A Crucial Moment

Cal Thomas, RCP:

Asked whether the Koran commands the killing of or violence against all nonbelievers, Ali Khan, national director of the Chicago-based American Muslim Council, replied: "No. (That's) far from the truth. There's nothing in the Koran, no verse that I'm aware of, that advocates the killing of nonbelievers."

The terrorists and those who preach from mosques throughout the Middle East must be reading a different version, then, because virtually all of their sermons that I've read claim their God wants them to kill all "infidels."

Jonah Goldberg, NRO, Tribune, on why profiling makes sense:

Note: We're not talking about training security personnel to racially profile passengers. Quite the opposite. The ACLU's problem is with training officers not to racially profile if that training nonetheless gives them enough autonomy so that it's theoretically possible to take race into account.

What is so infuriating about this is that the ACLU favors policies that discriminate against all sorts of people--old people, women, children and others who, under random searches and other idiotic numerical formulas, are pulled aside for no reason at all.

Rahm Emanuel, Chicago congressman and head of DCCC, the man with "The Plan", Sun Times:

We need to use all the tools of American power to make our country safe. America must lead the world's fight against the spread of evil and totalitarianism, but we must stop trying to win that battle on our own. We should reform and strengthen multilateral institutions for the twenty-first century, not walk away from them.

Kofi Annan, head of the multinational institution in question (unilaterally condemning Israel for enforcing the arms embargo outlined in the cease fire that the UN has so far been unable to enforce):

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Saturday that an early-morning Israeli raid against Hezbollah in eastern Lebanon violated the 6-day-old cease-fire brokered by the United Nations. An Israeli officer was killed, and two soldiers wounded, when Israeli commandos raided a Hezbollah stronghold deep in Lebanon, resulting in a fierce gunbattle.

Israel said the raid was launched to stop arms smuggling from Iran and Syria to the militant Shiite fighters, while Lebanon's Prime Minister Fuad Saniora called the operation a "flagrant violation" of the U.N. truce.

Mark Steyn, Sun Times:

The Iraq war is unpopular in Australia, as it is in America and in Britain. But the Aussie government is happy for the opposition to bring up the subject as often as they want because Downer and his prime minister understand very clearly that wanting to "cut and run" is even more unpopular. So in the broader narrative it's a political plus for them: Unlike Bush and Blair, they've succeeded in making the issue not whether the nation should have gone to war but whether the nation should lose the war.

That's not just good politics, but it's actually the heart of the question. Of course, if Bush sneered that John Kerry and Ted Kennedy and Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi's constant companion is the white flag, they'd huff about how dare he question their patriotism. But, if you can't question their patriotism when they want to lose a war, when can you? At one level, the issue is the same as it was on Sept. 11: American will and national purpose. But the reality is that it's worse than that -- for (as Israel is also learning) to begin something and be unable to stick with it to the finish is far more damaging to your reputation than if you'd never begun it in the first place. Nitwit Democrats think anything that can be passed off as a failure in Iraq will somehow diminish only Bush and the neocons. In reality -- a concept with which Democrats seem only dimly acquainted -- it would diminish the nation, and all but certainly end the American moment.

A crucial moment in our history. We have to decide. Will we live in fear and try to ignore the aggression of murderous Islamofascist bullies against their own people and the civilized world, and the suffering of our democratic ally, Israel? Will we allow our freedoms and our beloved way of life to fade away, or will we fight back?