The American Standard Bearer

Tonight in Turin, Salt Lake City resident and speed skater Chris Witty will carry the American flag into Olympic Stadium. Witty is well qualified for the honor having participated in four previous Olympics and she plans to use the spotlight for the worthiest of causes.

As a child, Witty was sexually abused repeatedly for seven long years by the next-door neighbor. The neighbor eventually served a prison sentence for abusing a different little girl. But Witty and all the other victims of abuse serve the longest sentence of all because the pain never entirely goes away.

Witty’s message is simple – bring abuse out in the open, don’t hide it in silence. Sexual predators are able to abuse the same children over and over because the children are afraid to tell anyone and often, when parents find out, they will refrain from telling authorities. I don’t understand that one myself – I wouldn’t hesitate to call everyone I could think of – but the fact remains that way too many parents won’t call anyone.

Make it harder for sexual predators to operate and less children will become victims. It’s nice to know that the athelete that will be representing the U.S. tonight as she carries the American flag into the stadium has an agenda that goes beyond her own glory.

A new twist has been added to the Danish cartoon fiasco. T-shirt maker MetroSpy is now selling a t-shirt with one of those controversial cartoons on it – the one depicting Mohammed wearing a bomb in his turban. According to a press release from MetroSpy, it’s a big hit and judging by the fact that I couldn’t get the website to load this morning, it most likely is.

The MetroSpy press release contains the following true statement: “Many in the U.S. …are angered by the violence being displayed by extreme Islamic protesters — torching buildings, desecrating flags and in some cases even killing people.”

The MetroSpy release contains, as press releases often do, some deliberately erroneous statements designed to foster curiosity. For example, it says that to Muslims, the t-shirts illustrate why we are so hated. We Americans are so low in the food chain as to find humor in the sacred religious symbols of other cultures.

But the humor isn’t in the religious symbolism. Most of us wouldn’t even know that the guy with the bomb on his head is supposed to be Mohammed if we weren’t told. The humor instead, comes from the fact that we constantly hear one thing – that Islam is a peaceful religion – but constantly see another – Muslims perpetrating all kinds of hideous violence in the name of Allah.

If the free world ever hopes to quell the violence, we’re going to have to squarely face one fact – Muslims don’t hate us because of t-shirts. They hate us because we are infidels and they have a track record 1500 years long of dealing with infidels not with peace and love, but with the sword.

Anyway, if the t-shirt thing really catches on, look for future Muslim unrest to include, in addition to the usual burning of flags, the burning of t-shirts.

Lawyer Thomas B Wilner of the law firm of Shearman & Sterling in Washington is outraged at what the U.S. Government has done to his clients “through the use of force and through the most brutal and inhumane types of treatment.”

His clients are al-Queda terrorists being detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who being unable to obtain a single American flag to burn, have turned instead to the tactic of starving themselves to death. The rationale is clear – since these folks are generally pretty happy joining the ranks of martyrdom, why not provoke a little international outrage on the way.

Which brings us to the phony outrage displayed by lawyer Wilner – he objects to any attempts by our government to save the lives of the detainees. His full statement is this: “It is clear that the government has ended the hunger strike through the use of force and through the most brutal and inhumane types of treatment. It is a disgrace.”

I have a better definition of “disgrace” for lawyers like Wilner – simply look in the mirror.

Oliver Burkeman writing in the London newspaper the Guardian on Tuesday explored the suspicion that the many protests of the now famous Danish cartoons may not have been spontaneous.

This suspicion is based on speculation of how so many Danish flags could have found their way so quickly to so many far-removed places. After all, you wouldn’t expect to find many, if any at all, in such places as Indonesia, India, Gaza or Lebanon.

Burkeman notes that many of the flags appear to be home-made, which is undoubtedly true, then concludes that these violent demonstrations therefor, are most likely spontaneous. Taking into consideration that these cartoons have been around for a while but have only now caused so much consternation, I sincerely doubt that we are witnessing an entirely spontaneous event.

The Muslim world is fast encroaching on the civilized world and they are taking every opportunity to intimidate Western societies knowing that we have the tendency to capitulate in the face of such pressure. I have no doubt that there are some people doing quite a brisk business selling Danish flags, but all that is just a side show. The main event is the way the Muslim world has managed to muscle it’s way to center stage.

The United States “is the leader of Europe and the leading infidel in the world.”

These are the words of Afghani farmer Sher Mohammed who was shot by Afghani police while storming the U.S. military base there. Several hundred crazed protesters converged on the base, burning American flags, throwing rocks, and firing guns. Three fuel trucks were also torched in the melee.

U.S. soldiers fired warning shots and flares into the air but failed to deter the advancing mob. That’s when the police took over and fired into the crowd killing four and wounding eleven. Two Pakistanis were arrested for firing at police and are suspected of being members of al-Qaida.

According to participants, the attack was the result of the Danish cartoons that have stirred the Muslim world like a hive of hornets. Farmer Mohammed’s rationalization that the U.S. is “the leader of Europe,” a notion that no self-respecting European would ever agree with, is only an excuse to lash out at us.

People who are driven by a religion that considers freedom to be a threat would naturally consider America, the standard-bearer of freedom around the world, to be the ultimate threat.

If you’re at all curious about who exactly are the targets of the Bush Administration’s wiretapping program, here’s a real life example:

In February of 2003, Dr. Rafil Dhafir, an upstate New York Oncologist, was arrested on various charges including funneling money to Sadam Hussein’s Iraq in violation of U.S. sanctions. He was convicted one year ago on 59 of the 60 counts he was originally charged with and was sentenced in October to 22 years in the big house.

The front organization that Dhafir helped to found was called “Help the Needy” and was purported to be a charity sending food etc. to downtrodden Iraqis. In all, Dhafir and his compatriots were able to send a grand total of $2.7 million dollars to Iraq, none of which apparently went to help the needy. The likely receipients were terrorists badly in need of funds.

As it turns out, “Help the Needy” was closely associated with the Islamic Assembly of North America which, according to the FBI was also funneling money to support Islamic terrorism. The founder of the IANA was none other than Bassem K. Khafagi, the University of Idaho student who was arrested in 2003 along with others as suspects in a terrorist ring. It’s worth noting that Khafagi was Community Affairs Director for D.C. based CAIR at the time of his arrest.

Now picture this: Austin Paulnack is the number one man for MoveOn.org in Syracuse New York and he is standing on the steps of the J. Hanley Federal Building forlornly waving an American flag while a sign hangs from his neck warning us to protect the Constitution. He’s there to provide “moral support” for three “activists” who are there to file requests for information under the Freedom of Information Act.

The specific information they are looking for is evidence that government officials (re: FBI) may have been spying on Dr. Dhafir’s associates during the trial. If we imagine that the associations and activities we have knowledge of are just the tip of the iceberg, it seems that spying on these skunks is exactly what we should be doing.

And I don’t think that Paulnack should be waving the American flag while he and his buddies at MoveOn.org are working to undermine the safety of Americans.

It is a mistake to see someone burning a flag and think that this act of arson is a legitimate part of the political process. Flag burners are sociopaths and that’s really all there is to it. That’s why flag burning is so commonplace in parts of the world where the political process is illegitimate.

Two-bit punks like Venezuela’s Chavez or Iran’s Ahmadinejad rely on their ability to keep a portion of the population in a perpetual state of agitation by fueling their hatreds on a regular basis. So violent demonstrations which invariably include flag burning are really a political neccessity, building support for the dictator while intimidating the ordinary folks.

Only in the free world is flag burning looked upon as a stupid and anti-social behavior. A case in point: two weeks ago, Australian police removed part of an art exhibit from a Melbourne gallery, acting on a flood of complaints from area residents. The “art” in question was what remained of a burned Australian flag. The exhibit was entitled, “Proudly Un-Australian.”

The vast majority of people living in thriving democracies like the U.S. or Australia are not fooled by snake-oil salesmen who preach hatred of a country that affords them the freedom to preach. It’s a similar concept to the politician or corporate head who lectures on the dangers of global warming in between jaunts in the private jet.

The rioting, complete with the flag burnings, that appears to be a fixture of public life in the Muslim world isn’t serving to bring the world closer together. Instead, it’s reinforcing a growing sentiment in the civilized world that these are people we need to get as far away from as possible.

Lately, there’s been plenty to write about as thousands of Muslims take to the streets in far-flung places to ignite flags from Denmark, Norway, France, etc., etc. For a change, American flags seem to have been given a reprieve.

And while many Americans, particularly veterans who risked life and limb in war, are deeply offended by the sight of some buffoon burning the American flag in a fit of indignation, it’s just not as serious as say, a Boeing 767 careening into a building in New York.

The protests (riots might be more accurate) have now spread to India, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Thailand, Somalia, the U.S. Airbase in Bagram (two people killed) and now Tehran as rioters fire-bombed the Austrian Embassy today. All this mayhem with the spector of an Iran armed with nuclear missles looming in the background.

Writing in his column today, Arnaud de Borchgrave suggests that perhaps there is a method to the madness of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in his aggressive threats of becoming a nuclear power.

Could it be that Ahmadinejad is really trying to bait the West into a pre-emptive strike with the objective of igniting a world-wide holy war, thus hastening the apocalypse and the return of the “12th Imam?”

If a cartoon can be the catalyst for the violence that is sweeping Europe and the Mid-East, perhaps something far more serious is just around the corner.

As a result of a serious shortage of Danish flags, Muslim protesters in London nixed the usual flag burning activities in favor of hand-made signs. Protesters were out in force to show their vehement hatred for Danish cartoonists and their absolute disregard for the Western freedoms that allow them to be in the streets protesting in the first place.

The Drudge Report showed photos of some of the protesters carrying signs with slogans like, “Freedom Go To Hell” and “Europe. Take Some Lessons From 9/11.”

Considering the object of the protest, those signs seem to suggest that the lesson to be taken by unwitting Europeans is that if they don’t put a muzzle on those nasty freedoms, they should expect their own 9/11 attacks. Now that’s what I call multiculturalism!

According to the Reuters news agency, a riot broke out in Syria over cartoons of Mohammed drawn by a Danish cartoonist that have the entire Muslim world in a kind of giant convulsive seizure.

Rioters first converged on the Danish Embassy, burning a Danish flag and shouting “God is Greatest.” As an aside, many in America and Europe might agree with that statement but should understand that Muslims do not consider their God to be one and the same as any other God, particularly the God of the Christians and Jews.

To reinforce my last statement, after torching the Danish flag, it was replaced with a flag that read, “No God but Allah, Mohammad is His Prophet”. Then, having matches left over, they set fire to the building itself.

But not being a complacent crowd, they also set fire to the Norwegian Embassy and were making threatening moves on the French Embassy when riot police kept them at bay by soaking their matches with fire hoses.

I’m wondering what it will take for Western Civilization to wake up and realize that the Muslim world is not ready to play in the same sand box with us.