Pleased to see that US attack helicopters have launched fresh air strikes on Tuesday in southern Somalia, targeting the suspected command centre of Al-Qaeda militants. This raid comes a day after an AC-130 gunship hit at least two villages believed to be hideouts, killing "many" people, officials said. The attack, by at least two helicopters, "was aimed at destroying the command and control facility of the terrorists," the Defence Ministry official told AFP. "Somali troops and Ethiopian forces will go to the area."

Naturally, the MSM rush to condemn this commendable action against these cowardly Jihadists. The US is RIGHT to go after these fleeing Islamists and facilitate their early entry to paradise, or to hell.

Did you read this drivel in the MSM today about Tony Blair being "under intense pressure to secure the release of British residents from the Guantanamo Bay detention camp last night after the son of one of the detainees asked the prime minister: "Why is my dad in prison?" " 

A so-called "heart-rending" (Chortle) letter to Mr Blair from 10-year-old Anas el-Banna was released yesterday to mark the 5th anniversary this week of the opening of the camp on the island of Cuba.

With all due respect to Anas, your Dad is in prison because he is suspected of being a Jihadist or of giving support to Jihadists. Prison is the very best place for such a man. It’s as simple as that – and the MSM should be shamed for giving credence to such, literally, childish nonsense. Naturally any stick will be used to beat up the US for interning terrorists, instead of doing the decent liberal thing of setting them free, paying them compensation, and apologising to them for not allowing them to kill our soldiers.

Well done to Conservative Party shadow defence Secretary Liam Fox, who has backed hawks in the White House by calling for "nothing to be ruled out" to stop Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon. Mr Fox gave the clearest signal yet that the Conservatives would support military action, including the use of nuclear strikes by the US or Israel, to halt the alleged production of a nuclear weapon by Iran.

"I am a hawk on Iran," said Mr Fox. "We should rule absolutely nothing out when it comes to Iran."They are notoriously good poker players and it is a very high stakes game they are playing." His remarks follow reports in the US that Israel is ready to use nuclear "bunker buster" bombs to knock out the Iranian nuclear plants.

I have no doubt that military action will be the only way to stop the Mad Mullahs. Naturally the political left and its media handmaidens will weep and wail at this prospect, pleading faux diplomacy when none exists, ut there is no real alternative to sending in the planes.

Iran seeks to deny the first Holocaust so it may bring about the Second by wiping Israel "off the map."  Israel has a perfect right to strike against such a bully, and when it does strike it needs to ensure that the Mullah’s atomic ambitions are incinerated. Again this desirable outcome is compromised by Israel’s liberal PM Osloid Olmert but we must hope that his survival instincts are stronger than his appeasement instincts.

It’s a rare day when the Cameron Conservatives say something that deserves praise – so I didn’t want Liam Fox’s comments to go un-noticed!

President Bush seems poised to announce that up to 20,000 additional US troops will go to Iraq, and focus on helping Iraqi forces wipe out Sunni insurgents and Al Qu’eda killers who operate mostly in the greater Baghdad area. Good. The focus here must be on wiping these vermin out. The focus here must be on all-out onslaught against this rabble, take no prisoners,  and assert  the primacy of the lawful Iraqi Government. Saddam lies in his grave, and the rest of his followers should follow him if they continue to rebel.

Now then, on cue, the Democrats have instantly reverted to type and are indicating that they will may try to deny the military the funds required to finance this enhancement of their in-field capability.  The risible Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Democrats would “look at everything” in their power to curb the war, short of cutting money for troops already in the field. (Gosh Harry, that’s big of you) He said he would only consider an increase in U.S. forces in Iraq if Bush agreed to start withdrawing troops within six months. I heard another Democrat say that “diplomacy” was the way forward? Really – send for the Al Queda ambassador?

The Democrat Party has NO answers to the war on terror but one – retreat. Now for the liberal intelligentsia which loathes its own country, such a policy may be warmly reassuring. But for those of us who would prefer to WIN the war against militant Islam, President Bush’s strategy seems much more sensible, and a good start to the New Year.

Victory against the Jihadists SHOULD be the Republican rallying cry – meanwhile Pelosi, Clinton, Reid and the rest of the Defeaticrats can whimper run away.

Class envy is central to leftism. The Socialists in NuLabour HATE the idea of people doing well for themselves without the State’s permission, and so it is that the last ten years have witnessed Labour punishing the Middle Classes by pushing through exorbitant tax increases. A leading accountancy firm has estimated that the stealth taxes introduced by Gordon Brown since 1997 amount to the equivalent of a 10% hike on the base rate of income tax – the biggest tax increase in our history and borne most heavily on those people who are trying to earn a decent living for themselves.

But NuLabour’s class war does not stop at plundering taxation. Today we read that children from middle-class families may miss out on the best schools in England under plans to allocate places by "lottery".

New admissions rules, published by Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, suggest that head teachers in leafy suburbs should draw names from a hat to stop schools becoming monopolised by families who buy houses nearby. Schools are also banned from considering parents’ backgrounds, interviewing families or pricing poor children out by ordering families to buy uniforms from expensive suppliers.

Bottom line – the radical egalitarians in  NuLabour want to also punish the children of the Middle Class. I guess if a putative pupil comes from one of the tens of thousands of Eastern European families that have flooded into this country, or is perhaps a child of a follower of the ROP, such considerations are politely shelved. It’s the MIDDLE CLASS that Labour loath, and so suffer little children it will be. Best destroy all the schools is the Labour refrain. This is one more example of how dangerous and degrading Government involvement in Education has become.

As in the Health Service,  Government seeks to control and to socially engineer. It’s a disgrace.

Wonder what you make of the news that a murderer serving life in prison is appealing again to Europe’s human rights court to be allowed to father a child by artificial insemination? Lawyers for Kirk Dickson, 34, and his wife Lorraine, 48, will put their case before judges at the European Court of Human Rights (Where else?) in Strasbourg. I see NO REASON why this killer should be granted such any such privilege, and further more, I note that he was sentenced to "life" in 1995 and is due out in 2009. How contemptible is that?

Just to say that NI readers tuning into the Nolan Show on Radio Ulster tomorrow can hear me discuss the interest, or lack of, in the planned NI Assembly elections.  Starts at 9am, not sure when I will be on but Nationalist commentator Jude Collins will be on with me.

In this land in which the spokesmen for brutal terrorism are dianafied by a biased pro-appeasement media, it is unsurprising to hear the Prime Minister of the UK issue a statement aimed as REASSURING TERRORISTS that there will be a distinct separation in the role of police and security services in Northern Ireland! Blair has released a statement making it clear thatr MI5 will keep away from policing. For some odd reason, those nice Sinn Fein/IRA people don’t want a spook about the place. Almost as if they had something to hide…..mmmm

The issue of whether a person has the RIGHT to smoke in their own home has now surfaced as a real concern, as the Health Gestapo in Wales confirm they are investigating a complaint from a neighbour about a couple smoking in their own home. A woman, who has not been named, has written to the council saying cigarette smoke from next door was "permeating into her living room". Gwynedd Council’s public protection service has said it has a duty to investigate.

What business of these Council busybodies is this? Since when does a Council have the right to inspect what people do in the privacy of their own home? I do not smoke but I fail to see why my neighbour can’t if they want to. This is just one more invasion into individual liberty, dressed up as "a duty of care". 

You may remember a post last year on ‘Nazanin’. On January 3, 2006, 18 year-old Nazanin Mahabad Fatehi was sentenced to death by the Iranian courts after she stabbed one of three men who attempted to rape her and her 16 year-old niece in March 2005. When singer/songwriter and human rights activist Nazanin heard about the trial of her namesake, the injustice of the case propelled her to take action.

FYI The Save Nazanin campaign has generated over 225,000 signatures worldwide and received the attention of the UN, Amnesty International and others which is encouraging. On June 1st 2006, the Head of Judiciary Ayatollah Shahroudi announced a stay of execution and the call for her retrial January 10th, 2007, eg tomorrow.

This is a pertty interesting documentary produced by Nazanin the model/singer who is promoting her namesakes’s cause.  It is about the campaign, the case itself, Nazanin’s struggle – it talks to her family, recreates events that day and focuses on womens rights under Islamic law, human rights abuses in general in Iran and is altogether a pretty useful background and insight into the country overall. If you cant watch it all id recommend at least the first 5-10 mins.