And the beat goes on

posted at 12:30 pm on September 11, 2007 by Bryan
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American al Qaeda minion Hamid Hayat, convicted in April 2006 of engaging in violent jihad, has been sentenced to prison:

A US federal judge has sentenced a Californian man to 24 years in jail for attending an al-Qaeda training camp in Pakistan and lying about it.

The judge said Hamid Hayat, 25, had returned home ready and willing to wage violent jihad…

He faced 39 years in jail, but the judge set the sentence at 24 years after taking into account this was his first offence.

First offence? Jihadists get a do-over?

Meanwhile, Gateway Pundit reports on an American peacenik who committed murder to protest the war in Iraq.

The attack took place Sunday evening when the American attacked the student with an axe in the waiting hall at a train station in the Dutch city of Roosendaal.

The American, whose name has yet to be released, was arrested at the scene of the crime. The student later died from his injuries in the hospital.

ANP reported that the American arrived in the Netherlands with the express intention of carrying out attacks on the Dutch military in revenge for the country’s decision to send troops to Iraq.

However, after spending the night in a forest next to a military barracks, he eventually settled upon the student as a suitable victim.

And Hollywood is set to give us yet another anti-war piece of “entertainment,” if the official site and trailer to In the Valley of Elah are any guide.

The film purports to be about the mental toll that the Iraq war is taking on our troops. Clips of the film that I’ve seen suggest that our troops have standing orders to commit war crimes.

On his first weekend back after serving in Iraq, Mike Deerfield (Jonathan Tucker) goes missing and is reported AWOL. When Hank Deerfield (Tommy Lee Jones), a former military MP and his wife Joan (Susan Sarandon) get the phone call with the disturbing news, Hank sets out to search for their son. Emily Sanders (Charlize Theron), a police detective in the jurisdiction where Mike was last seen, reluctantly helps him in his search. As the evidence grows, her missing person’s case begins to look more and more like foul play, and soon Sanders finds herself in a fight with the military brass as she and Hank struggle to keep control of the investigation. But when the truth about Mike’s time in Iraq finally begins to emerge, Hank’s entire world is challenged and he’s forced to reevaluate long-held beliefs to solve the mystery behind his son’s disappearance.

The film opens this weekend, right after the 9-11 anniversary, because to Hollywood it’s ok to use 9-11 to slam the war. It’s just not ok to use 9-11 to justify the war.

The real valley of Elah is in Israel, and is the site of David’s defeat of Goliath. The film involves anti-war actors Tommy Lee Jones, Susan Sarandon and Chalize Theron. It’s not hard to do the math on this one. Hollywood continues to bank on American freedoms to market anti-American films to a global audience that eats it all up. But how long can American freedoms last if Hollywood keeps producing product that helps turn the whole world against us?

Among the offerings at the Toronto International Film Festival: Paul Haggis’ “In the Valley of Elah,” which opens Friday and stars Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron and Susan Sarandon in a murder mystery set among U.S. soldiers newly returned from Iraq; Brian De Palma’s “Redacted,” centered on the troops, the media and Iraqis near a U.S. checkpoint in Samarra; Nick Broomfield’s “Battle for Haditha,” a dramatization of a massacre of Iraqis by U.S. forces that followed a fatal roadside bombing; and Gavin Hood’s “Rendition,” with Reese Witherspoon, Jake Gyllenhaal and Meryl Streep in the story of an American woman seeking answers over the disappearance of her Egyptian-born husband, a terrorism suspect imprisoned and tortured because U.S. authorities suspect him of involvement in a terrorist bombing.

Hollywood chooses these stories and many more like them, ignoring the heroism of Sergeant First Class Paul R. Smith, the Marines to took Fallujah from al Qaeda and all of the hundreds of other stories of triumph, sacrifice and heroism from this war.

But I’m sure we’ll get a sympathetic two-hour film on Hamid Hayat within a year or two. The beat goes on.

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