Israel Now Borders Iran

**Update Below**

The Arabian Knight, over at his very good blog Arabian Dissent, points us to a very interesting report from Al-Jazeera about Iran's reaction to Hamas' not-very-shocking victory in Palestianian elections:

Iran has congratulated the Islamist Palestinian group Hamas for its election victory and praised voters for choosing "to continue the struggle and resistance against occupation".

Hamid Reza Asefi, the foreign ministry spokesman said in a statement on Thursday faxed to journalists:"The Islamic republic of Iran congratulates Hamas and all the Palestinian soldiers and the great Islamic people."

Iran and Hamas are allies and declared in December that they represented a "united front" against Israel. "The Palestinians have voted for the resistance and have shown their loyalty," Asefi said.

"The result of these elections will reinforce the unity of the Palestinian people in defending their rights. The massive participation of the Palestinians shows their will to continue the struggle and resistance against occupation."

Although Iran is a vocal supporter of Hamas - as well as the Palestinian resitance group Islamic Jihad and the Lebanese Shia movement Hizb Allah - the clerical regime denies allegations it finances these groups.

Allies

But on 15 December, Khaled Meshaal, the Hamas political chief said during a visit to the Iranian capital that his group would step up attacks against Israel if the Jewish state took military action against Iran over its disputed nuclear programme.

"Just as Islamic Iran defends the rights of the Palestinians, we defend the rights of Islamic Iran. We are part of a united front against the enemies of Islam," Meshaal said during the visit.

"Each member of this front defends itself with its own means in its region. We carry the battle in Palestine. If Israel launches an attack against Iran, we will expand the battlefield in Palestine," he said.

"We are part of a united front, and if one member of this front is attacked it is our duty to support them," he added, also praising Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President, for his "courageous" anti-Israeli stance.

Since sweeping to power in a shock election win last June, Ahmadinejad has embarked on an all-out verbal assault against Israel.

He has labelled the Jewish state as a "tumour" that should be "wiped off the map" or moved as far away as Alaska, and has branded the Holocaust a "myth".

In other words, Hamas' leadership has put itself at the disposal of the Iranian regime, has agreed to act as a military adjunct to its forces in the event of hostility between Iran and Israel, and has affirmed as recently as December that Iran's causes and Hamas' causes are identical.

The fact of the Iranian-Hamas alliance takes on a whole new dimension now that Hamas will form the government of the Palestinian Authority. In effect, Israel now borders a quasi-nation that must be considered militarily hostile and allied to the cause of a nation whose president has vowed to wipe Israel off the map.

In surveying the news on Hamas' victory this morning, especially in the European press, one will look in vain for this fact, which has to be the most critical issue presented by the election in Israeli eyes.

As the world continues to stumble towards world-wide conflagration, one is struck by the willful blindness of much of the West's governments and people, who this morning seem content to speak of "respecting the Palestinian vote" or chalking up Hamas' victory to their social programmes.

I have no doubt that future generations will look back at our time, much as we now look back to the late 1930's, and wonder why we couldn't see the danger so clearly presenting itself.

The answer, I think, lies in a subject I have written about in the past: dual rejectionism. The Islamic world rejects Israel completely and totally and will not rest until this stain on its honor is eradicated. The Western world rejects the fact of Islamic rejectionism on the grounds that the implications of that world's stance are politically unacceptable.

The result is mutual misunderstanding and fatal miscalculation, the two main ingredients in events we now label the Somme, Auschwitz, Okinawa and D-Day.

God help us all.


UPDATE: In "War Talk" below I argued that the Europeans and others are seriously underestimating American resolve with regard to preventing the Islamic Republic from becoming a nuclear power. A new poll released today butresses that contention. From the Financial Times:

WASHINGTON - Despite persistent disillusionment with the war in Iraq, a majority of Americans supports taking military action against Iran if that country continues to produce material that can be used to develop nuclear weapons, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found.

The poll, conducted Sunday through Wednesday, found that 57% of Americans favor military intervention if Iran's Islamic government pursues a program that could enable it to build nuclear arms.

Support for military action against Tehran has increased over the last year, the poll found, even though public sentiment is running against the war in neighboring Iraq: 53% said they believe the situation there was not worth going to war.

The poll results suggest that the difficulties the United States has encountered in Iraq have not turned the public against the possibility of military actions elsewhere in the Middle East.

Support for a potential military confrontation with Iran was strongest among Republican respondents, among whom 76% endorsed the idea. But even among Democrats, who overwhelmingly oppose the war in Iraq, 49% supported such action.

Note that these strong number in favor of doing anything it takes to prevent a nuclear Iran are in place before the President or anyone else has even begun to advance a case for war directly to the American people at large.

Make no mistake about it, Americans of all political stripes realize that a nuclear Iran is a threat to the national security of the United States.

A threat that is untolerable and will not be allowed.

War Talk

It's happening again.

When the E3 (that is, Germany, France and the United Kingdom) took up the cause of negotiation with the Islamic Republic over its alleged nuclear program, I was solidly of the opinion that this development was all to the good. Should the E3 succeed in convincing the mullahs to abandon their nuclear fantasy, I reasoned, then a great crisis will be avoided at little cost; should the E3 fail then it would be clear to all, but especially the Europeans, that best diplomatic efforts had come to naught, increasing the amount of allies the United States would then need in order to confront Iran militarily.

How wrong I was.

As I worried aloud last week about the E3 failure being spun as an American failure, what was once a trickle is now a torrent. Even a casual glance at the European press tells you which way the wind is blowing:

-- Talking to Iran is a Better Idea Than More Sanctions, Norman Lamont, January 22, 2006 Financial Times (Britain) (argues for more diplomacy)

-- Programa Nuclear y Derechos Humanos en Iran, Shirin Ebadi and Muhammed Sahimi, January 23, 2006, El Pais (Spain) (argues that diplomacy cannot succeed until the U.S. re-establishes diplomatic ties with Iran)

-- Tangling With Tehran, January 12, 2006, Editorial, The Guardian (Britain) (argues that diplomacy is the right way to respond)

-- La France prone la fermete et la Russie la prudence sur le dossier iranian, January 21, 2006, Le Monde (France) (article reporting that France's foreign minister has called for greater "international unity" to confront Iran and nudge Russia)

-- Washington Must Talk to Iran, January 21, 2006, The Spectator (Britain) (argues that, well, it argues that Washington must talk to Iran).

I could go on for quite a bit, but I suspect you've already gotten the picture. In fact, you may even be sharing that vague sense of mixed dread and nausea I've had because of it all week.

Let me be plain: our friends, the Europeans, are leading us directly into another war, if we don't find the courage to stop them.

The miscalculation is the same as last time: a serious under-estimation of American resolve to protect its national security combined with an over-estimation of European soft power to prevent the U.S. from doing so.

For, to my mind, one thing is absolutely clear: the national security of the United States is seriously threatened by the possession of nuclear weapons by the government of the Islamic Republic in that that nation is the world's number one terrorist-sponsoring state, is revolutionary in its ideology and has, as a matter of official policy, called openly for the destruction of the United States. No administration, least of all this one, can live with a nuclear Iran. And I think that would be true no matter who occupied the Oval Office or what party they were from.

So long as Europeans cling to the fantasy that this critical national security objective is illusory, they will continue to believe, as they did with Iraq, that the U.S. will not go to war. And so long as they convince themselves of that, they are unable to plan a truly effective diplomacy which would be basically a global game of good cop, bad cop.

The routine would go something like this: "We Europeans are trying to avoid war, we don't like it and don't want it. However, you should understand that the crazy Americans will never accept you becoming a nuclear power. That being the case, we will do everything we can to help you. Should you decide, though, to proceed, you should know that we will report to our friends that diplomacy is hopeless and we shall provide to the U.S. all our power, prestige and support in the following war."

That stance, and that alone, can prevent war. Only by facing a united West does Iran stand a chance of truly backing down.

However, by showing every sign of weakness, by basically begging the Iranians to come back to the table, after the Iranians have made their intentions crystal clear, the Europeans are leading the Iranians to believe that the political situation is such that the threatened stick, i.e. war with America, will never, ever happen.

Which brings us back to the U.S.' bottom line.

Senator John McCain said the other night that "There is only one scenario worse than military action in Iran and that is a nuclear-armed Iran."

That about sums it up.

If the Euros are serious about diplomacy working, they need to give us their support, and now.

Instead, they are already building up their anti-American street cred.

Like last time, the cost of their posturing will be war.

Canadian Club

I'm buried at work at the moment, but I did want to pass along this very interesting report from today's Globe and Mail:

Blaine, Wash. - American authorities closed the border crossing to British Columbia on Tuesday after an exchange of gunfire on the U.S. side between border guards, police and two murder suspects from California who were eventually apprehended.

The two men were pursued by American police in a high-speed chase along Interstate 5 in Washington state before the men ran the U.S. border crossing in an attempt to get into Canada.

"They are very dangerous suspects," said Bill Elfo, sheriff of Whatcom County.

An unspecified number of Canadian border agents, who are unarmed, left their posts during the incident because they were concerned about their safety. Managers took over and border security was not compromised, said Paula Shore, a spokeswoman for the Canada Border Services Agency.

Ms. Shore refused to say Tuesday night how many Canadian border agents left their posts because of the perceived danger. She said less than four of the more than 20 British Columbia border crossings were involved.

"A few officers exercised their right to refuse to work because of what they perceived as imminent danger," Ms. Shore said in a telephone interview. Under the labour code, "any worker has the right to refuse to work if they feel they are in imminent danger."

On Wedneday, Vic Toews, the Conservative MP who served as justice critic in Opposition, said the party will stand behind its promise to arm the border guards.
"It's simply a practical matter of how soon these officers can be trained and the firearms issued to them," he said.

"That's our commitment, and I trust our minister will do exactly that."

Border service managers took over and "as far as the travelling public is concerned, they would notice no difference," she said. "We still have highly trained people on the front lines doing their job."

The Canadian Department of Human Resources "came and assessed the situation for us," she said, and staffing had returned to normal by late Tuesday night.

The chase, which reached speeds of 160 kilometres an hour, began after Whatcom County sheriff deputies were told that the two suspects had been seen in Custer, Wash., about 10 kilometres south of the border on I-5.

A deputy sheriff tried to make contact with them but they fled.

The men ran the U.S. customs station at the Peace Arch crossing, but police continued their pursuit.

Their vehicle veered across Peace Arch Park and the men were driving north in the southbound lane of I-5. They were eventually stopped by a sheriff deputy who rammed their car with his vehicle.

When the murder suspects tried to flee, shots were exchanged between them and U.S. law enforcement authorities.

One of the men was shot and taken to hospital for treatment. The other was in federal custody.

"Apparently there was a collision involved and the suspects exited the vehicle," said Trooper Bob Wilson of the Washington State Patrol. "I don't know who shot first."

The extent of the wounded man's injuries was not known. No law enforcement officers were injured, said Sheriff Elfo.

When the car came across the U.S. side of the border, Sheriff Elfo said two uniformed Homeland Security officers were almost struck by the vehicle.
When it did come to a stop, it was about a metre from the line designating the Canadian border, he said.

"I'm very proud of all our people involved," said Sheriff Elfo. "It's a highly dangerous business trying to capture suspects such as these."

Sheriff's deputies pursued the two men based on an alert put out by police in Richmond, Calif.

A spike belt was laid across the I-5 between Custer and the border, but it didn't stop the suspects' car, Sheriff Elfo said.

Lieutenant Mark Gagan of the Richmond, Calif., police department said because both men were from different countries, Pakistan and Mexico, there were concerns they would leave the United States.

Lt. Gagan said Ishtiaq Hussain, 43, and 22-year-old Jose Antonio Barajas were arrested after the shootout on the U.S. side of the border.

"Right now we're working on extraditing both men back to the San Francisco Bay area to face the murder charges," he said.

Ashok Malhotra was shot to death in a Richmond, Calif., apartment on Saturday

I have a couple of quick points to make about this story.

1) You can search high, you can search low, and you would be hard-pressed to find a more depressing hell-hole than Richmond, California.

2) The differences in law-enforcement culture could not be clearer here. The Americans were doing everything they could to stop the bad guys. The Canadian public servants invoked their right under Canadian law to absent themselves from the situation. Don't get me wrong: these were our bad guys, in our country and it was our duty to stop them. But does anyone doubt that had the situation been reversed our guys would have offered to help? (In case anyone does, please see recent Canadian stories about how our guys offer to help often and are often so-sought by Canadian authorties because our guys are armed and have better assets to bring to bear on the job at hand).

3) What do you suppose a middle-aged Muslim man and a young Hispanic man were doing together?

4) If you want a laugh, check out the Globe and Mail's forum on this story. Here are some representational excerpts from the comments to whet your appetite:

"Bupinder Gill from surrey, Canada writes: This is the danger of becoming integrated with America we not only lose our sovereinty but our values.They solve everything by the gun do we?"

"ernst krause from London, Canada writes: A gun is rarely a defensive tool.If we arm our boarder officers it would be for an offensive purpose.A much better method of protection for the individual is to provide the front lines with soft body armour."

You just can't make stuff this good up.

Quick Notes

Since our new kitten decided that my head looked like a good landing-pad to try out his new claws-first leaps on, I've been up since 3am. Thankfully, since I only have the capacity for a few minutes of coherent thought at any given time, it's time for Quick Notes:

-- Question: With what beverage does a proper conservative toast the Conservative victory in Canada?

Answer: Why, with a Labatt's Blue, of course.

-- This, aside from the cat, may go some distance to explaining today's fog.

-- Unlike many on the Right, I was pleased with Senator Clinton's "plantation" speech on MLK Day, for it proved once again that the Democrats are beholden to a worn-out ideology that they are unable to shed. Every time she opens her mouth, a new Republican is born. Some of them are even rumored to be Black.

-- The crisis in boy's and men's education in America is starting to be noticed among the commentariat. Long a staple headache of our education administrators, the fact that our universities are home to an ever-decreasing number of young men and the implications of that fact are beginning to hammer home. Simply put: there is a crisis in modern American masculinity. I think it likely that this crisis will come to define the culture wars for the next 10 or 20 years in the way the crisis over what it meant to be a women defined the 70's. Given the young men I see around me daily in Portland, this national discussion will come not a day too soon.

-- There is no avoiding it for much longer. Russia is reverting to form. More and more hysterically anti-Western and anti-American statements fly out of the Kremlin every week. And now a shrinking Russia is flailing its energy weapon around, harming Ukraine, Moldova and, now, Georgia. The tragedy that is Russia, it seems, will always be with us.

-- Of all the criticisms I've seen levied at Israel's security wall, the one that I find the most unconvincing is that heard most often from learned commentators: that by erecting the wall the Israelis are unilaterally deciding the border of a future Palestinian state.

The world changes, events happen and leaders rise and fall, but some unyielding principles of human affairs never change. Chief among those principles is that when a people reject a compromise solution, wage war and lose, wage another war and lose again, wage yet another war and lose yet again, and then reject another generous compromise solution offered on much better terms than their bargaining position warranted, it's a safe bet they won't be consulted on the final terms. Offered the choice between getting 75% of what they wanted or holding out the hope of obtaining 100% through war, the Palestinian people overwhelmingly and freely chose the latter. Losing parties rarely, if ever, draw borders. Victorious parties do.

-- You're the man now, dog. See if you can spot all the pop culture references in this masterpiece.

-- Here's a joke from Iraq: A new policeman, fresh out of training, reports to his superior, a police captain, for the first time. Tired of dealing with rookies, the Captain decides to go easy on the new guy.

"Your only job is to enforce the curfew. The curfew is at 8pm. You go on duty at 6pm and walk the streets and remind the people of the coming curfew. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Captain"

"Before 8pm, the people are to be left alone. After 8pm, don't wait for orders, you shoot anyone you see on the street. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Captain"

"Repeat my orders"

"I am to enforce the curfew. Before 8pm, they live. After 8pm, if they are there, I shoot them and they die."

"Right. Get to work."

Later that evening, the Captain is working at his desk when he hears a gunshot ring out from the streets near his office. He looks at his watch. It's 7:50pm. He rushes outside to find his new recruit standing over the body of a man.

"What is the matter with you?!? Didn't you understand my orders? Do you know what time it is?"

"Yes, Captain, it is 7:50pm."

"Then why did you shoot this guy?"

"Well, Captain, I know this guy and he lives a half an hour from here."

-- Just for the record, I'd like it known that I am solidly of the opinion that The Simpsons is the best television show of all time, hands down.

-- Am I the only one torn by reading Lileks? One the one hand, it's always a treat. One the other, it also always induces depression over one's own writing skills.

-- On C-SPAN the other night, I saw a panel discussion with Pamela Paul, author of Pornified: How Pornography is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships, and Our Families. The blurb at Amazon describes the book's thesis as follows:

Having already carved out a major niche among 20-to-30-somethings with The Starter Marriage, Paul takes on another bane of postfeminism: the Internet-enabled "all pornography, all the time" mentality of many younger men and its ripple effect on the culture. For this pornograph, Paul interviewed more than 100 people-80 of them young, straight men. Some findings are predictable: porn allows men "to enjoy the fantasy of endless variety," but can distract men from their partners, detract from their sexual skills and harm relationships. More valuably, Paul finds women caught under new forms of social pressure-from men and women-not to disdain porn: to do so, now, is (among other things) to be seen as limiting women's sexual self-expression. Paul also sees porn seeping ever sooner into preteen life and sensibly observes that there's no reason for porn to be limitless on the Net when it's regulated elsewhere. Still, a critique that aims to avoid religious conservatism's invocation of sin and radical feminism's emphasis on civil rights violations can get fuzzy. Like Potter Stewart ("I know it when I see it"), Paul can't always distinguish sex-related art from pornography other than on a case-by-case basis; things get especially thorny regarding the torture and pain that, she asserts, "many, perhaps most men, find alluring." She ends up arguing that pornography, like alcohol or cigarettes, should be "discouraged," and proposes an effort by the government and private sector to quell consumer demand. Paul's outlines and analyses can seem simplistic, and her prose rarely rises above the level of the Time magazine feature on which the book is based. But she covers a lot of territory, and there's plenty to unnerve the knee-jerk "free speech" crowd. This will be a major watercooler book this season.

Paul seemed to me to be a very solid thinker on this subject, noting some of the unintended consequences of the radical reinterpretation of "free speech" to include what had, until then, been thought of as outside that categorization. I cannot but agree with her assessment that porn represents a public health problem that already, I think, has seriously and adversely affected the sexual development of many a young man.

On the blurb itself, it always amuses me when people trot out Justice Stewart's famous line on pornography. It is always presented, especially by liberal law professors, as some sort of pearl of deep wisdom. Like we're supposed to believe, as a matter of course, that the First Amendment prohibits the Sierra Club from airing an ad on television during an election campaign urging a vote against Congressman Limbaugh because he's a danger to our forests while, at the same time, it absolutely allows a business man to charge money to view 18-year old girls with shaved vaginas, knee-socks, pigtails and a school-girl backpack being ejaculated on.

-- One of things I think sunk Star Trek in the post-Roddenberry era was Rick Berman's obsessiveness with time travel plots. Had I the power to take over the franchise, I would erect a banner in the writer's offices that says something to the effect of "No Time Travel--No Mention of the Space-Time Continuum"

That aside, however, I do wish I had a time machine of my own, if only to interview the principals during the Bill of Rights ratification debate in order to put the above First Amendment issue to them. While I have no doubt where they would come down on the issue presented, it would really be nice just to see their reaction.

-- Speaking of SciFi, I am a man with a dream. The dream? To re-do Starship Troopers properly.

-- To The Everlasting Glory of the Infantry, Lives the Story of Private Rodger Young...

The True North

Strong.

And Free.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Of the Conservative Party of Canada.

PM Harper.

Conservative.

Canada.

I am not making this up.

I Heart Europe

In my post below entitled "This Just In: Generalisimo Francisco Franco is Still Dead" I attempted to illustrate by using easy insults how hurtful it is to have one's country subjected to unjust mockery by foreigners. My point in doing this was to illustrate two things. First, the nature of the special kind of outrage one feels when one's country is under unjust attack, and, second, just how easy and cheap this sort of rhetoric is.

For a long time now, the U.S. and Americans in general have been subjected to this type of treatment by Europeans, who now do it so reflexively that it is in danger of becoming a common denominator in European political discourse. The style of the post was to turn that phenomena on its head and muse aloud about what similar style statements would look like if Americans said them or, imagine the day, if U.S. politicians ever adopted the same theatrics their European counterparts regularly employ.

The desired result, judging by the comments and my email in-box, was more than a handful of very, very angry Europeans who got the first point but missed the second. While I am pleased to find nationalistic sentiment alive and well in modern Europe, I now feel the need to explain to my on-line European friends and readers once again that the sentiments expressed were an attempt to illustrate the uselessness of this sort of rhetoric and not my bottom line on how I feel about Europe.

To be clear, I thought it may be helpful to set forth the following short guide.

The Short Guide to New Sisyphus' True and Actual Thoughts and Feelings about Various Europeans:

1) The French: I am an unashamed Francophile who admires the French civilization greatly. I went to school for a bit in Paris and return whenever I can. I have always found the French people (if not always their government) to be polite, reasonably well-informed and interesting.

2) The Spanish: If God had to leave heaven for a while due to extensive renovations, I have no doubt whatsoever that he would live in Spain for the duration.

3) The Germans: Solid. Dependable. Sensible. When one hears, for example, that a German is leading the investigation into the assassinations in Lebanon one is comforted. A bit too cynical and in love with pacifism, but fundamentally sound.

4) The Irish: I hate to say it for fear of re-offending, but really they are so near to Americans in so many ways that when in Ireland I often feel like I haven't left my country. A bit too sheltered and unrealistic about world affairs, but at their base an honorable and decent people with a unique genius.

5) The Dutch: They are the best sort of liberals. Free markets, free minds, free people, with steel in their spines when the above is threatened. Plus, their English is better than mine. I love these guys.

6) The Italians: To be honest, I don't really know many Italians and have only visited once. My impression from the outside, though, is of a passionate people still seeking a national identity in a country that is deceivingly non-nationalistic in that most Italians I meet still seem more likely to identify with a region rather than Italy. They seem to me to really know how to enjoy life.

7) The British: If my country were to be invaded, I would grab a rifle and gladly give my life in her defense. The only other country I would do that for unhesitatingly is the United Kingdom. The British are my cousins, my country-men, my brothers.

In the spirit of this post, I shall not mention the Belgians.

Ye Scurvy Dog!

Here's something you don't read everyday:

U.S. Navy Seizes Pirate Ship Off Somalia
By JIM KRANE, Associated Press Writer

The U.S. Navy boarded an apparent pirate ship in the Indian Ocean and detained 26 men for questioning, the Navy said Sunday. The 16 Indians and 10 Somali men were aboard a traditional dhow that was chased and seized Saturday by the U.S. guided missile destroyer USS Winston S. Churchill, said Lt. Leslie Hull-Ryde of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command in Bahrain.

The dhow stopped fleeing after the Churchill twice fired warning shots during the chase, which ended 54 miles off the coast of Somalia, the Navy said. U.S. sailors boarded the dhow and seized a cache of small arms.

The dhow's crew and passengers were being questioned Sunday aboard the Churchill to determine which were pirates and which were legitimate crew members, Hull-Ryde said.

Sailors aboard the dhow told Navy investigators that pirates hijacked the vessel six days ago near Mogadishu and thereafter used it to stage pirate attacks on merchant ships.

The Churchill is part of a multinational task force patrolling the western Indian Ocean and Horn of Africa region to thwart terrorist activity and other lawlessness during the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

The Navy said it captured the dhow in response to a report from the International Maritime Bureau in Kuala Lumpur on Friday that said pirates had fired on the MV Delta Ranger, a Bahamian-flagged bulk carrier that was passing some 200 miles off the central eastern coast of Somalia.

Hull-Ryde said the Navy was still investigating the incident and would discuss with international authorities what to do with the detained men.

"The disposition of people and vessels involved in acts of piracy on the high seas are based on a variety of factors, including the offense, the flags of the vessels, the nationalities of the crew, and others," Hull-Ryde said in an e-mail.

Piracy is rampant off the coast of Somalia, which is torn by renewed clashes between militias fighting over control of the troubled African country. Many shipping companies resort to paying ransoms, saying they have few alternatives.

Last month, Somali militiamen finally relinquished a merchant ship hijacked in October.

In November, Somali pirates freed a Ukrainian ore carrier and its 22 member crew after holding it for 40 days. It was unclear whether a US$700,000 ransom demanded by the pirates had been paid.

One of the boldest recent attacks was on Nov. 5, when two boats full of pirates approached a cruise ship carrying Western tourists, about 100 miles off Somalia and fired rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles.

The crew used a weapon that directs earsplitting noise at attackers, then sped away.

Somalia has had no effective government since 1991, when warlords ousted a dictatorship and then turned on each other, carving the nation of 8.2 million into a patchwork of fiefdoms.

Beheading infidels, kipnapping women, pirating...it's all in a days work for Ye Olde Religion of Peace!

PS: Note the name of the U.S. Navy ship involved. It can be so-named because Churchill was awared honorary American citizenhip, which he gladly accepted, not the least due to the fact that his mother was American.