As the Bush administration winds down, Democrats are actually increasing their attacks. It’s like Wile E. Coyote just found out ACME was going out of business, and he only has two days left to catch the Roadrunner.
Democrats are especially unhappy about Bush's success in Iraq. That's because they were wrong when he was right, and because he stepped up in a way they never would. In the closing hours they're redoubling their lying claims that Bush lied and broke the law to get us into Iraq, and repeating as often as they can that, in spite of apparent successes in Bush's “so called war on terror,” we still aren’t any safer.
Applying myself to this logic, I’ve spent some time trying to imagine how the world would look come Inauguration Day 2009 (aka “The Moment”), had we not made things so much worse by deposing Hussein. These are only a few things that would be much better now if we had only listened to Joe Wilson:
ITEM: Saddam would still be Dictator of Iraq (or “President of a Sovereign Iraq” as he is described in Middle Eastern studies departments).
ITEM: CNN would still be able to broadcast from Iraq, in exchange for slavish willingness to lie about Saddam’s popularity and his brutal methods of maintaining control.
ITEM: Instead of 17 UN resolutions Saddam would be disregarding, there would now be 25 or 30, still a low number compared to what’s been piling up against Israel.
ITEM: Uday and Qsay would still be in line to succeed their father, guaranteeing what the State Department calls “stability” in the region, and what sane people call “rape and murder” for thousands of female Iraqis and their spouses, for decades to come.
ITEM: Iran, still feverishly working on getting the Bomb, would now have Saddam and his nuclear scientists next door to provide a “balance of power” in the region, a “stabilizing” factor considering the last war between these two bitter enemies--even without nukes--cost 300,000 dead and possibly 1-2 million casualties, or, as Reuters might report, was nearly as bad as the recent Israeli invasion of Gaza.
ITEM: The economies of the West Bank and Gaza would still be benefitting from Saddam’s $25,000 payouts to the family of every suicide bomber.
ITEM: Jacques Chirac, Kofi Annan and his son, and myriad other international parasites, would still be receiving illegal Iraqi oil credits in exchange for applying pressure through the UN to get rid of sanctions “containing” Iraq.
ITEM: By now, the sanctions/”containment” regime (long since denounced by the world as “American genocide against Iraq”), would have been lifted, with a resulting flood of medicine, foodstuffs, and dual-use technology flowing into the grateful hands of a small number of Baathist black marketeers, Saddam’s weapons scientists, and none of his people.
ITEM: The Shias in Iraq would not be suffering power outages as they sometimes do now, because Saddam would still be excluding them from the power grid.
ITEM: The Kurds in the North would not be suffering power outages as they sometimes do now, because Saddam would still be excluding them from the power grid.
ITEM: 28 million Iraqis would not be squabbling over political power as they do now, because they would be supporting Saddam’s re-election with 100% of the vote.
ITEM: Iran would not be forced to carry the burden of being the only Islamic nation in the region strong enough to wipe Israel off the map, as Saddam would still be able to make the same threats, too.
ITEM: Rather than suffer sectarian and religious divisions, Iraq’s Shia, Sunnis, Christians, and Kurds would all be united in the common national purpose of cringing in fear of the arbitrary madness of Saddam Hussein and his idiot sons.
ITEM: Rather than being forced into unemployment by colonial American powers, the Iraqi Revolutionary Guard would still be intact, and hard at work carrying out its duties of suppressing the Iraqis, punishing the Kurds, assisting in tortures and murders, having liaisons with al Qaeda, and firing anti-aircraft weapons at U.S. planes enforcing the No-Fly zone in the south for the 16th year in a row.
ITEM: Libya’s madman Khadaffi would not have been so “troubled” by U.S. actions in Iraq that he impulsively gave up his nuclear program.
ITEM: Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal, in his guest suite at the Saddam House International Inn, would not have become so “troubled” by U.S. actions in Iraq that he shot himself in the head six times.
ITEM: Saudi Arabia would still be graciously welcoming the infidel U.S. Military (NO BIBLES OR CROSSES!) on Allah’s soil, as protection against another invasion from Saddam.
ITEM: We would not be hated by Frenchmen for our adventurism in Iraq. Instead, we would only be hated by Frenchmen for our liberation of their country in 1944 and 1914,
ITEM: We would not be hated by every Third World member of the United Nations for our adventurism in Iraq. Instead, we would only be hated by every Third World member of the United Nations for supporting Israel.
ITEM: Abu Ghraib prison, instead of becoming the notorious setting for prisoners forced to get naked or wear underwear on their heads on direct orders of Dick Cheney, would preserve its solid but little-known reputation as a place where Saddam’s torturers cut off people’s hands, tongues, heads, or genitals, and nailed their tongues to boards, and as the place where 30,000 Iraqis were murdered--but at least no one would have his junk pointed at by a girl soldier.
ITEM: Instead of Iraq becoming a gathering place for poorly trained al Qaeda operatives from throughout the Ummah, (“troubled” by U.S. actions in Iraq), and who promptly get martyred at the hands of coalition forces within days of arriving, the AQ fighters would have remained in their home countries, peacefully training, plotting, studying in madrasses, no threat to anyone or “troubled” by anything we’re doing (except maybe that military base in Saudi thing, or the support for Israel thing, or the infidel thing, or the 72 virgins thing, or the Crusades thing).
ITEM: Instead of America’s image abroad being that of a “cowboy nation” that “goes to war at the drop of a hat,” we would still be enjoying our immense pre-9/11 popularity as a “paper tiger” who either ignores terrorist acts of war, (out of sympathy for “root causes”), or defers to “international law,” (the UN Security Council) to guarantee our interests abroad and the safety of our homeland.
ITEM: Instead of exposing our “kids” in the armed forces to risk of death in combat in a war of liberation, we settle for exposing our “kids” in the armed forces to risk of being murdered abroad defenselessly in their barracks, on shipboard, or in discothèques or embassies by cowardly terrorists convinced we will never fight back.
ITEM: Seeing the logic of moral giants like Susan Sarandon (“What did the Iraqis ever do to us? (sob)”), we would not only refrain from invading Iraq, but we’d also promptly withdraw from Afghanistan and let it revert to the Taliban, because, to be fair, the Afghanis didn’t attack us on 9/11, either-- nor did the Taliban. Those hijackers were a lot of Saudis, a couple Egyptians, a Lebanese, and a guy from United Arab Emirates. America would thereafter try out a simpler, “fairness-based” terrorism policy by which we would only punish nations that actually produced terrorists who attacked Americans. But once we realized we’d still have to invade Iraq, in addition to Lebanon, Egypt, the West Bank, Gaza, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Syria, Iran, Jordan, Pakistan, the UAE, Qtar, Somalia, Indonesia, and probably France, Canada, and Denmark, this short-lived policy would be revised so we could just let the UN tell us what we can do, the way they do with population control.
ITEM: Instead of relying on “cowboy diplomacy” as a defensive posture, America would have adopted the much less threatening “helpless townsperson” defensive posture. This entails State Department personnel gathering in coveralls and slouch hats, wringing their hands and wondering forlornly "when someobody’s going to do something about them goldurng Dalton brothers?" Inexplicably, neither the French nor the Arabs hate us any less when we act this way.
ITEM: During Hurricane Katrina, 150,000 troops who weren’t being wasted on national defense in Iraq would have been available to be deployed to New Orleans to stop a Force 5 hurricane. During the much larger rescue operation that would have become necessary when 150,000 soldiers became stranded as a result of being deployed below sea level in the path of a Force 5 hurricane, not to mention confusion caused by the headlong abandonment of the city by the New Orleans Police Department, the nation learns to its shame that race is still a very potent factor in the slow response to the rescue of minority troops. Jesse Jackson demands to know why the armed forces weren’t deployed out of the country where it was safe.
ITEM: Had we not invaded Iraq in March 2003, the media and Democrats, not one day later than April 1, 2003, would have begun denouncing the war in Afghanistan as a “quagmire.” They would dub it “Bush’s war,” “endless,” and “lost.” They would complain that it had already lasted longer than American’s involvement in World War I. They would charge that Afghanistan caused us to “take our eye off the ball” in the war on terror. They would say bin Laden was in Pakistan, not Afghanistan, so why weren't we at war there?
Monday, January 19, 2009
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Islam's Just that Old Time Religion
Thanks to Islam in Action for this story from Broward County, Florida:
Fifty of the county’s 290-bus fleet have been chugging around area streets for the past several weeks with a message that might seem more oblique than inflammatory. Black letters on a white backdrop proclaim, “ISLAM: The Way of Life of Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad.”Joe Kaufman is a writer for FrontPage Magazine and spokesperson for Americans Against Hate, who lives in Coral Springs, FL, and is trying to get the ads pulled down. “The group says the ad is misleading because it implies that Abraham, Moses and Jesus were Muslim.”
The $60,000 ad was paid for by the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
The ad certainly does imply that. And I couldn’t disbelieve it more. There’s no way that Jesus of Nazareth was a Muslim. Nor Abraham, nor Moses.
But I don’t agree that it’s misleading, necesssarily. Islam does teach that all human beings are born Muslim:
The Prophet Muhammad said, “No babe is born but upon Fitra (as a Muslim). It is his parents who make him a Jew or a Christian or a Polytheist.” (Sahih Muslim, Book 033, Number 6426).Which proves not only that Mohammed was Allah’s Prophet, but that he was the inspiration behind the National Education Association, which also believes that every child’s worst influence is its parents.
But to return to my point, as a religious claim, even though I consider the statement about Abraham and Jesus untrue, I don’t think it’s misleading. It doesn’t misstate what Islam actually teaches, exactly. (Okay, it's somewhat misleading, but I'm trying to make a point here).
On the other hand, the truth of the statement: “Islam is a religion of peace,” is another kettle of severed heads all together. That's misleading, and qualifies as the whopper of the 21st century.
Regardless, as someone who believes that the Constitution forbids the government from weighing in on the truth or falsehood of any religious claims, I’m going to have to say that I don’t think the Broward County Transit people should take down the ads just because Jews or Christians don’t believe the message is true. The government is not in the business, in fact is forbidden, from testing the truth of religious claims.
I also wouldn’t support them pulling down Christian ads saying that Jesus is the Way the Truth, and the Life, just because Jews and Muslims don’t accept that as true, or because others find it deeply hurtful, like all those delicate suburban ACLU contributors who find it physically upsetting to think there’s a bus rolling around the inner city somewhere with a message on it that excludes them.
I’m with Kaufman all the way in wanting people reminded that CAIR is a terrorist-supporting organization, and an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case of sending millions on charity donations to Hamas. CAIR’s response to Kaufman's charge on that is typical:
“As to CAIR's alleged ties to Hamas, Ali said: ‘There is no credible evidence that that is true. Unindicted means unindicted.’”Ooh, well played, Ali. Oh, and wouldn't “co-conspirators in contributing to Hamas” also mean “co-conspirators in contributing to Hamas”?
But I digress. The issue is religious bus advertising. And I think Kaufman is a bit off-base to rally to “send a message right to the commission that it’s not right to legitimize this organization.”
Because in this context "legitimize" only means to sell ad space for a religious message. Now, naturally, the commission is going to try to wimp out and ban all religious advertising:
"We have restrictions on cigarettes and adult entertainment, and we should eliminate religious ads hereafter,” County Commissioner Suzanne Gunzburger said at Tuesday's commission meeting. Or at least print a health warning!
My suspicion is that CAIR, as crafty as they are cagey, are placing the ads to exploit the serious--and tragic-- confusion in many black Christian communities about the relationship between Islam and the Christian gospel (namely, that they are mutually exclusive).
Many black clerics have taken to conflating disparate religions, religions that can’t rationally be admixed together, in order to increase the reach of their own private huckstering operations. (I’m not picking on blacks, nor all black clerics, many of whom are straight down the line. I simply haven’t seen anything like this among white evangelicals. When white evangelicals go off the rails, they usually rocket directly into the New Age clouds).
The usual recipe in the black religious community is a spoonful of Christianity, a few pinches of Islam, and 3 quarts of radical Democratic politics, maybe with some black liberation theology thrown in. This syncretic approach is why Baptist ministers can say that it’s time to “move beyond theology and embrace” people like Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Moving beyond theology is the only way a Baptist can embrace Farrakhan. The problem is that once a Baptist has moved beyond theology, all he has to teach his flock is a lot of incoherent gibberish.
One of my favorites examples of men of the cloth “moving beyond theology” is the Rev. William Revely. I wrote about him in December 2007:
Sure enough, he calls himself “a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement with Dr. King.” He is pastor of Holy Hope Heritage Baptist Church in Detroit, But though a Baptist he somehow straddles Christianity and radical Islam as an active supporter of the public antics of Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan.See what I mean? I noted the same problem here: Detroit Clergy Look Forward to Ecumaniacal Embrace of Nation of Islam and here: When it Comes to Role Models, Allah Knows Best.
(If you're a Christian and you think that’s not possible, Rev. Revely also supports Rev. Moon’s Unification Church, as revealed in his testimony at a Moon event last January, where “He commented that Jesus himself was not a Christian and that it is Rev. Moon’s movement that is truly bringing all peoples of faith together.”)
Personally, I’m not sure which of the false gospel being peddled to the literacy-challenged residents of Broward County is more upsetting: the one that says Jesus was a Muslim, or the one that say Obama is the Messiah.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Detroit: So Ghetto'ver It Already
For those of you hoping that Obama’s election, whatever else it might mean for the future of the Republic, at least will start to lower the sea levels of racial victim politics, I have to report the levels are holding steady in Detroit.
According to the Detroit News, (“Remarks topple Detroit's top lawyer”), Detroit’s corporation counsel, Kathleen Leavey, a white woman, has been forced to resign. Why? Because she mentioned that the city’s 36th District Court, affectionately known in the legal community as a “zoo,” was “acting like a ghetto court” in its sloppy handling of a legal matter it had with the city. Leavey said later she called the court that
But the court administrator to whom Leavey made her "ghetto" remark was black, and, perhaps newly filled with the Holy Ghost after the election of Barack Obama, immediately decided Leavey’s comment was racist. And then Chief Judge Marilyn Atkins, who is also black, decided that the comment was both racist and unforgiveable. Atkins wrote a letter to Leavey, (so far not released to the public), in which she stated that:
Clearly, Obama’s election accomplishment notwithstanding, Atkins still feels she needs to use her office to enforce a race-based administrative philosophy. (Were the racial mix reversed, Atkins’s letter would be exhibit A in a race discrimination claim against the city. You can't tell workers "because we're all one race and you're different, you aren't free to speak").
When Atkins warns Leavey that “you’d better think before you talk,” she uses as her basis the fact of dramatic African-American progress in both local and national government, the high-point of which is “an African-American about to become president.” So why the heavy hand?
It’s like Obama's election means the tables have turned, but we all have to keep playing the same damned game. Instead of hearing, “I’m offended and because we're victims, now you have to pay,” are we now going to hear; “I’m offended and because we’re on top now, now you have to pay”? This doesn't sound like change and progress. It sounds like getting even. (Did I mention Marilyn Atkins is a Chief Judge?).
Atkins’s behavior certainly doesn’t signal that she looks forward to greater racial harmony and a healing of old wounds. Obama’s election notwithstanding, she thinks it's her duty to increase racial hypersensitivity, not lessen it, and lay down more stringent punishments of white people for perceived racial foo-poos.
Even if I believed that Leavey’s use of the word “ghetto” was a sin, (maybe because it’s a scintilla of an emanation of the penumbra of the n-word--but then how come no one fired Elvis for using it?), even if it were, for the life of me I can’t imagine how Atkins decides she can refuse in advance to accept an apology even if one were offered.
After all, Atkins can afford to be big. Because she's absolutely right about the predominance of African-Americans in Detroit government. Leavey is one of the few, the very few, white people working in a high position in the city, and it’s ludicrous to imagine that, even if Leavey harbored racial animus against the race of persons she's been surrounded with her entire professional life (which I don’t believe), not the city nor the 36th District Court, nor the concrete interests of any black person in Detroit face the slightest risk simply because Leavey used the word “ghetto.”
This kind of maximum pique by Atkins is especially uncalled for from her position as a chief judge in, as she puts it, “a predominantly African-American court in a predominantly African-American city with an African-American about to become president.”
Don’t get me wrong and blah, blah, blah; but Atkins’s stubborn refusal to resolve this minor dispute sensibly is exactly the kind of behavior that leads to so much strife and violence and lost opportunities--in the ghetto.
According to the Detroit News, (“Remarks topple Detroit's top lawyer”), Detroit’s corporation counsel, Kathleen Leavey, a white woman, has been forced to resign. Why? Because she mentioned that the city’s 36th District Court, affectionately known in the legal community as a “zoo,” was “acting like a ghetto court” in its sloppy handling of a legal matter it had with the city. Leavey said later she called the court that
“because of the way they treat people,” . . . referring to long lines for service that are common. “They treat people poorly ... whether you are black or white. You just get less service than you get in the suburbs. It's just a bad situation.”Indeed, the 36th DC has a well-earned reputation for horrible public service, ticket-fixing judges, and general incompetence--and when County Prosecutor Kym Worthy was prosecuting Kwame Kilpatrick, she "tried to have every judge in the court barred from hearing preliminary stages of the criminal charges against Kilpatrick because she claimed they were too entwined in his political machine."
But the court administrator to whom Leavey made her "ghetto" remark was black, and, perhaps newly filled with the Holy Ghost after the election of Barack Obama, immediately decided Leavey’s comment was racist. And then Chief Judge Marilyn Atkins, who is also black, decided that the comment was both racist and unforgiveable. Atkins wrote a letter to Leavey, (so far not released to the public), in which she stated that:
she was offended and that she would not accept an apology from Leavey even if she offered one. She also defended the court in the letter, saying it has a “positive reputation” in the city and that judges are hardworking and dedicated.
“You should really think before you speak, especially when referring to this court -- a predominantly African-American court in a predominantly African-American city with an African-American about to become president.”
Clearly, Obama’s election accomplishment notwithstanding, Atkins still feels she needs to use her office to enforce a race-based administrative philosophy. (Were the racial mix reversed, Atkins’s letter would be exhibit A in a race discrimination claim against the city. You can't tell workers "because we're all one race and you're different, you aren't free to speak").
When Atkins warns Leavey that “you’d better think before you talk,” she uses as her basis the fact of dramatic African-American progress in both local and national government, the high-point of which is “an African-American about to become president.” So why the heavy hand?
It’s like Obama's election means the tables have turned, but we all have to keep playing the same damned game. Instead of hearing, “I’m offended and because we're victims, now you have to pay,” are we now going to hear; “I’m offended and because we’re on top now, now you have to pay”? This doesn't sound like change and progress. It sounds like getting even. (Did I mention Marilyn Atkins is a Chief Judge?).
Atkins’s behavior certainly doesn’t signal that she looks forward to greater racial harmony and a healing of old wounds. Obama’s election notwithstanding, she thinks it's her duty to increase racial hypersensitivity, not lessen it, and lay down more stringent punishments of white people for perceived racial foo-poos.
Even if I believed that Leavey’s use of the word “ghetto” was a sin, (maybe because it’s a scintilla of an emanation of the penumbra of the n-word--but then how come no one fired Elvis for using it?), even if it were, for the life of me I can’t imagine how Atkins decides she can refuse in advance to accept an apology even if one were offered.
After all, Atkins can afford to be big. Because she's absolutely right about the predominance of African-Americans in Detroit government. Leavey is one of the few, the very few, white people working in a high position in the city, and it’s ludicrous to imagine that, even if Leavey harbored racial animus against the race of persons she's been surrounded with her entire professional life (which I don’t believe), not the city nor the 36th District Court, nor the concrete interests of any black person in Detroit face the slightest risk simply because Leavey used the word “ghetto.”
This kind of maximum pique by Atkins is especially uncalled for from her position as a chief judge in, as she puts it, “a predominantly African-American court in a predominantly African-American city with an African-American about to become president.”
Don’t get me wrong and blah, blah, blah; but Atkins’s stubborn refusal to resolve this minor dispute sensibly is exactly the kind of behavior that leads to so much strife and violence and lost opportunities--in the ghetto.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Bush Surveillance Policy Vindicated---Yet Again
The Bush administration has won yet another round in court on its foreign intelligence surveillance. You know what foreign intelligence surveillance is. That;s the anti-terrorist techniques that Democrats have endlessly characterized as “illegal,” “lawless,” and “shredding the Constitution.”
The FISA Court of Review, the court that Conyers, Levin, Schumer and the rest were all convinced would put leg irons on Bush if he would only volunteer to let them do it, has instead been consistently finding in favor of the executive’s power to conduct warrantless surveillance of foreign agents. The latest opinion states that the "directives at issue are lawful, and compliance with them obligatory." But you won’t hear much about that in the news.
Which I suppose means the Bush era is ending just the way it began, with Bush victories in rational tribunals barely reported.
In November 2000, during the Great Al Gore Election Robbery (foiled), the Bush team was winning every single legal challenge, in spite of being heard before Democratic judges (with the notable exception of cases before the 100% partisan Democrats on the Florida Supreme Court).
The Democrats sued over defective voting machines and lost. They sued over the butterfly ballots and lost. They sued that there was voter suppression—and got nowhere for an embarrassing lack of evidence. I don’t think many paid attention to all these courtroom skirmishes, because the nightly talking heads were so much more compelling. And, it was only legal geeks like me who were interested in all that legal mumbo-jumbo. Nor should we forget how the Leftist media--shedding barrels of ink for the cause--were desperate to force a victory for President Gore.
By the time the US Supreme Court got hold of Al Gore’s lawsuit, the pattern had been clear for weeks: the Gore camp, in its strategy to endlessly prolong the election recount until Bush simply gave up and let the losing man have the White House (as if), didn’t have a legal leg to stand on. There was absolutely nothing remarkable about the U.S. Supremes ruling the way they did. Not, at least, if you had been following the pattern of frivolous legal challenges that led up to it.
Similarly with the recent hoopla over warrantless surveillance. There really was never anything controversial about the legalities of Bush’s intelligence gathering. The Democrats simply hated it, that’s all. They hated it because they hated Bush, and they hated his standing up to terrorism, the way they never would do. And because they had the powers of Congressional office, and the free bullhorn of the media, they were able to portray Bush's commonsense actions as deserving of scorn as those of the Third Reich.
And this legal decision is one more example of shame on Them and good for Bush.
The FISA Court of Review, the court that Conyers, Levin, Schumer and the rest were all convinced would put leg irons on Bush if he would only volunteer to let them do it, has instead been consistently finding in favor of the executive’s power to conduct warrantless surveillance of foreign agents. The latest opinion states that the "directives at issue are lawful, and compliance with them obligatory." But you won’t hear much about that in the news.
Which I suppose means the Bush era is ending just the way it began, with Bush victories in rational tribunals barely reported.
In November 2000, during the Great Al Gore Election Robbery (foiled), the Bush team was winning every single legal challenge, in spite of being heard before Democratic judges (with the notable exception of cases before the 100% partisan Democrats on the Florida Supreme Court).
The Democrats sued over defective voting machines and lost. They sued over the butterfly ballots and lost. They sued that there was voter suppression—and got nowhere for an embarrassing lack of evidence. I don’t think many paid attention to all these courtroom skirmishes, because the nightly talking heads were so much more compelling. And, it was only legal geeks like me who were interested in all that legal mumbo-jumbo. Nor should we forget how the Leftist media--shedding barrels of ink for the cause--were desperate to force a victory for President Gore.
By the time the US Supreme Court got hold of Al Gore’s lawsuit, the pattern had been clear for weeks: the Gore camp, in its strategy to endlessly prolong the election recount until Bush simply gave up and let the losing man have the White House (as if), didn’t have a legal leg to stand on. There was absolutely nothing remarkable about the U.S. Supremes ruling the way they did. Not, at least, if you had been following the pattern of frivolous legal challenges that led up to it.
Similarly with the recent hoopla over warrantless surveillance. There really was never anything controversial about the legalities of Bush’s intelligence gathering. The Democrats simply hated it, that’s all. They hated it because they hated Bush, and they hated his standing up to terrorism, the way they never would do. And because they had the powers of Congressional office, and the free bullhorn of the media, they were able to portray Bush's commonsense actions as deserving of scorn as those of the Third Reich.
And this legal decision is one more example of shame on Them and good for Bush.
Gaza History 101
Regarding the plight of Gaza, remember this: Between 1948, when Israel was created, and 1967, when Israel captured Gaza in a defensive war, the Gaza Strip was administered by Egypt. During those 19 years, the Egyptians never offered citizenship to the Palestinians living in Gaza, nor did they permit them free transit from the Strip into Egypt proper. They did nothing to encourage the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. In fact, in 1958, Egypt’s President Nasser formally annulled the “All Palestine Government”—a remnant of the Palestinian state the Arabs had rejected in 1948. Egypt, like all of the other Arab states and, importantly, the U.N., chose to keep the Palestinians bereft and stateless—a permanent and growing dagger aimed at Israel.
--Mona Charen, Camera-Ready Victims, Hamas practices human sacrifice; the world shrugs.
Osama bin Who?
Maybe GWB didn’t get Osama before the end of his term.But how much difference does it make? If we had direct evidence tomorrow that he’d died or we killed, him, it wouldn’t make us one bit safer. Jihad is a lot bigger than bin Laden. The time when killing or capturing bin Laden would have saved lives passed long ago. It passed during the Clinton administration.
Yes, every couple years he comes out with another tape. There are no pictures, naturally, so you can't se his busted head or his bloodless complexion, or the damp cave that has to make do for his ICU. Regardlesss, the media respond to each tape with their usual wet dream that bin Laden's listless voice somehow constitutes a triumph over Bush.
But then think about it: How formidable can an international terrorist be when the main subject of conversation every time he leaks a message out through the Arab press isn't the seriousness of his threats or his mostly irrelevant calls to jihad, but whether or not the poor son-of-a-bitch is even really alive?
No doubt about it, OBL is messed up.
And it was George W. Bush who made him that way.
Fortunately for Planet Earth, that’s one thing none of Obama’s advisers, no matter how hard they try, can reverse.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Trained Murderers Treated Poorly, We're Shocked to Learn
Do you know what a muscle hijacker is? That's a young Muslim male, not necessarily that big, but bulked up from weightlifting, who's equipped with special training from Al Qaeda, a dull ache for his 72 virgins, and a boxcutter. And he’s perfectly at home with the idea of slicing the throat of a 120 lb. female flight attendant so that the terrified passengers hostage to him, and to his maniac partners in the cockpit, don’t do anything stupid the last few minutes before they’re incinerated:
After al-Qahtani missed his big chance on 9/11, he skeedadled to Afghanistan to make jihad there, and got himself arrested in December 2001 and sent to Gitmo.
While there, he was identified as the “last member” of the 20-man hijacking team sent to attack us on 9/11. Al-Qahtani admitted he’d met bin Laden several times, had received terrorist training at AQ camps, could identify top AQ leaders, and had been sent by KSM to be a part of the 9/11 attack. Of absolutely no surprise to anyone, intelligence officials wanted to know everything he knew, and did what they could to get him in a talking mood. America still didn't know if we were going to get hit again.
At the New York Times, Reuters, the AP, and the Washington Post, they don’t like to use the term “muscle hijacker” when they describe al-Qahtani. They prefer “detainee,” maybe because it starts with a “D” and sounds more like “defendant,” as in, you have the right to remain silent.
The reports yesterday, originating with Bob Woodward at the Washington Post, describe how a “top Bush administration official. . . concluded” that the U.S. military tortured al-Qahtani. (“Detainee Tortured, Says U.S. Official”).
The official, Susan J. Crawford, is a retired judge appointed to review Guanantamo cases for prosecution.
The stories are misleading. Read them carefully enough and you can piece together that everything the interrogators did was legal at the time. Nor is it Crawford’s assignment either to act as a factfinder on issues of detainee treatment, nor to issue legal findings on what is or isn’t torture. (Andrew McCarthy explains this much better than I could here.)
Look at these stories and see how they try to lead the reader. Whaaa!, al Qahtani is only a “detainee” (not a fighter trained to slaughter innocent civilians). Whaaaa! Al Qahtani has been subjected to “degrading and abusive” interrogation (after it was learned he was inside with UBL and KSM only months after 9/11). Whaaaa!, he was told that his mother and sisters were “whores.” (He was trained to cut the throats of flight attendants and passengers). Whaaaa!, he was forced to wear a bra and had a thong placed on his head during interrogation. Whaaaa!, he was scared with a dog. He was even “hospitalized twice at Guantanamo with bradycardia, a condition in which the heart rate falls below 60 beats a minute and which in extreme cases can lead to heart failure and death. At one point Qahtani's heart rate dropped to 35 beats per minute, the record shows.”
Okay, I admit it. That’s pretty tough stuff.
Until you remember that the record also shows the heart rates of 3,000 victims of al Qahtani's friends dropped to zero beats per minute on the morning of 9/11.
I'd hate like hell to think cops were treating defendants this way. But I have no problem at all with out military and intelligence warriors getting busy with these sworn enemies of life.
Even Crawford gets this, though she’s too confused to know the difference between war and law enforcement:
"There's no doubt in my mind he would've been on one of those planes had he gained access to the country in August 2001," Crawford said of Qahtani, who remains detained at Guantanamo. "He's a muscle hijacker. . . . He's a very dangerous man. What do you do with him now if you don't charge him and try him? I would be hesitant to say, 'Let him go.' "
According to KSM, [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] Abu Turab even had the trainees butcher a sheep and a camel with a knife to prepare to use knives during theMohammed al-Qahtani is a muscle hijacker. And he was anxious to do his part to slaughter a Barbara Olson, or a Charles F. “Chic” Burlingame III, and to make Todd Beamer or Jeremy Glick’s wives into widows. Al-Qahtani was the twentieth 9/11 hijacker, and the only thing that kept him from doing his part that day was an immigration agent who spotted him as hinky and sent him back to Dubai.
hijackings. The recruits learned to focus on storming the cockpit at the earliest opportunity when the doors first opened, and to worry about seizing control over the rest of the plane later. The operatives were taught about other kinds of attack as well, such as truck bombing, so that they would not be able to disclose the exact nature of their operation if they were caught. According to KSM, the muscle did not learn the full details-including the plan to hijack planes and fly them into buildings-before reaching the United States. The 9/11 Commission Report, Ch. 7.3.
After al-Qahtani missed his big chance on 9/11, he skeedadled to Afghanistan to make jihad there, and got himself arrested in December 2001 and sent to Gitmo.
While there, he was identified as the “last member” of the 20-man hijacking team sent to attack us on 9/11. Al-Qahtani admitted he’d met bin Laden several times, had received terrorist training at AQ camps, could identify top AQ leaders, and had been sent by KSM to be a part of the 9/11 attack. Of absolutely no surprise to anyone, intelligence officials wanted to know everything he knew, and did what they could to get him in a talking mood. America still didn't know if we were going to get hit again.
At the New York Times, Reuters, the AP, and the Washington Post, they don’t like to use the term “muscle hijacker” when they describe al-Qahtani. They prefer “detainee,” maybe because it starts with a “D” and sounds more like “defendant,” as in, you have the right to remain silent.
The reports yesterday, originating with Bob Woodward at the Washington Post, describe how a “top Bush administration official. . . concluded” that the U.S. military tortured al-Qahtani. (“Detainee Tortured, Says U.S. Official”).
The official, Susan J. Crawford, is a retired judge appointed to review Guanantamo cases for prosecution.
The stories are misleading. Read them carefully enough and you can piece together that everything the interrogators did was legal at the time. Nor is it Crawford’s assignment either to act as a factfinder on issues of detainee treatment, nor to issue legal findings on what is or isn’t torture. (Andrew McCarthy explains this much better than I could here.)
Look at these stories and see how they try to lead the reader. Whaaa!, al Qahtani is only a “detainee” (not a fighter trained to slaughter innocent civilians). Whaaaa! Al Qahtani has been subjected to “degrading and abusive” interrogation (after it was learned he was inside with UBL and KSM only months after 9/11). Whaaaa!, he was told that his mother and sisters were “whores.” (He was trained to cut the throats of flight attendants and passengers). Whaaaa!, he was forced to wear a bra and had a thong placed on his head during interrogation. Whaaaa!, he was scared with a dog. He was even “hospitalized twice at Guantanamo with bradycardia, a condition in which the heart rate falls below 60 beats a minute and which in extreme cases can lead to heart failure and death. At one point Qahtani's heart rate dropped to 35 beats per minute, the record shows.”
Okay, I admit it. That’s pretty tough stuff.
Until you remember that the record also shows the heart rates of 3,000 victims of al Qahtani's friends dropped to zero beats per minute on the morning of 9/11.
I'd hate like hell to think cops were treating defendants this way. But I have no problem at all with out military and intelligence warriors getting busy with these sworn enemies of life.
Even Crawford gets this, though she’s too confused to know the difference between war and law enforcement:
"There's no doubt in my mind he would've been on one of those planes had he gained access to the country in August 2001," Crawford said of Qahtani, who remains detained at Guantanamo. "He's a muscle hijacker. . . . He's a very dangerous man. What do you do with him now if you don't charge him and try him? I would be hesitant to say, 'Let him go.' "
'Getting It' In Iran?
Getting It
Do ordinary Iranians understand the Israel/Hamas conflict better than the experts?
By Clifford D. May
The essential facts of the Hamas/Israel conflict are not complicated: Hamas is a client of Iran’s ruling mullahs whose rallying cry is, “Death to America!” Hamas’s ideology is indistinguishable from that of al-Qaeda. For these two reasons alone, it cannot be in the U.S. interest for Hamas—or any similar group—to prevail anytime, anywhere.
Also beyond question: Hamas has been raining missiles on Israel for years. No nation can passively endure such punishment—and remain a nation. It was only a matter of time before Israel had to take action against Hamas, a sworn enemy that openly expresses its genocidal intentions, and that routinely uses Palestinian women and children as human shields, exploiting their suffering for public-relations benefits.
What’s curious is who gets this and who does not. Jeffrey Gedmin is president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, whose Iranian service, Radio Farda, has been receiving messages from its Iranian listeners regarding the war in Gaza. Many have been along the lines Iran’s rulers prefer and you might expect:
“Death to Israel, to the imperialists and Zionists!” But the “majority,” Gedmin told me, has been of a different nature. Here’s a sampling (translated from the Farsi):
"The clerical regime is lying. It was not Israel who started this war."
"Any other country [apart from Israel] would have done the same a long time ago."
"Hamas should be destroyed. This cowardly group is taking cover in hospitals and residential areas. The people of Gaza should help Israel."
"As long as [Iran’s rulers] are helping Lebanon and Palestine, we're not going to have a decent living."
"We're soldiers from Jebrani and we don't have enough to eat, but the government is airlifting food and medicine to Gaza." (Actually, the Iranian government is not.)
"In my opinion, it would be better if our leaders, together with their supporters, would relocate to Palestine. . . . This way we would have peace and quiet in Iran and our economic situation would improve."
"Yes, it's true. [I hear] they want to give part of our salaries to Hamas."
In the Arab world, too, there are those whose views may surprise you. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak told a visiting delegation of European foreign ministers that Hamas “must not be allowed to emerge from the fighting with the upper hand.”
Karam Jaber, editor of the Egyptian weekly Roz Al-Youssef, blamed Hamas for inflicting “death and destruction on the Palestinians. . . . We hope the Hamas leaders will realize that they are fighting a destructive war on behalf of the Iranians and Syrians.”
And Muhammad Dahlan, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and of Fatah's Revolutionary Council, told the Arabic language newspaper al-Hayat that Hamas has sacrificed “the Palestinian cause for the illusion of an Islamic emirate in Gaza.”
By stark contrast, an army of American and European commentators have been treating Hamas with kid gloves while bitterly criticizing Israel. Reuters, the international wire service, relentlessly editorializes—in what are ostensibly news stories—against what it terms “Israeli aggression against Palestinians.” Reuters characterizes pretty much anyone who is against Israel—no matter how extreme their views—as “in support of the people of Gaza.”
Others make the case for moral equivalence between Hamas and Israel, or charge that Israel’s response to Hamas’s attacks has been “disproportionate.” On CNN the other day, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg offered an apt analogy: If you call the police to report an intruder in your home, do you want only a single officer dispatched—because that would be “proportionate?” Or would you rather enough cops arrive to ensure your safety?
By that measure, Israel’s response has been not disproportionate but inadequate—as demonstrated by the fact that the missiles keep on coming.
Time magazine’s most recent cover story argues that no matter what Israel does militarily it “can’t win.” Time proposes that Israelis stop fighting and return to the borders they had in 1967—when they were attacked by their Arab neighbors in a war meant to wipe the Jewish state off the map. “Only then will the Palestinians and the other Arab states agree to a durable peace,” Time advises. “It’s as simple as that.”
But if it were as simple as that, wouldn’t Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 have brought something other than a 500 percent increase in missile salvos? What’s more, from the West Bank, even the smallest missiles could hit Israel’s largest cities and international airport. Can you imagine the death toll should those come under daily assault?
Evidently, many pundits and solons cannot. More than a few ordinary Iranians could probably explain it to them.
— Clifford D. May, a former New York Times foreign correspondent, is the president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies , a policy institute focusing on terrorism.
Do ordinary Iranians understand the Israel/Hamas conflict better than the experts?
By Clifford D. May
The essential facts of the Hamas/Israel conflict are not complicated: Hamas is a client of Iran’s ruling mullahs whose rallying cry is, “Death to America!” Hamas’s ideology is indistinguishable from that of al-Qaeda. For these two reasons alone, it cannot be in the U.S. interest for Hamas—or any similar group—to prevail anytime, anywhere.
Also beyond question: Hamas has been raining missiles on Israel for years. No nation can passively endure such punishment—and remain a nation. It was only a matter of time before Israel had to take action against Hamas, a sworn enemy that openly expresses its genocidal intentions, and that routinely uses Palestinian women and children as human shields, exploiting their suffering for public-relations benefits.
What’s curious is who gets this and who does not. Jeffrey Gedmin is president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, whose Iranian service, Radio Farda, has been receiving messages from its Iranian listeners regarding the war in Gaza. Many have been along the lines Iran’s rulers prefer and you might expect:
“Death to Israel, to the imperialists and Zionists!” But the “majority,” Gedmin told me, has been of a different nature. Here’s a sampling (translated from the Farsi):
"The clerical regime is lying. It was not Israel who started this war."
"Any other country [apart from Israel] would have done the same a long time ago."
"Hamas should be destroyed. This cowardly group is taking cover in hospitals and residential areas. The people of Gaza should help Israel."
"As long as [Iran’s rulers] are helping Lebanon and Palestine, we're not going to have a decent living."
"We're soldiers from Jebrani and we don't have enough to eat, but the government is airlifting food and medicine to Gaza." (Actually, the Iranian government is not.)
"In my opinion, it would be better if our leaders, together with their supporters, would relocate to Palestine. . . . This way we would have peace and quiet in Iran and our economic situation would improve."
"Yes, it's true. [I hear] they want to give part of our salaries to Hamas."
In the Arab world, too, there are those whose views may surprise you. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak told a visiting delegation of European foreign ministers that Hamas “must not be allowed to emerge from the fighting with the upper hand.”
Karam Jaber, editor of the Egyptian weekly Roz Al-Youssef, blamed Hamas for inflicting “death and destruction on the Palestinians. . . . We hope the Hamas leaders will realize that they are fighting a destructive war on behalf of the Iranians and Syrians.”
And Muhammad Dahlan, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and of Fatah's Revolutionary Council, told the Arabic language newspaper al-Hayat that Hamas has sacrificed “the Palestinian cause for the illusion of an Islamic emirate in Gaza.”
By stark contrast, an army of American and European commentators have been treating Hamas with kid gloves while bitterly criticizing Israel. Reuters, the international wire service, relentlessly editorializes—in what are ostensibly news stories—against what it terms “Israeli aggression against Palestinians.” Reuters characterizes pretty much anyone who is against Israel—no matter how extreme their views—as “in support of the people of Gaza.”
Others make the case for moral equivalence between Hamas and Israel, or charge that Israel’s response to Hamas’s attacks has been “disproportionate.” On CNN the other day, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg offered an apt analogy: If you call the police to report an intruder in your home, do you want only a single officer dispatched—because that would be “proportionate?” Or would you rather enough cops arrive to ensure your safety?
By that measure, Israel’s response has been not disproportionate but inadequate—as demonstrated by the fact that the missiles keep on coming.
Time magazine’s most recent cover story argues that no matter what Israel does militarily it “can’t win.” Time proposes that Israelis stop fighting and return to the borders they had in 1967—when they were attacked by their Arab neighbors in a war meant to wipe the Jewish state off the map. “Only then will the Palestinians and the other Arab states agree to a durable peace,” Time advises. “It’s as simple as that.”
But if it were as simple as that, wouldn’t Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 have brought something other than a 500 percent increase in missile salvos? What’s more, from the West Bank, even the smallest missiles could hit Israel’s largest cities and international airport. Can you imagine the death toll should those come under daily assault?
Evidently, many pundits and solons cannot. More than a few ordinary Iranians could probably explain it to them.
— Clifford D. May, a former New York Times foreign correspondent, is the president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies , a policy institute focusing on terrorism.
Patrick McGoohan
A little piece of me died this morning when I heard that actor Patrick McGoohan had passed away.
Like many others of my generation, I got hooked on The Prisoner when it first aired in the US in 1969. McGoohan’s character in that series was heroic for me, all the more so for his canny determination to live as a free man when he was demonstrably not going anywhere.
The Prisoner’s defiant challenge to his jailers, “I am not a number, I am a free man,” is the show’s most famous line. It was repeated during the opening sequence every week, and every week was answered with scornful laughter from that week’s “new Number 2.” Shortly after arriving in the Village the Prisoner repeats much the same thing in a lower key, telling Number 2, “I am not number. I am a person.”
This wasn’t just a sixties-era comment on the value of nonconformism in fashion or lifestyle. It was the voice of a soul battling for his life. The whole tension of the series was the hero's clinging to his spiritual freedom when, regarding almost all externals, he was demonstrably NOT free. To remind viewers of that fact, each episode but the last one closed with a graphic of prison gates clanging violently closed in McGoohan’s face. Some weeks he outsmarted Number 2, and some weeks they got the better of him.
The Prisoner was never about anything as trite as the youth rebellion of the 1960s, even if that's how some people remember it. I suppose there were a few gestures in the program to the counterculture, like the rebel youth singing “Dem Bones,” John Lennon singing "All You Need Is Love." But over the long haul, the flower children of that time who were so proud of their rebellion grew up and took over our universities and corporations, turning them into equally unfree, if less stylish, Villages. They can't tolerate rebelllion now. I find it much easier to imagine some stubborn dissenter in San Francisco getting beaten down by a mob screaming, “Unmutual! Unmutual!” than just about any place else. In fact I don’t have to imagine it. It’s going on right now.
Anyhow, I recently re-watched an episode of the Prisoner (Chimes of Big Ben?) where McGoohan's character encounters a former colleague (presumably from the espionage trade), who from the context obviously had sold out to the Reds. When the Prisoner refuses to return the traitor’s greeting, the traitor asks him if he was still placing his faith “in absolutes.” Take that dialogue for what it’s worth. No Leftist has any idea what that exchange could possibly mean.
Now I learn that McGoohan was a lifelong, devout Catholic, and that that was part of the reason his plots were not infused with gratuitous sex. Interesting man. I’m sorry he’s gone.
Like many others of my generation, I got hooked on The Prisoner when it first aired in the US in 1969. McGoohan’s character in that series was heroic for me, all the more so for his canny determination to live as a free man when he was demonstrably not going anywhere.
The Prisoner’s defiant challenge to his jailers, “I am not a number, I am a free man,” is the show’s most famous line. It was repeated during the opening sequence every week, and every week was answered with scornful laughter from that week’s “new Number 2.” Shortly after arriving in the Village the Prisoner repeats much the same thing in a lower key, telling Number 2, “I am not number. I am a person.”This wasn’t just a sixties-era comment on the value of nonconformism in fashion or lifestyle. It was the voice of a soul battling for his life. The whole tension of the series was the hero's clinging to his spiritual freedom when, regarding almost all externals, he was demonstrably NOT free. To remind viewers of that fact, each episode but the last one closed with a graphic of prison gates clanging violently closed in McGoohan’s face. Some weeks he outsmarted Number 2, and some weeks they got the better of him.
The Prisoner was never about anything as trite as the youth rebellion of the 1960s, even if that's how some people remember it. I suppose there were a few gestures in the program to the counterculture, like the rebel youth singing “Dem Bones,” John Lennon singing "All You Need Is Love." But over the long haul, the flower children of that time who were so proud of their rebellion grew up and took over our universities and corporations, turning them into equally unfree, if less stylish, Villages. They can't tolerate rebelllion now. I find it much easier to imagine some stubborn dissenter in San Francisco getting beaten down by a mob screaming, “Unmutual! Unmutual!” than just about any place else. In fact I don’t have to imagine it. It’s going on right now.
Anyhow, I recently re-watched an episode of the Prisoner (Chimes of Big Ben?) where McGoohan's character encounters a former colleague (presumably from the espionage trade), who from the context obviously had sold out to the Reds. When the Prisoner refuses to return the traitor’s greeting, the traitor asks him if he was still placing his faith “in absolutes.” Take that dialogue for what it’s worth. No Leftist has any idea what that exchange could possibly mean.
Now I learn that McGoohan was a lifelong, devout Catholic, and that that was part of the reason his plots were not infused with gratuitous sex. Interesting man. I’m sorry he’s gone.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
About Those Gaza Death Tolls
Yesterday I made reference to what the news media have reported as 500 the most current estimate of civilian dead in Gaza, bearing in mind that things are changing daily there. (“Will the Real Terrorists Please Crouch Down and Hide Behind Their Wives and Children?”).
I realized at once that the civilian death toll may have been exaggerated, but I don’t much in the way of fact-checkers here to give me a hand, so I have to rely on the best reports I can find with limited resources.
By way of corrective tonight, I offer an article I saw by Stephanie Gutmann on Townhall.com that speaks to the issue of casualty numbers--as they are being reported by Hamas. “Can We Trust the Casualty Numbers? Probably not, if they come from Hamas.”
Guttman has this to say:
I realized at once that the civilian death toll may have been exaggerated, but I don’t much in the way of fact-checkers here to give me a hand, so I have to rely on the best reports I can find with limited resources.
By way of corrective tonight, I offer an article I saw by Stephanie Gutmann on Townhall.com that speaks to the issue of casualty numbers--as they are being reported by Hamas. “Can We Trust the Casualty Numbers? Probably not, if they come from Hamas.”
Guttman has this to say:
Once again, a high and asymmetric death toll will be invoked to justify a premature end to Israel’s campaign to wipe out arms-smuggling tunnels and otherwise weaken Hamas’s infrastructure. But can we believe the numbers? Who are the sources of these figures? The AP, for instance, continually quotes unspecified “medical officials.” Sometimes reporters offer up hospital administrators in Gazan hospitals, sometimes people like “Bassem Naeem . . . health minister . . . in Gaza,” who “told reporters that 42 percent of those killed were women and children.”Guttman offers the comparison with the now demythologized “Jenin massacre” in the West Bank in 2002. After months of near-daily suicide bombings, the IDF went straight to “the capital of suicide bombing,” the Jenin refugee camp. With an eye to the international media, Fatah-connected spokespersons were soon reporting “casualties in the thousands”:
But Israeli officials point out that virtually every public official in the Gaza strip, including hospital administrators, is, in effect, a Hamas appointee. It is, after all, a totalitarian regime that has crushed any remnant of a free press and thrown dissenters off the roofs of buildings.
“All my nine children are buried under the ruins,” a resident of Jenin named Abu Ali told the Le Nouvel Observateur, a French weekly magazine. The weekly apparently did not do any checking; it dutifully reported Ali’s story of losing his children in a piece titled “The Survivors Tell Their Stories.” Newspapers in the U.K. went into a positive frenzy, running pieces like the Independent’s “The Camp that Became a Slaughterhouse.”Guttman says that another tactic of Hamas is to exploit the tactic of dead bodies.
Finally, in August 2002, the U.N. sent a team to investigate charges of a massacre. The U.N. — no friend of Israel — found no evidence of a massacre, and it supported IDF claims that about 45 Palestinians had died, mostly men aged 18 to 45. It confirmed only three children and four women. Abu Ali’s nine children were not among them. “Fifty-two Palestinian deaths had been confirmed by the hospital in Jenin by the end of May 2002. . . . A senior Palestinian Authority official alleged in mid-April that some 500 were killed, a figure that has not been substantiated in the light of the evidence that has emerged,” the U.N. report said.
Amnesty International, also no friend of Israel, did its own investigation and came to a similar conclusion.
This tactic may be in use once again to defeat Israel’s Gaza offensive. A week ago, Jeffrey Goldberg, who has done more up-close reporting in the disputed territories than any other living journalist, asked, “Why are these pictures [of the dead] so omnipresent?”
“Hamas (and the Aksa Brigades, and Islamic Jihad, the whole bunch) prevents the burial, or even preparation of the bodies for burial, until the bodies are used as props in the Palestinian Passion Play,” he wrote in his blog on atlantic.com. “Once, in Khan Younis, I actually saw gunmen unwrap a shrouded body, carry it a hundred yards and position it atop a pile of rubble — and then wait a half-hour until photographers showed. It was one of the more horrible things I’ve seen in my life. And it’s typical of Hamas.”
Coming Soon To an Executive Office Near You!
For those of you who voted for Obama, you need to realize that he's just made his first decisions as Commander in Chief (Elect).
They're weak, folks. And I'm not just being snarky. I'm never snarky.
I'm referring to his announced intentions, reported in Politico and elsewhere, to order the closing of the detention camp at Guantanamo, and other “dramatic gestures aimed at reversing President Bush’s accumulation of executive power.” (“44 to reverse 43's executive orders.”)
I consider it a bad sign that, as Commander-in-Chief Elect, Obama’s first actions include publicly declaring his intention to weaken the office of the President--whether it’s vis-Ã -vis Congress, or vis-Ã -vis our still very determined jihadist enemies.
You see folks, he's not weakening George W. Bush. Bush will be a private citizen at 12:01 pm next Wednesday. Obama is announcing that he's weakening his own powers, and he's doing it before he has even assumed them.
Rather than firmly grasping the reins of leadership the Constitution intends the President to hold, Obama seems to want the likes of Reid, Pelosi, Leahy, Frank, Conyers, and Maxine Waters holding them with him—collectively riding off in all directions at once, especially away from the battle.
The whole purpose of executive authority is to mitigate the blunt reality that Congress is incapable of acting with the gravity, speed, and singleness of purpose needed in times of war. And this goes triple for a Congress with a Democratic majority. The duplicity of Congressional Democrats leading up to the Iraq War authorization demonstrates how craven hacks like John Edwards, John Kerry, and others were perfectly capable of bombastically supporting the overthrow of a dictatorship when the decision was popular, and then were shrieking a year later that it was the stupidest and most deceitful foreign policy decision since man began keeping written records of his deeds.
This is why the Constitution vests the executive with command of the military. (Yes, I know, Congress has the authority to declare war—but this is a power it hasn’t exercised, I’m pretty certain, since 1941. Nor, for that matter, are declarations of war much heard of these days anywhere else, either, regardless of whether they should be or not. When bin Laden declared war on us in 1996, no one paid attention).
Andrew McCarthy characterizes Obama’s empty Guantanamo gesture this way:
The Politico writers hit a key point when they describe Obama’s moves as “dramatic gestures.” But dramatic gestures are not political leadership, but political theater.
Grasp the centrality of political theater to the governing style of Democrats, and they will never really surprise you again.
But, you say, Obama’s “dramatic gestures” will also include “ending the torture of detainees.” That's substance isn't it?
No. It's only more theater. The thing is, if we aren’t presently “torturing” detainees in any meaningful sense, i.e., as defined under law by Congress, (and even waterboarding--which isn't illegal--hasn’t been used in several years). Ending something that isn't there is what I call a truly empty gesture.
And it’s not as if Congress is going to get any braver under an Obama administration by actually passing legislation specifying what is and isn’t torture, (the way they never did under Bush—in spite of five years of accusing Bush of being out of control and above the law). So in the end, “ending the torture of detainees” will amount to nothing more than symbolic declamations meant to satisfy the UN, Human Rights Watch, and other Euro-types who never saved anyone from terrorism. The only ones who can give these gestures substance will be the terrorists plotting jihad against us: they'll digest it instantly as us losing our nerve.
Gestures will not stop jihadists.
They're weak, folks. And I'm not just being snarky. I'm never snarky.
I'm referring to his announced intentions, reported in Politico and elsewhere, to order the closing of the detention camp at Guantanamo, and other “dramatic gestures aimed at reversing President Bush’s accumulation of executive power.” (“44 to reverse 43's executive orders.”)
I consider it a bad sign that, as Commander-in-Chief Elect, Obama’s first actions include publicly declaring his intention to weaken the office of the President--whether it’s vis-Ã -vis Congress, or vis-Ã -vis our still very determined jihadist enemies.
You see folks, he's not weakening George W. Bush. Bush will be a private citizen at 12:01 pm next Wednesday. Obama is announcing that he's weakening his own powers, and he's doing it before he has even assumed them.
Rather than firmly grasping the reins of leadership the Constitution intends the President to hold, Obama seems to want the likes of Reid, Pelosi, Leahy, Frank, Conyers, and Maxine Waters holding them with him—collectively riding off in all directions at once, especially away from the battle.
The whole purpose of executive authority is to mitigate the blunt reality that Congress is incapable of acting with the gravity, speed, and singleness of purpose needed in times of war. And this goes triple for a Congress with a Democratic majority. The duplicity of Congressional Democrats leading up to the Iraq War authorization demonstrates how craven hacks like John Edwards, John Kerry, and others were perfectly capable of bombastically supporting the overthrow of a dictatorship when the decision was popular, and then were shrieking a year later that it was the stupidest and most deceitful foreign policy decision since man began keeping written records of his deeds.
This is why the Constitution vests the executive with command of the military. (Yes, I know, Congress has the authority to declare war—but this is a power it hasn’t exercised, I’m pretty certain, since 1941. Nor, for that matter, are declarations of war much heard of these days anywhere else, either, regardless of whether they should be or not. When bin Laden declared war on us in 1996, no one paid attention).
Andrew McCarthy characterizes Obama’s empty Guantanamo gesture this way:
The Guantánamo ‘executive’ order should instead be called a ‘symbolic’order since it is not intended to execute anything. Guantanamo will continue operating just as it has. Mr. Obama’s stated desire to close it at some future point is the same desire members of the Bush administration have been stating for some time.
The Politico writers hit a key point when they describe Obama’s moves as “dramatic gestures.” But dramatic gestures are not political leadership, but political theater.
Grasp the centrality of political theater to the governing style of Democrats, and they will never really surprise you again.
But, you say, Obama’s “dramatic gestures” will also include “ending the torture of detainees.” That's substance isn't it?
No. It's only more theater. The thing is, if we aren’t presently “torturing” detainees in any meaningful sense, i.e., as defined under law by Congress, (and even waterboarding--which isn't illegal--hasn’t been used in several years). Ending something that isn't there is what I call a truly empty gesture.
And it’s not as if Congress is going to get any braver under an Obama administration by actually passing legislation specifying what is and isn’t torture, (the way they never did under Bush—in spite of five years of accusing Bush of being out of control and above the law). So in the end, “ending the torture of detainees” will amount to nothing more than symbolic declamations meant to satisfy the UN, Human Rights Watch, and other Euro-types who never saved anyone from terrorism. The only ones who can give these gestures substance will be the terrorists plotting jihad against us: they'll digest it instantly as us losing our nerve.
Gestures will not stop jihadists.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Iran's Gazan Puppet Show
While the whole world (except the USA, under the Bush administration), is calling for a cease-fire to spare Hamas terrorist lives in Gaza, who else but the Iranians are telling the other guys, Hamas, they'd better not agree to any cease fire?
Behold:
Iran warns Hamas not to accept Egyptian truce proposal
Jan. 12, 2009
Khaled Abu Toameh , THE JERUSALEM POST
Iran is exerting heavy pressure on Hamas not to accept the Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire with Israel, an Egyptian government official said on Sunday.
The official told The Jerusalem Post by phone that two senior Iranian officials who visited Damascus recently warned Hamas leaders against accepting the proposal.
His remarks came as Hamas representatives met in Cairo with Egyptian Intelligence Chief Gen. Omar Suleiman and his aides to discuss ways of ending the fighting in the Gaza Strip.
The Hamas representatives reiterated their opposition to a cease-fire that did not include the reopening of all the border crossings into the Gaza Strip, Hamas spokesmen said on Sunday.
The spokesmen said Hamas voiced its strong opposition to the idea of deploying an international force inside the Gaza Strip.
The Egyptian official said that the two Iranian emissaries, Ali Larijani, Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, and Said Jalili of the Iranian Intelligence Service, met in the Syrian capital with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal and Islamic Jihad Secretary-General Ramadan Shallah.
"As soon as the Iranians heard about the Egyptian cease-fire initiative, they dispatched the two officials to Damascus on an urgent mission to warn the Palestinians against accepting it," the Egyptian government official told the Post.
"The Iranians threatened to stop weapons supplies and funding to the Palestinian factions if they agreed to a cease-fire with Israel. The Iranians want to fight Israel and the US indirectly. They are doing this through Hamas in Palestine and Hizbullah in Lebanon."
The official pointed out that the Iranians were applying "double standards" regarding the current conflict - on the one hand, they encouraged Iranian men to volunteer to fight alongside Hamas; on the other hand, Iran's spiritual leader, Ali Khamenei, told the volunteers that they would not be permitted to join the fight against Israel.
"The Iranians never fired one bullet at Israel," he said. "But now they are trying to appear as if they are participating in the war against Israel. The leaders of Teheran don't care about the innocent civilians who are being killed in the Gaza Strip."
The Egyptian official accused Iran of "encouraging" Hamas to continue firing rockets at Israel with the hope that this would trigger a war that would divert attention from Iran's nuclear plans.
"This conflict serves the interests of the Iranians," he said. "They are satisfied because the violence in the Gaza Strip has diverted attention from their nuclear ambitions.
The Iranians are also hoping to use the Palestinian issue as a 'powerful card' in future talks with the Americans.
"They want to show that they have control over Hamas and many Palestinians."
Karam Jaber, editor of the semi-official Egyptian weekly Roz Al-Youssef magazine, said that Hamas was caught between the Syrian anvil and the Iranian hammer. The Iranians, he said, prevented Hamas from negotiating a cease-fire with Israel, while the Syrians were blackmailing and intimidating the Hamas leaders in Damascus.
"History won't forget to mention that Hamas had inflicted death and destruction on the Palestinians," he said. "We hope that Hamas has learned the lesson and realizes that it has been fighting a war on behalf of others. We hope the Hamas leaders will realize that they are fighting a destructive war on behalf of the Iranians and Syrians."
Egyptian political analyst Magdi Khalil said he shared the view of the Palestinian Authority and Egypt that Hamas was responsible for the war in the Gaza Strip. "Ever since Hamas seized control over the Gaza Strip in 2007, they turned the area into hell," he said. "They imposed restrictions on the people there and even prevented them from performing the pilgrimage to Mecca."
The analyst said that the head of the Egyptian General Intelligence Service was right when he recently described Hamas as a group of gangsters. "Hamas and its masters in Damascus and Teheran want to spread chaos in Egypt," he said. "They want to solve the problem of the Gaza Strip by handing the area over to Egypt. They want to create a homeland for the Palestinians in Sinai."
He said that Hamas was not only jeopardizing Egypt's national security, but had also destroyed the Palestinians' dream of statehood. "By endorsing the Iranian agenda, Hamas has brought the Iranians to Egypt's eastern border," he said. "Hamas has also copied Hizbullah's policy of entering into pointless adventures."
#
Behold:
Iran warns Hamas not to accept Egyptian truce proposal
Jan. 12, 2009
Khaled Abu Toameh , THE JERUSALEM POST
Iran is exerting heavy pressure on Hamas not to accept the Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire with Israel, an Egyptian government official said on Sunday.
The official told The Jerusalem Post by phone that two senior Iranian officials who visited Damascus recently warned Hamas leaders against accepting the proposal.
His remarks came as Hamas representatives met in Cairo with Egyptian Intelligence Chief Gen. Omar Suleiman and his aides to discuss ways of ending the fighting in the Gaza Strip.
The Hamas representatives reiterated their opposition to a cease-fire that did not include the reopening of all the border crossings into the Gaza Strip, Hamas spokesmen said on Sunday.
The spokesmen said Hamas voiced its strong opposition to the idea of deploying an international force inside the Gaza Strip.
The Egyptian official said that the two Iranian emissaries, Ali Larijani, Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, and Said Jalili of the Iranian Intelligence Service, met in the Syrian capital with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal and Islamic Jihad Secretary-General Ramadan Shallah.
"As soon as the Iranians heard about the Egyptian cease-fire initiative, they dispatched the two officials to Damascus on an urgent mission to warn the Palestinians against accepting it," the Egyptian government official told the Post.
"The Iranians threatened to stop weapons supplies and funding to the Palestinian factions if they agreed to a cease-fire with Israel. The Iranians want to fight Israel and the US indirectly. They are doing this through Hamas in Palestine and Hizbullah in Lebanon."
The official pointed out that the Iranians were applying "double standards" regarding the current conflict - on the one hand, they encouraged Iranian men to volunteer to fight alongside Hamas; on the other hand, Iran's spiritual leader, Ali Khamenei, told the volunteers that they would not be permitted to join the fight against Israel.
"The Iranians never fired one bullet at Israel," he said. "But now they are trying to appear as if they are participating in the war against Israel. The leaders of Teheran don't care about the innocent civilians who are being killed in the Gaza Strip."
The Egyptian official accused Iran of "encouraging" Hamas to continue firing rockets at Israel with the hope that this would trigger a war that would divert attention from Iran's nuclear plans.
"This conflict serves the interests of the Iranians," he said. "They are satisfied because the violence in the Gaza Strip has diverted attention from their nuclear ambitions.
The Iranians are also hoping to use the Palestinian issue as a 'powerful card' in future talks with the Americans.
"They want to show that they have control over Hamas and many Palestinians."
Karam Jaber, editor of the semi-official Egyptian weekly Roz Al-Youssef magazine, said that Hamas was caught between the Syrian anvil and the Iranian hammer. The Iranians, he said, prevented Hamas from negotiating a cease-fire with Israel, while the Syrians were blackmailing and intimidating the Hamas leaders in Damascus.
"History won't forget to mention that Hamas had inflicted death and destruction on the Palestinians," he said. "We hope that Hamas has learned the lesson and realizes that it has been fighting a war on behalf of others. We hope the Hamas leaders will realize that they are fighting a destructive war on behalf of the Iranians and Syrians."
Egyptian political analyst Magdi Khalil said he shared the view of the Palestinian Authority and Egypt that Hamas was responsible for the war in the Gaza Strip. "Ever since Hamas seized control over the Gaza Strip in 2007, they turned the area into hell," he said. "They imposed restrictions on the people there and even prevented them from performing the pilgrimage to Mecca."
The analyst said that the head of the Egyptian General Intelligence Service was right when he recently described Hamas as a group of gangsters. "Hamas and its masters in Damascus and Teheran want to spread chaos in Egypt," he said. "They want to solve the problem of the Gaza Strip by handing the area over to Egypt. They want to create a homeland for the Palestinians in Sinai."
He said that Hamas was not only jeopardizing Egypt's national security, but had also destroyed the Palestinians' dream of statehood. "By endorsing the Iranian agenda, Hamas has brought the Iranians to Egypt's eastern border," he said. "Hamas has also copied Hizbullah's policy of entering into pointless adventures."
#
Who Cares About Palestinians?
Dennis Prager asks the provocative question, "Guess Who Cares about Dead Palestinians? Jews!":
Please read the rest.
For those individuals -- such as nearly all members of the world news media -- who, in light of Israel’s invasion of Gaza -- see moral equivalence between Israel and the Palestinians, here are some clarifying thoughts.
First, it would be difficult nearly to the point of impossibility, to find Israeli or other Jews who celebrate the deaths of Palestinian civilians. Jews both within and outside of Israel cringe when they see pictures of dead Palestinian men, women, and children in Gaza. For thousands of years at their Passover seders, Jews have removed wine from their cups to ceremonially weep for the Egyptians -- their erstwhile slave owners for 400 years -- who died during the Jews exodus. Jews have never stopped weeping for enemies.
The opposite is the case with the large majority of Palestinians. It would be quite difficult to find many Palestinians who do not celebrate the deaths of Israeli Jews or non-Israeli Jews. This is not only reflected in Palestinian polls that show majority support for terrorism -- and terrorism means killing innocent Jews -- it is also
reflected in Palestinian media, Palestinian schools, and Palestinian mosques that routinely glorify murderers of Jews, and refer to all Jews as monkeys and the like.
Take for example, Palestinian reaction to the 2001 Palestinian terror bombing of a Jerusalem Sbarro pizzeria in which 15 Jews, five of whom were two sets of parents and their children, were murdered and an additional 130 people were injured, some permanently maimed. As reported by the Associated Press, a month later, Palestinian university students opened an exhibition that included a grisly re-enactment of that mass murder. The students built a replica of the Sbarro pizzeria, with fake blood, splattered pizza, a plastic hand dangling from the ceiling, and a fake severed leg wearing jeans and a bloody black sneaker.
The exhibit also includes a large rock in front of a mannequin wearing the black hat, black jacket and black trousers typically worn by ultra-Orthodox Jews. A recording from inside the rock calls out: O believer, there is a Jewish man behind me. Come and kill him, paraphrasing a verse in the Koran. It became a popular tourist attraction for Palestinians, to which Palestinian parents took their little children.
Please read the rest.
Will The Real Terrorists Please Crouch Down Behind Their Wives and Children?
“Israel Is the Real Terrorist” reads the gigantic banner draped from the large jewelry discounter on the corner of Schaefer and Michigan in Dearborn.
That’s one opinion. Obviously, the store owner is sincere. The message is logical, I suppose, depending on how you define “terrorism.”
If you define terrorism as possessing a first-class military armed with state-of-the-art weapons, that are deployed so carefully, only in self-defense and after years and years of provocation --and even with timeouts to ship humanitarian supplies into enemy territory--so carefully that after two weeks civilian deaths have not even reached 500--and that’s in spite of every effort by the enemy fighters to use the population as shields and bloody lambs sacrificed to the deities at CNN--then yes, Israel is the real terrorist.
Israel’s actions are not how I define terrorism, so I’m not persuaded.
Pat Buchanan recently said Israel was waging a “Blitzkrieg” on Gaza, a preposterous comparison with the Third Reich’s invasion of Poland in 1939. It's the worst understatement to say there's no comparison, even as a military operation.
In the 28 days of the German Blitzkrieg invasion, Polish forces suffered 68,000 dead, and hundreds of thousands captured or wounded. Civilian deaths reached 26,000. The Nazis literally were trying to destroy Poland as part of their war aim, and in their racial insanity they despised Poles as subhuman, and consequently regarded Polish lives as having no value. The German invaders held nothing back because they didn’t care who they killed. There were no timeouts to send in humanitarian aid. There were no talks of a cease-fire. And the Polish defenders were not deliberately increasing casualties by using their wives and children as shields, nor firing their weapons from populated areas to draw down German fire on their civilian population.
Considering Israel has the most powerful land, sea, and air forces in the Middle East, and nuclear weapons, I’d say this is a piss poor Blitzkrieg. Does anyone, anyone, anywhere, seriously believe that if Israel set it's mind to destroying Palestinians there would be only 850 dead after two weeks?!!!
Anyway, I'm not convinced.
Now, if you define terrorism as holding a million and a half people hostage so you can pursue your implacable religious mission to attack your neighbor’s civilian population until you and your countrymen, wives, and children are suffering a thousand times the casualties that you can ever hope to inflict--and you don't give a goddamn and hope for more deaths, not fewer, because it serves your strategic purpose--then I would say Hamas are the terrorists.
If you define terrorism as being sworn to the existential elimination of an entire people (Jews) because your insane god can’t stand the idea of giving back territory he has stolen, or sharing it with anyone of another religion, then I would say Hamas are the terrorists.
If you define terrorism as deliberately waging war on a civilian population without regard for life in order to achieve your political aims by any means necessary, then I would say Hamas are the terrorists.
But that’s one opinion. It’s all in how you define it.
That’s one opinion. Obviously, the store owner is sincere. The message is logical, I suppose, depending on how you define “terrorism.”
If you define terrorism as possessing a first-class military armed with state-of-the-art weapons, that are deployed so carefully, only in self-defense and after years and years of provocation --and even with timeouts to ship humanitarian supplies into enemy territory--so carefully that after two weeks civilian deaths have not even reached 500--and that’s in spite of every effort by the enemy fighters to use the population as shields and bloody lambs sacrificed to the deities at CNN--then yes, Israel is the real terrorist.
Israel’s actions are not how I define terrorism, so I’m not persuaded.
Pat Buchanan recently said Israel was waging a “Blitzkrieg” on Gaza, a preposterous comparison with the Third Reich’s invasion of Poland in 1939. It's the worst understatement to say there's no comparison, even as a military operation.
In the 28 days of the German Blitzkrieg invasion, Polish forces suffered 68,000 dead, and hundreds of thousands captured or wounded. Civilian deaths reached 26,000. The Nazis literally were trying to destroy Poland as part of their war aim, and in their racial insanity they despised Poles as subhuman, and consequently regarded Polish lives as having no value. The German invaders held nothing back because they didn’t care who they killed. There were no timeouts to send in humanitarian aid. There were no talks of a cease-fire. And the Polish defenders were not deliberately increasing casualties by using their wives and children as shields, nor firing their weapons from populated areas to draw down German fire on their civilian population.
Considering Israel has the most powerful land, sea, and air forces in the Middle East, and nuclear weapons, I’d say this is a piss poor Blitzkrieg. Does anyone, anyone, anywhere, seriously believe that if Israel set it's mind to destroying Palestinians there would be only 850 dead after two weeks?!!!
Anyway, I'm not convinced.
Now, if you define terrorism as holding a million and a half people hostage so you can pursue your implacable religious mission to attack your neighbor’s civilian population until you and your countrymen, wives, and children are suffering a thousand times the casualties that you can ever hope to inflict--and you don't give a goddamn and hope for more deaths, not fewer, because it serves your strategic purpose--then I would say Hamas are the terrorists.
If you define terrorism as being sworn to the existential elimination of an entire people (Jews) because your insane god can’t stand the idea of giving back territory he has stolen, or sharing it with anyone of another religion, then I would say Hamas are the terrorists.
If you define terrorism as deliberately waging war on a civilian population without regard for life in order to achieve your political aims by any means necessary, then I would say Hamas are the terrorists.
But that’s one opinion. It’s all in how you define it.
The More You Talk About Change, the More We Stay the Same
“Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking.”
--Lloyd Bridges, as MCrosky in Airplane!
--Lloyd Bridges, as MCrosky in Airplane!
This photo depicts Iranian demonstrators chanting "Death to Obama!" outside the Swiss embassy in Tehran. They're doing this at the Swiss embassy because the U.S. doesn't have an embassy in Tehran any more, although we used to--10 points for anyone who remembers what happened to it!? They've also got Obama's picture plastered to the street so people can drive over it. Anyhow, the demonstrators are mad, or at least their Iranian Intelligence organizers want to make you think they're mad, because Obama isn't taking Hamas's side on Israel--so far.
Now what we in the good old USA happen to know is that the election of Barack Hussein Obama is the Most Historic Election since Linco--or no, Washing--oh, hell, it's the most important election since time began. And, in my view, this Iranian enthusiasm for burning The One helps proves that. You see, every other lesser American president the Iranians have burned in effigy--which so far includes Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, and Bush 43--was at least in office first. Obama is so far ahead of the curve he got himself burned before he's even been inaugurated.
It also proves eruptions of Iranian demonstrators are not a very good indicator of how we in America should choose our leaders.
Mr. President Elect, welcome to international relations, Muslim-style. Will that be smoking, or non?
Sunday, January 11, 2009
'Death to America!'--Nothing Personal
Today’s Dearborn Press & Guide has an anti-Israel, pro-Hamas opinion piece,“Where will Obama take our foreign policy?” (For some reason most of the P&G’s opinion columns don’t make it into the online edition). As usual, there is no piece from the other side.
The author, Bob A. Rabboh, is described as a Dearborn resident and a college lecturer in “economics and African political systems.” Despite the headline, Rabboh isn’t really as interested in analyzing the President-elect’s foreign policy vision as he is in condemning Israel. Sample:
“[G]enocidal bombings of the Gaza strip,". . . ."One cannot view this crisis outside of the context of Israel’s long and cruel history in Gaza, which has been criminal, by any measure of international law and conventions.” Rabboh adds that, “few have ever experienced what the people of Gaza are now enduring.”
Now that last sentence makes a good point. History has no precedent for a military offensive calling time-outs in order to ship food, water, and medical supplies to the civilian population. Nor do we know of any prior instance of a population freely electing to be ruled by a religious junta whose only campaign promise was to provoke its better-armed neighbor into calamitous war as soon as possible--and then when the promised response comes to see a lot of the same voters telling CNN they're innocent victims!
This is the Press & Guide, so it’s no surprise when Rabboh doesn’t manage to squeeze any mention of Hamas into his column. He tacks pretty close to the expected line on the Arab-Israeli conflict: the only alternative he sees to “more radical extremists and chaos in the Middle East and North Africa. . . . is to end the occupation.” Yes, it’s true that Israel withdrew completely from Gaza, and that the Palestinian Authority, not Israel, are in charge in the West Bank. But by now we’ve all learned that “ending the occupation” is only code language for the destruction of Israel. Israel has to stop occupying the planet.
Rabboh says he’s analyzing the situation “from the international perspective.” But the international perspective always reduces Islamic terrorism and the growing menace of global jihadism except to a response to the situation of the Palestinians. (Which I suppose is why Rabboh's "analysis" also fails to mention either Islam or the Koran). Because, Rabboh explains, the U.S. government chooses to engage only “a few ‘moderate or subordinate [?]’ Arab governments instead of the people,” the U.S. remains ignorant of what the “people” are thinking. As a consequence, the everyday Arab and Muslim resents the U.S. role in the Arab-Israeli conflict. In my favorite line in the column, Rabboh adds this: “This resentment is strictly aimed at the policy makers, and not the American people.”
Oh, it is to laugh! Like the policy makers in the World Trade Center, I suppose, or on Flight 98? Does this mean that when Palestinians danced on 9/11 and Iranians and Hezbollah chant, “Death to America!,” it’s not aimed at me, just my democratically-elected leaders?
I never realized white-hot Muslim resentment was able to make such fine distinctions.
The author, Bob A. Rabboh, is described as a Dearborn resident and a college lecturer in “economics and African political systems.” Despite the headline, Rabboh isn’t really as interested in analyzing the President-elect’s foreign policy vision as he is in condemning Israel. Sample:
“[G]enocidal bombings of the Gaza strip,". . . ."One cannot view this crisis outside of the context of Israel’s long and cruel history in Gaza, which has been criminal, by any measure of international law and conventions.” Rabboh adds that, “few have ever experienced what the people of Gaza are now enduring.”
Now that last sentence makes a good point. History has no precedent for a military offensive calling time-outs in order to ship food, water, and medical supplies to the civilian population. Nor do we know of any prior instance of a population freely electing to be ruled by a religious junta whose only campaign promise was to provoke its better-armed neighbor into calamitous war as soon as possible--and then when the promised response comes to see a lot of the same voters telling CNN they're innocent victims!
This is the Press & Guide, so it’s no surprise when Rabboh doesn’t manage to squeeze any mention of Hamas into his column. He tacks pretty close to the expected line on the Arab-Israeli conflict: the only alternative he sees to “more radical extremists and chaos in the Middle East and North Africa. . . . is to end the occupation.” Yes, it’s true that Israel withdrew completely from Gaza, and that the Palestinian Authority, not Israel, are in charge in the West Bank. But by now we’ve all learned that “ending the occupation” is only code language for the destruction of Israel. Israel has to stop occupying the planet.
Rabboh says he’s analyzing the situation “from the international perspective.” But the international perspective always reduces Islamic terrorism and the growing menace of global jihadism except to a response to the situation of the Palestinians. (Which I suppose is why Rabboh's "analysis" also fails to mention either Islam or the Koran). Because, Rabboh explains, the U.S. government chooses to engage only “a few ‘moderate or subordinate [?]’ Arab governments instead of the people,” the U.S. remains ignorant of what the “people” are thinking. As a consequence, the everyday Arab and Muslim resents the U.S. role in the Arab-Israeli conflict. In my favorite line in the column, Rabboh adds this: “This resentment is strictly aimed at the policy makers, and not the American people.”
Oh, it is to laugh! Like the policy makers in the World Trade Center, I suppose, or on Flight 98? Does this mean that when Palestinians danced on 9/11 and Iranians and Hezbollah chant, “Death to America!,” it’s not aimed at me, just my democratically-elected leaders?
I never realized white-hot Muslim resentment was able to make such fine distinctions.
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Elahi Fights With Only Weapon He Has--Lies
The Detroit News’s resident jihadist crank, Imam Mohammad Ali Elahi, has weighed in this morning on the Israeli offensive in Gaza, with the kind of illogic and misstatements we’ve come to expect. (“Israel perpetrates slaughter in name of self-defense”).
This time his turban is in a particular twist, limiting himself mostly to denunciations of just about everybody, (except Hamas, of course), and the odd misstatement of fact. In what must be the most breathtaking hypocrisy I’ve seen in my life, Elahi criticizes non-Muslim religious leaders for what’s going on now in Gaza:
Nor did Elahi have any reaction to the jihadist massacre in Mumbai, in spite of his sensitivity to the plight of "Abraham's children."
Elahi denies Israel’s right to defend herself, as good as saying that any action Israel takes to protect her citizens is a war crime. On the other hand, he doesn’t bat an eye implying that the endless rocket and mortar attacks by Hamas that have brought this offensive on are legitimate self-defense, quoting a London Guardian columnist, "Like any occupied people, the Palestinians have the right to resist. But there is no right of defense for an illegal occupation."
As stated over and over, Israel withdrew completely from Gaza in 2005, and was not occupying Gaza, and Elahi knows this.
He is lying about this.
The way he tells it, (he even quotes Patrick Henry!) if Hamas kills Jews, it's the American War of Independence all over again. If Israel responds, it's "slaughter."
This time his turban is in a particular twist, limiting himself mostly to denunciations of just about everybody, (except Hamas, of course), and the odd misstatement of fact. In what must be the most breathtaking hypocrisy I’ve seen in my life, Elahi criticizes non-Muslim religious leaders for what’s going on now in Gaza:
Where are religious leaders to promote peace and love among Abraham's children? Where is the pope and the rabbis? Silence may protect them from the Israeli lobby and media, but it won't save them from God's justice and the consequences of this barbaric blood bath.That’s right. Elahi, that unapologetic agent of the Iranian regime (the one that wants to wipe all of “Abraham’s children” associated with Israel off the map), and who is a defender of Hezbollah, (best known for promoting peace and love among Abraham’s Christian and Jewish children with high explosives, rocket attacks, and terror) blames nonMuslims for all this, and can't think of one word to say against Hamas.
Nor did Elahi have any reaction to the jihadist massacre in Mumbai, in spite of his sensitivity to the plight of "Abraham's children."
Elahi denies Israel’s right to defend herself, as good as saying that any action Israel takes to protect her citizens is a war crime. On the other hand, he doesn’t bat an eye implying that the endless rocket and mortar attacks by Hamas that have brought this offensive on are legitimate self-defense, quoting a London Guardian columnist, "Like any occupied people, the Palestinians have the right to resist. But there is no right of defense for an illegal occupation."
As stated over and over, Israel withdrew completely from Gaza in 2005, and was not occupying Gaza, and Elahi knows this.
He is lying about this.
The way he tells it, (he even quotes Patrick Henry!) if Hamas kills Jews, it's the American War of Independence all over again. If Israel responds, it's "slaughter."
Monday, January 05, 2009
'What Hamas Wants'
What Hamas Wants
It’s not peace, reconciliation, or even an end to the carnage.
By Clifford D. May
A thought experiment: Imagine that Hamas announces it will immediately cease and desist from firing missiles into Israel, that there will be no more such attacks in the future, and that it will release Gilad Shalit, the Israel soldier kidnapped two and a half years ago and held incommunicado ever since — with not even the Red Cross allowed to see him. What would happen then?
Moderate Israelis would pressure their government to make a reciprocal gesture: to stop the air attacks on Hamas’s command and control centers, release Palestinian terrorists from Israeli jails and get serious peace talks underway.
But anyone who knows anything about Hamas also knows that such a scenario is implausible. Hamas was created to fight and win holy wars — not to seek peace and sing kumbaya with infidels. Hamas wants a Palestinian state in place of Israel — not next door to Israel. And for Hamas, preventing Palestinian carnage is not a priority. That’s not a slander, it’s a fact. As Hamas parliamentarian Fathi Hamad eloquently phrased it: “We desire death as you desire life.”
In 2005, Israelis undertook a real-life experiment: They said: “The Palestinians have a grievance: our occupation of Gaza and the West Bank — even though we administer those territories as the consequence of a war launched to annihilate us. But if our presence provokes violence, let’s see what results from our absence.” That summer, Israel pulled every soldier and settler out of Gaza. Every house of worship and cemetery was removed. But greenhouses were left behind.
Palestinians might have responded by using those greenhouses to grow flowers for export. They might have built factories, schools, hospitals, and hotels along their Mediterranean beaches. Had that been their choice, moderate Israelis surely would have made further concessions — for example, uprooting Israelis from the West Bank as well, and offering to negotiate a division of Jerusalem.
Instead, of course, Palestinians smashed the greenhouses and put Hamas in charge. Since then, Hamas has done nothing to spark economic development. Nevertheless, it has bemoaned the increasing destitution of unoccupied Gaza — now blaming it on Israel’s “siege” — and demanding aid, not least from Israel, which has given it (as has the U.S.), even as the rockets have fallen
We should understand by now that when Hamas officials vow to fight “occupation,” they are referring to any and all territory on which Israelis now exercise self-determination. Osama Hamdan, Hamas’s representative in Lebanon, said: “Our goal is to liberate all of Palestine, from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea…” Similarly Hamas official Mahmoud Zahar has said: ”We do not recognize the Israeli enemy, nor his right to be our neighbor, nor to stay, nor his ownership of any inch of land.”
This is not merely a negotiating posture, on which there can be compromise once diplomats arrange meetings. It is, rather, a religious conviction. Article 11 of the Hamas Charters states unambiguously that “the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf [endowment] consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgment Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up.”
In Hamas’s view, a Muslim may do his duty and wage war for Israel’s destruction. Or a Muslim may shirk his duty. There is no third option.
One final thought experiment: Imagine that Hamas someday achieves its goal and wipes Israel off the map. Would that be the end of the global conflict now being waged by militant Islamists? Or would the Khomeinists of Iran — Hamas’s chief benefactor — al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba and similar groups be energized and encouraged? Having vanquished the “Little Satan,” what is the chance they could be sweet-talked out of continuing to battle the “Great Satan” in pursuit of the power and glory they believe is their due?
By contrast, if Israel can deliver a crippling blow to Hamas, the mission of the militant jihadists will appear to have lost Divine sanction. As my colleague, the historian Michael Ledeen, has noted: “Nothing is more devastating to a messianic movement than defeat.”
#
It’s not peace, reconciliation, or even an end to the carnage.
By Clifford D. May
A thought experiment: Imagine that Hamas announces it will immediately cease and desist from firing missiles into Israel, that there will be no more such attacks in the future, and that it will release Gilad Shalit, the Israel soldier kidnapped two and a half years ago and held incommunicado ever since — with not even the Red Cross allowed to see him. What would happen then?
Moderate Israelis would pressure their government to make a reciprocal gesture: to stop the air attacks on Hamas’s command and control centers, release Palestinian terrorists from Israeli jails and get serious peace talks underway.
But anyone who knows anything about Hamas also knows that such a scenario is implausible. Hamas was created to fight and win holy wars — not to seek peace and sing kumbaya with infidels. Hamas wants a Palestinian state in place of Israel — not next door to Israel. And for Hamas, preventing Palestinian carnage is not a priority. That’s not a slander, it’s a fact. As Hamas parliamentarian Fathi Hamad eloquently phrased it: “We desire death as you desire life.”
In 2005, Israelis undertook a real-life experiment: They said: “The Palestinians have a grievance: our occupation of Gaza and the West Bank — even though we administer those territories as the consequence of a war launched to annihilate us. But if our presence provokes violence, let’s see what results from our absence.” That summer, Israel pulled every soldier and settler out of Gaza. Every house of worship and cemetery was removed. But greenhouses were left behind.
Palestinians might have responded by using those greenhouses to grow flowers for export. They might have built factories, schools, hospitals, and hotels along their Mediterranean beaches. Had that been their choice, moderate Israelis surely would have made further concessions — for example, uprooting Israelis from the West Bank as well, and offering to negotiate a division of Jerusalem.
Instead, of course, Palestinians smashed the greenhouses and put Hamas in charge. Since then, Hamas has done nothing to spark economic development. Nevertheless, it has bemoaned the increasing destitution of unoccupied Gaza — now blaming it on Israel’s “siege” — and demanding aid, not least from Israel, which has given it (as has the U.S.), even as the rockets have fallen
We should understand by now that when Hamas officials vow to fight “occupation,” they are referring to any and all territory on which Israelis now exercise self-determination. Osama Hamdan, Hamas’s representative in Lebanon, said: “Our goal is to liberate all of Palestine, from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea…” Similarly Hamas official Mahmoud Zahar has said: ”We do not recognize the Israeli enemy, nor his right to be our neighbor, nor to stay, nor his ownership of any inch of land.”
This is not merely a negotiating posture, on which there can be compromise once diplomats arrange meetings. It is, rather, a religious conviction. Article 11 of the Hamas Charters states unambiguously that “the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf [endowment] consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgment Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up.”
In Hamas’s view, a Muslim may do his duty and wage war for Israel’s destruction. Or a Muslim may shirk his duty. There is no third option.
One final thought experiment: Imagine that Hamas someday achieves its goal and wipes Israel off the map. Would that be the end of the global conflict now being waged by militant Islamists? Or would the Khomeinists of Iran — Hamas’s chief benefactor — al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba and similar groups be energized and encouraged? Having vanquished the “Little Satan,” what is the chance they could be sweet-talked out of continuing to battle the “Great Satan” in pursuit of the power and glory they believe is their due?
By contrast, if Israel can deliver a crippling blow to Hamas, the mission of the militant jihadists will appear to have lost Divine sanction. As my colleague, the historian Michael Ledeen, has noted: “Nothing is more devastating to a messianic movement than defeat.”
#
Dearborn's Jihadist Newspaper
I spoke too soon. The Press & Guide is back on duty as a mouthpiece for jihad. On Sunday a front-page article by Jason Carmel Davis offered exclusively one side of the Gaza situation, chockful of manifest untruths. Davis was reporting on last Tuesday's demonstration against the Israeli offensive in Gaza. No balance of quotations from the other side is offered.
Davis quotes Imad Hamad of the ADC calling the Israeli offensive a “true genocide.” He quotes Mohammad Ali Elahi of the Islamic House of Wisdom in Dearborn Heights, likening “what is going on in Gaza to the Holocaust.” (“Demonstrators call for end to bombing in Gaza”).
Davis even did some extra-credit honework and found more detractors who weren’t even at the "mass" rally, like the anti-Israel American Jews for a Just Peace, whom I guess he just likes because the group “strongly condemns the Israeli invasion of Gaza as a cruel and barbarous attack upon a captive civilian population.” He quotes this from their December 28th statement:
This is false. The rocket attacks did not commence in November 2008 in response to any actions by Israel, but have been continuous, with a slight slowing (but never stopping) during the ostensible “cease-fire” with Israel:
Nor is it true that Israel launched an unprovoked attack into Gaza on November 4. The Palestinians killed were Hamas gunmen, and the attack was indeed provoked:
Siblani uses his own newspaper to lie about the cause of the rocket fire: (“Hundreds protest Gaza bombardment in second local demonstration”):
This is from the Hamas Charter:
Davis quotes Imad Hamad of the ADC calling the Israeli offensive a “true genocide.” He quotes Mohammad Ali Elahi of the Islamic House of Wisdom in Dearborn Heights, likening “what is going on in Gaza to the Holocaust.” (“Demonstrators call for end to bombing in Gaza”).
Davis even did some extra-credit honework and found more detractors who weren’t even at the "mass" rally, like the anti-Israel American Jews for a Just Peace, whom I guess he just likes because the group “strongly condemns the Israeli invasion of Gaza as a cruel and barbarous attack upon a captive civilian population.” He quotes this from their December 28th statement:
"Israel justifies its attack as a defensive response to Hamas rockets fired into Israel," the statement read. "While the firing of Hamas rockets into civilian areas is not a justifiable response, the reality is that those rocket attacks were provoked by Israel's own violation of the cease-fire in early November, before it expired, when Israel mounted a series of unprovoked attacks against Gaza that killed six Palestinians.
"As American Jews, we are compelled to oppose these violations of widely held and agreed upon rules of ethical conduct by Israel — and by the U.S., in complicity with it."
This is false. The rocket attacks did not commence in November 2008 in response to any actions by Israel, but have been continuous, with a slight slowing (but never stopping) during the ostensible “cease-fire” with Israel:
Between Israel’s disengagement from Gaza through last November 30, Palestinian forces fired 3,123 rockets into southern Israel, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs calculates. Since Hamas seized control in June 2007, Gazans have shot 1,685 rockets into Israel — 1,212 of them between January 1 and November 30, 2008. Hamas fired 177 missiles at Israel, even during a June 19-December 19, 2008 “state of calm.” Indeed, as President-Elect Barack Obama discovered on his visit to Israel this past July, rockets are Gaza’s chief export. ("Choosing Death Over Life").
Nor is it true that Israel launched an unprovoked attack into Gaza on November 4. The Palestinians killed were Hamas gunmen, and the attack was indeed provoked:
On November 4 the IDF carried out a military action close to the border security fence on the Gazan side to prevent an abduction planned by Hamas, which had dug a tunnel under the fence to that purpose. Seven Hamas terrorist operatives were killed during the action. In retaliation, Hamas and the other terrorist organizations attacked Israel with a massive barrage of rockets. Since then, 191 rockets and 138 mortar shells have been fired. The attacks have been continuous and some were carried out by weapons not previously used, such as 122mm standard Grad rockets and 120mm mortar shells. Hamas has been directly involved in the attacks in cooperation with the other terrorist organizations.
Then readers get Osama Siblani's view of things:
"We call on the current and the incoming American administrations to take immediate action to prevent any more deaths of innocent civilians, by starvation and by bombing," said Congress of Arab American Organizations Spokesman Osama Siblani.Palestinian civilians that is. Siblani has no moral objection to the firing of rockets indiscriminately at Israeli civilians.
Siblani uses his own newspaper to lie about the cause of the rocket fire: (“Hundreds protest Gaza bombardment in second local demonstration”):
“The source of the problem is the occupation of Gaza," he said. "They are defending themselves from 60 years of brutal occupation."More lies. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, and Siblani knows this. He doesn’t mean Gaza has been occupied for 60 years, he means Israel has existed for 60 years, and that is what's intolerable to him.
This is from the Hamas Charter:
Nor is there any confusion about who the enemy is: the “Zionists”:Article Eleven: The Strategy of Hamas: Palestine is an Islamic Waqf
The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine has been an Islamic Waqf throughout the generations and until the Day of Resurrection, no one can renounce it or part of it, or abandon it or part of it. . . .
Article Twelve: Hamas in Palestine, Its Views on Homeland and NationalismHamas regards Nationalism (Wataniyya) as part and parcel of the religious faith. Nothing is loftier or deeper in Nationalism than waging Jihad against the enemy and confronting him when he sets foot on the land of the Muslims. And this becomes an individual duty binding on every Muslim man and woman; a woman must go out and fight the enemy even without her husband’s authorization, and a slave without his masters’ permission.
The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him! This will not apply to the Gharqad, which is a Jewish tree (cited by Bukhari and Muslim).
The Meaning of Asymmetrical Warfare
Alan Dershowitz writes in the Jerusalem Post:
Read the entire article here.
The firing of rockets at civilians from densely populated civilian areas is the newest tactic in the war between terrorists who love death and democracies that love life. The terrorists have learned how to exploit the morality of democracies against those who do not want to kill civilians, even enemy civilians. In one recent incident, Israeli intelligence learned that a particular house was being used to manufacture and store rockets. It was a clear military target since their rockets were being fired at Israeli civilians. But the house was also being lived in by a family. So the Israeli military phoned the house, informed the owner that it was a military target, and gave him thirty minutes to leave with his family before the house was attacked. The owner called Hamas, which immediately sent dozens of mothers carrying babies to stand on the roof of the house. Hamas knew that Israel would never fire at a home with civilians in it. They also knew that if, by some fluke, the Israeli authorities did not learn that there were civilians in the house, and fired on it, Hamas would win a public relations victory by displaying the dead civilians to the media. In this case, Israel did learn of the civilians and withheld its fire. The rockets that were spared destruction by the human shields were then used against Israeli civilians.
Read the entire article here.
Caroline Glick on Gaza
From CNN’s coverage of events here, for instance, you could easily come away from the news thinking that Israel is attacking Gaza for no reason. The European media, and much of the U.S. media dismiss the significance of Hamas’s missile, rocket, and mortar campaign against Israel by noting that these projectiles are relatively primitive and have no guidance systems. But this misses and indeed distorts the entire point. Hamas doesn’t need advanced weapons. Its goal is not to attack specific military targets. Its goal is to attack Israeli society as a whole and terrorize our citizens. That’s what makes it such an outlaw.
In fact, this random bombing of civilian targets is the very definition of war crimes. Due to their random nature, every projectile launched against Israel by Hamas is a separate war crime. And that’s the real story. But again, outside of publications like National Review and the like, the Western media have ignored this basic truth and worse, they have turned the criminal nature of Hamas’s campaign into a justification for it. -- Caroline Glick, in comments to Kathryn Jean Lopez on The Corner at National Review Online. Read the rest of it here.
Thursday, January 01, 2009
Facing Facts on Gaza
Sometimes the best response to a persistent falsehood isn't argument at all, but simple contradiction.
The UK’s Melanie Phillips (Londonistan), effectively contradicts the nonsense being mass-broadcast about what is going on between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. (“Groundhog day for the fifth column of malice”). She responded Tuesday to comments in the UK Guardian by Ed Husain, an Islamist allegedly turning moderate, but who’s piece, “Britain has a duty to Arabs,” shows his willingness to repeat immoderate, and false, statements that the current conflict is “Israel’s massacre of innocent Palestinians.”
Ms. Phillips writes at length, but I quote only two key sections here. In the first, she reacts directly to Husain’s charge over “Israel’s massacre of innocent Palestinians”:
But this is totally untrue. The vast majority of Gazans who have been killed were Hamas terrorists. According to today’s [Tuesday’s] UN figures, 364 have been killed of whom only 62 were civilians. Israel has been targeting only the Hamas infrastructure and its terror-masters, as detailed here. While some civilian casualties are unfortunately inevitable, Israel is clearly attempting to minimise them. It is Hamas which deliberately targets Israeli civilians when it fires its rockets and detonates its human bombs specifically at Israeli civilian targets. It is Hamas which deliberately turns its own civilians into targets by siting its rockets and other military equipment under apartment blocks and in centres of densely crowded population. Hamas tries to kill as many Israeli innocents as possible; Israel’s military operation is conducted solely to defend its people against such attack and is designed to minimise the loss of civilian life in Gaza. To draw an equivalence between the two is obscene.
It is obscene. And as that Supreme Court Justice once cracked, we know it when we see it.
Ms. Phillips also takes a brickbat to the legend of Palestinian displacement from their homeland, which Husain reheats in his article. Ms. Phillips isn't letting him get away with it.
Then there’s [Husain's] lamentable historical illiteracy. He writes:
“I’ve sat in homes of poor, hospitable Palestinians who still yearn
to return to their homeland, taken by force from them in the turmoil after Britain hurriedly left Palestine in 1948...At schools across the Arab world children are taught about the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916. Here in Britain, we might want to forget this imperial past, but ask any Arab and they will reel off these dates and confirm Britain's involvement in creating Israel. As a country, we have a moral duty to right our historical wrongs. We helped create Israel. We must now help create a Palestine.”
For goodness sake! To repeat for the nth time: Israel was never the Palestinians’ ‘homeland’. It was never taken from them ‘by force’. On the contrary, they tried to take the Jews’ homeland from them by force – and are still trying. It was the Jews alone for whom historically ‘Palestine’ was ever their national homeland. On account of that history and the inalienable right to the land that it conferred, Britain was given a mandate to re-establish that national home and establish accordingly ‘close settlement’ of the Jews within the whole of Palestine – which included what is now Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. To appease Arab violence, the Arabs who lived there were offered their own state around the areas where they were concentrated. But they refused and, backed by neighbouring Arab states, went to war to destroy at birth the Jewish state established by the UN under international law – a war that has continued uninterrupted to this day.
There is only one way to de-radicalise people who are being brainwashed by murderous lies, and that is to tell them the truth.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Dearborn Gets Spontaneous
I took some time off over Christmas.
It seems there was a demonstration here on Warren in East Dearborn Tuesday, protestors denouncing Israel and demanding that Hamas in Gaza be left alone.
I wasn’t there myself, and reports on actual numbers are unreliable, but the AP says there were about 1,000, and one of our eyewitness contacts estimates 1,200.
Osama Siblani’s Arab American News report of the demonstration, (Thousands gather in Dearborn to protest Israeli airstrikes), takes me right back to the bad old days of August 2006, when local reporting on the Israel-Hezbollah war was so uniformly horrible that we had to launch this blog to get our voices heard somewhere.
Which reminds me, the local paper here, the Dearborn Press & Guide, has so far been very quiet about the Gaza airstrikes. Back in August and September 2006, the Press & Guide’s strictly pro-Hezbollah reporting, and strictly pro-Hezbollah opinion columns, forced us to drive over to see for ourselves just how big the giant yellow Hezbollah flag was flapping from the flagstaff above Park Street. (Big.)
From what we can find out about Tuesday’s demonstration, it was a convergence of angry Palestinians, neighborhood women, anti-Israel Jews, race hustlers, Trotskyites, Ann Arbor peaceniks, Socialists, and poorly-informed college students (or is that last one redundant?).
Then there were the opportunists, like State Rep Martha Scott, and this guy from Michigan’s most lawsuit-happy civil-rights exploiting racket, By Any Means Necessary:
“We’re out here supporting the Arab American community. We believe in what they’re fighting for… What Israel is doing is racist. We have to put a stop to this,” said BAMN organizer Xavier Carr, of Detroit. “. . . .Just the fact that we’re out here shows that we give a damn.”
And the fact that he was out there also shows Carr doesn’t have a real job. The clunky chant Carr tried to get going:
explains why Xavier is out trying to bogart any cause he can find rather than sinking any more effort into his hip-hop career. See from the photo how the crowd doesn’t seem to give much of a bamn about this rank opportunist.
The Communists were excited, too, sending two reporters to cover what they called “a spontaneous outpouring of anger against the Israeli onslaught” for the World Socialists, and pass out some tracts Washington bears guilt for Gaza war crimes amongst the “workers” while they were at it. Those Socialists, they just love the workers:
The crowd included many young workers, as well as college and high school students. In addition there were workers of all ages and families with small children. (“Protest in Dearborn, Michigan denounces Israeli attack on Gaza”).
I’m thinking there were a lot of nonworkers there, too. The Reds were thrilled to meet “Abe,” a UM-Dearborn student, who denounced the Arab governments as “puppets.” “He expressed interest in Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution, which explains that even the most basic democratic demands of the masses cannot be carried forward by bourgeois or nationalist movements.” Abe has a real future in the Ivy League somewhere.
Siblani’s newspaper is announcing another go-around on Friday at 5 pm outside City Hall, if you’re inclined to see for yourself.
It seems there was a demonstration here on Warren in East Dearborn Tuesday, protestors denouncing Israel and demanding that Hamas in Gaza be left alone.
I wasn’t there myself, and reports on actual numbers are unreliable, but the AP says there were about 1,000, and one of our eyewitness contacts estimates 1,200.
Osama Siblani’s Arab American News report of the demonstration, (Thousands gather in Dearborn to protest Israeli airstrikes), takes me right back to the bad old days of August 2006, when local reporting on the Israel-Hezbollah war was so uniformly horrible that we had to launch this blog to get our voices heard somewhere.
Which reminds me, the local paper here, the Dearborn Press & Guide, has so far been very quiet about the Gaza airstrikes. Back in August and September 2006, the Press & Guide’s strictly pro-Hezbollah reporting, and strictly pro-Hezbollah opinion columns, forced us to drive over to see for ourselves just how big the giant yellow Hezbollah flag was flapping from the flagstaff above Park Street. (Big.)
From what we can find out about Tuesday’s demonstration, it was a convergence of angry Palestinians, neighborhood women, anti-Israel Jews, race hustlers, Trotskyites, Ann Arbor peaceniks, Socialists, and poorly-informed college students (or is that last one redundant?).
“This isn’t just an Arab issue. It’s a human rights issue,” said Suhaib Al-Hanooti, a student activist who helped organize the gathering.Or did you know that launching rockets at the civilians across your neighbor’s border was a human right?
Then there were the opportunists, like State Rep Martha Scott, and this guy from Michigan’s most lawsuit-happy civil-rights exploiting racket, By Any Means Necessary:“We’re out here supporting the Arab American community. We believe in what they’re fighting for… What Israel is doing is racist. We have to put a stop to this,” said BAMN organizer Xavier Carr, of Detroit. “. . . .Just the fact that we’re out here shows that we give a damn.”
And the fact that he was out there also shows Carr doesn’t have a real job. The clunky chant Carr tried to get going:
“Black, Latino, Asian, Arab and white, by any means necessary we will fight!”
explains why Xavier is out trying to bogart any cause he can find rather than sinking any more effort into his hip-hop career. See from the photo how the crowd doesn’t seem to give much of a bamn about this rank opportunist.
The Communists were excited, too, sending two reporters to cover what they called “a spontaneous outpouring of anger against the Israeli onslaught” for the World Socialists, and pass out some tracts Washington bears guilt for Gaza war crimes amongst the “workers” while they were at it. Those Socialists, they just love the workers:
The crowd included many young workers, as well as college and high school students. In addition there were workers of all ages and families with small children. (“Protest in Dearborn, Michigan denounces Israeli attack on Gaza”).
I’m thinking there were a lot of nonworkers there, too. The Reds were thrilled to meet “Abe,” a UM-Dearborn student, who denounced the Arab governments as “puppets.” “He expressed interest in Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution, which explains that even the most basic democratic demands of the masses cannot be carried forward by bourgeois or nationalist movements.” Abe has a real future in the Ivy League somewhere.
Siblani’s newspaper is announcing another go-around on Friday at 5 pm outside City Hall, if you’re inclined to see for yourself.
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