If somebody, say, puts a crucifix in a jar of urine and calls it “art,” some on Capitol Hill not only won’t press for hearings, but they might even give it federal funding in spite of how many Christians it might offend. But in this instance free speech seems to be subjective:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told CBS’s Bob Schieffer on Sunday that some members of Congress were considering some kind of action in response to the Florida Quran burning that sparked a murderous riot at a United Nations complex in Afghanistan and other mayhem.

“Ten to 20 people have been killed,” Reid said on “Face the Nation,” but refused to say flat-out that the Senate would pass a resolution condemning pastor Terry Jones.

“We’ll take a look at this of course…as to whether we need hearings or not, I don’t know,” he added.

Lindsey Grahamnesty:

“I wish we could find a way to hold people accountable. Free speech is a great idea, but we’re in a war. During World War II, we had limits on what you could say if it would inspire the enemy.

Hamid Karzai has requested that Congress formally condemn Koran burning. However, some are saying that it was Karzai who helped provoke the riots in Afghanistan in the first place.

People were murdered in Afghanistan and members of Congress are pondering how to clamp down on somebody who burned a book in Florida. Now that’s problem solving, DC-style.

Jim Treacher’s headline from last week also helped put things in perspective:

The President of the United States bombs a Muslim country, and some nobody in Florida burns a Koran. Guess which one’s to blame for rioting in Afghanistan?

Meanwhile, President Obama is closely monitoring the entire situation today.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Be vigilant, they’re upping the mythical ante:

Palestinian Authority Hamas legislative Speaker Ahmad Bahr has updated from 72 to 2.5 million the number of virgins waiting for “martyrs” upon their arrival “in the Garden of Eden.”

In a recent speech translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Bahr, who is the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, said the “palace” where the virgins are waiting can be entered “only by prophets, by the righteous, and by martyrs.”

Most Muslim preachers and politicians have used the expression “72 virgins” to encourage Arab youth to be ready to die in anti-Israeli terrorist attacks and suicide bombings. Bahr’s new arithmetic reasons, “In the Garden of Eden, there is a palace… with 500 gates. At every gate, there are 5,000 black-eyed virgins. Brothers, 500 multiplied by 5,000 is 2.5 million.”

And this whole time I thought the 72 was more than enough:

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Here is what Team Obama’s “smart” and sensitive form of diplomacy has wrought: A hero’s welcome home to Libya for the murderous Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, who was released last August claiming he had terminal cancer and three months to live. A year later, the jihadist is still alive, senators want an investigation, and The Australian reports that the Obama administration backed “compassionate release.”

HE US government secretly advised Scottish ministers it would be “far preferable” to free the Lockerbie bomber than jail him in Libya.

Correspondence obtained by The Sunday Times reveals the Obama administration considered compassionate release more palatable than locking up Abdel Baset al-Megrahi in a Libyan prison.

The intervention, which has angered US relatives of those who died in the attack, was made by Richard LeBaron, deputy head of the US embassy in London, a week before Megrahi was freed in August last year on grounds that he had terminal cancer.

The document, acquired by a well-placed US source, threatens to undermine US President Barack Obama’s claim last week that all Americans were “surprised, disappointed and angry” to learn of Megrahi’s release.

Scottish ministers viewed the level of US resistance to compassionate release as “half-hearted” and a sign it would be accepted.

LeBaron’s letter was, in essence, a shrug of the Obama administration’s shoulders. Message: Who cares?

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air blasts White House incompetence:

The letter did not give a green light to Megrahi’s parole to Libya. Nevertheless, it shows the kind of ineptitude that has plagued the Obama administration’s diplomacy from the “reset button” with Russia to this day. LeBaron’s note was a clear signal to Scotland that the US had lost most of its interest in Megrahi; recall that the US had insisted originally that any parole must include extradition to the US. The Scottish government must have presumed that we would not strenuously object to their release of Megrahi to the Libyans after LeBaron failed to raise that point and demand Megrahi’s extradition.

Also, it shows that the Obama administration lied about being surprised by Megrahi’s release. They knew it was coming, and while they may have been surprised that he went to Libya, the White House knew Scotland was going to spring Megrahi one way or the other.

Yes. Liars. You’ve been called out.

***

Previous Lockerbie posts.

There are no words, are there?

Scotland freed the terminally ill Lockerbie bomber on compassionate grounds Thursday, letting the Libyan go home to die despite American pleas to show no mercy for the man responsible for the 1988 attack that killed 270 people.

The White House declared it “deeply” regretted the Scottish decision as Abdel Baset al-Megrahi left Greenock Prison and flew to Libya on an Airbus dispatched to Glasgow Airport, still insisting he was innocent.

Scotland’s justice secretary said freeing the bomber was an expression of the Scottish people’s humanity but U.S. family members of Lockerbie victims expressed outrage.

“I think it’s appalling, disgusting and so sickening I can hardly find words to describe it,” said Susan Cohen, of Cape May Court House, New Jersey, whose 20-year-old daughter, Theodora, died in the attack. “This isn’t about compassionate release. This is part of give-Gadhafi-what-he-wants-so-we-can-have-the-oil.”

Some men outside the prison made obscene gestures as al-Megrahi’s prison van drove by toward the airport. Al-Megrahi, who had served only eight years of his life sentence, was recently given only months to live after being diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer.

Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said although al-Megrahi had not shown compassion to his victims — many of whom were American college students flying home to New York for Christmas — MacAskill was motivated by Scottish values to show mercy.

Kidnappers threatened on Friday to kill an American employee of the United Nations within 72 hours and issued a grainy video of the blindfolded captive saying he was “sick and in trouble.” A letter accompanying the video delivered to a Pakistani news agency said the hostage, John Solecki, would be killed unless authorities released 141 women it said were being held in Pakistan.

The video and the demands indicated that Solecki, the head of the U.N. refugee agency in Quetta, a city near the Afghan border, was alive and that his captors wanted to negotiate.

Solecki, who appeared blindfolded and with a shawl draped over his shoulders in the 20-second clip, said his message was addressed to the United Nations.

“I am not feeling well. I am sick and in trouble. Please help solve the problem soon so that I can gain my release,” he said.

The kidnappers have identified themselves as the Baluchistan Liberation United Front, suggesting a link to local separatists who have waged a long insurgency against Pakistan’s government rather than to the Taliban or al-Qaida, which are fighting U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Still, the death threat heightened fears for Solecki’s safety, coming just a week after Taliban militants apparently beheaded a Polish geologist abducted in another border area of Pakistan after the government failed to respond to demands for a prisoner release.

A Saudi government spokesman says 11 of the Saudis on its recently issued most wanted list are former Guantanamo detainees.

Gen. Mansour al-Turki of the Saudi Interior Ministry told The Associated Press on Wednesday that among the 85 people listed by the government, 11 had been released from the U.S. detention facility in Cuba and passed through government-sponsored rehabilitation programs.

(link)

More at the Long War Journal.

Here’s a snippet of the “broad strata” mugs of most wanted Saudis:

Unknown gunmen opened fire at a checkpoint outside the U.S. embassy in Yemen on Monday, hours after the mission said it received a threat, but a Yemeni official said no one was hurt.

“Police are chasing the car that opened fire. No one seems to have been hurt. It was a checkpoint leading to the embassy, and not close to the building,” the official told Reuters.

The embassy had earlier urged Americans to be cautious in the Arab country that has been the scene of al Qaeda attacks on Western interests.

The incident comes on the heels of al Qaeda’s latest love letter from two Gitmo recidivists who are now top al Qaeda leaders in Yemen — and in the wake of business ties between AG nominee Eric Holder and his Yemen Gitmo detainee-representing law firm, Covington & Burling.

How’s that restoration of America’s good name going, President O?

Yeah:

I know, I know: RAAAAAAAAAACIST!

On a related note, UNICEF decries Palestinian civilian casualties while ignoring Hamas human shield tactics and theater of jihad with Palestinian children in the lead role.

UNICEF, you should be warned, recently signed a partnership agreement with a jihadi-sympathizing charity tied to al Qaeda and the Taliban:

An Islamic charity with ties to Al Qaeda and the Taliban is now collaborating with an unlikely new partner: UNICEF, the United Nations’ Children’s Fund.

UNICEF has signed a “memorandum of understanding” with the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO), a Saudi charity of massive scope that keeps branches in more than 20 countries and has over 100 offices worldwide.

According to UNICEF, it will be teaming with the charity’s domestic Saudi branch to “promote children’s rights, health, equality and education,” in the oil-rich kingdom — but the organization has been doing more than just charity work.

The U.S. Treasury Department has designated the IIRO’s branches in the Philippines and Indonesia as terrorist entities for funding and supporting terrorist groups that have killed hundreds in East Asia. The Philippine branch was founded by Usama bin Laden’s brother-in-law, Muhammad Jamal Khalifah, and has long had ties to Al Qaeda.

The U.N. itself says that both the Indonesian and Philippine branches of IIRO are tied to Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and has singled them out for an asset freeze, arms embargo and travel ban on members of the groups.

But that hasn’t stopped the U.N. from recognizing the Saudi office as a legitimate relief group, nor has it stopped UNICEF — or other U.N. agencies — from working with it in the past.

According to Chris de Bono, UNICEF’s chief of media, “UNICEF does not and will not engage with” the two East Asian branches. Its new partnership is with the main Saudi branch only, and UNICEF will coordinate relief primarily for children living within Saudi Arabia, de Bono said.

The U.S. government also noted the distinction between the head office and the international branches.

“We are monitoring the situation closely, but we also understand the difference between the IIRO main headquarters and its branches,” Carolyn Vadino, deputy spokeswoman for the U.S. mission to the U.N., wrote in an e-mail to FOX News.

“It is the two branches in question that are designated and have ties to terrorists and at this time we have been assured that they are separate entities,” Vadino wrote.

But some critics are not convinced the distinction is so clear.

“We have to look a lot harder at whether or not an organization that’s headquartered in one country is really disconnected from operations which bear the same name in other countries and are referred to as branches,” said Anne Bayefsky, senior editor of Eye on the U.N., a watchdog group.

According to the Treasury Department, the head of the IIRO’s Eastern Province branch has been directly funding the two terror-tied branches — straight from his office in Saudi Arabia.

For context, watch this video from the UNRWA boys’ school in Gaza in 2007:

Terrorists from the Gaza Strip fire mortars from an UNRWA boys’ school in Gaza on 29 Oct. 2007. Hamas and other terror organizations in Gaza make deliberate use of civilians living in populated areas as human shields.

Here’s another clip.

Fast forward to 2009:

An Israeli official says Palestinian militants fired on Israeli soldiers from the courtyard of a U.N. school where dozens of people died in fiery explosions.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he said the army is still drafting the country’s official response to the incident.

Palestinian medics said 34 people were killed in an Israeli strike outside a U.N. school in the northern Gaza town of Jebaliya. The United Nations confirmed 30 were killed and 55 injured.

The Israeli official said “hostile fire” was directed at the soldiers from within the school. He said soldiers returned fire and multiple explosions went off, presumably emanating from munitions stored there.

Related: “Hamas operatives are in the hospital and have disguised themselves as nurses and doctors,” one official said.

Flashback – more human shield ploys: Ambulances for terror.

***

Lawhawk has more. So does Israellycool.

Update: The Israeli consulate has issued a statement:

Earlier today, upwards of 35 Palestinian civilians were reportedly killed in two unfortunate accidents in Gaza, one at a school run by UNRWA and the second at an apartment in Gaza City. These deaths are indeed a tragedy, and investigations are underway to ensure that further operations continue to avoid civilian casualties.

These initial investigations indicate that Hamas used the UNRWA school to fire at IDF forces, indicating once again that Hamas is more than willing to sacrifice Gaza citizens to promote terrorism. International law recognizes that the presence of civilians in an area of conflict does not delegitimize a military target. Israel and the IDF will continue to abide by these laws and to make every effort to avoid harming civilians in conducting further operations. We urge the international community to strongly condemn Hamas’s cynical exploitation of its citizens and firing of rockets, which remain the most effective way to ensure peace for Gazans and Israelis alike.

Update: Related video and analysis from Allahpundit here.

And more from Jim Hoft, who writes that IDF says the bodies of two Hamas jihadis were found at the school along with a missile launcher with anti-tank missiles.

Click.

Hat tip: Reader Scott.

Memorial stone at Lockerbie, Scotland

Arlington National Cemetery

The Lockerbie Cairn, through its 270 blocks of red Scottish sandstone, memorializes the 270 lives lost in the terrorist attack on the United States when Pan Am flight 103 was bombed Dec. 21, 1988, over Lockerbie Scotland. It is a gift of the people of Scotland to the people of the United States, financed entirely through private donations. The ill-fated flight was enroute from Frankfurt, Germany, to New York via London’s Heathrow Airport. Twenty-seven minutes after leaving London, at 7:02 p.m. the plane exploded, raining fragments on the city of Lockerbie, including an entire wing and engines. Eleven of the 270 dead were on the ground. The passengers and crew included people from 22 countries. Among them were 189 Americans, including 15 active-duty military and 10 veterans.

The Memorial Cairn is being erected in Arlington National Cemetery in memory of the 270 lives lost in the One hundred and eighty-nine were Americans, including 15 active duties military and 10 veterans.

My column today responds to the latest attempt by the Lindh family to drum up sympathy for their convicted Taliban helper son.

Bill Roggio: “Given what he could have been charged with, he should consider his 20 years a gift. Instead, he is made out to be a victim.”

***

No mercy for Jihad Johnny
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2008

If it’s December, it’s time for the Left to throw another shameless pity party for convicted American jihadist John Walker Lindh (aka Suleyman al-Faris, aka Abdul Hamid). Every Christmas season for the last four years, the Taliban accomplice and his parents have asked President Bush to pardon him. This country should save its tears and mercy for the defenders of freedom.

The further we have moved from the September 11 attacks, the cloudier our collective memory of Lindh’s case has become. Sympathetic journalists have rewritten the history, embracing him as a naive young hippie-dippie from Marin County, Calif.,who just caught in the “wrong place at the wrong time.”

Others, like Esquire magazine writer Tom Junod, have proclaimed him “innocent” and lamented Lindh’s life behind bars in a federal medium-security facility. Junod criticized the government for forbidding him to speak Arabic. (Human rights atrocity!) Meanwhile, he enjoys the privilege of cooking his meals for himself and fellow inmates, working in the library, and praying to Mecca. Junod insisted that Lindh deserves more “credit for his sense of purpose or his vast reserves of will” and more “credit for what it took to get to Afghanistan, much less what it took for him to get back to America.”

In Afghanistan, I remind you, Jihad Johnny took up arms with the terrorists. His purpose was to kill Americans and his “reserve of will” accomplished the goal. He told the feds he trained with al Qaeda before the September 11 attacks and he fought alongside them after Osama bin Laden’s henchmen murdered 3,000 of Lindh’s fellow citizens on American soil. He wrote a letter to his mother expressing support for the U.S.S. Cole bombing that took 17 sailors’ lives and, despite an emphatic denial by Lindh’s father that Jihad Johnny took up arms against his country, he recounted how his rifle malfunctioned on the front lines in Takar.

Finally, on Nov. 25, 2001, upon being captured and taken to the Qala I Jangi fortress outside Mazar E Shiref for interrogation, Suleyman al-Faris/Abdul Hamid/John Walker Lindh sat silent — and deliberately and defiantly chose not to tell American CIA officer and former Marine Corps artillery specialist Mike Spann about a planned Taliban prison revolt. Spann was killed in the riot.

Asked by journalist Robert Pelton at the prison if “this the right cause or the right place,” Lindh replied unequivocally: “It is exactly what I thought it would be.”

Who deserves the “credit” for “sense of purpose” and “reserve of will?” The saboteur of American freedom or the guardian?

Mike Spann’s family visited the fortress after his murder. They talked to Afghan doctors who will never forget his bravery. “They said they thought Mike might run and retreat, but he held his position and fought using his AK rifle until out of ammo, and then draw and begin firing his pistol,” Spann’s father said. “While watching Mike fight they were able to jump up and run to safety.

“They said the only reason that they, and several others, were able to live was because Mike stood his position and fought off the prisoners while enabling them the time to run to safety. The doctors stated that as they fled toward a safe haven they saw Mike run out of ammo and then witnessed him fighting hand to hand until he was overcome by the numerous Al Qada and Taliban prisoners.”

American hero Mike Spann will not get to cook dinner for widow Shannon and three young children. Mike Spann cannot curl up with a good book or go to church with his family. Pray for Mike Spann, show his family the compassion and gratitude they deserve — and may American traitor John Walker Lindh rot in hell.

***

Honor Mike Spann

Rosie O’Donnell is still convinced George Bush and Dick Cheney did it.

These five jihadists, however, are apparently ready to trade the Troof for the truth:

Five men charged with plotting the Sept. 11 attacks say they are ready to make confessions.

The military judge assigned to their war-crimes trial at Guantanamo Bay read aloud a letter in which the five co-defendants said they “request an immediate hearing session to announce our confessions.”

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has already told interrogators he was the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks. Now he’s telling the judge that he and the others want to make confessions at their trial.

The judge, Army Col. Stephen Henley, is asking each defendant if they are prepared to enter a plea. So far three of them said Monday they agree with the letter. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for all five.