A couple weeks ago my good friend and gifted songwriter/musician Andrew (BigDawg), Co-Founder of BigDawg Music Mafia, and I were tuned in to “America Akbar” on Radio Jihad Network, a weekly internet radio show hosted by our good friends Gadi Adelman, a counter-terrorism expert, speaker, and author; and his lovely co-host/producer Reese Ccup.  During the show, a gentleman named George called in to share some of his thoughts about 9/11 as he was one of the firefighters there that day who lost so many of his brothers when the towers collapsed and is personally suffering from health issues brought on from the Ground Zero toxins.

Reese wanted George to hear a song they often play on their show that Drew and I had written in 2009 called “A Hero’s Creed” – a tribute to all the 9/11 first responders and our military members fighting the war on terror.  There was a line in the original version that said “Eight years have passed…no attacks on our land…we owe it to those who heed the call.” Sadly, since the new administration moved into our nation’s capital, we can no longer say that.

We needed to update the song, so we did.  Somehow, however, through a slight miscommunication regarding our updating of the song, Gadi was under the impression we were working on a brand new 9/11 tribute song and would have it ready in time for his 9/11 Tribute show on 8 Sep.  We knew we had to write a new song for Gadi’s show.

YouTube "Stairs To Heaven" by Lisa Mei Norton & Andrew (BigDawg)

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It did not take long for us to come up with the concept for the song:  a young girl who lost her father – one of the 343 firefighters who died when the towers collapsed – who is now a young woman looking back with sadness on all that she lost that day and a determination to follow in her Dad’s footsteps and serve her country in uniform…knowing one day she would meet him again.

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Recently New York Times blogger and humanities professor Stanley Fish referenced my Big Hollywood review of the Coen Brothers’ remake of John Wayne and Henry Hathaway’s True Grit. Though I have reviewed a film or two for various publications I’ve never thought of myself as a film critic. So Professor Fish referring to me as such was certainly interesting, if not flattering.  Agree with my review or not, I am glad a western is making money, but Professor Fish had more heady matters on his mind.

Fish’s main point is that in the new True Grit, purposely there is no relationship between physical heroism and virtue. To the professor physical heroism is displayed by almost everyone in the new film, “‘good’ and ‘bad,’ and the universe seems at best indifferent, if not hostile.” He sees young Mattie Ross as far more heroic for her acceptance of the world as random and brutal, Jeff Bridges Cogburn’s heroism is merely an after thought. The professor didn’t in the least misunderstand my desire to instead see the kind of heroics John Wayne displayed in the original film when he takes on the outlaw gang single-handedly with his “Fill your hands, you son-of-a-bitch!” charge to glory.

Justifiable violent responses to real life threats are often not random. America has always had common men heroes and well trained professionals who can reach down deep into themselves and find the kind of inner courage needed to risk life and limb to save the life of another or stand up to the evil and power hungry. The elitist left who for the time being control most of the public debate on popular culture would have us believe that all is relative. Despite the current “no tolerance” foolishness in American schools, sometimes you have to hit back, and hard, or else the bully will take far more then just your lunch. You’re own personal dignity is indeed something worth fighting for. (more…)

Rock and roll and Islam seem about as compatible as oysters and cheesecake, yet probably to the surprise of many Americans, there is a solid (although perhaps not yet omnipresent) rock presence in the Middle East. Canada’s Vice Films sent a crew under Suroosh Alvi to Iraq in 2006 to document a concert by a heavy metal band, “Acrassicauda,” whom they had been following since 2003. And, yes, Virginia, they did play heavy metal.

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Alvi has a running under-commentary about the on-going ubiquitous Iraq war, which was strangely (and refreshingly) undefined and unfocused. Certainly a critical view of America’s actions underscored the shots of bombed out hotels, of guard checks, and most of all, of the stories told by the band members. “Firas” (who knows if these were real names, given security issues) the bass player, spoke the best English and thus became the central character; “Tony,” the lead guitarist, though hyped as a spectacular talent, was barely average by western standards. “Marwan,” the drummer, and “Faisal,” the second vocalist that Alvi talked to (the first having fled to Syria) offered occasional pity comments. According to Marwan, “if you can teach every prisoner to play drums . . . you’re gonna have good citizens. . . .” (Here in the United States, I think we have tried that by having them do laundry or make license plates. Not sure if that’s worked yet.) (more…)

In mid-April of this year, Variety reported on HBO Documentary Film’s purchase of a new documentary about Al-Qaeda entitled “My Trip to Al-Qaeda.” The article also noted that the movie ”is a collaboration between [Alex] Gibney, who picked up an Oscar in 2007 for ‘Taxi to the Dark Side,” and Lawrence Wright, the journalist and author on whose solo stage show the doc is based.: That stage show, the article stated, “was in turn developed from Wright’s 2006 book “The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11.”

After reading ”The Looming Tower,” I look forward to the HBO premiere of the film (reportedly set for sometime this Fall) and hope that the liberal politics of Mr. Gibney do not diminish the film’s value as an educational and informative motion picture that will create more awareness of the history of Al-Qaeda.

When Wright’s non-fiction book about Al-Qaeda was released four years ago, many critics praised it. A New York Times review noted that “’The Looming Tower’ is not just a detailed, heart-stopping account of the events leading up to 9/11, written with style and verve, and carried along by villains and heroes that only a crime novelist could dream up. It’s an education, too…” Hugh Hewitt (conservative radio show host, who, in full disclosure, works with me at Salem Communications) was quoted in the transcript of a 2006 interview with Wright as saying that the book is: (more…)

So I was never very good at word problems, but here’s a simple brain teaser even an idiot like me can solve. What’s worth saving: thousands of innocent people, or one evil jackass?

The answer….

It’s a trick question, and unicorns rule.

But if you asked a British judge, he would choose the evil jackass.

This week, a tribunal ruled that the leader of an al-Qaeda terrorist cell that tried to blow up British citizens won’t be deported – because then his human rights would be violated. He wasn’t charged with anything, so he’s free to go, but not home – because he may get roughed up by Pakistan’s security services.

Now, the judge made this call despite the fact that Abid Naseer still poses a deadly threat. And here lies the comedy: Justice Mitting said that even though it would be “conducive to the public good that [Naseer] should be deported,” the risk of him being tortured back home was just too great. (more…)

When Leftists are winning the day, they’re just plain arrogant. When Leftists are losing, they’re a helluva lot of fun to watch. Case in point: Alec Baldwin’s latest incomprehensible attack on Republicans courtesy of HuffPo. Here are my favorite snips, but read the whole thing and count the number of times you say, ”huh? — whuh?” Don’t make it a drinking game, though. Suicide’s illegal:

The Pentagon wastes more money on more crap that you and I don’t need and gets it wrong, on a policy level, more often than not since 1960 (I’ll give them a pass on Korea, due to all the Cold War anxiety at the time).

How nice… Baldwin gives the Pentagon a pass on Korea… I’m sure a wave of relief swept through the Military Industrial Complex. “Hey, you can exhale now, the ‘30 Rock’ guy says it’s okay…” And don’t you just love when a Leftist decides to get all bent over government waste? It’s always the military, always the most successful — by a long shot — of our government agencies. (more…)

And that’s the drill: concern over crimes that have never happened, as opposed to the terror that has.

So, denying the role militant Islam played in the Fort Hood atrocity is like staring at a shark bite and thinking, “bicycle.”

When a fundamentalist kills thirteen innocent people while shouting “allahu akbar,” Islam isn’t just a small player – it’s got a starring role. And now that U.S. intelligence admits Hasan tried to contact al Qaeda, it should make it increasingly hard for anyone to say otherwise.

I say it “should,” but it won’t.

Look at the news.

Over at Time, thoughtful types speculate over a “secondary trauma” that could have driven Hasan to kill. Never mind terror – one news network tells us we should focus more on “a backlash against Muslim soldiers.” On a major website, they want us to ponder the “next McVeigh.” And our very own Homeland Security secretary says she’s hard at work preventing “a possible wave of anti-Muslim sentiment.” (more…)

This past January, London’s Daily Star tabloid announced urgently that an upcoming episode – “the most controversial episode ever”! – of The Simpsons on the Sky1 network “pokes fun at Islam” and “is certain to enrage Muslim fanatics.” As anyone who morbidly follows this sort of thing (as I do) knows, enraging Muslim fanatics is hardly an accomplishment of Halley’s Comet-like rarity. It doesn’t take much: books, cartoons, teddy bears named Mohammad, posters of puppies, piggy banks, a Burger King ice cream swirl and the Nike logo (both of which apparently too closely resembled the Arabic script for “Allah”), are just a few of the recent Western offenses that have sparked their frothing outrage worldwide.

Yet despite the Daily Star’s perversely hopeful tone, there was no violent reaction in the UK from said fanatics, nor was there one in the United States after the episode originally aired here last Thanksgiving weekend (in a grimly ironic twist, the same weekend as the devastating mass murder and mayhem committed in Mumbai by a band of – wait for it – Muslim fanatics, or as the culturally sensitive media preferred to call them at the time, “gunmen”). So why no Muslim fury over The Simpsons? (more…)

So on an ABC webcast, Charlie Gibson tossed to a U.S. intelligence report that suggests global warming is helping the Taliban and al Qaeda. The logic: temperatures rise, droughts continue, folks are desperate – and lo and behold, they become suicide bombers.

This is nothing new, of course. Global warming is the Kevin Bacon of root causes: you can link everything back to it, including “Hollow Man.” Hilariously, you can even blame terror on global warming, even if the current science suggests the globe may be cooling!

But you know what’s causing global cooling?

Global warming.

But you knew that. (more…)

6 September 2009

This story was published in the New York Daily News on 6 September 2009.

Photo: Jacobson/AP

Helmand, Afghanistan – The West is losing this war. This has been obvious for more than three years. Less obvious is that in 2009, we are down to the wire. Gen. Stanley McChrystal and others will soon recommend to President Obama the latest treatment for a dying patient.

Meanwhile, allies and Americans are asking themselves why we are here. Some are saying that Al Qaeda is still here or is waiting in the wings to return to its home. Yet Afghanistan was never Al Qaeda’s permanent home to begin with. Al Qaeda was just renting a little space here, just as it was renting space in places like Germany and Florida. (more…)

Among my former associates at the FBI, New York Times bestselling novelist Vince Flynn is a favorite. His protagonist Mitch Rapp, a counter-terrorism specialist for the CIA, is the talk whenever Flynn releases a new political thriller. Possibly the highest compliment any FBI agent ever paid me was when he called me “the old, ugly, domestic version of Mitch Rapp.” I wear the accolade with pride. What makes Flynn’s novels so captivating is the authenticity of his writing. In fact, at least one novel came under scrutiny when it hit a little too close to home detailing our nation’s nuclear security efforts.

His latest novel “Extreme Measures” was released last fall but once again Flynn may end up just a little too real. I won’t give away the plot but Mitch Rapp finds himself in front of a Congressional committee explaining why he needed to employ “extreme measures” to protect this nation. Sound familiar? Attorney General Eric Holder named a federal prosecutor this week to examine the abuse of prisoners during interrogations by the CIA. I wonder if Mitch will be called as a witness.  (more…)

I suspect that because George Bush and Condoleezza Rice were so respectful of Muslims, constantly telling us that theirs is a religion of peace, some otherwise sensible Americans actually began to believe it.  Now we have a president who not only kowtows to a Saudi prince, but carries on as if Israeli homes are more threatening than Iranian nukes.

What is wrong with our leaders?  Are they worried that they won’t be invited to those cool Ramadan parties?  The Islamists have been actively at war with us for 30 years and generally at war with western civilization for well over a thousand years, and still we pay lip service to these people in a way we never did with Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan or the Soviet Union.  Is it because the Muslims commit sadism and murder in the name of religion and not country?  If anything, I would think that would make their evil acts all the more contemptible. (more…)

10 August 2009
Sangin, Afghanistan

Daily dramas unfolded, including the bangs, booms and small-arms fire that punctuated the times. At 1800, I was preparing to go to orders with 1 Platoon, A Company of 2 Rifles, when shots from a large-caliber rifle began cracking low over base. I passed by sniper, Kris Griffith, and said, “Hey Kris, why don’t you grab your rifle and go shoot that guy?” Kris replied that two other sniper teams were on it. “He’s close,” I said, and Kris answered, “About 600 meters.” Then we went our separate ways.

Orders were given and then the soldiers performed final checks on their gear and tried to fall to sleep in the sweltering evening heat. Some nights I would go to sleep using the sleeping bag as a pillow, only to wake up with it drenched in sweat.

The alarm was set for 0213 hours, but at 0211 I sat up and turned it off before it could wake the soldiers who were not going on the mission. I had nineteen minutes to pull on my boots, body armor, and small rucksack, before I had to get to breakfast, engage in final conversations, and then show up for the mission at 0310. (more…)

When I learned of a new NBC-TV series called “The Wanted,” about an elite investigative team tracking down terrorists-at-large, I naturally assumed the terrorists in question would be Homeland Security priorities: white Christian conservatives building abortion clinic bombs in church basements, anti-government Tea Partiers, and disgruntled military veterans, whose volatile mix of post-traumatic stress disorder and paranoia of big government could cause them to snap at any moment and take out the nearest Obama-appointed czar (after all, there are more czars than there are Secret Service agents to protect them).

Imagine my astonishment when I discovered that “the wanted” of the show’s first two recent episodes (you can see them here; four more have been produced but are not presently scheduled) were Islamic terrorists.  This is an encouraging new development, considering that Western governments and media have increasingly made taboo any reference to a connection between Islam and acts of terror (of course, the Islamists themselves never got that memo, because they insist on quoting Islamic theology to justify their murder and mayhem). And the left-leaning entertainment industry has virtually ceased pitting heroes against the real-world threat of jihadis, falling back instead on more fashionable stock bogeymen like corporate executives, Marvel Comics supervillains, and, well, corporate executives.  (more…)

Boy, did I ever kick a hornet’s nest with my tongue-in-cheek Archie Bunker-on-steroids BH post, “My Secret Life as a Conservative Republican.” Lefties called it Reaffirmation With Senator Smalley, which I expected. But Righties nearly wet their pants in fear, which I did not expect in the least. Where’s the pioneering spirit, self-confidence and gutter-level humor that founded this country?

People, this is OUR Fortress Hollywood! This is OUR sanctuary! Since when the hell do we care about what demagogues like Keith Olbermann think or say? Or any other mental tinfoil hat Lefties like Garofalo for that matter? It’s like Churchill worrying about Hitler calling him a fat cigar-chomping drunk! Who won that fight, and why? And who was in the right, despite all the insipid name-calling?

Time to grow a pair, people. It’s also time to raise the stakes. Now, I’ve heard from some contributors here at BH that it is really bad in Hollywood in places. That people might even lose their jobs if they spoke up like I do here. If true, that’s McCarthyism at its worst. Fortunately, that’s not my experience. I still have great relationships with people in the biz who could care less about politics. All they care about is finding great scripts or literary works to adapt, and telling great stories on film.

And that is where the battle really needs to be fought: on their playing ground. An insurgency of ideas, if you will. Example. Just under the Big Hollywood sign today, I saw the banner “TNT’s ‘The Closer’ Thrives on Strong Moral Foundation.” That PJM-linked article describes how The Closer, a show that portrays the border, the illegals situation, and even the cops themselves in very gritty and realistic fashion, is the top-rated scripted show on ad-supported cable since its inception. (more…)

So according to the Wall Street Journal, the CIA had been kicking around a secret plan designed to off al-Qaeda chieftains – something the Democrats say they were never told about.

The actual program was dropped early on – either because it was a dumb idea, or it didn’t work, or maybe something better came along. What bugs me is that the plan was probably canceled because it actually could work – but having to disclose the plan would have endangered those asked to carry it out.

I mean, if your job is to sneak around the globe killing really bad people, then it should be kept secret – which is something frowned upon by people who don’t understand that beating evil means eradicating it. We call them asshats. You see them now, trying to score political points out of something that didn’t even happen (although, I wish it did).

Which brings me to a handy quiz you can take while you’re on a bus, a train, or perhaps even a plane! (more…)

You know, people, it’s a damn shame. I remember when great comedians like Richard Pryor and Lenny Bruce held nothing sacred. I know I don’t. And so many comedians, especially late-nighters, are really missing the boat with President Obama. There’s a wealth of material just waiting to be tapped, and I’m really not looking forward to four more years of lame Bush and Palin jokes. Are you?

All it takes is one person to break the ice. Example. Twenty years ago, my brother won tickets to a Journey concert in Worcester, Massachusetts on the radio. We rode a packed WBCN Party Bus out of Boston, but everyone was kind of uptight and kept to themselves, like there were cops in the crowd. So I took a risk and lit up a big fattie anyway. Within minutes, it was like a Cheech and Chong movie. You couldn’t see out the windows. Everyone was laughing, joking, hacking and toking. (more…)

You know, people, I really wish I knew what the story was regarding President Obama’s puzzling diplomatic approach to Islamist Iran. Inquiring Minds Want To Know. This ain’t no movie, and I really don’t like the storyline to date. Haven’t since 1979. So what’s the script? White House Productions seems to be holding the storyline in blackout mode, and at this point I’m ready to put former FOX reporter Roger Friedman on the job of rooting it out. He sure did a bang-up job on “Wolverine.”

To be fair, I actually gave the President credit in this March 26th opinion piece entitled “Is President Obama Turning The Tables on Iran?” See, it occurred to me that the President might be undertaking a very brilliant strategy toward the Islamic Republic. If the President offers the Iranian regime nothing but carrots and gets nothing but sticks in return, then the regime is exposed as the hard case it really is. Nobody could say the President hadn’t tried every means at his disposal to make peace. (more…)

There is a field in southwestern Pennsylvania, near Shanksville, where forty individuals — 37 American citizens and three visiting citizens from other countries — gave their lives to protect our country on Sept. 11, 2001.  They were not members of the US Military.  They were not trained in combat techniques.  They were ordinary citizens who said goodbye to their families that morning knowing they would be back home in a matter of days or weeks, not having one single inkling that they would be called to an act of heroism that day.  They were the passengers and crew of United Flight 93.  The humble memorial that has sprung up in that field to honor them is indescribably heartfelt and immeasurably powerful.

The drive to the memorial has to be something that one chooses to make.  It is about 90 miles from Pittsburgh, a city that the crashing plane flew directly over that day.  It is not something that you just happen upon, driving down the interstate, on your way to somewhere else.  One must seek it out.  And over 150,000 people a year do so.  I went there today.  I am glad that I did. (more…)