THE DANES DID THE RIGHT THING...

With all the spotlights on Iraq’s January 30 elections and their aftermath, it was easy to miss Denmark’s some ten days later. Indeed, on February 8 the Danes held Parliamentary elections and since there seem to be some remarkable conclusions to be drawn from them, MFBB thought it worthwile to head cybernorthwards.

a.) Results of the elections

First the results: they were convincingly won by Denmarks sitting PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen and his Center-Right/Conservative coalition.

The CNN article, released on February 8, still estimates that Denmark’s Right, consisting of Rasmussen’s own Liberal Venstre (V) Party (mind you, in Europe, "liberal" means center-right), the nationalist Dansk Folkeparti (DF) and the conservative Konservative Folkeparti (KF), will win 96 seats in the 179-seat Danish Parliament, the Folketing.

This recent table however gives such an alliance, were it to form, 94 seats instead of 96 (V + DF + KF = 52 + 24 + 18 = 94). 94 seats in a 179-strong Parliament constitutes still a majority of course.

On the left side of the political spectrum, we see that the opposition consisting mainly of the socialist Socialistik Folkeparti (SF) and the social democratic Socialdemokratiet i Danmark (SD), will likely win no more than some 80 seats. Indeed, so disappointing were February 8’s results for Denmark’s left, that Mogens Lykketoft, chairman of the Social Democrats (SD), was quoted as saying: (Rasmussen's government) "had a much stronger impact that we have been able to have".




(To the left, winner Anders Fogh Rasmussen. To the right, loser and Trotsky-lookalike Mogens Lykketoft)


b.) Topics which failed to help the left

Well, what has gone wrong for the Left in Denmark? After all, Rasmussen has since the beginning been a staunch backer of the US-led war in Iraq, with its DANCON/IRAQ Mission, sending (and keeping) a small but valuable 500-odd strong Battalion to Iraq, which operates south of Basra under British command (see annex 2). Moreover, Danish officers help train Iraqi soldiers under NATO aegis.

Then there is the fact that Rasmussens minority government (12 Liberals and six Conservatives, again notice "liberal" means centre-right over here) during its tenure leaned heavily on the parlementarian support of the nationalist Dansk Folkeparti – an outfit which, with its emphasis on honouring Danish traditions and a fierce anti-immigration stance is not done for Denmark’s PC crowd. Alas for them, Niels Q in the street didn’t mind Venstre and KF buddying up with DF’s nationalists.

There is another aspect seemingly in favour of the left, one that too often gets overlooked and one which my fellow Flemish blogger (from Norway!) Hoegin made me aware of: it seems that Rasmussens first measures upon entering office in 2001 was dismantling a gazillion public commissions whose main purposes seem to have been offering "progressives" a "job" while they performed "culture and education-related work" and drafted society-critical analyses while sitting on their warm asses in cozy airconditioned offices and eating Danish butter cookies. As could be expected Rasmussen caused a leftist uproar sending the tree huggers home, but again Niels Q did not seem to care.


c.) What made Rasmussen tick?

So, what made Rasmussen tick? Like Slick Willy, one could point to the economy, as indeed the Rasmussen crew has been a reliable steward to Denmark’s economy, which is expected to grow 2.4% this year (a really good result in Euroland). But then again, this fact is somewhat overshadowed by the unemployment figure which has risen to 6.2% from a 25-year low of 5% in 2002 (mind you, this is all still quite low for a European country!).

Personally, I think that Rasmussen has been cleverly able to walk the thin line between winning the Danes over to the viewpoint that at least some unpleasant adjustments in cradle-to-grave state care WILL have to be made and at the same time convincing them his government is NOT bent on demolishing the welfare state tout court. In a country with a declining birth rate and with care for the elderly a no.1 topic, as a poll showed, he can’t do that. Keep in mind too that, after all, Rasmussens Venstre Party is a "Liberal" Party, which in Europe means Centre-Right (often with leftist ethics). So while Venstre is pro-business and pro-free market and all that, it is also pro-welfare and, to some degree, even environmentalist.

However, in my opinion the principal reason for Rasmussens victory is his tough handling of the Immigration issue, which like everywhere else in Europe is causing great trouble. I am not going to elaborate on the problems caused by immigrants. You know about some of my earlier posts, and possibly you read LGF. I’m not a hatemonger but I guess the most honest contribution to the immigrant issue is calling a spade a spade and acknowledge that the immigrant influx and its no-questions-asked poor handling by authorities is causing a lot of problems. To cut a long story short, Rasmussen understood from the start full well the issue surpassed the capabilities of the existing Ministry of Interior and created a whole new Ministry of Refugees, Immigrants and Integration under Liberal MEP Bertel Haarder. Haarder’s Office took, it must be said, a very tough approach, causing even an EU Commissioner to liken it to Human Rights violations. For instance, in Europe one of the reasons for the seemingly unstoppable flow of immigrants is the so-called Family Reunification. In short it means that if as an immigrant you’ve been staying here for quite some time and are naturalized, you can let family members from the land of origion come over, who can then become citizens much more easily.

No more in Denmark. Here are some of the tough measures taken to limit family reunification:

* higher minimum age for marriages with foreign partners (24 years)
* higher bail (50,000 Danish Kronen – FYI, the Danes did NOT enter the Eurozone)
* the requirement that the ties of a pair with Denmark, taken together, must be greater than with another land. This requirement essentially excludes naturalised Danes from marriage with a partner from the country of origin or another country. If you think this is harsh, then ask yourself why such a harsh policy was adopted in a country which until recently was almost as ultraliberal as The Netherlands.
* lowerment of the maximum age of children to apply for family reunification (from 18 years to 14 years)

These measures have led to a sharp decline of family reunifications in Denmark. Where in 2001 the number was still 10,950, by 2003 it had dropped to 4791, a decrease of 56%.

As for the Integration chapter:

* newcomers get an introduction programme language and culture
* those who refuse to follow the programme get their benefit slashed
* results of the integration lessons are transferred to the Danish Immigration Service and play a role in granting permanent residence papers (it lasts 7 years before you get these)

I could also cite the passing of a law forbidding Radical Imams entrance to Denmark. Indeed, too often (almost always?) imported Imams, not inclined to learn Danish, tend to preach anti-western hate sermons. Again, this law would not have been put into effect had there been no need for it.

As an afterthought, there’s no gloves-on approach either in the issue of the headscarf in working places. Unfortunately, the headscarf is all over Europe becoming a sign not only of being different but also of being superior. That’s why a Denmark court ruled that a supermarket employee was not allowed to wear a headscarf at work. (Personally, I think that in public and in private enterprises the choice should be free, but in state buildings and institutions headscarves should be banned)


d.) Final thoughts and conclusions on the Danish Right Wing victory

* It is a sign that, where Europe has been overwhelmingly leftist over the past decades, an undeniable shift to the right is taking place
* The shift to the right is until now carried mostly by tough anti-immigration policies as advocated by the right, not yet by a desire for more conservative ethics
* Most European politicians (even leftists, see Germany’s Schroeder) begin to understand that the welfare state is not tenable. The population does not yet. So the measures taken are still more streamlining than slashing exercises.

Personally, I’d rather like to see the shift to the right carried by a renewed appeal of conservative values. That is not yet the case. Still, any issue that draws support away from the Left – even if it is basically a negative issue, in this case problems caused by immigration – is a welcome development for Europe. What I would call a positive incitement towards a "Righter" Europe is, say, a realization among Europeans that they are able to take matters, personal matters, in their own hand (vs. the humiliation of having to live off state benefits, which ultimately leads to depressed unproud citizens, the French being good examples). See also this nice related TechCentralStation column Allowing Familes vs. Family Allowances by Kamila Pajer.


MFBB


ANNEX 1. Denmark 101

Goss sent me some basic info: with its roughly 43,000 square kloms, Denmark is the smallest of the four Scandinavian countries. Its mainland, called Jutland, juts out like a peninsula from te north of Germany, with which it has a land border of only 68 kloms. But its two main islands Sjaelland and Fyn plus a crazy smorgasbord of numerous smaller ones ultimately give it a coastline of some 7,400 kloms! Denmarks population is 5,413,392 (as of July 2004), its capital is Copenhagen with its famous mermaid landmark. Denmark is a constitutional monarchy and has a unicameral Parliament. A modern agricultural industry is the mainstay of Denmarks economy, although there’s also state-of-the-art food processing, machinery and equipment, electronics and chemical industry. And the Danes are real aces in generating electricity through windpower. One of the best known Danish companies in this field is Vestas.

Denmark has a GDP of some 170 billion US$ and a remarkably low debt (for a European country), only 45% of GDP. Although it did meet the criteria for joining the Eurozone, its citizens in a referendum chose not to, which is why the Danes still use their Krone instead of the euro.

General info here, a good and brief overview of Denmark’s history here.


ANNEX 2. DANCON/IRAQ

Possibly very few know that Denmark too was militarily involved in Operation Iraqi Freedom – although I wonder what good use the sole submarine the Danish Navy sent may have had. It was not until June 2nd, 2003, before, within the framework of the DANCON (Danish Contingent) Mission, actual foot soldiers arrived in Iraq, although they were the first of those who did not fight alongside US and UK troops. The DANCON Mission comprises one 460-strong battalion plus a Lithuanian (!) 50-strong platoon. (I’m not sure if the Lithuanians are still included in the current total of 500). The battalion consists of a HQ and Support Company, a Recce Company and a Mechanized Infantry Company. The HQ and Support Coy, which draws most of its personnel of the Prinsens Livregiment, consists of Battalion HQ, a logistics platoon, an engineers platoon, an MP platoon, a medical platoon, an EOD Section and a signals detachment.

The Reconnaissance Company has a HQ and three recce platoons, each of which has 7 MOWAG Eagle I armoured Humvee-like vehicles. As the 7.62mm MG3 machinegun on top of it is not even protected by a shield they are rather patrol vehicles. The recce company’s parent unit is the Guard Hussars Regiment.




(MOWAG Eagle I recce vehicles. Note that the MG3 on top is basically still a WWII-era weapon, in casu the German MG42/45!)


The Mechanized Infantry Company consist of company HQ with two M133G3 APC’s and three platoons of mechanized infantry equipped each with three M113’s and six Merceds Benz scout cars. The M113’s are armed with a 12.7mm M2 HB machinegun each. In addition there’s the Lithuanian platoon, which also has M113’s and Mercedes scout cars.




(M113G3 APC's. Note the passive add-on armor, which, at least on photo, looks like the Rafael armour added to Marine Amtraks.

(Info from Combat & Survival, April 2004)

Attack of the Belgians Part I

"There's nothing better than a game of golf, is there, Agent Smith?"

"I wouldn't know, President Bush," Secret Service Agent Smith answered, "I've never played. I just stand here in the sun and watch you. Rather asinine, if you ask me."

"Yep, nothing better than a good game of golf," Bush said as he adjusted his cowboy hat, and then prepared for a swing.

"President Bush!" yelled out a voice.

Startled, Bush screwed up his swing, sending his ball into the brush. "Grrr!" Bush yelled, "Agent Smith, whoever just messed up my shot I want you to inject him in the neck with that stuff that makes it look like he had a heart attack."

"That stuff ain't cheap, sir," Agent Smith reminded him.

"It was I who called out your name," said a sinister figure, "Chief Floopergibble of the Belgian international police force." More men in black uniforms emerged from the brush. "I, under the authority of Belgium, am placing you under arrest for lying about WMD's and having an illegal war with Iraq."

MR. SCHNABEL ON US/EU RELATIONS.

Belgium has three US Ambassadors. Indeed, both NATO HQ and the EU Commission – say, Europes government – have their premises in Brussels, and maintaining diplomatic contacts with and the Belgian state and these entities has been considered from the beginning as too daunting a task to be entrusted to one ambassador. That is why there are:


a.) a US Ambassador to Belgium



This is Mr. Tom C. Korologos, who was sworn in as Ambassador to the Kingdom of Belgium on June 30, 2004 by the Chief Justice of the United States, Mr. Rehnquist. He is the 29th Ambassador of the United States to Belgium.

Mr. Korologos has ample experience as a senior staff member in the White House and as an assistant to two US Presidents, besides being an accomplished businessman. Iraq keeps coming back to us, since his most recent assignment was in that country, where he served under L. Paul Bremer as a senior counsellor to the CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority).


b.) a US Ambassador to NATO.



Mr. Nicholas Burns is the United States Permanent Representative to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a post he holds since August 8, 2001. As such, he heads the combined State-Defense Department U.S. Mission to NATO, which promotes U.S. interests on the full range of Alliance issues, including NATO’s peacekeeping operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia and Kosovo, counter-terrorism, missile defense, relations with Russia and Partners, and NATO’s relations with the European Union.

Under President George H.W. Bush, he was Director for Soviet Affairs and specialized on economic issues. Under President Clinton, he also served for five years (1990-1995) on the National Security Staff at the White House. In 1997 he became Ambassador to Greece, a post he held until 2001.


c.) a US Ambassador to the European Union.



The US’s Third Ambassador in Belgium is, imho, the most important one, and his function will only gain importance in the years ahead. We are talking about Mr. Rockwell Schnabel, a successful former businessman who supported Ronald Reagan to become governor of California and who subsequently served Reagan as President as well as his successor George H.W. Bush. In 2000 the current President asked Mr. Schnabel to become US Ambassador to the EU, on which he agreed.

I intend to give you now the gist of an interview with Mr. Schnabel as it was published in a Belgian newspaper. The Ambassador being of Dutch descent, this interview took place in that language, but knowing how proficient you all are in the Talk of the Land of Wooden Shoes I preferred to present the summary in English. Here goes:

Currently, Mr. Schnabels Office is frantically preparing President Bush’s visit to Brussels on February 21-23. As Mr. Schnabel stated, the emphasis will be on Europe, on the European Union. "Naturally" the President will also go to NATO because that is the Transatlantic Organization America is part of. And he will also meet the Belgian authorities. But the focal point of the visit will be the European institutions: the Council, the Commission, the Presidency currently under Luxemburgs aegis.

Mr. Schnabel said that the EU gains importance with every passing day or hour. A lot of issues once considered improbable have over the past decades been realised: the internal market and a unified currency e.g., furthermore there is the upcoming Constitution for which President Bush, according to the Ambassador, has shown intense interest. He also asserts that, whereas earlier (American) generations doubted the European project, now they realize that the Europe of 25 nations is a fact, and that decisionmaking once considered the realm of national authorities is shifting towards Brussels.

When Mr. Schnabel then asserts that the US thinks this is considered in the US a positive development, I guess he’s trying to soothe the interviewer and the readers. Asked to back up this claim, he arguments that if the US understands well how Europe functions and if it can work with the EU in a partnership, it will be easier to cooperate with one entitiy instead of with 25 countries. "Together we account for 60% of the world economy. This means we can address global problems like poverty and trade issues together (e.g. in the Doha talks, MFBB), and we can let ourselves be heard toether in the WTO."

The ambassador then reflects on a number of what I would call – in the context of a powerful US/EU alliance – details. Contemporary details, such as the role of American and European industry in stabilizing political tensions. I certainly don’t follow Mr. Schabel when he says that what the EU has done to avoid armed conlflicts (is he talking about he Balkan?) is "fabulous". When confronted with the interviewers' assertion "that George W. Bush is seen in Europe as the first American president who worked actively against European integration", the Ambassador responded that this perception is based on several decisions on which the Europeans disagreed: Iraq, Kyoto, steeel tariffs etc…

I found the most interesting quote from the interview the one with which it ended: upon asked whether an evermore stronger and unified Europe will not lead to a more competitive and antagonistic relationship, Mr. Schabel answered that if Europe is strong and powerful, that automatically bodes well for the US. "There will be competition, but the US have never been afraid of that". He then goes on saying that American companies are used to a merciless competition, and that they are not scared they couldn’t handle European companies. But they ask a level playing field. They want to be able to compete in Europe on the same basis as their European counterparts. Americans think that a strong competition is good, because it is an incentive to do better still. "The more prosperous and competitive Europe becomes, the better it is for us". The Ambassador then pointed out that the level playing field works in both directions, citing Airbus’s example which in a contract for the US Air Force is a contender for Boeing. Final words: "And possibly even the President flies soon in a helicopter not built in the US. Bush does not distrust Europe, of good relations with his European allies he as made one of his four priorites for his second term."

I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Schnabel. As those of you who have followed this blog over the past year know, I am very much in favour of a strong Europe as one nation state modelled on the USA. In my view this implies a superstate with key responsibilities shifted away from the national to the supranational level. In other words, Europe becoming one political, economic, monetary entity with own defense capabilities.

But… I'd equally glad like to see it as an ally of the United States. It is easy to discern in today’s world the trends which will lead to tomorrow’s realities. Everywhere on the planet bloc-forming is on the rise. We see it in South America, where key countries are getting geared together in an economic union, the Mercosur, just as happened in Europe fifty years ago with the ECCS. We see it in the Pacific, where Japan has ambitions to lead a union opposing the emerging superpower China, which is a bloc of its own. Taking all these developments together, it simply isn’t logical to assume – and expect – that Europe should stall in its tracks now, somewhere halfway the grand unification project, like an Empire State Building stopped at 250 meters with elevator shafts leading to open air. As it is, I think that in the multipolarized world that is certainly coming, the United States of America and the United States of Europe will automatically gravitate towards each other, given their unique relationship. Indeed, no other two blocs on this planet are more alike and share a set of common values and a history and culture so entwined: neither a Latin-American blog vs., say, India, nor China vs. an Asian bloc under Japan’s leadership. In tomorrow’s world, so I hope, all the differences of the past can be forgotten and both partners will find themselves in a Grand Transatlantic Alliance.

GET MFBB SOME DRAMAMINE PLEASE. HE FEELS KIND OF SICK...

On Friday January 28, two Dutch students at the Cals College in IJsselstein, The Netherlands, were more or less prohibited by the School Principal to sport any longer Dutch flags on their school bags. 16-year old Patrick Balk and his pal Mark De Mooij were summoned to the Principal’s Office where they heard that they "should seriously consider" to remove the Dutch tricolore from their backpacks "because it could offend their Moroccan co-students". Both students took that as a prohibition.







The whole case was reported duly in Dutch press and on the Internet, a.o. by Dutch Blogger DutchReport, and has caused quite a row in the small kingdom on the North Sea. Cals College is a so-called VMBO school, which stands for "Voorbereidend Middelbaar en Beroeps Onderwijs", loosely translated as "preliminary secondary and crafts education" school, and counts a large proportion of pupils of Moroccan descent.

Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, Hollands largest, had the scoop of the story and immediately thereafter "angry" readers reactions poured in. "Angry", because according to MFBB they actually sound rather pussy. Here follow just a few:


"We do happen to live in Holland. Just a few moments more and you are afraid to come up for your country". – Koos Boer, Zoetermeer

I am showing discriminating behaviour if I say that I love The Netherlands. So if I swear an oath of allegiance to the Dutch Flag, I am a racist?" – Roel Meisters

"And the Wilhelmus? (Dutch national anthem, MFBB’s note) Can we still sing it? And the boys in the Army? Do they also have to rip off the Dutch badge on their uniforms? Total insanity." - a reader.


Yawn. Whatever. Anyways, in the Dutch Tweede Kamer, half of Hollands Parliament, Dutch MPs reacted astonished. "I took notice of this fact with the greatest amazement. How can the Dutch flag be provocative?" asked VVD MP Arno Visser. PvdA MP Mariëtte Hamer called the flag stroy "weird". "It is indeed very difficult to react on an incident, but if the school’s only reason is the argument of possible provocation, I call that heavily over the top".

The Center-right VVD party however thinks that the student's parents and the School Board should sit around the table to appease, erm, discuss the question. "We should not meddle in this" thinks Visser. Christian Democratic MP Jan De Vries (CDA) does not want to react on the incident. "This is a school issue", he says. "We should not meddle in this."


Yeah, right. We should not meddle in this. Well, go on not meddling in this pal. According to De Telegraaf there are more schools in The Netherlands where the use of the Dutch flag on clothing, shoolbags, hats etc. is prohibited "so as not to offend the local populace... oops, the pupils of Moroccan descent". A.o. in the Groene Hart Lyceum in Alphen aan de Rijn, a school denying access to students wearing Dutch flags on their clothing or bags. The Groene Lyceum staff says this ruling is necessary because of the new social climate. "Prohibition is a great word", they say, "but we do this in consent with the pupils". The Moroccan pupils, you mean?


Sigh. Anyway, using his nucular-powered kryptonitic nanodefibrillitational Search Device MFBB was able to track ONE Dutch MP who thought the Secretary of Education, Van Der Hoeven, should meddle in this: breakaway former VVD MP Geert Wilders, who sits as an independent in Dutch Parliament and has established his own party, the Groep Wilders. On this site, you can see several parliamentary questions Mr. Wilders has asked the Education Secreatry:


1.) Did you take notice of the fact that a student of the Cals College in IJsselstein has had to remove the Dutch flag from his schoolbag because, according to the school staff, students of Moroccan descent could interpret these flags as a provocation?

2.) Do you agree that the use of our flag cannot be prohibited? Do you further agree that such a prohibition is sheer nonsense? Do you agree that it is sheer and utter nonsense that the use of the Dutch flag is likely to offend people of Moroccan descent?

3.) Are you prepared to take actions so as to avoid a prohibition on the use of the Dutch flag, including on schools, and to guarantee that the prohibition on the Cals College is annulled and that similar incidents cannot take place anymore and that, should they still occur, be dealt with immediately?


Unfortunately, this Dutch balls-equipped MP is the one who has had to go into hiding in October 2004 because he was threatened with execution by the International Stalinists, had to walk around with four bodyguards and ride in an armoured car out of fear for Islamic extremsits, had to vacate his premises in the city of Utrecht because he no longer felt safe among the large community of foreign nationals in his neighborhood, and was sported on the MSN website of Tawheed Wal Jihad as an infidel who should be killed because he had ridiculed Islam. Happy thoughts to you.


MFBB

EURO ROUNDUP.

1.) SPAIN. February 1, 2005

MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- Spanish police have arrested four Moroccans who are they believe are "directly linked" to the Madrid train bombings last March that killed 191 people.

The four -- from the same family -- were arrested between 6 a.m. and 7:35 a.m. (midnight to 1:35 a.m. ET) in Leganes, a southern Madrid suburb where seven of the most-wanted suspects in the train bombings blew themselves up April 3 as police closed in on their apartment hideout. The four are suspected of helping two other suspects in the train bombings -- Mohamed Afalah and Abdelmagid Bouchar -- flee from Leganes last April around the time of the apartment explosion, the Interior Ministry said.

The four Moussaten family members arrested Tuesday are allegedly linked to the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, a terrorist group whom authorities have blamed for a role in the train bombings. The four were linked to leaders of the combatant group who were arrested last year in Belgium, France and Spain.

The arrests of Combatant Group operatives in Belgium in March 2004 included a Moroccan suspect, Youssef Belhadj, age 28. Spanish investigators believe he may be the same person as a man called Abu Dujanah -- a suspected al Qaeda spokesman in Europe -- in whose name a claim of responsibility for the train bombings was issued last year.

The Moussaten family members arrested Tuesday had a link to Belhadj, the Interior Ministry statement said, and Spanish authorities on Tuesday issued an arrest warrant for Belhadj. Despite his arrest last year in Belgium, he currently is not in jail there, the statement said.



2.) FRANCE, GERMANY. January 25, 2005

Terror recruitment on the rise in Europe.

January 25, 2005. In France, Tuesday, security agents detained seven people suspected of helping funnel Islamic militants into Iraq. In Mainz, Germany, this weekend, police arrested an alleged al-Qaida operative who is also accused of recruiting for Iraq. He is alleged to be a key al-Qaida recruiter who was living in an apartment building on a quiet street. Also arrested: a Palestinian allegedly headed to fight in Iraq. U.S. officials tell NBC News that the recruiter, Ibrahim Mohammed Khalil, is an al-Qaida facilitator who trained in camps in Afghanistan, fought there after 9/11 and was sent back to Germany. There, both U.S. and German intelligence monitored him.

"He also had contact to the leadership of al-Qaida, including Osama bin Laden," says Kay Nehm, the German federal prosecutor working the case.

Experts say the arrest underscores al-Qaida's interest in the war in Iraq.

"It demonstrates that Europe is the central recruitment ground for al-Qaida when it comes to finding jihadists to fight in Iraq," says NBC terror analyst Roger Cressey.
Three men from a mosque in the Paris suburbs that was raided by French police died fighting in Iraq in recent months. One was a suicide bomber.

"They began by dozens, now there are hundreds," says Antoine Sfeir, an Islamic expert in France. "Not only French. Europeans from Germany, from Belgium, from Netherlands."

Even in the tiny town of Cremona, Italy, suspected terror cells provide money, fake documents and safe passage. Last year, Italian police charged five men with allegedly plotting to blow up the Milan subway and recruiting suicide bombers for Iraq.



3.) ITALY. January 26, 2005

ROME — An Italian judge's ruling that five North Africans accused of sending suicide bombers to Iraq were "guerrillas" and not "terrorists" has ignited outrage here and given rise to a debate over the definition of militancy in times of war.


Politicians across the ideological spectrum excoriated the judge Tuesday, as did some of her colleagues in the judiciary and leading newspaper editorialists. Several of the defendants in the case had been linked by investigators to violent extremists.

Expressing "rage and disbelief," Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini said the ruling represented "a shameless distortion of a reality before the eyes of the entire world." Another senior member of the right-wing governing coalition, Fabrizio Cicchitto, called the decision "a major blow to the fight against terrorism."

The judge, Clementina Forleo, dropped international terrorism charges against the defendants, two Moroccans and three Tunisians, after deciding that their alleged actions did not appear to "exceed guerrilla activity."

In issuing the judgment Monday night, Forleo accepted prosecution claims that the men were members of Islamic fundamentalist cells in the northern city of Milan and nearby Cremona, and were raising money for "paramilitary structures" in Iraq.

But, citing the United Nations' 1999 convention on terrorism, she said guerrilla activities in war zones did not become terrorism unless they broke international humanitarian law or were designed to create terror among civilians. There was no evidence the defendants' activities crossed this line, she said.

She sentenced three of the men to jail terms of up to three years for lesser crimes, including the trafficking of fraudulent identification papers, and remanded the other two defendants to another court for a related prosecution.

Forleo defended her thinking Tuesday.

"It was a difficult decision, but I observed the law and followed my conscience," she told reporters in Milan. "My conscience is clear."



4.) GERMANY. February 2, 2005

Bonn Koran school under renewed pressure.


BONN - A Koran school in the German city of Bonn has come under renewed official pressure with the revelation that a staff member's son-in-law supported al-Qaeda and was planning to blow himself up in a terrorist attack in Iraq.

The infants-to-teens King Fahd Academy narrowly escaped closure last year after education officials discovered teachers were calling for a holy war against Christendom at school assemblies and the children spent more time in indoctrination than on the three Rs.

Though reading, writing and arithmetic were well behind the standard at German state schools, hardline Islamists from around Germany were moving their families to Bonn to enroll their children at the school. Juergen Roters, chief of regional government in Cologne, demanded that the Riyadh-funded school dissociate itself from anybody supporting terrorism after police established that a terror suspect arrested in Bonn last month was married to the teacher's daughter.

Yasser Abu-Shaweesh, a 31-year-old Bonn medical student, is alleged to have volunteered to perform a suicide bombing in Iraq. He was recruited by a German-based Iraqi militant, who reportedly trained in a Qaeda camp in Afghanistan and is also under arrest.

Police say that recently married Abu-Shaweesh was born in Libya but is stateless and carries Egyptian travel documents.

His wife and father in law are both Syrian born.

"Police intelligence gives me grounds for concern that there are links between the Islamist clientele of the King Fahd Academy and the school itself," said Roters. He demanded the 300-pupil school sack any teachers with pro-terrorism associations.

German intelligence agencies have closely scrutinized the school and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder been to Riyadh to complain to Saudi leaders about it. Government officials only let the school continue so as to avoid a foreign-relations crisis.



5.) GERMANY. February 2, 2005

Razzias in Germany nab terror suspects.


Unter der Leitung der Staatsanwaltschaft München durchsuchen rund 200 Polizeibeamte 37 Objekte in mehreren Bundesländern, wie das Polizeipräsidium Oberbayern am Mittwoch erklärte. Die Aktion richte sich gegen „eine Gruppierung von ausländischen, islamischen Staaten angehörigen Personen wegen des Verdachts der Bildung einer kriminellen Vereinigung”. Die Durchsuchung von 33 Wohnungen und vier Geschäften richte sich gegen 24 Mitglieder eines Netzwerkes, die sich nach den Feststellungen der Ermittler vermutlich zum Zwecke der Finanzierung radikal-extremistischer Aktionen im Ausland zusammengeschlossen haben. Der Schwerpunkt der Durchsuchungsaktion liegt laut Polizei in den Regierungsbezirken Ober- und Niederbayern sowie im Großraum München.

Under the aegis of the Muenchen Prosecutor's Office around 200 Police Officers searched 37 locations in several Laender, as Police HQ Oberbayern declared to the press on Wednesday. The search operation was directed against "a group of foreign nationals from Islamic states" on the grounds of the alleged belonging to a criminal group. In 33 of the locations, the focus lay on 24 members of a network who were probably cooperating to finance radical-extremist actions in foreign countries. The bulk of the search actions took place in Oberbayern and Niederbayern as well as in the greater area around Muenchen.





(Police Scheme of Islamist Terror Network in Germany)


Am 12. Januar fand bereits in mehreren Städten eine Razzia gegen ein in ganz Deutschland agierendes islamistisches Netzwerk statt. Sie wurde ebenfalls aus München gesteuert. Schwerpunkt der Durchsuchungen waren Ulm und Neu-Ulm, insbesondere das dortige „Multikulturhaus”. Nach Angaben des bayerischen Landeskriminalamtes bestand der Verdacht, Mitglieder eines "islamistisch-extremistischen Netzwerks" hätten gewerbsmäßig mit Ausweispapieren gehandelt, Dokumente gefälscht und illegal in Deutschland befindliche Gesinnungsfreunde versteckt.

On January 12th, in several cities another Razzia took already place against an Islamic network operating throughout the whole of Germany. This network, too, was coordianted from Muenchen. Focus of the search operations were Ulm and Neu-Ulm, especially the "Multicultural House" there. According to the Bayern Criminal Court members of the network had repeatedly fabricated fake identity papers, falsificatd documents and hidden illegal immigrants.



5.) THE NETHERLANDS. February 1, 2005

Prime Minister Balkenende already in 2003 on Death List.


Dutch Prime Minister Balkenende and Finance Minister Zalm were in 2003 already on the death list of 19-year old terror suspect Jason Walters, a convert to Islam. Walters was arrested in December 2004 in The Hague and was a member of the so-called "Hofstad Group" with which Mohammed Bouyeri, murderer of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, had contacts. The new information comes from chat sessions found on Walters computer. In the chat sessions, Walters says he had obtained authorization to carry out the murders from Imam Abdul-Jabbar Van de Ven, also a Dutch convert. Van De Ven is the Imam who, during a talkshow on TV in November, publicly made a death wish against Dutch rightwing MP Geert Wilders.

In the chat sessions, Jason Walters brags about training in a Pakistani camp for terrorists where he would have received basic jihadist training.



5.) BELGIUM. February 2, 2005


Belgian Justice Minister Laurette Onkelinckx (Parti Socialiste) has publicly admitted, responding to a query from Christian Democratic MP Tony Van Parijs, that alleged plans to blow up a High Speed Train Tunnel in Antwerp during the Open Tunnel Event in Antwerp in 2004 were considered serious enough to start an enquiry using an Investigating Officer. The Officer found out that the prime suspects were an Antwerp Imam and his three sons. Due to lack of evidence they could however not be prosecuted. Interesting to note is that the investigation was stopped after a short while, on October 21, 2004.

However, massive resources are still being employed to find the person who leaked info prepared about the attack, during a police and justice meeting. Via the leak the news of the attack landed on the desk of a journalist with newspaper De Morgen, who first reported on the story. The enquiry is focussing on former Antwerp Police Chief Bart De Bie, who for his no-nonsense, zero-tolerance style against Moroccan gangs in Antwerp was sacked and thereafter joined the Vlaams Blok, now Vlaams Belang.

You read me well. No effort is too much to "prove" that it was Mr. De Bie who leaked the info about an imminent attack on a High Speed Train Tunnel to the newspaper. Meanwhile, the investigation to find the planners of the attack is in limbo since October 2004.


Enough said.


MFBB

Enough said.

SPEAK SOFTLY AND CARRY A BIG STICK...

From Dutch Report – News from Holland I get you this:


At the schools in Holland there are many problems with Moroccan youth. Most do not finish their school education and there are many stories about violence against teachers. The teachers do not receive any support from their management or the police. Thing is, Dutch schools, are not allowed to remove aggressive students. They can only try to get him on an other school, but other schools are also not waiting for an aggressive student. Last year, one student, even shot a teacher through his head, fellow student went on the streets to demonstrate to support the murderer…

Now Dutch language blog GeenStijl offers a real class room recoding, in which a Moroccan student demands respect from his teacher...

Follow the link and watch the clip. Watch it. WATCH-THE-CLIP!!!


Sadly, incidents like these are becoming more and more common across Europe. When travelling through Germany in early January, I happened to stumble upon an article in Der Tagesspiegel/edition Berlin-Brandenburg (Jan 4, 2005 issue). Its header read: "Junge Muslime werden immer religioeser" – Young Muslims become ever more religious. I’ll translate the gist of it:


Recep is a pupil in the Hector-Peterson College in Kreuzberg and four times a week in a Quran school. The 16-year old tries to live according to the words of the Prophet: pray five times a day, fast during Ramadan, never drink alcohol. He doesn’t go to the disco, but every Friday to the Mosque. That girls enter marriage as virgins is for Recep as evident as it is for his female colleague, 17-year old Meryem. Since the fourth grade she wears the hijab, prays five times a day and visits the Mosque every day during Ramadan….

The Hector Peterson College’s staff estimates that over the past five to eight years its Muslim youth has become ever more religious. Of 490 pupils, three quarters are Muslims. Today four out of 20 girls per class wear the hijab – where ten years ago it was four in the entire school. Back then, girls participating in swimming lessons and school travels was no theme for their parents – it is now.

Hamburg-based sociologist Necla Kelek, questioning Muslim youths for over ten years now, estimates that today at least half of them follows lessons in Quran schools. The politician’s hopes that Germany’s Muslims would secularize more as they further integrated into German society has proven vain. To the contrary: the 100,000 Muslim youths living in Berlin are more religious than they were one generation ago.

Gerhard Raehme, Principal of the Carl-Von-Ossietzky College sees a link between ardent faith and social problems: "the 90s generations still found a job on the chain (automobile industry, MFBB). These jobs are just not there anymore". For the frustrated, the Quran offered a new identity and confidence, as well as the desire to be different from the "infidels" – and better. Frustrations do however not start upon beginning to look for a job. The past year, 40% of Muslim youths left the Carl-Von-Ossietzky college without a diploma.

(from the Berliner Tagesspiegel)


MFBB's simple peasant's brain figures that if in today's world you don't work and study F*CKING HARD to acquire a minimum of technological skills, you are at best doomed to some pussy superfluous badly paid government job and at worst screwed big time. Also, in November he had a conversation with one of his clients, a woman who worked as a stock keeper in a Colruyt storage facility in Halle/central Belgium (Colruyt being the Belgian equivalent of Wal-Mart). Many of her co-workers were Moroccans. Male Moroccans, that is. They DO NOT ALLOW their women to work outside the house. Now, you may or may not know that Belgium is an expensive country. You wanna get your children the best education and still live a comfortable life, both you and your wife have to have full time jobs. Even so, with soaring ground prices and excessive taxes, there will be precious little left for some extravaganzas. What ‘s the result for the families of my clients Muslim co-workers? Relative poverty. Their children finding themselves on problem schools, more often than not becoming problems themselves all too soon. In schools in Brussels, a grand majority of teachers, confronted regularly with violence, effected insurances against such violence on their own, abandoned as they generally are by the school staff and the Ministry of Education.


Look, I ain’t a racist. I wholeheartedly support the US effort to plant the seeds of democracy in the Middle East. We have to stand by moderate, peace-loving Muslims and encourage them with all means possible to advocate professing a truly humane form of Islam. And I do hope with all my heart that in the hopefully many states where Freedom and Rule of Law will reign, moderate Islamic scholars will find the courage to come forward to define a modernized Islam adapted to today’s world and no longer forming a burden for the faithful in achieving prosperity.

I further hope, WITH ALL OF MY HEART, that from this blossoming of a newly defined Islamic religion a benevolent fallout will in time reach Europe to teach our Muslim populations how Islam can be lived without jeopardizing your own chances of success in today’s complicated world.

But…

Only a fool would just resort to possibly idle expectations. I hope just as strongly that in Europes military headquarters contingency plans using military force are being prepared to confront massive Muslim violence in a time span of, say, twenty years. You know, just in case. Anyone thinks MFBB has lost it, You Are A Fool.

The trends are there, plain to see. The US effort in the ME is literally a race against time to turn Islam into something no longer threatening the rest of the world. It may have come just in time. It may not have. Future will tell.


MFBB

The Hasselhoffian Recursion

Go ahead. Check it out. You'll never be the same again.

Hat tip to Jonah at The Corner.

CAPITALISM ALIVE AND KICKING IN POLAND (1/2)

Ok ladies and jerks, around New Year’s Day we spent a week in Poland to visit my wife’s family in the City of Wroclaw, Poland’s fourth largest (pop. Some 634,000). The distance from our doorsteps to my mother-in-law’s apartment is some 1,100 km if you take the E 40, and thus you could do it in a day if you got up early, ate while driving and didn’t pee too often; however, having a little kid with us and generally not wanting to be in a hurry when driving through beautiful central Germany, we always do it in two days – until now, since in Weimar we had some car trouble causing us a delay of another day, making a ride which started on a Monday end on a Wednesday. But I digress.

Btw, Weimar. Now, Weimar may well be Germany’s small cultural Mecca par excellence, in historical terms at least. Indeed, the famous poets Goethe, Schiller and Herder lived here, as well as the composers Bach and Liszt. Quite a few Weimarer Gebaude are recognised by UNESCO as World Heritage buildings. If you intend to visit it soon, 2005 is the year since the city commemorates the 200th year since Schiller deceased. I suppose though that for those who heard a bell ring at the mention of the name, they rather connected it with Germany’s ill-fated and short-lived bourgeois democracy during the Interbellum’s first half. If so, that assumption was also correct. The statue of Goethe and Schiller stands right in front of the Weimar Republic’s Parliamentary Building (if you clicked on the previous link, Goethe is the chap on the left).

Hmmm, when I first saw that building, I couldn’t help but wonder that the Weimar Republic was probably doomed from the start. Germans are a Proud People and like Decorum, Gravitas and Grandezza. Now, the Parliament looks more suited to serve as Luxembourgs Town Hall or something – though of a sound architectural design, much too modest imho for an 80million nation and leading industrial power.

Anyway, thanks to Herr Lutz Wagner from Autohaus Glinicke we were able to pursue our journey and left Weimar on Wednesday at around 11 o’clock. Some 30 kloms further, along the E40, we passed by the City of Jena, see pic below.






I mention Jena because despite its size (it counts some 103,000 inhabitants) it’s a rather important educational and industrial center. Its role as the former is emphasized by the presence of the famous Friedrich-Schiller University Jena (some 20,000 students) and the Fachhochschule. But that’s not all, in addition there are the:

• Hans-Knöll-Institut für Naturstoff-Forschung e.V.,
• Institut für Molekulare Biotechnologie e.V.
• Institut für Physikalische Hochtechnologie e.V.,
• Fraunhofer-Institut für Angewandte Optik und Feinmechanik Jena,
• Max-Planck-Institut zur Erforschung von Wirtschaftssystemen,
• Max-Planck-Institut für Chemische Ökologie und
• Max-Planck-Institut für Biogeochemie

As you can see Jena is no place for Hollywood celebs. As an industrial center, Jena distinguishes itself through renowned companies like Carl Zeiss Jena GmbH (I’m sure you heard of their famous binoculars) and the pharmaceutical giant Jenapharm GmbH & Co, but there are many more.

From Jena it was still a ride of some 300 kloms to the Polish/German border, which we crossed easily, Poland now being an EU member. It was a tremendous relief not having to wait in a long queue before suspicious-looking guards allow you to proceed. Wroclaw itself, some 150 kloms inside Poland, was reached by 6pm on Wednesday evening, by which time it was already dark. It would have been even later had we not been able to use the almost refurbished E40, which until at least Easter of this year was composed of ancient concrete slabs varying 2-3cm in height at the junctions, making a ride at even only 80kloms an hour a butt-numbing experience. As we reached Wroclaws outskirts, the dark of the highway was replaced by the white-yellow glare of thousands of sodium lamps with an array of freshly erected supermarkets bathing in it: TESCO, Auchan (French equivalent of Wal-Mart), Makro, Le Roy Merlin, Media Markt, IKEA etc…

Now, since I did not have the means to photograph this scenery you will excuse a little cheating from me, since the pic I provide to illustrate the industrial building activity is one I took last April – hence the green grass and blossoming flowers. It shows one of many newly erected industrial buildings housing small and medium-sized companies around Wroclaw, in this case Tektura:





I did a Google for "Tektura" + "Wroclaw" and lo and behold, there we got their site: it appeared to be the Polish daughter of German packaging specialist Tektura!

Excerpt from their fine site:

Two Martin inline-machines with up to three printing units, two Bobst flatbed diecutters with up to five printing units and two Bobst six-corner folder-gluers are installed there. Of course all machines are state-of-the-art. So there we are also able to provide our customers with a broad bandwidth of packaging. With a production capacity of about 60 million square metres per year we are among Poland's biggest packaging producers. The whole plant has been configured and equipped in accordance to the latest technological findings. So we can be sure of having set a new standard in the corrugated board industry.

Oh yeah, see that car in front of the sign? That’s MFBB’s Audi!


Now, before I elaborate on our days in Wroclaw a few words on the country itself: Poland is officially a Republic, with a population slightly less than 39 million (July 2004 estimate) and a surface of 312,685 sq kloms, making it almost the size of New Mexico. Head of State is President Aleksander Kwasniewski, Prime Minister is Marek Belka. That last name may ring a bell to Iraq News crunchers, since Mr. Belka was CPA Financial Director under Paul Bremer the previous year. Like the US, Poland has a bicameral system with a 100 strong Senate and a 460-strong House of Representatives called the Sejm. Check out their neat site.

As you may all have heard, the communist government under General Jaruzelski was challenged in 1980 by the emergence of the free Labor Union Solidarnosc under Lech Walesa. A decadelong bumpy ride including a brief stint of Martial Law, imprisonment of key Solidarnosc members, government-ordered murder (anyone remember Father Popieluszko?) saw communist rule finally break down by 1990. Since then Poland has undergone an economical shock therapy which transformed its economy since then in one of the most robust of the former Eastern European countries.

However, over the past years things didn’t look that bright anymore: the Poles just emerge from a four year reign under Prime Minister Leszek Miller. Naturally, being a former communist he and his government screwed things up royally and currently Poland suffers from high unemployment and low GDP growth. Btw, Poland’s GDP is some 427 billion US$ (2004 estimate). With abovementioned population of 39 million that yields a GDP per capita of 11,100 US$. Millers main credit is guiding Poland into the EU, although of course he also deserves praise, along with president Kwasniewski, for Polands valoured contribution as a member of the Coalition of the Willing, with an important role in Iraq. Helpful in this respect was also the fact that Poland is a NATO member in 1999.


(to be continued)



(old Polish Air Force MiG21 from some Aero Klub near the border)


MFBB

MAYBE IT AIN'T THAT BAD AFTER ALL...

While Belgium unfortunately chose not to join the so-called "Coalition of the Willing" after OIF by providing troops for the peacekeeping effort in Iraq, at least a (small) contribution to the War on Terror has been made by, a.o., the deployment of some 630 troops to Afghanistan within the framework of NATO’s ISAF operation. ISAF stands for International Security Assistance Group and army contingents and/or airforce elements from various NATO countries, such as Canada, Germany, Romania, Norway and Portugal participate.

The Belgian contribution to ISAF consists mainly of:

a.) Guarding and securing Kabul International Airport (KAIA) – some 400 Army troops
b.) One Para Company as part of the so-called Battlegroup 3

In addition, a handful of soldiers have been detached to the German-led PRT for Kunduz. PRT, for Provincial Reconstruction Team, the concept being an Afghan government "antenna" of reconstruction teams protected by ISAF troops to remote Afghan areas, to restore a semblance of governmental control in areas hitherto considered the realm of warlords. Also, the Belgian Air Force provides one C 130 Hercules aircraft for air transport throughout Afghanistan.



Scene at Kabul international Airport (KAIA). The soldiers look rather bored.


Since I have only scant information regarding the KAIA detachment but plenty on Battlegroup 3, I’d like to focus on the latter.

The 550-strong Battlegroup 3, or BG3, is one of three battlegroups forming KMNB (Kabul Multinational Brigade). BG3 is thus battalion-sized and consists of three elements: a Norwegian company-sized (180 men) Kavaleri Eskadron drawn from 8th Division, equipped with Mercedes scout cars and tracked M113 and CV90 APCs (tracked Armoured Personnel Carriers). Then there are the Hungarians of the 1st company (170 troops) of the 34th Long Range Reconnaissance Group "Bercsenyi Laszlo", equipped with Mercedes scout cars and BTR 80A APCs. The third element of BG3 is the 200-strong reinforced 21st company of Belgiums First Para Battalion from Diest. Their mounts are Bombardier Iltis jeeps and Pandur wheeled APCS.

BG3’s staff is composed of 16 Norwegians, 16 Belgians and 2 Hungarians. Commander is the Norwegian Lt. Col. Odlo, who describes the Battle groups mission as follows:

"Battlegroup 3 is a highly professional unit which is available when needed to assist in providing security in Kabul and its surrounds for organizations working in the area."




Above, Pandur APC in action. The 21st Coy has 8 at its disposal, each armed with a .50 cal machinegun, plus two equipped for medevacs. Below, the soft-skinned Bombardier Iltis jeep on patrol in Kabul. I'd rather sit in a Pandur than in an Iltis of course. The Iltis jeeps are Canadian and the relatively strong Canadian contingent in Afghanistan has them too on their inventory. In January 2004 a Canadian soldier was killed by a mine blast while travelling in the light jeep (much lighter than a Humvee, anyway), sparking a row in Canada on whether it was appropriate to send troops into combat in such light vehicles.

BG3s main task is assisting the diverse Afghan security organs, like police and NSD (National Department of Security) to create a safer climate in and around Kabul, thereby making it clear that the government is now in charge of the situation and that not only is there no place anymore for the Taliban but neither for the warlords, who still consider each progress by the central government outside Kabul as an incursion in their fiefdom. As the Afghan National Army (ANA) still has only some 21,000 troops, ISAFS presence and high visibility is still necessary.

BG3’s soldiers carry out daily patrols, on foot as well as by road and during the day as well as the night. Each patrol has an interpreter with it and very often works with local police. Another main purpose, apart from thwarting attacks and instilling faith in the people by making it clear who’s boss, is to gather intelligence.

Battlegroup 3’s Base Camp is in the Canadian "Julian" Camp, some 20 kloms southwest of Kabul Airport.




This dude on duty on KAIA looks eerily like me. The gun he is holding is our home-made FNC assault rifle. Home-made, since from the FN (Fabrique Nationale) factory in Herstal, eastern Wallonia. Mind you, he's not serving with 21st company in BG3 so he's not a Para but an army guy. All Belgian uniforms you see in this photo have this strange camo, although the Paras have by now received new desert camo.


All pictures taken from the Belgian Armed Forces site.


MFBB

THREE KILLERS IN THEIR OWN RIGHT

a.) Mark Steyn

Oh man, where the fuck did you learn to write??? You kill me!

...As for the most striking photograph of this disaster, it's by AFP's Jimin Lai. I haven't seen it in any of the papers, oddly enough. It shows a tsunami-devastated village in Galle on the southwestern coast of Sri Lanka: a couple of rescuers are carrying away a body while, behind them, smack dab in the centre of the picture, a young man looks on. He's wearing an Osama bin Laden T-shirt.

I gave up worrying "Why do they hate us?" on the evening of September 11, 2001. But, if I were that Osodden bin Loser guy watching the infidels truck in water, food, medical supplies and emergency clothing for villagers whose jihad-chic T-shirt collection was washed out to sea, I might ask myself a more pertinent question: "Why do they like us?"

The path of the tsunamis tracked the arc of the Muslim world, from Sumatra to Somalia; the most devastated country is the world's most populous Muslim nation, and the most devastated part of that country is the one province living under the strictures of sharia. But, as usual, when disaster strikes it's the Great Satan and his various Little Satans who leap to respond. In the decade before September 11, the US military functioned, more or less exclusively, as a Muslim rapid reaction force – coming to the aid of Kuwaiti Muslims, Bosnian Muslims, Somali Muslims and Albanian Muslims. Since then, with the help of its Anglo-Australian allies, it's liberated 50 million Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq.


b.) Aleksander Lukashenko

Try to avoid this dude. Boss of Europes last dictatorship. Apart from Belgium, that is.

The US State Department has said it considers as credible allegations that the Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko or his close entourage are involved in the disappearance of up to 30 opposition figures.

The high-profile disappearances include some of President Lukashenko's key opponents: Yuri Zakharenko, the former Interior Minister; Viktor Gonchar, the former Chairman of Belarus's Central Electoral Commission; and Dmitri Zavadksi, who once worked as President Lukashenko's personal cameraman.

FYI, Belarus, or White Russia in English, is a former USSR Republic, population some ten million, capital Minsk. It borders on Poland in the West and Russia in the East. Lukashenko has been in power for over a decade. True, the fella got re-elected again in 2000. But the OSCE, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (to you Americans it may seem a shadowy outfit, but in Europe it really has weight) said that the minimum requirements for free and fair elections had not been met. In 2003, from June to November no fewer than 4 major media outlets were closed. One year ago we were all witnesses of Georgia's popular revolt against Shevardnadzes unjust rule as the young and western-minded Saakashvili was elected. The past week we saw a comparable thing happen in Ukraine with Yuschschenkos victory. These events were dubbed the Rose and Orange revolts. This is how Lukashenko reacted to them:

Belarus President Aleksander Lukashenko has insisted there will be no people's revolutions, whether "rose, orange or banana", in his country.


c.) Anke Vandermeersch

A picture tells more than a thousand words.



MFBB has noticed that a certain contributor to this blog seemed more than a little impressed by Mrs. Vandermeersch's, erm, charisma. That's why MFBB provides this fine Compatibility Test.

FYI, MFBB is the Proud Owner of an 80% result.

MFBB

CLUELESS ABOUT SEIF

I don’t know if you have already heard of the fella, but I did back in 2003 already: the guy in question is Seif al-Islam, one of Gaddafi’s sons (he’s got another one who is football player in an Italian club). The guy’s comments struck me as unbelievable, since in the article – it was a CNN piece on Internet, can’t find it back and besides, the link will by now be expired – he literally begged for the west to be friends again and forget all that Lockerbie and Berlin stuff.





Anyway, my interest being aroused, I was on the lookout for some time and indeed, you could regularly find other articles in which Mr. al-Islam continued to come over as surprisingly pro-western. Here are just a few excerpts from an AP article (thanks to the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler):

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - The son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi said Wednesday Arab countries should support President Bush's campaign to promote democracy in the Middle East.

"Instead of shouting and criticizing the American initiative, you have to bring democracy to your countries, and then there will be no need to fear America or your people," said Seif al-Islam Gadhafi. "The Arabs should either change or change will be imposed on them from outside."

Seif denied reports that he is a candidate to succeed his father, who rules Libya with little tolerance of opposition.
"Many Arab countries are now following the policy of inheriting the leadership, but there are hundreds of Libyans who are better (suited) than I. " Seif said.

Seif even praised Israel, saying that unlike Arab countries, sons do not tend to succeed their fathers in power there.

"We don't put the appropriate person in the right place, but Israel is a democratic country," told the Al-Jazeera television station.


Gulp. We have all known Libya and what it stood for for twenty-five years, haven’t we? Now what is strange is that suddenly this guy comes out and Libya shows –surprise, surprise – an uncanny willingness to cooperate with the West in terms of WMD reduction and payback for the terrorist acts committed by blasting the Jumbo out of the air above Scotland or the French UTA flight over Niger or the Berlin disco. One would think this is more than a coincidence, and indeed, my Time Issue of the past week has a whole article "Libya’s New Face" on Seif al-Islam and his apparently successful attempts to coerce his dad back to sanity and to open the country again for western investors. Sounds promising, huh?

Well, it appears Michael Totten thinks otherwise: Where the Communist Manifesto meets the Koran.


Seif al-Islam: "'We don't have an opposition -- there is no opposition,' he said, asserting that there were 'just five people' seriously opposed to the current government and that all of them were in the United States."


So now I don't know anymore what to think. I have learned to know Michael Totten as a reliable source for over a year now (to the best of my knowledge, he's also being typed as a "liberal hawk"). And he had a marvellous series of photographs about a recent journey to Gaddafiland. It seems that we should not be fooled and that despite the windowdressing Libya is still a hardcore Commie dictatorship, albeit with a (much) lesser, if not nonexistent, Islamist element. Totten reports too about an ancient city, Ghadames, the "jewel of the Sahara", where allegedly all inhabitants where forced out to live in newly erected concrete barracks on the outskirts of town. Hardly a democratic move, methinks. And most of us have heard about the failed assassination attempt against Saudi royals by Libyan agents, as admitted by a fella named Mohamed Ismail, presumed Libyan intelligence officer, currently in jail in KSA.


One of the more annoying aspects of the Internet is that you get so flooded with information that in the long run you seem to ultimately get not much further than the types sticking to newspaper and TV. You read so much pro and contra that everything is liable to kaputtnuancing. In the case of Seif al-Islam, I'm really clueless. Is he really a person who will favour true democratic reforms in Libya and the Arab World? Or is he merely a smart marketeer intent on breaking the sanctions while trying to stick to the old ways and succeed his daddy in a couple of years? If anyone has thoughts, I'd be grateful.

MFBB

Even though I really don't like cats (although they're not as bad as clowns or monkeys), I don't really condone this behavior. However, what is "federal animal cruelty"? Was this particular feline employed by Washington?

Call me silly, but I would assume the local boys have this one under control and the feds could be busy, um I don't know, breaking up terrorist cells perhaps?

This U.N. toady needs a beatdown.

...adding that politicians in the United States and Europe "believe that they are really burdening the taxpayers too much, and the taxpayers want to give less. It's not true. They want to give more."

Read the whole thing for an extra special treat.


Hat tip to Drudge.

THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE... SIXTY YEARS ON

A.) Introduction.

In December 1944 the Allied armies had recaptured most of Hitlers conquests in Western Europe. The frontline had advanced to pretty much the pre-war boundaries between Germany, France, and Belgium, with the exception of the Netherlands, where a skewed situation with an allied-held corridor pointing towards Arnhem had developed since the partly failed Market Garden Operation in September 1944. The main fighting took place in the northern and southern sectors of the front – mainly in the Aachen area by the US 1st Army under Hodges and in Alsace-Lorraine by the US 3rd Army under Patton.

Between the two of them lay a stretch of less than one hundred kilometres along the borders of Belgium and Luxembourg with Germany. Ever since US troops first ventured here in September this region had seen little fighting. In fact, so calm had duty in this area been that GI’s dubbed it the "Phoney Front" – because apart from the occasional potshots and a few mortar rounds the opposing sides lobbed at each other every now and then, combat activity could in now way be compared to, say, the bloodletting in the Huertgen Forest.

Covering this part of the front was the US VIII Corps under General Troy Middleton. With only four divisions his troops would have been considered dangerously outstretched… were it not that the Ardennes Forest behind his back did not necessitate a larger troop deployment…

But was that so? After all, the old Ardennes massif, with its rugged terrain and dense woods had been easily traversed by Hitlers panzers in May 1940. Had the German troops not had such a terrible beating in summer 1944 – not only in the West but also in the East, where the entire Army Group Center had been annihilated – and had there been no general mood among Allied troops that the end for the Germans was near, more cautious generals would have remembered 1940.

Hitler did. As early as September he embarked on plans to attack through the Ardennes again, and had the plans for Fall Gelb (Case Yellow, the 1940 conquest of Western Europe) brought to him again. All through the autumn, and despite his generals being aghast at the preparation of yet another offensive when the country was in dire need of adequate defenses, Hitler assembled three armies to be used in the undertaking, which had first gotten the codename Herbstnebel (Autumn Mist) and then Wacht am Rhein (Watch on the Rhine), to suggest a purely defensive operation.

Why did Hitler think an attack was a sound idea? Partly it was his sense for self-aggrandization: he could simply not limit himself to purely defensive operations when he still had an armoured card to play out. One has to admit, though, that if the forces at his disposal had been even stronger (say, twice) the plan might have worked out "fine" – read, with devastating results to the Allies. Indeed, Allied operations in the northern sector had led to a large mass of Allied troops perched together between Arnhem in Holland and the old German city of Aachen (the Canadian 1st, Britsh 2nd, US 1st and US 9th Armies). The strong US 3rd Army was far to the south in Alsace Lorraine. By smashing his way through the weakly defended Ardennes and racing for the Belgian port of Antwerp, the Allies’ most important supply port in Europe, the four Allied armies would be cut off in a gigantic "bag" encompassing most of northern Belgium and southern Holland. As their lifeline would be cut off by the taking of Antwerp, very likely these forces would soon run out of ammo and supplies. Hitlers plan foresaw that the southern army of his thrust through the Ardennes would hold up Patton long enough for the rest of his troops to annihilate the entire northern sector of the Allies, moreover, these troops would also be attacked from the north by armoured counterattacks by General Students forces north of the Maas and Waal rivers. Surely, from a military point of view the whole plan had its merits. There was one caveat: the German forces, comparatively strong as they were for that stage in the war, were still hopelessly understrength for such an undertaking. Hitler was over-ambitious and deluded himself as to the capabilities of his troops.

German losses throughout summer and autumn had been atrocious. Between June and November 1944 the total of casualties on all fronts had been a staggering 1,400,000. Entire armies had been lost both in the East and the West, and divisions had limped away from the battlefield as mere shadows of their former self. For instance, the famous 2nd Wiener Panzerdivison under Von Luettwitz had arrived in September in the Eifel (the continuation of the Ardennes on German soil) with just three tanks left. The entire 2nd SS Panzer Corps, consisting of the Hohenstaufen and Frundsberg SS Panzer Divisions, had on September 17th, day of the airborne landings in the Netherlands, a combined strength of less than 10,000 troops, whereas a full-blown SS Panzer Divison counted almost 20,000.

Nevertheless, by scraping the bottom of the barrel, tapping the few hitherto untouched reservoirs of manpower including personnel from the cultural sector (even opera performers!) and a miraculously revived German war industry, Hitler was once more able not only to stabilise the Western front by the beginning of October, but also to carefully nurture behind the frontlines the attacking force which would, he hoped, repeat the success of 1940.



(German Heavy Tiger II tank, commonly referred to as Koenigstiger)


It is interesting to look at the composition of this attacking force, since regardless the evil nature of the Nazi regime one cannot help but be astonished at how the Germans were able to assemble so quickly so large a force of three armies with between them 21 divisions (ultimately 29), of which 10 were Panzer of Panzergrenadierdivisions. These armies were, from north to south, the 6th SS Panzer Army under Sepp Dietrich, the Fifth Panzer Army under Von Manteuffel and the 7th Army under Brandenberger. Of course, even as the front stabilised during October and bad weather hampered large-scale Allied operations, occasionally several divisions from this powerful array had still to be sent to plug a gap left and right, or to shore up a threatened sector. Since Hitler apparently preferred his precious SS divisions remain untouched (at least till the great day), Army divisions were chosen for this ungrateful job, resulting at them standing at the starting line with less than their full complement. E.g., the elite Army panzer training Division Panzerlehr and the 2nd Panzer Division counted on December 16th, the day when Wacht Am Rhein started, 60 and 88 tanks respectively, far below their SS counterparts' allotment. But not even trying to keep those last ones unscathed during October and November could reinstate them to their former status and the Nazi command had to resort to organizational tricks to get those divisions’ tank strengths to an acceptable level. In the case of 1st SS Panzer Division this was done by incorporating a panzer unit which was normally independent and not even intended to operate within a divisional frame. (a Heavy SS Tank battalion, the 501st). Still, when comparing both a typical Army Panzer division and a typical SS Panzer divison, one has to conclude that the latter had virtually twice the strength (armoured and otherwise) of the former. This perfectly illustrates the disrespect Hitler had for the regular army units as compared to his "personal" Waffen SS troops.

Even in their non-completed state, the three German armies had between them some 250,000 troops and close to 1,400 tanks and assault guns – thus, on a front line of a mere 80 kilometers almost as many armour as along the entire 1,600 kilometer or so of the Eastern Front!

Opposing them was the US VIII Corps under General Middleton, consisting of:

•the 14th Cavalry Group
•the 106th Infantry Division
•the 28th Infantry Division
•the 4th Infantry Division

All in all, basically not even four divisions "holding" a front line (20 kilometers per division) with very few tanks, and of whom 106th had just arrived, as green as can be, from the States and the 28th was recuperating after having been severely mauled in the ill-fated operation in the Huertgen Forest. When one also counts that the Germans obtained complete surprise, it is easy to see why the first days of the offensive were such a tremendous success for the Germans.




(map via Europeanmilitarytours)

The map shows the maximum penetration of German forces during the Ardennes Offensive - 130 kilometers for the 2nd Panzer Division, or just 6 kilometers from the Belgian town of Dinant along the Meuse river!

(To be continued)

MFBB

THE POSITION OF THE VLAAMS BLOK/VLAAMS BELANG ON THE HOLOCAUST

Friend of Downeast and regular reader Drazil posed the following question in the previous post’s comments section (which dealt with the transition of the Vlaams Blok to the Vlaams Belang):

Michael, someone on another site I frequent stated that the Vlaams Blok position on the Holocaust is that it did not happen. Can you clarify that for me?
Drazil 12.24.04 - 9:43 pm #

First of all, thank you very much for this question Drazil, since it allows me to shed some light on an argument which can be used to discredit my party.

The Vlaams Blok/Vlaams Belang is very clear on the Holocaust: IT DID HAPPEN. Moreover, leading Vlaams Blok/Vlaams Belang strongmen repeatedly express their support for the Belgian Jewish Community and the State of Israël. As you may or may not know, the Belgian port of Antwerp is also the world’s Diamond Center. This industry is mainly in the hands of the Jewish community in Antwerp, numbering some 20,000. More and more of them are acutely aware of the growing threat of radical Muslim extremists in Belgium and especially in Antwerp, homebase of the radical Muslim organization Arab European League, led by Lebanese firebrand and former Hizballah terrorist Dyab Abu Jahjah, who naturalized to Belgian through a phoney marriage with a girl from Bruges.

Whereas the relations between the Muslim and Jewish communities had been peaceful through the early nineties, the establishment of the AEL in Antwerp from the mid-nneties on soon led to frictions. By April 2002 things had gotten to the point where an attempt to destroy a synagogue with a molotovcocktail was made. The perpetrators were never caught, but the next day young AEL Muslims ventured on Antwerps streets burning Israeli flags and busting Jewish shopwindows in the diamond district. On April 8, 2002, the AEL demonstrated again, only this time round an effigy of Sharon was burnt. Savoury detail: the puppet was clad in the typical dresscode of the Chassidim, the Jewish community’s Ultra Orthodox segment (black robes, black hat, long beard, curls etc…)

Instances like these and others, e.g. the stabbing to near death of the Jewish Yeshida student Noah Schmal last summer by a gang of fifteen Moroccans and the murder on Moshe Yitzhak Na’eh some two months ago, have led to an increasing number of Jews leaning to, and also voting for, the Vlaams Blok/Vlaams Belang, which many have begun to see as the only political force standing between them and an increasingly radicalising Muslim community.





Because a picture tells more than a 1,000 words, as the cliché goes, I provide here a photo depicting Filip Dewinter, VB chairman in Antwerp, shaking hands with the well-known rabbi Pinchas Meyers. In the former you will recognize the man on the poster from yesterday's article. In addition, I can tell you that Dewinter has also held talks with Jewish former town official André Gantman, in which he distanced himself explicitly from each and any form of anti-Semitism.

The VB itself does the same, but I’m giving this example because Dewinter himself is really the face of the VB, not only in Antwerp but also in the rest of the country. Scroll down this site, and you will find plenty of evidence of extensive contacts between the VB and Jews in Antwerp. In addition, I might add that Dewinter has given interviews to Jewish newspaper Maariv supporting Israëls cause, and that Dewinter on March 23rd of this year, upon introducing Israeli author Avi Lipkin, a former spokesman of the Israeli army, to a VB audience, said that Israel is "the vanguard of the West in a feudal Middle East."

He’s not the only one though: Marc Joris, another well-known VB figure from Antwerp co-runs with female Jewish filmmaker Tami Lorjé the site Kristalhelder, a site providing background info on Israël from the point where MSM info on that country STOPS... Such is the vigor with which Mr. Joris, a Holocaust Denier as the PC cabal would want us to believe, has committed himself to the defence of Jews in Belgium, that he is affectionately known among the members of that community as Yachem Joris , meaning "Little Jew Joris".

In stark contrast with this clear token of the VB’s sympathy for the Jewish cause are the acts of two MPs of my erstwhile party, the VLD, which as you may know I left because it did not effectively oppose the introduction of an insane law granting to non-Belgians the right to vote in municipal elections. I’m referring to mssrs. Vincent Van Quickenborne and Jean-Pierre De Decker. Mr. Van Quickenborne, apparently strongly influenced by biased leftist reporting on the plight of Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, visited this area and a.o. shook hands with Hamas leader Sheikh Masharawi and wished him success. Jean-Marie De Decker, accompanying him, compared the Israëli Army conduct in Gaza and on the West Bank with the Endloesung, i.e. the Nazi extermination of Jews in concentration camps. Mr. Van Quickenborne and Mr. De Decker only recently joined the VLD. Well, they came in... and I went out.

Now mind you, I understand where these allegations come from. Mr. Dewinter is friends with Jean-Marie Le Pen, the French rightwing leader, notorious for his remark that the Holocaust, insofar as it actually took place, was but a footnote in history. Personally, I strongly distance myself from a figure like Le Pen, who in my opinion is just a socialist sharing with the Vlaams Blok the anti-immigrant platform.

Another aspect is that, as I said, the origins of the Vlaams Blok are a bit murky, since indeed, when it was formed back in 1977, it counted among its members not few who sypathized with the Flemish Waffen SS-volunteers who fought with the Nazis against Communist Russia. But elaborarting on this thread would lead us way too far. In case anyone is really interested, I will gladly provide some post on the topic. Suffice to say that Flemings, during the greater part of Belgium's existence, were secondrank citizens while the Walloon minority had most if not all of the political and economic power. It is not exaggerated to state that Flemings were the Shiites of Belgium, and Walloons its Sunnis. Throughout history, sad but true, Flemish activists sided twice with the German invaders who promised them greater independence and respect for Flemish heritage. During the last World War, this even culminated in the formation of a Flemish Grenadier Divison on the Waffen SS Roster, the 27th "Langemarck". To its credit I must say that there are no known atrocities committed by this unit nor its predecessors, and that many if not all of the raw recruits were spurred to fight alongside the Germans not only by their Flemish activist leaders, but also by the rabidly anti-communist Flemish Catholic Church. Many a priest exhorted young Flemish boys to go on a crusade against the godless communism. Sadly, the whole undertaking has discredited the heirs of the Flemish Cause to this day.

MFBB

THE VLAAMS BLOK IS DEAD, LONG LIVE THE VLAAMS BELANG!!!

You may remember distant rumours back in spring telling of my party, the Vlaams Blok, or rather three supporting organizations, being labeled "racist" by a court in Ghent, the second most important Flemish city. Well, on November 9, 2004 this arrest was not only confirmed by Belgium's Supreme Court in Brussels but also extended to the whole of the party. On November 9, the Vlaams Blok was declared a racist organization and as such prone to disbandment, and its members to prosecution.

I was a bit surprised to find quite some Anglosphere sites offering thorough analysis brought in a lucid way on the matter. In fact, their commenting is so good I feel I can hardly do it better, so I will just refer you to Beautiful Atrocities - Soviet Socialist Republic of Belgium and Cordon Sanitaire by Jonathan Lockhart.

The Supreme Court ruled that VB pamphlets and other textual matter incited hatred directed towards the immigrant population in Belgium, mainly from Morocco, Turkey and Algeria. Now, while it is true that of the sixteen texts which were used as proof to support the verdict, one was indeed clearly outrageous (linking the behaviour of immigrant police officers to paedophilia), most offered matter-of-fact information, such as official stats dealing with crime rates and welfare expenditures. There was also a pamphlet including a testimony from a Turkish woman who worked for the Vlaams Blok (!) in which the often lamentable position of women in Islam was described. The Supreme Court did not even deny the basic tenet of this text (nor of several other ones) but instead labeled this text also as racist on the basis of its supposed intent!

Anyway, having been declared a racist organization and there being something like an Anti-Racism Act in Belgium (tailor-made and modified SIX TIMES over the past decade to meet the requirements needed to apply it to the Vlaams Blok), the party could be disbanded and not only its members but everyone cooperating with it could be prosecuted.

That is why the leadership of the Vlaams Blok decided to convene, on November 14, 2004, a congress on which the name of the party was officially changed to Vlaams Belang - Flemish Interest - and its party program reshuffled somewhat to not resemble too much the one of the now defunct Blok. With "reshuffled" I mean just "reshuffled". For while it is true that the origins of the Vlaams Blok are murky (the veterans did sympathize with those Flemings who joined Wehrmacht and Waffen SS to fight communist Russia in WWII; also its early programs breathed in-your-face xenophobia), anno 2004 the Blok had become a relatively modern, free-market oriented(not 100%, admitted) conservative party, and did not object to immigrants living and workig here on the condition that they integrate (learn the language, NOT forsake their identity) and abide by Belgian law.

Indeed, as Frank Vanhecke, Flemish MP and Vlaams Belang Chairman put it:

Though the Vlaams Blok was Belgium’s biggest party and occupied a third of the seats in the Flemish Parliament, we felt compelled to disband. According to the Belgian Anti-Racism Act every member or collaborator of the Vlaams Blok could be brought to court.

That was one month and a half ago. We are approaching year's end, and a Le Soir poll released this week shows the Vlaams Belang has gained even more support since the verdict. I hope that this trend continues and that more and more Flemings realize that not the Vlaams Belang is a threat to democracy - as the politically correct cabals would want us to believe - but the ever growing stranglehold of that typical European brand of Leftism establishing itself not only on the Parliamentary floors but also in unions, social security services, media channels, courts etc. with a force belying its actual popular support.

In the meantime, the Vlaams Belang is waging a propaganda offensive to get the new name to be known among the public. Here is one of their posters:



The lady, Anke Vandermeersch, is a former Miss Belgium (1991) and a lawyer. As you can see it's quite a hot chi... a rather attractive woman. MFBB denies strongly that this has anything to do with his leaving the VLD in favour of the VB earlier this year.


Merry Christmas to all!


MFBB

Hmmmm... North Korea plans to test a missile, and the US just had a failed test of its missile defense system.

I propose that for our next test, we shoot down their missile when they go to test it. Maybe it could be a joint operation...

When was the last time this guy was funny?

This is an interesting story as the nuclear reactor mentioned in the article is only about 75 miles away from us.

Based on two informants inside the mullahs' inner circle, Mr. Weldon's source, whom he code-named "Ali," relayed allegations to the Pennsylvania lawmaker that an Iranian-backed terrorist cell is seeking to hijack Canadian airliners and crash them into an American reactor. The target of the operation was only identified by Ali as SEA, leading Mr. Weldon to predict it was the Seabrook reactor in New Hampshire, about 40 miles north of Boston. Ali told the congressman that the attack was first planned for between November 23 and December 3, 2003, but was postponed to take place after this year's presidential election.

Hat tip: lgf.

"...IN DAMASCUS, THEY VOTED FOR GEORGE W. BUSH..."


Via Daniel Pipes I came across this curious piece, which is from the hand of a certain Tyler Golson, an American teacher in English, since six months working in Syria’s capital Damascus. It appeared in The Daily Star, a leading Lebanese newspaper.

Mr. Golson, a Democrat and like many of his political leanings blinded by irrational Bush-hatred, finds himself baffled as he finds out his pupils don’t share his views:


One afternoon I was explaining the passive tense of verbs, and I used an example that came to mind from American culture. I asked them if they knew who was nominated by the two main parties to run for president. "John Kerry was nominated by the Democratic Party, and George Bush was nominated by the Republicans," replied one of the brightest in the class, a veiled Muslim engineering student named Rahaf. "Very good," I said. "Now, who do you think will be elected?" "Bush," cried several of the students at once, smiling. Abandoning my lesson plan for the moment, but curious at this sudden display of interest in the election, I ventured: "Who do you want to win?" "Bush," said Rahaf, while a number of others nodded in solid agreement. I pressed them further for a few minutes, asking individual students why they liked Bush. The same ideas came up again and again: he is a strong leader, an honest man, and, most of all, a believer. Like the winning margin of American voters this year, these Middle Easterners related to Bush's sense of religious conviction and his confident steering of a nation and culture they admired.


I picked out his particular paragraph…


"But doesn't he scare you?" I asked finally, unable to contain my personal feelings and throwing the lesson plan out the window. "Because of Bush's ideas many people in my country think that all of you are terrorists." Rahaf and most of the others just shrugged. Maybe that was all true, they said, but he was still a good president.


…because it once again clearly shows how blinded those on the left are in their appreciation of how the right views the world. According to Mr. Golson, you out there, and me, and everyone else who supports Bush, have been led to believe by the Bush Administration that because it has branded the Syrian government as a terrorism-supporting entity, which it is, let's be clear about that, all Syrians are terrorists too. What a ludicrous idea! Yet the very casual way in which Mr. Golson vents it learns us a lot of the deadlock in the minds of many (the greater majority of?) Democrats. Oh well. As long as they prefer to being stuck in this asinine mindset they condemn themselves to losing elections time and again.

To his credit I have to admit Mr. Golson ends on a positive as well as rational note when he writes:


Having a truly even-handed and practical approach to peace in the Arab world means realizing that not everyone, and certainly not all of the elites in Arab society, sympathize with the anti-American movements taking place within their own ranks, and that these heartland Arabs could prove a valuable ally in future U.S.-Arab relations.


MFBB

JACQUES DID IT AGAIN!

Just when you think good ole Jackie can't sink any further he baffles you again.

ZARAGOZA, Dec 7: French President Jacques Chirac and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero backed UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on Tuesday in the face of criticism over the UN oil-for-food scandal in Iraq.

"They both called Kofi Annan jointly to express their solidarity at a time when he is being unfairly attacked," a Spanish government spokesman told reporters. Zapatero and Chirac, in the northern Spanish city of Zaragoza for a bilateral summit, discussed Annan's situation during a lunch and agreed to telephone him immediately, he said.

Mr Annan, winner of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize, has come under scrutiny over the $64 billion oil-for-food programme for Iraq, administered by the UN and supervized by the 15-nation Security Council.

Annan's son Kojo worked in West Africa for a Swiss firm, Cotecna, which inspected goods under the programme and is under investigation. There is no evidence so far the younger Annan dealt with the Iraq programme. The French and Spanish position contrasts with that of US President George W. Bush's government. -Reuters


Sigh. If she wasn't there, I'd completely give up hope for the Fwench.






MFBB

Oh, the irony!

Hmmmmm. If he voted Dubya, MFBB's pompous residence is at his disposal. If he voted Flipper, I hope he won't even find a 60-year old foxhole.

No, no, noooooooooooo!!!

I've added a link over to the right for the Friends of Iraq blogger Challenge which runs until December 15th. The idea is for blogs to raise as much money as possible for Spirit of America projects in Iraq and compete against other bloggers. The project I've selected is Friends of Democracy which you can read about here.

I just donated $50.00 for what I think is a very worthy cause and may really make a difference, no matter how small.

Clicking the "Friends of Iraq" graphic in the upper right hand corner of the page will take you to the Downeastblog donation page.

It's about damned time.

Our tax dollars at work. This is one of several reasons why I don't call myself a Republican. I can't think of a bigger waste of time than trying to keep people from using marijuana, for medical or other purposes. The war on drugs is an expensive and catastrophic failure, and appears to me to be pretty damned unconstitutional as well. Want to stop the flow of opium in Afghanistan, and take the drug cartels of Columbia out at the knees? Legalize their product, and make them compete. Why people are so worried about what other people do with their bodies is beyond me.

There's real work to be done, and many people in the Republican party think they should piss away Bush's mandate, be it real or perceived, on the war on drugs and making abortion illegal. Let's hope the Republicans don't implode under the weight of their current domination of government. So far I don't see any reason to believe they have much of a clue.