The Reactionary

With Some Women, Life is Impossible Unless You Carry a Rod

8/27/2004

The following are excerpts from a Friday sermon aired live on Qatar TV on
August 27:

We must know that [wife] beating is a punishment in Islamic religious law. No one should deny this because this was permitted by the Creator of Man, and because when you purchase an electric appliance or a car you get instructions - a catalogue, explaining how to use it. The Creator of Man has sent down this book [the Koran] in order to show Man which ways he must choose.

We shouldn't be ashamed before the nations of the world who are still in their days of ignorance, to admit that these [beatings] are part of our religious law. We must remind the ignorant from among the Islamic Nation who followed the [West], that those [westerners] acknowledge the wondrous nature of this verse. There are three types of women with whom life is impossible without beatings.

In America six million women are beaten by their husbands every year. These are their own official statistics. 4000-6000 women die as a result of their husbands' beatings. London police, every year, answer 100,000 phone calls and complaints of attacks against wives. In France, their slogan is, "Beat the wife morning, noon and night, and don't ask her why - she knows the reason." But they use their media to blow this out of proportion. They blow what is happening in the Muslim countries out of proportion. They bring a woman from South-Eastern Asia with a swollen face and present her on TV, claiming this was done by a Muslim who attacked his wife. They forget that Islam is a religion that forbids beating the face even of beasts. It is forbidden to beat even a donkey on its face.

The intelligent people in the [West] admit that a woman does not feel comfort and is not happy unless she's under a man who commands, forbids, controls, and leads. This is the nature of people according to Allah's creation. Allah has created woman, whether Muslim or infidel, so she is happy under a strong man who will protect her and lives with her. It is not surprising, then, that a French woman came before a judge in the land of false freedom and equality and said: "I don't want this husband." The judge asked her: "Why?" and she replied: "He didn't lead me, didn't oppress me, didn't castigate me, didn't talk to me violently, didn't say: Don't do this, do that." The judge replied: "Don't [his actions] support those who call for equality between man and woman?" The infidel woman answered, "No, no, I don't want him to compete with me, I want a man who leads and rules me."

This is the nature according to which Allah created people, but they contaminated and replaced it with licentiousness and evil. A woman there knows that she lost the battle, and was mislead in the worst way, and she became like gum that the husband chews and throws into the filthy garbage can.

[The Koran says:] "and beat them." This verse is of a wondrous nature. There are three types of women with whom a man cannot live unless he carries a rod on his shoulder. The first type is a girl who was brought up this way. Her parents ask her to go to school and she doesn't - they beat her. "Eat" - "I don't want to" - they beat her. So she became accustomed to beatings, she was brought up that way. We pray Allah will help her husband later. He will only get along with her if he practices wife beating.

The second type is a woman who is condescending towards her husband and ignores him. With her, too, only a rod will help. The third type is a twisted woman who will not obey her husband unless he oppresses her, beats her, uses force against her, and overpowers her with his voice.

With all of the controversy over the testimony of the Swift Boat Veterans, what can we say about Kerry's military record that does not depend upon the testimony of the Swifties. In this entry I will limit my investigation to the day when Kerry received his third purple heart and his bronze star.

A good source for the events of that day comes from Kerry's own web site. While Kerry refuses to sign a form to release all of his records, he has cherry picked certain reports to enhance his image. One of those contains the action report for 13 March 1969.

The first sentence that jumps out at the reader of this report comes from Kerry's Personel Casualty Report. In the report on Kerry's injuries we find these words. "LTJG Kerry suffered shrapnel wounds in his left buttocks and contusions on his right forearm when a mine detonated close abord PCF-94."

In another part of the same action report file we find a summary of the wounds received in the action. In that summary are the words, "LTJG John F. Kerry, USNR, Shrapnel Wound Left Buttock and contusion right forearm (minor);" So from these reports we know two things, A) that Kerry claims to have received a shrapnel wound in his buttock from a mine which blew up close to his boat, and B) that Kerry also received a minor bruise on his right forearm.

Now, let's look at the documentation of what happened earlier on that same day from Kerry's own biographers.

"At one point, Kerry and Rassmann threw grenades into a huge rice cache that had been captured from the Viet Cong and was thus slated for destruction. After tossing the grenades, the two dove for cover. Rassmann escaped the ensuing explosion of rice, but Kerry was not as lucky -- thousands of grains stuck to him. The result was hilarious, and the two men formed a bond."
Boston Globe reporters Michael Kranish, Brian C. Mooney and Nina J. Easton write in their "John F. Kerry: The Complete Biography" (PublicAffairs Reports, 2004).

In his biography Kerry reported this:
"The Nung blew up some huge bins of rice they had found, as it was assumed as always, that these were the local stockpiles earmarked to feed the hungry VC moving through the Delta sumggling weapons. "I got a small piece of grenade in my ass from one of the rice-bin explosions and then we started to move back to the boats, firing to our rear as we went."
Douglas Brinkley, Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War, 230.

Note: The Nung were mercenaries working for the South Vietnamese army.

The evidence is clear that Kerry did not receive the shrapnel in his butt from any enemy mine explosion while in combat, but rather he received it earlier in the day while blowing up rice bins. And there is a good chance that it was self inflicted. Clearly, Kerry lied in the report about the source of his wound. So we can conclude that Kerry received his third purple heart either under false pretenses or due to a minor bruise on his arm. And no self respecting soldier would ever take a purple heart for a bruise on the arm. Considering that this, as well as at least one more of his purple hearts, were not deserved, Kerry's leaving Vietnam after only four month of service was also undeserved.

Now let's look at the case of the bronze star that Kerry received on that same day and as a result of the same action. Kerry was recommended by Rassmann for the award and the citation that he received from the Navy read as follows.

“The man was receiving sniper fire from both banks. Lt. Kerry directed his gunners to provide suppressing fire, while from an exposed position on the bow, his arm bleeding and in pain, with disregard for his personal safety, he pulled the man aboard."

It is clear here that Rassmann is lying. As the action report shows in 2 different places, Kerry had a minor bruise, not an open and bleeding wound as Rassmann describes it. Furthermore, why did Rassmann throw in the part about Kerry being in pain. Did Rassman "feel Kerry's pain" or was he simply embelishing the report.

The last question that remains unanswered is if there was enemy weapons fire coming from the banks or if this is another invention on the part of Kerry and Rassmann. If we go back and look at that same action report we see that the enemy fire is given as lasting for 5000 meters. That is about 3 miles of enemy fire. Let us remember that there were 5 Swift boats in this group that were involved in this action. That means there were at least thirty crewmen as well as some other military personel like Rassman. But if we look at the casualty report we don't see a single person that was hit by a bullet. All of the other injuries happened on the other Swift Boat, PCF-3 when the mine blew up under it. And most of the injuries were concussions and back injuries.

Kerry and Rassmann claim that there was enemy fire from the banks. The Navy reports that are based upon the reports of Kerry and Rassmann therefore support the contention that there was such fire. But the majority of the other witnesses from that day's events claim that there was no such fire. No one was wounded by the enemy fire. And there is no report of Swift Boat damage from enemy fire. So if Kerry and Rassman are telling the truth, then the 3 miles of enemy who were firing on them were the most incompetent crew that the Viet Cong ever had in the field.

One last point. When PCF-3 was hit by the mine, Kerry took his boat PCF-94 and ran from the scene. The other boats remained with PCF-3. Later, when Kerry saw that the coast was clear, he returned and fished Rassmann out of the water. And there is no disputed testimony, even from Kerry, that he left the scene after the mine explosion.

In January of 2002 I wrote an article for the Usenet group alt.religion.islam. In it I speculated that OBL was dead and that Musharraf had killed him. Since that time I have seen nothing to change my mind. I will post the article below.

In the last couple of weeks there have been news reports stating that Al Quida is no longer functioning as a centrally controlled unit, but rather it is operating in diverse groups with no center of power. If Bin Laden were alive, why would this be the case?

Of course since Jan. of 2002 we have had many Bin Laden audio tapes. My contention is that these tapes were phony. One of the tapes was sent to a Swiss audio lab, the Lausanne-based Dalle Molle Institute for Perceptual Artificial Intelligence, in Nov. of 2002 and the result of it's investigation showed a 95% propability that the tapes were fake. One video tape came out showing Bin Laden and Al Zawahiri walking down the mountain side. It was easily established that the tape preceded the invasion of Afghanistan. Why would Al Quida distribute inauthentic tapes if the real Bin Laden were alive to make authentic tapes. I think that there are three reasons. One, much of the money that they were receiving from Islamic charities was going to a Bin Laden run organization. They did not want to stop getting this money because Bin Laden was dead. Two, the Al Quida leadership wanted to continue to use the authority of Bin Laden to encourage Jihadists around the world. Three, Al Quida does not want to give the victory of Bin Laden's death to the US. Considering how important it is for Al Quida to have Bin Laden alive, they could very easily produce a picture of him holding a recent journal. But they don't.

What about the US intelligence agencies. Why do they not know that Bin Laden is dead? I suspect that they have a very good idea that he is dead, but they don't want to take a chance. If they think that the odds are 90% of him being dead, they will still not say so. Imagine the embarressment of making such a statement and then having Bin Laden appear on a new video.

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Usnet article from Jan. 2002:

When Gen Mush declared that Bin Ladin was dead it made me wonder why. I thought that it was simply an attempt to diffuse some of the tension in the region and get the US off his back about the possibility of Bin Ladin being in Pakistan.

But then I was struck by a nice Oliver Stone solution. Musharraf's intelligence agencies killed Bin Ladin. Let's look at the argument.

Mush proclaimed that Ladin was dead because he was using dialyzes machines and he thought that these machines would not function in the mountains. But the possibility of a failure in these machines, although possible, is hardly of enough likelihood to make Gen Mush come out and make such a declaration. On the face of things it seems like Mush's report is rather dumb. But Mush is not dumb. I have watched him field questions from reporters before. He chooses his words very carefully and he never paints himself into a corner. Such a bold prediction about the fate of Bin Ladin seems out of line for him. So let's look at another possibility.

First of all, Mush badly needs US and international help in order to rescue his dying economy. He needs US weapons if he wants to keep up with India. With India making very strong threatening noises he doesn't want to be alienated from the people who might intervene for him. So the last thing that he needs is to have Bin Ladin running around his country and have the US find out about it.

But he can't turn Bin Ladin over to the US because then he will alienate the biggest portion of the Muslim world and many of his future voters. Additionally, the radical Mullahs in his country could be expected to go on the rampage. Assassination attempts would be virtually guaranteed.

Mush cares very little about Islam. He is a whiskey drinker who pretends to be a good Muslim because he is ruling a Muslim state. What Mush wants is to be transformed into an elected leader. He may even care enough about Pakistan to try to get it back on it's feet. He knows that the fundamentalists are a threat both to him and to any possible economic development of his country.

What to do?

Plant a lot of intelligence operatives in all of the places where Bin Ladin is likely to move! When Bin Ladin shows up, the operatives kill him and anyone who is with him. Then tell the world that Bin Ladin probably died of his health problems. Mush is then off the hook with the US. And the Muslim community cannot hold Bin Ladin's death against him.

Frankly, I find it difficult to believe that Bin Ladin couldn't get a few extra batteries into those caves, considering the tons and tons of weapons and ammunition he had up there. I also find it difficult to believe that he couldn't slip out if there was a problem with his equipment.

My guess? There is a 50/50 chance that Mush killed Bin Ladin. Okay, where's my call from Oliver Stone?

A Swift Response

The Kerry camp has choosen a strategy to counteract the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. They decided to paint them as a Bush campaign plant. They know very well that the Swifties are not Bush stooges, but that really doesn't matter. They want to attack something and this is what they believe to be their best angle. So the left's talking points now look like this. Go on the air and declare with absolute confidence that the Swifties are run by the Bush campaign. If asked, offer the evidence of common persons associated with both the Bush campaign and the Swifties. Attack the campaign as smear mongers and attack Bush for not demanding that the ads be pulled. As much as possible stay away from discussing the details of Kerry's service. Pretend great anger and indignation at the immorality of what the Bush campaign is doing.

The conservative talking heads have several possible responses to the attacks on the Swifties, but they only seem to be using a few and the don't act with the same conviction and indignation as the left. The left knows that politics is more theater than truth. The right seems to think that only sincere discussion on the issues is needed to clarify the charges of the left. They continue to treat the left's charges as though they were made out of sincerity. And they continue to answer them that way. Once they understand that for the left all of their charges are simply a combat game, they can readjust to deal with it. It is possible to remain true to the goal of clarification while still effectively counteracting the theater of the left.

Some of the possible responses for the attacks on the Swifties and on Bush are as follows.

a) The Left is making a clear attempt to deny the SBV's their freedom of speech.

b) The Left is staying away from the issues which the SBV's present and they are concentrating on personal attacks.

c) Responses to charges of the SBV's not being on Kerry's boat can be answered by naming the vet that was on his boat and calls him a liar. The doctor who treated Kerry didn't have to be on his boat to treat his wounds. The SBV's didn't have to be on Kerry's boat to see Kerry turn his boat and run when they were attacked during the Kerry's bronze star incident. Kerry's own documentation shows many of his lies. Kerry's own site has the action report of people who reported no hostile fire during the bronze star incident.

d) Take the same attitude of indignation as the left and demand proof that the Swifties are a Bush plant.

e) When offered the simple association of certain people with both the Swifties and the Bush campaign have at hand the associations of all of the people who work for both the Kerry campaign and the leftist 527s.

f) Point out that John O'Neill debated John Kerry over these same issues as far back as 1971 on the Dick Cavett show. So the Swifties complaints are not a recent fabrication made to benefit Bush.

g) Attack Kerry for not releasing his Vietnam records.

h) Attack Kerry for stabbing his fellow veterans in the back when he returned to the US.

i) Show how Kerry's own written and spoken testimony shows him to be a liar and confirms the assertions of the SBV's. There are numerous examples to pick from.