Profile in Courage: Wafa Sultan

Far too many times lately, I've heard phrases completely misused. I've heard (or read) honorifics and complementary titles misappointed. I've heard Cindy Sheehan being called "Brave". I've heard Robert Byrd called "Statesman-like". I've even heard the painfully unfunny Stephen Colbert praised for "speaking truth to power".
And yet, little attention is paid to the genuine heroes of our time. Less, still, is there praise for them shouted from the rooftops.
Well, I may not be on the slate with a bullhorn, but I'll be damned if I'm going to pass up the opportunity to point out a genuine example of courage in today's world.
Today's profile in courage belongs to Dr. Wafa Sultan... someone who really does speak truth to power... and in the sense that the term is actually intended, too; doing so from a sense of conviction and moral obligation, in the face of grave personal danger.


Dr. Wafa Sultan, Doctor of psychiatry, author, public speaker and renowned expert on Muslim/Arab world affairs, was born in Baniyas, Syria, circa 1958.

Dr. Sultan began to doubt her Islamic upbringing in 1979, after seeing atrocities perpetrated by "The Muslim Brotherhood" against her fellow Syrians. Not the least of these crimes was the brutal murder of her University of Aleppo professor, which she personally witnessed, while a medical student there.
In Dr. Sultan's own words: "They shot hundreds of bullets into him, shouting, 'God is great!'.
At that point, I lost my trust in their god and began to question all our teachings. It was the turning point of my life, and it has led me to this present point. I had to leave. I had to look for another god."

Shortly after September 11, 2001, Dr. Sultan started to gain more regognition, following her participation in several debates on Middle East political affairs, as well as several widely circulated Arabic essays she authored.

She had also, at that time begun to appear as a contributor and Muslim/Arab expert in several television appearances, including those seen on CNN and the Arab network, Al-Jazeera.

It was her latest Al-Jazeera appearance that has generated her biggest buzz, to date.
On February 21, 2006, Dr. Sultan, now a California native, participated via satellite from Los Angeles with an Al-Jazaeera program
on which she openly and courageously confronted the program's host, as well as his other guest, Dr. Ibrahim Al-Khouli, on the nature of the conflict between Islam and Western culture.
Al-Khouli, a cleric and "Islamic scholar", made several attempts to refute Dr. Sultan's observations, with no rational result. When all reasoning seemed to abandon him, as is typically the way with Islamic hardliners, he tried to simply dismiss her as "a heretic", stating that he had, therefore, "no need to debate with you." Sultan relented, easily making her ponts with clarity, reason and a tenacity that must be admired, especially given the current climate, and the dangers these actions may pose to her, personally.

In a world of cowardly "heroes" and false courage, it inspires hope that there are still those out there who are willing to put themselves at risk, to do what is genuinely right.

Dr. Wafa Sultan, we salute you.

***Dr. Sultan is currently working on a new book, to be entitled;
"The Escaped Prisoner: When God Is a Monster". Look for it in 2007.***

Kofi Annan

You know what really upsets me? What really strikes a blow to my hope for the future? For my children's future?
Not crime. Not religious intolerance. Not war. Not famine. Not even reality TV.
What really makes me lose sleep at night is knowing that we live in a world where a position with such potential for greatness, such as the Secretary-General of the United Nations, can be corrupted and wasted with the election of a grade-a douchebag like Kofi Annan.
Forget the bribery and backdoor-deals. (Though I'm sure they tie right in with the current events, here.)
This man is either completely corrupt, or completely out of touch with reality. Frankly, neither is any less dangerous, and either causes me great consternation.
But let's get to Kofi's latest act of douchebaggery, shall we?

From his UN office in New York on Tuesday, Annan released a statement calling for an investigation into "the apparently deliberate targeting by Israeli Defense Forces of a U.N. Observer post in southern Lebanon".
Annan is referring to a UN "peacekeeping" position in Khiam, in southern Lebanon that was apparently hit by Israeli artillery and aerial fire, resulting in the deaths of four UN "military observers".
Annan went on to state, "This coordinated artillery and aerial attack on a long established and clearly marked U.N. post at Khiam occurred despite personal assurances given to me by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that U.N. positions would be spared Israeli fire." and "I call on the government of Israel to conduct a full investigation into this very disturbing incident and demand that any further attack on U.N. positions and personnel must stop".

What Annan did not make any statements about is why Irsaeli defense forces were firing on this position to start with. Could it possibly be the fact that this is not only a UN outpost, but also the location of "Khiam Fort", a Hezbollah stronghold, replete with gun and artillery emplacements? How about that it's also a suspected storage site for some of the missiles that Hezbollah has recently been firing at Haifa? And that all of this was going on within full view of these UN "military observers" without a peep?
Might that have had something to do with it?

Nah... the Israeli's just really hate blue helmets, that's all.

Hrmm... there is another possibility, you know.
Given the UN's supposed purpose for being there, and how absolutely nothing has ever been done by them, there... would it have been so wrong for Israel to have simply assumed that the UN had abandoned the place, years ago?

Look.. the UN, at least under Kofi Annan, is a joke. Everyone knows it. I think Kofi even knows it, deep down. That's why he's given up on actually doing anything good for the world, and has apparently decided to just use his position to score himself some mad bling every chance he gets.

At this point, UN Peasekeepers are, at best, an annoyance, and at worst, a major roadblock to actual peace anywhere.
If they insist on sitting idly by and not doing so much as making a phone call to say, "Hey, ummm... there's some bad guys over here doing some bad stuff. Should we leave so real men can do something about it?", then screw 'em. They're nothing more than human shields... and that shit is getting really old. Israel has the right idea. This is war, not a groundbreaking for a new mall. You want to get in the way? We'll shoot through you.

But there is an upside, I suppose. As long as Hezbollah thinks they can hide behind a UN flag, and as long as the UN has no prblem letting them do so, at least it makes the terrorist scumbags easier to find.

...just aim the bombs at the blue helmets.

Kofi, you're in the way of actual progress... and worse, you're helping the barbarians of the world to drag us into their 12th century cesspool.
Go cash in your hidden Swiss bank account and retire, you douchebag. Hopefully, to southern Lebanon.

FINAL JUDGEMENT: LEVEL 1 DOUCHEBAG!

Cindy Sheehan

With more zany antics in her bag than an 80's sitcom, it's never very long before Mamma Moonbat reemerges on the list.
Seriously... this scraggly wack-o-saurus contributes more to this site than I do.
If there's a photo-op to be had, you can bet your ass that 'ole snagglepuss here will be in attendance, front and center.
Go dig out some of those old home movies from your attic. I'll bet you a shiny nickel she's in there, somewhere. To say this hag craves attention is like saying Charlie Sheen likes sex. The only difference is,
Sheehan gets other people to pay for her addiction.
So now, it seems, Cindy-Lou is on a diet.
Joining a bevy of other activist-impersonators from the far left, at midnight, July 4, Cindy officially continued her war against reality by joining the "Troops Home Fast" program.

Propagandized Labeled as a fast to protest the Iraq war, the architects of this mockery even have a photo of Ghandi on the head of their site. (Which, no, I will not link to.)
What makes this so rediculous, you might ask? Fasting is a long-standing form of peaceful protest, you say? Ghandi is a good, and well known referrence of this, you say?
Well... you're right. Except.... this is by no means a legitimate fast. Read between the lines and you see that this is what's called a "rolling fast". (Otherwise known as a "complete sham").
This is where fasters punch a time clock, of sorts. You wake up, refuse to eat for an hour, then push it over to Billy, who refuses to eat for an hour, while you shovel down a Whopper, large Coke and a bag of Cheetos. Then Billy hits the all-you-can-eat lunch buffet at the Wok-and-Roll while Susie takes up the baton of not chewing her cud for the next hour... and on and on and on.
So as long as you have regular intervals during the day when you're not eating, you've successfully participated in this brave and noble exercise against global-dominating facism! Isn't that exciting?!?
Except when you realize that, unless you've had a feedbag tied to your piehole since birth, you've pretty much been doing exactly that all your life, already.
Yeah... real challenging.
Now, not all of the fasters are watching the clock, to be fair. A couple, Sheehan included, are what they call "long term" fasters. Meaning that they, by definition, are abstaining from any sustenence until their mission is accomplished, they abandon the pretense of the fast, or they are dead.

Pretty brave, huh?

Yeah... ummm... Except....

Cindy hasn't actually been real nitpicky about the definition of the word "fast".
It seems that, while on her "Troops Home Fast Tour" (Do they have roadies?) Shaggylocks has been making painful sacrifices to the gods of Ice Cream, coffee, Jamba Juices and protien powders, at the very least. (You have to wonder, if this is what she's admitting to, what else has she been stuffing her craw with?)
Let's face it... Cindy's not exactly known for her honesty or forthcoming nature. Remember the whole "Why won't the President meet with me?" thing? You know... after he already did?
So my money's on a stash of nutrageous bars and tofurkey burgers in the back of her tour bus, quite frankly.
But even if she is "only" eating Jamba Juices and ice creamed coffees, etc., how honest a "fast" is that???
And a better question... exactly how does someone suck down a french-vanilla'd double mochaccino with both hands nailed to the cross..?
In the end, Cindy's annoying, but useful for a good laugh, at least. Until she realizes that she's a complete joke who has totally whored and distorted her dead son's name, she'll probably always find a way to make the report.

FINAL JUDGEMENT: Level 3 Douchebag

Ward Churchill

With an act of unparalelled douchebaggery, Mr. Ward Churchill once again tops the list.
And yes, that's "Mr. Churchill", not "Professor Churchill".
I'll reserve the honorofics for those who've actually earned it, thank you very much.

Those who've been paying attention will remember Mr Churchill as the disgraced University of Colorado Professor of Ethnic Studies whose disgusting comments about the 9/11 World Trade Center victims got national press, and the unwashed adulation of mindless liberal sheep everywhere.

Of course, the notoriety came at a price to Chruchill.

Now a public figure, he could no longer hide in the shadows, hoping his "academic accomplishments" went unquestioned and uninvestigated.

It wasn't long before his claims of Native American ancestry were completely debunked, his "artistic" work uncovered as plagiarized, and his "academic" work revealed as totally fraudulent.
Churchill was investigated by UofC's Investigative Committee, a subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct. The committee agreed unanimously that Churchill had engaged in "serious research misconduct," including four counts of falsifying information, two counts of fabricating information, two counts of plagiarizing the works of others, improperly reporting the results of studies, and failing to “comply with established standards regarding author names on publications.” In addition, the committee found him "disrespectful of Indian oral traditions."

But, of course, being a tenured far-left professor at a far-left University does allow you a significant berth of leeway... and so Churchill remains, to this day, on the UofC rolls. Did I expect anything else? No, not really... but one can hope.

So what we have here is an established douchebag, who apparently saw his star as fading, and so decided to remind the world that he still remains... well... a douchebag.

At Baltimore's "Mid-Atlantic Radical book fair" (Yeah, it actually exists. They can read. Go figure.) on the 4th of July, while the rest of the country was celebrating our independence, and the sacrifices made by far braver men and women of the military who bought that for us with their blood, Churchill was addressing the small group in attendance. (Okay, so some of them can read.)
During his episode of appearance, which was filmed by a documentary group from Walking Eagle Productions, Churchill tried to rally the dupes with his typical doped-up-iguana-like charm. Even his core supporters were noteably unimpressed, returning only a smattering of grudging applause and half-hearted chuckling.
So Ward apparently decided he needed to get plain-ole' ig-nent, and take another dip from the 9/11 victims well.

Churchill chuckled over the hijacking of the 9/11 flights. His eyes glazing over with joyful reminisence, he noted,
"You do remember, the incident which the terrorists overpowered the stewardess
on the aircraft and tweezed her eyebrows with his tweezers, until she screamingly
submitted to fly the plane into a building remember that one?"
adding,
"Tweezers… tweezed into submission."

One can just imagine him reclining afterward and sighing, "ahh.... good times. Good times."

Seriously... what the fuck is wrong with this guy?

He's so fucking wrong on so many fucking levels... it's hard to believe he's even an actual human being. I'd find him more believeable as some badly-written, hand-wringing, moustache twirling villain in an old cartoon somewhere.

I take that back. Snidely Whiplash was never as two-dimensional as this piece of shit.


Final Judgement: LEVEL 4 DOUCHEBAG!

With Apologies...

Well, I thought I could save the content after a major revamp, but I guess not.

So it looks like we're starting over, folks.

In any event, I'm sure it won't be long at all before the list gets hefty again.

I mean, have you guys been watching the news? It's a douchebag fiesta out there, gang.

But I can still use a little help. Get on those douchebag sightings.
And remember, public figures only, please. I don't want to hear why your neighbor, Ralph,
is a complete douchebag for not returning your hedge clippers.
It's not that the guy doesn't completely suck... it's just that... well, who cares?

And please, for the love of god... give me some sort of persuasive argument for why they should make the list.
I don't want to sift through a bunch of one-line e-mails that read,
"This guy's a douchebag. I hate him. He eats babies."

That brings me to my final point... If you're going to make a claim about someone, you better be damned sure you can back it up. If you start blathering about someone with no factual basis, you're just going to waste my time, and wind up looking like a complete buffoon... and I will make sure to point that out.

So, that being said... happy douchebag hunting!