CUANAS: 06/01/2005 - 07/01/2005

Thursday, June 30, 2005

1801 -
Thomas Jefferson Declared War
On Islamofascist Terror

A little history lesson from Gerald Gawalt of the Library of Congress:

Ruthless, unconventional foes are not new to the United States of America. More than two hundred years ago the newly established United States made its first attempt to fight an overseas battle to protect its private citizens by building an international coalition against an unconventional enemy.

Then the enemies were pirates and piracy. The focus of the United States and a proposed international coalition was the Barbary Pirates of North Africa.

Pirate ships and crews from the North African states of Tripoli, Tunis, Morocco, and Algiers (the Barbary Coast) were the scourge of the Mediterranean. Capturing merchant ships and holding their crews for ransom provided the rulers of these nations with wealth and naval power. In fact, the Roman Catholic Religious Order of Mathurins had operated from France for centuries with the special mission of collecting and disbursing funds for the relief and ransom of prisoners of Mediterranean pirates.

After the United States won its independence in the treaty of 1783, it had to protect its own commerce against dangers such as the Barbary pirates. As early as 1784 Congress followed the tradition of the European shipping powers and appropriated $80,000 as tribute to the Barbary states, directing its ministers in Europe, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, to begin negotiations with them. Trouble began the next year, in July 1785, when Algerians captured two American ships and the dey of Algiers held their crews of twenty-one people for a ransom of nearly $60,000.

Thomas Jefferson, United States minister to France, opposed the payment of tribute, as he later testified in words that have a particular resonance today. In his autobiography Jefferson wrote that in 1785 and 1786 he unsuccessfully "endeavored to form an association of the powers subject to habitual depredation from them. I accordingly prepared, and proposed to their ministers at Paris, for consultation with their governments, articles of a special confederation."

Jefferson argued that "The object of the convention shall be to compel the piratical States to perpetual peace." Jefferson prepared a detailed plan for the interested states. "Portugal, Naples, the two Sicilies, Venice, Malta, Denmark and Sweden were favorably disposed to such an association," Jefferson remembered, but there were "apprehensions" that England and France would follow their own paths, "and so it fell through."

Paying the ransom would only lead to further demands, Jefferson argued in letters to future presidents John Adams, then America's minister to Great Britain, and James Monroe, then a member of Congress. As Jefferson wrote to Adams in a July 11, 1786, letter, "I acknolege [sic] I very early thought it would be best to effect a peace thro' the medium of war."

Paying tribute will merely invite more demands, and even if a coalition proves workable, the only solution is a strong navy that can reach the pirates, Jefferson argued in an August 18, 1786, letter to James Monroe: "The states must see the rod; perhaps it must be felt by some one of them. . . .

Jefferson's plan for an international coalition foundered on the shoals of indifference and a belief that it was cheaper to pay the tribute than fight a war.

The United States's relations with the Barbary states continued to revolve around negotiations for ransom of American ships and sailors and the payment of annual tributes or gifts.

Even though Secretary of State Jefferson declared to Thomas Barclay, American consul to Morocco, in a May 13, 1791, letter of instructions for a new treaty with Morocco that it is "lastly our determination to prefer war in all cases to tribute under any form, and to any people whatever," the United States continued to negotiate for cash settlements. In 1795 alone the United States was forced to pay nearly a million dollars in cash, naval stores, and a frigate to ransom 115 sailors from the dey of Algiers. Annual gifts were settled by treaty on Algiers, Morocco, Tunis, and Tripoli.

When Jefferson became president in 1801 he refused to accede to Tripoli's demands for an immediate payment of $225,000 and an annual payment of $25,000. The pasha of Tripoli then declared war on the United States.

Although as secretary of state and vice president he had opposed developing an American navy capable of anything more than coastal defense, President Jefferson dispatched a squadron of naval vessels to the Mediterranean. As he declared in his first annual message to Congress:

"To this state of general peace with which we have been blessed, one only exception exists. Tripoli, the least considerable of the Barbary States, had come forward with demands unfounded either in right or in compact, and had permitted itself to denounce war, on our failure to comply before a given day. The style of the demand admitted but one answer. I sent a small squadron of frigates into the Mediterranean. . . ."

The American show of force quickly awed Tunis and Algiers into breaking their alliance with Tripoli. The humiliating loss of the frigate Philadelphia and the capture of her captain and crew in Tripoli in 1803, criticism from his political opponents, and even opposition within his own cabinet did not deter Jefferson from his chosen course during four years of war.

... it was not until 1805, when an American fleet under Commodore John Rogers and a land force raised by an American naval agent to the Barbary powers, Captain William Eaton, threatened to capture Tripoli and install the brother of Tripoli's pasha on the throne, that a treaty brought an end to the hostilities.

Blowing toward the south, then turning toward the north, the wind continues swirling along; and on it's circular course the wind returns. All things are wearisome. Man is not able to tell it.

That which has been is that which will be, and that which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun.

AIDS Threatens To Overwhelm Muslim Nations

From Agence French Presse:

An AIDS crisis is threatening to overwhelm many predominantly Muslim countries but their leaders remain in a state of denial and are doing little to stem the deadly problem, a pioneering study says.

In one of the most comprehensive reports on AIDS covering the Muslim world, experts warned of serious repercussions if governments continued to sweep the problem under the carpet.

In a report released by the Seattle-based think tank, the National Bureau of Asian Research, they said "if leaders continue to ignore the problem, AIDS could debilitate or even destabilize some of these societies by killing large numbers of people in the 15 to 49-year age group."

This would deprive the Muslim countries of some of their best, brightest, and most economically productive members, said Laura Kelley and Nicholas Eberstadt in the report.

A private infectious disease specialist, Kelly had previously undertaken AIDS research for the US National Intelligence Council as well as other diseases for the USAID, the principal foreign aid agency of the United States, while Eberstadt is a scholar at American Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington-based think tank.

"An important take home message for all Muslim nations is that real behaviours on the streets are sometimes in marked contrast to the expected behaviours of good Muslims and that is something that leaders in these countries must deal with," Kelly told AFP.

The report said that even though the Muslim world was home to behaviors such as premarital sex, adultery, prostitution, homosexuality, and intravenous drug use -- which help spread the HIV virus that causes AIDS -- many governments have been slow to respond to the rapidly spreading disease.

"What is especially troubling to behold is the reluctance to admit that Muslims engage in exactly those same dangerous behaviors that support the transmission and spread of HIV/AIDS elsewhere," it said, blaming "deeply rooted cultural and religious attitudes.

"This reluctance even to recognize the problem will only accelerate the epidemic and make it more difficult for the international community to provide meaningful support and treatment," the report said.

Well, maybe if the Muslims could find someone to blame, they would feel better, and it would make it easier to admit that there is a problem.

Let's see, who could they blame?

Hmm.

The Jihad Against Israel
Alive And Well In Britain

A report on the progress of the Jihad in Britain, from Melanie Phillips:

A reader writes in with a snapshot of non-Muslim attitudes in Britain:

'I feel compelled to write to you again regarding what has become an increasingly desperate situation involving vicious anti-Israel campaigning in my home city of Newcastle upon Tyne. Around one year ago, representatives from the Durham branch of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign began campaigning every Saturday afternoon in Newcastle city centre to “Free Palestine”. This included various posters and leaflets stating “End Israeli Apartheid”, “End the Israeli Occupation” and “The Wall Must Fall”.

'After watching for several weeks with much dismay, I confronted one of these campaigners and asked why they were promoting such false propaganda. I suggested that words such as “occupation” and “apartheid” grossly ignored all of the acts of violence perpetrated against Israel, completely ignored the fact that Palestine has rejected a two-state solution on every occasion that was offered to it and dangerously paints Israel as an aggressive, expansionist state.

More importantly, I said, their false propaganda was contributing to rising anti-Semitism in the UK.

'Their response shocked me: they weren’t surprised anti-Semitism was rising; it was the Jews' own fault (a popular libel), Israel was a Nazi-like state, Hamas and Islamic Jihad were merely military organisations fighting against oppression and the Israeli army deliberately murders Palestinian children.

When I asked if they had ever read the Hamas charter or any of Hamas’ public rhetoric calling for the destruction of Israel, these people said such comments were largely fabricated by the Zionist press who attempted to falsely paint freedom fighters as terrorists to justify their own killings.

'If this wasn’t bad enough, I watched in utter dismay every weekend as more and more people signed their petition, and what started as a stand staffed by 2 or 3 individuals grew to become a large group of campaigners.

Around three months ago, a second campaign desk was set up every Saturday on Northumberland Street (Newcastle’s busiest shopping street) outside Marks & Spencer with a large poster stating “Marks & Spencer support Israeli state-sponsored terrorism against Palestine”.

A second board depicted Ariel Sharon with the slogan “World's Number One Terrorist” and leaflets calling for a boycott of Marks & Spencer and any other Israeli produce were being distributed.

'However, worse was to come last Saturday (25th). A third set of campaigners paraded through the city with a large cardboard illustration of a forklift truck with the words “Caterkiller” denouncing the fact that Caterpillar supply trucks to the Israeli army to bulldozer 50,000 people from their homes.

Their banner depicted the classic sinister, hook-nosed Jew as driver with skull-shaped smoke emerging from the trucks' exhaust.

My partner was handed a leaflet from these people. The amount of lies, libels and defamations are horrifying, with the leaflet stating, amongst other things, that Israel deliberately steals Palestinian land and water, and deliberately murders (bulldozes) peace activists.

'This is nothing more than a defamatory smear campaign, racist in its undertones and responsible for the mass distribution of misinformation to the British public.'

Christian Released From Frying Pan

From Dhimmi Watch:

An Egyptian Christian was released from mental hospital following international pressure over his five-month forcible commitment to the mental hospital, and being charged from apostasy from Islam, Compass Direct has informed.

Gasir Mohammed Mahmoud was released on 9th June 2005 from the El-Khanka Hospital for Mental and Neurological Health in Cairo, Egypt.

Mahmoud was adopted and raised by a Muslim couple who were shocked last December after finding out that he had converted to Christianity two year before. Afterwards, his father appealed to local Muslim sheikhs prompting them to issue a death sentence against his son for apostasy.

With a father like that, who wants to be released from captivity?

Now, read on and find out how they preach the word of Allah in Egypt, so that people can see the light and come to know the Love and the Truth:

Initially following his arrest, Mahmoud expressed that he was questioned "in a decent way" in the presence of state security officer Mohammed Amar. However, when he was transferred to a different official, who was accompanied by two Muslim sheikhs, they tried to convinced him to re-convert to Islam again.

After eight days, eating only the food that other fellow-imprisoned people shared with him, he was sent to Suez Security Directorate. After four days he was released.

His first footsteps led to an evangelical church where he asked for another copy of the Bible, since his was destroyed: "But they were afraid," Mahmoud said, "and refused to give me a Bible."

When he returned home, a messenger was already waiting for him telling him to meet Mohammed Amar again. During the next set of interrogations, when asked why he went to church; Mahmoud said he could not stop himself from going there.

"So he started to torture me, to pull off the nails of my toes," Mahmoud said. "Now I'm still not able to wear shoes because of the pain."

This torture continued for a further 18 days ...

My Nomination For The New Secretary of Defense

The other Fjordman carried a story about a Swede who had been taken hostage in Iraq, and how he had decided to deal with the aftermath:

Australian Associated Press reports that Sweden’s Ulf Hjertström, who was held captive for several weeks in Baghdad before his release on May 30, is channeling the spirit of Charles Bronson. Apparently, Hjerström has “hired bounty hunters to track down his former captors, promising to eliminate them one by one.”

“I have now put some people to work to find these bastards,” he told the Ten Network today. “I invested about $50,000 so far and we will get them one by one.”

Well, apparently, he's making good progress. From Little Green Footballs:

Hjertström, an oil broker whose career took him to Iraq 25 years ago, makes no bones about the decision to exact revenge on his abductors. “I’ve lived [in Iraq] for a long time. This is how things are done there. It’s nothing new to me,” he says.

Hearty Hjertström “doesn’t want to go into detail” about the bounty hunters, but assures Expressen that they are “the best money can buy.”

“They’re not twiddling their thumbs,” declares Hjertström, revealing that he has “received confirmation that two of [the kidnappers] have already been taken care of.”

When asked to elaborate on the fate of the purportedly captured men, the Swede says he “hasn’t inquired” but has his “suspicions.”

Many in Sweden have expressed shock and dismay at Hjertström’s eye-for-an-eye approach. But the plucky pensioner claims that revenge is not his primary motive. “I just want the people of Baghdad to feel safe on the streets.”

Wow, those Swedes are tough.

:)

Iran's new President Mahmood Ahmadinejad
participated in the takeover of the American Embassy in Iran in 1979, He and his fellow "revolutionaries" kidnapped 70 Americans and held them hostage for 444 days.

Jihad Jihad Jihad

From the World Tribune:

Iran's president-elect has proclaimed an Islamic revolution of global proportionos.
Mahmood Ahmadinejad said his election coincided with what he termed a new Islamic revolution.

"The wave of the Islamic revolution will soon reach the entire world," Ahmadinejad said. "In one night, the martyrs strode down a path of 100 years."

The 49-year-old Ahmadinejad, who participated in the takeover of the U.S. embassy in Teheran, in 1979, was regarded as the most anti-Western of the presidential candidates. On June 24, he defeated Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president who headed the Expediency Council, the regime's watchdog over what had been a reformist-dominated parliament.

"Thanks to the blood of the martyrs, a new Islamic revolution has arisen and the Islamic revolution of 1384 [the current Iranian year] will, if God wills, cut off the roots of injustice in the world," Ahmadinejad was quoted by the official Iranian news agency as saying. "The era of oppression, hegemonic regimes, tyranny and injustice has reached its end."

"Islamic and revolutionary culture have been neglected in the past years," Iranian parliamentarian Mohammad Taqi Rahbar said.

Iran has been cited as the leading financier of groups that appear on the U.S. State Department list of terrorist organizations. Iran's leading clients have been the Hizbullah in Lebanon and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, both sponsored by Teheran, as well as Hamas and the Syrian-aligned Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command.

Bushitler: The Interview

With thanks to The Anchoress for pointing the way to this quote from George Bush, from the London Times:

PRESIDENT BUSH will celebrate his 59th birthday in Scotland on Wednesday, the first US President to go north of the border since Eisenhower.

Despite staying at a famous golf course, he feared that there would be no time for a game. But he hoped to walk the links with his wife, Laura. “Maybe she and I can walk a round together, holding hands in the Scottish mist.”

George Bush is over in Scotland this week to attend the G8 Summit. While he's on the European continet, the Euros will once again get to see what kind of man the President is.

The Times also ran an interview and a transcript of the interview. The transcript is filled with the famous Bush incoherency; line segment sentences which criss-cross in broken geometry, and never quite seem to follow one from the other. But let's look at some outakes, shall we? That way we will get the pure, unadulterated Bushitler.

First, there's this, where he rambles on about Africa and menacingly quotes from the Bible:

Hopefully we'll talk the freedom agenda. I think we will. I know we'll talk about Africa. I look forward to talking about Africa. We got a great record in Africa, and the reason we got a great record in Africa is that I believe that, in the admonition, "To whom much has been given, much is required."

See? We live in a theocratic police state. Help us, Europe. We need you. The next thing we know, the Chimp will be shoving that freaking Bible down our throat, forcing us to memorize that quote. The Horror:

INTERVIEWER: Billions of dollars flow out of the US every year in trade and aid to the developing world. And that figure, as you mentioned, has risen significantly on your watch. But having said that, the US Government still gives only .16 per cent of its GDP to overseas aid. Is that enough? And have you got anything else to offer?

PRESIDENT BUSH: We will have -- we'll make some more commitments. First of all, the way I like to describe our relationship with Africa is one of partnership. That's different than a relationship of cheque-writer. In other words, partnership means that we've got obligations and so do the people we're trying to help.

He wants to make the Africans serve him. The cowboy is going to make them dance while he shoots bullets at their feet. He's a racist. He would never require anything from anyone else. And besides, all this talk of partnership is really just a way to give as little as he possibly can. The minute the Africans don't live up to his "partnership" he will cut off the flow of money, and blame it on them:

... when it comes to African growth and opportunity, GOAL (Growth and Opportunity Act) it is. It's an aggressive trade pact that President Clinton started and I, with Congress, and then I signed extensions to it. It's working.

The devious Bush is working in legion with his evil minion Bill Clinton the Fascist:

Our approach, as well, has been when we see disaster, let's move in to help people. Recently, I announced a $674 million food package. I could proudly proclaim at the G8 that the United States feeds more of the hungry than any nation in the world.

There he goes again, wielding his hegemony:

INTERVIEWER: On the other main G8 topic, climate change, do you believe the Earth is in fact getting warmer, and if so do you believe that it is man who is making it warmer?

PRESIDENT BUSH: I believe that greenhouse gases are creating a problem, a long-term problem that we got to deal with. And we are -- step one of dealing with it is to fully understand the nature of the problem so that the solutions that follow make sense.

And I think one of the interesting points that I made earlier that I'll continue to make, is that there's an interesting confluence now between dependency upon fossil fuels from a national economic security perspective, as well as the consequences of burning fossil fuels for greenhouse gases.

And that's why it's important for our country to do two things.

One is to diversify away from fossil fuels, which we're trying to do. We're leading the -- I think we're spending more money than any collection of nations when it comes to not only research and development of new technologies, but of the science of global warming. You know, laid out an initiative for hydrogen fuel cells. We've got a lot -- we're doing a lot of work on carbon sequestration. We hope to have a zero emissions coal-fired electricity plants available for the United States as well as neighbours and friends and developing nations.

Yeah, yeah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

He is so an idiot.

But wait, then there's this:

I'm a big believer that nuclear power ...

Yeah, the power that comes from nuclear weapons. He doesn't want Iran to have a nuclear reactor, but he wants to build nuclear power plants in America. But wait, read this frightening bit of news:

... the newest generation of nuclear power, ought to be a source of energy and we ought to be sharing these technologies with developing countries.

Do you think that's a threat? That sounds like a threat to me. What does he mean by share?:

I mean it just goes on and on like that. Bushitler embarrassing us on the international stage. Using the G8 summit to exert his imperialistic hubris all over the place.

I just hope the Europeans will forgive us.

Wednesday, June 29, 2005

The Left and The Extreme Right
Wedded in the Bliss Of Anti-Semitism

From Marlowe's Shade:

There is an old political saw that far right and far left aren't extreme ends of a spectrum but the point were a circle meets. Nowhere is that more apparent or dangerous than in Germany. And if that wasn't enough of a cause for concern, Jew-hatred is the gasoline being poured on the fire.

Here is a history of this phenomenon on the German Left:

Anti-Semitism was never exclusive to the Right; Communism, for its part, often vilified Jews as capitalists. Communism in East Germany, as elsewhere, denied the right to practice the Jewish religion and sought to eradicate religion in general, including Judaism.

East Germany's anti-Semitic policies first became evident in January 1953 when the Stasi - the state security service - confiscated documents of the Jewish communities, searched the homes of Jewish leaders, and spoke of a "Zionist conspiracy." After the Six Day War, East Germany officially adopted an anti-Zionist stance. However, no serious data on East German anti-Semitism is available before the reunification in 1989.

Although West German left-wing anti-Semitism also increased steadily after the Six Day War, before then the West German Left supported Israel generally, and specifically the Wiedergutmachung (Reparations Agreement of 1953) and the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1965.

This friendliness was, however, based on an idealization of Israel, kibbutzim, and pioneering and was not on genuinely firm ground. Opposition to the conservative government of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer also played a role in this left-wing philo-Semitism.

During the 1960s, the West German Left divided into a more "conservative" wing and a New Left trend. Whereas Chancellor Willy Brandt was said to be a true and unwavering friend of Israel, many young leftists took radical positions and opposed Brandt's "establishment" Social Democratic Party.

In 1966 they founded the Nonparliamentary Opposition (APO), a popular movement that sought to "renew" German politics from the outside. Many of its members and supporters later showed sympathy for the RAF, a leftist terrorist movement that had ties to the PLO and whose cadres trained in terrorist camps in Lebanon.

During the Six Day War, the New Left definitively transformed its hitherto moderate pro-Arab positions into full support for Arab states and the Palestinians, and its fragile pro-Israeli attitudes dissolved into anti-Semitic slogans thinly disguised as "anti-imperialist" criticism of a "fascist state."

After 1967, however, not only the radicals but large parts of the German Left turned their backs on Israel.

Go read the rest over at Marlowe's Shade.

Libertarian Links

There is an important and enlightening discussion going on over at Dave Budge.com, that started with thoughts on the 10 Commandments case, and morphed into a more general discussion on Libertarianism. Read the whole post and the comments section. You will have fun. If you don't come back here, and I'll write something twice as fun to make up for it.

Meanwhile, over at the Kafir Constitutionalist, Tom has some thoughts on why, what leftists like to call "political hate speech," is a natural outgrowth of the politics of coercion, which sprouts from socialism like mushrooms from a pile of ... well, you know.

Q and O.net is a "Journal of New Libertarian Thought" which is worth checking out.

And then, there is Mises.org, where you can download some of the great ones works gratis. You can't get much more Libertarian than that.

Democrats.com Calls For Impeachment

Last night I linked to an article from the Neo-neocon, which showed how leftists such as Tom Hayden are planning to end the war in Iraq. Tonight, The Anchoress notes that Democrats are doing the same thing, plus calling for impeachment:

Democrats.com Urges Bush to Apologize, Exit Iraq - and Resign or Face Impeachment

As George Bush prepares to speak to the nation about Iraq, Democrats.com urged him to apologize to the nation for lying about Iraq, to start pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq by Thanksgiving - and to resign from office by New Year's Day or face the largest grassroots impeachment campaign in the nation's history.

What is the difference between Democrats and the far-Left, as represented by people like Tom Hayden?

Interesting that that came out on the same day at Daily Kos put out this little press release (as pointed out by LGF):

... here are two ways to talk about the war that don’t betray weakness:

Promoting a withdrawal

We have a lot to be proud of over the past three years. We have freed the Iraqi people from a brutal dictator and given them their first taste of freedom. Iraq held successful presidential elections earlier this year, and the nation is now run by a democratic-elected government.
We have accomplished what we set out to do — bring freedom to Iraq and rid the region of the specter of Saddam’s terror.

But now it is time to let the Iraqis take charge of their own lives. The future belongs to a free democratic Iraq, but it is a future they must fight for themselves.Afraid to call for withdrawal? Hammer on “accountability”.

We are facing a crisis in Iraq, and yet no one is being held accountable. Our troops don’t have enough men, equipment, or armor to effectively and safely do their job, yet those responsible for these deadly miscalculations remain at their jobs. They claim, as they always have, that Iraq is about to turn yet another corner, pass yet another milestone on the road to peace and prosperity. But the reality on the ground mocks those assertions.

We must have accountability in order to win this war.

Charles Johnson commented:

This new direction, of course, comes after years of brittle screaming from Markos that “bringing democracy to Iraq” is nothing but a lie and a sham, and that we need to immediately cut and run. It’s a little glimpse into the utter moral bankruptcy of the modern left, as they twist, distort, and change their stories at will depending on the political wind.

Yeah, That'll Happen

The Organization of the Islamic Conference is demanding a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. From Agence French Presse, via LGF:

SANAA (AFP) - Foreign ministers of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) opened a meeting with a call for a Muslim permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

OIC secretary general Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu urged a greater role for Muslim countries in world affairs and demanded a "permanent representation for the Islamic world on the UN Security Council".

"The Islamic world, which represents one fifth of total mankind, cannot remain excluded from the activities of the Security Council which assumes a fundamental role in keeping security and peace in the world," he said Tuesday.

But, delusions of grandeur weren't the only order of business Tuesday. There were also issues of identity:

The Turkish secretary general also proposed finding a new name for the organisation that would reflect "its reality".

OIC was given its current name when it was first established at a meeting of Islamic leaders convened in Morocco following an attempt by Jewish hardliners to burn down Islam's third holiest site -- Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque -- which is also revered in Judaism.

What the .... is Agence French Presse talking about?

I had never heard of such an occurrence, so I googled it. As far as I can tell "Jewish hardliners" never attempted to burn down the al-Aqsa Mosque. However, a Christian fundamentalist did do such way, way back in the summer of 1969:

Memories are long here, and one of the major events of recent history was when Australian Christian fundamentalist Michael Rohan tried to burn down al-Aqsa in 1969, causing considerable damage.

But, Agence French Presse blames the Jews.

Palestinians Are Victims Of Apartheid and Brutality
In The Arab World

For the past 57 Palestinians who fled their land during the war in 1948 - when Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq attacked Israel - have been refused the right to most any form of gainful employment. Recently conditions have slightly improved. From Palestine Media Center, via Supernatural Blog:

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon welcomed as a "first step" a Lebanese government decision on Monday allowing Palestinians born in Lebanon to practice a limited number of professions they were excluded from for 57 years. There are 400,000 registered Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon, 90% of whom were born there. Anyone aged 57 or younger will benefit from the work permit. The move brings Lebanon more in line with other Arab countries who long ago granted Palestinian refugees the right to work, and in some cases have offered them citizenship.

However, despite the new measure, Palestinian workers in Lebanon will be restricted to manual and clerical work. "They can work in a company or as a guard but not as doctors or engineers, for example; it is not really fair," said DFLP member Suhail al-Natour.

Supernatural Blog comments:

The strategy of the Arab world has always been to persist the plight of the Palestinian people. By ensuring that their conditions did not improve the Arab world has used them as a pawn around which a rallying point for Israeli hatred was created.

That might sound a little hard to believe, that Arabs would conspire to keep Palestinians in such a debased state. But, just ask yourself these questions:

1) Why, when Arabs all over the world are supposedly so angry about the conditions in which Palestinians live, do the Arabs not help the Palestinians within their own countries?

2) Why did Jordan enact a massacre upon the Palestinians, killing five to ten thousand people?

3) Why did PLO Executive Committee member, Zaheir Muhsein, say this:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct 'Palestinian people' to oppose Zionism.

"For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa. While as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

Tough Love
Two Important Points About The Middle East Conflict

Right Wing News featured an interview with journalist Mark Steyn today. He was asked a question about what we can expect to see resulting from the Israeli plan to withdraw from Gaza His answer is worthwhile, because he's been to Gaza, so he tells us what he has seen and not seen on the ground:

John Hawkins: So how successful do you think the Israeli strategy of walling off the Palestinians will be?

Mark Steyn: I haven’t spent a lot of time in “Palestine,” but, when I have, I’ve never seen any sign anywhere in Gaza or the West Bank of anything remotely resembling a "nationalist" movement. There’s plenty of evidence of widespread Jew-hatred and the veneration of death-cult "martyrdom," but not that anybody’s seriously interested in building a nation for the “Palestinian people.”

So if you leave it to the Palestinians there's never going to be a state, only decade after decade of suicide bombings.

One can advance reasons for this - it's no coincidence that the most comprehensively wrecked people on the face of the earth are the ones who have been wholly entrusted to the formal care of the UN for three generations now. But,

the fact is what Israel is doing is the only thing that will force the Palestinians to get up off their allegedly occupied butts and run a state:

the Israelis are walling off what they feel they need, or what they can get away with, and it will be up to the gangsters of Arafatistan to see if they now feel like dropping the jihad and getting on with less glamorous activities like running highway departments and schools.

In other words, Steyn says,

1) The Palestinians don't want a state

and therefore,

2) the only way to stop their Intifada is to force them to take responsibility for themselves, rather than rely on others.

In other words, like we need to treat the Palestinians like self-destructive teenagers.

Sometimes, You Just Gotta Love Your Enemies

Palestinian terrorist organization, Hamas, stands a good chance of winning the upcoming elections for the National Council. P. David Hornik says this will make it very hard for the world's media and government to continue the lie of moral equivalence in the Middle East Conflict. From Front Page Magazine:

Unlike Fatah, Hamas doesn’t send smoothies before the public like Saeb Erekat and Hanan Ashrawi who protest their desire for peace with Israel so long as it is flooded with “refugees” and demographically dissolved. Hamas leaders don’t, like Fatah’s Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, tell Western leaders that they’d stop terrorism against Israel if they could, but first need to be “strengthened” with payoffs of millions of dollars and releases of thousands of terrorists from Israeli jails.

Instead, Hamas is more or less explicit about its aim of eradicating Israel as a religious duty.

That has not, however, prevented a recent upsurge of EU-Hamas contacts. Although the EU designated Hamas’s “military wing” a terrorist organization in 2002, at that time France argued that Hamas’s “political wing” held a potential for future peacemaking with Israel and should be kept off the blacklist. Along with hard lobbying by the United States and Israel, it took a particularly gruesome Hamas attack on a Jerusalem bus in August 2003, which killed 23, to get the EU to relent and add the “political wing” to the list as well.

Now, though, with Hamas already having won municipal elections in over one-third of the 120 PA towns since last December, even that stance is unraveling. Mohammed Ghazal, a senior Hamas representative in the West Bank, has said that “Every ten days to two weeks we have at least one meeting with a European diplomat.” Mushir al-Masri, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, said EU officials have discussed both municipal and “political” issues with Hamas mayors, including the putative cease-fire with Israel. And Mahmoud Zahar, Hamas’s current leader, said he had recently met “a very important adviser of the German government.”

Confirmation comes from the European side as well. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has disclosed that diplomats from his country have met twice with members of Hamas’s “political wing,” though Straw claimed Britain would not meet with top-echelon leaders of Hamas till the group gives up violence. Bob Hiensch, Holland’s ambassador to Israel, also said the EU would hold no political dialogue with Hamas till it stops violence and recognizes Israel, but did not deny that member states could be meeting with Hamas on their own.

Indeed, although EU spokeswoman Elena Peresso has stated in Brussels that the EU has reached no collective decision about changing its policy toward Hamas, Haaretz reports that the EU has already informed the U.S. of a substantial shift: EU diplomats below the rank of ambassador are now allowed to conduct talks with Hamas candidates for the Palestinian Legislative Council. This EU decision, according to Haaretz, was taken without even discussing making demands of Hamas to moderate its stance toward Israel or eschew violence.

Considering how hard it was for the EU to classify Hamas as terrorist in the first place, not to mention its great difficulty in similarly labeling Hamas’s sister-organization Hezbollah, it is clear that the reasons for its rather easy resumption of ties with Hamas go deeper.

As it becomes more and more evident that withdrawals, gestures, releases, and so on avail Israel naught, and that it is under attack by forces seeking to annihilate it in any shape, the EU’s reaction is, of course, not to give Israel more backing, but to shore up ties with the attackers. Little more can be expected of Eurabia ...

You've just got to love your enemies when they tell the truth. Hamas comes right out and says "kill the Jews" and European Union officials meet with them.

So, we know very clearly where they stand, don't we?

Just a question: Why do EU officials "meet with Hamas candidate for the Palestinian Legislative Council?"

Wouldn't that be like EU officials meeting with candidates for the US Congress? Would they bother to meet with a candidate to represent say, the East Los Angeles District in California? Think about that. As an American, if you don't live in East Los Angeles, you wouldn't have any idea who's running for that seat. But, EU officials are meeting with equivalent candidates for the Palestinian territories.

Why is Palestinian politics so important to the Euros that they would go out of their way for small time players like that?

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

The Leftist Viet Namization of Iraq

Neo-Neocon says the Left has a plan on what to do about Iraq, and Viet Nam is the template:

One cannot underestimate the power of public opinion in this country, and it is an indisputable fact that those on the left were instrumental in shaping that opinion. ... (One can not underestimate) how far some of them such as, for example, the prominent pair Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden--actually went in their antiwar activities.

They were not simply protestors; they were (there's no other way to put this) active lobbyists for the enemy cause, and polished and successful ones at that.

Hayden and Fonda organized an "Indo-China Peace Campaign" to cut off remaining American support for the regimes in Cambodia and South Vietnam. For the next few years [the early 70s], the Campaign worked tirelessly to ensure the victory of the North Vietnamese Communists and the Khmer Rouge.

Accompanied by a camera team, Hayden and Fonda traveled first to Hanoi and then to the "liberated" zones in South Vietnam, to make a propaganda film. Called "Introduction to the Enemy," it attempted to persuade viewers that the Communists were going to create a new society in the south. Equality and justice awaited its inhabitants if only American would cut off support for the Saigon regime.

Assisted by radical legislators like Ron Dellums and Bella Abzug, Hayden set up a caucus in the Capitol, where he lectured congressional staffers on the need to end American aid. He directed his attention to Cambodia as well, lobbying for an accommodation with the Khmer Rouge guerillas.

Nixon's resignation over Watergate provided all the leverage Hayden and his activists needed. The Democrats won the midterm elections, bringing to Washington a new group of legislators determined to undermine the settlement that Nixon and Kissinger had achieved. The aid was cut, the Saigon regime fell, and the Khmer rouge marched into the Cambodian capital.

In the two years that followed, more Indochinese were killed by the victorious Communists than had been killed on both sides in all thirteen years of the anti-Communist war.

It was the bloodbath that [the Left's] opponents had predicted. But for the Left there would be no contrition and no look back.

Now talk of exiting the war in Iraq has increased. What will happen to the Iraqis who believed in us? Will we let them down too?

Iraq is not Vietnam. But it appears more and more that the left is trying to make it into Vietnam. Jane Fonda is no longer especially active, although every now and then she makes some general statement against the war in Iraq. Hayden, likewise, is no longer the mover and shaker he once was.

But when I read the following words about the Iraq war by Tom Hayden, I got the proverbial chill down my spine. If he's not as powerful as he used to me, it's not for lack of desire or lack of ideas. The man has a plan, and his plan--strangely enough--is to repeat what worked for him back in the early 70's:

...the [Leftist anti-Iraq war] movement needs to force our government to exit. The strategy must be to deny the U.S. occupation funding, political standing, sufficient troops, and alliances necessary to their strategy for dominance.

The first step is to build pressure at congressional district levels to oppose any further funding or additional troops for war. If members of Congress balk at cutting off all assistance and want to propose "conditions" for further aid, it is a small step toward threatening funding. If only 75 members of Congress go on record against any further funding, that's a step in the right direction – towards the exit.

The important thing is for anti-war activists to become more grounded in the everyday political life of their districts, organizing anti-war coalitions including clergy, labor and inner city representatives to knock loudly on congressional doors and demand that the $200 billion squandered on Iraq go to infrastructure and schools at home.

When trapped between imperial elites and their own insistent constituents, members of Congress will tend to side with their voters. That is how the wars in Vietnam and Cambodia were ended in 1975.

So there it is, in black and white--the plan is to repeat the glory days that led to the boat people and the killing fields of Cambodia.

Go read Hayden's entire document.

Watch for a deluge of Viet Nam characterizations from Republicans after tonights speech by President Bush.

Lamentation

From Gates of Vienna:

Following the map printed up for them by the Anglican Peace and Justice Network, the Church of England is busy driving over the cliff. How could anyone with a lick of common sense believe one word coming from a "Peace and Justice" committee? Did these people sleep through the birth and (Deo gratias) death of Communism?

Does the Anglican Communion in England have any idea how irrelevant it is? The Incredible Shrinking Church has just shriveled another centimeter or two. It’s sooo bad it’s embarrassing. You could go read the report here (it's a PDF. You'll need version 7), but why bother. You can recite the p.c. lines from memory by now: poor Palestinians, bad Jews. Let’s take our money away from the bad Jews and give it to the deserving Palestinians who only want peace but the Jews are too mean to let them have it. Blah. Blah.

Well, we knew it was coming; this was just a matter of waiting for the final mainstream sheep farm to sell out. The only surprise is that it took so long. Here’s Melanie Phillips’ take on this "defining moment" --

The APJN report is full of the most inflammatory lies, libels and distortions about Israel ... The document uncritically reproduced the Arab propaganda version of Israel’s history and the present circumstances of the Middle East conflict, presenting the Arab perpetrators of genocidal mass murder as victims and their real victims as oppressors merely for trying to defend themselves.

But then what can one expect of a report which concludes by referring to ‘the honor of meeting the President of the Palestinian Authority, the late Yasser Arafat, who so warmly welcomed us in what turned out to be one of his last days among us’?

A warm welcome from the late pederast himself. How charming.

Arafat was the father of terrorism, a diabolical Communist and one of the most truly evil people of his generation, so of course the Anglican Peace and Justice Network loved him. What’s not to love?

There are not words to describe the moral revulsion the name Arafat engenders. You could perhaps see why the naive could be taken in by the man-in-the-street Palestinian: they've had years to work on and perfect their royal sense of resentful entitlement. And you might even decide to overlook the festering sores on a culture which produces suicide bombers who want to attack the hospital that treated them.

But information on Arafat is readily available; his shameful history is there for the reading. One has to be willfully blind to refuse to acknowledge the depth and breadth of his malevolent inquity.

This is a grievous moment. The beautiful Anglican tradition, its sacramental life, its Scriptural authority -- all sold for a few pieces of agitprop dung. And there is no C.S. Lewis to turn us around, none.

What Is Left?

Melanie Phillips, commenting on a piece by Gerard Baker from the LondonTimes, notes that both George Bush and Tony Blair are experiencing a period of decline in support. She says:

the characteristics of this left revival are anti-globalisation and visceral anti-Americanism – with the main target of their ire and scorn America’s mission to spread democracy. As Baker writes:

‘In the Middle East the left finds it much easier to side with the mullahs and the jihadists, the persecutors of women and the torturers of dissidents. America’s flaws at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib are viewed by the Left’s political and intellectual leaders as morally indistinguishable from (or perhaps worse than) anything the Islamists and Arab despots have got up to.

'To be fair, not all on the Left have taken their stand on the side of reaction. But the trends in political debate in the West are strikingly clear. We are well on the way to an inversion of the classic Left-Right divide.

These days if you’re in favour of policies designed to promote global economic integration, policies that have led hundreds of millions in Asia, Latin America, and Africa out of the misery of grinding poverty, and have significantly lifted the standard of living of workers in the West too; if you support change to topple tyrannical regimes and give some hope to people who have suffered in fledgling democracies, you’re now more likely to be considered a conservative.

What, exactly, is Left?’

As I have remarked before, it seems to me that one of the deeper reasons for the left’s pathological hatred of President Bush is that, in his foreign policy it is he who is acting as a liberal interventionist and it is the left who stand exposed as reactionary supporters of murderous and tyrannical ‘stability’.

It is the same in domestic policy, where it is the left who take the reactionary position of going along with socially destructive trends that make victims out of the vulnerable.

I believe this to be true. Of course, I was a liberal, who voted for nothing but Democrats my whole, until just 3 1/2 years ago. I watch now as Republicans have changed their Middle East policy to support regime change rather than realpolitik, as Bush is credited by Bono as deserving a place in history for his Africa policy, and as the right leads the call to do something about Sudan.

What is left? What is left of the left?

What Is Not Allowed In Iran

Robert Spencer finds that NBC11 didn't tell the whole story in this piece about Iranian Christians in America:

Hundreds of people gathered for a special dedication of the Iranian Christian Church in the South Bay. It is the largest one in the Bay Area. Nearly 600 Iranian Muslims who converted to Christianity attend the church.

It allows women to serve as pastors, something not allowed in Iran.

Spencers comment:

You know what else isn't allowed in Iran? Conversion to Christianity. It was good of NBC11 to notice their little blow for women, but it would have been nice if they had told the good folks in the South Bay about the Sword of Damocles these converts escaped. If these 600 Iranian ex-Muslims were still back home, they'd be facing death sentences for their act of conscience.

... based on a notorious statement by the Muslim Prophet Muhammad: "Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him" (Sahih Bukhari, 9:84:57).

In the United States these converts can live freely as Christians. Yet dhimmi spokesmen will still praise the diversity of the Islamic world over that of the West.

Inequities In The Public Perception
of the Middle East Conflict

I came across some interesting thoughts on the state of affairs in the Middle East Conflict. For instance, here Clifford May points out that Jews aren't welcome in the Palestinian territories. Via The Supernatural Blog:

Only a radical would argue that Israel should not have such Arab citizens. And yet what passes for the moderate view holds that a future Palestinian state must be Judenrein – ethnically cleansed of Jews. Indeed, even “moderate” Jordan has a constitutional provision specifically prohibiting Jews from becoming citizens.

This is true. Israel does have a sizable Arab population which contributes to the culture and economy. And no one argues that the Arabs should be expelled from Israel.

The media never makes this point clear, but instead promotes the idea that there is a moral equivalency between the Palestinian Authority and the state of Israel. In fact, contrary to the propaganda which calls Israel an apartheid state, Arabs vote and sit on the Knesset; the equivalent of America's Congress.

Meanwhile, any Jew who buys land and builds a house in the Palestinian territories is called a "settler," not a citizen, with the implication that they they are invaders. In fact, Palestinian leadership demands the "dismantlement of the settlements."

It's hard to understand how there could be such an inequity in the viewpoint presented by the media, isn't it?

The next point was brought up by CUANAS commenter, Behind-the-Scenes.

Mr. the-Scenes noted that he saw the female sucide bomber who tried to blow up a hospital, interviewed on TV the other day:

She was asked "u had no problem killing innocent civilians?". She paused and then said "and what are we, terrorists?" and laughed (sarcastically implying thereby that Israelis are invaders, not civilians, and therefore she is not a terrorist).

Well, she IS a terrorist .

... given that (no Israeli) goes to their streets, takes an automatic rifle and sprays everybody he sees with automatic fire she has no right to treat Israeli civilians in a different way.

Yet the Palestinians do blow up and gun down everyone in sight (and used to do it daily just 2-3 years ago) and Israel never retaliated in kind. Odd that nobody seems to notice that...

Yeah, odd.

Does He Have A Movie Coming Out, Or Something?

Via Drudge Report:

Woody Allen says he, as a filmmaker, is not interested in 9/11.'It's too small, history overwhelms it," Allen reportedly tells DER SPIEGEL.

"The history of the world is like: He kills me, I kill him, only with different cosmetics and different castings. So in 2001, some fanatics killed some Americans, and now some Americans are killing some Iraqis."

Tuesday's NY POST quotes the master director:

"And in my childhood, some Nazis killed Jews. And now, some Jewish people and some Palestinians are killing each other. Political questions, if you go back thousands of years, are ephemeral, not important. History is the same thing over and over again."

There he goes, courting controversy. He must have a movie coming out.

I'm not a big Woody Allen fan, but I've got to say, I think he's mostly correct here. We're not given the context of the statement here, except that he is talking in relationship to his art. But, if you look at Woody Allen's films you know that his concerns are with questions of being and meaning.

Such issues are bigger than death and destruction, but unfortunately, when we don't deal with such issues well, and we rarely do, they will lead to death and destruction.

Great works of art (think Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Milton) do not tend to work in the realm of politics and war. Art deals with the human spirit struggling with eternal questions.

This is actually one of the interesting questions facing Christians and all religious people. I'm sure that most devout people sometimes think to themselves, why do I focus on politics, when my relationship with God is supposed to be about learning to be good, about doing the right thing, helping the widows and orphans.

The problem is that as humans we live in the political realm, and bad politics makes widows and orphans of many. When a destructive political force rises up, I believe it is the duty of resposible religious to stand against it in order to limit it's power, and quell the death and destruction it will bring with it. This too, is part of building the Kingdom of God.

So, in that sense Mr. Allen's comment seems irresponsible. But, when taken in context of art, I don't think it was.

UPDATE: Baron Bodissey from the great blog Gates of Vienna sent along this little quote from a Lileks piece on this Woody Allen story:

"Some Nazis killed Jews, and now some Jewish people and some Palestinians are killing each other." Same thing. Without the ability to make moral distinctions based on motive, consequences, the ethical constructs of various parties, everything is equal, and you end up with people like Woody Allen: a tiny speck of compacted narcissism, revolving around the dead sun in an empty universe.

My comment on that is:

Just for the record, I agree with your comment that Woody Allen lacks a rigorous moral perspective. But I think he is also saying that he isn't interested in 9/11 as a subject for his art. And why would he be? As I noted, everything he does deals with existential questions.

Monday, June 27, 2005

Being There

From the Astute Blogger:

Since the Fall of the Wall, the Left is deep in the thrall of cognitive dissonance and denial. WHY? Rather than admit they've witnessed the demise of their ideology - and rather than "move on" (you should pardon the expression!) - the Left denies, denies, denies, and attacks, attacks, and attacks with inane vitriol. Here are a few examples of one of the most common and inane defensive refrains the Left employs - COINICDENCE:

(1) Reagan sent Pershing's to Europe (the Left protested) and the USSR collapsed - and then the Left said: "COINCIDENCE! The USSR collapsed of its own weight."

(2) Congress - under Clinton - "changed welfare as we know it," reforming it and cutting it. Abuse, waste, and an "anti-personal-independence" attitude were demolished; yet, poor people DID NOT stream on to the streets (as the Left predicted). IOW: IT WORKED, and the Left cries: "COINCIDENCE! The economy grew, and that took care of it."

(3) Mayor Giuliani ramped up police efforts and got tough on ALL criminals, and crime DROPPED. And the Left cries: "COINCIDENCE! Demographics did that!"

(4) After 9/11, George W. Bush cut taxes (and contrary to what the Left predicted) the economy grew; (by the time of the last election 1.5 million payroll jobs had been created). And the Left cries: "Coincidence! It's just a phony expansion fueled by a housing bubble."

(5) Bush declares that democracy and universal human rights will be the focus of USA foreign policy; he liberates 50 MILLION people, and foments democracy or democratic movements in dozens of countries; he liberates Afghanistan, and Iraq; he forces the Palestinians to have real elections; Kuwait enacts universal suffrage for women; Egypt makes positive changes for the first time EVER; Lebanon gets rid of its occupiers (after 25 years!) and has its first elections; Gerogia and Ukraine elect free democratic governments, and even Saudi Arabia starts to change for the better. And yet the Left cries: "Coincidence! Arafat and Hariri died; that caused the changes!"

Go read the rest.

Note that the Left castigated Republicans, with extreme vitriol, in each of these instances. I was on the Left through most of them, so I have memories of being one of the chorus of vicious naysayers.

As far as I was concerned, Reagan was a stupid, doddering old man who was going to bumble us into nuclear holocaust. Newt Gingrich was a profoundly selfish man who didn't care if the poor all died.

Well, actually I liked Giuliani because I've always kind of been medieval on crime.

:)

But, yeah, the Left is going to think about how it is that all these idiotic evil people keep making things better with their policies.

It strange, isn't it?

Fun With Math
Oh Yes, and The Decline Of Western Civilization Too

Just when you think society can't get any stranger. From Opinion Journal, via Atlas Shrugs:

In the early 1990s, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics issued standards that disparaged basic skills like addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, since all of these could be easily performed on a calculator. The council preferred real-life problem solving, using everyday situations. Attempts to solve problems without basic skills caused some critics, especially professional mathematicians, to deride the "new, new math" as "rainforest algebra."

In a comparison of a 1973 algebra textbook and a 1998 "contemporary mathematics" textbook, Williamson Evers and Paul Clopton found a dramatic change in topics. In the 1973 book, for example, the index for the letter "F" included factors, factoring, fallacies, finite decimal, finite set, formulas, fractions and functions. In the 1998 book, the index listed families (in poverty data), fast food nutrition data, fat in fast food, feasibility study, feeding tours, ferris wheel, fish, fishing, flags, flight, floor plan, flower beds, food, football, Ford Mustang, franchises and fund-raising carnival.

Those were the days of innocent dumbing-down. Now mathematics is being nudged into a specifically political direction by educators who call themselves "critical theorists." They advocate using mathematics as a tool to advance social justice.

Social justice math relies on political and cultural relevance to guide math instruction. One of its precepts is "ethnomathematics," that is, the belief that different cultures have evolved different ways of using mathematics, and that students will learn best if taught in the ways that relate to their ancestral culture.

I remember reading about Ethnomathematics a few years back in an article in the LA Times Book Review section. There was a review of a book which explained a "Base-20" number system which was centered around the human body. There was much technical jargon and professorial language.

But what it boiled down to is a certain tribe of people were counting their fingers and toes.

I was amazed at the stupidity of the idea even then, when I was in the throes of my leftist brain seizure. However, I just figured it was some wacky theory concoted by a Professor who was trying to get attention. It is frightening to find that it is actually being used.

The idea that I read about was referred to, if I recall correctly, as Body Mathematics. I just Googled the idea to show you what I mean. Sure enough there is an Ethnomathematics Digital Library.

Here's an intro to an article discussing the base-20 number system of the Mesoamericans:

This website has 12 short descriptions of the influence of mathematics on culturally relevant activities and products from around the world. These include women as the originators of mathematics, using such evidence as the lunar calendar, the Ishango Bone from Africa, and the Isturitz Baton from France; the Mesoamerican vigesimal (base twenty) number system; the Incan quipu as a counting tool; African counting words based on the human body; Native American petroglyphs; Amish quilts;

Other terms: menstruation, Paleolithic, pipe lagging, knitting, sock heel, angle, knot, cord.

See, I'm not making this stuff up.

Here's an introduction to a paper by Berkeley professor Geoffrey Saxe:

This paper looks at the interplay between cognitive development and culture change. This interplay is illustrated with information about economic exchange in the Oksapmin people of Papua New Guinea’s West Sepik Province. These people have a traditional body part counting system that begins with the thumb on one hand, enumerates 27 places around the upper periphery of the body, and ends on the little finger of the opposite hand.

So, does that mean the people of Papua New Guinea's West Sepik Province have a "base-27" number system? That must be very confusing.

UPDATE: CUANAS reader Dustin sent me an email regarding this post:

... It's moronic. What they're saying is that a Mexican kid will intuitivelyunderstand base-20 better because his ancestors (someof them) were Aztecs.

Or whatever.

In other words, it's not just moronic, it's inherently racist.

Base-10 is the system our society uses. Think about it, since age 2-3 the kid has been hearing about channels 3, 7, and eleven on TV. He knows that theyear is 2005. 2005 in base-20 is like 16005. Or something. The point is, it's truly idiotic to think he was somehow born "understanding base-20 better" because his DNA may have come from some tribe that used base-20 to count coconuts. It's ascribing something about a person's mentality/thought processes to his *race*.

I cannot emphasize this enough: that is frickingracist. It doesn't do the kid any favors, either. Any kid unfortunate enough to be under this kind of regime is probably hella confused for many years.

"I Wanted to Kill 20, 50 Jews
Yes, Even Babies"

Here's the story of a female would-be suicide bomber from The London Telegraph:

It was about midday when a young Palestinian woman from the refugee camp of Jabalya in Gaza approached an Israeli checkpoint clutching a special permit to visit a doctor on the other side of the border.

The girl had big, brown eyes and her black hair was tied in a ponytail, but it was the strangeness of her gait that attracted the attention of the security officials at the Erez crossing, the main transit point between Israel and the Gaza Strip.

When a soldier asked her to remove her long, dark cloak, she turned to face him. All her movements were taped by the military surveillance camera at the checkpoint: calmly, deliberately, she took off her clothing, item by item, until she looked like any normal young woman in T-shirt and jeans. It was then that she tried to set off the belt containing 20lb of explosives hidden beneath her trousers. To her horror, she did not succeed. Desperate, she clawed at her face, screaming. She was still alive, she realised. She had failed her martyrdom mission.

That afternoon, on June 21, the 21-year-old, Wafa Samir al-Biss, was brought before the press by Israeli intelligence. Her neck and hands were covered with scars caused by a kitchen gas explosion six months earlier. The ugly scars - which had been treated in a hospital in Israel - had probably helped turn her into the perfect would-be huriia (virgin), the ideal martyr, since they would make it difficult for her to find a suitable husband.

The decision to publicise her case was intended to show that a terrorist threat remains despite a lull in the intifada since the Palestinian-Israeli ceasefire agreement at the Sharm el-Sheikh summit in February.

According to the Israeli doctor who attended Wafa at the Soroka Hospital in Beersheba, she received blood transfusions during her treatment. "I told her, with a laugh, that now she has Jewish blood in her veins," he said, adding sadly that she had "seemed so nice - we got a lovely thank you letter from her family.''

Wafa had been sent on her mission by the Abu Rish Brigade, the small militant faction with links to Fatah. She did not, she said later, regret it, though she stressed that her decision had had nothing to do with her scarring. "My dream was to be a martyr. I believe in death," she said. "Today I wanted to blow myself up in a hospital, maybe even in the one in which I was treated. But since lots of Arabs come to be treated there, I decided I would go to another, maybe the Tel Hashomer, near Tel Aviv. I wanted to kill 20, 50 Jews …''

Asked whether she had considered the consequences of her planned attack, that it might have now precluded access to Israel for Palestinian patients who meant no harm and needed special medical treatment that could be achieved only here, she answered: "So what?" With a flat look in her eyes, she said: "They pay you the cost of the treatment, don't they?"

And what about babies? Would you have killed babies and children? she was asked. "Yes, even babies and children. You, too, kill our babies. Do you remember the Doura child?"

Then she started to cry. ''I don't want my mother to see me like this. After all, I haven't killed anyone … will they have pity on me?''

It is unlikely. Wafa has become one of a very special group of females: the women who have tried - and failed - to die while killing for the Palestinian cause. I recently visited the Israeli jail that holds these "suicide women" near the finest Israeli villas, in the heart of the most fertile area of the country, the Plain of Sharon.

They are here, and still alive, because they changed their minds at the last moment, because they were arrested, or because, like Wafa, they did not succeed. They are kept in a kind of labyrinth, behind seven, or perhaps eight, iron doors and gates, at the end of long corridors to which few people are allowed access, and which are reached after climbing and descending one flight of stairs after another.

Their unarmed guard, a young, calm-looking blonde woman, calls them her "girls". "There are 30 of them, between 17 and 30 years old, some of them are married and others aren't, some of them have children," she told me. "Their stories come out of the Thousand and One Nights.

Some of them did it to make amends for a relative who was a collaborator, others to escape becoming victims of honour killings, and for the psychologically frail or depressed it was a good way to commit suicide and at the same time become 'heroines'.

Imagine No Religion

From Dhimmi Watch:

(CNSNews.com) - A British lawmaker says reading excerpts from the Koran that advocate harsh treatment for Christians, Jews and unbelievers would violate a religious hatred bill currently before parliament.

"If this bill makes any sense at all, it must mean banning the reading, in public or private, of a great many passages of the Koran itself," Conservative MP Boris Johnson said.

And that, he added, was "absurd and paradoxical, given that the measure is intended to be a protection against Islamophobia."

The Racial and Religious Hatred Bill edged closer to becoming law Tuesday, after a House of Commons debate and second reading vote....

During the debate, Johnson read out various excerpts from the Koran regarding the treatment of non-Muslims, including sura 22:19, which read in translation: "As for the unbelievers, for them garments of fire shall be cut and there shall be poured over their heads boiling water whereby whatever is in their bowels and skins shall be dissolved and they will be punished with hooked iron rods."

Johnson said while the Koran was not "unique in its hostility to other creeds," he challenged a government minister to explain "why and how you think the repetition of those words in a public or a private place does not amount to an incitement to religious hatred of exactly the kind this bill is supposed to ban."

The proposed legislation, which has been introduced in a bid to protect Muslims, would apply to "words, behavior, written material, recordings or programs that are threatening, abusive or insulting [and] likely to stir up racial or religious hatred."

Verses from the Holy texts of other major religions, including the Judeo-Christian Bible and the Bhagavad Gita, would also violate the law, I would imagine.

Freedom of speech gives us the benefit of having our enemies tell us what they are thinking. That would be much more valuable than shutting them up, if we would only learn to listen.

Bono Praises Bush

We hear so much negativity towards George Bush from the entertainment world that it is downright shocking when we hear effusive praise. But, check this out, from Bono via Powerline:

Well, I think [President Bush has] done an incredible job, his administration, on AIDS. And 250,000 Africans are on antiviral drugs. They literally owe their lives to America.

In one year that's being done. … Yes, there's a lot of pressure on President Bush. If he, though, in his second term, is as bold in his commitments to Africa as he was in the first term, he indeed deserves a place in history in turning the fate of that continent around.

The truth of the matter is we don't know Bono's politics. He's never told us. He has spoken out against war and for helping poor people. I know Christians who look just as liberal as Bono, and who are Pacifists, who at the same time, if you spoke to them on other issues, would demonstrate a conservatism that would surprise you. I think Bono simply does what he thinks Jesus would do.

I am not saying I think I know where Bono is coming from. I don't. The Christians I know are all over the map politically. Bono might be a Communist for all I know. After all, he did write the lyric,

Don't believe in riches, but you should see where I live

Sunday, June 26, 2005

"I Am A Terrorist"
Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber

In a interview with a Jihadist named Marwan Abu Ubeida, Time takes us inside the mind of a suicide bomber:

... he spends much of his time rehearsing that last prayer. "First I will ask Allah to bless my mission with a high rate of casualties among the Americans," he says, speaking softly in a matter-of-fact monotone, as if dictating a shopping list. "Then I will ask him to purify my soul so I am fit to see him ...

"I can't wait," he says, rubbing his thumbs with his fingers in nervous energy. "I am ready to die now."

"The jihadis are more religious people," he says. "You ask them anything—anything—and they can instantly quote a relevant section from the Koran." Like them, Marwan works Koranic allusions into his speech. He has also embraced the jihadist worldview of one global Islamic state where there is, in Marwan's words, "no alcohol, no music and no Western influences."

Marwan says would-be "martyrs" may use their waiting time to take care of business—paying off debts, resolving family matters, saying farewells. Some destroy any photographs of themselves; extremist Islamists regard pictures as a sign of vanity and therefore taboo.
Others compile lists of the 70 people Islamic tradition says a "martyr" can guarantee a place in paradise. "I haven't got my 70 names yet—I don't think I know that many people," Marwan says, allowing himself a rare smile.

Some dig graves for themselves and leave instructions on the way they should be buried—generally with simple headstones. Marwan says he won't need a grave: "If I am lucky, my body will be vaporized. There won't be anything left of me to bury."

Marwan seems certain he is on a "pure" path. Unlike many other insurgents, who reject the terrorist label and call themselves freedom fighters or holy warriors, Marwan embraces it. "Yes, I am a terrorist," he says. "Write that down: I admit I am a terrorist. [The Koran] says it is the duty of Muslims to bring terror to the enemy, so being a terrorist makes me a good Muslim."

He quotes lines from the surah known as Al-Anfal, or the Spoils of War: "Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into the enemy of Allah and your enemy."

They keep trying to tell us they hate us because of who we are, and we keep trying to believe we can do something to appease them.

They keep trying to tell us that the Koran tells them they should kill us, and we keep saying it has nothing to do with Islam.

We keep calling them "insurgents" and they keep telling us they love death and want to kill as many of us as they possibly can.

You gotta love your enemies when they tell the truth. But it doesn't help if we won't listen. There is none so deaf as he who will not hear.

Gee, I Wonder What Could Be Wrong?

It seems that Hollywood is having a little trouble. Apparently, they are in their "longest modern box office slump." From Associated Press:

LOS ANGELES - "Batman Begins" took in $26.8 million to remain the top movie for the second straight weekend, but it could not keep Hollywood from sinking to its longest modern box-office slump.

Overall business tumbled despite a rush of familiar new titles — "Bewitched," a "Love Bug" update and the latest zombie tale from director George Romero.

Revenues for the top 12 movies came in at $116.5 million, down 16 percent from the same weekend last year, when "Fahrenheit 9/11" opened as the top movie with $23.9 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.

Well, let's see. By my calculations 18 weeks takes us back to mid-February; the period in the immediate aftermath of the Iraqi elections, when it was proven true once and for all, that the Iraq War was about establishing Democracy, and not about stealing oil.

Soon after, the Lebanese people took to the streets and demanded their freedom as well, proving that the "Neocon" strategy of confronting Islamofascism would yield positive results. In addition, we remember those were the days that brought home the reality that people on the left thought it was humane to starve a woman (Terri Schiavo) to death because she couldn't pronounce their name.

Back in those days, I was writing posts like this:

BEING LEFT MEANSNEVER HAVING TO SAY YOU'RE SORRY

After the past two years of leftists telling us that we have no business in Iraq, that Saddam wasn't that bad, that Iraqi's are not ready for Democracy, that Iraqi's don't really want to be free, and all manner of other hateful idiocy, I believe that today is the day that we should be receiving an apology.

I'm not holding my breath, however, because being Left means never having to say you're sorry. They didn't apologize for their support of Stalin, they didn't apologize for their maligning of Ronal Reagan, and they will not apologize for what they have done since 9/11.

And this:

I Will Not Forgive The Democratic Party For What They Have Done

Tear down the wall. The Witch is dead. The Democratic Party is done.

Michael Moore and Jimmy Carter need to be relegated to the dustbins of history. A new party needs to be constituted to represent those of us who lean more to the liberal side. I will never vote for a "Democrat" again in my lifetime.

Yesterday was for celebrating. Today is for my anger at being ABANDONED by the Democratic Party.

Given that Hollywood so clearly represents the lefts point-of-view, do you think maybe many people feel, as I do, that they no longer want to support Hollywood?

Gee, do you think?

Journalist Says Man Was
Insensitive To His Kidnappers

From Little Green Footballs:

Andrew Jaspan is editor-in-chief of The Age, Australia’s most Left-wing daily newspaper, and on ABC radio on Wednesday said how “boorish” and “coarse” Wood was at his press conference this week when he called his captors “a—-holes”.

You might wonder whether Jaspan, the Englishman whose paper on that same day published a big picture on page one of naked girls from Big Brother, has the right to call anyone else “coarse”.

But far more shocking was his apparent demand that Wood be more grateful to the men who’d snatched him, kicked him in the head, kept him blindfolded and bound for 47 days, shaved him bald, killed two of his colleagues, made him beg for his life, and — says a fellow hostage from Sweden — shot several other prisoners in front of him.
Let’s run the tape.

Said Jaspan: “I was, I have to say, shocked by Douglas Wood’s use of the a—-hole word, if I can put it like that, which I just thought was coarse and very ill-thought through and I think demeans the man and is one of the reasons why people are slightly sceptical of his motives and everything else.

”The issue really is largely, speaking as I understand it, he was treated well there. He says he was fed every day, and as such to turn around and use that kind of language I think is just insensitive."

How Does A Mainline Church
Decide To Divest From Israel?

The Anglican Church is considering divesting from Israel. I always wonder how it is that a group of thinking people (as I would presume the leaders of a multinational mainline church to be) decide that Israel, the only Democracy in the Middle East, is one country to single out in the entire world for punishment. And of all the real atrocities that are currently going on in the world (Sudan, Congo, North Korea), why is it that they single out Israel for their behavior in a defensive war?

Read the following, from an article in the New York Times, to get an idea of the mechanics that go into such a decision:

LONDON, June 24 - The Anglican Church's international advisory body voted Friday to urge the church to consider withdrawing its investments in companies that support the occupation of Palestinian territories.

By voting to support the divestment measure, the Anglican Consultative Council, the church's most representative advisory group, recommended to its 38 provinces that they support a September 2004 report by the council's Peace and Justice Network.

Before the vote, the Anglican bishop of Jerusalem, Riah Hanna Abu El-Assal, who helped lead the effort, talked about the occupation's effect on Palestinian Christians. He urged council members to support the resolution, saying it would send a strong message of disapproval to Israel.

Canon James Rosenthal, the council's communications director, said the remarks, and those by others, resonated with group members...

Ah, ok, so Bishop Riah Hanna Abu El-Assal spoke to his fellow bishops and explained the occupations effect on the Palestinians. The New York Times doesn't tell us what he said, so let's look at what the Bishop has said about Israel on other occasions:

"Greetings of appreciation to all martyrs that were killed on the Land of Palestine". These were the words used by Riah Abu Asal, the Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem and the Middle East, in the opening of lecture in Ramallah two weeks ago. Bishop Abu Asal added that all martyrs receive eternal life and they "live in the Kingdom of Heaven".

He supported that statement by quoting the Koran verse: "Do not consider those that were killed for the sake of God as dead, but alive with their Lord".

I think what happens here is people think that because a guy calls himself an Anglican minister he is just like every other Anglican minister they've ever seen. But, when have you ever heard an Anglican minister quote the Koran to justify martyrdom in the context of the Middle East conflict?

By doing so, this Anglican minister is supporting people who strap on bomb belts and walk into restaurants and buses where innocent women and children are sitting and detonate themselves, killing and maiming mass amounts of people.

This isn't your grandfather's Anglican minister, is it?

Hat tip: Solomonia

Sometimes The Joke Is Just Too Easy

From Associated Press:

NEW YORK - As his final American revival meeting continued Saturday, a fragile Billy Graham was met onstage by former President Clinton, who honored the evangelist, calling him "a man I love."

Clinton spoke briefly before Graham's sermon and recalled how the man known as America's pastor had refused to preach before a segregated audience in Arkansas decades ago when that state was in a bitter fight over school desegregation.

"I was just a little boy and I'll never forget it," said Clinton, who was joined by his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. "I've loved him ever since. God bless you, friend."

Graham called the Clintons "wonderful friends" and "a great couple," quipping that the former president should become an evangelist and allow "his wife to run the country."

The evangelist is suffering from fluid on the brain ...

Yes, it really said that. Click over and check it out if you don't believe me.

How To Contain And Destroy Islamofascism

In a brilliant analysis, Hugh Fitzgerald at Jihad Watch says Islamofascism can be contained, in a manner similar to that which we used to contain Communism. Here, in excerpted form, are some of his ideas. (If any of the points presented here seem incomplete, or unfair, go to his article and read the complete idea):

The "containment of Communism" worked. Communism collapsed in the Soviet Union, and before that in Eastern and Central Europe, and is now coming undone in China. Why? It collapsed because a sufficient number of people realized it was a farce and a failure, a failure in the very area -- the delivery of material wellbeing to the masses -- where it had most insistently promised it would be a success.

Who created the conditions for that failure to be perceived? The United States, and with the United States, other Western powers that countered Soviet propaganda and produced propaganda of their own, that did everything they could to check Soviet power once they came to their senses in the late 1940s ...

This can be done, more slowly, more deliberately, with Islam, and the Jihad that is central to Islam. The Infidel lands and peoples must first learn about Islam -- not from Muslims, or for that matter from non-Muslim propagandists, some of them hirelings, others ideologically wedded to Islam perhaps because it is now the most obvious vehicle of expressing one's hatred of, and alienation from, the Western world and, especially, the United States.

They must thoroughly understand the texts. And then they must learn about Muslim conquest of non-Muslim peoples, and how those peoples were, in time and space, treated. And they must learn the kinds of things that Muslim apologists -- including those who are the most effective of all, the smooth-tongued "moderates" who, while seeming to denounce this or that terrorist act, will immediately be defensive about Islam itself, try to convince unwary Infidels that "Islam" has "nothing to do" with this, whether it is bombs going off, or the murder of apostates and others, or the mistreatment of women.

Here are some basic principles for that policy of containing Islam:

1) Recognition that the presence of large numbers of Muslims is a security threat and one which Infidels need not inflict on themselves. All over Western Europe, it is dawning on people, or rather has already dawned and they are furious that the ruling elites are pretending such a problem does not exist,

2) Recognition that the oil wealth that has provided Arab and Muslim OPEC members with nearly $10 trillion in undeserved revenues since 1973 is what finances the world-wide Jihad. It pays for weapons. It pays for weapons projects. It pays for mosques, for madrasas, for propaganda. It pays for the vast army of hirelings, all over the Western world, who have for too long been allowed to make propaganda for the Saudis and others -- hard propaganda, and soft.

3) Diminishing the oil wealth is not enough. All Infidel aid to Muslim countries, all transfers of wealth that have been based on a misunderstanding, and the belief that "Poverty" is the problem or at least, if Muslims are made richer (ideally, just like Muslims in Saudi Arabia) they will calm down, and turn to other things – all this must stop. Not only is there no evidence for it, but all the evidence suggests the exact contrary. Money in Muslim hands will inevitably damage Infidels. "Poverty" is not the problem; the ideology of Islam is the problem.

4) Make it impossible for the Arabs and Muslims to acquire major weaponry. Any WMD anywhere in the Muslim world, however seemingly friendly or benign the regime, cannot be tolerated. It is a threat to all Infidels. Make it much more difficult, if not entirely impossible, and certainly much more expensive, for Arabs and Muslims to buy the fruits of Western technology, or to obtain access to Western education. They should no longer believe they can buy whatever they want from the very Infidels they despise ... A barrel of Saudi oil that now costs $1 to lift sells for $50. Fine. The next time Saudis wish to get medical care at a Western hospital, let them be charged accordingly ...

5) Let the rich Arabs and Muslims know that their property in the West is not permanently safe, and that it may be seized -- as the property of German nationals was seized by the American government in World War II.

6) Counter-Jihad: as the Americans during the Cold War paid for Encounter magazine, or for special publishing houses that produced emigre Russian literature, and subsidized Die Monat and other publications, they can do the same today. Where is the American money that will subsidize publication of various studies of Islam by the greatest scholars of the past, who did not mince words? Who will establish, with secret funds, broadcasting stations where apostates from Islam, defectors from Islam, can tell the stories of why they left Islam, and tell those stories not only in English, but in Farsi, or in Urdu, or even in Arabic?

7) Identify those populations whom the (Islamofascists) have themselves identified as particularly vulnerable to being "turned" into the Army of Islam. These populations -- such as prisoners, or immigrant populations-- targeted by Muslims for conversion -- need to be targeted as well by those who regard Islam as a menace, and wish to inhibit its growth.

8) Wherever there are natural fissures within Islam, or wherever such fissures can be created -- as by removing Western aid, and forcing Egypt, Jordan et al to go hat in hand to the rich Arabs of the Gulf, which can only increase intra-Arab tensions let them widen. Do nothing to narrow them.

Fitzgerald then goes on to make the point that we should let the fissure between Sunni and Shiite Islam play itself out in Iraq. I think the reality is we are setting the table for it to do just that, by giving them a Democratic Republic within which to work out their disagreements peacefully. If they are not able to do so, the internecine war that Fitzgerald seems to believe is inevitable will surely happen.

I agree with the principles of containment Fitzgerald has outlined here. However, I see an error in his vision of trying to contain Islamofascism throughout the world. In containing Communism, we did not contain all Communism. We attempted to contain the spread of Communism, and it's control under the empire of the Soviet Union. In other words, we picked an enemy and we kept the attack on until we beat that enemy.

I never have understood it when people have said that we ended Communism. We didn't. We ended the Soviet Union. Communism is still alive in such places as China, North Korea, and North Viet Nam.

With that in mind, I must say, I think the Bush plan of setting up a Democracy in Iraq aims at doing exactly what Fitzgerald states in Principle 8; that is, a Democracy in the Arab world will exacerbate natural fissures in the Arab world. In fact, it has already done so.

That is what the "insurgency" is all about. The "insurgents" are largely Iraqi Sunnis, or Wahabbists from Saudi Arabia, who are killing Shia and Kurds. In other words, it is Islamofascists killing Muslims, under the ideology of Islamofascism.

This does not play well on the street, as you can imagine. The Shiites comprise 70% of the Iraqi population, yet they were oppressed by the Sunnis who enacted an apartheid government under Saddam Hussein. When their people are targeted in suicide bombings in the streets of Baghdad, the Shiites don't blame the problem on America. They know from experience what the problem is. It is Islamofascism.

This is the secret the world's media is trying to keep hidden from us by using the word "insurgency." Ask yourself, what sense does it make for an "insurgency" against America to attack it's own people? The answer is the "insurgency" is not against America, other than in the sense that the Americans are attempting to help Iraqis install a Democracy under which Sunnis would have to share power instead of horde it as they have done for so long.

Saturday, June 25, 2005

Do You, Pastorius, Take These ...?

What the ...? From World Net Daily:

The president of the American Civil Liberties Union says polygamy is among the "fundamental rights" that her organization will continue to defend.

During a question-and-answer session after a speech at Yale University, ACLU president Nadine Strossen stated that her organization has "defended the right of individuals to engage in polygamy," reported AgapePress, noting that the comments cited by the Yale Daily News received little attention.

The student paper said Strossen was responding to a "student's question about gay marriage, bigamy, and polygamy."

The ACLU chief said her organization defends "the freedom of choice for mature, consenting individuals," making it "the guardian of liberty ... defend[ing] the fundamental rights of all people."

National Review correspondent Ramesh Ponnuru says the ACLU might be defending a right for people to establish households in this way without necessarily fighting for governmental recognition of polygamous marriages.

"Even if so," Ponnuru concludes, "it is hard to see how the ACLU, on its own principles, could stop short of demanding a change to the marriage laws to allow for polygamy."

The Left are looking more and more like the Islamofascists everyday. Amnesty International says Gitmo is a Gulag. Durbin says our troops are like Nazis. And now, the ACLU wants polygamy.

Admittedly, it's people on the right who would be more likely to want to stone gays, but at least we don't hear any credible sources calling for such action.

What Does a "Free Palestine" Mean?

Ladies and Gentleman, when Hamas or the Palestinian Authority say they want Palestine to be free, this is what they mean:

A Hamas leader has urged supporters to redouble efforts to "liberate" Palestine because diplomacy has failed, an Israeli newspaper's Web site, Ynet, says.

"All of Palestine, from the river to the sea, will be liberated by the mujahedin (martyrs) and their rifles, not by pointless diplomatic meetings," the leader, Nizar Rian, said Thursday in Gaza.

"All of Palestine, from the river to the sea" means Palestine replaces Israel. In other words "Free Palestine" means Jews out.

This should not be a surprise because the official charters of both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority call for the destruction of Israel.

These people have no intention of negotiating for peace. That's why Arafat turned down 97% of the territory he was asking for without a counteroffer.

And, if you ever have a doubt that these organizations represent the will of the Palestinian people remember that both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority were elected, and polls show the Palestinian people support the terror campaign.

Top Al Qaeda Management
Under House Arrest In Iran?
Including ...?

From Jihad Watch:

Somewhere north of Tehran, living perhaps in villas near the town of Chalous on the Caspian Sea coast, are between 20 and 25 of al-Qaida’s former leaders, along with two of Osama bin Laden’s sons.

Men such as Saif al-Adel, the former military commander of al-Qaida, and Suleiman Abu Ghaith, the bespectacled bin Laden spokesman, are not in hiding but rather in the care — or custody — of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

“They are under virtual house arrest,” not able to do much of anything, said one senior U.S. intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

How they got there and what will happen to them is one of the more intriguing stories of the war on terror, one that is filled with secret movements, stolen communications and a failed attempt at a prisoner exchange involving Iranian dissidents.

“We believe that they're holding members of al-Qaida's management council,” Fran Townsend, President Bush’s counterterrorism czar, said of Iran.

In an interview with Tom Brokaw two weeks ago, she added: “And we have encouraged and suggested that they ought to try them, they ought to admit freely that they're there — which they have not done — that they're holding them. Or they ought to return them to their countries of origin, which they've also been unwilling to do.”

I wonder if that has anything to do with this enigmatic announcement earlier this week from Porter Goss:

NEW YORK (AP) -- The director of the CIA says he has an ''excellent idea'' where Osama bin Laden is hiding, but that the United States' respect for sovereign nations makes it more difficult to capture the al-Qaida chief.

In an interview with Time for the magazine's June 27 issue, Porter Goss was asked about the progress of the hunt for bin Laden.

''When you go to the question of dealing with sanctuaries in sovereign states, you're dealing with a problem of our sense of international obligation, fair play,'' Goss said. ''We have to find a way to work in a conventional world in unconventional ways.''

Asked whether that meant he knew where bin Laden is, Goss responded: ''I have an excellent idea where he is. What's the next question?''

Female Statue Prepares To
Sexually Assault John Ashcroft

From Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The cover-up is over at the U.S. Justice Department.

After more than three years of being blocked by large blue drapes, two Art Deco aluminum statues of semi-nude figures in the building's Great Hall can be seen again.

The "Spirit of Justice" and the "Majesty of Justice," which loom over the stage in the Great Hall, were blocked from view by curtains installed by the department in January 2002, when former Attorney General John Ashcroft was in office.

The curtains were quietly removed on Friday after a decision by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Justice Department spokesman Kevin Madden said.

At one end of the stage is a 1930s-era female statue representing the "Spirit of Justice."

Although she wears a toga-style garment, one breast is exposed. At the other end of the stage, a male statue represents the "Majesty of Justice," and has a cloth draped by his waist.

When they were covered up, officials working for Ashcroft -- a devout Christian -- said the move to spend about $8,000 for curtains to cover the figures were made for "TV aesthetics."

Lifespan Increasing
You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet

From the LA Times:

Marion Higgins is very good at remembering. She remembers writing her first book 10 years ago. She remembers moving into Seal Beach's Leisure World in 1989. She remembers the history of furniture acquired at long-ago garage sales and celebrating the end of the World War — both II and I. She remembers hearing the Titanic had just sunk, and the long railroad ride to her family's homestead in a new state called Idaho. And she remembers hating sunbonnets.

That would have been in the '90s — the 1890s.

Mrs. Higgins turns 112 on Sunday.

According to the Gerontology Research Group at UCLA, the average life expectancy for Americans born today is 77.6 years (80.1 for women and 74.8 for men). The 2000 census found some 50,000 Americans who claimed to have reached 100.

The research group, accepted as a global authority on the super-elderly by Guinness World Records, among others, doesn't care about those who've merely crossed the 100-year mark. These scientists become interested after someone reaches 110 -- a super-centenarian -- which only about 500 Americans of those 50,000 will.

Then, the group's network of clever gerontology detectives like Robert Young seeks proof and insights.

Super-centenarians remain rare, but their numbers are growing. In 1999, the gerontology group, a loose band of doctors, demographers and part-time researchers, counted 45 people verified as 110 or older. Today, its website (www.grg.org) lists 66. Over the years, it's documented 835 super-centenarians, including 16 who reached 115.

"The entire globe has been explored and mapped," Young says. "Now, we can start discovering the geography of the human life span."

You ain't seen nothing yet.

FX Network To Run Puff-Piece On Islam
In The Guise of a Documentary

From Debbie Schlussel in the Wall Street Journal:

Morgan Spurlock got famous from his Oscar-nominated documentary "Super Size Me." He ingested big McDonald's meals three times a day for 30 days, then blamed McDonald's for his bloated body and dodgy health. Now he's using his 30-day premise to get Americans to ingest his version of radical Islam on cable's FX Network.

Last year, I received a request to appear on Mr. Spurlock's new reality show, "30 Days." The episode for which I was being recruited, "Inside an American Muslim Family," airs next Wednesday. It features Mr. Spurlock's childhood friend from West Virginia, David Stacy, spending 30 days "living as a Muslim" in the Detroit area.

While Mr. Spurlock is often referred to as a journalist, and touts "30 Days" as a "documentary," the outcome of the show was decided before production began. A show summary sent to me before taping said: "This process aims to deconstruct common misconceptions and stereotypes. . . . Our character will learn firsthand about Islam and the daily issues that . . . Muslims in America face today. The viewers will witness our character emerge from the immersion situation with a deeper understanding and appreciation for the Muslim-American experience. . . . The potential is great for this program to enlighten a national television audience about the Muslim American experience and increase their compassion, understanding and support."

And indeed, The Wall Street Journal's own Dorothy Rabinowitz, writing about the show last week from a preview tape, noted that Mr. Stacy, by the end of his 30 days, "has become so enlightened that he is pronouncing, if incomprehensibly, on the meaning of Islam, his knowledge of the Quran, the real definition of jihad."

I asked the show's executive producers--all of whom worked on "The Awful Truth With Michael Moore," a cable TV show--how this could be a documentary when they had decided the outcome in advance. Wasn't it possible that Mr. Stacy would come out seeing that there isn't Islamophobia to the extent that the Muslim community claims? Might he see that there is disturbingly strong support in the Detroit-area Islamic community for terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah--a fact regularly documented even in the normally pliant Detroit media?

No, the producers told me. "Morgan wants the show to demonstrate to America that we are Islamophobic and that 9/11's biggest victims are Muslims." With this in mind, I agreed to be filmed only with final approval of my appearance, which I never gave. Thus I will not appear in Wednesday's show.

When I met David Stacy, about halfway through his 30-day experience, I was amazed at how uninformed he was. This new "expert" on Islam never heard of Wahhabism--the extremist Sunni strain of Islam that dominates Saudi Arabia and informs the terrorist-breeding madrassa schools throughout Arab and other Muslim lands. He was unfamiliar with groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. He did not believe me when I told him that Hezbollah had murdered hundreds of U.S. Marines and civilians in Beirut and elsewhere. He seemed mystified to learn that President Bush shut down American Islamic charities, like the Holy Land Foundation and Global Relief Foundation, for funding Hamas and al Qaeda.

Thursday, June 23, 2005

Who Wants to Rely on the UN for International Security?

There is that old joke, "How many Frenchman does it take to defend Paris?" Answer: "No one knows they have never tried." Just insert the UN and Isreal before the Six Day war in that joke and the meaning doesn't really change that much. At least you might think so after reading this fasciniting piece over at the Belmont Club. They have a brief but thorough recap of the Six-Day War. Not only is the history of the build up to war interesting but the tale of UN failures should give anyone pause before trusting that organization with any serious security missions:

It is important to remember that the world in 1965 was practically another planet. The United Nations was a serious player in international relations. UN flagged forces, albeit mostly American, had turned back an invasion of South Korea in 1950. And the UNEF had actually helped keep the Arabs and Israelis from engaging in open war for10 years. The United States was not nearly so dominant in 1965 as it is in 2005. The Soviet Union was still regarded as a superpower, providing the weaponry and ideology that fueled Arab nationalism. America was tied down in Vietnam with little in reserve to spare for a major commitment to the Middle East and, in the eyes of many, already in irreversible decline.

One other striking difference of that era was the confidence, perhaps even overconfidence of Arab nations in the power of their national armies. Armed with the Soviet made weaponry, numerically superior to the Israelis, the Arab street of the day had little doubt that they would drive the Jews into the sea once hostilities began. One Egyptian commander told a UN officer "I will see you for lunch at the best restaurant in Tel Aviv in a few days."

In January 1964 the Arab League officially declared its desire to achieve "the final liquidation of Israel." The problem was UNEF. For the Arab armies to triumphantly fulfill their historical mission it was necessary to get the United Nations, then a body taken seriously, out of the line of fire. (Thirty years later, neither the Serbs nor the Muslim Kosovars would show the slightest respect for the United Nations. Peacekeepers would be trussed to lamposts. UN armories would be looted.) Gamal Abdel Nasser simply decided to tell the UN to clear out.

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Saddam: Boxers Or Briefs?

Little Green Footballs reader Haider Ajina wrote in to remind us all of the truth about Saddam Hussein. From Little Green Footballs:

Recently most of the mainstream media have been promoting a human side to Saddam. Poor old Uncle Saddam, as it were. If this goes on we will soon forget what this man has done. We must not forget the evil this man is and what he has done, lest we wish history to repeat itself.

Saddam Hussein has not a thread of humanity in him. Every act of his is cold and calculated with an end purpose in mind. That purpose being self-preservation and self-indulgence at the cost of all others and at what ever means possible. Saddam has been a thug since his teenage years. He was implicated and later convicted of attempting to assassinate Iraqi prime minister Abdel-Karim Qassem in 1958. Later he was implicated in the mysterious death of his Baathist predecessor Bakar after Baker retired.

Shortly after Saddam became president in 1979, he convened a high level Baathist meeting during which he had close allies and friends escorted out of the meeting room and shot, just for being to close to him. Saddam then proceeded to rule Iraq with an Iron fist. He gassed the Kurds, bombed the Shiites, attacked the Iranians, attacked the Kuwaitis, sponsored terrorist camps, financed terrorists, (one of his personal body guards trained in Afghanistan at an Al Qaeda camp), murdered over 1 million Iraqis, maimed, tortured and raped many more for political reasons, orphaned his grandchildren.

The list goes on and on. I ask you are the above acts those of a human being?

Saddam is evil personified: a thug, a mass murderer, a rapist, a torturer. He is not a poor old man stuck in isolation, nor does he deserve any sympathy for his current condition. We must never forget what this man and others of his ilk have done to humanity, unless we wish it to happen again and again.

Yeah, I think any reasonable person can agree with that assessment.

So then, why did the American mainstream magazine GQ write this fawning piece about Uncle Saddam:

New York, NY – June 20, 2005 – Following the announcement that former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein will soon be brought to trial on multiple charges, GQ magazine sheds new light on the man and his life since being captured and imprisoned. Hussein longs for the days when Ronald Reagan was president, says that he never dealt with Osama bin Laden, and is absolutely certain that he will return to power, according to an account of his captivity detailed for the first time in the July issue of GQ magazine.

In her story, “Tuesdays with Saddam” (on newsstands nationwide June 28), GQ correspondent Lisa DePaulo interviews five U.S. soldiers who guarded and got to know Saddam Hussein for 298 days.

“They became witnesses to history, and as part of their duties they found themselves struggling to come to terms with the older man they grew to know and the reality of his infamous past as a ruthless dictator.”

“These young men showed Hussein a respect and courtesy that made possible an unusual bond between captors and captive. And because of this, they were able to see a very different side of one of the most controversial figures in modern history.”

Among the most intriguing revelations that Hussein shared with the soldiers are:

· Hussein says that he is still president of Iraq and is absolutely certain that he will someday return to power.

· He is proud that his sons died for their country.

· While having little positive to say about either President George W. Bush or his father, George H. W. Bush, he expresses a desire to be “friends” with them.

· He also expresses a longing for the days when Ronald Reagan was still president.

· Hussein is a “clean freak,” afraid of germs, obsessively washing his hands and carefully wiping his plate and utensils before eating.

· He gave the soldiers advice on how to handle women (“You gotta find a good woman,” he told them. “Not too smart, not too dumb, not too old, not too young. In the middle.”)

· He thinks Dan Rather is “a good guy.”

· He loves Doritos chips and Raisin Bran Crunch cereal…but he won’t touch Froot Loops.

I think we already know he prefers baggy briefs to boxer shorts. I wonder, though, if he were a tree, what kind of tree would he be?

By the way, in case anyone missed the reference, the title of Ms. DePaulo's piece "Tuesdays With Saddam," is a cute little flip of the skirt to the bestseller Tuesdays With Morrie, which was the story of a young mans time spent with the kindly, old, and dying Morrie Schwartz, and the rich wisdom he passed on.

See, because Saddam and Morrie are two, uh ... uh, there kind of, uh ...

Didn't He Also Invent The Internet,
Or Was That Somebody Else?

Kofi Annan wrote an article the other day, which was published in the Washington Post, wherein he touted his accomplisments in Iraq. He didn't mention the United States, Britain, or Australia one single time in the whole article. Amazing:

Today I am traveling to Brussels to join representatives of more than 80 governments and institutions in sending a loud and clear message of support for the political transition in Iraq.

A year ago, in Resolution 1546, the U.N. Security Council set out the timetable that Iraq, with the assistance of the United Nations and the international community, was expected to fulfill. The Brussels conference is a chance to reassure the Iraqi people that the international community stands with them in their brave efforts to rebuild their country, and that we recognize how much progress has been made in the face of daunting challenges.

Elections were held in January, on schedule. Three months later the Transitional National Assembly endorsed the transitional government. The dominant parties have begun inclusive negotiations, in which outreach to Sunni Arabs is a major theme. A large number of Sunni groups and parties are now ...

This agreement, which the United Nations helped to facilitate ...

Our response has been prompt and resolute ...

My special representative, Ashraf Qazi, is encouraging and facilitating the delicate task of political outreach ...

the United Nations is at work, both inside and outside the country, to support donor coordination, capacity-building of Iraqi ministries and civil society organizations ...

Blah, blah, blah.

What the hell does he have to do with any of it?

And then there's this comment:

In a media-hungry age, visibility is often regarded as proof of success ...

I guess that's why the head of the United Nations is spending his time writing an article for the Washing Post.

Rusty Shackleford at the Jawa Report comments:

Recall that after the horrific UN HQ bombing in August 2003, the one that killed Sergio Vieira de Mello and 21 others? The UN bugged out after that, and left the dirty work to the coalition.

They've trickled back in since then, and they've probably done some good here and there, but the notion that because they had observers at the election they are driving the democratization of Iraq is ludicrous.

There's only the faintest mention in this editorial of the violence and security problems that plague Iraq. There is no mention of the daily, dirty, dangerous efforts of Coaliton forces to stabilize the country. He might as well be writing about post-tsunami Aceh.

Hell, Halliburton's for-profit contracting has done ten times the good in Iraq that the UN has.

Individualism

A woman in a white burkha stands among a group of women in black burkhas.

Which Is Stupider?

From the Anchoress:

I don’t see the need for a constitutional amendment to ban flag-burning. It seems like major surgery for what requires a compression wrap and a shot of “grow-up.”

Burning the flag is stupid. It is moronic. It is infantile. It is the sort of thing they do in places where America is hated. Some might say you can “love” America and still burn the flag in protest, but I have met a few flag-burners in my day and I never knew a one of them that wasn’t all about simply being a part of something “happening” and provocative. And a few of them regret it, now, all these years later.

Nevertheless, I cannot support this amendment. I think it too is stupid. And moronic. It is the sort of suppressive and insecure thing they do in places where - ironically - America is being asked to bring freedom. Places like Cuba, fer instance.

I’m happy to see the Anchoress and I come out on the same side on this issue.

As I said with regards to the Koran desecration issue, the flag is an object. It stands for something sacred, but it isn’t sacred itself. To try to assert that it is, is to lapse into idolatry.

I agree; flag burning is stupid. When a person burns the flag they show themselves to be stupid. Let's just leave it at that.

Honestly, I don't know which I think is stupider, burning the flag, or being so afraid someone will burn our flag that we need to amend our countries central document to make us feel safe.

Actually, I think I do know which is stupider.

The Pastorius Manshion?
Lifestyles of The Rich And Famous

Neo-Neocon says she has it on good authority that this is the manshion George W. Bush grew up in. What a life a privelege, huh? Looks like he had a silver spoon shoved down his throat.

Go here, because there are more juicy details, including this tidbit:

... when George first returned to Midland after going East to school, he lived for a while in a garage studio apartment.

What a life. Well, I used to live in a crackhouse, but that's a story for a different time.

German Diplomat Says
Gitmo Is Worse Than Gulag

From Opinion Journal. Bret Stephens describes his brunch with a "senior German diplomat:

... meeting a relatively senior German diplomat posted to the New York consulate. My wife--also German--knows his wife socially; our children use the same playground. They had invited us to their home for Sunday brunch.

I should say here that I speak almost no German, and it quickly became apparent that the diplomat's wife spoke almost no English. So it was perhaps natural that, soon after we arrived, she and my wife took to one corner of the spacious apartment while the diplomat ushered me into his study. Less natural was the conversation that followed. I made the normal chitchat of first encounters: praise for the unobstructed (and million-dollar) views of the Hudson River; a query about what he did at the consulate.

But the diplomat had no patience for my small talk. Apropos of nothing, he said he had recently made a study of U.S. tax laws and concluded that practices here were inferior to those in Germany. Given recent rates of German economic growth, I found this comment odd. But I offered no rejoinder. I was, after all, a guest in his home.

The diplomat, however, was just getting started. Bad as U.S. economic policy was, it was as nothing next to our human-rights record. Had I read the recent Amnesty International report on Guantanamo? "You mean the one that compared it to the Soviet gulag?" Yes, that one. My host disagreed with it: The gulag was better than Gitmo, since at least the Stalinist system offered its victims a trial of sorts.

Nor was that all. Civil rights in the U.S., he said, were on a par with those of North Korea and rather behind what they had been in Europe in the Middle Ages. When I offered that, as a journalist, I had encountered no restrictions on press freedom, he cut me off. "That's because The Wall Street Journal takes its orders from the government."

By then we had sat down at the formal dining table, with our backs to Ground Zero a half-mile away and our eyes on the boats on the river below us. My wife and I made abortive attempts at ordinary conversation. We were met with non sequiturs: "The only people who appreciate American foreign policy are poodles." After further bizarre pronouncements, including a lecture on the illegality of the Holocaust under Nazi law, my wife said that she felt unwell. We gathered our things and left.

When so many senior officials in the governments of Western nations are saying such outlandish things, it's hard not to worry that our civilizations is losing it's collective mind.

One thing to note here is he is absolutely wrong about Gitmo inmates having no trial. Read this.

Sigh.

Can't Get No Peace
The Ill Logic Of Palestinian Terrorism

Back in February, the Palestinian Authority and Israel had agreed upon a truce, so that they could work make progress on the Road Map to Peace, and on Israel's offer to withdraw from Gaza. Melanie Phillips brings us some statistics which demonstrate that the Palestinians agreement to the truce is a sham:

If Israel broke the ‘truce’ with the Palestinians by one unprovoked act of aggression, the media would be heaving with righteous denunciations. Yet Israel is currently enduring a spate of murderous attacks following the easing of restrictions and the removal of checkpoints by the Israeli army after international pressure --with virtual silence from the media. WorldNet Daily reports:

‘A series of Palestinian attacks and attempted attacks over the past 48 hours have left two dead and several injured, as the violence here continues to reach the highest levels yet since the signing in February of a cease-fire agreement between Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

‘The continued violence comes in spite of a cease-fire agreement announced in Egypt Feb. 8 by Sharon and Abbas. A list of Palestinian attacks and attempts just the past two weeks, obtained by WND, includes: 56 rockets and mortar shells fired at Jewish communities in Gaza, 48 shooting attacks at Israeli civilians and soldiers in the West Bank and Gaza, 26 Molotov cocktails thrown at Israelis, the arrests of five terrorists who planned suicide attacks in Jerusalem, and two attempted infiltrations and attacks against Gaza Jewish settlements.

Security sources also report the continued smuggling of heavy weaponry from Egypt into Gaza's Rafah region. Since February, there have been approximately 30 incidents of Palestinian smuggling from Egypt's Sinai region, with weapons transported including approximately 1,000 rifles, dozens of RPG launchers, about 150 handguns, five anti-aircraft shoulder missiles and tens of thousands of bullets. A senior Israeli security source told WND: "The cease-fire is over. Officials are afraid to announce it, but look around, it's obvious."'

With such an endless stream of attacks directed at it's citizens, Israel has decided to hit back. From Reuters:

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel said on Wednesday it had resumed an assassination policy against some Palestinian militants and could mount air strikes with the risk of civilian casualties to ensure its Gaza pullout does not come under fire.

Think about that sentence. Israel is voluntarily pulling out of the Gaza Strip, but they have to use military measures to do so. Why is that? Does the Palestinian Authority want them to stay? I think we safely assume that is not the case.

Well, then why would they continue to attack Israel?

It seems the disengagement from Gaza is not enough. The Palestinian Authority, apparently, wants Israel to retreat from the Gaza Strip, and keep going.

To where?

It seems to be a perplexing question, until one takes into account the fact that the Palestinian Authority Charter calls for the destruction of the state of Israel.

With that helpful piece of information, Palestinian behavior comes into focus and makes absolute logical sense.

They don't give Israel any peace, even when Israel is doing what they want, because THEY DON'T WANT PEACE WITH ISRAEL.

In fact, it seems the Palestinians will do anything they can to ensure that peace does not break out:

The threat, prompted by a flare-up of Islamic Jihad attacks on Jewish settlers in Gaza, reflected the deterioration of a four-month-old truce after a frosty Israeli-Palestinian summit.

An Israeli aircraft fired missiles at four Islamic Jihad men in the north Gaza village of Beit Lahiya as they launched rockets into Israel, militants sources said. No one was hurt but a rocket was destroyed. The army had no immediate comment.

Israel shelved "targeted killings" of militants in February as part of a truce deal. But resurgent violence has raised the specter of disruption to Israel's planned August withdrawal from Gaza and dimmed hopes for "road map" peace talks afterwards.

Word that the assassination policy had been dusted off came with Israeli confirmation of a missile strike on Tuesday while Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas were holding tense talks in Jerusalem.

That's right. The Palestinians attacked Israel with rockets while their leader was holding talks with Ariel Sharon about how to work out the peace. So, Sharon decides to return to the policy of assasinating the leaders of the terrorist organizations. And what is Islamic Jihad's response to this news?

Khaled al-Batsh, a senior Islamic Jihad leader, warned of "terrible consequences" if Israel carried out assassinations. "The calm would thereby end." he told Reuters in Gaza.

What calm?

EU And US Work Together To Help Iraq

From Reuters:

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The United States and the European Union rallied world help for Iraq on Wednesday and urged Baghdad to ensure minority Sunnis help shape its future.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari asked for assistance to fight the Sunni-led insurgency and rebuild the country.

More than 1,000 Iraqis and 120 U.S. troops have been killed since Jaafari's cabinet took office in April, with fresh rebel attacks this week despite a U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown.

"We want to achieve economic and political independence and raise the competence of our security forces without turning into a security state," the Shi'ite Muslim politician told delegates from about 80 nations meeting in Brussels.

"The new Iraqi government must continue to improve security, liberalize its economy and open political space for all members of Iraqi society who reject violence," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the conference.

The joint EU-U.S. event is a product of President Bush's trip to Europe in February to mend ties after transatlantic rifts in 2003 over the U.S.-led war on Iraq.

Heavy on displays of support for Iraq and unity of purpose between Washington and Brussels, the meeting is exploring practical ways the world can help Iraq, but will leave decisions on aid flows to a donors' meeting in Amman, Jordan, next month.

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Virus, Common In Humans, Kills Cancer
But Little Else

From Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A common virus that is harmless to people can destroy cancerous cells in the body and might be developed into a new cancer therapy, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.

The virus, called adeno-associated virus type 2, or AAV-2, infects an estimated 80 percent of the population.

"Our results suggest that adeno-associated virus type 2, which infects the majority of the population but has no known ill effects, kills multiple types of cancer cells yet has no effect on healthy cells," said Craig Meyers, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the Penn State College of Medicine in Pennsylvania.

"We believe that AAV-2 recognizes that the cancer cells are abnormal and destroys them. This suggests that AAV-2 has great potential to be developed as an anti-cancer agent," Meyers said in a statement.

If You Only Read One CUANAS Post This Month
This Should Be It

And it's not even from me. Go to Mystery Achievement and read this you have to.

It's the story of a Palestinian female who wanted to repay the hospital which had treated her, when she had been burned in a fire, by becoming a suicide bomber and blowing up as many hospital staff and patients as she could. The story culminates in this line:

She said she wanted to kill up to 40 or 50 people, including as many youngsters as possible.

Here are the lessons to learn from her story. From Honest Reporting:

Yesterday (June 20), a Palestinian woman took advantage of a humanitarian medical clearance to attempt a suicide bombing of an Israeli hospital. Israeli security caught Wafa al-Bas at a Gaza checkpoint and safely detonated the explosives that had been tied to her undergarments.

View AP news video of capture.

This episode highlights three important points that remain largely ignored or misrepresented in media coverage of the Mideast conflict:

1) SUICIDE TERROR: ASPIRATION, NOT DESPERATION

Al-Bas explained to reporters why she carried out the act:

I love Allah, I love the land of Palestine and I am a member of Al-Aksa Brigades... my dream was to be a martyr. I believe in death...

Though media outlets often rationalize Palestinian suicide terror as a 'desperate' response to Israeli wrongdoing, al-Bas' statement is the latest indication that the main motivation for the heinous crime is a twisted, lifelong aspiration to achieve 'greatness' via mass murder.

A primary source of this problem is incitement in Palestinian media and culture. On Sunday (June 19) PA President Mahmoud Abbas told Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and western reporters that official Palestinian media 'no longer incites against Israel'.

But very little has actually changed. As documented by Palestinian Media Watch, imagery promoting violence against 'illegitimate' Israelis and 'conspiratorial' Jews remains prominent in official Palestinian TV and newspapers.

This is a direct violation of the PA's roadmap commitment for 'all official Palestinian institutions [to] end incitement against Israel', and it continues to fuel the ideology behind acts such as al-Bas'.

2) IMPORTANCE OF ISRAELI CHECKPOINTS

The latest Amnesty International report accused Israel of 'crimes against humanity and war crimes' that included 'obstruction of medical assistance'. Such reports invariably receive broad, uncritical media coverage that lacks appropriate context.

Al-Bas' act, however, clearly demonstrates the need for strict Israeli administration of checkpoints and medical permits. She is the latest in a long string of Palestinian terrorists who cynically used their status as medical patients or modest women to perpetrate terror attacks.
An important condemnation of al-Bas was carried only in the LA Times:

3) PA EMBRACING, NOT STOPPING TERRORISTS

According to a Haaretz report, Israeli security received a tip on al-Bas' imminent attack, and gave the PA and Abbas detailed information regarding it, but the PA did not act.

The PA continues to do very little to fulfill its roadmap obligation to uproot terror groups, choosing instead to incorporate terrorist operatives into its political and security leadership.

Media outlets continue to ignore this violation of the signed agreement, describing it as a mere 'Israeli demand', as in this UPI report on yesterday's Palestinian violence:

"These seemed to be "perfect" examples for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon who Tuesday afternoon is to host Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in his official residence in central Jerusalem... Sharon never seems to tire demanding a complete cessation of terrorism, violence and incitement, dismantling terrorist organizations and collecting their weapons."

UPI's jab at Sharon is both an unprofessional editorial comment inserted in a news article, and a complete misrepresentation of the PA's own commitment to the world community to uproot terrorism from its midst.

Girl Abducted And Beaten Found Safe
Guarded By Three Lions

From the Anchoress:

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) -- A 12-year-old girl who was abducted and beaten by men trying to force her into a marriage was found being guarded by three lions who apparently had chased off her captors, a policeman said Tuesday.

The girl, missing for a week, had been taken by seven men who wanted to force her to marry one of them, said Sgt. Wondimu Wedajo, speaking by telephone from the provincial capital of Bita Genet, about 350 miles southwest of Addis Ababa.

She was beaten repeatedly before she was found June 9 by police and relatives on the outskirts of Bita Genet, Wondimu said. She had been guarded by the lions for about half a day, he said.

"They stood guard until we found her and then they just left her like a gift and went back into the forest," Wondimu said.

"If the lions had not come to her rescue, then it could have been much worse. Often these young girls are raped and severely beaten to force them to accept the marriage," he said.

Tilahun Kassa, a local government official who corroborated Wondimu's version of the events, said one of the men had wanted to marry the girl against her wishes.

"Everyone thinks this is some kind of miracle, because normally the lions would attack people," Wondimu said.

Kidnapping young girls has long been part of the marriage custom in Ethiopia. The United Nations estimates that more than 70 percent of marriages in Ethiopia are by abduction, practiced in rural areas where most of the country's 71 million people live.

I'm not a big miracle guy, but it's hard to call this anything else.

I wonder what those lions names were.

Stop Crying, You America-Hater

From AP:

WASHINGTON - Under fire from Republicans and some fellow Democrats, Sen. Dick Durbin apologized Tuesday for comparing American interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp to Nazis and other historically infamous figures.

"Some may believe that my remarks crossed the line," the Illinois Democrat said. "To them I extend my heartfelt apologies."

His voice quaking and tears welling in his eyes, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate also apologized to any soldiers who felt insulted by his remarks.

"They're the best. I never, ever intended any disrespect for them," he said.

They can't be the "best" and be "like Nazis." The two are mutually exclusive.

More from Durbin:

Durbin said in his apology: "I made reference to Nazis, to Soviets, and other repressive regimes. Mr. President, I've come to understand that's a very poor choice of words."

That's not really an apology, is it? Tears, no matter how plentiful and blubbery, do not an apology make.

Is It Permissable For A Muslim To Lie
In The Court Of The Infidel?

From Dhimmi Watch:

GREENSBORO -- All Syidah Mateen wanted was to give Muslim witnesses the chance to be sworn in on the Quran before testifying in Guilford County courtrooms.

But an attempt by the Greensboro Islamic center to donate copies of the Muslim holy text last week sparked a legal debate that has left state court officials scrambling to decide whether to allow the practice.

Officials with the Administrative Office of the Courts in Raleigh are trying to come up with a statewide policy on the issue before news of the controversy sparks a large outcry, spokesman Dick Ellis said....

An AOC lawyer's preliminary opinion last week said that state law allows people to be sworn in using a Quran rather than a Bible, Ellis said. But that conflicts with the view of top Guilford County judges, who told officials with the Islamic center Friday that they won't allow the practice in their courtrooms.

"An oath on the Quran is not a lawful oath under our law," Guilford Senior Resident Superior Court Judge W. Douglas Albright said earlier in the week. He sets policy for the county's nine Superior Court courtrooms.

That's an interesting observation. America is a Judeo-Christian nation, and our Constitution was written with that idea. However, we did establish separation of Church and State with the first admendment. (I recognize that my fellow CUANAS writer, Publius, might disagree with me on this). In our society, a person is supposed to be free to practice his own religion. If he or she then chooses to be a Muslim, then it is silly to have them swear on a Bible, when they don't even believe in it.

Right?

But, Robert Spencer makes an interesting point, when he quotes from the Koran:

"Any one who, after accepting faith in Allah, utters Unbelief - except under compulsion, his heart remaining firm in Faith - but such as open their breast to Unbelief, on them is Wrath from Allah, and theirs will be a dreadful Penalty." (16:106)

And then adds:

... what if they are uttering unbelief under what they consider to be compulsion, in line with the verse above? This is just one element of a much larger problem: in relations with unbelievers, the Qur'an simply doesn't teach the values of the Judeo-Christian tradition. It is, as we see from the above verse, permissible to lie to unbelievers. Other values come in for a similar treatment: for believers, they are upheld, but for believers alone.

That is a very good point. But, the problem is not going to be fixed by having Muslims swear on the Bible, which is not, to them, the final word of God. If they agree with the above-cited verse from the Koran, then it doesn't matter if they are swearing on the Bible, the Koran, or on the Satanic Verses, they aren't going to tell the truth if it doesn't help their cause.

So, what are we going to do about it?

A Hospital Is A Profoundly Unnatural Creation

From Dennis Prager:

It is almost impossible to overstate how radically different Old Testament thought was from the thought of the rest of its contemporary world. And it continues to be, given how few societies affirm Judeo-Christian values and how much opposition to them exists in American society, the society that has most incorporated these values. Among the most radical of these differences was the incredible declaration that God is outside of nature and is its creator.

In every society on earth, people venerated nature and worshipped nature gods. There were gods of thunder and gods of rain. Mountains were worshipped, as were rivers, animals and every natural force known to man.

Then came Genesis, which announced that a supernatural God, i.e., a god who existed outside of nature, created nature. Nothing about nature was divine.

Professor Nahum Sarna, the author of what I consider one of the two most important commentaries on Genesis and Exodus, puts it this way: "The revolutionary Israelite concept of God entails His being wholly separate from the world of His creation and wholly other than what the human mind can conceive or the human imagination depict."

This was extremely difficult for men to assimilate then. And as society drifts from Judeo-Christian values, it is becoming difficult to assimilate again today. Major elements in secular Western society are returning to a form of nature worship. Animals are elevated to equality with people, and the natural environment is increasingly regarded as sacred.

The most extreme expressions of nature worship actually view human beings as essentially blights on nature.

Even among some who consider themselves religious, and especially among those who consider themselves "spiritual" rather than religious, nature is regarded as divine, and God is deemed as dwelling within it.

It is quite understandable that people who rely on feelings more than reason to form their spiritual beliefs would deify nature. What is puzzling is that many people who claim to rely more on reason would do so. Nature is unworthy of worship. Nature, after all, is always amoral and usually cruel. Nature has no moral laws, only the amoral law of survival of the fittest.

Why would people who value compassion, kindness or justice venerate nature? The notions of justice and caring for the weak are unique to humanity. In the rest of nature, the weak are to be killed. The individual means nothing in nature; the individual is everything to humans.

A hospital, for example, is a profoundly unnatural, indeed antinatural, creation; to expend precious resources on keeping the most frail alive is simply against nature.

Conspiracy Theories In The Arab World

From Front Page Magazine:

The Iraq War is replacing the attacks of September 11, 2001, as fodder for conspiracy theories emanating from the Middle East - in particular, questions surrounding Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi. Does he exist? Where is he hiding? Is he actually an American or Jordanian agent? Is he dead?
Print and television reports in the Arab and Iranian press regularly question Mr. al-Zarqawi's existence. A member of the former Iraqi Governing Council, Fadhl al-Rube'i, was interviewed on the Lebanese channel New TV, on May 16, 2004. He called Mr. al-Zarqawi mythical and a creation of the Pentagon's "disinformation" center.

The spokesman for radical Iraqi Shi'ite leader Muqtada al-Sadr, Sheikh Abd al-Hadi al-Daraji, likewise stated in an April 4 interview with the Israeli-Arab weekly Kul Al-Arab that Mr. al-Zarqawi was an "ambiguous, imaginary, and made-up figure," created to justify American operations in Iraq. According to a report in the Baghdad newspaper Al-Mu'tamar, on October 28, 2004, fliers distributed by Sunni clerics in Fallujah maintained, "there is no Zarqawi in existence and that such person was an American creation."

An international relations expert at Egypt's Al-Ahram Institute, Said al-Lawindi, appeared on Egyptian channel 1, on November 16, 2004, and alleged that Mr. al-Zarqawi was a fabrication: "Where is this al-Zarqawi? I have read even in the French press, in Le Monde, that anyone can show a photograph of someone who died decades ago and claim that it is al-Zarqawi. This is an attempt by the U.S. to emphasize ... you can't go on forever talking about bin Laden, who has also become a myth."

An article titled, "Zarqawi the Terror Monster: But Does He Really Exist?" appeared in the Saudi daily Arab News, on October 26, 2004, and stated, "Zarqawi has been built up into an almost legendary figure ... Zarqawi is suspected of direct involvement in the kidnap and beheading of several foreigners in Iraq ... But many question his very existence." The article also discussed the battle in Falluja: "The people of Falluja, however, insist that they have never seen the man or heard about him except through the media. So, where is Zarqawi or, indeed, does he exist?"

Over the past few years the Iranian press has blamed America and Israel for most of the terrorist attacks in Iraq, especially the ones that Mr. al-Zarqawi was believed to have masterminded.

Why would we blowup innocent Iranians standing in line to get jobs? Because we want to further destabilize Iraq, so that we can prolong the war, and further enrich the military industrial complex, of which Dick Cheney is the CEO, Chimpy McSmirk is the figurehead, and Ariel Sharon is the Chairman of the Board.

By the way, I own stock in the Military Industrial Complex. If I were you, and I am, I would also invest you money in the MIC. This war is going to go on for a long time. Mo' money. Mo' money. Mo' money.

Monday, June 20, 2005

Dutch Mosques Show Film
Claiming Israeli's Harvest Organs
From Islamic Children

From Dhimmi Watch:

In certain Turkish mosques in Rotterdam, The Hague and Amsterdam an anti-Semitic film is sold. The TV program Nova showed it on Dutch TV. The movie is also shown too children. The movie was made in Iran and translated into Turkish.

The movie is called ‘Zahra's Blue Eyes’; it is about a Palestine girl that is kidnapped and mutilated by a Israëli soldier. Her eyes are transplanted into a blind Jewish boy so he can see again.

I posted about this movie several months back when it was being shown on Iranian TV. Here is a link to a transcript and video.

Democratic Party Says
Israel Controls America Foreign Policy

From The American Thinker, via LGF:

It is important that support for Israel in the US Congress is bipartisan. Israel, the only functioning democracy in the Middle East, has no real friend in the world other than America. The stability of that friendship, demonstrated by support in the Congress (and among the American people) over many decades, has been vitally important to help Israel withstand over 50 years of attacks by terrorists or Arab nations. Israel's foes ultimately do not want compromise with it, they have the goal of destroying the nation militarily, or de-legitimizing it politically ...

At different times in Israel's short recent history, one or the other party has been in control of the Congress, but the support for Israel has not depended on which party was ascendant. Regrettably, this bipartisan support appears to be slipping away.

... what are we to make of Thursday's mock Judiciary Committee hearing designed to impeach President Bush, conducted by Michigan Congressman John Conyers? The meeting was attended by about 30 Democratic members of Congress. Among them were Jewish members, such as Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank, New York Congressman Jerry Nadler, New York Congresswoman Nita Lowey, and Illinois Congresswoman Jan Schakowski. As reported in the Washington Post but (surprise, surprise!) not in the New York Times,

The session took an awkward turn when witness Ray McGovern, a former intelligence analyst, declared that the United States went to war in Iraq for oil, Israel and military bases craved by administration "neocons" so "the United States and Israel could dominate that part of the world." He said that Israel should not be considered an ally and that Bush was doing the bidding of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

"Israel is not allowed to be brought up in polite conversation," McGovern said. 'The last time I did this, the previous director of Central Intelligence called me anti-Semitic."

Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), who prompted the question by wondering whether the true war motive was Iraq's threat to Israel, thanked McGovern for his "candid answer."

At Democratic headquarters, where an overflow crowd watched the hearing on television, activists handed out documents repeating two accusations -- that an Israeli company had warning of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and that there was an "insider trading scam" on 9/11 -- that previously has been used to suggest Israel was behind the attacks.

So the Democrats in Congress are now giving voice and credibility to the view that Israel was responsible for the Iraq war. And other Democrats, watching the hearing at the DNC, are hosting anti-Semites who argue that Israel had advance warning of the 9/11 attacks and is therefore responsible for allowing the attacks to occur. And even deeper into familiar anti-Semitic tropes: that Israelis withheld the information so as to benefit financially.

This sounds exactly like classic anti-Semitism. These messages were not being conveyed on anti-Semitic web sites, or on Palestinian TV and radio on Thursday, but at a Democratic function from a meeting room in Congress, with more than 10% of the Democrats in Congress in attendance, and at Democratic National Headquarters. . In all likelihood, these outrageous charges are now being communicated and rebroadcast throughout the Arab and Muslim world, with the imprimatur and legitimacy of the Democratic National Committee, and the US Congress as the reliable source.

Until late Friday, no Democratic Party official or Congressman, had expressed any discomfort with what happened. Now, we have a statement by Congressman Barney Frank, saying he was out of the conference room when the bad stuff happened in the mock impeachment trial, and that he thinks McGovern's view are noxious. So too, DNC Chairman Howard Dean released a statement saying the DNC rejects the hate literature that was being distributed in its own office.
In fact, the activist groups that watched the meeting at the DNC, and handed out the moonbat conspiracy literature blaming Israel for 9/11, were there as guests of the DNC. No one at the DNC can claim that they were surprised that the "hearing" in Congress or the advocacy in their office took on an anti-Semitic slant. McGovern's views are well known (that is why he was invited by Conyers, presumably), and the activists were handing out their anti-Semitic literature openly to everyone in sight in the DNC office. Except for the fact that Dana Milbank, the Washington Post reporter, (and no friend of the Bush administration for that matter), described what actually went on in his Washington Post article, this story never would have surfaced and in all likelihood, no apologies would have been offered. That is, I think, because for an increasing share of the activist members of the Democratic Party, no offense to any of this would have been taken.

In the past few weeks, the obsessive hatred of President Bush by the left has led to some extraordinarily stupid and vicious comments by Illinois Senator Richard Durbin and DNC Chairman Howard Dean, among others. Dean claimed that Republicans do not need to work (62 million trust fund loafers apparently voted for President Bush in November), and that Republicans are evil. Durbin's comments were worse: that the treatment of a few detainees in Guantanamo was so abhorrent, that it brought back memories of the Nazis in the concentration camps, or Pol Pot's murderous Cambodian killers. Trivializing the holocaust is a mainstay theme of the left, from PETA's ad campaign comparing the holocaust to Americans eating chicken for dinner to the constant attempt by university professors to argue that Israel is behaving like the Nazis. Now Dick Durbin has joined this slanderous troop.

Democrats, to judge by recent events, appear to be losing their collective minds in some form of shriek therapy. Being out of power may do that to a party used to having its way for many decades in Congress. But there is one other possible explanation for the apparent insanity. With so much money concentrated in the hands of some hard left advocates (think George Soros, Hollywood, trial lawyers, internet millionaires and some union bosses), the Democrats may feel the need to feed the beast - to protect and cater to their hardcore base, so as to keep the money flowing into the political coffers for future campaigns. So the strategy is for Democrats to be completely over the top in their attacks - trashing Bush, America, our military, Republicans, and Israel, all of whom are targets of the activists, to keep the moveon.org and Dailykos crowds happy.

Jews voted almost 3 to 1 for John Kerry over George Bush in the 2004 election. That is fine, so long as the Democratic Party and its candidates were at least supportive of Israel, and critical of anti-Semitism.

But when the Democratic Party sponsors what amounts to a festival full of anti-Semitic hysteria and Israel bashing at its own headquarters, and invites anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists in to address members of their Congressional delegation, then I think that the line of basic support for Israel has been crossed.

Democrats, who still have their heads screwed on straight, and retain some sense of decency, like Joe Lieberman, and Steny Hoyer, need to take a long look in the mirror at the unraveling of their Party, and begin to do something about it. John Conyers should be asked to explain why a known anti-Semite like McGovern was invited to the panel's discussions. Why did no member of Congress attending the Conyers hearing challenge McGovern when he went off on his loopy theories?

The Israel haters, and anti-Semites believe they have found a comfortable home in the Democratic Party. If American Jews continue to vote overwhelmingly for the Democrats, then they will be casting their votes for a Party which is becoming indifferent to Israel bashing and anti-Semitism, and in the case of Conyers inviting McGovern to speak, even promoting these toxic views.

I started CUANAS a few years ago when I noticed the rise in anti-Semitism in Europe and the Arab world. Shortly thereafter I became aware of the anti-Semitism spread by professors on college campuses in America. Tolerance for anti-Semitism is prevalent in the American media. But, I didn't expect to see traditional anti-Semitic ideas being spouted by those in the mainstream of the Democratic Party.

Obviously, the Democrats are not calling for the destruction of the state of Israel, nor is their anti-Semitism of the murderous variety. But, their anti-Semitic slanders will give strength to the more dangerous Jew-hatred which is being spread around our planet.

Now, all the anti-Semites in the European media can point to the Conyers hearing and say, "Look, even the United States Congress agrees, Israel controls Bush Administratio policy." And then the Neo-Nazis can say, "Yeah, see. We told you." And the Islamofascists can say, "This is why we have to destroy Israel." And the European leaders can say, "Well, we don't need to destroy Israel. We can just compromise by creating a bi-national state."

At least we've found something all those disparate groups can agree upon, huh?

Maybe the truth is that the neo-Nazi's control the Democratic Party. Because, you know, it's almost as if the Democrats were reading Neo-Nazi talking points.

Lebanese Elections
Anti-Syrian Forces Win Majority

From Reuters:

TRIPOLI, Lebanon (Reuters) - A Lebanese opposition alliance won the final phase of a parliamentary election in a landslide on Sunday, which gave it a clear mandate to steer Lebanon out of Syria's shadow.

An unofficial count for north Lebanon showed an alliance led by Saad al-Hariri sweeping all remaining 28 seats.

The ballot, staggered by region over four weekends, is the first for three decades with no Syrian military presence, after Damascus pulled its troops out in April.

"Final results show that we are ahead and show that the people have voted for change," Hariri, son of slain ex-premier Rafik al-Hariri who is backing the opposition slate, said.

"It was not possible that after the martyrdom of Rafik al-Hariri, the withdrawal of Syria that nothing would change."

The victory means the 128-seat assembly has an anti-Syrian majority for the first time since the 1975-1990 civil war.

Pro-Syrian Christian former minister Suleiman Franjieh conceded he and his candidates were heading for defeat in the mainly Sunni Muslim north, though they had done well in Christian areas.

"What we feared is happening. I think the north has been divided along sectarian lines," Franjieh told LBC television station. "We have arrived at what we used to warn against."

The anti-Syrian list, backed by Sunni Hariri, squared off against an unlikely alliance of pro-Syrians and Damascus' erstwhile foe, former general Michel Aoun, a Maronite Christian.

Aoun's victory in the Christian heartland of Mount Lebanon in last week's round stunned the disparate movement whose street protests following Hariri's assassination on February 14 forced Syria to bow to global pressure and pull out of Lebanon.

Hariri's bloc has now won 72 seats, an absolute majority, but still a far cry from the two-thirds the anti-Syrian front had predicted.

Aoun and allies have 21 seats while a pro-Syrian Shi'ite Muslim alliance between Hizbollah and Amal have 35 seats.

Sunday's win makes Hariri, 35, a leading candidate to be named prime minister. He refused to speculate whether he would take up the post.

"I voted for Hariri's list because Saad al-Hariri represents the Sunnis. His list represents moderation in Lebanon," Abdul Majid Basheer said in mainly Sunni Muslim Tripoli.

Security was tight around polling stations where pictures of the candidates were plastered on walls, billboards and hung on electricity and telephone poles. Rival candidates accused each other of vote-buying and intimidation.

The Interior Ministry said 49 percent of the 690,000 eligible voters cast their ballots. Final official results are expected on Monday.

European Union monitors observing the May 29-June 19 election are expected to issue a verdict on Monday. It was the first time international observers monitored Lebanese polls.

Unlikely alliances that characterised the election are likely to crumble once the results are out.

They are expected to realign into three main blocs -- the anti-Syrian faction, the pro-Syrian group dominated by Amal and Hizbollah, and Aoun's followers.

They will jostle for a say on divisive issues such as the fate of Syria's close ally President Emile Lahoud and international calls for Hizbollah guerrillas to disarm.

The new administration also has to address demands for political reforms and devise a plan to handle a delicate economic situation and a debt of $35 billion, or 185 percent of gross domestic product.

Sounds like Lebanon's politics are byzantine. The Maronite Christian bloc would was pro-Syria. Syria's government is a Baathist dictatorship, similar to, but not as extreme as that of Saddam's Iraq.

Why Christians would support such a government is a mystery to me.

It seems that every positive step towards Democracy in the Middle East has been a tentative and small one. It will be years before we are able to tell if this is really going to work. But, I don't think America has ever lost when it is bet on Freedom.

We'll see.

Sunday, June 19, 2005

Geldoff Says Bush Has Done More For Africa
Than Any American President

From Drudge Report:

GELDOF ORDERS NO BUSH BASHING AT 'LIVE 8': IRAQ WAR, GLOBAL WARMING RANTING OFF LIMITS

LIVE 8 founder Bob Geldof is determined to see his international concerts stay focused on the plight of Africa's poor -- and not fall into cliched Bush bashing and global warming rhetoric!

Geldof has ordered show organizers and producers to redouble all efforts to keep LIVE 8 performers "on message" during the July 2 event, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

"Please remember, absolutely no ranting and raving about Bush or Blair and the Iraq war, this is not why you have been invited to appear," Geldoff said to the manager of a top recording artist, who asked not to be identified. "We want to bring Mr. Bush in, not run him away."

[Geldof tells next week's TIME magazine how Bush "has actually done more than any American President for Africa."]

"Bob wants no attention on global warming, or the war," the manager warns, "He is very determined, he does not want to lose control of the message... But we have the most unpopular American president since Nixon, soldiers are dying... you are going to see some righteous anger on stage."

LIVE 8 will be a series of free international concerts with unprecedented star power. Will Smith is host of a hip-hop-heavy show in Philly with 50 Cent and P Diddy headlining; Pink Floyd and the Sex Pistols will reunite in London on the same bill as U2, Coldplay, Keane, Madonna, Elton John, Mariah Carey, Sting and Paul McCartney. Concerts will also be held in Paris, Berlin and Rome.

BBC and AOL plan live broadcast and streaming worldwide.

Sounds like a lot of potential for righteous anger. You know, because rock stars are so righteous, and all.

"The Principles Of Jihadist Philosophy"

Americans soldiers came across a torture house in battle in Iraq yesterday. From The New York Times:

KARABILA, Iraq, Sunday, June 19 - Marines on an operation to eliminate insurgents that began Friday broke through the outside wall of a building in this small rural village to find a torture center equipped with electric wires, a noose, handcuffs, a 574-page jihad manual - and four beaten and shackled Iraqis.

The American military has found torture houses after invading towns heavily populated by insurgents - like Falluja, where the anti-insurgent assault last fall uncovered almost 20 such sites. But rarely have they come across victims who have lived to tell the tale.

The men said they told the marines, from Company K, Third Marines, Second Division, that they had been tortured with shocks and flogged with a strip of rubber for more than two weeks, unseen behind the windows of black glass. One of them, Ahmed Isa Fathil, 19, a former member of the new Iraqi Army, said he had been held and tortured there for 22 days. All the while, he said, his face was almost entirely taped over and his hands were cuffed.

In an interview with an embedded reporter just hours after he was freed, he said he had never seen the faces of his captors, who occasionally whispered at him, "We will kill you." He said they did not question him, and he did not know what they wanted. Nor did he ever expect to be released.

"They kill somebody every day," said Mr. Fathil, whose hands were so swollen he could not open a can of Coke offered to him by a marine. "They've killed a lot of people."

U.S. Marines found a book in the torture house:

The manual recovered - a fat, well-thumbed Arabic paperback - listed itself as the 2005 First Edition of "The Principles of Jihadist Philosophy," by Abdel Rahman al-Ali.

Its chapters included "How to Select the Best Hostage," and "The Legitimacy of Cutting the Infidels' Heads."

Even Eichman Had A Trial

From The Astute Blogger:

McCain was on MTP (Meet The Press) today. As usual, McCain said some good things and some bad things.

A good thing he said: the prisoners on Gitmo are NOT being mistreated and Durbin MUST apologize.

A bad thing he said: that (paraphrasing) "all the prisoners on Gitmo should have their cases adjudicated - even Adolph Eichmann had a trial."

Well, Senator: Eichmann's trial - and the trial of ALL the other NAZIS came AFTER THE WAR WAS OVER.

SO MAY IT BE FOR THE DETAINEES AT GITMO: they can be legally held until after the war is over, and they SHOULD BE, TOO!

Until the enemy has capitulated and ceased all hostilities the detainees are potentially future adversaries THE MOMENT they are released.

As for "adjudication": they are enemy combatants, not defendants; the GWOT is a REAL WAR which will last a generation OR MORE; the war must be won by KILLING AND OTHERWISE DESTROYING THE ENEMY AND THEIR WILL TO FIGHT, and it will not be won by sending in the FBI and arresting a few terrorists and having a few trials. CLINTON DID THAT AND IT FAILED!

Downing Street Memo?

I don't know where to come down on the Downing Street Memo. It seems to me it tells us nothting we didn't already know. We knew there were factions within the Bush Administration who thought we didn't need to prove our case in order to invade Iraq. Remember? The media would talk about how the hawk-wing of the Bush Administration, led by Cheney, was opposed to the Colin Powell-wing which wanted to go to the UN. Well, if there were those factions, then why does it surprise anyone that the memo reveals that Bush had his mind made up to go to war?

My fellow "conservatives" can't decide whether to criticize the memos because they are fake, or whether, as Michael Medved tried to make a case for, the word "fixed" means something different in English than it does in American. (Note to self; move Medved down on the credibility chart). It seems to me that's working awful hard.

Wherever one comes down, it seems to me that we must acknowledge that, if Bush attempted to fix evidence there is a problem. If there is possibly something wrong, then the memos need to be analyzed fairly.

Graham Lester, has attempted to look at the memos without the usual partisan apologetics:

Here are some key excerpts from the Downing Street Memo of July 23, 2002:

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force. Link.

Is it a smoking gun? I think it comes pretty close, but the two crucial passages are both ambiguous.

“The intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy” seems to say that the evidence was being massaged to fit the conclusion, but it could also simply mean that the evidence was going to be presented in such a manner that its relation to the conclusion would be made clearer – a rather subtle distinction, but not one without a difference. The memo does not say that evidence or facts were going to be fabricated.

“We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.” This seems to indicate that the whole point of the ultimatum was that Saddam would reject it, but in fact Saddam agreed to allow the inspectors back in. He ended up getting invaded anyway because his record of brutality and aggression was so bad that there was widespread agreement (PDF link) that he must have weapons of mass destruction hidden somewhere. Since “Bush had made up his mind to take military action,” and Saddam could not surrender weapon stockpiles that he did not possess, it seems that the latter could not have avoided war except by fleeing the country.

Graham is a supporter of the War on Terror, but he thinks the memo comes close to being a smoking gun. I have to agree with Graham, although I do so with no passion, or conviction. So, I asked Graham a series of questions:

Hey Graham,

I appreciate your attempt at an honest assessment of that memo. I have some questions:

1) Why, in your opinion, did George Bush invade Iraq?

2) Should we have invaded Iraq and why?

3) Does Iraq fit into a larger unarticulated strategy in the War on Terror?

4) If Saddam was directing his military to shoot at our air force, and I believe that he was, why was that not used as the justification for invasion instead of WMD's?

5) You say the Downing Street Memo is not a smoking gun, but do you believe Congress ought to have hearings on the subject?

6) Do you believe Bush ought to be impeached and, if so, why?

Read Graham's answer here.

But, maybe Michael Medved is right in a way about the definition of the word "fix." Maybe the word "fix" meant to affix. As in, they were building a case by affixing the intelligence around policy. Or maybe the man who wrote the memo was opposed to war in Iraq no matter what, and so, when he wrote the memo, he gave it his negative slant. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

As I said, I completley lack conviction on this subject, but it seems to me that Bush may truly be in some hot water.

On the other hand, the memo may really be a fake:

The eight memos — all labeled “secret” or “confidential” — were first obtained by British reporter Michael Smith, who has written about them in The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Times.

Smith told AP he protected the identity of the source he had obtained the documents from by typing copies of them on plain paper and destroying the originals.

Unless they can produce the originals, Bush's opponents are going to lose on this. You can't impeach the President of the United States without hard evidence.

The fact remains that the intelligence services of many of the major countries in Europe believed that Saddam still had WMD. Al Gore, Bill Clinton, and John Kerry believed Iraq had WMD. So, the question is, why? There must have been credible evidence. You know, the kind that didn't need to be fixed.

UPDATE: Ed Morrisey at Captain's Quarters is convinced the Memo itself was "fixed."

Saturday, June 18, 2005

You On My Mind In My Sleep

Hamas As A Political Party
Is A Violation Of The Oslo Agreements

Haaretz came up with an interesting suggestion for Ariel Sharon. From the Eurabian Times:

Sharon can demand that the Americans explain to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) that Hamas' participation in the Palestinian Legislative Council elections is a blatant violation of the Oslo B agreement, which states that the ballots will be closed to organizations and individuals that commit or advocate racism or pursue the implementation of their aims by unlawful or undemocratic means.

Racism practically drips off every page of the Hamas charter of August 1988. "The Nazism of the Jews," says the charter, is what provoked World War II, in which the Jews "collected immense benefits from trade in war materials, and prepared for the establishment of their state ..."

Wow, I didn't know that the Oslo Agreements made such a stipulation. If that is so, then the Palestinian Authority was in violation of their own agreement from the minute they signed it. After all, the Palestinian Authority Charter (posted on their UN website) calls for the destruction of Israel.

Those Islamofascists Get Me So Angry
All I Can Do Is Smoke
Like An Pissed-Off Frenchman

From Female First UK:

BONO SHOCKED BY ETHIOPIAN WOMEN'S REACTION TO BREASTFEEDING.

U2 frontman BONO was horrified during a visit to Ethiopia, when he saw local women pelting a breast-feeding aid worker with stones.

The American woman was oblivious of the offence she was causing, and had to escape the angry onslaught from female Muslims who had no qualms about injuring her or her baby.Bono recalls, "I remember one vision of the people who are with WORLD VISION, which is an American aid agency.

"One of the women was breast-feeding a child on the horse. She was so comfortable. She didn't mean to be insensitive.

"But the Muslim women did not like this and came out and started throwing stones at her because she was showing her breasts."

I like Bono (it's a childhood habit) but he seems like a human being peculiarly constructed to take this kind of affront in stride. I bet it doesn't change his worldview one bit.

Well, he might decide to take off the Batman necklace, but other than that ...

A Catch 22 For Dick Durbin

Dick says that we're treating Guantanamo inmates in a manner directly comparable to the way the Nazi's treated their prisoners. Well, ok. So, read this, from Reuters:

SANAA, June 18 (Reuters) - Human rights activists voiced concern on Saturday that Guantanamo Bay detainees could face torture if they are repatriated to Gulf Arab states.

"Hundreds of people face the threat of ending in another 'black hole' if they are transferred from Guantanamo to their countries," said activists, lawyers and relatives of detainees in a statement issued jointly with Amnesty International.

Let's send them to Europe.

Is Amnesty International Committing Fraud?

From Pavel Litvinov writing in the Washington Post, via LGF.

Pavel Litvinov was a dissident, active in human rights causes in the Soviet Union. He now lives in the United States:

Several days ago I received a telephone call from an old friend who is a longtime Amnesty International staffer. He asked me whether I, as a former Soviet "prisoner of conscience" adopted by Amnesty, would support the statement by Amnesty's executive director, Irene Khan, that the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba is the "gulag of our time."

"Don't you think that there's an enormous difference?" I asked him.

"Sure," he said, "but after all, it attracts attention to the problem of Guantanamo detainees."

The word "gulag" was a bureaucratic acronym for the main prison administration in Stalin's Soviet Union. After publication of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's "The Gulag Archipelago," it became a symbol for the system of forced-labor camps that have been an integral feature of communist countries. Millions of prisoners confined in the gulag had not been involved in violence or committed any crime -- they were there because they belonged to a "wrong" social, national or political group or expressed a "wrong" opinion.

The cruelty and scale of the gulag system are described in numerous books, so there is no need to recount them here.

By any standard, Guantanamo and similar American-run prisons elsewhere do not resemble, in their conditions of detention or their scale, the concentration camp system that was at the core of a totalitarian communist system.

For example, incidents of desecration of the Koran in Guantanamo by U.S. personnel have been widely reported. But those Korans were surely not brought to Guantanamo by the prisoners themselves from Afghanistan. They were supplied by the U.S. administration -- in spite of the obvious fact that most of the prisoners misguidedly found in the Koran the inspiration for their violent hatred of the United States.

By contrast, Russian author Andrei Sinyavsky, who was sentenced in 1966 to seven years' forced labor for his writing, was approached one evening soon after his arrival in a labor camp by a prisoner who quietly asked Sinyavsky whether he wanted to listen to a recital of the biblical account of the apocalypse. (Possession of a Bible was strictly prohibited in the gulag.)

The man took Sinyavsky to the furnace room, where a group of people were squatting in the dark recesses. In the light of the furnace flame, one of the men got up and started to recite the biblical passages by heart. When he stopped, the stoker, an old man, said: "And now you, Fyodor, continue." Fyodor got up and recited from the next chapter.

The whole text of the Bible was distributed among these prisoners, ordinary Russians who were spending 10 to 25 years in the gulag for their religious beliefs. They knew the texts by heart and met regularly to repeat them so that they would not forget. And this happened in 1967, when the gulag had become smaller and the Soviet regime milder than it had been under Stalin.

Amnesty International, with its fact-based, objective and balanced approach to the defense of human rights, has been a source of hope for dissidents everywhere. A central idea of Amnesty has been the concept of prisoner of conscience as a person who neither uses nor advocates political violence. Just to know that you have been adopted as a prisoner of conscience, that somewhere in the world there are people who know your name and are working for your release, gives a prisoner hope.

When I arrived in the United States after serving my term in Siberian exile, I met hundreds of dedicated Amnesty activists throughout the country who wrote letters to leaders of world governments demanding the release of prisoners of conscience. This activity created a special solidarity of human rights activists across national borders. Naturally, communist leaders denounced Amnesty as a CIA front, and right-wing dictators dismissed its members as communist plotters.

It was only natural that Amnesty flourished in the United States and in Western Europe, where human rights are taken seriously and their defense became an official part of U.S. foreign policy, largely due to the efforts of President Jimmy Carter. There were heroic attempts to create Amnesty groups in countries with dictatorial regimes, including the Soviet Union, but most of those attempts were crushed by arrests and forced emigration.

There is ample reason for Amnesty to be critical of certain U.S. actions. But by using hyperbole and muddling the difference between repressive regimes and the imperfections of democracy, Amnesty's spokesmen put its authority at risk. U.S. human rights violations seem almost trifling in comparison with those committed by Cuba, South Korea, Pakistan or Saudi Arabia.

The most effective way to criticize U.S. behavior is to frankly acknowledge that this country should be held to a higher standard based on its own Constitution, laws and traditions. We cannot fulfill our responsibilities as the world's only superpower without being perceived as a moral authority. Despite the risks posed by terrorism, the United States cannot indefinitely detain people considered dangerous without appropriate safeguards for their conditions of detention and periodic review of their status.

Words are important. When Amnesty spokesmen use the word "gulag" to describe U.S. human rights violations, they allow the Bush administration to dismiss justified criticism and undermine Amnesty's credibility. Amnesty International is too valuable to let it be hijacked by politically biased leaders.

Agreed.

Note that Mr. Litvinov says that the idea behind Amnesty International was to "adopt" "prisoners of conscience," which was a term defined as people "who neither uses nor advocates political violence."

I know this to be true, because I did some charitable work for Amnesty International back in the 1980's.

My question is, how is it that the leaders of Amnesty International think it's ok to hijack their organization by taking up the cause of murderous Islamofascists?

By taking up such causes they are redefining what Amnesty International stands for as an organization, and in so doing, they are swindling the people who donate money to their organization with the understanding that it defends "prisoners of conscience."

In other words Amnesty International is now collecting donations under false pretenses.

Isn't that fraud?

Democrats Get Wasted, Pass Out, and
Wake Up In A Pool Of Their Own Vomit

A group of Democrats staged a mock impeachment hearing in the basement of Capitol Hill the other day, and guess who showed up? The Jew-haters. From Little Green Footballs:

The session took an awkward turn when witness Ray McGovern, a former intelligence analyst, declared that the United States went to war in Iraq for oil, Israel and military bases craved by administration “neocons” so “the United States and Israel could dominate that part of the world.” He said that Israel should not be considered an ally and that Bush was doing the bidding of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

“Israel is not allowed to be brought up in polite conversation,” McGovern said. “The last time I did this, the previous director of Central Intelligence called me anti-Semitic.”

Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), who prompted the question by wondering whether the true war motive was Iraq’s threat to Israel, thanked McGovern for his “candid answer.”

At Democratic headquarters, where an overflow crowd watched the hearing on television, activists handed out documents repeating two accusations — that an Israeli company had warning of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and that there was an “insider trading scam” on 9/11 — that previously has been used to suggest Israel was behind the attacks.

There was more highjinks. Go read about it at LGF. But, the thing I find interesting is that the Democrats got so out of control at this play-pretend impeachment procedure, that Howard Dean is trying to rein them in:

WASHINGTON -- A handful of people at Democratic National Headquarters distributed material critical of Israel during a public forum questioning the Bush administration's Iraq policy, drawing an angry response and charges of anti-Semitism from party chairman Howard Dean on Friday.

"We disavow the anti-Semitic literature, and the Democratic National Committee stands in absolute disagreement with and condemns the allegations," Dean said in a statement posted on the DNC Web site.

According to Dean, some material distributed within the DNC conference room implied that Israel was involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

One witness, former intelligence analyst Ray McGovern, told Conyers and other House Democrats that the war was part of an effort to allow the United States and Israel to "dominate that part of the world," a statement Dean also condemned.

"As for any inferences that the United States went to war so Israel could 'dominate' the Middle East or that Israel was in any way behind the horrific September 11th attacks on America, let me say unequivocally that such statements are nothing but vile, anti-Semitic rhetoric," Dean said.

"The inferences are destructive and counterproductive, and have taken away from the true purpose of the Judiciary Committee members' meeting," he said. "The entire Democratic Party remains committed to fighting against such bigotry."

Imagine you get so drunk at a party one night that you pass out and when you wake up, you can't remember what happened. And then, you roll over and Ozzy Osbourne is laying on the floor next to you. And he looks at you and says, "Mate, you wouldn't believe what you did last night, you freakin' maniac."

Friday, June 17, 2005

"A Breath Of Freedom"
BBC Helps Islamofascist With His Image Makeover

The Iranian politician Akbar Rafsanjani is giving himself a maveover. The BBC decided to help. From Little Green Footballs:

"I'm in Club Rafsanjani!" jokes a young girl on her mobile telephone to her mother in Fereshteh, an affluent area of north Tehran.

Dressed in three-quarter length trousers, a tight overcoat and colourful headscarf, she is one of several young Iranians handing out election stickers for Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the frontrunner in Friday's presidential elections.

Techno music is playing from Mr Rafsanjani's office and there are even two disco lights on the upper floor. Some of the Persian pop songs come from the banned satellite channels in California.
Meanwhile, boys in black jackets and pointy shoes wearing big shades and greased back hair are thrusting posters of the 71-year-old cleric into car windows.

They give out cakes and even copies of a special CD made for Mr Rafsanjani's campaign to motorists passing by.

The stickers are written in English, not Farsi and some boys are plastered in them - across their foreheads, on every arm and leg.

Mr Rafsanjani has found an unusual following among the youth of Iran, who hope he will address their problems if he comes to power.

There is a breath of freedom because elections are coming and these young people can take risks because they have a powerful backer.

I wonder if the youth of Iran think "their problems" come from the Jews, because Rafsanjani has outlined a solution to that particular situation:

Rafsanjani added that with the formation of Israel, colonialists created insecurity in the region, exposing states to threats so as to bring them under the dominion of colonialism. The survival of Israel depends on the interests of global arrogance and colonialism, and as long as this base is beneficial to them, they will preserve it.

If one day, he said, the world of Islam comes to possess the weapons currently in Israel's possession [meaning nuclear weapons] - on that day this method of global arrogance would come to a dead end. This, he said, is because the use of a nuclear bomb in Israel will leave nothing on the ground, whereas it will only damage the world of Islam.

This man has proposed using nuclear weapons on the country of Israel, but the BBC writes articles about him which create the impression that he is a "backer" of the people, "a breath of freedom."

Jewish Cemetaries Desecrated In London and Budapest

From Associated Press:

LONDON - Vandals desecrated 86 tombstones dating to the 1870s in a Jewish cemetery in London, spraying some of them with Nazi swastikas and racial slurs while knocking them over, police said Thursday.

The attack was reported a day after Hungarian authorities said about 130 tombstones were knocked down and broken at the Kozma Street Jewish Cemetery in Budapest. Culture Minister Andras Bozoki said the government would "provide all assistance" necessary to repair the tombstones.

London police said a large hole was made in the heavy wooden doors of a mausoleum building in West Ham Jewish Cemetery, and the structure was sprayed with swastikas. The mausoleum contained members of the wealthy Rothschild banking dynasty.

Dozens of headstones around the mausoleum lay on the ground, some of them cracked or caved in. Jagged knee-high bases stood over the broken fragments of the stones, which previously stood about 5 feet tall. The barely legible inscriptions were mostly in Hebrew.

What Kind Of Dolls Are Permitted In Islam?

From Fjordman:

Question: since we're not allowed to make images of humans and animals, should children be allowed to play with toys in the shape of humans or animals?.

Answer: Praise be to Allaah.

Shaykh Ibn ‘Uthaymeen (may Allaah have mercy on him) said:

With regard to those in which the shape is incomplete, in which there is only a part of the limbs or head, but the shape is not clear, there is no doubt that these are permissible, and these are like the dolls with which ‘Aa’ishah used to play. (Narrated in al-Bukhaari, 6130; Muslim, 2440).

But if the shape is complete, and it is as if you are looking at a person – especially if it can move or speak – then I am not entirely at ease with the idea of them being permissible, because this is a complete imitation of the creation of Allaah. It seems that the dolls with which ‘Aa’ishah used to play were not like this, so it is preferable to avoid them. But I cannot say that they are definitely haraam, because there are concessions granted to young children that are not granted to adults in such matters.

It is natural for young children to play and have fun, they are not obliged to do any of the acts of worship so we cannot say that that they are wasting their time in idle play. But if a person wants to be on the safe side in such matters, he should cut off the head or hold it near the fire until it softens, then he should press it until the features disappear.

Hamas Wants To Kill The Jews
Europe (Eurabia) Meets With Them

From Reuters, via Atlas Shrugs:

GAZA (Reuters) - The Palestinian militant group Hamas disclosed on Thursday that European diplomats had held talks with some of its members, an apparent shift in EU policy that drew sharp criticism from Israel.

It was the latest sign of a softening of a diplomatic boycott against Hamas after the Islamist group, which advocates Israel's destruction, made a strong showing in Palestinian local elections held against the backdrop of a shaky ceasefire.

Yeah, that's right advocates Israel's destruction. And they don't mince words. Here's an excerpt from the Hamas Charter:

The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:

"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews."

"Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it."

"The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. "

"There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors."

"After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying."

If at first you don't succeed, try try again?

It does not matter how much power an organization amasses. It does not matter whether they are democratically elected, if they advocate the genocide of another people, a just society will condemn them and marginalize them.

So, why is Europe meeting with them? Because Europe is Eurabia, a government bent on triangulating power by alligning themselves with murderous Islamofascists, against the United States. Power is what matters to the Eurabians, not justice.

Sometimes You Just Gotta Love Your Enemies

Here's an excerpt from this week's Victor Davis Hanson column, in which he notes that a Syrian Jihadist gave us the War on Terror from the Jihadist perspective. From National Review:

In a single day last week, in various media — the liberal International Herald Tribune and the Washington Post — the following information appeared.

A Syrian smuggler of jihadists to Iraq, one Abu Ibrahim, was interviewed. He made the following revealing statements:

(1) that the goal of the jihadists is the restoration of the ancient caliphate ("The Koran is a constitution, a law to govern the world")

(2) that September 11 was "a great day"

(3) that two weeks after the attack, a celebration was held in his rural Syrian community celebrating the mass murder, and thereafter continued twice-weekly

(4) that Syrian officials attended such festivities, funded by Saudi money with public slogans that read, "The People ...Will Now Defeat the Jews and Kill Them All"

(5) that despite denials, Syrian police aided the jihadists in their efforts to hound out Western influence: They were allowed to enforce their strict vision of sharia, or Islamic law, entering houses in the middle of the night to confront people accused of bad behavior. Abu Ibrahim said their authority rivaled that of the Amn Dawla, or state security. "Everyone knew us," he said. "We all had big beards. We became thugs."

(6) that the Syrian government does not hesitate to work with Islamists ("beards and epaulets were in one trench together")

(7) that collateral damage was not always so collateral: "Once the Americans bombed a bus crossing to Syria. We made a big fuss and said it was full of merchants," Abu Ibrahim said. "But actually, they were fighters."

(8) That once Syria felt U.S. pressure, there was some temporary cosmetic change of heart: "The security agents said the smuggling of fighters had to stop. The jihadists' passports were taken. Some were jailed for a few days. Abu Ibrahim's jailers shaved his beard."

(9) that supporters in Saudi Arabia always played a key role: "Our brothers in Iraq are asking for Saudis. The Saudis go with enough money to support themselves and their Iraqi brothers. A week ago, we sent a Saudi to the jihad. He went with 100,000 Saudi riyals. There was celebration amongst his brothers there!"

Note how in this one Washington Post story how almost every one of our Western myths promulgated by the antiwar Left is shattered by a candid jihadist himself. First, there was always radical Islamic anti-American hatred that preceded Iraq. Indeed, celebrations were spontaneous immediately after September 11 on the mere news of slaughtered Americans.
We have been told that jihadists and secular Baathists have little in common, and that only our war brought them together. But like the Japanese and Nazis in World War II, autocrat and jihadist have shared interests in hating liberal democracies — and well before our response they were jointly fanning efforts against the United States.

Note too the passive-aggressive nature of Syria that gives into rather than resists American pressures. When the U.S. threatens, it backsteps; when we relent, it goes back on the offensive.
Americans worry that captured terrorists have proper Korans and are allowed traditional grooming. Arab jailors immediately shave the traditional beards of those they arrest.

Saudi Arabia claims to be our ally, but its Wahhabi roots are so deep and its oil revenues so vast that much of its multilayered ruling class could not cease its support for jihad even if it wished. We forget that their 'war against terror' is a war against Muslim terrorists who attack Muslims — not necessarily against Muslim terrorists ("militants") who attack Westerners.

Some claim that anti-Semitism is an exaggerated charge, yet the jihadists blame the Jews, not just Israel, instinctively.

Westerners also worry about collateral damage; the terrorist Ibrahim confesses that military operatives routinely count on falsely claiming civilian casualties.

See? You just gotta love your enemies when they tell the truth.

But, predictably the Left doesn't want to hear our enemies tell the truth:

Arab reformers, few though they are, most certainly don't blame the West for the misery of the Middle East. Instead, they confess that the Arab world itself is parasitic: "Western governments, reformers say, should question why curriculums are so weak and why Arab societies contribute nothing to the world's scientific or technological advancements."

In the words of one persecuted novelist Turki Al-Hamad, "The problem is not from the outside, the problem is from ourselves; if we don't change ourselves, nothing will change."

In the United States, we are told that we have created terrorists. Saudi liberals would beg to differ. So the theologian Al-Maleky confesses, "If Wahhabism doesn't revise itself, it will produce more terrorism."

Free-thinking Arabs refute all the premises of Western Leftists who claim that colonialism, racism, and exploitation have created terrorists, hold back Arab development, and are the backdrops to this war.

Indeed, it is far worse than that: Our own fundamentalist Left is in lockstep with Wahhabist reductionism — in its similar instinctive distrust of Western culture. Both blame the United States and excuse culpability on the part of Islamists. The more left-wing the Westerner, the more tolerant he is of right-wing Islamic extremism; the more liberal the Arab, the more likely he is to agree with conservative Westerners about the real source of Middle Eastern pathology.

Well, if the liberal Westerners are telling us they agree with the Islamic extremists, then we ought to listen. You just gotta love your enemies, when they tell the truth.

Thursday, June 16, 2005

Iran

It's Time To Change

From National Review:

Iran's people face yet another faked election this Friday, with eight candidates for president, all handpicked by the regime, facing off in a tragic parody of democracy.

The parody is obvious. Hundreds of other candidates were disqualified well before the vote by the Council of Guardians, including every single woman who sought to run. The Council of 12 radical clerics, desperate to maintain the absolute rule of the clergy, was careful to allow only candidates they could count on to tow the line if elected.

Whoever wins on Friday, the regime wins. At least, that's the way the mullahs have it figured.
The tragic side of this Friday's elections can be felt in the thirst of the Iranian people for freedom, and their mounting frustration with the indifference of the international community, including the United States, to their appeals for help.

Two weeks ago outside of Paris, I spoke with Abolhassan Banisadr, the Islamic republic's first (and only) freely elected president. He was deposed in a coup in 1981 and has been a target of assassination by regime hit teams ever since. Banisadr told me that internal tracking polls conducted by the regime, leaked to his supporters, showed that the regime's own interior ministry expected voter turnout to be around 27 percent. Banisadr is calling on his supporters inside Iran to boycott the elections.

In Tehran, where anti-regime protests have erupted all week, turnout is expected to reach a scant five percent.

As Iranians realize that the mullahs have no intention of allowing elections to infringe on their absolute power, calls for a massive boycott have come from virtually all factions of the Iranian opposition.

Groups that normally oppose each other, from monarchists to the center-left National Front, have joined together in their calls for a boycott.

Mohsen Sazegara, a founder of Iran's Revolutionary Guards who became disenchanted with the regime and has been jailed twice for speaking out against clerical rule, has called on Western governments not to recognize any government issued from these elections. If the elections themselves are illegitimate, he told me in Washington last month, anyone who comes to power through them will also be illegitimate.

But the mullahs have a scheme. This past Sunday, bombs killed ten persons in Ahwaz and Tehran. The regime has blamed opposition groups, but pro-democracy advocate Sardar Haddad tells me the regime has a track record of staging violence to further its own ends.

"They want an excuse to get the army out on the street to put down anti-regime demonstrations as the elections approach," he said. "The last thing they want, with all the international media now in Iran, is for thousands of demonstrators to be photographed protesting the regime."

Iranians are united in their thirst for freedom, says Roozbeh Farahanipour, a leader of the July 1999 student uprising now living in the United States. Speaking to a pro-democracy rally on the National Mall last weekend that was sponsored by Citizens United, Farahanipour applauded the Bush administration for "speaking out against the lack of freedom and human rights in occupied Iran."

But he and other pro-democracy fighters want us to do more. "We need real help, tangible support from the world's sole super power," Farahanipour said.

How can the United States help?

First, by recognizing the struggle of Iranians for freedom. The administration should denounce the murderers of dissidents, and applaud the freedom fighters, and we should call both heroes and villains by name. In facing tyranny, we must demonstrate clarity of purpose and identify evil where we see it.

Second, the U.S. should encourage other democratic nations to join in refusing to recognize a new government in Iran issued from undemocratic elections.

Third, as Farahanipour and others have suggested, we should massively fund the pro-democracy movement inside Iran.

As the clock of Iran's nuclear-weapons program ticks steadily closer to midnight, we have very little time to accelerate the pro-democracy clock.

And yet, failure to invest heavily in freedom — say, by spending $100 million this year — could cost us far more down the line, both in treasure and in lost American lives.

With its new nuclear capabilities, the clerical regime has become a clear and present danger for the United States. We have very little time to get this right.

Durbin Says America
Is Like Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot
All Rolled Into One

From the Washington Times:

The Senate's No. 2 Democrat has compared the U.S. military's treatment of a suspected al Qaeda terrorist at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay with the regimes of Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Pol Pot, three of history's most heinous dictators, whose regimes killed millions.

In a speech on the Senate floor late Tuesday, Minority Whip Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, castigated the American military's actions by reading an e-mail from an FBI agent.

The agent complained to higher-ups that one al Qaeda suspect was chained to the floor, kept in an extremely cold air-conditioned cell and forced to hear loud rap music. The Justice Department is investigating.

About 9 million persons, including 6 million Jews, died in Hitler's death camps, 2.7 million persons died in Stalin's gulags and 1.7 million Cambodians died in Pol Pot's scourge of his country.

No prisoners have died at Guantanamo, and the Pentagon has acknowledged five instances of abuse or irreverent handling of the Koran, the holy book of Muslims.

After reading the e-mail, Mr. Durbin said, "If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others -- that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners."

I just got this new job. I get up early and go down to East Los Angeles with a group of men. We all wear black uniforms. We round up immigrants and herd them onto trains. I'm not sure where they are going, once we send them off. I know it's something about work camps.

Immigrants need jobs, so it seems like a good idea to me, even if they don't want to get on the trains.

Attention Europeans: Come Help Us, Please

From Medienkritik:

A while back, David made mention of an NDR (North-German Broadcasting, a state-owned public broadcasting organization) report entitled "Patriotische Gefuehle: Die Medienszene in den USA" or "Patriotic Feelings: The Media Scene in the USA". The report is such a classic, textbook example of how the German media reports and distorts facts about the United States that it is worth a much closer look.

We started by translating the entire report into English exclusively for our readers. That can be viewed here.

Part 1: Christoph Luetgert's Sordid Stadium Story

As proof of the "Bush clan's" enormous, "all-encompassing control" and influence throughout America, we are presented with NDR-Chefreporter (NDR executive reporter) Christoph Luetgert's assertion that, as a German journalist, one is required to call the White House to receive permission to film Texas Rangers stadium. The report states:

"How large the influence of the Bush clan is in the entire country was also experienced by a German TV journalist. The Texas Rangers Stadium in Texas. The club did not want to grant permission to film.

Christoph Luettgert*, NDR executive reporter: “When we made a request there we were told that we had to ask the White House for permission. I mean, that is an outrageous story. That would be something like if I wanted to film in the soccer stadium of FC Bavaria Munich and the club managers of Bavaria Munich would say to me I have to first call and ask at the Chancellor’s office in Berlin. I mean such an all-encompassing control, well such an all-encompassing censorship is unimaginable in Germany.”

When Davids Medienkritik contacted the Texas Rangers we were told that, with few exceptions, camera crews from anywhere in the world are permitted to film at Texas Rangers stadium with the permission of the Texas Rangers media relations office. This simple process involves the camera crew contacting Texas Rangers media relations, making an appointment and sending in copies of their journalistic credentials. That’s it.

The primary exception to the rule would be filming a game in progress, something not allowed without the express written consent of Major League Baseball. This is standard operating procedure not only at Texas Rangers stadium, but at all Major League Baseball stadiums in both the United States and Canada. (Anyone who has ever watched or listened to a baseball game on television or radio knows this because it is repeated during every game.)

As a trained, experienced journalist, Mr. Luetgert must have known that it would have been easily possible to film at Texas Rangers stadium, or virtually any other sports stadium in the United States, without White House permission. So why does he make it seem otherwise? Why does he intentionally misrepresent the facts by omitting important details?

Luetgert tells his audience that his experience is comparable to a journalist wishing to film a major German soccer stadium being told to contact the German Chancellor's office for permission.

In so doing, Mr. Luetgert and NDR have created a patently false and sweeping impression in the minds of the German audience: Namely, that foreign journalists working in the United States wishing to film a sports stadium are forced to request permission directly from the White House.

President Bush is ridiculously portrayed as having an iron grip on filming at all American sports stadiums. This is reinforced by Luetgert's closing assertion that: "such an all-encompassing control, well such an all-encompassing censorship is unimaginable in Germany."

Clearly, this is no innocent mistake or oversight on Mr. Luetgert's part. It appears to be an intentional misrepresentation of the facts in an attempt to deceive the audience to achieve the desired negative image of the United States and President Bush.

Yes, this is a totalitarian society. George Bush has taken over all industry, the media, technology, even the baseball teams. There is not real private ownership allowed in the United States anymore.

Attention German citizens: We Americans need you help. George Bush is a dictator. Please send troops and get us out from under his jackboot. We are terrified, living in a constant state of anxiety, in fear for our very lives.

They've started to round people up and take them away on trains. We don't know where they take them.

Help us, please. You Europeans are our only hope.

Playing Chess With Death

From Fjordman:

Even more news from Sweden's third largest city, Malmö, the evolving tragedy of failed immigration policies and runaway crime rates. Set to become the first major Scandinavian city with a Muslim majority a few years from now, it is the horror story in the ongoing collapse of Swedish society.

The politicians in charge are shot at by neo-Nazis. While the authorities have even started experimenting with all-Arabic preschool classes paid for by the Swedish state, nothing seems to stop the chaos from spreading in Malmö's schools, or indeed in other urban areas in Sweden.

En dansker i Sverige recently wrote about a high school teacher in Malmö, Sweden, who discovered that about a dozen Arab students were laughing and shouting "Allahu Akbar!" while watching a DVD of infidel hostages being beheaded in Iraq. The headmaster didn't think the incident was such a big deal.

At least 139 schools in Sweden suffered arson attacks during 2002 alone. Such as an incident in Malmö, where three schools were put on fire during one night. "Teenage boys" are suspected to behind the arson. Björn Vinberg from the fire department in Kroksbäck in the Malmö area says it's humiliating and degrading to put out fires again and again in the same immigrant areas, with school kids laughing at them and lighting a new one just afterwards. His colleagues have been to the same place no less than twenty times, all totally unnecessary.

The Swedish Radio programme 'Kaliber' reported on Sunday that "almost all" Islamic schools and congregations in Sweden have contacted potential sponsors in Saudi Arabia. Many of these Saudi foundations ask for influence in return. However, an expert thinks the chances are slight that violent organisations will gain a foothold in Sweden's muslim communities.

Meanwhile, concern is raised over how racist Swedes are.

Moloch In London

From This Is London, via Drudge:

Boys from Africa are being murdered as human sacrif ices in London churches.

They are brought into the capital to be offered up in rituals by fundamentalist Christian sects, according to a shocking report by Scotland Yard.

Followers believe that powerful spells require the deaths of "unblemished" male children.

Police believe such boys are trafficked from cities such as Kinshasa where they can be bought for a little as £10.

The report, leaked ahead of its publication next month, also cites examples of
African children being tortured and killed after being identified as "witches" by church pastors.

The 10-month study was commissioned after the death of Victoria Climbié, who was starved and beaten to death after they said she was possessed by the devil.

The aim of the Met study was to create an "open dialogue" with the African and Asian community in Newham and Hackney. In discussions with African community leaders, officers were told of examples of children being murdered because their parents or carers believe them to be possessed by evil spirits. Earlier-this month Sita Kisanga, 35, was convicted at the Old Bailey of torturing an eight-year-old girl from Angola she accused of being a witch.

Kisanga was a member of the Combat Spirituel church in Dalston. Many such churches, supported mainly by people from West Africa, sanction aggressive forms of exorcism on those thought to be possessed.

There are believed to be 300 such churches in the UK, mostly in London.

The report was put together by an expert social worker and lawyer for the Met after talking to hundreds of people in African communities in a series of workshops. It uncovered allegations of witchcraft spells, child trafficking and HIV-positive people who believe that by having sex with a child they will be "cleansed".

An extract reads: "People who are desperate will seek out experts to cast spells for them.

"Members of the workshop stated that for a spell to be powerful it required a sacrifice involving a male child unblemished by circumcision. They allege that boy children are being trafficked into the UK for this purpose."

It adds: "A number of pastors maintain that God speaks through them and lets them know when someone is possessed. "It is therefore their duty to deliver the child or adult from the evil spirit.

Last month Scotland Yard revealed it had traced just two out of 300 black boys aged four to seven reported missing from London schools in a three-month period.

The true figure for missing boys and girls is feared to be several thousand a year.

The scale of the problem emerged through the murder inquiry following the discovery of a child's torso in the Thames in September 2001. The identity of the victim, named Adam by police, is not known but his background was traced to Nigeria. It is believed he died in a ritual sacrifice.

John Azar, who helped the police on that inquiry, told Radio4's Today programme that the known cases could be "the tip of the iceberg".

Police working on the Adam case have found children are being sold to traffickers on the streets of major African cities for less than £10 and then smuggled into the UK. The children arrive in London armed with false documents and accompanied by adults who believe they will bolster their asylum claims.

A Met spokesman said: "We undertook a project aimed at improving our knowledge of issues impacting child abuse within the African and Asian communities of London. The aim of the project was to open a dialogue within these communities and encourage a debate which would help reduce the risks of harm to children."

The report says there is a wide gulf between these communities and social services and protection agencies with many people in ethnic communities scared to speak out.

The report concludes police face a "wall of silence" when dealing with such cases.

Experts differ on the merits of the Scotland Yard report. Dr William Les Henry, a lecturer in sociology at Goldsmiths College, said aspects of the reports were pigeonholing crimes together and were patronising and racist.

He said: "When we think about these cases we can see the same kind of patterns of behaviour in European cultures but they are interpreted in completely different ways.

"This is one of the crises with social sciences anyway, when they are supposedly interpreting the folk ways or cultural habits of alien cultures." He said that the models such reports are based on are that "Africans are less civilised, less rational".

But Dr Hoskins said: "This is very detailed, qualitative report that actually comes out of the communities.

"This is not white people saying this. This has actually comes from the communities authored by people in the community and that really stymies the racist line." He added: "We are dealing with real cases here. When you actually talk to them, these are hard and fast facts.

"So I don't think we are getting wrong, but it is right to treat it sensitively."
He believes vulnerable people are being manipulated by spiritual leaders.
"This is absolutely what is going on. They are often very vulnerable, poor people.
"It is people in positions of power and money that are manipulating poor people."

I guess it's very hard for the experts to look at this. It doesn't fit their paradigm. If they can't call it racism, it must be class warfare. How about just understanding that when people move from one country to another, they bring their culture with them, and the English society is not a magic pill that automatically makes people behave like Westerners.

The one question that always seems to be left out of the immigration debate is, what exactly is the process of assimilation? How do people become assimilated? I believe the answer has to do with a ratio of experiences.

If a person moves to another country, but he lives in a ghetto area, and his experiences are still only with people from his previous culture, then he will not assimilate. But, if he has experiences with the new culture, he will begin to assimilate. I believe that, at some point, the ratio of experiences with the new culture, to experience with the old culture, will bring about a kind of tipping point.

Now, if this is true, and I am convinced that it is, then it means that immigration must be conducted at a certain (as yet undefined) level. Once the ratio of immigrants to total population rises to a certain point, then the immigrant population has enough force to maintain their culture within the new culture.

If England, America, and Europe want to continue on with our policies of unrestrained immigration, then we ought to get used to the idea of the habits of Africa, South America, and the Middle East taking up root in our culture. More child sacrifice, more neglect of education, and more Jihad.

Pre-Futurism:
Scientists Learn To Make Blood From Stem Cells

From Reuters:

MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Australian scientists say they have found a way to make blood cells in volume out of human master cells, which could eventually lead to production of safe blood cells for transfusions and organ transplants. Synthetically produced red blood cells would, in theory, overcome the concerns about dangerous infections that can be transmitted from blood donors to patients worldwide.

But researchers said it would probably take years for scientists to get to the stage where blood cells could be made in large enough quantities for transfusions.

"What would be nice is if it opens the possibility for the future of making large quantities of blood cells in a controlled environment which could be used to treat patients," said Andrew Elefanty, who led the research at Monash University in Melbourne.

Writing in the U.S. journal Blood, the researchers said they were able to turn human embryonic stem cells into red and white blood cells using a system that makes more blood cells more rapidly and more safely, with fewer animal ingredients, than others have done.

"The other thing we think is important is that the way we've made the cells develop into blood is something which could be applied to other types of cells as well," Elefanty told Reuters.

The team's system was able to stimulate the stem cells specifically into becoming red or white cells.

Note that line that says, "the way we've made the cells develop into blood is something which could be applied to other types of cells as well." What that means, and this is the exciting thing about stem cell research, is that scientists are discovering how to turn stem cells into the cells of various components of the body. In other words, they are learning to grow organs. This will mean that they will learn how to replace those parts of your body which break down.

Eventually, they will learn how to make your body do this spontaneously.

The aging process will change into something very different from what it is now. The reason you die is because everytime your body reproduces itself (when cells split), it reproduces an inferior copy of itself. Cells generated from stem cells are original cells. They are as close to new and perfect as the human body gets.

It appears that eventually scientists will learn to achieve something that will look like the indefinate prolongation of human life. Some humans may live hundreds and even thousands of years. That will give an awful lot of time to create mischief, huh?

We are no longer in the Postmodern age. We live in the age of the Prefuture.

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Gitmo Gulag?

Illinois Senator Dick Durbin has been quoted as comparing our treatment of the prisnors at Guantanamo with the Soviet Gulag...Now his comparisons may seem absurd on their face, but let's look a little closer at the evidence.

As Americans we are always questioning whether or not our government is using force in our name appropriately...So the question naturally arises...Are we going too far in our interrogation of terrorists...(a term that is slowly losing its impact)? Let me rephrase...Are we going too far in our interrogations of men who belong to a movement that revels in brutality, men who gleefuly slaughter innocent humans by way of sawing their head off on camera for a world wide audience with knives...multiple times. Men who rejoice when their comrades destroy the lives of thousands and their victims are forced to jump from towering buildings rather than be burned alive? Are we going too far in our interrogations of these men?

As American citizens we should critically examine the evidence.

Read this article from Time for a list of the horrible interrogation techniques used by our military on the 20th hijacker on 9/11 Al-Qahtani. Here is a brief glimpse of some of these clearly innapropriate techniques...

Pouring water on their heads. The HORROR!
It was probably Perrier or Dasani no less...don't laugh, I have seen just the threat of brand name water bring grown men to their knees.

Puppet shows: "According to the log, his handlers at one point perform a puppet show 'satirizing the detainee’s involvement with al-Qaeda.'" I just pray they weren't sock puppets, I can't even describe the utter devastation that results when sock puppets are used by well trained interrogators...it is indescribable. Just thank God you haven't had to witness such acts. We can only hope that Iran and North Korea aren't developing sock puppets at this very moment.

God Bless America: "He is taken to a new interrogation booth, which is decorated with pictures of 9/11 victims, American flags and red lights. He has to stand for the playing of the U.S. national anthem." What is wrong with him having to look at the victims of his insanity? I say he should also have to stand and sing along with Lee Greenwood's "Proud to be an American" on the hour every hour...that song may just bring them around to our side!

Waking them up with loud bursts of Christina Aguilera...I knew her music was good for something I just didn't know what.

The interrogation technique that apparently broke him down was the deplorable "Invasion of space by female." Imagine that? Pouring water, blasting Christina Aguilera and other forms of cruel and unusual punishment did not break him, but trying to defile him by putting a female in close proximity? He just couldn't take that anymore. Hey, I say if their Achilles heel is their deep seeded misogyny then use whatever means possible.

Major Media Endorsed Anti-Semitism
Jews Give Cancer-Juice To Palestinians

From Honest Reporting.com, via Atlas Shrugs:

In the wake of Newsweek's now-retracted Guantanamo Bay Koran toilet abuse story, Palestinian prisoners have floated their own version to the western press.

On June 7, The Scotsman headlined: 'Israeli Soldiers 'Desecrated Koran During Riot''. Reports on this unfounded claim from Israel's Megiddo prison (including these Associated Press and Reuters versions) included a refutation from the Israeli Prisons Authority, but the media-fueled rumors were enough to spark violent protests and public burnings of American and Israeli flags in faraway Muslim communities.

And now, this:

RAMALLAH, June 13 (Xinhuanet) -- Palestinian chief of Environment Authority Yousef Abu Safeya accused Israel Monday of glutting the Palestinian markets with carcinogenic canned juice.

"Such kind of drinks are specifically produced for the Palestinian consumers in the Gaza Strip." Abu Safeya told a weekly session of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC).

He pointed out that the Palestinian security services had recently seized a number of shipments, including canned juice containing a carcinogenic substance.

He added that the Egyptian authorities impounded two Israeli trucks carrying child toys polluted with carcinogenic and radioactive substances at the Rafah commercial crossing on the borders with Israel in March.

Abu Safeya also criticized the Palestinian judiciary department for allowing the import of second-hand Israeli commodities, including computer sets and other electric appliance.

Now, let's think about this. You are the Chief of the Palestinian Environmental Authority and you find out that Israeli's are killing your children with cancer juice and radioactive toys. So, you call a press conference and you let the world's media know about it. Oh yes, and you don't forget to complain the glut of Israeli computers and electronic appliances on the Palestinian market.

Does that make any sense? Doesn't that make you wonder what's wrong with our world? We live in an age when Anti-Semitic libels are published in major newspapers around the world. That means editors at newspapers think this is worth printing. They are intelligent enough to know that these things aren't true.

So, what's their motive?

It's bad enough that major government figures in the Palestinian Authority propagate such lies, but then the world's media listens to it, and deems it credible?

How? Really, how? How could anyone deem this to be credible?

If I called a press conference tomorrow and said Kofi Annan was trying to kill me, would that be considered credible enough to print in the newspapers of the world?

Honest Reporting goes on to report:

This rehashing of an ancient anti-Semitic blood libel appeared prominently on GoogleNews.

Throughout the Arafat years, Palestinian spokespersons fed similar items to the western press, such as claims Israel deployed radioactive uranium against Palestinian protestors, and Suha Arafat's accusation in the presence of Hillary Clinton that the IDF made 'extensive use of poisonous gas... which has led to an increase in cancer cases among women and children.'

A senior Israeli official said the cancer juice case reminds him of 'the same types of lies Yasser Arafat used to spread.' As documented in a JCPA report, those included accusations that Israel disseminated bubble gum that sterilized Palestinian girls and sent AIDS-infected prostitutes to infect Palestinian men.

We understand that Google uses an automated algorithm to filter news search results, but as HR has repeatedly indicated, this system is deeply flawed and lends itself to promulgating such absurd propaganda.

Comments to GoogleNews: news-feedback@google.com

UPDATE: A comment from Behind-the-Scenes:

I'm glad they reported that the P.A is making such allegations. The P.A makes up this propaganda, it's listened to by Palestinians and the world should know what kind of lies the P.A creates and propagates.

It's not that Palestinian allegations, those unfit for consumption outside the Arab world, shouldn't be reported on. It's that the article shouldn't seem to endorse the propaganda and should (in this instance) point out, for example, that he didn't display any of the "radioactive" toys and that the allegations were laughed off by Israeli spokesmen and condemnded.

Yep, Behind the Scenes is correct. Bad writing and thinking on my part. Thanks for the clarification.

See? They've Been Telling Us
And Now They Have Proof

Nope. No childishness on the part of Reuters. Nope. No media bias either. Nope.

Hat tip: LGF

Europe? Why Bother?

From the International Herald Tribune:

Has Europe become a sideshow? Sometimes it is clear when things come to an end. At others, the lines of history are blurred, less demarcations than smudges.

So it is in a Europe today that does not know if the dominant and fruitful postwar idea of "ever closer union" is now dead. How they will respond to the French and Dutch rejection of a proposed European constitution is unclear, but it is a safe bet that muddling through will be the favored course. The 25-member Union will not unravel.

Already, Europe is viewed with a cynicism often bordering on contempt in some American circles. The neoconservative view of the Continent - feckless, wimpy, legalistic, aging, tired - is well known.

But even among more mainstream Republicans, and within the Democratic Party, there are those for whom Europe poses one question above all: Why bother? At a recent meeting here of the Council for the United States and Italy, a group that brings together influential folk from both sides of the Atlantic, America's often withering view of Europe was as clear as the light on the lagoon.

That view may be summarized as follows: a Continent reluctant to spend on defense, offering only "postmodernist" armies useful enough as peacekeepers but next to useless as warriors, given to earnest blah-blah about the pre-eminence of international law, inhabited by a declining and evermore aged citizenry living in overregulated economies that have not shown significant growth for at least five years.

Contrast that image with another offered at the meeting: that of an India growing at over 7 percent a year, inhabited by more than 500 million people under the age of 25, busy buying hundreds of advanced aircraft, convinced that armies are still created to fight, churning out English-speaking high-tech graduates by the million each year, and persuaded by Islamic terrorism that its strategic goals and America's are often identical or at least complementary.

So, which of these parts of the world is more worthy of the attention of the United States? Which is a compelling affair: the intensifying and fast-changing relationship with India, or the largely stagnant alliance with Europe that served above all a cold-war strategic challenge now overcome?

Beyond India, of course, lie other issues demanding of U.S. attention.

China, with its own growth story and welter of staggering statistics that suggest its challenge to American supremacy must be taken seriously.

A low-intensity Iraqi war that has already taken a significant toll.

The attempt to ignite and manage a democratic transformation of the Middle East that is portrayed as central to long-term American security.

In this world, Europe slips down the list. It often looks more complicated than compelling. It is sufficiently split, sufficiently stable, and sufficiently stalled for back-burner treatment to seem most appropriate.

I think the writers perspective is interesting, for it's sheer foolishness.

The idea that Europe is a sideshow to the real world at this point looks true when viewed in the light of recent events. But, that's similar to answering a call from a lifelong friend and saying, "I haven't heard from you lately. What relevance do you have to my life?"

I'm not saying Europe and the United States are the best of friends, but, when one takes into consideration the size of the Euro economy, the fact that Europe does still innovate, the reality of the lingering paradigm of European cultural imperialism, we can see that this is not just the world of America and her enemies.

I believe Europe will once again be a force to be reckoned with. Europe will not remain a sideshow for long. The question is, will Europe help or hurt the cause of freedom.?

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Emergency Broadcast Service
Sign of the Apocalypse?
What the ...?

The weirdest thing just happened. The Emergency Broadcast Service just broke into the local NPR radio station (my wife insists on listening to NPR) and announced a Tsunami Warning for California.

You read it right. A FREAKIN' TSUNAMI.

I seriously doubt we are going to have a tsunami.

But, just in case, I'm getting my surfboard and heading down to the beach.

The Press Is Everybody

From Atlas Shrugs:

FEC Commissioner Bradley Smith has said during an interview with Tech Central

We need to make clear that bloggers are press, these are periodicals and people update them regularly; that the first amendment does not only apply to people who are members of the National Press Club, that it is not limited to people who have a little press card in their hat band like some 1930s movie.

The press is everybody; every citizen has a right to publish his views and to promote his views and if the Internet is blurring a distinction between traditional media and just average citizens, I am not sure that's a bad thing. That's a good thing, a democratizing thing, it is exactly the type of thing that the reformers claimed for years to want. They ought to rejoice in it. That they don't is interesting in itself.

The Founding Fathers would love that.

Former Bush Administration Official Says
9/11 Could Be An Inside Job

From UPI, via Drudge Report:

Washington, DC, Jun. 13 (UPI) -- Insider notes from United Press International for June 8

A former Bush team member during his first administration is now voicing serious doubts about the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9-11.

Former chief economist for the Department of Labor during President George W. Bush's first term Morgan Reynolds comments that the official story about the collapse of the WTC is "bogus" and that

it is more likely that a controlled demolition destroyed the Twin Towers and adjacent Building No. 7. Reynolds, who also served as director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas and is now professor emeritus at Texas A&M University said,

"If demolition destroyed three steel skyscrapers at the World Trade Center on 9/11, then the case for an 'inside job' and a government attack on America would be compelling."

Reynolds commented from his Texas A&M office, "It is hard to exaggerate the importance of a scientific debate over the cause of the collapse of the twin towers and building 7. If the official wisdom on the collapses is wrong, as I believe it is, then policy based on such erroneous engineering analysis is not likely to be correct either. The government's collapse theory is highly vulnerable on its own terms. Only professional demolition appears to account for the full range of facts associated with the collapse of the three buildings."

What?

If Amnesty International Believes Guantanamo Is A "Gulag"
They Are Compelled To Call For Was On America

This will probably be the thing I post on the Guantanamo Bay "Gulag." Here, from the Jawa Report, is the best explanation of why Amnesty International was not only wrong in their assessment, but also incredibly offensive:

As I've said many times, the main problem with comparing Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo, Cuba, to the Soviet gulags is not so much that it drastically overstates what is happening to prisoners in the US War on Terror, but that it such comparisons minimize the utter horror of the Soviet gulags.

My post on the subject is here.

The same minimization occurs when you compare [insert unliked political figure here] to Hitler or [insert perceived problem here] to the holocaust. Some crimes and criminals are so far beyond infamy that to compare any one or any thing to them does a grave injustice to their victims. Comparing Camp X-Ray to gulags is immoral and disgusting because it is an insult to the tens of millions of victims who died under the horrible opression that was the gulag system.

UPDATE: Let me also add that using such terminology is also immoral for consequentalist reasons. If you really believe that Bush = Hitler then, as a moral being, aren't you compelled by conscience to do something about that? Isn't it your moral obligation then to attempt to assasinate the President?

If you answer no, then either

a) you don't really believe Bush = Hitler or

b) you are a moral idiot.

But if you answer yes....You see where this is going?

For this reason I have, in the past, called on the government of the U.S. to bomb al Jazeera and have called Noam Chomsky a traitor. If you wish to make the case that the U.S. has some sort of equivelancy to the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany then you are also making the moral case for war against the United States.

The reason the jihadis fight the U.S. is not that they simply hate us, but that they believe the lies told to them by al Jazeera and the Leftist Western press. That is, they believe they are engaged in a moral struggle. They are the freedom fighters, we are the Hitlers!

Again, words have consequences.

The gulags were genocidal. If the U.S. is actually engaged in such a genocidal endeavor, then it would be the duty of all moral beings to resist--with force. Unless AI is willing to call for war against the U.S., I'd suggest they shut their pie holes.

I've known R.J. Rummel's work for some time in my professional capacity. His specialty is documenting state-sponsored genocide. Thanks to Dean Esmay for pointing out that Rummel is also a blogger. Here is an excerpt from his must read post on the subject of the gulags:

Overall, from 1917 to 1987, Gulag, including transit deaths, probably killed about 39,464,000 Soviet citizens and foreigners. Compare this 6,228.5 mile stack of corpses (assuming each corpse has a width of 10 inches), each a loving, self-conscious human being like you and I, to these totals:

Gulag = 39,464,000 murdered (democide/genocide);

All American executions 1864-1982 = 5,753 killed;

All the Americans killed in all its wars up to the Gulf War = 1,177,936 killed;

The killed in battle in World War I = 9,000,000;

Of World War II = 15,000,000;

All 20th Century international and domestic wars = 35,654,000 killed;

And all major wars 1740-1997 = 20,000,000 killed.

Now tell me again, Irene Khan and William Schulz of AI, that Guantánamo is like Gulag

Dr. Shackleford, the blogger at The Jawa Report is absolutely correct. I hope Amnesty International takes him up on his demand. I would enjoy being a soldier in a war against all the VW Van-driving, Bob Marley-listening losers at Amnesty International.

Women Writes Book About Islam
Italy Brings Her Up On Charges

From Front Page Magazine:

Oriana Fallaci is 75 years old. The renowned Italian journalist lives in hiding because of death threats she received after the publication in 2001 of her book The Rage and the Pride. She is dying of cancer. And now she is going to go on trial for “defaming Islam.”

The complaint comes from Adel Smith, president of the Muslim Union of Italy, who was never charged with defaming Christianity after he referred to a crucifix as a “miniature cadaver” during his 2003 efforts to have depictions of Christ on the Cross removed from Italian schools.[1] He has amassed a reputation as something of a crank after demanding that Christians deny aspects of their faith that offended his Islamic sensibilities: he has called for the destruction of Giovanni da Modena’s fresco The Last Judgment in the 14th-century cathedral of San Petronio in Bologna, Italy, because that priceless expression of Medieval Christianity depicts the Muslim Prophet Muhammad in hell.[2]

And in the mother of all frivolous lawsuits, Smith in February 2004 he brought suit against Pope John Paul II and Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, for offending Islam by expressing in various writings their opinion, utterly unremarkable from two Christian leaders, that Christianity is unique and superior to other religions, including Islam.[3]

A Christian Minister was convicted of such a "crime" in Australia. And another Christian Minister is up on similar charges in Holland. Britain's Parliament is entertaining legislation which would make it a crime to defame Islam.

Is this the future for Western Civilization?

Monday, June 13, 2005

My Daughter Playing Basketball With Her Friends

That's right. I'm teaching her not to accept the limitations placed on her by society. A woman can be whatever she dreams of being, because she is also God's child.

I'm so proud.

Time Magazine Praises Islamofascist Mosque

This week Time Magazine is running the news of the brutal treatment of Islamic detainees at Gitmo, including being forced to listen to Christina Aguilera records, and watch improvised puppet shows.

In the very same issue Time Magazine tortures United State citizens by forcing us to read a ridiculous appraisal and sanitization of an Islamic school/Mosque in Bridgeview, Illinois.

Time calls it a model school. Truth is it is a model Islamofascist facility which preaches hatred of the United States and celebrates terror attacks.

Read the truth at Little Green Footballs.

Here's what Egyptian blogger Big Pharoah has to say about Time Magazine's piece:

I couldn’t stop laughing when I read Time’s account of the Universal School in Bridgeview, Illinois. My fingers got swollen from typing the blog posts that foretold the changes I expect to occur in Egypt if the Muslim Brotherhood got powerful. Well, my torture is over now. If you want to know how a typical school will probably look like under a MB state, all what you need to do is visit Illinois!

And in case you didn’t know, Illinois is a state in the USA and not a rural village in southern Egypt.

Frankly speaking, I shouldn’t be laughing really. I should be weeping because the Western mainstream media is telling the world that the only true faithful Muslims are those who wear the stupid cloth on their head (that was nonexistent 30 years ago) and separate boys and girls in schools.

I should be weeping because Time magazine is showing us that only girls clad in black with no makeup on are the true Muslims who are struggling between their Islamic and their American identities.

Meanwhile, those Muslims who disagree with the head veil, who think that Islam needs reform a la all major faiths, and who believe that we cannot live like our Muslim brethren did 1400 years ago are the “lesser Muslims” or the Muslims that are “out of the mainstream”.

Well, actually, I shouldn’t blame the western mainstream media. I should be blaming the fact that our Martin Luthers are persecuted and voiceless. They are so weak that their voices cannot be heard in the midst of the loud sound of Wahabism and MB ideology.

Question; why does anyone subscribe to Time Magazine?

Arabs Muslims Criticize
Islamofascist Incitement in The West

From Middle East Media Research Institute, via Front Page Magazine:

Dr. Ahmad Abu Matar wrote: "The presence of Muslims of all nationalities, and especially those of Arab nationality, has become a palpable phenomenon in all of the EU countries, and in Western Europe in particular. In some of these countries, like France, for instance, they number more than five million, and in many countries they have centers, institutions, and activities that they cannot sustain in their own Arab and Muslim countries."

As an example of activities conducted in the West that are not permitted in Arab countries, Abu Matar mentioned the Islamic Liberation Party, which "announces from London its political platform –to establish the Islamic caliphate over all corners of the earth – and declares that the party will suggest to the Queen of England that she convert to Islam, and thus will not have to pay the Islamic poll tax on non-Muslims [jizya]."

As another example he cited the activities of Abu Hamza Al-Masri, the imam of Finsbury Park Mosque in London, who called for jihad and suicide bombings in Palestine, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The third example he gave is the thousands of mosques and Islamic charitable organizations in Europe and America that publicly collect contributions, and in addition, receive annual budgets from European countries.

"The European citizen has begun to feel that Europe has become a target for Islamic terrorism, particularly of the Arab type, because of the crimes he has witnessed – in reality, and not in the imagination or in a horror movie. Even screenwriters and directors of horror movies wouldn't conceive of some of these actions.

... the actions are accompanied by a theological doctrine [elaborated] by those who claim to speak in the name of over a billion Muslims, and especially the triumvirate of Bin Laden, Al-Zarqawi, and Al-Zawahiri.

"None of the Arab or Muslim religious legal authorities responded to them or cast doubt on their legitimacy as representatives of Islam. On the contrary, there are fatwa s from scores of ulama supporting these actions..."

Another example is an open letter published by Ayman Al-Zawahiri in the summer of 2003, encouraging Muslim youth to attack European and American targets. "This immoral incitement," says Abu Matar, prompted the murder of the Dutch cinema director Van Gogh in November, 2004, by a young Dutchman of Moroccan origin.

... the new generation has fallen under the influence of extremist fundamentalists who interpret Islam as they see fit, and also because enlightened scholars and intellectuals haven't made a parallel intellectual effort to counter the extremist and deviant intellectual efforts of the fundamentalists."

"In their extremism, [the fundamentalists] are preventing the new generation of Muslims from internalizing the principles of freedom and enlightenment that have existed in European societies for over a century.

"[This enlightenment] enabled European societies to develop in every sphere and led to the humanistic tolerance that made Muslim presence in Europe possible....

"[In contrast to] this [Western] tolerance, Christians living in Arab countries have been forbidden for generations to build churches, except within [the framework of] tiresome conditions, and especially in Egypt – the land of the [Christian] Copts.

Sometimes You Just Gotta Love Your Enemies

From Front Page Magazine:

"IT IS PERHAPS the first great insurrection against global systems, the form of revolt that is the most modern and most insane." With these words, the French philosopher Michel Foucault hailed the rising tide that would sweep Iran's modernizing despot, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi Shah, out of power in January 1979 and install in his place one of the world's most illiberal regimes, the Shi'ite government headed by Ayatollah Seyyed Ruhollah Khomeini.

Foucault wasn't just pontificating from an armchair in Paris. In the fall of 1978, as the shah's government tottered, he made two trips to Iran as a "mere novice" reporter, as he put it, to watch events unfold. "We have to be there at the birth of ideas," he explained in an interview with an Iranian journalist, "the bursting outward of their force; not in books expressing them, but in events manifesting this force, in struggle carried on around ideas, for or against them."

While many liberals and leftists supported the populist uprising that pitted unarmed masses against one of the world's best-armed regimes, none welcomed the announcement of the growing power of radical Islam with the portentous lyricism that Foucault brought to his brief, and never repeated, foray into journalism.

"As an Islamic movement it can set the entire region afire, overturn the most unstable regimes, and disturb the most solid," Foucault wrote enthusiastically. "Islam — which is not simply a religion, but an entire way of life, an adherence to a history and a civilization — has a good chance to become a gigantic powder keg, at the level of hundreds of millions of men."

You gotta love you enemies when they tell the truth, but it's an amazing confluence of events (akin to the proverbial monkey accidentally typing the Bible) when they not only tell the truth, as they see it, but are also absolutely correct, as Focault was in this case.

Modern Primitives

Someguy from Mystery Achievement has an amazing post today, excerpting a portion of an article by Psychologist Dr. Robert Godwin, who analyzes Islam based upon a premise that mankind is on a course of psychological evolution akin to the physical evolution described in Darwin's theory. Dr. Godwin believes that the religion of Islam actually negates the force of evolution and creates a culture in which little progress is achievable.

Never before have I seen such a blitzkrieg destruction of an ideology as that which Godwin puts forth here. He leaves no stone unturned. Here's just a litte bit of the Mystery Achievement portion of the excerpt:

It is a natural mistake to assume that radical Islam is opposed to the West only in terms of some definable thing that we are doing, such as "defiling the holy soil" of Saudi Arabia with our armed forces. Rather, what we are again primarily dealing with is a clash of psychoclasses, in which the fundamentalists object to the very form of our thought - a form of thought that makes possible such things as democracy (because it values individuation from coercive group fantasies), formal operations, scientific thinking rational economic development, equality of the sexes, and modernity itself.

In short, it is a battle between the cognitive/ emotional past and present of the human species, no different than if we had somehow entered a time warp and were fighting the barbarian hordes of Genghis Khan. The problem is that the West, in developing beyond the childish mythological stage, has in fact discovered a universal, scientific epistemology that, because it is universal, contradicts the particular mythology of any group, not just Muslims.

As expressed by Gress, this universal way of knowing must be employed if one wishes "to know, make, or do. For example, the airplane did not fly because its pilot was Christian, Muslim, Confucian, or any other faith, but because of the science of aerodynamics."But this very universality is an affront to the fundamentalists, because it is a disturbing reminder that all knowledge and truth have not been revealed in the Koran.

Yet, the terrorists seem to be untroubled by the fact that they cannot create, only parasitize the know-how of others. As put by V. S. Naipaul, there is almost a comic inability of the fundamentalists to come to grips with their confused ambivalence toward the West, a "civilization that couldn't be mastered. It was to be rejected; at the same time it was to be depended on."

Even when logical, formal operations thinking is employed by the terrorists, it is in the service of perverse paranoid-schizoid envy and sadism, so that they have no interest in designing planes, only crashing them; building magnificent skyscrapers, only destroying them; curing disease, only spreading it.

The very real problem we are facing is an adversary with a dangerous combination of primitive psychological development but access to sophisticated weapons and technology that their level of cognitive integration could never have produced on its own. If it could have, the human race would have been extinguished several thousand years ago by barbarians with weapons of mass destruction.

Dr. Godwin then goes on to diagnose Islamic culture with a kind of narcissistic personoality disorder which he says leads to a primitivist anti-Semitism:

Since the events of September 11, we have all become aware of the paranoid anti-Semitism so central to the Middle Fast world view, where it is widely believed that the Israeli Mossad crashed the planes into the World Trade Center. The father of one of the terrorists, Mohammed Atta, blamed a Jewish conspiracy, just like the mother of the prime culprit in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, who told a reporter, "this is from the Jews, who have done this and blamed my son."19

One of the hallmarks of the paranoid style is a distorted conception of the power of the fantasized enemy. At times, the enemy is seen as an omnipotent, tireless, demonically competent adversary, while at other times the same enemy is felt to be weak, decadent, and on the verge of collapse. Likewise, the image of one's own self (or country) may vary between a godlike supremacy and a terrible, childlike vulnerability, with no ability to integrate (or even notice) these contradictory images.

Thus, the fundamentalists believe that Zionism is a bloodthirsty, expansionist conspiracy bent on world domination. For example, the cartoon-like charter of the PLO reads that Zionism is a "constant source of threat" to the entire world, "racist and fanatic in its nature, aggressive, expansionist and colonial in its aims, and fascist in its methods," "strategically placed" to combat Arab liberation and progress. During a recent weekly televised sermon, a Palestinian cleric taught that among the evil deeds of the Jews was the Holocaust itself, which was "planned by the Jews' leaders, and was part of their policy."25

Similarly, the charter of Hamas, the Islamist terrorist group, informs us that wealthy Zionists have taken over "control of the world media . . . they stood behind World War I. . . . They also stood behind World War II . . . They inspired the establishment of the United Nations and the Security Council . . . in order to rule the world by their intermediary"21 and "liquidate Islam."

But at the same time, Jews are seen as corrupt, feeble and morally weak. For example, an Egyptian high school textbook noted that Israel "shall wither and decline. Even If all the human race, and the devil in Hell, conspire to aid her, she shall not exist."22

Either way, "these charges against the Jews so exceed the plausible, they point not to a way of dealing with the world as it is, but to a mental condition; not to an objective set of conditions but to an imaginary construct. "23 In fact, one of the very real problems that prevents development (both psychological and economic) in the Middle East is the preoccupation with hatred toward the Jews. Instead of engaging with reality over the past fifty years, the Arab world has had "more pressing things to do - first of all, to defeat Israel Prosperity could follow."54

The fundamentalists hold the same type of contradictory attitudes toward themselves -- on the one hand, like bin Laden, believing in the superiority of a unified Islamic nation destined, with the aid of Allah, to triumph everywhere and impose its will on the rest of the world. This brittle, completely unrealistic "cultural narcissism" is undoubtedly rooted in the type of childrearing discussed by deMause, in which all boys are inculcated with an unearned superiority over girls.

Because this spurious gender superiority is sanctioned by holy writ 25 rather than reality, it creates a weak and unstable narcissistic self-regard that is easily bruised and injured. Thus, according to Pipes, "Fundamentalist Muslims tend to see Islam as a fragile growth easily imperiled by the acts of its enemies."

Just like an individual with a narcissistic personality, the same narcissism that makes Islam regard itself as so special and superior also makes it believe that it is the number one target of envious conspirators. The Ayatollah Khomeini, for example, saw women's suffrage as a Jewish plot "to corrupt our chaste women," and was so threatened by an obscure novel that he ordered its author be assassinated in order to protect Islam.

Just recently, it was widely believed throughout the Arab world that Pokemon cards were part of a Jewish conspiracy to corrupt Muslim youth, and that Jews had come up with a "special formula" for AIDS, with which Israeli women could infect Egyptian men without harming themselves.26

The story of the Pokemon cards is reminiscent of the movie The Gods Must Be Crazy, where a Coca Cola bottle falling out of the sky is viewed as a sign of some conspiratorial power from beyond. In the case of the movie, the power was benevolent. The truth of the Primitive view of life is that they rarely experience the world as benevolent. Instead their world view is driven by fear of the unseen forces lying around the next corner. Yeah, the Jews must be crazy, huh? Well, whoever created Pokemon cards was, that's for sure.

Question Day on CUANAS, Part 1

Today is question day on CUANAS. My brain is pretty much empty these days. All I have are questions.

One of the subjects I have been thinking about is the American economy; specifically, our "trade deficit", and our trade relationship with China.

Tom, at the Kafir Constitutionalist is pretty sharp on this subject, so I decided to send an email over to him, which went a little bit like this:

Hey Tom,
I want to get your perspective.

Does it hurt the US economy to have the type of trade relationship we have with China? Is there any wisdom in our relationship with China? Will our current relationship necessarily help the Chinese to become more capatalist?

When we buy cheap goods from China and sell them at Wal-Mart, is that a net gain, or a net loss for the American economy?

Of course, I understand we have a trade debt with China, and I understand that that's a drag on our economy, but what I'm wondering is will that help China to become more capatalist in the long run? And, really, every crappy TV we sell at Wal-Mart helps to employ American workers, right? Would it be a better allocation of American labor for us to use our workforce to build crappy TVs?

It seems to me, only so much of the economy can go into "productive" labor as opposed to "service" labor. In order for people to be involved in "productive" labor, they need to have a brain, because what America produces now is technology.

If we look at things in this way then we can also see every secretary, payroll person, and janitor at Microsoft as a "productive" worker.

Do you see what I mean?

Basically, if America is in the business of high-tech these days rather than the steel business, or the car-manufacturing business, then there will be less "productive" laborers because it takes more brains to be "productive." But, the average "productive" laborer produces a widget which is worth more than a hundred thousand cars, in economic terms and also in terms of what it means as a building block to future progress.

In other words when all we were doing was manufacturing steel and cars, there was not much progress initiated, but when we produce the "widgets" of the high-tech world we are producting intellectual building blocks which necessarily will lead us to produce other intellectual building blocks.

When looked at this way, all the service workers are supporting the "productive" econom, and are therefore part of the productive economy.

Am I making sense?

Oh by the way, I also asked Tom for his perspective on these two questions:

1) What is the origin of evil?

2) What is the unifying, or first principle, of all evil?

Question Day on CUANAS, Part 2

Today is question day on CUANAS. I have a bunch of questions, so I am sending them off to people who I believe will have interesting answers.

Now, let me warn you, when I am in "question" mode, I am also in crappy writing mode. It's hard to write well when you don't really understand your subject matter.

First I sent the following questions to Someguy over at Mystery Achievement. He might not think they are questions worth giving much thought to, but maybe some readers will offer their perspective as well. Or, maybe the act of my having written the questions out, will help me in formulating answers in the future. Anyway, here are the questions, and some of the thought processes behind the questions:

I'm giving serious thought to some ideas I have never entertained before. Would love to have your input. These might be old ideas to you or new, but I'd just love to see what your opinion would be.

1) Does evil always opposes freedom, or does evil always support slavery?

2) Can we recognize evil precisely because it is always in support of slavery

I have commented repeatedly on Mystery Achievement that freedom is the "first principle." I said that this was because before anything else (in other words before the Torah, before sin,) God created us in His Image, which means that we are

1) Free, and

2) that we have imagination, and

3) that we are creative.

Here's another idea (new to me) that I'm entertaining;

3) socialism supports slavery

I know that is an old idea, but socialism hasn't seemed so dangerous to me in the past. Now, of course, we see the socialists all have trouble getting on board with helping the Arabs set up democracy. Why?

Well, the only explanation I can come up with (since I really believe that most of them are anti-racist in their hearts, or at least they would like to think they are so much so that they would go to almost any length to prove that they are) is that they are caught up in some evil which is opposed to freedom.

Of course, number three means that "socialism is evil." I never thought of Socialism as evil before. Socialism has always seemed like a necessary fix in the system of Capitalism to me. What I mean by that is, when something goes wrong in the Capatalistic system, we need to plug the hole, so we put a little socialist fix in there. But, the problem is we just keep adding more and more socialist fixes, and then we have a Socialist system, which impedes freedom, and chokes motivation.

Listen to what Abe Lincoln said,

"That is the real issue ... It is the eternal struggle between these two principle - right and wrong - throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the comon right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, "You work and toil and earn bread, and I'll eat it." No matter what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another reace, it is the same tyrannical principle."

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

My questions might seem naiive, by the way. You might have thought on this subject for years. Remember, I am a lefty who has simply been shocked into reality by the fact that my fellow lefties seem willing to support evil.

It breaks my heart.

PS: Oh, by the way, just so I am clear. I don't mean to say

that slavery is evil

To me, that goes without saying. I never had trouble figuring that one out.

I'm saying that Evil is Slavery.

Maybe another way to say it is that when we commit evil, or when we ate of the fruit in the Garden, the evil we did was to give away the Freedom that God had entrusted us with. In other words, we gave ourselves over to slavery. We sold ourselves. God had to buy us back.

Sunday, June 12, 2005

Iranian Women Protest Against Their Islamofascist Government - Protests are proceeding peacefully, as the eyes of the world are trained on Iran in the days leading up to the elections.

A Velvet Revolution In Iran?
America Must Support Those Iranians
Who Are Bravely Pushing For Regime Change

From Melanie Phillips:

A vitally important message was delivered in London yesterday by Dr. Ali Fatemi, a key player in the referendum movement now underway in Iran to overturn the theocratic despotism which runs the country. Dr. Fatemi is editor of iranvajahan.net, a site for in-depth analysis and commentary on Iran, and a professor of economics at the Business School at the American University in Paris.

In his view, Britain and Europe are missing the big story about Iran. The free world is (rightly) very concerned about Iran’s development of nuclear weapons, its sponsorship of terrorism and the part it is playing in the Arab/Islamist war against Israel. But what the world should realise is that the one and only thing which is a precondition for the eradication of those three evils is the overthrow of the terrorist regime that runs the country and its replacement by democracy.

The good news, says Dr Fatemi, is that the country is demanding just such a regime change. Students have issued a declaration from jail demanding a liberal democracy and the rule of law; they want a separation between mosque and state, adherence to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the emancipation of women and other similar good things.

More and more Iranians are saying this kind of thing openly, which is an extraordinary development given the terror under which they live. The weakness of the regime is palpable. But it will not yield unless the world puts pressure on it to do so.

And yet, shamefully and stupidly, the world is ignoring these courageous souls who are pressing for an end to the tyranny that governs their own lives and threatens the rest of the world.
The free world does not have to invade Iran to effect regime change, says Dr Fatemi.

All that needs to happen is for it to openly support and encourage the Iranian dissidents, and to tell the mullahs that unless Iran reforms itself it will be excluded from the community of nations, with trade sanctions and exclusion from international organisations. If in addition they were made an offer they couldn’t refuse of safe passage to a country of their choice, he says they would take it.

The alternative to this velvet revolution, he says, is a violent overthrow of the regime which, apart from the immediate carnage would probably in the short term throw up another despotism.

In the long term, he says, the Iranians will have their democracy; the forces of reform are now simply too overwhelming and unstoppable. One way or another, they will eventually overthrow the theocracy and institute a free society. The only question is whether this will be achieved peacefully or bloodily. And that is a choice for which the free world bears a considerable responsibility.

Apparently, many protests are proceeding peacefully in Iran in these days leading up to the election. But, many believe that is precisely because the eyes of the world are on Iran searching for some shred of real Democracy.

In other words, the Islamosfascist Mullahs are afraid to try anything, because, it will make them look bad.

What's Really Happening In Iraq
While The Media Concentrates
Only On Undermining America

From Atlas Shrugs:

Did you know that the Iraqi government employs 1.2 million Iraqi people?

Did you know that 3100 schools have been renovated, 364 schools are under rehabilitation, 263 schools are now under construction and 38 new schools have been built in Iraq?

Did you know that Iraq's higher educational structure consists of 20 Universities, 46 Institutes or colleges and 4 research centers?

Did you know that 25 Iraqi students departed for the United States in January 2004 for the re-established Fullbright program?

Did you know there are more than 1100 building projects going on in Iraq? They include 364 schools, 67 public clinics, 15 hospitals, 83 railroad stations, 22 oil facilities, 93 water facilities and 69 electrical facilities.

Did you know that 96% of Iraqi children under the age of 5 have received the first 2 series of polio vaccinations?

Did you know that 4.3 million Iraqi children were enrolled in primary school by mid October?

Did you know that there are 1,192,000 cell phone subscribers in Iraq and phone use has gone up 158%?

Did you know that Iraq has an independent media that consist of 75 radio stations, 180 newspapers and 10 television stations?

Did you know that the Baghdad Stock Exchange opened in June of 2004?

OF COURSE YOU DIDN'T KNOW...BECAUSE OUR MEDIA WON'T TELL YOU.WHY? BECAUSE THEY HAVE AN AGENDA...AN ANTI-AMERICAN AGENDA.Instead of shouting these accomplishments from every rooftop, they would rather show photo's of what a few perverted malcontent soldiers have done in prisons, in many cases never disclosing the circumstances surrounding the events.

Instead of showing our love for our country, we get photos of flag burning incidents at Abu Ghraib and people throwing snowballs at presidential motorcades.

The lack of accentuating the positive in Iraq serves only one purpose: to undermine the world's perception of the United States and our soldiers ...

This is just an excerpt. Go read the whole thing.

Don't Be A Dhimmi

An earnest Muslim writes into the Islamic website, Islam Q & A, with a question; is it permissable to insult a Christian who has defamed the Prophet? What do you think the answer is? From Jihad Watch:

Question : Is it permissible to respond to those who defame the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) by insulting the speaker, knowing that I insulted one of them and some of my relatives advised me not to do that again, because it will make them defame and mock him even more, so their sin will be on me?.

Answer : Praise be to Allaah.

Defaming the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) is a kind of kufr [unbelief]. If that is done by a Muslim then it is apostasy on his part, and the authorities have to defend the cause of Allaah and His Messenger (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) by executing the one who defamed him. If the one who defamed him repents openly and is sincere, that will benefit him before Allaah, although his repentance does not waive the punishment for defaming the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him), which is execution.

If the person who defames him is a non-Muslim living under a treaty with the Muslim state [i.e., a dhimmi], then this is a violation of the treaty and he must be executed ...

Go read the rest.

Indian Muslims ask a boy to urinate on a U.S. flag during a protest against the alleged desecration of the Koran during a demonstration in Calcutta May 20, 2005. (Yahoo News Photos)

Looks Like The Islamofascists Are Taking My Advice

Accidentally stepping on a Koran a "despicable crime?" Accidentally getting urine on a Koran? Even if these things were done on purpose they are not a crime in our society. And any society in which such things are a "crime" is a Fascist society.

If we have the right to burn the American flag in our country (and we should, and we do) then we ought to be able to urinate on the Koran.

It's called free speech in our part of the world. This is how we work here. We may not agree with what you have to say, but we will fight to the death for your right to say it.

I can not repeat myself enough on this issue (apparently). Go ahead, (if you want to) go down and buy a Bible and take it home and urinate on it until you heart is content. I don't care. That's your right here in America.

I don't want a society like yours. In fact, a large part of the reason we are fighting this war is because of exactly this issue. Your society is Fascist, and we don't believe anyone should have to live like you are forcing your people to live.

Time Magazine Tells Of Torture

Christina Aguilera music. "Invasion of Space by Female." Puppet Shows.

It's so devastating to learn of our moral failings, I just don't know what to say. Well, when we are left without words, I guess we can find solace in poetry. In this case, the poetry of 80's music:

This is not America
Sha la la la la
Blossom fails to bloom this season
"Promise not to stare too long"
For this is not the miracle

Snowman melting from the inside
Falcon spirals to the groung
For this is not America

Sha la la la la

- David Bowie (This is Not America)

Allah Has Tormented Us With The Jews

Thanks to the Anchoress for making me aware of this from Memri:

The following are excerpts from this week's official Friday sermon on Palestinian Authority (PA) TV. [1] The preacher is Sheik Ibrahim Mudeiris, a paid employee of the PA. Click here to view the sermon.

"Allah has tormented us with 'the people most hostile to the believers' – the Jews. 'Thou shalt find that the people most hostile to the believers to be the Jews and the polytheists.' Allah warned His beloved Prophet Muhammad about the Jews, who had killed their prophets, forged their Torah, and sowed corruption throughout their history.

"With the establishment of the state of Israel, the entire Islamic nation was lost, because Israel is a cancer spreading through the body of the Islamic nation, and because the Jews are a virus resembling AIDS, from which the entire world suffers.

"You will find that the Jews were behind all the civil strife in this world. The Jews are behind the suffering of the nations.

"Ask Britain what it did to the Jews in the early sixth century. What did they do to the Jews? They expelled them, tortured them, and prevented them from entering Britain for more than 300 years. All this was because of what the Jews did in Britain. Ask France what it did to the Jews. They tortured them, expelled them, and burned their Talmud, because of the civil strife the Jews wanted to spark in France, in the days of Louis XIX. Ask Portugal what it did to the Jews. Ask Czarist Russia, which welcomed the Jews, who plotted to kill the Czar - so he massacred them.

But don't ask Germany what it did to the Jews. It was the Jews who provoked Nazism to wage war against the entire world, when the Jews, using the Zionist movement, got other countries to wage an economic war on Germany and to boycott German merchandise. They provoked Russia, Britain, France, and Italy. This enraged the Germans toward the Jews, leading to the events of those days, which the Jews commemorat today.

"But they are committing worse deeds than those done to them in the Nazi war. Yes, perhaps some of them were killed and some burned, but they are inflating this in order to win over the of the media and gain the world's sympathy. The worst crimes in history were committed against the Jews, yet these crimes are no worse than what the Jews are doing in Palestine. What was done to the Jews was a crime, but isn't what the Jews are doing today in the land of Palestine not a crime?!

"Look at modern history. Where has Great Britain gone? Where has Czarist Russia gone? Where has France gone - France, which almost ruled the entire world? Where is Nazi Germany, which massacred millions and ruled the world? Where did all these superpowers go? He who made them disappear will make America disappear too, God willing. He who made Russia disappear overnight is capable of making America disappear and fall, Allah willing.

"We have ruled the world before, and by Allah, the day will come when we will rule the entire world again. The day will come when we will rule America. The day will come when we will rule Britain and the entire world – except for the Jews. The Jews will not enjoy a life of tranquility under our rule, because they are treacherous by nature, as they have been throughout history.

The day will come when everything will be relieved of the Jews - even the stones and trees which were harmed by them. Listen to the Prophet Muhammad, who tells you about the evil end that awaits Jews. The stones and trees will want the Muslims to finish off every Jew."

The Anchoress and her friend comment:

“The most frightening thing is to watch so many clean-cut, fairly normal looking men & boys in this happy congregation placidly absorbing the maniac’s “sermon” without the slightest dissent.”

Heck, they almost look bored, to me, like they’ve heard it a million times and are thinking, “yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s talk, let’s do something, already.”

A Note About Jihad Watch

I have long been an admirer of the work of Robert Spencer. His website Jihad Watch is a never closing eye trained upon the Islamofascist Jihad. Mr. Spencer reports the truth behind the evasions, slanders, and obfuscations reported in the mainstream media.

However, sometimes Robert Spencer reminds me of the policeman who has seen too much of the dark side of people. Sometimes Robert Spencer seems like he has no faith in our common humanity, which I believe was created by God.

For instance, Jihad Watch employs a man by the name of Hugh Fitzgerald who wrote the following on January 28th, 2005 (three days before the elections in Iraq):

The adventure in Iraq, which in its First Stage (the war to locate and destroy major weaponry and arms stores, and to overthrow one of the most sinister dictators around) was justified, in its Second Stage (bringing "democracy" defined merely as a counting of heads, which in turn will inevitably lead to --- what, exactly?) of the "Light-Unto-the-Muslim-Nations Project is a colossal misallocation of men, materiel, money ...

That's right, three days before the election in Iraq, Jihad Watch was calling for us to pull out. Whereas, I agree with George Bush that the desire for Freedom beats in the breast of every man, Jihad Watch seems to believe that evil ideologies will forevermore dictate the will of men once they give in to them. In short, I believe the light overcomes the darkness and Jihad Watch seems to believe that the darkness can win.

I have refrained from linking to Jihad Watch on my blogroll as a result of this basic philosophical disagreement. When Jihad Watch has presented information which I thought was important, I have linked to it through the links of other sites, such as Little Green Footballs. I have also linked to sites such as Gates of Vienna which also trains it's eye on the Islamofascist Jihad.

However, I must admit, no other site is as tireless as Jihad Watch. In fact, the only other group of people in the world who do seem to be as tireless as Jihad Watch are the Islamofascists themselves.

And, for this reason, as I sit and watch the Islamomaniacs redouble their efforts in Iraq, and kill more and more of their fellow Muslims everyday, I have decided to throw my hat in the ring with Jihad Watch.

Please understand that I do not agree with their all of their stances. However, I find them to be an accurate and necessary source of information. And for that reason, I want to thank Robert Spencer, and the other people at Jihad Watch, for their good work.

London Review Of Books Says Jews Control America

From the London Review of Books, via Belgravia Dispatch:

Eric Hobsbawm, writing in the LRB:

What is even stranger, I find myself in an assembly of political ghosts. Leaving aside the Chinese, who avoid public discussions, a surprising number of those who made the world-changing decisions of the 1980s are here. But those who run their countries today are absent. Nobody represents Putin’s Russia, Wolfowitz’s Washington, Schroeder’s Germany, or Blair’s Britain.

Paul Wolfowitz is Jewish for those of you keeping score at home. So, here you have an example of a writer for a prestigious British journal implying that America is controlled by the Jews.

I mean what else could he mean? And don't you think someone should have to answer?

A Rigtheous Muslim

The Jews have a phrase for those gentiles who helped out the Jews during the Holocaust. They call them Righteous Gentiles. Here's the story of a Righteous Muslim:

NAZARETH, Israel — No one talked to him at a recent family wedding, Khaled Mahameed says. Neighbors curse him at the supermarket. A relative accuses him of unwittingly playing into Israel’s hands.

The reason: this Israeli Muslim has embarked on a lonely mission to teach his fellow Arabs about the Holocaust, in which Nazi Germany put to death an estimated 6 million Jews.

Mr. Mahameed’s newly opened Holocaust institute in the biblical town of Nazareth is a modest operation, with occasional lectures. About 60 photos documenting the genocide mounted on the walls. But the effort is highly unusual if not unique in the Arab world, where the Holocaust often is played down or even denied.

One photo shows a Nazi officer pointing a gun to the head of a Jew who squats at the edge of a mass grave. “Men like this man settled our land,” Mr. Mahameed told five Arab visitors recently. “We have to understand the very deep trauma of this man.”

Mr. Mahameed, 43, thinks that learning about the Holocaust could help Arabs understand Israel better and ultimately resolve the Middle East conflict.

A few of his neighbors have expressed support for his museum, but it has provoked strong opposition among Palestinians who say Israel used Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler’s genocide as an excuse to take Arab land.

Underlying this dispute is competition over victimhood, said Tom Segev, an Israeli author on the Holocaust. “Arabs often feel that if they acknowledge the Holocaust, they give up their claim of being the real victim of this conflict,” Mr. Segev said.

The Shot Heard Round The World?
Bomb Targets Islamofascist Government of Iran

A few months back I posted a declaration, which I saw on Regime Change Iran, from a group of people calling themselves The 70 Million Peopl of Iran. The declaration was both a call and a warning to the existing Islamofascist governement of Iran that they have until June 17th to leave the country:

An open letter submitted by the opposition inside Iran to the government of Iran and to the world leaders and media.

To the Government of the Islamic Republic in Iran,

We, the 70 million people of Iran, hereby joyfully and unequivocally declare that your time has come to an end, and we demand that you submit to the will of the Iranian people and peacefully surrender the power to its rightful owners, the people of Iran, immediately.

We no longer consider you our legitimate government and hereby warn all foreign governments that all transactions, and contracts signed with this government after June 16, 2005, will be null and void.

No longer will we stand idly by. The end of one of the most bloody, brutal and totalitarian regimes is OVER. You can choose your own destiny.

We will give you what you never gave us, a chance to flee. Either you leave peacefully or you will face our wrath and judgment.

Your own meaningless and rigged elections will be your undoing. You have until the 16th of June, 2005 to return power to the people, and forever leave our beloved Iran.

Should you be so unwise to stay, on the 17th day of June, the Election Day, we shall prepare for your demise as we stay at home, once again, to declare our solidarity.

Beginning on June18th and every day thereafter, we shall strike like a furious flood to cleanse our nation from your filthy existence.

The day I posted this declaration (in a post I titled The Iranian Declaration of Indepenance?), it was pointed out to me that the source of the document was, apparently, a group of expatriats based in Los Angeles. The question became, do they really represent a group of people with the political power and will to effect the changes they threaten, or are they simply a group of fools shooting off their mouth.

I hope for the former and fear the latter.

This declaration has haunted me. I think about it almost every day. What if it's really true? If it is, then the world is in for some huge changes, and some extraordinary drama over the course of the next few months. What will George Bush do to help? What will Europe do? Will Russia and China try to squash the will of the Iranian people? Will Russia and China stand against the US attmpts to help the Iranian people?

Today there is a news report of a large bomb exploding in Tehran, targeting the government. Could this be the first shot? A warning shot, targeting the Mullahs?:

TEHRAN, Iran - At least eight people were killed and 36 others injured Sunday in four bomb explosions that targeted government buildings and officials in southwestern state-run television reported.

At least four women were among those killed in the explosions in Ahvaz, capital of the southwestern Khuzestan province which borders Iraq. The blasts were the deadliest explosions in Iran in more than a decade.

Gholamreza Shariati, deputy provincial governor for security affairs, said perpetrators were seeking to undermine public participation in Friday's presidential elections.

Television pictures showed the blast sites with heavily damaged buildings and blood on the ground. The force of the explosions also damaged cars in the streets. Shariati said 36 people, including eight police officers, were injured.

Following the first three blasts, experts had tried to defuse a fourth bomb but failed, and it exploded.

Ahvaz was the site of two days of violent demonstrations in April after reports circulated of an alleged plan to decrease the proportion of Arabs in the area. Officials at the time confirmed one death but opposition groups said more than 20 demonstrators had been killed. Some 250 were arrested.

The protests were sparked after copies of a letter allegedly signed by Vice President

Mohammad Ali Abtahi circulated in the area. The letter ordered the relocation of non-Arabs to the Ahvaz to make them the majority population. Abtahi denied writing the letter.

Arabs make up about 3 percent of Iran's population, Persians account for 51 percent and other minorities comprise the remainder.

Bomb explosions have been a rare occurrence in Iran since the end of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.

Just because government official, Gholamreza Shariati, said perpetrators were seeking to undermine public participation in Friday's presidential elections, doesn't mean that was the purpose of the bomb.

One question I have about this news story is, if the bomb was targeting the government building, why did it apparently hit so many innocents?

It's hard to understand what is going on from the outside. Hopefully, we will get more clear information soon.

UPDATE: Go to Regime Change Iran for more info. Iran

Saturday, June 11, 2005

Huffington Blog Says Jews Control America

You may have heard, a few weeks back, about the big, big, big, launch of the Arianna Huffington blog. (Snore). Anyway, I ignored it, because, well, I've never paid any attention to anything Arianna Huffington has ever done.

But, while I've never been interested in her, I never really disliked her. And I certainly wouldn't have expected her to employ and publish anti-Semites. Well, I was wrong. Check this out:

What do you do when the war you’ve started is increasingly unpopular, costly, and inimical to American interests in the region? Why, start another one of course!

The neocons who control our foreign policy are getting bored with Iraq – been there, done that – and have now set their sights on Iran and Syria. You can hear the tom-toms beating with the introduction of such legislation as the “Syria Accountability Act” (already passed) and the “Iran Freedom Support Act” (pending), calling for economic sanctions and other punitive measures just as in the prelude to war with Iraq.

Oh yeah, the idea of holding Syria accountable for the fact that they are allowing their border to be used as a weapon against the United States in the war on Iraq, is just ridiculous, huh?

The nerve of Bush; holding Syria accountable. But, you know what? Bush doesn't control American foreign policy according to Raimondo. No. It's the Jews.

If you click on the word "neocons" you will be taken to another piece Raimondo wrote, which is a prime example of paranoid Jewish Conspirathink:

... the foreign policy of the world's only global power is being made by a small clique that is unrepresentative of either the U.S. population or the mainstream foreign policy establishment.
The core group now in charge consists of neoconservative defense intellectuals.

Inside the government, the chief defense intellectuals include Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense. He is the defense mastermind of the Bush administration; Donald Rumsfeld is an elderly figurehead who holds the position of defense secretary only because Wolfowitz himself is too controversial.

Others include Douglas Feith, No. 3 at the Pentagon; Lewis "Scooter" Libby, a Wolfowitz protégé who is Cheney's chief of staff; John R. Bolton, a right-winger assigned to the State Department to keep Colin Powell in check; and Elliott Abrams, recently appointed to head Middle East policy at the National Security Council.

Most neoconservative defense intellectuals have their roots on the left, not the right. They are products of the influential Jewish-American sector of the Trotskyist movement of the 1930s and 1940s. Their admiration for the Israeli Likud party's tactics, including preventive warfare such as Israel's 1981 raid on Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor, is mixed with odd bursts of ideological enthusiasm for "democracy." They call their revolutionary ideology "Wilsonianism" (after President Woodrow Wilson), but it is really Trotsky's theory of the permanent revolution mingled with the far-right Likud strain of Zionism. Genuine American Wilsonians believe in self-determination for people such as the Palestinians.

The neocon defense intellectuals, as well as being in or around the actual Pentagon, are at the center of a metaphorical "pentagon" of the Israel lobby and the religious right, plus conservative think tanks, foundations and media empires.

The major link between the conservative think tanks and the Israel lobby is the Washington-based and Likud-supporting Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (Jinsa), which co-opts many non-Jewish defense experts by sending them on trips to Israel.

The Israel lobby itself is divided into Jewish and Christian wings. Wolfowitz and Feith have close ties to the Jewish-American Israel lobby. Wolfowitz, who has relatives in Israel, has served as the Bush administration's liaison to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Feith was given an award by the Zionist Organization of America, citing him as a "pro-Israel activist."

See, all these neoconservatives are Jews, you got that? And they are the puppetmasters who pull the strings of "figureheads" like Rumsfeld and Cheney, and Bush himself.

But, Raimondo isn't the only anti-Semite Huffington deems worthy of publishing. Check this out (Hat tip Little Green Footballs):

As Condoleezza Rice once said: "We have an Israel-centric foreign policy." How true. Our forces invaded because Israel wanted us to topple Saddam. Two religious communities--one consisting of a combination of secular and ultra-Orthodox Jews and the other of misguided Christians fundamentalists--control U.S. Middle East policies. Both believe their messiahs will come only when present-day Israel is strong and united. Until our government is liberated from those lobbies, we face big trouble.

Charles at LGF reminds us of this little gem from Findley:

... a nauseatingly anti-Semitic article by “Paul Findley, a Representative from Illinois 1961-83,” sweetly titled: Liberating America from Israel. The first sentence is all I have the stomach to quote:

Nine-eleven would not have occurred if the US government had refused to help Israel humiliate and destroy Palestinian society.

It's really sad that the Jews can control America, but they can't get Arianna to go away.

Picket Sign with Photo of Indonesian Maid Who Was Beaten by her Saudi Slavemasters

Slavery In The Modern World

Usually I don't post about the bad behavior of a person or a family, because it could simply be an aberration. But, let's look at this story and compare it to some other. From Little Green Footballs:

AURORA, Colo. - A Saudi Arabian couple was in custody Friday, accused of turning a young Indonesian woman into a virtual slave, forcing her to clean, cook and care for their children while she was threatened and sexually assaulted.<