Steve Sailer keeps his eyes on the prize.

Rumors are that the terrorist who chopped up a bunch of people on a train in Germany with an ax today was a 17-year-old Afghan. I don’t have confirmation for that, however.

Read it.

Instead of promoting peaceful coexistence, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has decided to honor yet another Palestinian terrorist who killed numerous Israeli civilians.

The PA unveiled a statue Sunday of terrorist Ahmad Jabarah Abu Sukkar who orchestrated a deadly bombing in Jerusalem that killed 15 and injured over 60 Israelis in 1976, Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) reports.

Abu Sukkar was released after serving 28 years of a life sentence as part of an Israeli goodwill gesture to the PA in 2003.

Senior Palestinian officials – including the director of the PA’s Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs, Issa Karake, and the governor of Ramallah and El-Bireh, Laila Ghannam, – participated in the terrorists’ commemoration.

Karake proclaimed that “this monument is intended to implant in the minds of sons and daughters that we are continuing to be loyal to the path of the Martyrs,” the official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida reported.

“Ahmad Abu Sukkar is a real man, a fighter, and a man who left his impression on everyone and who was a school for giving, resolve, and courage. We are proud of him as one of the symbols of the Palestinian national struggle…” Karake said.

The presence of these senior officials reinforces the fact that the Palestinian government openly glorifies people for murdering innocent Israelis, while encouraging future generations of Palestinian youth to emulate terrorists.

Read it.

The legacy media have made much of the fact that Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, the “suddenly radicalized” mujahid who massacred at least 84 people in Nice with a truck, was a “bad Muslim”. He was non-observant — drank alcohol, ate pork, and consorted intimately with infidels of both sexes. Focusing on Mr. Bouhlel’s non-Islamic behavior buttresses the Nothing-To-Do-With-Islam meme, which is crucial to the media’s mission, even more crucial than all the weepy photos of candles and flowers and teddy bears.

The Orlando killer Omar Mateen was also noted to be a “lapsed” Muslim who was fond of an occasional tipple. And then there were the 9-11 hijackers, who engaged the services of prostitutes and lap-dancers during a pub crawl the night before they crashed their plane into the World Trade Center.

To the Western mind, this bad behavior by men who go on to martyr themselves killing kuffar for Allah seems contradictory. But it isn’t, really — it accords with a precise Islamic formula for how one may enter Paradise. It makes complete sense; it’s just totally alien to a Western mind.

Read it.

If Mr Erdogan was a maddening ally for Europe and America in the past, the leader who has just overcome a military coup will be capable of almost anything.

Read it.

Having exacerbated the Syrian civil war by allowing jihadists of all hues to cross Turkish territory to fight his friend-turned-nemesis Bashar al-Assad, then spurred a massive humanitarian crisis by allowing hundreds of thousands of Syrian refuges (and assorted Middle Eastern migrants camped in Turkey) to infiltrate Europe illegally, President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an capitalized on Chancellor Merkel’s recoil from her “open door” migration policy to extract substantial financial and political concessions from the European Union that, if fully implemented, will irreversibly change the EU’s demographic and cultural identity.

Read it.

A French government committee has heard testimony, suppressed by the French government at the time and not published online until this week, that the killers in the Bataclan appear to have tortured their victims on the second floor of the club.

…

According to this testimony, Wahhabist killers reportedly gouged out eyes, castrated victims, and shoved their testicles in their mouths. They may also have disemboweled some poor souls. Women were reportedly stabbed in the genitals – and the torture was, victims told police, filmed for Daesh or Islamic State propaganda. For that reason, medics did not release the bodies of torture victims to the families, investigators said.

Read it.

After every Islamist terror attack, they rush to the microphones to blame U.S. foreign policy for inciting the sadistic killers, often before law enforcement confirms anything. They reinforce recruitment propaganda that says the West has engaged in a “war with Islam” and therefore deflect responsibility from the murderers themselves.

Their latest stunt is a report on the contrived term “Islamophobia,” which suggests that those who fear Islamic terrorism are racist and behave irrationally toward Muslims.

They have become incredibly effective at inflaming tensions between Muslims and Westerners, who by and large harbor no ill will toward each other.

Read it.

Native Germans have to pay for their train tickets. “Refugees”, in contrast, get to ride for free, since they’re generally understood to be penniless.

Such is the logic of the German railway system.

Read it.

Battlefield success against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in the Middle East might not halt its support of terrorism across the globe, top national security officials told members of Congress on Thursday.

In fact, military victories against ISIS may spur additional violence elsewhere, they said.

“The intelligence community assesses that as the caliphate is crushed, the so-called Islamic State will become more desperate to demonstrate its continued vitality, and that will likely take the form of more asymmetric attacks, more efforts at terrorism,” FBI Director James Comey testified, using an alternate name for ISIS and its territory. “It is necessary to crush the caliphate but we can’t take our eye off of what the next move will be by these killers.”

Read it.

Patrick Calvar, head of the General Directorate for Internal Security (DGSI) – France’s equivalent of MI5 – made his claim in the wake of last year’s terrorist attacks on Paris.

‘I think we will win against terrorism,’ Mr Calvar said, but predicted the ‘confrontation between the extreme Right and the Muslim world’, adding: ‘We’re on the verge of a civil war. I think this confrontation is going to happen. One or two more attacks and it will take place. It is up to us to anticipate and stop all those groups who would trigger clashes.’

Read it.

My, what a surprise! Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

Nearly two hundred flights have taken off from airfields in the Islamic Republic of Iran to land in Syria since the Iran nuclear deal was announced one year ago, according to publicly available flight-tracking data. These commercial aircraft have almost certainly been ferrying troops and arms that, in conjunction with Russian air strikes and the deployment of thousands of Iranian forces, have staved off defeat for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The planes belong to Iran Air, the country’s flag carrier, and Mahan Air, a private airline associated with Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force.

In the context of these documented military operations with commercial aircraft, Boeing and Airbus recently announced multibillion-dollar plans to sell around two hundred planes to Iran. Here’s the problem: the Islamic Republic has used its commercial fleet to ferry weapons, supplies, and paramilitary operatives to its proxies and allies in the region since the creation of Lebanese Hezbollah by the IRGC in the early 1980s. The United States has repeatedly sanctioned Iran Air and Mahan Air for transporting military equipment to the Assad regime since then. A Western intelligence report leaked in 2012 fingered both Mahan and Iran Air for transporting everything from “communications equipment to light arms and advanced strategic weapons” to Syrian forces. And none of these activities appear to have stopped.

Read it.

Why has the West been so supportive of Palestinian nationalism, yet so reluctant to support the Kurds, the largest nation in the world without a state?

Perhaps because the Kurds aren’t making it a policy to blow up Jews and other pro-Western people.

With an estimated worldwide population of about 35 million (including about 28 million in the KRG or adjacent areas), the Kurds are the fourth-largest ethnic group in the Middle East (after the Arabs, Persians, and Turks), and have faced decades of persecution as a minority in Turkey, Iran, and Iraq.

That’s the point. A Kurdistan would take parts from Iraq, Iran, and Turkey, all of whom would scream bloody murder.

Read it.

Happy Ramadan. Be careful not to step in the diversity.

Read it.

Well, I guess it worked. Oh, wait….

Selin Gören, who is a spokeswoman for the left-wing youth movement Solid, was attacked in the city of Mannheim in January while working as a refugee activist. She was ambushed in a play area late at night and forced to perform a sex act on her attackers.

Although she went straight to the police after the attack, she did not report the ethnicity of the men, nor that they were speaking Arabic or Farsi.

Instead, she said the men spoke German and robbed her.

However, after her initial interview she went back to the police 12 hours later and told the truth.

So at least she’s got that going for her.

She also wrote an open letter to a fictional migrant on Facebook, saying: “I am really sorry that your sexist and line-crossing treatment of me could help fuel aggressive racism.

“I’m going to scream… I will not stand by and watch, and it can happen that racists and concerned citizens name you as the problem. You’re not the problem. You’re usually a wonderful human being who deserves as much as any other to be safe and free.

And if you believe that one she’ll tell you another one.

Read it.

Happy Ramadan. Be careful not to step in the diversity.

Read it.

Happy Ramadan. Be careful not to step in the diversity.

Read it.

Will the Islamophobia never cease?

Happy Ramadan. Be careful not to step in the diversity.

Read it.

Östersund is a town of 44,000 in central Sweden that has recently been culturally enriched with “Syrian” “asylum seekers”. As reported here back in March, police in Östersund have advised women not to venture out alone after dark, due to a wave of assaults and rapes.

Now, four months later, the authorities have acknowledged that the culprits in these assaults are asylum seekers, a.k.a. “New Swedes”. Furthermore, staying home at night hasn’t been sufficient protection, as more recent assaults against women have occurred in broad daylight.

Other Swedish towns are experiencing similar numbers of sexual assaults by culture-enrichers.

Happy Ramadan. Be careful not to step in the diversity.

Read it. And watch the video.

Young strong asylum seekers regularly storm the local food banks in Germany and demand halal food. Food bank workers and needy local elderly residents are being pushed out of the way, run over, ridiculed and laughed at (and probably robbed, too, along the way).

Happy Ramadan. Be careful not to step in the diversity.

Read it.

Happy Ramadan. Be careful not to step in the diversity.

Read it.

Since 2015 European nations have been comparing information on known Islamic terrorists with the lists of the most recent Moslem refugees it had accepted and has found more and more e asylum seekers with Islamic terrorism backgrounds. This is most common in countries that accept these refugees via a UN resettlement program. Since 2014 intelligence agencies have been warning Western governments that ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) and other Islamic terror groups have been sending members along with refugees entering, often illegally, Europe and the West in general.

Read it.

A 13-year-old American citizen has been stabbed to death by a Palestinian teenager on Thursday as she slept in her bed in the West Bank.

The young man, who had broken into the family home, was shot dead by security guards shortly after the attack in the settlement of Kiryat Arba on the outskirts of Hebron.

Malachi Levinger, chairman of its governing council, said an alarm was triggered when the 17-year-old assailant jumped a perimeter fence. One of the guards was also stabbed during the incident overnight.

I guess they thought Brexit was getting all the attention.

Read it.

Yet another reason to steer clear of crowds.

Read it.

At least 28 people have been reported killed at this writing, with 60 more injured following a “double suicide bombing” at Istanbul’s Atatürk International Airport, CNN (and every other major news organization) is reporting.

And the killers used “illegal guns” before the explosions.

“According to the information I was given, a terrorist at the international terminal entrance first opened fire with a Kalashnikov and then blew himself up,” Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag told his state news agency.

How the terrorist got his hands on such a weapon demonstrates the utter uselessness of “gun control” at stopping those who are evil and determined.  Because Turkey’s gun laws read like Hillary’s wish list.

Read it.

In Iraq the Kurdish forces of the autonomous Kurdish north have proved to be the most effective Iraqi troops available. But the Kurds are not bulletproof. Recently the Kurdish government revealed that from mid-2013 through May 2016 the Kurdish forces lost 1,466 men (and a few armed women) killed while fighting ISIL. That comes to about 600 per 100,000 a year (a standard measure of such things). That compares favorably to the experience of foreign troops (mainly American) in Iraq between 2003 and 2011. From 2004-7, the deaths among foreign troops ran at 500-600 per 100,000 per year. After al Qaeda was crushed in 2007, the U.S. death rate in Iraq dropped to less than 200 dead per 100,000 troops per year and to nothing by the time American combat troops left at the end of 2011. Contrast that with the death rate for U.S. troops during Vietnam, Korea and World War II, which was over 1,500. Better body armor, tactics, training, weapons and medical care have all contributed to this sharp reduction in fatal combat losses.

Read it.

Everyone is familiar with the sight of open-bodied trucks filled with noisy happy students. It is a Danish tradition for high-spirited students to drive around and visit individual students’ homes on the day they don their graduation caps.

So it was with a class from Ørestad Gymnasium. But a day that began with celebration and joy was turned into something of a nightmare when a group of immigrant men attacked the vehicle, launching various “missiles”.

It happened in a Hørgården tenement on Amager, where many immigrants live. Here Mohamed also lives; he was one of the students on the truck.

A group of migrant boys and young men had planned an attack. In a video you can see how the waste containers were rolled out on the road to block the vehicle while students were inside at Mohamed’s family’s apartment.

Read it.

And the feminists say: [chirp] … [chirp] … [chirp] ….

Read it.

Yesterday afternoon, Muslim terrorists associated with al-Shabaab attacked a hotel in Mogadishu, Somalia, killing at least 35.

…

A cabinet minister was among those murdered.

…

I have nothing particular to say about this attack–one of many–except that I don’t think it should pass unnoticed. al-Shabaab is devoted to establishing sharia law in Somalia. Who knows, it might succeed. Certainly it won’t fail due to any intelligent action on the part of the Obama administration or other Western powers.

Read it.

Hours after 49 innocent people were brutally killed during the Pulse massacre in Orlando, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and other Islamist groups were already deploying time-tested tactics to divert attention from the obvious cause of this massacre, a radical form of Islam much like their own. Three bear highlighting: diversion, claiming the terrorist attack had nothing to do with Islam, and publicly smearing Muslim reformers.

Read it.

In 2007 Pakistan announced a plan to register and regulate the 13,000 madrassas (religious schools) operating within its borders. Most agreed to be registered but the 500 or so that resisted contained most of those that were heavily into training Islamic radicals and terrorists. Religious schools are popular because they are free, and most teach secular subjects as well. Only about half of Pakistanis are literate, and most parents realize that education is a way out of poverty. The government quietly dropped the 2007 registration program because of political pressure from Islamic conservative political parties and more ominous threats from the ISI (Pakistani CIA).

The registration plan was announced by a military government because even the generals were appalled at the growing threat from Islamic terrorists based in Pakistan. This was the result of realization that the main source of Pakistani Islamic terrorists was from these religious schools, or at least some of them.

Read it.

An American economist looked at rulings handed out between 1602 and 1799 and noticed the judges’ efforts to help people “considered worthy of support” had a significant “unintended consequence”.

Because Ottoman elites could rely on support from the courts during contract disputes, they had to pay significantly higher rates of interest on loans than women, non-Muslims and the poor, who were less likely to default because they would face legal punishment.

This, Professor Timur Kuran argued in a paper in the Economic Journal, had a stifling effect on investment at a time when the Industrial Revolution was taking off in Europe.

Plus that whole ‘no charging interest’ thing put a bit of a drag on the economy.

Read it.

If ever there was a date to be remembered and commemorated in Islam, it’s the 17th of Ramadan. This year it falls on Thursday, June 23rd, beginning Wednesday evening at sundown — same day as Brexit.

This date holds great military and spiritual significance within Islam, as it was on this day that the greatest and most significant battle in Islamic history took place: the Battle and Victory of Badr in 624 AD (about 150 miles south of Medina), in which 313 Muslims defeated 1,000 non-Muslims from the Koresh tribe of Mecca who just wanted to return home safely from Syria with their trade caravans.

This battle marked the first significant military victory for Islam, which solidified Mohammed’s position as ruler of the first Islamic State in Medina.

It was a spiritual victory as well. The Koran (8:11-18) discusses how Allah sent blessings to guide and purify his Muslim warriors in preparation for battle. However, Allah also sent thousands of angels to help his warriors win by making their hearts more firm to Allah’s command to kill unbelievers, and by removing all uncertainty and fear within them. It was also the time when Mohammed mandated the killing of captives in battle.

Dates are significant for jihadists. The 17th of Ramadan is a date that Westerners should become familiar with, and take heed. Jihadists are ramping up attacks against the West during the Islamic military month of Ramadan, especially now that the caliphate has been re-established.

Read it.

On the Left, it is widely held that the biggest problem with Islamic terrorism is that it might give rise to “Islamophobia.” That mentality was on display today in the Minneapolis Star Tribune: “Fear stalks Minnesota Muslims as anti-Islam feeling builds.”

…

The latest FBI data were published in 2015 and relate to 2014, so they don’t tell us anything about the alleged current spike in anti-Muslim sentiment. What they do tell us is that in 2014, there were 154 hate crimes recorded against Muslims. By way of comparison, there were 89 directed against Christians and 609 directed against Jews, a large majority of those by Muslims. Muslims perpetrate far more hate crimes than they suffer. Are Minnesota’s Jews stalked by fear?

…

Muslims carried out multiple coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015. On December 2, Muslims perpetrated the terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California. Shockingly, there was evidence of increased anti-Muslim sentiment in December–more than when the “presidential election season began.” Whose fault was that? Donald Trump’s!

Read it.

In the aftermath of the June 12 th Islamic terror attack in Orlando Florida by an American Moslem there have been calls for new security measures to prevent repeat attacks. Demands that gun ownership be more strictly regulated ignores the fact that this has not prevented earlier similar Islamic terrors attacks in the United States, Europe and other areas with strict gun controls. The one method that has been proven to work is dismissed in the United States because it involves adopting the Israeli system of profiling. This means Moslems get more attention and those displaying pro-terrorist attitudes are regularly prevented from carrying out attacks. It works for Israeli airports, government facilities and places that have dancing and alcohol, something Islamic terrorists regularly attack even in majority Moslem countries. Another problem in the United States and the West is that profiling is either not allowed or not used in screening those applying for security jobs or joining the military. Thus the Moslem man who carried out the Orlando attack was subsequently found to have passed screening for an airport security job and recent warnings (to the FBI) from gun shop owners who noted his suspicious behavior were not acted on. This refusal to recognize the obvious continues in the United States, despite repeated attacks that could have been prevented if methods that work in the rest of the world were used.

Read it.

Anyone who has studied the Great Jihad in depth knows that mosques in infidel lands are often used as storehouses for weapons. The situation has become so ominous in North Rhine-Westphalia that the official responsible for security made public statements at a press conference about the caches of weapons that have been uncovered in or near mosques.

Read it.

An Egyptian court sentenced former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi to life imprisonment Saturday for allegedly passing state secrets to Qatar, a regional rival.

Two of Morsi’s aides also received 25-year sentences. Six defendants in the trial received death sentences, including two al-Jazeera journalists tried in absentia. (Al-Jazeera is owned by the Qatari government.)

Read it.

Trump’s talk about percentages refers to Muslims who believe that suicide bombings or other terrorist killings are justified in the name of Islam. In recent days, Trump has referred to extensive studies done in the last five years by the Pew Research Center on Muslim attitudes worldwide and in the U.S.

Among the many, many questions asked by Pew was this: “Some people think that suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilian targets are justified in order to defend Islam from its enemies. Other people believe that, no matter what the reason, this kind of violence is never justified. Do you personally feel that this kind of violence is often justified to defend Islam, sometimes justified, rarely justified, or never justified?”

Pew found that 81 percent of the nearly 3 million Muslims in the United States said such violence is never justified. Five percent said it is rarely justified; 7 percent said it is sometimes justified, and 1 percent said it is often justified. Six percent said they didn’t know.

One can read those numbers reassuringly — 81 percent disavow jihadist violence — or one can read them alarmingly. Trump reads them alarmingly. If Pew’s numbers are correct, then 13 percent of the Muslims currently in the United States believe Islamist violence is justified in at least some cases. Given the current Muslim population of the U.S., that’s just under 400,000 people.

And that’s if all Muslims so polled where telling the truth, which I’ll bet you a paycheck they were not.

Read it.

Just another fine day in the Religion of Peace.

Read it.

Police in Islamabad are investigating a senator from Pakistan’s upper house of parliament, after he allegedly threatened a female rights activist with rape during a live TV debate about violence against women.

Hafiz Hamdullah, a member of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party, appeared alongside Marvi Sirmed, a prominent journalist and human rights activist, and also barrister Masroor Sahib, on a talk show panel.

The panel was discussing a wave of high-profile honour killings of women in Pakistan.

Yeah, I can see how that would have upset him.

In a Facebook post following the incident, Ms Sirmed wrote: “He started abusing me with worst possible expletives. Called me a whore and said ‘tumhaari shalwaar utaar dooN ga aur tumhaari maaN ki bhi’.”

This translates to: “I will strip off your clothes and will do the same to your mother too”.

Just another day in the Religion of Peace.

John C Wright draws up a list so that you don’t have to.

Barack Obama took office as the 44th President of the United States on Tuesday, January 20, 2009. This is a partial list of attacks on American citizens on American soil by Jihadists acting in the name of Jihad, or violent Islamicists justifying their act in the name of Islam, since that time. (Attacks on American citizens overseas are excluded for reasons of space).

I count 26. Not bad for a Magic Negro who got the Nobel Peace Prize before his first golf vacation.

Again, Barack Obama took office as the 44th President of the United States on Tuesday, January 20, 2009. This is a full and compete list of attacks on Islamics, Pakistanis, Arabs, or anyone likely to be mistaken for a Muslim by American citizens either on American soil or abroad, in the name of America.

I count none.

That is, total Muslims killed by Americans for their religion: None. Total wounded: None. Total number of American conspiracies caught before perpetrating such an act by law enforcement: None.

The total of innocent Americans killed on American soul in the name of Islam is above 115 just during the seven years and a half of Mr. Obama’s presidency. The total number of victims aboard, American or otherwise, is immense, perhaps beyond calculation.

Will the Islamophobia never cease?

Read it.

The enormity of that death toll at Pulse nightclub has something to do with the fact that Orlando police waited until 5 a.m. to send in their SWAT team to save hostages—a decision that was at odds with normal police procedures in active shooter situations and appears to have been an error that cost lives.

Your tax dollars at work.

In 21st-century America, we have created a perverse incentive structure where fear of accusations of Islamophobia and/or racism takes priority over anything else, even preventing violence. While nobody could have foreseen the exact attack that Omar Mateen perpetrated, it’s abundantly clear that he was on track to do something awful, including murder. Yet nothing was done, even though warnings were abundant. Simply put, any American today who is accused of Islamophobia faces a ruined life with loss of employment and social stigma. Whereas the cost of not preventing mass murder is merely hurt feelings and regret.

Whose turn is it to be the victim?

It’s hardly a big secret that President Obama from the moment he arrived at the White House put the kibosh on any discussion of radical Islam as a security problem, even in classified channels. In 2009, the administration banned politically loaded words like “jihad” even in classified Intelligence Community assessments discussing terrorism – a message that was received loud and clear in the counterterrorism community. Missing the next 9/11 could be survived, career-wise, while accusations of Islamophobia would not be with Barack Obama in the White House.

Read it.

There is the seductive belief that if only we go “over there” to destroy ISIS, that the threat of homegrown radicalism will be solved. It will not. If we make this attempt with renewed vigor as both candidates are calling for, the result will almost certainly be the increase in the threat of domestic terrorism, not its diminution. It’s not hard to understand why.

I have spent considerable time on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq over a 25-year period in both a military and civilian capacity. I can categorically state that short of a Nazi-like genocidal wiping out of entire populations, it is militarily impossible to go to these overseas locations and destroy the ideology of violent jihadism. Our attempts to do so since 2001 in Afghanistan, 2003 in Iraq, and the numerous places we’ve used special forces and drone strikes to kill Islamic radicals of various stripes since then has succeeded only in expanding the threat.

Read it.

After a year of strenuous and expensive effort the American military advisors and trainers sent to Iraq to retrain and reform the Iraqi Army have admitted that a similar Iranian effort has crippled the U.S. plan to expand the Iraqi army and improve the quality of officers and troops. The basic problem was that most men the army wanted to recruit referred to join one of the Shia militias organized and trained by Iranians. It was all a matter of trust. Potential Shia recruits (in a country where Shia are over 60 percent of the population) did not believe the Iraqi Army could be reformed and rebuilt and felt the paramilitary Shia militias would be better led and more effective even though the Iraqi Army had better weapons and was more likely to get American air support. American military leaders were disappointed, but not surprised. Unfortunately many of the Shia militias are led by men known to have been members of pro-Iran militias that, before 2008, attacked American troops as well as Sunni Islamic terrorists. These militias were disbanded by 2010 but after 2014 were allowed to reform again.

Read it.

The following op-ed from a German news magazine discusses the banning of sexy advertising by London Mayor Sadiq Khan (as described here on Monday by Paul Weston) and the trend towards the same restrictions in Germany. The merger of feminism and Shariah is happening before our eyes: in order to avoid becoming “objects”, women are covering up.

You’ve come a long way, baby — all the way to purdah!

Read it.

Many Western analysts of terrorism, and of Middle Eastern politics, are bad at religion. They prefer empirical explanations for individual and group actions, and so they’d rather avoid wrestling with God. They’re also likely to see religion as infinitely adaptable, an “epiphenomenal” cover for political or economic grievance—or fertile ground for the mentally unhinged.

Many in the secular West cannot imagine that a religion can meaningfully differ from privatized, post-Enlightenment Protestantism, which usually serves as their template for all public religion. Since Islam and Islamism today behave differently from Christianity in the West, these Westerners assume God’s obstinate presence in Middle Eastern politics is the result of some other process. Whether this stems from a lack of imagination, or from a belief that examining Islam’s theological particulars constitutes bigotry, the consequence is a refusal to consider religion on its own terms whenever it bleeds into the news.

In other words, they fail to think like jihadis.

The Wall Street Journal nails it.

Since the President asked, allow us to answer. We’re unaware of any previous American war fought against an enemy it was considered indecorous or counterproductive to name. Dwight Eisenhower routinely spoke of “international Communism” as an enemy. FDR said “Japan” or “Japanese” 15 times in his 506-word declaration of war after Pearl Harbor. If the U.S. is under attack, Americans deserve to hear their President say exactly who is attacking us and why. You cannot effectively wage war, much less gauge an enemy’s strengths, without a clear idea of who you are fighting.

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Mr. Obama’s refusal to speak of “radical Islam” leads to other analytical failures, such as his description of the Orlando terrorist as “homegrown.” The Islamic State threat is less a matter of geography than of belief, which is why it doesn’t matter whether Islamic State directly ordered or coordinated Sunday’s attack so long as it inspired it. This, too, is a reminder of the centrality of religion to Islamic State’s effectiveness.

No wonder the Administration seemed surprised by the Islamic State’s initial success in taking Mosul in 2014—soldiers of faith tend to fight harder than soldiers of fortune—and by its durability despite the U.S.-led air campaign. Last November Mr. Obama boasted that Islamic State was “contained” a day before its agents slaughtered 130 people in Paris. Days later, White House factotum Ben Rhodes insisted “there’s no credible threat to the homeland at this time.” Then came San Bernardino.

Read it.

In the United States the June 12th mass shooting in Orlando Florida illustrates a problem the West in general and the U.S. in particular has in dealing with terrorist events. This problem transcends local politics and goes to the heart of the strategy used against Islamic extremists. How can the West fight against Islamic terrorist acts if so many political leaders will not even publicly identify the culprits as Islamic extremists. To deny the existence of an adversary’s religion and ideology ignores their prime motivating force. This willful denial of religious differences clearly clashes with the world view of the 21st Century secular West, where Political Correctness has become a form of secular inquisition. Current Western secular ideology ignores the power of religion, reducing conflict causes to mere economic and political differences. Religious and cultural aspects of conflict are ignored as inconvenient truths. The roots of this ignorance go back to the end of the Cold War.

Read it.

That would certainly explain reports that he was a known regular at the club.

Sitora Yusufiy, who was married to Mateen in 2009 for three months, made the shocking claim on Brazilian television station SBT Brazil.

Her fiancé, Marco Dias, speaking in Portuguese on her behalf, said Yusufiy believed that Mateen had “gay tendencies” and that his father had called him gay in front of her. Dias also claimed “the FBI asked her not to tell this to the American media.”

Why the FBI would request that is left as an exercise for the reader. Take a wild guess.

Read it.

Donald Trump says Orlando proves that we ought to ban Muslims.

Hillary Clinton says Orlando proves that we ought to ban guns.

I suggest that we’d be safer with guns and no Muslims than with Muslims and no guns. But that’s me.

Read it.

A Dutch tourist has been convicted of adultery in Qatar, three months after reporting to police she had been raped in the country’s capital of Doha.

The 22-year-old woman was immediately detained after reporting the attack in mid-March and was held until her hearing, where she was given a one-year suspended sentence and reportedly fined 3,000 Qatari riyals (£564).

She has since been released to the care of the Dutch Embassy.

Perhaps it might be a good idea to avoid Qatar.