi president's lawyers says.

Ziad Khasawna said on Wednesday that Clark, who held the office of attorney-general under US president Lyndon Johnson, had "honoured and inspired" the legal team by agreeing to help defend Saddam.

The Bush administration yesterday pledged $15 million to Asian nations hit by a tsunami that has killed more than 22,500 people, although the United Nations' humanitarian-aid chief called the donation "stingy."

"The United States, at the president's direction, will be a leading partner in one of the most significant relief, rescue and recovery challenges that the world has ever known," said White House deputy press secretary Trent Duffy.

But U.N. Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland suggested that the United States and other Western nations were being "stingy" with relief funds, saying there would be more available if taxes were raised.

"It is beyond me why are we so stingy, really," the Norwegian-born U.N. official told reporters. "Christmastime should remind many Western countries at least, [of] how rich we have become."

"There are several donors who are less generous than before in a growing world economy," he said, adding that politicians in the United States and Europe "believe that they are really burdening the taxpayers too much, and the taxpayers want to give less. It's not true. They want to give more."

In response to Mr. Egeland's comments, Mr. Duffy pointed out that the United States is "the largest contributor to international relief and aid efforts, not only through the government, but through charitable organizations. The American people are very giving."

Although America was in a moral decline long before the 1960s, that turbulent decade greatly accelerated the process and forever changed the face of America for the worse.

Television played a major role in the destruction of traditional American moral values. Acting in tandem with radio stations, the entertainment industry and Hollywood, television programs deliberately promoted the most evil, degenerate and decadent music.

The Ed Sullivan Show was especially guilty. In 1964, in one of the most widely viewed broadcasts in television history, Ed Sullivan first introduced the Beatles to the American people.

The frenzy of "Beatlemania" that followed that appearance would have devastating consequences for American culture.

Whipped up by radio disc jockeys and the Bolshevik news media, young Americans were encouraged to literally worship the Beatles for the remainder of the decade.

The themes of Beatles music were consistently evil: denying the existence of G-d and supporting the Marxist vision of one world (Imagine); glorifying the use of narcotics (Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, With a Little Help from My Friends, etc.); and of course, complete sexual immorality that coursed through dozens of songs.

Following the Beatles, Ed Sullivan introduced other degenerate groups from England to the American public in what became known as the "British invasion."

One of the most notorious British groups was the Rolling Stones. Like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones glorified drug use and sexual immorality in their lyrics. The Rolling Stones also wrote music praising Satan.

These groups not only sang degenerate music, they lived degenerate lives. Since they were literally worshipped as role models by tens of millions of young American fans, the effect of their evil conduct was overwhelming.

The Beatles were all drug users and adulterers.

John Lennon not only committed adultery against his first wife Cynthia when he engaged in an almost public affair with Yoko Ono (who became his second wife), he also had numerous homosexual relationships. Lennon was a longtime drug addict who became addicted to heroin (which he wrote about in his song Cold Turkey).

Ringo Starr is both a drug addict and an alcoholic. As for the other two Beatles, the late George Harrison was a lifelong narcotics user, as is Paul McCartney.

The Rolling Stones are all infamous heroin addicts. Their lives have been described by ex-girlfriends and ex-wives as a continuous nightmare of hallucinations, vomiting, pain and sleeping 16 to 20 hours a day.

These were the "role models" of the 1960s.

To be a "rock star" was a fantasy of many young Americans. So it is not surprising that today there are an estimated 40 million drug addicts and alcoholics in America (including the large numbers of Americans addicted to prescription drugs).

If we add compulsive gamblers and sex addicts to these groups, we find that roughly one-third of American adults are addicted to some form of self-destructive behavior that makes their lives miserable, makes it difficult for them to function on a day-to-day basis, and worst of all, constitutes sinful conduct that separates them from G-d.

Again, all of these tragic situations existed prior to the 1960s, but certainly not anywhere near the levels that we are witnessing today.

Another factor in the downfall of American morality that started in the 1960s was the American educational system.

On the nation's college and university campuses, American students were taught in the 1960s to hate their country, to hate religion and moral values, and to feel guilty about slavery and racial segregation.

For the first time in U.S. history, students on college and even high school campuses started burning American flags and waving the flags of America's Communist enemies during the mass protests against the Vietnam War in the late sixties and early seventies.

Many Americans who were teenagers or young adults in the sixties became fervent haters of the United States and everything it represents.

These young Americans of the 1960s are today's middle-aged baby boomers and yuppies. These America-haters control the Democrat Party. They number in the tens of millions.

Aside from many blacks, Hispanics and other minorities who detest America for racial reasons, there are many millions of self-hating whites who absolutely loathe this country. This coalition of resentful "minorities" and self-hating whites have complete power over the Democrat Party on both the national and local levels.

Since today's "journalists" in the Bolshevik news media are products of the anti-American education system that flourished in the sixties, the U.S. media is instinctively anti-American.

The same is true for corporate America. Most of the corporate officers from the industry titans all the way down to middle management were educated in anti-American colleges and universities. Therefore, there is no loyalty to the United States or to traditional moral values in corporate America. Almost all corporations have no hesitation in helping America's mortal enemies - such as the Muslim world and Communist China - if it will lead to greater corporate profits.

In the 1960s, American youth were taught that there is no objective truth, that there are no moral absolutes, that there is no right and wrong.

What a terrible price America is paying - and will yet pay - as a result of the warped philosophy that was taught to young Americans since the 1960s.

The true lesson of the sixties is that when evil forces set out to twist and corrupt the thinking of a whole generation of Americans, there was no comparable righteous force to confront this dangerous challenge.

We must build a righteous, moral, G-d-fearing right-wing movement that will save America from the vicious fifth columnist traitors who have decimated this nation's once great moral foundation.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - An explosion tore through a soft-sided mess tent where U.S. soldiers were eating lunch Tuesday at a military base near the northern city of Mosul, blowing a hole in the ceiling and leaving the floor littered with trays of food and puddles of blood. Officials said at least 20 people were killed in one of the most devastating attacks against Americans in Iraq since the start of the war.

A spokesman for U.S. military headquarters in Baghdad said 19 of the dead were American soldiers, which would make it the deadliest single strike against U.S. troops in this country. However, a military spokesman in Mosul said 14 U.S. troops died in the blast, which came just four days before Christmas.

Inside the tent, U.S. soldiers reacted quickly. With people screaming and thick smoke billowing, soldiers turned their lunch tables upside down, placed the wounded on them and gently carried them into the parking lot, said Jeremy Redmon, a reporter for the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch embedded with the troops in Mosul.

A radical Sunni Muslim group, the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, claimed responsibility for the attack, which officials said wounded about 60 people — the latest in a week of deadly strikes across Iraq that highlighted the unwavering power of the insurgents in the run-up to the Jan. 30 national elections.

President Bush said the explosion should not derail the elections and that he hoped relatives of those killed know that their loved ones died in "a vital mission for peace."

Most Americans remember the Ayatollah Khomeini. He was one of the great villains of the 20th century, who bequeathed his patrimony of fanaticism and hatred to the 21st.

Khomeini led the 1979 Iranian revolution that overthrew the corrupt shah and replaced the government with a brutal Islamic theocracy that today is locked in battle with reformers seeking to end a quarter century of repression. Khomeini preached worldwide violent Islamic revolution, thundering that “those who study Islamic Holy War will understand why Islam wants to conquer the whole world.”

“Why do you only read the Quranic verses of mercy and do not read the verses of killing?” Khomeini challenged fellow clerics in a 1981 speech. “Qu’ran says: kill, imprison! Why are you only clinging to the part that talks about mercy? Mercy is against God.” The tyrant also exhorted his followers to “kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all.”

That’s some vision. Yet a Muslim group based in Irving hosted a seminar earlier this month paying “tribute to the great Islamic visionary.” It’s chilling to think that any local Muslim would be willing to honor such a man, especially with the United States under the threat of attack by Islamic terrorists.

Dismayingly, the list of speakers at the Irving event included some of North Texas’ best-known mainstream Islamic figures, including Dr. Yusuf Kavakci of Dallas Central Mosque, widely considered a moderate. He and other leaders shared the roster with Mohammed Asi, a radical Washington imam whom, according to The Washington Post, U.S. officials suspect to be an Iranian agent.

Dr. Kavakci declined two invitations to tell us why he attended the conference. We tried to obtain a tape of the conference, but we’re told none is available. Another attendee, Mohamed Elibiary, president and CEO of the Plano-based Freedom and Justice Foundation, shares his reasons for attending on the opposite page. Still, we are hard-pressed to understand what good could possibly come from attending — let alone hosting — such a forum.

Event organizer Imam Shamshad Haider told us that Khomeini has been unjustly portrayed in the Western media. He complained in a television interview last week that Khomeini had been unfairly judged on only one aspect of his personality.

Imam Haider insists that the theme of the conference was Muslim unity. Other area Muslim leaders who spoke at the event support this contention, saying they agreed to speak to foster cohesion between Sunni and Shia Muslims, not necessarily to endorse Khomeini.

That may be true on one level. But no amount of good Khomeini might have done can possibly balance his blood-soaked legacy. Unity is a poor excuse for legitimizing the views of Khomeini admirers by appearing at this event, even if it drew fewer than 100 attendees, as one participant told us.

If Muslim leaders want to be perceived by the broader community as men of good will and moderation, they need to make clear what they consider radical and extreme and treat it accordingly.

Pockets of Islamic radicalism exist in North Texas. We don’t believe — and this is important to get straight — that they characterize most Muslims in the Dallas area. But these elements are here, and we cannot afford to ignore them. Neither can the Muslim community avoid the responsibility for policing itself.

As former FBI counterterrorism chief and Rowlett resident Oliver “Buck” Revell tells us, “If we continue to be deaf, dumb and blind to what’s plainly in front of us, we have no one to blame but ourselves.”

Aid-wise, residents of the West Bank [sic] and Gaza have hardly been neglected until now. They receive about $300 per person, making them, per capita, the world's greatest beneficiaries of foreign aid. Strangely, their efforts to destroy Israel have not inspired efforts to crush this hideous ambition but rather to subsidize it. Money being fungible, foreign aid effectively funds the Palestinian [sic] Arabs' bellicose propaganda machine, their arsenal, their army, and their suicide bombers.

This, however, does not faze international-aid types. Nigel Roberts, the World Bank's director for the West Bank [sic] and Gaza, blows off past failures. Addressing himself to donors, he says, "Maybe your $1 billion a year hasn't produced much, but we think there's a case for doing even more in the next three or four years."

Mr. Roberts is saying, in effect: Yes, your money enabled Arafat's corruption, jihad ideology, and suicide factories, but those are yesterday's problems; now, let's hope the new leadership uses donations for better purposes. Please lavish more funds on it to enhance its prestige and power, then hope for the best.

This la-la-land thinking ignores two wee problems. One concerns the Palestinian [sic] Arabs' widespread intent to destroy Israel, as portrayed by the outpouring of grief for archterrorist Arafat at his funeral, the consistent results of opinion research, and the steady supply of would-be jihadists. The Palestinian [sic] Arabs' discovery of inner moderation has yet to commence, to put it mildly.

The other problem is blaming the past decade's violence and tyranny exclusively on Arafat, and erroneously assuming that, now freed of him, the Palestinian [sic] Arabs are eager to reform. Mahmoud Abbas, the new leader, has indeed called for ending terrorism against Israel, but he did so for transparently tactical reasons (it is the wrong thing to do now), not for strategic reasons (it is permanently to be given up), much less for moral ones (it is inherently evil).

Mr. Abbas is not a moderate but a pragmatist. Unlike Arafat, consumed by his biography and his demons, Mr. Abbas offers a more reasonable figure, one who can more rationally pursue Arafat's goal of destroying Israel. In this spirit, he has quickly apologized to the Kuwaitis and made up with the Syrians; compared to this, reaching out to the Americans is easy.

December 21, 2004 -- HERE we go again. With the start of the Iraqi cam paign season, doomsters are back with predictions of disaster for the newly liberated nation.
Some claim the election could be a prelude to civil war. Others warn that the nation's Shiite majority might, in a moment of madness, choose an Iranian-style theocracy. Still others point to the Kurdish show of disaffection as a sign the multi-ethnic country may well be heading for disintegration, and that the coming elections could speed up the process.

Yet most doomsters are the same people who opposed first the liberation of Iraq, and then the holding of free elections. What is the evidence for all their warnings and demands that Iraqi elections be postponed (presumably forever)?

Some pretend to be alarmed by the "excessive language" used by rival Iraqi politicians in campaign speeches. For example, Hazem Shaalan, Iraq's flamboyant defense minister, has attacked Hussein Shahrestani, the leader of one of the Shiite lists of candidates, as "the man from Tehran." Shahrestani's aides have retaliated by branding Shaalan "the American minister."

By most campaign standards, this is a rather mild polemical exchange. The American papers that pretend to be shocked by Iraqi verbal duels must have forgotten the recent U.S. campaign, which saw President Bush branded as "the Arabian candidate" and Sen. John Kerry portrayed as a coward masquerading as a hero.

What is happening in Iraq is what happens in every democracy: Political rivals attack each other verbally — but, in contrast to most other Arab states, do not imprison or murder their opponents.

1. Jesus of Nazareth says, “Give to him who begs from you, and do not refuse him who would borrow from you.” Jesus favors more government handouts for welfare cheats.

Wrong. Jesus said individual Christians should give directly to beggars, so they would get all the money and God would get the glory. He did not say the gifts should be run through a bureaucracy which keeps much of the money and all of the glory.

2. Jesus of Nazareth says, “Judge not, that you be not judged.” Jesus is soft on crime.

Wrong. Again the writer, obviously ignorant of scripture, fails in “rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15). Individuals do not have the right to judge, (here meaning “condemn”); governments do have the right to judge and condemn. “For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil” (Romans 13:3-4).

3. Jesus of Nazareth says, “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s,” Jesus will raise your taxes.

Wrong. Jesus said men should pay their legal taxes, but he never said one word about government raising taxes. Not one word.

4. Jesus of Nazareth says, “Do not resist one who is evil. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other.” Can we trust Jesus to fight the War on Terror?

Wrong. Again the writer fails the Biblical command to “rightly divide the Word of God.” When Hitler was butchering millions of innocents the government had the duty to use the sword and stop the murders. Turning the other cheek is a command to individuals, not governments.

The writer is either grossly ignorant of what the Bible says, or is deliberately trying to mislead people. If he is ignorant he should refrain from writing on Biblical subjects until he learns what the Bible teaches. If he is trying to mislead people, he needs to refrain from writing on Biblical subjects before facing the judgment that follows his coming death. Let the writer know that God is merciful and will delight in forgiving him if he repents.

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Lisa Montgomery is making it harder to doubt there is a Devil after she killed a mother, cut out her unborn child and was showing off the child before her arrest.

While the Montgomery's ate breakfast Friday at the Whistle Stop Café in Melvern, Kansas, a customer showed the baby off. After eating, they took the girl to visit their pastor.

Lisa entered the home of Bobbie Jo Stinnett on the pretense of buying a dog, strangled her, and cut the 8-month baby out of her body while she was still alive.

The baby is in good condition and Lisa Montgomery is being charged with killing its mother.

This is more common than most realize. Homicide is the number one killer of pregnant women. Since 1990 there have been 1,367 pregnant women and new mothers killed with many states not having figures on the killings.

The public prefers to believe this brutal murder is an abnormal event, that this was the work of some mentally deranged individual.

The truth is there is a rampaging killer in our midst. His trail of blood can be traced back to the first family. Jesus Christ said, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44).

Humans, unrestrained by parental teaching, government's punishment, or the church’s gospel, are easily enlisted as the Devil’s killers.

December 19, 2004 -- Twenty years after his name became synonymous with gun violence, unrepentant subway vigilante Bernhard Goetz said the infamous shooting was "just what the doctor ordered for New York City."

The Dec. 22, 1984, incident on a downtown IRT train "forced the city to address crime," Goetz said Friday on "Larry King Live."

"I don't regret pulling the trigger," said Goetz, adding, "I guess feeling guilty is not one of my strong points."

And he'd do it again.

"People should not take crap from other people," the skinny electronics engineer said.

"I would not get a beating again. I would without any hesitation, shoot a violent criminal again."

In the 1984 incident, Goetz, then 37, pulled a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson from his jacket and opened fire on four confrontational black teens. When the dust settled, Barry Allen, 18, Troy Canty, 19, James Ramseur, 19, and Darrell Cabey, 19, all were wounded.

After shooting Cabey, Goetz said, "You don't look too bad, here's another," and shot him a second time.

GRACE: Bernhard, I'm going to take you back to that night, to that afternoon.

GOETZ: Afternoon. It was at 1:30 in the afternoon.

GRACE: Yeah. And I want to ask you that now, nearly 20 years later, do you still remember that moment when you pulled the trigger and opened fire?

GOETZ: I don't think about it much. But I can -- I recall the details. If I -- I don't even try to think about it. But I can recall.

GRACE: Why don't you ever think back on it?

GOETZ: I don't find it particularly interesting. There are other things in my life that I'm a lot more interested in now, than that incident or crime.

GRACE: A lot of people are very interested in that and in you. So, let me take you back, 1984. You get on the subway, the number 2 train. What happened?

GOETZ: Train came into the station, only 10 or 15 seconds after I reached the station. The doors opened up on the subway car. I went in.

GRACE: Like you always did.

GOETZ: Yeah. I found a car that had a lot of seats available, which was near where I was standing and I sat down. And as I was sitting down, there was a group of teenagers in the vicinity. And one of them looked at me and said, how are you doing? I said fine. I just kept looking down.

GRACE: Middle of the day?

GOETZ: It was Saturday afternoon, before Christmas about 1:30. There were, perhaps, 15 to 20 other people in the subway car. And they seemed like they were troublemakers. But I knew I was getting off on the next express stop. So, I didn't think there would be any trouble.

GRACE: So you only had to ride the train one stop.

GOETZ: That's correct, one express stop. I was in a rush. I was late for a meeting with some people. We were going to have some drinks before Christmas. I hadn't seen them for a while. And after the doors closed and the train started moving, two of the guys, they were originally sitting down -- they were doing some play fighting with each other but they were generally sitting down. Two of the fellows came over to my left. And one of them just stuck out his hand and casually said, give me $5. And when -- I knew that was -- that was a mugging.

So, I said casually, what did you say? I pretended I didn't know what he was saying. He said give me $5. I said I'll give you $5. I'll give all of you $5. I forget my exact words and I stood up. I had a fast draw gun. And I did a (INAUDIBLE) holster and I did speed shooting. And speed shooting is where you pull the trigger before you aim. And you can get off -- that was a five-shot gun. You can get off five shots -- I figured I got off all five shots in about 1.5 seconds. And --

GRACE: Now, Bernhard. What about their demeanor made you feel threatened?

GOETZ: They were just thugs. They were just typical street thugs. You get to know them. I spent lots of times, lots of time on the streets of New York.

GRACE: Four of them. One of you?

GOETZ: Yeah. That was common at the time. We had, in New York City, we had groups of teenagers who were go around --

GRACE: A pack?

GOETZ: Day and night - yes, threatening people, being loud, intimidating people, doing violence on people and basically, the police couldn't do anything.

GRACE: Or wouldn't or didn't do anything.

GOETZ: There was a police policy. At the time, if you were a cop and you arrested somebody and you brought them into the precinct, the cop would be reprimanded by the superior. The superior would tell them the courts are overcrowded. The prisons and jails are overcrowded.

GRACE: Handle it on the street.

GOETZ: Don't bring in people.

GRACE: What I'm trying to find out is what they did, if anything, to make you feel threatened to the point you had to shoot them.

GOETZ: Very simple. They surrounded me. They were right on top of me. They were acting in concert. They had blocked off my retreat. It was all over with. There was going to be a confrontation at that point. They didn't even have to say anything. It was just by their positions. If people are over in a certain area and then two of them come around and there are two on your left and two on your right, you're surrounded. You're basically --

GRACE: With the wall at your back?

GOETZ: Yes. I had nowhere to go.

GRACE: After the shooting, you stepped off the train and blend blended in.

GOETZ: Well, yes. I talked to a few people on the train, a couple women, the subway conductor. They did the standard procedure in New York City, if there's a shooting on a subway, they will stop the train between stations, whether the train is underground or if it's above ground so the people involved can't get off the train. And I sat there -- after I finished talking to the people, for about 30 seconds. And I was thinking -- if you're going to run, you had better run now. You know, you better not wait because in a few minutes, it will be too late. And so, I got up, climbed down between the cars, ran to the next station, climbed up on the subway tracks and kind of -- I would sometimes walk, sometimes run out of the station. I just started walking on the street. Sirens were going off everywhere.

GRACE: So you are walking down the street, while the sirens were going and cops were converging. And you just kept walking?

GOETZ: That's right. If I had left the train maybe a minute later, the police would have caught me. The police responded very quickly.

GRACE: If you acted in self-defense, why did you leave the scene?

GOETZ: Well I knew I would be in trouble at the time in New York and we still have it. Carrying a gun in New York City, even if it's for self-defense, has a one-year mandatory sentence. It's a felony. I just didn't want to be --

GRACE: So, in you're mind, the irony was, they were robbing you. And you were running from the cops.

GOETZ: Yes. Actually, as a result of that incident, even though they were robbing me, they committed perjury -- the only person who has a criminal record as a result of that incident and you have a assistant district attorney of course suborning perjury -- the only person who has a criminal record is me and that's for carrying a gun.

A new poll conducted in the Palestinian [sic] Authority has revealed that a large majority of Palestinians [sic] fear the continued state of lawlessness on the streets, but at the same time nearly 70% object, at this stage, to the dismantlement of terror groups.

The above figures are a cause for concern for PLO Chairman and leading candidate in the January 9 Palestinian [sic] elections, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), who last week came out against the use of arms in the intifada.

In addition, 51% said Fatah could bring about an improvement in their situation, in comparison with only 25% who named Hamas.

Similar to previous polls, the survey showed that more Palestinians [sic] support the peace process: 69% were in favor of holding talks with Israel.

Interview with Former President and First Lady: “Michael Moore’s got to be the worst for me,” former President George H.W. Bush tells TIME’s Hugh Sidey when asked about the low point of this last term. “I mean, he’s such a slimeball and so atrocious. But I love the fact now that the Democrats are not embracing him as theirs anymore. He might not get invited to sit in Jimmy Carter’s box (at the Democratic Convention) again. I wanted to get up my nerve to ask Jimmy Carter at the Clinton thing (the opening of Bill Clinton’s library), ‘How did it feel being there with that marvelous friend of yours, Michael Moore?’ and I didn’t dare do it.” See separate press release.

The Bush Dynasty: TIME’s Matt Cooper examines how the Bush family has endured and who’s next in line.

The Strategist: Karl Rove: TIME profiles Bush adviser Karl Rove who talks about his relationship with his boss and discusses his own mother’s suicide in 1981. He tells TIME’s Karen Tumulty, “It’s hard to figure out. You can speculate on what demons she just wasn’t able to overcome, but she couldn’t. And it’s very sad for my sisters, who were very close to her.” Rove recalls that Bush “was a certain way in 1988, and he was significantly different by 1990, 1992, 1994. I think it’s his own life experience, waking up and saying ‘I’m not going to drink because it saps my energy and drains my focus.’ I think it’s the freedom of being, ironically, his own self in the aftermath of his father’s defeat in ’92. I don’t know. You could psychoanalyze it. Clearly, he’s always had incredible abilities, (but) he had a stronger focus and a discipline. He brought all of his many talents to bear after he went through—I suspect like all of us do—something that changed his center of life,” Rove tells TIME. See separate press release.

TIME Poll: In the first TIME Poll since November’s election, just under half of Americans (49%) approve of President George W. Bush’s performance, about the same as before the election. Bush’s election victory also has not brightened the nation’s outlook, according to the latest poll numbers. Half of Americans (50%) still think that the country is headed in the wrong direction, not much changed since the pre-election period. Only 40% see the country on the right track. See separate press release.

JOE KLEIN: The Benetton-Ad Presidency: In his column, TIME’s Joe Klein writes, “In a way, President Bush is the beneficiary of 40 years of Democratic policy—not just affirmative action, which helped create a broader, deeper pool of successful nonwhite college graduates, but also the Democratic Party’s historic support for civil rights legislation, the feminist revolution and the easing of strict immigration policies in the 1960s, policies long opposed by many Republicans. But the Bush Cabinets have also been very much a reflection of who George W. Bush is and always has been.” See separate press release.

The Filmakers: Mel Gibson and Michael Moore: While former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich says that the ongoing struggle for the definition of America can be described as “Michael Moore vs. Mel Gibson.” It isn’t quite that simple, of course, writes TIME’s Richard Lacayo. Just ask Moore, who says that his film, too, resonates with Christ’s message. The Passion of the Christ emphasized Christ’s final hours and, for the most part, left out scenes of his ministry. “But my film dovetails with the rest of Jesus’ life,” Moore told TIME last week. “It connects to his message about questioning those in authority, of being a man of peace, of loving your neighbor.”

Power Line Named Blog of the Year: TIME also names Power Line its Blog of the Year. “Before this year, blogs were a curiosity, a cult phenomenon, a faintly embarrassing hobby on the order of ham radio and stamp collecting. But in 2004, blogs unexpectedly vaulted into the pantheon of major media, alongside TV, radio and, yes, magazines, and it was Power Line, more than any other blog, that got them there,” writes TIME’s Lev Grossman. See separate press release.

Power Line is the brainchild of two Minneapolis-based lawyers John Hinderaker and Scott Johnson and Washington, D.C.-based lawyer Paul Mirengoff. “My view,” Johnson says, “is that the mainstream media has acted as a means to obscure, as a kind of filter, a lens that makes it impossible to understand what’s going on in reality. We try to provide something that brings people closer to reality,” he tells TIME.

On Wednesday, I wrote a letter to David Blunkett. As he resigned 15 minutes after my fax arrived (I cannot claim the two events were related), I do not complain that I have not yet received an answer, either from him, or from his successor, Charles Clarke. But an early response, as they say on bills, would be appreciated.

What I asked the Home Secretary concerned his department's proposed law against "religious hatred". Readers may remember that, last week in this column, I defended the right of people to say - though it is not a proposition with which I agree - that the Prophet Mohammed was a paedophile.

So my question to whoever happens to be Home Secretary is whether it would be an offence under the new law to assert this proposition. Muslims are also very offended by any pictorial depiction of the Prophet; so I asked whether such depictions would also be an offence under the law.

Fiona Mactaggart, who is minister for race equality, has accused critics of the new law of a misunderstanding. It is not a blasphemy law, she says. You can say anything you like about the beliefs: what you will not be allowed to do is to insult the believers because of what they believe. I do not see how this distinction will be possible to maintain: it is certainly not one which Muslims accept.

On this page on Tuesday , Iqbal Sacranie, the secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, clearly saw the law as a way of preventing "the vilification of dearly cherished beliefs". He sees attacks on the Prophet as attacks on all Muslims - therefore, in his view, they should be banned. That is what Muslims think Labour has promised them.

The reaction to my own article shows the problem. The Muslim Association of Britain (not to be confused with the MCB) said that what I had written was "repulsive", composed out of an "arrogance borne by only the most zealous of racists". Because of my "filth and drivel", I should be dismissed from The Daily Telegraph, and the paper should apologise. Just in case the point was missed, the MAB reminded the paper of the lessons of the Salman Rushdie affair.

It also referred readers to a website, IslamOnline.net which globalises the denunciation of my column with a Cairo dateline and offers a link to a discussion of what should happen to non-Muslims who insult the Prophet ("In Islam, it is well known that the punishment for the one who insults the Prophet is to be killed… However, we Muslims are advised to be forgiving and pardoning.")

Who are the Muslim Association of Britain? I've been looking them up. They have close links to the extremist Muslim Brotherhood, one of whose leaders, Qutb, advocated takfir, the branding of all Muslims as infidels unless they conform to sharia. Some MAB activists support Hamas and its policy of suicide bombing.

One of its senior chaps, Azzam Tamimi, has boasted of this "human bomb" against the Israelis: "We love death, they love life." The IslamOnline website is the mouthpiece of Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi. It debates, among other things, whether the best treatment for homosexuals is 100 lashes or chucking them over a cliff, and Qaradawi rejects interfaith dialogue in favour of "the language of the sword and force".

WASHINGTON -- It is Christmas time, and what would Christmas be without the usual platoon of annoying pettifoggers rising annually to strip Christmas of any Christian content. With some success:

School districts in New Jersey and Florida ban Christmas carols. The mayor of Somerville, Mass., apologizes for ``mistakenly'' referring to the town's ``holiday party'' as a ``Christmas party.'' The Broward and Fashion malls in South Florida put up a Hanukkah menorah but no nativity scene. The manager of one of the malls explains: Hanukkah commemorates a battle and not a religious event, although he hastens to add ``I really don't know a lot about it.'' He does not. Hanukkah commemorates a miracle, and there is no event more ``religious'' than a miracle.

The attempts to de-Christianize Christmas are as absurd as they are relentless. The United States today is the most tolerant and diverse society in history. It celebrates all faiths with an open heart and open-mindedness that, compared to even the most advanced countries in Europe, are unique.

Yet more than 80 percent of Americans are Christian and probably 95 percent of Americans celebrate Christmas. Christmas Day is an official federal holiday, the only day of the entire year when, for example, the Smithsonian museums are closed. Are we to pretend that Christmas is nothing but an orgy of commerce in celebration of ... what? The winter solstice?

I personally like Christmas because, as a day that for me is otherwise ordinary, I get to do nice things, such as covering for as many gentile colleagues as I could when I was a doctor at Massachusetts General Hospital. I will admit that my generosity had its rewards: I collected enough chits on Christmas Day to get reciprocal coverage not just for Yom Kippur, but for both days of Rosh Hashana and my other major holiday, Opening Day at Fenway.

Mind you, I've got nothing against Hanukkah, although I am constantly amused -- and gratified -- by how American culture has gone out of its way to inflate the importance of Hanukkah, easily the least important of Judaism's seven holidays, into a giant event replete with cards, presents and public commemorations as a creative way to give Jews their Christmas equivalent.

(AgapePress) - Three thousand students at a public high school in Cincinnati, Ohio, have learned that one of their classmates is definitely not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The 18-year old was suspended after he passed out letters containing an evangelical message to fellow students at his school.

Eric Bast recently served a five-day suspension from Oak Hills High School for passing out 3,000 personalized letters to schoolmates. The letters explained how an individual can have a personal relationship with Christ and avoid spending eternity in hell.

Obtaining a list of students for every home room in his school, Bast enlisted 30 volunteers to help him put his letters in manila envelopes, and then delivered them to each home room. "I had this idea about six months ago," he says, "to write a letter to every person at my high school, explaining who Jesus Christ is and what our sins have done to separate us from God."

The Christian student sought to help his schoolmates understand their need for redemption from their sins. Through the letters, he says he tried to explain "how Jesus can save us from those sins and forgive us, and pretty much just give everyone the opportunity to commit their lives to Christ."

According to Principal David Vannasdall, Bast was punished because he disrupted the learning environment and because he failed to get administrative approval for the letter distribution. But the 18-year-old says his "disruption" has resulted in a positive impact at his school among non-Christian students, and on fellow Christians as well.

The senior says his letter made a real impression on several of his unbelieving schoolmates, whose reaction was to realize "Man, this guy put this much time into it: it's got to be at least real to him -- really, really real. So maybe I should look into this a little more."

Since passing out the letter, Bast says several of these students, and many others who have been nominal or less than serious about their faith, have been talking to him and telling him that his words really made them consider their spiritual convictions.

"People that were going to church for a long time, but never really paid attention -- it made them think," the young campus evangelist says. At the same time, he adds, "People all over the school that are Christian said, 'Wow, I realize that I'm totally not living for God, because I don't tell any of my friends, let alone every person.'"

Now that his five-day suspension is behind him, Bast intends to follow up his evangelical letter campaign with witnessing. He says the letter distribution effort has already led to numerous opportunities to share his faith with students who are seeking to know more about Jesus.

ITHACA, N.Y. - Nearly half of all Americans believe the U.S. government should restrict the civil liberties of Muslim Americans, according to a nationwide poll.

The survey conducted by Cornell University also found that Republicans and people who described themselves as highly religious were more apt to support curtailing Muslims' civil liberties than Democrats or people who are less religious.

Researchers also found that respondents who paid more attention to television news were more likely to fear terrorist attacks and support limiting the rights of Muslim Americans.

"It's sad news. It's disturbing news. But it's not unpredictable," said Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society. "The nation is at war, even if it's not a traditional war. We just have to remain vigilant and continue to interface."

The survey found 44 percent favored at least some restrictions on the civil liberties of Muslim Americans. Forty-eight percent said liberties should not be restricted in any way.

The survey showed that 27 percent of respondents supported requiring all Muslim Americans to register where they lived with the federal government. Twenty-two percent favored racial profiling to identify potential terrorist threats. And 29 percent thought undercover agents should infiltrate Muslim civic and volunteer organizations to keep tabs on their activities and fund-raising.

Cornell student researchers questioned 715 people in the nationwide telephone poll conducted this fall. The margin of error was 3.6 percentage points.

James Shanahan, an associate professor of communications who helped organize the survey, said the results indicate "the need for continued dialogue about issues of civil liberties" in a time of war.

While researchers said they were not surprised by the overall level of support for curtailing civil liberties, they were startled by the correlation with religion and exposure to television news.

"We need to explore why these two very important channels of discourse may nurture fear rather than understanding," Shanahan said.

According to the survey, 37 percent believe a terrorist attack in the United States is still likely within the next 12 months. In a similar poll conducted by Cornell in November 2002, that number stood at 90 percent.

WASHINGTON (al-Reuters) - The United States on Friday designated al-Manar television -- the mouthpiece of Lebanon's Hizbollah anti-Israel guerrillas -- a terrorist organization, prompting an end to its U.S. satellite transmissions.

Lebanon's ambassador called the designation unacceptable censorship and an attack on freedom of speech.

The State Department listing came less than a week after France banned broadcasts of al-Manar's satellite channel following accusations that its programs were anti-Semitic and could incite hatred.

The United States already considers Hizbollah a "foreign terrorist organization."

"The designation is to put al-Manar television on the Terrorist Exclusion List because of its incitement of terrorist activity," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.

In response to the new designation, al-Manar was removed from the satellite which beamed it into the United States on Friday, the satellite's owner Intelsat told Reuters.

How long are we going to tolerate senators and congressmen who divulge our most closely-held secrets to the public in search of cheap political gain? We have laws that make those leaks serious federal crimes. We're spending enormous resources on finding out who leaked Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA agent to the press. Leaks that are vastly more important -- and which should be pursued with no less determination and resources -- are regularly ignored because the culprits are sitting members of Congress. These leakers should be thrown out of office and prosecuted.

It's been about two years since Sen. Richard Shelby blew one of our most important secrets -- that we were bugging Osama bin Laden's cell phone, a fact that could have led to the capture of America's most wanted terrorist -- by bragging about it to a reporter. Shelby's action (if it really was him) has never been prosecuted. Why not? Now, another huge leak comes in the form of the disclosure by members of the Senate of a highly-classified satellite program. Three members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence have apparently committed a very serious crime by blabbing about a highly-classified satellite program to the press last week. If these men actually did what it appears they did, we ought to throw the book at 'em for divulging one of our most-protected secrets: stealthy reconnaissance satellites.

As a result of their revelations to the public and the press, three U.S. Senators -- Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), who's also the ranking Dem on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) -- are the subject of a "criminal referral" made on Monday for speaking publicly about this satellite. Such referrals are made to the Justice Department by the administration when criminal conduct is suspected. In this case, it's not only suspected, it's evidenced on the front pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post. A highly reliable intelligence community source told me that the referral had been made because senior administration officials were beside themselves that the three had taken the controversy on funding this project to the press.

YOU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND that the kind of project we're talking about is protected by the highest level of security our government has. When Sandy Bergler was carrying "code word" level papers out of the National Archives in his pants and socks, he was committing a federal felony. So -- according to sources -- was Sen. Richard Shelby, who is the subject of an earlier criminal referral for blabbing about our bugging OBL's cell phone. When the government buys something secret, those that are most classified are called "black" programs because their existence can't even be admitted. They aren't listed in the public versions of legislation that authorizes and pays for them. Black programs are made so for a reason.

Think about why we might build a stealthy satellite. Many nations, including Iran and other terrorist regimes, have the ability to spot conventional satellites on their radars. They can predict with considerable accuracy what those satellites can see, and when. If we had a satellite that couldn't be seen, its view of the bad guys couldn't be predicted. Now, these three senators have blown the cover on a black satellite program that may be code-word named "Misty," and by so doing, reduced the value of the satellite and the strategy that it is to implement to zero.

To be cleared for these programs, which the senators and their intel staffers all are, each had to be briefed in detail about their legal obligations, and how the information has to be handled. They would have had to sign agreements such as the one I signed when I had these clearances. The paperwork warns you -- loudly and clearly -- that this is a damned serious matter. If they divulged information on this program -- whatever the program may actually be -- they broke the law knowingly and intentionally.

The three senators made a variety of disclosures about the program. Rockefeller made a statement on the Senate floor which his staff claims was "fully vetted and approved by security officials." Baloney. According to a congressional source, Rockefeller's statement wasn't cleared with anyone in the Pentagon or CIA, and wasn't checked by the Intelligence Committee majority staff. Whomever "vetted" it isn't clear, but it wasn't done by the proper authorities.

Wyden's statement, quoted in the Sunday New York Times, not only talked about the satellite system but demagogued its price. According to the Times, Wyden -- whose Pentagon and defense industry-bashing skills were developed in years of service as one of John Dingell's minions on the House Energy and Commerce Committee -- "did not mention Lockheed, but he expressed concern about the rapidly escalating cost of the satellite program and the way in which the contractor was selected." By even admitting publicly that the program exists -- which at least Wyden did explicitly -- is a crime punishable by years in exotic vacation spots such as Fort Leavenworth. (One source told me that Durbin has made similar statements to those of Wyden and Rockefeller, but I could not confirm this by deadline.)

GAZA (al-Reuters) - A smuggling tunnel being dug by Palestinians on the Gaza-Egypt border collapsed on Friday and at least five people were trapped inside, witnesses in the Gaza frontier town of Rafah said.

Palestinian ambulances and rescue crews given clearance by Israeli forces rushed to the scene. Palestinian officials said earlier accounts that two men had been extracted from the tunnel were incorrect, citing poor communications in the area.

"We are still digging, we cannot yet determine their fate," a security official said by telephone from Rafah.

The sudden appearance of Zakaria Zubeidi, the 29-year-old militant leader, and at least 20 of his armed men embarrassed the head of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, the body that administers Palestinian [sic] refugee camps.

Weapons are banned in the camps, but during four years of violence, armed gangs have taken control, building their reputations through deadly attacks on Israelis. The unarmed Palestinian [sic] police have been shunted aside.

Zubeidi, West Bank head of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a violent group linked to the ruling Fatah party, strode to the gate of the compound housing U.N. agency offices, passing signs on a fence showing the silhouette of a gun with a red line through it.

After a brief argument with a guard, he checked in his M-16 assault rifle with telescopic sight and walked in — a pistol clearly visible on his hip.

"Of course I don't condone it, but it's a fact of life," UNRWA head Peter Hansen told The Associated Press, referring to the violation of the no-arms rule. "Look around the camp. We can't stop it — we don't have guns."

On the morning of November 15, 2004, the men of 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines awoke before sunrise and continued what they had been doing for seven days previously - cleansing the city of Fallujah of terrorists house by house.

At the fourth house they encountered that morning the Marines kicked in the door and "cleared" the front rooms, but then noticed a locked door off to the side that required inspection. Sgt. Rafael Peralta threw open the closed door, but behind it were three terrorists with AK-47s. Peralta was hit in the head and chest with multiple shots at close range.

Peralta's fellow Marines had to step over his body to continue the shootout with the terrorists. As the firefight raged on, a "yellow, foreign-made, oval-shaped grenade," as Lance Corporal Travis Kaemmerer described it, rolled into the room where they were all standing and came to a stop near Peralta's body.

But Sgt. Rafael Peralta wasn't dead - yet. This young immigrant of 25 years, who enlisted in the Marines when he received his green card, who volunteered for the front line duty in Fallujah, had one last act of heroism in him.

Sgt. Rafael Peralta was the polar opposite of Pablo Paredes, the Petty Officer who turned his back on his shipmates and mocked his commander in chief. Peralta was proud to serve his adopted country. In his parent's home, on his bedroom walls hung only three items - a copy of the United States Constitution, the Bill of Rights and his boot camp graduation certificate. Before he set out for Fallujah, he wrote to his 14-year old brother, "be proud of me, bro...and be proud of being an American."

Not only can Rafael's family be proud of him, but his fellow Marines are alive because of him. As Sgt. Rafael Peralta lay near death on the floor of a Fallujah terrorist hideout, he spotted the yellow grenade that had rolled next to his near-lifeless body. Once detonated, it would take out the rest of Peralta's squad. To save his fellow Marines, Peralta reached out, grabbed the grenade, and tucked it under his abdomen where it exploded.

"Most of the Marines in the house were in the immediate area of the grenade," Cpl. Kaemmerer said. "We will never forget the second chance at life that Sgt. Peralta gave us."

Unfortunately, unlike Pablo Paredes, Sgt. Rafael Peralta will get little media coverage. He is unlikely to have books written about him or movies made about his extraordinarily selfless sacrifice. But he is likely to receive the Medal of Honor. And that Medal of Honor is likely to be displayed next to the only items that hung on his bedroom wall - the Constitution, Bill of Rights and his Boot Camp graduation certificate.

Yes, Virginia, there are still heroes in America, and Sgt. Rafael Peralta was one of them. It's just too bad the media can't recognize them.

In contrast, the bikinied American beauty queen struts practically naked in front of millions on TV. A feminist, she belongs to herself. In practice, paradoxically, she is public property. She belongs to no one and everyone. She shops her body to the highest bidder. She is auctioning herself all of the time.

In America, the cultural measure of a woman's value is her sex appeal. (As this asset depreciates quickly, she is neurotically obsessed with appearance and plagued by weight problems.)

As an adolescent, her role model is Britney Spears, a singer whose act approximates a strip tease. From Britney, she learns that she will be loved only if she gives sex. Thus, she learns to "hook up" rather than to demand patient courtship and true love. As a result, dozens of males know her before her husband does. She loses her innocence, which is a part of her charm. She becomes hardened and calculating. Unable to love, she is unfit to receive her husband's seed.

The feminine personality is founded on the emotional relationship between mother and baby. It is based on nurturing and self-sacrifice. Masculine nature is founded on the relationship between hunter and prey. It is based on aggression and reason.

Feminism teaches woman that feminine nature has resulted in "oppression" and that she should convert to male behavior instead. The result: a confused and aggressive woman with a large chip on her shoulder, unfit to become a wife or mother.

This, of course, is the goal of the social engineers at the NWO: undermine sexual identity and destroy the family, create social and personal dysfunction, and reduce population. In the "brave new world," women are not supposed to be "nest" makers, or progenitors of the race. They are meant to be neutered autonomous creatures that indulge in sex for physical pleasure, not for love or procreation.

At his press conference on Sunday, Donald Rumsfeld said that Iranian women and youth were restive under the rule of the Mullahs. He implied that the US would soon liberate them. To Britney Spears? To low-rise "see-my-thong" pants? To the mutual masturbation that passes for sexuality in America?

Parenthood is the pinnacle of human development. It is the stage when we finally graduate from self-indulgence and become God's surrogates: creating and nurturing new life. The New World Order does not want us to reach this level of maturity. Pornography is the substitute for marriage. We are to remain stunted: single, sex-starved and self-obsessed.

We are not meant to have a permanent "private" life. We are to remain lonely and isolated, dependent on consumer products for our identity, in a state of perpetual courtship.

This is especially destructive for woman. Her sexual attraction is a function of her fertility. As fertility declines, so does her sex appeal. If a woman devotes her prime years to becoming "independent," she is not likely to find a permanent mate.

A growing rift between Hamas and Islamic Jihad has led to a break in cooperation between the two groups, and is threatening to lead to an all-out clash between them, according to a leading Hamas preacher who recently slammed Jihad for trying to outmuscle Hamas.

"There was a time when there were more Islamic Jihadists than us, but now we are more than them, but nonetheless they have managed to take over the media and to get ahead of us, and are now intensively competing with us," said Fathi Hamad, a member of the Sura Council, the supreme Hamas religious body in Gaza responsible for the the organization's communications system in Gaza.

"An Islamic Jihad takeover would means the Shi'ites take over, and if that happens you will all be turned into heretics .... We must fight and clash with all those who are not Sunni and guarantee our faith remains pure."

COPENHAGEN (AFP) - Denmark's national symbol, the Little Mermaid sculpture perched on a rock at a Copenhagen pier, was draped in a burka and a sash reading "Turkey in the EU?" overnight, Copenhagen media reported.

New Yorkers have — rightly — resented this role for years. Back when he was mayor, Ed Koch argued (hyperbolically, perhaps, but more or less correctly) that the U.N. got the better end of the deal — indeed, its very credibility — by being in New York.

Koch called the organization a "cesspool" and argued that if it left the city, it would never be heard from again.

Hmm. Now there's an idea . . .

Local resentment has only grown in light of the U.N.'s recent hostility toward America and Israel, its role in the $21 billion Oil-for-Food scam — and even the way it treats its own employees.

Not to mention its ongoing delinquency in paying its traffic tickets and the failure of its members to obey local laws.

No wonder local officials have been suggesting that it take its business elsewhere; Mozambique, as one suggested, would be fine by us.

New Yorkers have every right to object to any plan to make life better for this consortium of thugs and thieves.

A Texas Muslim organization held a special event honoring the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini, advertised as a "tribute to the great Islamic visionary."

With the aim of cultivating "the unity of the Muslim ummah [brotherhood] around the globe," the Metroplex Organization of Muslims in North Texas, a Shia group, invited prominent local and national Muslim leaders to the seminar Saturday, including Mohammad Asi, the former imam of the Islamic Center in Washington, D.C., who has been monitored by U.S. law enforcement for ties to Tehran's radical regime.

Asi wrote in a 1994 public letter to Khomeini's successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: "I ... swear allegiance to you as leader of the Muslims."

Other speakers included the director of the local branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which casts itself as the nation's leading Muslim civil-rights group, and an NBA player.

A Dallas-area Muslim leader who has been honored for his civil-rights work told WorldNetDaily he spoke at the day-long seminar in Irving, Texas, and heard a couple of other speakers.

But Mohamed Elibiary claimed he was not aware of the event's general theme and "tribute" to Khomeini.

In a phone conversation yesterday, WND directed him to an ad for the seminar posted on the Metroplex Organization of Muslims in North Texas website, which includes a photo of Khomeini alongside a message speaking of "Islamic revolution."

[Editor's Note: Since the publishing of this story, the Muslim group has removed the page. The link goes to a Google, cached version.]

The leader of Iran's Islamic revolution in 1979, Khomeini famously viewed the U.S. as the "Great Satan" and said "Islam makes it incumbent on all adult males ... to prepare themselves for the conquest of countries so that the writ of Islam is obeyed in every country in the world."

Elibiary – known for his Muslim lobby and vote-mobilization efforts as president of the Plano, Texas-based Freedom and Justice Foundation – stated that this was the first time he had seen the flyer.

Al Manar, however, makes al Jazeera look like PBS. A new study by Avi Jorisch, a former Pentagon Arab media and terrorism expert, published by the Washington Institute for Near East Studies, exposes this deadly media weapon wielded by Hizballah. "The United States is one of al-Manar's main targets. Hizballah views America as a terrorist state... Al Manar is used to further that perception, attempting to win the hearts and minds of Arab and Muslim viewers by waging a powerful public relations campaign against the 'Great Satan.'" writes Jorisch.

He quotes Sheikh Nasrallah, Hizbollah's Secretary General in a March 2002 speech,

"Today the main source of evil in this world, the main source of terrorism... the central threat to international peace and to the economic development... the main threat to the environment, the main source of ... killing and turmoil, and civil wars, and regional wars is the United States of America. The American political discourse is to terrorize the countries of the world. American is a beast in all meanings of the world. A beast that is hungry for power and blood."

Al Manar focuses much of its broadcasts on alleged American atrocities towards Native Americans, blacks, and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while stating that U.S. "oppression" continues unabated. Al Manar brainwashes its audience, including its viewers in the U.S., that America's foreign policy is designed to "enslave the governments and people of the Middle East and their resources."

Emboldened by their Election Day successes, some Christian conservatives around the country are trying to put more Christ into Christmas this season.

In Terrebonne Parish, La., an organization is petitioning to add "Merry Christmas" to the red-lighted "Season's Greetings" sign on the main government building and is selling yard signs that read, "We believe in God. Merry Christmas." And a Raleigh, N.C., church recently paid $7,600 for a full-page newspaper ad urging Christians to spend their money only with merchants who include the greeting "Merry Christmas" in ads and displays.

"There is a revival taking place in our nation that is causing Christian and right-minded people to say: `Wait a minute. We've gone too far,'" says the Rev. Patrick Wooden Sr., pastor of the Raleigh church. "We're not going to allow the country to continue this downward spiral to the left."

Last week, the hopelessly corrupt and evil Likud Party Central Committee approved by a margin of 62% to 38% the proposal by left-wing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to invite the Marxist Labor Party into a new Israeli government coalition. The purpose of the new Likud-Labor coalition will be to implement Sharon's suicidal plan to surrender the entire Gaza District and northern Samaria to the PLO Nazi terrorists in order to create an independent PLO terrorist state in the heartland of Biblical Israel. All of the Likud cabinet ministers who have opposed Sharon's plans to retreat from the Gaza District and northern Samaria completely reversed their positions and agreed to support Sharon's evil program after he threatened to fire them.

Treasury Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, Education Minister Limor Livnat, Agriculture Minister Yisrael Katz and Health Minister Danny Naveh all publicly opposed the Sharon unilateral surrender plan as a danger to little Israel's very existence. However, the moment Sharon threatened to fire them, these corrupt frauds placed their sordid political careers above the survival of the Jewish State.

The 2,000 members of the Likud Central Committee are elected to represent the hundreds of thousands of Likud Party members. Last spring, hundreds of thousands of Likud members voted in a referendum on Sharon's retreat plan.

The hundreds of thousands of Likud members voted against Sharon's surrender proposal by a margin of 60% to 40%. Before the vote, Sharon had publicly promised to abide by the results of the referendum. But after he lost overwhelmingly, Sharon the pathological liar immediately broke his public promise and announced that he would continue with his suicidal withdrawal plan.

Now, the Likud Central Committee - which is supposedly elected to represent Likud Party members - has joined Sharon in betraying the Likud's hundreds of thousands of rank-and-file voters, who voted overwhelmingly to oppose the Sharon plan to forcibly expel 8,500 heroic Jewish pioneers from their G-d-given homes in the Gaza District and northern Samaria.

Last week's Likud Central Committee vote was replete with massive fraud. One voter said on camera in an interview with Arutz 7 television that he voted four times for the Sharon plan.

Sharon's corrupt and evil son, Likud Knesset (Parliament) member Omri Sharon, has invited notorious members of Israeli organized crime into the Likud Central Committee to help "enforce order." Infamous Israeli gangsters routinely threaten and intimidate "disobedient" Likud Central Committee members at the behest of Omri Sharon.

Ariel and Omri Sharon have also promised large numbers of government jobim (jobs) to those Likud Central Committee members who support the Sharon expulsion plan.

Likud Knesset member Uzi Landau charged that the Likud Central Committee vote was fraudulently rigged. Indeed, everyone in the Likud knows that there is blatant and rampant fraud and corruption throughout the party, yet they remain in the Likud because it is Israel's ruling party.

For years, right-wing Jewish activists Moshe Feiglin and Shmuel Sackett have encouraged Jews to join the Likud in order to take over the party. Feiglin and Sackett formed a right-wing faction in the Likud known as Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish Leadership). Thousands of right-wing Jews have joined the Likud to become part of the Manhigut Yehudit faction.

In the beginning, JTF also supported Manhigut Yehudit even though we felt it was unlikely that they would be able to "conquer" Israel's ruling party from within.

However, we now believe that Manhigut Yehudit does more harm than good by diverting talented, dedicated and sincere right-wing Jews away from the two real battles: the first battle must be to build a new, idealistic, uncompromising political party that will eventually replace the corrupt and evil Likud; and the second battle must be to organize massive nonviolent resistance through civil disobedience, and through the creation of more Hilltop Youth communities in the areas which Sharon wants to surrender.

The new, idealistic, right-wing political party has already been created by heroic Jewish dissident Baruch Marzel. It is called the Chayil (Valor) Party.

JTF's allies, the noble Hilltop Youth, are organizing for the massive, nonviolent civil disobedience that must take place on the ground in order to physically block Sharon's wicked expulsion scheme with tens of thousands of right-wing Jewish activists prepared to vigorously resist with their bodies the attempt to destroy the beautiful Jewish communities in the Gaza District and northern Samaria.

In addition, thousands of Jewish soldiers and reservists have already signed petitions in which they pledge not to obey orders to expel their fellow Jews, and not to cooperate with Sharon's evil expulsion plan either directly or indirectly.

Instead of assisting these vital efforts, the Jews in Manhigut Yehudit waste their time, energy and money on a futile attempt to take over the Likud.

Manhigut Yehudit will never be able to overcome the corrupt Likud Party machinery, which includes tens of thousands of party activists who will ferociously defend the corruption - because the corrupt Likud power structure provides them with patronage jobs, government contracts and intimate contact with elected Israeli government officials on both the national and local level.

Moreover, Israel's business elite will make sure that corrupt and treasonous Likud leaders like Sharon always have tens of millions of dollars at their disposal to fight off any internal party challenges. Manhigut Yehudit cannot compete with that type of money.

Building a small party until it becomes big enough to take over the government is a realistic objective. Menachem Begin did it with the tiny Herut Party, which eventually became the Likud and was elected to run Israel's government in 1977.

The worst part of Manhigut Yehudit's activities is that they encourage right-wing Jews to vote for the Likud.

Not one of the Likud's 40 Knesset members has been willing to vote to bring down Sharon's government when there are "no confidence" motions in the Knesset. And not one of the 40 Likud Knesset members was willing to vote against Sharon's budget, which includes money for the treasonous Gaza District-northern Samaria expulsion plan.

The Likud is not going to be the salvation of Israel. On the contrary, the Likud is a cancer which imperils Israel's very survival.

On a personal level, we like Moshe Feiglin and Shmuel Sackett. And we like the other activists in Manhigut Yehudit.

The murdered victim of a PLO Muslim terrorist suicide bomber, with one leg severed at the knee

But their strategy is disastrously misguided. The overwhelming Likud Central Committee vote last week proved it.

Unless HaShem (G-d) miraculously intervenes to bring down Sharon's despicable government, the only hope for stopping Israeli national suicide rests with JTF's allies - the Hilltop Youth and the Chayil Party.

A teenage girl with a mental age of eight is facing the death penalty for prostitution in Iran. The trial comes only four months after the hanging of another mentally ill girl for sex before marriage in a case that has prompted a human rights lawyer to prepare a charge of wrongful execution against the presiding judge.

The girl, known as Leyla M, is in prison while the Supreme Court decides on her "acts contrary to chastity", among the most serious charges under Iranian law. Under the penal code, girls as young as nine and boys as young as 15 can be executed.

In an interview on a Persian-language website, the 19-year-old says she was forced into prostitution by her mother at the age of eight. Amnesty International refers to reports that say she was repeatedly raped, bore her first child aged nine and was passed from pimp to pimp before having another three children.

She told the website: "The first time I was taken to a man's house by my mum I was eight. It was a horrible night and I cried a lot but then my mum came the next day and took me home. She bought me chocolate and cheese curls."

Iranian press reports say Leyla was charged with controlling a brothel, having sex with blood relatives and bearing an illegitimate child. Amnesty says the court refused to admit social workers' evidence of her young mental age and convicted her on the basis of confessions.