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July 2007 Stats for The Big Picture.
The Senate has approved continued financing for the Iraq war. We have to win the war in Iraq in order to continue the fight against radical Islamic terrorists. From the recently declassified National Intelligence Estimate:
Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight.
From Jonah Goldberg, in an opinion piece in yesterday’s LA TIMES:
OF COURSE the war in Iraq has made us less safe, and I didn’t need the National Intelligence Estimate to tell me so. Who could possibly deny that Iraq has become, in the words of the NIE, a “cause celebre” for jihadists? One need only read the newspaper to conclude that Iraq is spawning more terrorists. (Indeed, one fears that all the authors of the NIE did was clip from the newspapers).
If you’ve ever stood up to a bully, you know how this works. Confrontation tends to increase the chances of violence in the short term but decreases its likelihood in the long term. Any hunter will tell you that the most dangerous moment is when you’ve cornered an animal, and any cop will tell you that standing up to muggers puts you in danger. American colonists were less safe for standing up to King George III, and the United States was certainly safer in the short term when we stood on the sidelines while Germany was conquering Europe. Heck, we would have been safer in the short run if we’d responded to Pearl Harbor by telling the Japanese they could have the Pacific to themselves.
After 9/11, there were voices on the left warning that an attack on Afghanistan would only perpetuate the dreaded “cycle of violence.” Today, Democrats tout their support of that “good” war as proof they aren’t soft on terrorism. Fair enough, I suppose. But guess what? That war made us less safe too — if the measure of such things is “creating more terrorists.” A Gallup poll taken in nine Muslim nations in February 2002 found that more than three-fourths of respondents considered the liberation of Afghanistan unjustifiable. A mere 9% supported U.S. actions. That goes for famously moderate Turkey, where opposition to the U.S. ran three to one, and in Pakistan, where a mere one in 20 respondents took the American side.
In other words, before Iraq became the cause celebre of jihadists, Afghanistan was. Does that mean we shouldn’t have toppled the Taliban?
Going back further, it’s conventional wisdom that we helped “create” Osama bin Laden, or his Taliban and mujahedin comrades, when we supported the Afghan resistance to the Soviet Union. So we shouldn’t have done that either?
...Iraq is the excuse du jour for jihadists. But the important factor is that these are young men looking for an excuse. If you live your life calculating that it’s a mistake to do anything that might prompt murderers and savages to act like murderers and savages, you’ve basically decided to live under their thumb and surrender your civilization in the process.
Now available: hypoallergenic cats. They won’t make anyone sneeze, except in the most acute cases of cat allergy. (via GeekPress).
So it begins. Western pop culture knows exactly what to do with people who can't take a joke. We annihilate their mistaken beliefs with comedy. South Park led the way with its episode earlier this year, daring Comedy Central to air a cartoon of Mohammed. Jay Leno again showed the way last week, when he let us see that it was okay to make fun of radical Islam, with this joke:
Iraq has demanded that Pope Benedict issue an apology for statements he made linking Islam to violence. Well, where did the Pope get that crazy idea, huh? I'm stunned! Well, maybe the apologies will stop the church burnings, and the "Death to the Pope" chants.
And with this billboard (which had to have been network-approved), Comedy Central is saying to Matt and Trey, the creators of South Park, that they'll tolerate jokes about Muslims alongside jokes about everybody else. Once this starts in our pop culture, it will snowball and become unstoppable. Our pop culture entertainers have become expert in this kind of thing over the past several decades of going after every so-called sacred cow that anyone could identify.
Islam won't know what hit it. Reform-minded Muslims will have their eyes opened, and will have ammunition provided to them, in their efforts to bring Islam out of the 7th century, and into the 21st.
This is how we defend our freedom of speech. We don't let anyone tell us what we can and can't say - what we can and can't make a joke about - or what we can and can't publish. If someone doesn't want us to make a joke about something, we make all the jokes about it. And it starts just like this, with little digs.
And sure, in response it may be that from time to time the Islamists will demonstrate their stupidity by rioting, burning their own buildings, killing each other - and maybe even getting a few of us, like the nun who lost her life to radical Islamists earlier this month. But you know what? This is a war, and since the enemy can't fight our armies directly, it's one that in many ways is fought in the media. The radical Islamists are already doing everything they can to kill Westerners. They're going to find something to riot about even if it's a goofy story about flushing a book down toilet. (Consider, as Thomas Sowell put it this week, "the physical absurdity of trying to flush the Koran -- or any other book -- down a toilet.") And they're going to try to do that whether we tell them what boneheads they are or not.
It's up to our government to fight this war, that the radical Islamists have declared on us, militarily and politically, until we win it. And in the meantime, it's up to our media, and to all of us, to keep defending our freedom of speech, by using it.
These Islamists wanted a media war, with their assassinations staged in front of MSM photographers. Now they're going to see what media war really looks like.
Radical Islamists: get ready to laugh, you morons.
Pop star Ricky Martin testified on Capitol Hill about human trafficking.
Thomas Sowell has a brilliant article this week on how to respond to radical Islamists:
There was far more controversy over remarks made by the Pope than over the violence unleashed by Muslims against people who had nothing to do with what the Pope said.
That our enemies do not understand the significance of free speech in a free society, where things that offend us can be denounced without indiscriminate violence, is bad enough. But that we ourselves seem headed further down the slippery slope of self-censorship is chilling.
Tolerance has been one of the virtues of western civilization. But virtues can be carried to extremes that turn them into vices. Toleration of intolerance is a particularly dangerous vice to which western nations are succumbing, both within their own countries and internationally.
Double standards are being wrapped in the mantle of morality. The drive to extend Geneva convention protection to terrorists who are not covered under the Geneva convention is one of a number of dangerous self-indulgences by people who seem to think that being morally one-up is the ultimate and survival is secondary.
...Those in the United States and in other western nations who are urging dialogue with Iran are repeating the tragic mistakes of the 1930s that led to World War II. People say talk is cheap but it can be enormously costly when it becomes just a way to forestall action while an enemy nation builds up its military threat.
Read the whole thing.
The set of the pilot episode of the "This Just In"
(Image is merged from two smaller photos. Click for a larger image.)
There was a taping last night of a pilot episode for a possible "Daily Show" style show of news-oriented comedy, with a more Conservative angle on the news. I won't let the cat out of the bag by describing any of the material, but I will say that it was hilarious. Regular readers of Conservative and Libertarian blogs would be delighted to find material they are familiar with used for laughs for the first time on TV. It would be great to see this become a regular series. This kind of show has been very successful when presented with a Liberal slant, but the red-state half of the country doesn't yet have anything of this sort to watch. So this seems very likely to attract viewers. The great cast and strong writing of this pilot indicate that the viewers would come back for more.
The occasion of the cancellation of an opera in Berlin due to threats from Islamists, has given the mayor of Berlin the opportunity to make a statement of great significance:
But Berlin's mayor, Klaus Wowereit, said the director had made the wrong decision to scrap the production.
"Our ideas about openness, tolerance and freedom must be lived out on the offensive," he told the Associated Press.
"Voluntary self-limitation gives those who fight against our values a confirmation in advance that we will not stand behind them."
Germany's interior minister called the cancellation "unacceptable"
Directly related to the subject of efforts by Islamists to impose subservient behavior on the West, is today's post by Daniel Pipes:
1989 - Salman Rushdie's novel, The Satanic Verses prompted Ayatollah Khomeini to issue a death edict against him and his publishers, on the grounds that the book "is against Islam, the Prophet, and the Koran." Subsequent rioting led to over 20 deaths, mostly in India.
1997 - The U.S. Supreme Court refused to remove a 1930s frieze showing Muhammad as lawgiver that decorates the main court chamber; the Council on American-Islamic Relations made an issue of this, leading to riots and injuries in India.
2002 - The American evangelical leader Jerry Falwell calls Muhammad a "terrorist," leading to church burnings and at least 10 deaths in India.
2005 - An incorrect story in Newsweek, reporting that American interrogators at Guantánamo Bay, "in an attempt to rattle suspects, flushed a Qur'an down a toilet," is picked up by the famous Pakistani cricketer, Imran Khan, and prompts protests around the Muslim world, leading to at least 15 deaths..
February 2006 - The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten publishes twelve cartoons of Muhammad, spurring a Palestinian Arab imam in Copenhagen, Ahmed Abdel Rahman Abu Laban, to excite Muslim opinion against the Danish government. He succeeds so well, hundreds die, mostly in Nigeria.
September 2006 - Pope Benedict XVI quotes a Byzantine emperor's views that what is new in Islam is "evil and inhuman," prompting the firebombing of churches and the murder of several Christians.
These six rounds show a near-doubling in frequency: 8 years between the first and second rounds, then 5, then 3, 1, and ½.
...These incidents also spotlight a total lack of reciprocity by Muslims. The Saudi government bans Bibles, crosses, and Stars of David, while Muslims routinely publish disgusting cartoons of Jews.
No conspiracy lies behind these six rounds of inflammation and aggression, but examined in retrospect, they coalesce and form a single, prolonged campaign of intimidation, with surely more to come. The basic message - "You Westerners no longer have the privilege to say what you will about Islam, the Prophet, and the Qur'an, Islamic law rules you too" - will return again and again until Westerners either do submit or Muslims realize their effort has failed.
This statement from the mayor of Berlin is a shot across the bow of the Islamists.
To protect our freedom of speech, we're all going to have to make sure to use it, in the face of Islamist stupidity, threats, and riots. And if Islamists want to riot in Western nations, we're going to have to learn to arrest and expel them for it.
The Pope is the target of a lot of criticism for words that might be considered "apologies" to Muslims:
And in the eyes of some, the Pope only made matters worse when he started apologising. Popes do not apologise; they are supposed to be infallible. Grave damage to the papal image within the Church was foreseen.
But the Pope continues to hammer on the Islamic community to provide non-Muslims with rights that Muslims have in Western nations, but which non-Muslims do not have in Islamic nations:
Gerard O'Connell, a Vatican affairs analyst, said: "He conveyed very clearly that his interest was to build bridges, not to destroy them. He's realised he's had to clarify where he stands on inter-religious dialogue... he's stated clearly that we have common religious values."
Yet the Pope also underlined the need for "reciprocity in all spheres", quoting the words of his predecessor to 80,000 Islamic youths in Morocco in 1985 - meaning among other things the right of Christians to worship publicly in Saudi Arabia, for example, a right they currently do not possess.
He's not letting up on them. Go Pope Benedict XVI!
In a post on August 17th, I examined why Condi and the GWB administration supported an end to the Israel-Hezbollah war via U.N. resolution 1701, which relied on U.N. security forces.
U.N. Resolution 1701 on the Israel-Hezbollah war was passed less than a week ago, and already no one can tell why the U.S. supported it, or what good we thought it was supposed to do. The resolution leaves it up to Lebanon to enforce its provisions against Hezbollah, and as of today:
I started with Condi's stated goal of preventing a return to what the status quo was before the war:
"We do seek an end to the current violence, we seek it urgently. We also seek to address the root causes of that violence," she said. "A cease-fire would be a false promise if it simply returns us to the status quo."
My conclusion, which seemed surprising to me at the time, was that Condi actually believed it was possible to accomplish something useful via the U.N., given the active support and participation of the Lebanese government:
...GWB and Condi seem to think Lebanon really is going to disarm Hezbollah. Where they're getting this from, I have no idea, but it's evident they haven't given up on it yet.
Second, GWB and Condi have decided to trade the possibility of an imminent outright destruction of Hezbollah by Israel, for specific advances in the official stance of the U.N. vis-a-vis Hezbollah. They actually believe that the threat of U.N. resolutions and sanctions will make it difficult for Iran and Syria to provide arms to Hezbollah. They're essentially hoping for long-term peer pressure, over a period of years, to take the place of an immediate victory on the ground, which they felt presented too great a danger of initiating a larger war.
Today we find that Condi and GWB may have been right. The U.N. forces are not taking over the area by themselves - they are deployed along with an equally large force of Lebanese soldiers. The U.N. + the Lebanese government is not as ineffective and counterproductive as the U.N. alone usually is:
The Lebanese guerrillas admit they can't return to the south but defiantly reject calls to disarm.
...the deployment of up to 15,000 foreign troops and another 15,000 Lebanese soldiers into south Lebanon, as well as tightened restrictions at Lebanon's sea and land entry points, suggests that Hizbullah will be unable to revive its well-entrenched military presence along the border with Israel, casting into doubt a future role for its vaunted military wing.
"The war was a definitive turning point in which Hizbullah has shown its military capability, but it was a capability it could only show once," says Rami Khouri, a Jordanian political commentator and director of the Issam Fares Institute of Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut.
Hizbullah officials admit that there can be no going back to the situation along the border before the war. While insisting that the group will not disarm, Hizbullah's military commanders are currently reassessing the group's future.
It's significant that this is exactly what GWB said was going to happen, in an August 21st press conference (noted at the time in this previous post on this site):
One thing is for certain -- is that when this force goes into help Lebanon, Hezbollah won't have that safe haven, or that kind of freedom to run in Lebanon's southern border.
How about that? GWB said it was "for certain," and he called it correctly. Very impressive, considering very few people believed the U.N. had any ability to do anything useful. In the same press conference, GWB continued:
In other words, there's an opportunity to create a cushion, a security cushion. Hopefully, over time, Hezbollah will disarm. You can't have a democracy with an armed political party willing to bomb its neighbor without the consent of its government, or deciding, well, let's create enough chaos and discord by lobbing rockets.
And so the reality is, in order for Lebanon to succeed -- and we want Lebanon's democracy to succeed -- the process is going to -- the Lebanese government is eventually going to have to deal with Hezbollah.
So Hezbollah has been driven out of its fortified bunkers and is trying to find a way to continue to exist. The best current strategy Hezbollah has, may be fatally flawed:
One possibility, analysts say, is to link Hizbullah's military wing more closely to the Lebanese Army, now deployed in strength in south Lebanon.
"If Israel violates the cease-fire and Hizbullah helps the Lebanese Army's legitimate response to that violation, I think it would be very hard for UNIFIL to intervene," says Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, a Lebanese expert on Hizbullah.
One example, apparently under serious consideration by Hizbullah, is how to retaliate against Israel's violations of Lebanese airspace. UNIFIL has recorded more than three dozen violations by Israeli aircraft since the cease-fire came into effect. "We have reported them to the UN Security Council. What more can we do? Shoot them down?" says UNIFIL spokesman Alex Ivanko.
But Hizbullah might attempt to do just that. "We were unable to make good use of our anti-aircraft capabilities during the war. This is something we are looking into for the future," says Abu Mehdi. "The resistance is planning a new strategy."
This strategy depends on the assumption that the Lebanese government will want to respond to supposed Israeli violations of the cease-fire, with military action. This is highly unlikely, since Israel's military actions in the region are targeted, not against the Lebanese government, but against Hezbollah.
Israel is not the common enemy of Lebanon and Hezbollah.
But Hezbollah is the common enemy of Lebanon and Israel.
Reuters had admitted that the Hajj photos were faked via Photoshop. But up until now there had been little or no confirmation from MSM that the many photos spotted by the blogosphere as staged, had in fact been staged.
Hot Air posts video of Reuters CEO Tom Glocer, saying that he suspects fauxtography is widespread. What's also worth noting is that he admits that staged photos are likely widespread, as well as Photoshopped photos:
I would think it's extremely likely, that there are incidents all around us, of manipulated images, and staged images.
See this previous post for more illustrations of the final Freedom Tower designs.
Rebuilding of WTC gets final approval:
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Plans to build the Freedom Tower and three other skyscrapers at Ground Zero were formally approved on Thursday in a deal that would see the former World Trade Center site rebuilt by 2012.
Commenter Emwen has posted on the high-tech features planned for the new tower. From the Architectural Fact Sheet for the Freedom Tower:
Safety
The building incorporates advanced life safety systems that exceed the requirements of the New York City Building Code and that will lead the way in developing new highrise building standards. In addition to structural redundancy and extra strong fireproofing, the building includes biological and chemical filters in the air supply system. To assume optimum egress and firefighting capacity, extra-wide pressurized stairs, low-level emergency lighting and concrete protection for all sprinklers and emergency risers are being provided, in addition to interconnected redundant exits, additional stair exit locations at all adjacent streets and direct exits to the street from tower stairs. All of the building's life-safety systems - stairs, communications, risers, sprinklers, elevators - are encased in a core wall that is three feet thick in most places. This building is being designed to facilitate emergency response with enhanced emergency communication cables, together with a dedicated stair for use by firefighters. These are used in conjunction with enhanced elevators housed in a protected central building core that serve every floor of the building. In addition, "areas of refuge" are located on each floor.
Sustainable Design
Freedom Tower uses new technologies and methods to maximize efficiency, minimize waste and pollution and reduce the impacts of the development for all concerned. Our team is pursuing unprecedented collaborations with technology and energy leaders throughout the world to take advantage of the next generation of innovative energy sources, such as cogeneration and fuel cells as well as both on- site and off-site renewable energy sources such as wind energy.
Freedom Tower is being built according to World Trade Center Sustainable Design Guidelines that are unprecedented in their scope and depth. Drafted in consultation with leading environmental groups and community advocates, these guidelines for commercial development at the World Trade Center go well beyond standards for other office buildings. They call for cutting-edge innovation in air quality, energy efficiency, daylighting, water conservation, materials conservation and clean construction.
In order to achieve a world class model of energy efficiency and environmental sustainability, Freedom Tower will include: state-of-the-art energy conservation technology to reduce energy demand; better interior "daylighting" and views of the outside for occupants due to ultra-clear glass technology that also saves energy; improved indoor air quality due to outside-air ventilation and use of building materials without toxic materials such as volatile organic compounds (VOCs); water conservation due to reuse of rainwater for building cooling and irrigation; reduction of vehicular traffic via proximity to public transportation and provision of facilities for bicycle commuters; waste reduction through recycling of construction debris and use of recycled-content building materials; natural resource protection via use of sustainably harvested wood; and cleaner air in the community due to use of ultra- low sulfur diesel fuels and particulate filters on construction vehicles, for which the EPA has already given Silverstein Properties a 2004 Environmental Quality Award. Additionally, a 5000-square-foot tenant 'exemplar' space will be built to demonstrate the Freedom Tower's cutting edge design technologies and philosophies that maximize energy savings and enhance the interior quality of life for workers in the building.
It really sounds like they got this right. It looks like this will be a building we can be proud of.
I admire Jay Leno for telling a few jokes about Islam, and showing that there's nothing to it:
Iraq has demanded that Pope Benedict issue an apology for statements he made linking Islam to violence. Well, where did the Pope get that crazy idea, huh? I'm stunned! Well, maybe the apologies will stop the church burnings, and the "Death to the Pope" chants.
This is great. I'd like to see this become a staple of a lot of late-night shows. Leno has led the way.
THANK GOD FOR ALL THOSE MSM EDITORS!
From the same editors who couldn't spot all those fake photos -- we now see a headline that's the opposite of the story. In the first paragraph Ahmadinejad is quoted as saying, "we do not need a bomb." But the headline says different!
Actually, given yesterday's post on text and subtext in Ahmadinejad's U.N. speech, I think the headline is correct - it captures what Ahmadinejad really wants.
Update 9-21-06, 12:46pm - they fixed it!
Ahmadinejad spoke in purposely vague terms, so that you can interpret what he said in a number of different ways. Let's review a few of his statements:
I also praise the Almighty for the increasing vigilance of peoples across the globe, their courageous presence in different international settings, and the brave expression of their views and aspirations regarding global issues.
Radical Islamists will understand that Ahmadinejad is praising them for rioting, and for calling for the death of non-Muslims, in various nations worldwide.
What afflicts humanity today is certainly not compatible with human dignity; the Almighty has not created human beings so that they could transgress against others and oppress them.
Given Ahmadinejad's frequent calls for Israel to be wiped off the face of the earth - and his incitement of calls of "death to America" - it is evident that he doesn't object to transgressing against Israel and America. Radical Islamists will find that Ahmadinejad is saying that Israel and America are not part of "humanity," that they are "afflicting humanity," that it is okay to transgress against them, and that, in fact, by "humanity," Ahmadinejad means "Muslims only."
In case anyone thinks I'm exaggerating, Ahmadinejad is on record as literally asking, regarding the people of Israel, "Are they human beings?" So saying that westerners are not part of humanity, is part of his normal rhetoric.
Some seek to rule the world relying on weapons and threats, while others live in perpetual insecurity and danger.
Given that Ahmadinejad has called many times for Israel to be wiped off the map, and has incited calls of "death to America," this can be interpreted as meaning that it's okay for Muslims to threaten non-Muslims; and non-Muslims aren't to be permitted to do anything Muslims would consider a threat - again, because only Muslims are part of "humanity."
Ahmadinejad's intentional vagueness lets him deny that he intended any specific meaning that the speech might be said to have had. But the speech will be understood by many listeners, on one side or another, as having any specific meaning that might be attributed to it. The radical Islamists who hear it will have no doubt that it means they should continue their violent attacks on the West.
In March and April of last year, I blogged an appearance by counter-terrorism expert Harvey Kushner. I noted that, per Kushner, "Muslim chaplains in our prisons are actively recruiting felons to radical Islam."
Today a study is being published that provides documentation on the radicalization of U.S. prisoners by Islamic terrorists:
Study: Islamic Terror Cells Recruit Extremists in U.S. Prisons
WASHINGTON - Jailed Islamic extremists are taking advantage of few available Muslim chaplains and scarce religious monitoring programs in U.S. prisons to breed terrorists with violent interpretations of the Koran, a study released Tuesday shows.
State and local prison officials struggle to track radicalized behavior by inmates or religious counselors, the joint study by George Washington University and the University of Virginia found. And many prisons cannot afford preventive programs, including in California, where officials reported "that every investigation into radical groups in their prisons uncovers new leads, but they simply do not have enough investigators to follow every case of radicalization."
"Radicalized prisoners are a potential pool of recruits by terrorist groups," concluded the study, released at a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on homegrown terrorists. "The U.S., with its large prison population, is at risk of facing the sort of homegrown terrorism currently plaguing other countries."
In this light, it is useful to revisit the other things that Kushner warned about. Here's the entire post from April, 2005:
Previously I'd noticed that no terrorist incidents were taking place in the U.S., and I hoped that there wasn't much activity on the part of terror cells here. My eyes were opened by Harvey Kushner's new book, Holy War on the Home Front: The Secret Terror Network in the United States:
- Muslim chaplains in our army must be approved by supporters of terrorism. That sounds preposterous; but there are only three groups approved by the Pentagon to endorse Muslim military chaplains, and they all have ties to terrorism. "Arizona Republican Senator Jon Kyl said on October 14, 2003, 'It is remarkable that people who have known connections to terrorism are the only people to approve these chaplains.'" (p 31). That may help explain the actions of Hasan Akbar, the Army sergeant who was convicted this week of murdering his fellow officers.
- Muslim chaplains in our prisons are actively recruiting felons to radical Islam. Kushner quotes from a Justice Department report (p45): the BOP [Bureau of Prisons] typically does not examine the doctrinal beliefs of applicants for religious service positions to determine whether those beliefs are inconsistent with BOP secuurity policies; ... BOP inmates often lead Islamic religious services, subject only to intermitten supervision.." Kushner quotes Chuck Colson (p 38): "Al Qaeda training manuals specifically identify America's prisoners as candidates for conversion because they may be 'disenchanted with their country's policies.' As U.S. citizens, they will combine a desire for 'payback' with an ability to blend easily into American culture." Governor Pataki of New York banned Warith-Deen Umar from entering any of the state's prisons, for praising the 9-11 hijackers. Umar was formerly the head Muslim chaplain of New York State prisons.
- Saudi-funded grade schools teach Wahhabi doctrine to children, including such statements as "Christians and Jews are infidels" and "There can be no peace between Muslims and non-Muslims." (p 58). The New York Daily News "found that fifth and sixth graders at one school were being taught that 'the Jews killed their own prophets and disobeyed Allah,'" and that the Islamic Foundation of North America has sold 40,000 copies of a grade-school textbook that says that many Jews and Christians lead "decadent and immoral lives." (p 59).
- Cash flow from illegal drug trading funds terrorism. (I posted about Kushner's briefing on this here. )
- Profits from counterfeiting items like cigarettes and clothes are substantial and are funding terrorism.
- Islamic organizations use trumped-up charges of racism to frighten mainstream media and keep them from reporting.
- "Liberals who attack the Patriot Act couldn't do a better job of aiding and abetting the enemy if they tried." (p 134).
- "The ACLU and other liberals are busy defending the rights of [illegal immigrants], oblivious of their crimes or their victims. America should require a commitment to the Constitution and the secular nature of our country, as well as an understanding of its cultural expectations. Our system of preference for immigrants should welcome those who accept our definition of good citizenship and reject those with records of criminal activity, anti-Americanism, or any link to terrorism."
There's much, much more. It appears to me that until a person is familiar with the matters Kushner describes, he or she has no idea what's really going on in this country on the part of Islamofascists who are working to harm us.
