|
LGF T-shirts now on sale: Click here to fill out an order form you can print and mail with
your payment, or pay online with PayPal. If you live outside the US/Canada, use
this form instead.
Please help keep Little Green Footballs bouncing by donating whatever you can! We do this without pay, so the more donations,
the more time we can afford to devote to LGF. Thanks for your support, and for helping make LGF a success.
|
friday, august 20, 2004
Top Individual Contributors to 527 Committees
Here’s the list of Top Individual Contributors to 527 Committees. Hmm. All but one are huge contributors to Democratic/Progressive groups.
UPDATE at 8/20/04 9:55:21 pm:
MoveOn.org: 2004 Election Cycle.
527 Activity:
Total Receipts: $9,086,102
Total Expenditures: $17,435,782
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth: 2004 Election Cycle.
527 Activity:
Total Receipts: $158,750
Total Expenditures: $60,403
(Hat tip: jhs.)
A Hardening of the Religion
Here’s a powerful essay by Charles Moore on the acceptance of “Islamic banking” in Britain: Islam is not an exotic addition to the English country garden.
You might think it is good news that “Islamic banking” is now taking hold. This month saw the launch of Britain’s first fully regulated and approved Sharia-compliant bank, the Islamic Bank of Britain. And the big banks have also developed Islamic banking arms. The need for these is said to arise because the Koran forbids “riba”, which is interest, or usury.
Yet Muslims need money and banks need to make a living. Systems are devised to get round the ban. For example, instead of a Muslim holding a mortgage for a house, the bank can own the house and make arrangements for the Muslim gradually to buy it off the bank over a period of years. HSBC now boasts of “Our Sharia Board” stuffed with learned sheikhs and Justices from Arabia and Pakistan. Isn’t all this an encouraging example of how the resourcefulness of modern free societies can achieve tolerance and market efficiency?
But when you look a little further into the question of Islamic banking, you find that it is not, in fact, required by Islam. Al-Azhar University, in Cairo, the main and ancient home of Sunni religious learning, teaches that “riba” means extortionate interest, not any interest at all, and that moderate interest should be permitted. Most Egyptian banks charge and pay interest. Even Muslims who reject this interpretation say that the doctrine of “extreme necessity” permits Muslims in non-Muslim countries to pay interest.
So what is being proposed with Islamic banking is actually a hardening of the religion, not an accommodation of its existing custom. It is rather as if Catholics, arriving in large numbers in a Muslim country, insisted that they must eat fish rather than meat on a Friday, a rule which has been dropped by the Church in modern times. And when you look at HSBC’s Sharia Board you find that a couple of its members have links with the Deoband, the long-standing ultra-conservative group whose schools in Pakistan educated many of the Taliban.
Two others are Wahhabis, trained by the intolerant and puritanical school of thought that dominates the religious life of Saudi Arabia. If HSBC had a Christian Banking Board would they staff it with disciples of the Rev Ian Paisley, the Rev Jerry Falwell and the followers of the late Archbishop Lefebvre, rather than nice Dr Rowan Williams or Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor?
North Korea Wants to Be Friends
According to the New York Times, North Korea is reaching out and finding acceptance in Asia and Europe.
But the Bush administration is standing in the way of this coming utopia, with their unacceptable anti-appeasement policy that stubbornly refuses to acknowledge that North Korea Is Reaching Out, and the World Is Reaching Back. (Hat tip: ted.)
Insane Antisemitism in Saudi Army Journal
The Religious Affairs Department of the Saudi armed forces publishes a journal called Al-Jundi Al-Muslim (The Muslim Soldier), and what they’re feeding to their army would make anyone sick: Saudi Armed Forces Journal on the Jews: ‘The Fabricated Torah, Talmud, and Protocols of the Elders of Zion Command Destruction of All Non-Jews for World Domination’.
This is one of the most insane Jew-hating Saudi rants I’ve ever read, and that’s sayin’ somethin’. Raving lunatic Ma’ashu Muhammad, in an article titled “The Jews in the Modern Era,” blames every war, revolution, coup d’etat, late payment, and hangnail ever suffered by Arabs on the Jews and their diabolical plan for world domination, in a witches’ brew composed of every anti-semitic libel this wretched world has ever seen.
The Majority of Revolutions, Coups D’etat, and Wars ... are Almost Entirely the Handiwork of the Jews
“The majority of revolutions, coups d’etat, and wars which have occurred in the world [in the past], those that are occurring, and those that will occur, are almost entirely the handiwork of the Jews. They [the Jews] turned to [these methods] in order to implement the injunctions of the fabricated Torah, the Talmud, and the ‘Protocols [of the Elders of Zion’], all of which command the destruction of all non-Jews in order to achieve their goal - namely, world domination.”
“In addition, they aspire to dominate the world in material, cultural, and spiritual terms in order to annihilate it. They own property and gold and they control the banks and other financial institutions, which [in turn] control the economies of the powerful countries. In this way they controlled the most [influential] people in the world, in whose power it was to entangle their countries in wars that resulted in benefits only for the Jews. Among the enticements [which the Jews used] were: 1) cash incentives; 2) offering jobs; 3) the introduction of religious elements into terrorism.”
“The Jews managed to receive the support of groups of individuals in the world through the means of religious distortions, whereby they deceived their victims [into believing] that they are the chosen people and that God wants them to once more take possession of Palestine, the promised land. [The Jews] also conduct acts of terror and assassinations against the world’s politicians who oppose them, as in the case of the assassination of Count [Folke] Bernadotte, who was sent by the U.N. in 1948 to serve as a mediator between the Arabs and the Jews to solve the problem of Palestine. The Jews got mad at him, killed him in that same year, and acted to exonerate the murderers on the pretext that they were insane.”
“[Another example] is the assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olaf Palme, who attempted to prevent bloodshed between Iraq and Iran. He learned Islam and was quite interested in it, started several Islamic study groups in Stockholm, and encouraged the Swedes to familiarize themselves with Islam. When the Jews came to the conclusion that his behavior and policies were not in accordance with their evil goals, their intelligence assassinated him. No leads were found for this crime except for a bullet which the Zionist intelligence is known to use.”
...
The Jews Created Every Scientific or Philosophical Principle or School
“Every scientific or philosophical principle or school was either created by Jews, or else Jews were behind them:
“The Jew Karl Marx was behind communism and socialism which destroyed human nature.
“The Jew [Emile] Durkheim was behind the science of sociology which destroyed the family unit.
“The Jew [Jean-Paul] Sartre was behind licentious existentialism.
“The Jew [Sigmund] Freud was behind psychology which established the principles of wild sex and immorality.
“The Jew [Benjamin] Disraeli was behind the policy of ‘the ends justify the means.’
“The Jew [Rene] Cassin drew up the program for human rights.
“The Jew Leon Pavlovski drew up the Charter of the League of Nations. The Jews established the League of Nations in order to ratify the Balfour Declaration and to impose the British Mandate on Palestine as a preparatory measure to the founding of Israel. In addition, they established the U.N. in order to declare the founding of Israel, to protect it, and to expand it."
Read it all and weep.
A Bad CAIR Day
There were some serious setbacks today for the Islamist forward vanguard in the US; here’s some information on the three infiltrators indicted in raising funds for Hamas.
Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook, 53, is deputy chief of the Hamas Political Bureau. The U.S.-educated Abu Marzook holds a Ph.D. in industrial engineering and lived in the United States for 15 years, in Louisiana and Virginia. In 1995, he was detained by U.S. authorities on suspicion of involvement in terrorism. He was expelled to Jordan, and later sent by Jordan to Syria. He lives in Damascus and is considered a fugitive from U.S. justice.
Muhammad Hamid Khalil Salah, 51, is a naturalized U.S. citizen who lives in Bridgeview, Ill. He was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Jerusalem and moved to Chicago in 1970, where he studied chemical engineering. He pleaded guilty to helping funnel $650,000 to Hamas in 1995 and served five years in an Israeli prison. Salah returned to the Chicago area and worked at City Colleges of Chicago’s Olive-Harvey College, but was fired last year for not disclosing his Israeli conviction. Salah was arrested Thursday night.
Abdelhaleem Hasan Abdelraziq Ashqar, 46, of Alexandria, Va., originally is from the Palestinian West Bank. He entered the United States as a graduate student at the University of Mississippi in the 1980s and later worked as a business professor at Howard University in Washington. He earlier was indicted on charges of criminal contempt for refusing to testify before a Chicago grand jury investigating fund-raising activities on behalf of Hamas. Ashqar was arrested Thursday night.
And I wonder if this one is listed in CAIR’s latest report on anti-Muslim hate crimes? Federal agents arrest manager in store arson. (Hat tip: SoCalJustice.)
EVERETT - A Pakistani-owned market gutted by arson in July was burned by the store’s manager, police said Thursday, ending speculation that the fire was a hate crime.
Federal agents arrested the Everett man, 37, at Continental Spices market Thursday on a federal arson warrant.
Police suspect the manager and a friend spray-painted the message “F U Arab” and white crosses inside the store in an attempt to mislead investigators, then used gasoline to set the building on fire.
The July 9 fire caused an estimated $90,000 in damage and triggered widespread alarm that the arson was motivated by hate.
But Everett arson investigators and agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives discovered that “the business was in trouble financially and there was a desire to stop the losses,” Everett police Sgt. Boyd Bryant said.
Internet Dirty Tricks Target Swift Boat Vets
Someone who may or may not be in Japan has registered the domains swiftboatvets.org and swiftboatvets.com, to catch people who mistype the domain name for Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (swiftvets.com), and redirect them to the Joe Conason hit piece in Salon.
Fascinating.
UPDATE at 8/20/04 5:28:06 pm:
Salon knows about it, and thinks it’s a great idea.
Swift rebuttal: An enterprising techie, apparently in Japan, acted quickly to respond to the political smear campaign against John Kerry by some of his fellow swift boat veterans. In addition to launching an attack ad (which Kerry has warned stations against running), the veterans set up their own Website, swiftvets.com. But by Thursday, the similarly named Website, swiftboatvets.com, had sprung up — linking to an article by Salon’s Joe Conason refuting the vets’ charges. All Salon knows about the site is what it found by looking up its information: that it was created by one Anko Siowika, in Tokyo, and that it appears to be driving perplexed surfers looking for more information about the smear to Salon. So. . . thank you, Anko Siowika! (swiftboatvets.com)
Kerry Files FEC Action to Muzzle SwiftVets
Rather than dealing factually with the ever-expanding allegations of exaggeration and untruth in his Vietnam record, John Kerry is now trying to get the Federal Election Commission to sanction the Bush campaign for collusion with the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth:
Can Kerry make a case that Bush broke the law?
(Thanks to all who emailed about this.)
Strength at Home
An extraordinary, moving letter from actor/writer Ben Stein to a soldier’s wife. (Hat tip: Blackfive.)
(This is a letter I wrote to the newsletter of an Army unit called The Strykers, stationed in Iraq out of Ft. Lewis, Wash. The editor asked me what I would say to make the wives feel appreciated while their husbands are in Iraq. This is what I wrote to one soldier’s wife.)
Dear Karen,
I have a great life. I have a wife I adore, a son who is a lazy teenager but I adore him, too. We live in a house with two dogs and four cats. We live in peace. We can worship as we please. We can say what we want. We can walk the streets in safety. We can vote. We can work wherever we want and buy whatever we want. When we sleep, we sleep in peace. When we wake up, it is to the sounds of birds.
All of this, every bit of it, is thanks to your husband, his brave fellow soldiers, and to the wives who keep the home fires burning while the soldiers are away protecting my family and 140 million other families. They protect Republicans and Democrats, Christians, Jews, Muslims and atheists. They protect white, black, yellow, brown and everyone in between. They protect gays and straights, rich and poor.
And none of it could happen without the Army wives, Marine wives, Navy wives, Air Force wives — or husbands — who go to sleep tired and lonely, wake up tired and lonely, and go through the day with a smile on their faces. They feed the kids, put up with the teenagers’ surliness, the bills that never stop piling up, the desperate hours when the plumbing breaks and there is no husband to fix it, and the even more desperate hours after the kids have gone to bed, the dishes have been done, the bills have been paid, and the wives realize that they will be sleeping alone — again, for the 300th night in a row.
The wives keep up the fight even when they have to move every couple of years, even when their checks are late, even when they have to make a whole new set of friends every time they move.
And they keep up the fight to keep the family whole even when they feel a lump of dread every time they turn on the news, every time they switch on the computer, every time the phone rings and every time — worst of all — the doorbell rings. Every one of those events — which might mean a baseball score or a weather forecast or a FedEx man to me and my wife — might mean the news that the man they love, the man they have married for better or worse, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, is now parted from them forever.
These women will never be on the cover of People. They will never be on the tabloid shows on TV about movie stars. But they are the power and the strength that keep America going. Without them, we are nothing at all. With them, we can do everything.
They are the glue that holds the nation together, stronger than politicians, stronger than talking heads, stronger than al Qaeda.
They deserve all the honor and love a nation can give. They have my prayers, and my wife’s, every morning and every night.
Love, and I do mean Love, Ben.
Kerry: Lying About Health Care
In New Hampshire, the Union Leader is outraged at another lie being told repeatedly by John F. Kerry—and this one has nothing to do with Vietnam: Mary Ann’s story: Will the big media call Kerry on his lie? (Hat tip: NY Nana.)
SEN. JOHN Kerry visits Derry today to talk about health care. While on the subject, maybe he can explain why he is lying about a New Hampshire woman’s insurance status.
Repeatedly throughout his campaign, Kerry has held up Hudson resident Mary Ann Knowles as an example of President Bush’s failure to ensure adequate health care for all Americans (as if a President can do such a thing). Here is what he said during his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention last month:
“What does it mean when Mary Ann Knowles, a woman with breast cancer I met in New Hampshire, had to keep working day after day right through her chemotherapy, no matter how sick she felt, because she was terrified of losing her family’s health insurance? America can do better. And help is on the way.”
Thing is, Mary Ann Knowles did not have to work through her chemotherapy to keep her health insurance. In fact, she has great health insurance, which includes 26 weeks of paid disability leave.
Knowles chose to work through most, but not all, of her chemotherapy because her husband was out of a job. (Kerry said she had to work “every day” of her chemotherapy. His campaign chalked that lie up to “a colloquialism.”)
She and husband John did not want to take the pay cut that would have come with disability leave, so Mary Ann kept working. But that is not how Kerry tells the story. He deliberately misstates her situation, saying she would have lost her health coverage if she took a single day off.
When President Bush was given incorrect information, then innocently repeated it, the national press had a field day. In attacking the President, Michael Moore said it mattered not whether Bush knew the information was false before he repeated it; what mattered was that he uttered something that was not true. Well, here we have Kerry knowingly telling a false story in hopes of scaring people into voting for him. Where is the outrage?
Jihad Recruitment at Birmingham Mosque
The tiny minority of extremists left piles of flyers calling for jihad at Britain’s Birmingham Central Mosque: Fury over appeal on terrorism.
A Birmingham Muslim leader today condemned those responsible for leaving leaflets in a mosque which encourages Muslims to become terrorist fighters.
Piles of the flyers were found by an official at Birmingham Central Mosque in Highgate last week.
The literature, bearing the name Ahle Sunnah Wal Jamah, which mosque officials say is often used as an alias for radical group Al Muhajiroun, urges worshippers to become Mujahideen fighters and asks them to “pray for death and decay to be visited upon the West”.
Mosque chairman Dr Mohammed Naseem warned that the leaflets could act as a recruitment aid for would-be terrorists.
He said: “It is very worrying. These leaflets appear to be encouraging Muslims to become Mujahideen fighters. This sort of thing getting into the wrong hands is very dangerous. They are the views of a minority of people but young, impressionable Muslims may read this and think they should be doing these things.”
I wonder how many mosques got a delivery of these flyers—and didn’t report them?
The Centrality of Jihad in Islam
Lawrence Auster has a must-read piece at FrontPage, arguing for The Centrality of Jihad in Islam.
All thoughts of pacifying Islam by assimilating it into the global democratic system must fall down before a simple, terrible fact: Jihad—holy war against all non-Muslims—does not represent a mere excess or defect of Islam, but its timeless core. According to Muslim scholar Bassam Tibi (quoted recently at FrontPage Magazine), “Muslims are religiously obliged to disseminate the Islamic faith throughout the world.... If non-Muslims submit to conversion or subjugation, this call can be pursued peacefully. If they do not, Muslims are obliged to wage war against them.” World peace, according to Islamic teaching, “is reached only with the conversion or submission of all mankind to Islam.”
Moreover, continues Tibi, when Muslims disseminate Islam through violent means, that is not war (harb), as that word only describes the use of force by non-Muslims. Islamic wars are acts of “opening” the world to Islam. “[T]hose who resist Islam cause wars and are responsible for them.”
In other words, simply by the act of existing, the entire non-Islamic world is equated with war. That is why Muslims call it the Dar al-Harb, the Realm of War. Yet when Muslims wage jihad, they are doing it to bring about the peace of universal Islam. So whatever Muslims do, is by definition peace, and whatever infidels do, is by definition war. This explains, by the way, why “moderate” Muslims almost never admit that Muslim terrorists are terrorists. It is because jihad itself is not war, but a way of pursuing peace. By such manipulations of language and such massive double standards, Islam reveals itself as a closed system that precludes any critical thought about itself, as well as any fair and honest dealings with non-Muslims.
Free Curly Now!
NYT Suddenly Discovers Swift Boat Veterans
Just like the Washington Post, the New York Times waited weeks to cover the Swift Boat Vets story—until they could dig up some dirt on the Vets.
Here’s the result, a lengthy promo for the Kerry campaign, coming to the shocking conclusion that some of the people who funded the first SBV ad were ... gasp! ... Republicans. From ... gulp! ... Texas: Friendly Fire: The Birth of an Anti-Kerry Ad.
There’s nothing new in this article; if you’ve been following the blogosphere, you’ve seen all the attempted smears already.
Israeli IOC Official: Mustn't Alienate the Jew-Haters
The families of the Israeli athletes murdered by Palestinian terrorists at the Munich Games in 1972 are lobbying the International Olympic Commission to have a permanent memorial in the Olympics’ opening ceremony: Athens 2004 remembers Munich 1972. (Hat tip: deja vu.)
It’s utterly shameful that the IOC has never commemorated this atrocity. But it’s almost worse to read the attitude of the Israeli IOC official quoted in this BBC article:
Ankie Spitzer, widow of fencing coach Andre Spitzer, told a crowd of more than 200 at the Israeli ambassador’s residence: “More than 30 years have passed, but for, the families of the innocent victims, it seems like only yesterday.
”But why are we standing here, we should have this memorial in front of all the athletes.
“This is not an Israeli issue, this concerns the whole Olympic family.”
The IOC says that to introduce a specific reference to the victims of the Munich massacre could alienate other members of the Olympic community.
Alex Gilady, an Israeli IOC official, told BBC News Online: “We must consider what this could do to other members of the delegations that are hostile to Israel.”
Wouldn’t want to offend people who approve of the slaughter of Jews, would we?
New Swift Boat Vets Ad
Here’s the new advertisement (Windows Media format) from Swift Boat Veterans for Truth; this one deals with John F. Kerry’s “Winter Soldier” testimony to the US Senate in 1971, in which Kerry accused United States soldiers of routinely committing atrocities and war crimes in Vietnam. (Hat tip: westoner.)
“John Kerry gave the enemy for free what I and many of my comrades in North Vietnam, in the prison camps, took torture to avoid saying.”
John Kerry: Free Speech for Me, Not for Thee
Drudge reports that the party of free speech and liberalism is now trying to ban books.
The Kerry campaign calls on a publisher to ‘withdraw book’ written by group of veterans, claiming veterans are lying about Kerry’s service in Vietnam and operating as a front organization for Bush. Kerry campaign has told Salon.com that the publisher of UNFIT FOR COMMAND is ‘retailing a hoax’... ‘No publisher should want to be selling books with proven falsehoods in them,’ Kerry campaign spokesman Chad Clanton tells the online mag...
Iraqi Ingratitude
Iraqi athletes to George W. Bush: sure, it’s nice that we won’t be tortured by Uday Hussein if we lose, but don’t expect gratitude, infidel: Political ad upsets Iraqi players. (Hat tip: Q.)
Iraqi soccer players said they are angered that President Bush has referred to their Olympic delegation in a campaign ad and called on him to stop, Sports Illustrated reported Thursday on its Web site.
“Iraq as a team does not want Mr. Bush to use us for the presidential campaign,” Iraqi midfielder Salih Sadir told SI.com through a translator. “He can find another way to advertise himself.”
The Bush campaign is running an ad in which the flags of Iraq and Afghanistan appear.
A narrator says, “At this Olympics there will be two more free nations - and two fewer terrorist regimes. With strength, resolve and courage, democracy will triumph over terror and hope will defeat hatred.”
There are no images of Iraqi soccer players in the ad.
Another player was harshly critical of the president.
“How will he meet his god having slaughtered so many men and women?” Ahmed Manajid told SI.com. “He has committed so many crimes.”
"Activists" Threaten Kidnapping
These are the people the Associated Press calls “activists:” Hamas threat to kidnap Israeli soldiers for release of Palestinian inmates.
Surprisingly, Agence France Presse actually labels Hamas more accurately than the Associated Press. (In this article, anyway.)
JABALIYA, Gaza Strip (AFP) - A senior Hamas official warned that the radical Islamist movement could abduct Israeli soldiers to secure the release of Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli jails.
“All options, which include the kidnap of soldiers, are open,” Nizar Rayan told AFP as he joined a march in northern Gaza in solidarity with hundreds of hunger striking prisoners.
“If they are not released, we will free them by other means,” added Rayan.
AP: Palestinian "Activists" Charged
This morning the Associated Press mentions in passing that the United States has designated Hamas a terrorist organization, in an article that refuses to call them “terrorists.” Instead AP continues its drive to legitimize the insanely inappropriate term “activists”—for people who conspire to blow up schoolbuses: 3 Palestinian Activists Face U.S. Charges. (Hat tip: zulubaby.)
WASHINGTON - A Hamas leader and two other suspected members of the Palestinian militant group were indicted on charges they participated in a lengthy racketeering conspiracy to provide money for terrorist acts in Israel, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced Friday.
The three activists allegedly used bank accounts in the United States to launder millions of dollars to support Hamas, which the U.S. government has designated as a terrorist organization. The indictment against the three, filed in Chicago, was unsealed Friday.
The activists include Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook, formerly chief and now deputy chief of the Hamas political bureau. Abu Marzook is believed to be living in Damascus, Syria, and is considered a fugitive, Ashcroft told a news conference at the Justice Department.
The two others — Muhammad Hamid Khalil Salah of Chicago and Abdelhaleem Hasan Abdelraziq Ashqar of Alexandria, Va. — were arrested late Thursday night.
thursday, august 19, 2004
French Citizen Held in Poland Terror Probe
Poland is one of the US’s more visible supporters in the War Against Radical Islam, so this story should come as no surprise. The Islamists are planning mass murder to intimidate our allies: French Citizen Held in Poland Terror Probe. (Hat tip: MakeMyDay.)
WARSAW, Poland - A French citizen has been arrested in western Poland and was being investigated as a terror suspect after he was caught taking pictures of a natural gas distribution plant, officials said Thursday.
The man, identified as Michael N., 23, is being investigated by prosecutors in the western city of Poznan on charges of planning an attack that could threaten the lives of many people, an offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison, said spokeswoman Urszula Kula.
He was arrested Friday after being spotted by railway workers hiding in the grass taking pictures of Poland’s largest natural gas distribution plant in Swarzedz, in western Poland, Kula said.
“Other evidence gathered in the investigation so far justified the charges and the arrest,” said Dariusz Bogaczyk, spokesman for the Poznan branch of Poland’s internal intelligence agency.
UPDATE at 8/19/04 8:42:04 pm:
Expatica has a crucial detail that the Associated Press thinks needs to be hidden from you:
The suspect is of Algerian origin, according to Poland’s Fakt newspaper.
(Hat tip: SoCalJustice.)
Take It to the Post Office
Der Kommissar (through his agent, Rusty Shackleford) has assigned LGF an official state-approved Blog Stamp.
The Gift of the C.I.A. Magi
OK. So today we learned that New Mexico is leaking nuclear secrets like a sieve, Iran can thumb its nose at the Olympics, the Saudis are spreading radical Wahhabism around the world, and John Kerry isn’t fit to be President (all right, we already knew that).
And then along comes Iowahawk, Moon-equipped and fully tuck-and-rolled, with a wonderful gift: The Gift of the C.I.A. Magi.
One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And a piece of souvenir grenade shrapnel. Three times John counted it. One dollar and eighty- seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.
“Kerry” read the simple tag on his khaki shirt, with insignia showing he was a Lieutentant, JG. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and he had only $1.87 with which to buy ‘Agent X’ a present.
He had been saving every penny he could for three months, with this result. One hundred dollars a week plus combat pay doesn’t go far, even in Vietnam, even in 1968. Expenses had been greater than he had calculated. There was the 8mm camera for the battle re-enactment movie, plus the film, and the soft-focus lens. Only $1.87 left to buy a present for the Agent. His Agent. Many a happy hour they had spent planning a secret illegal mission upriver to Cambodia, despite Nixon’s denials.
Now, between them there were two possessions in which they both took a mighty pride. One was John’s Purple Hearts, which he had earned in ferocious battles. Had Alvin York himself been in the company barracks, John would have displayed the gleaming decorations just to deprecate the Sergeant’s puny array. The other was the Agent’s map of the Cambodian Mekong. Had James Bond been on assignment in Saigon, Agent X would have pulled out his map every time he passed just to see 007 hide his strangling-wire watch from envy.
John steeled himself for the sacrifice he was about to make.
You’ll have to visit his site for the rest.
Nuke Data Missing from New Mexico
The continuing news of leaks in what should be the most highly guarded area of our nation’s security is becoming really, really, frightening: Nuclear Data Found Missing From New Mexico. (Hat tip: locutus.)
WASHINGTON - An inventory has found another case of missing data involving nuclear weapons, this time at the Energy Department’s regional office in Albuquerque, N.M., the department disclosed Thursday.
The Energy Department said that an “accounting discrepancy” involving three copies of a “controlled removable electronic media” — or CREM — was found at the regional office as part of the nationwide inventory of such devices.
The inventory was ordered a month ago after two CREM data devices were reported missing at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, also in New Mexico. The Albuquerque facility, part of the DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration, coordinates activities with the Los Alamos weapons lab.
Bryan Wilkes, an NNSA spokesman, said that the inventory discovered three copies of a single CREM unaccounted for. He declined to elaborate further except to say the device contained information involving nuclear weapons.
Flipper Thrashes in the Water
Today John Kerry “struck back” against the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Except that, well, he didn’t actually deal with one single substantive point: Kerry: Bush Lets Groups Do ‘Dirty Work’.
Defending his record, the Democratic presidential candidate said, “Thirty years ago, official Navy reports documented my service in Vietnam and awarded me the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts.”
“Thirty years ago, this was the plain truth. It still is. And I still carry the shrapnel in my leg from a wound in Vietnam.”
Kerry received five medals for his service in Vietnam a generation ago, but his record has come under campaign challenge in television commercials aired by “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth,” funded by supporters of the president.
Bush and the White House have refused to condemn the ads, despite calls to do so — from Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz., a former Vietnam prisoner of war, as well as from Democrats.
Senior Democrats, including some inside the presidential campaign, have urged Kerry to respond forcefully to the criticism, fearing that if left unanswered, it could hamper his quest for the White House. ...
“More than 30 years ago I learned an important lesson. When you’re under attack the best thing to do is turn your boat into the attack. That’s what I intend to do today.”
Speaking of the organization airing the ads that challenge his war record, Kerry said, “Of course, this group isn’t interested in the truth and they’re not telling the truth. ...
”But here’s what you really need to know about them. They’re funded by hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Republican contributor out of Texas. They’re a front for the Bush campaign. And the fact that the President won’t denounce what they’re up to tells you everything you need to know. He wants them to do his dirty work.“
Bush spokesman Steve Schmidt said, ”That charge leveled by Senator Kerry is absolutely and completely false.“
”The Bush campaign has never and will never question John Kerry’s service in Vietnam. The president has referred to John Kerry’s service as noble service,“ the Bush spokesman said.
Kerry said, ”Of course, the president keeps telling people he would never question my service to our country. Instead, he watches as a Republican-funded attack group does just that. Well, if he wants to have a debate about our service in Vietnam, here is my answer: ‘Bring ... it ... on.’"
Even by Kerry’s low standards, that is one lame rebuttal.
France Loves Kerry: "Any Argument Kerry Makes is Right"
An amazing statement of naked partisanship from a newspaper—in France: European Press Review. (Hat tip: BPP.)
Le Figaro from Paris also praised Kerry’s suggestion, but for different reasons. It commented that moving the troops out of Europe to Iraq and elsewhere actually makes those extra 40,000 “unnecessary.” But according to the French daily, “any argument that Kerry makes is right, if it means he wins the White House.”
In all the elections I’ve witnessed, I’ve never seen anything like this logic-free endorsement of a US candidate by a foreign newspaper.
Iranian Judoka Gets Away with Hatred
The Iranian judoka who refused to fight an Israeli at the Olympics (and whose puppetmasters in Iran released gloating statements about it) is getting off scot-free: Iranian cleared of judo ‘boycott’. (Hat tip: Allah.)
Iran has escaped censure over the failure of its judo world champion to fight an Israeli at the Olympics.
The International Judo Federation accepted the disqualification of Arash Miresmaeili came because a medical condition left him too heavy to fight.
The federation allowed Miresmaeili’s defence that had no pre-planned intention not to fight and noted he had not said he was boycotting the bout.
“The IJF has no rule for penalising overweight athletes,” the body said.
The IJF statement quoted Miresmaeili as saying he had “made no statement of any sort to any press.”
The Holy Country of Beheadings
Remember all those articles claiming that beheading is “un-Islamic,” that suddenly popped up all over mainstream media when those barbaric Islamic snuff films began appearing?
Today in the heart of Islam, three people had their heads removed. In public, with a big sword, following a “trial” in a shari’a court: Three Saudi men beheaded for sodomy.
Three Saudi men were beheaded in southwestern Saudi Arabia Thursday after being convicted of kidnapping and sodomizing a young boy after a drinking spree, the Interior Ministry said.
The three were found guilty of consuming alcohol in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, kidnapping a young boy and sodomizing him in the desert, a ministry statement reported by the official Saudi Press Agency said.
They were beheaded in the southwestern Asir province. Saudi Arabia follows a strict interpretation of Islam under which people convicted of drug trafficking, murder, rape and armed robbery are executed. Beheadings are carried out with a sword in public.
CAIR Slams Boykin Again
Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin, who caused much seething when his remarks criticizing Islam were publicized, is one of the top generals involved in chasing down Osama Bin Laden.
So of course, the radical Islamic front group known as the Council on American Islamic Relations doesn’t want him around: CAIR: Muslims Welcome Pentagon Report on Boykin’s Speeches.
The final report from the DoD’s Office of the Inspector General found that Boykin’s speaking activities violated military regulations because he failed to clear the content of his speeches, failed to issue required disclaimers and failed to report a travel payment from a non-government source. The report recommends that “appropriate corrective action” be taken by the military.
“We welcome the Pentagon’s report and urge that any disciplinary action be commensurate with its findings,” said CAIR Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper. “General Boykin is free to hold whatever views he wishes, no matter how stereotypical or inaccurate. But he should not use his position of respect in our nation’s military to promote those views.”
Hooper repeated a recommendation made by CAIR last year that Boykin, a top intelligence officer in the war on terror, be reassigned to a position in which he will not be able to harm America’s image in the Muslim world. He also said that the findings of the investigation could have mitigated some damage to America’s international image had they been released earlier.
Protest Warrior Manifesto
The Protest Warriors have posted their Manifesto, and it’s a good read.
Olympic Sack Race
MSNBC’s Athens Blog reports that a female runner from Bahrain will be running the 100 meters tomorrow—covered from head to toe. (Hat tip: SoCalJustice.)
Ruqaya Al Ghasra will have her 11.39 seconds of fame tomorrow. Al Ghasra, who is from the tiny Kingdom of Bahrain, will become the first Arab woman ever to run the 100 meters at the Olympics. (A Kuwaiti runner will share that honor in the same heat.) While Al Ghasra’s time may not be good enough to survive past the first heat of the four-round sprint event, it is competitive and fairly remarkable given that she runs fully covered from head to toe in clothes that, in keeping with hejab, are not designed with optimal aerodynamics in mind. The Bahrain Olympic Committee thinks her wardrobe might prove to be less of a problem if they can entice Nike to tackle the problem. With just a few tweaks Nike’s new full-body swift suit, designed for the U.S. team, would provide the additional coverage required by her Islamic faith.
The Saudi Missionary Project
Here’s a detailed report on Saudi Arabia’s vast campaign to spread radical Wahhabism around the world—and especially in the United States: Saudi export of strict Islam raises suspicions. (Hat tip: Mentat.)
SAN DIEGO - Omar Abdi Mohamed, a lanky, soft-spoken political refugee from war-ruined Somalia in East Africa, had been preaching the word of Islam in the United States for the past nine years. Two things make him unusual.
In January, U.S. immigration authorities arrested him, saying they suspected him of being a conduit for terrorist funds, federal court records show. At the time, he was on the payroll of Saudi Arabia’s government.
Mohamed was one of 30 Saudi-financed preachers in this country. Each month, the Saudis paid $1,700 to the 44-year-old, who taught the Koran at a run-down Somali social center here. He worked with little supervision from Saudi religious authorities 8,000 miles away. In the late 1990s, he set up a small charity to help famine victims in Somalia, and that is how his trouble began.
The charity received $326,000 over three years from the Global Relief Foundation, a private Islamic charity based in Illinois. In October 2002, the U.S. Treasury Department designated Global Relief a terrorist-financing entity linked to al Qaeda.
The collision of Saudi missionary work and suspicions of terrorist financing in San Diego illustrates the perils and provocations of a multibillion-dollar effort by Saudi Arabia to spread its religion around the world. Mohamed worked on the front lines of that effort, a campaign to transform what outsiders call “Wahhabism,” once a marginal and puritanical brand of Islam with few followers outside the Arabian Peninsula, into the dominant doctrine in the Islamic world. The campaign has created a vast infrastructure of both government-supported and private charities that at times has been exploited by violent jihadists — among them Osama bin Laden.
...
In May 2003, the State Department refused reentry to the chief imam of the King Fahd Mosque in Culver City, Fahad al Thumairy, who also was a Saudi diplomat at the consulate in Los Angeles. The Sept. 11 commission report later said the State Department had determined “he might be connected with terrorist activity.”
The report also said that two of the Sept. 11 hijackers, Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar, “spent time at the King Fahd mosque and made some acquaintances there.” Al Thumairy, who reportedly led an “extremist faction” at the mosque, denied knowing the two hijackers. While his denial was “somewhat suspect,” the report said there was no evidence connecting him to the hijackers.
This article is illustrated with a photograph of the King Fahd Mosque, where, in April 2001, I had a personal experience with one of the followers of the RoP that was a dark omen of things to come.
The Farce Continues in Najaf
Yesterday’s reported hudna between the Iraqi government and Muqtada al-Sadr didn’t even last 24 hours: Iraqi gov’t says offensive imminent; accuses Sadr of trickery.
NAJAF, Iraq (AFP) - The Iraqi government said an offensive against Shiite rebels in the holy city of Najaf would be launched within hours unless militia leader Moqtada Sadr publicly disarms, after charging him with trickery.
“The Iraqi government has laid down conditions that Moqtada Sadr must promise in a press conference not to resort to violence in the future and that the Mehdi Army is to be dissolved,” Minister of State Kassem Daoud said Thursday. [And a promise like that would be worth ... how much? —ed.]
The radical cleric must also submit names of all people tried by his religious courts and release all detainees, including Iraqi police, soldiers and national guardsmen, Daoud told a Najaf news conference.
“All this should be declared in a press conference, otherwise the coming hours will be decisive,” said Daoud, accusing Sadr of being untrustworthy. “We have been preparing for a military offensive for five days to put an end to this crisis,” he added.
On Wednesday, a spokesman for Sadr said he had accepted three conditions laid down at a key national conference, namely to disarm his militia, leave the Imam Ali shrine, one of the holiest in Shiite Islam, and join the political process.
“Sayyed (honorific) Moqtada Sadr... accepted all the conditions extended to him, but there must be a ceasefire for the steps to be implemented,” said Ahmed al-Shaibani.
But government spokesman Gurgis Sada was unimpressed, telling AFP that there had been no official word from Sadr. “He has used various subterfuges by speaking through his aides. It is he and he alone who must speak at this press conference,” Daoud said, insisting that Sadr surrender all his weapons to police across the country.
WaPo Suddenly Discovers Swift Boat Veterans
The shameless bias of mainstream media in favor of John F. Kerry has been one of the big stories of this campaign. Case in point: the Washington Post has totally ignored the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and their allegations against Kerry for weeks—until today, when they discovered a small discrepancy in one of Swiftee Larry Thurlow’s statements.
That story goes on page A01 of the Post: Records Counter a Critic of Kerry. Will WaPo readers wonder why this story suddenly pops up on the front page, when they’ve read nothing about it until today?
wednesday, august 18, 2004
Bomb Found on Sardinia After Blair Visit
More disturbing hints that the leftist-Islamist coalition is planning something big: Bomb Found in Town After Blair Visit.
ROME - Police defused a time-bomb in a town near Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s villa on the island of Sardinia on Wednesday shortly after British Prime Minister Tony Blair finished a visit there with the Italian leader.
Police official Giovanni Lopresto, speaking by telephone from the Sardinian city of Olbia, said the device containing dynamite and a timer was found near a trash can in Porto Rotondo, a few miles from the villa.
It was discovered after a tip-off from a radical leftist group, and authorities said they did not believe the device was directed at Blair, who left Sardinia several hours before it was set to go off. The explosive had a potential deadly range of about 11 yards, they said.
A caller claiming to be from an extremist group called the Proletarian Groups for Communism phoned in a warning to the island’s Unione Sarda newspaper late Tuesday, saying the organization had planted two bombs, said Patrizia Mozzi, a journalist from the paper.
Mozzi said the caller gave the location of only one device, and the caller added: “We promised a summer of fire and this is the response to Berlusconi. War against war” — an apparent reference to Italy’s role in the Iraq conflict, which leftist groups here fiercely opposed.
Gilberto Gil Does the Right Thing
I’m happy to see that genius Brazilian songwriter Gilberto Gil, Brazil’s Culture Minister (who I have admired for many years), has repudiated an image that was shown at a recent concert by a psychotic Bush-hating video jockey: Singing Minister Disowns ‘Die, Bush’ Call. (Hat tip: Baikal.)
SAO PAULO, Brazil (Reuters) - Brazil’s culture minister and singing superstar Gilberto Gil is not calling for the death of President Bush, whatever concert-goers might have thought.
Gil, 62, took time off from his government role this weekend to play shows in Sao Paulo, treating fans to many of his own classics as well as songs by Bob Marley and John Lennon.
During “Soy Loco Por Ti America” (I’m Crazy About You, America) — a song from the 1960s about Latin American dreams of liberation — the visual display behind the band flashed up an image of the U.S. leader with a noose around his neck and the slogan “Morra, Bush, Morra” (Die, Bush, Die).
It also featured portraits of Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara and Mexican rebel Pancho Villa.
Some Brazilians applauded — many in this country do not approve of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq — but some Americans in the audience were seething.
It turns out that Gil was unaware of the image. Jodele Larcher, the video jockey who handled the visuals, chose the image without consulting the singer, Gil’s press agent Marcus Vinicius told Reuters on Tuesday.
“The VJ puts the image that he wants and he thought it was appropriate for this song,” Vinicius said.
“It was without Gil’s permission and Gil asked him to take it off” for later shows in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, he added.
Rall Hits New Low, Digs
Ted Rall claims to speak for New York City, in another attention-seeking article published at the tinfoil-covered web site known as Common Dreams: NYC to GOP: Drop Dead. This guy has serious parental issues. (Thanks to all who emailed.)
The Republican delegates here to coronate George W. Bush are unwelcome members of a hostile invading army. Like the hapless saps whose blood they sent to be spilled into Middle Eastern sands, they will be given intentionally incorrect directions to nonexistent places. Objects will be thrown in their direction. Children will call them obscene names. They will not be greeted as liberators.
Well aware that it is barren soil for their party’s anti-urban, anti-immigrant, anti-feminist, overtly racist ideology, Republican leaders have wisely avoided New York City as a convention site for the past 150 years. Even as the rest of America turns red, we New Yorkers remain as liberal as the people’s republic of San Francisco: fewer than 18 percent of the citizens of New York’s five boroughs (which include relatively conservative places like Staten Island) cast ballots for Bush/Cheney in 2000. But White House strategist Karl Rove sees the continued exploitation of 9/11 for partisan political gain as Bush’s key to victory in November. That means bringing the big bash three miles north of the hole where the Twin Towers used to stand, where most of the victims of 9/11 were burned, suffocated, impaled and pulverized.
Making hay of the dead is also the point of this confab’s timing.
I’ll leave that sentence dangling, as lizard bait.
Arafish Says...
US Shuns Arafish
Here’s a nugget of good news, as at least one aspect of our new, improved Middle East policy shows no serious signs of going wobbly: US says it still cannot work with Arafat.
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States said it still cannot work with Yasser Arafat to bring peace to the Middle East, even though the veteran Palestinian leader admitted that he has made mistakes.
“Our view is that Chairman Arafat has demonstrated by a record of broken promises that, you know, we can’t work with him,” State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said. “He’s not a useful partner for us.”
Arafat said in a speech that “unacceptable mistakes” have been made by his government, adding that he himself had also been guilty of errors. He pledged to restore order and security in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
Ereli noted that Washington wants Arafat to transfer security responsibilities to his prime minister, Abu Alaa.
“A key critical element for progress to be made is for authority over the security forces to be put effectively in the hands of the prime minister and for real consolidation to take place and for real action against terrorists to take place,” he said. “That’s what, at a minimum and immediately, what we think progress would entail,” Ereli added.
Hamilton Gets Gold!
An incredible time trial performance from Tyler Hamilton in Athens has won him a gold medal. And that’s not all, as fellow American cyclists Dede Barry and Bobby Julich both took medals as well.
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Tyler Hamilton dreams of yellow. Olympic gold is close enough.
His greatest ride capped the finest Olympic day for U.S. cycling, which won three of the six medals awarded in Wednesday’s road time trials — surpassing its two total road medals won since the 1984 Games in Los Angeles.
Led by Hamilton, the Americans left the scenic road course along the Saronic Gulf with one medal of every hue; Dede Barry won silver in the women’s trial, Bobby Julich took the men’s bronze.
“Ever since I was a little kid, I was in awe watching the Olympics and seeing a gold medalist on top of the podium, then hearing the national anthem,” Hamilton said. “Even as a kid, I’d get goosebumps. This is not just a victory or me or USA Cycling — it’s a victory for the entire United States of America.”
No other nation took home more road medals from Athens than the United States, which touted its team as the deepest group of riders ever sent to an Olympics — even without Lance Armstrong, the six-time defending Tour de France champion who declined an invitation.
Hamilton, Barry, Julich and Christine Thorburn — who was fourth in the women’s race, missing a medal by just 19.93 seconds — finally proved there’s more to U.S. cycling than just Armstrong.
“Lance has really catapulted cycling onto the U.S. sports scene,” Hamilton said. “We owe him a lot of credit for where we are today. The strength of these four riders today, it was incredible. It shows the U.S. has a lot of depth in cycling. We were just four, four of the many.”
Hamilton finished the 29.8-mile men’s race in 57 minutes, 31.74 seconds, a time that beat defending gold medalist Viatcheslav Ekimov of Russia by 18.84 seconds for the first American road gold since 1984 — when Alexi Grewal won the road race in Los Angeles.
Those games were boycotted by the cycling-strong Eastern Bloc nations. The world’s best were here Wednesday, and Hamilton took them all down.
Another Deal for Al-Sadr
Al-Sadr Accepts Plan to End Najaf Fighting.
Shall we start a pool to guess when this latest hudna will fall apart?
Unwrapping Kerry's Story
John Hinderaker and Scott Johnson of Power Line have a good piece in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, summarizing what’s currently known about John Kerry’s Cambodian Christmas fish story: Unwrapping Kerry’s story of Christmas in Cambodia.
Muslim Power in Canada
Here’s a troubling piece about the nature of the Islamic political movement in Canada, which is taking credit for helping defeat conservative candidates: Muslim power in Canada.
A few days ahead of the federal elections, three Canadian Muslim leaders met at Concordia University in Montreal to discuss Islamic “committed voting.” The event, however, turned into an anti-Zionist, Jew-bashing fest.
The meeting’s tone could be felt at the hall’s entrance: flyers calling to boycott Mount-Royal Liberal deputy and Justice Minister Irwin Cotler, a human rights lawyer who defended such political prisoners as Nelson Mandela and Natan Sharansky and a strong advocate of Israel’s right to defend its citizens from Palestinian terrorism.
Bearded men and hijab-clad women filled the room. A handful of representatives from the Canadian Marxist-Leninist Party also attended, nodding in sync to all the speakers’ statements. I was the only reporter present.
CIC President Mohammed Elmasry opened the meeting by saying: “The Conservatives’ strong performance in recent polls should alarm Muslims” since, in his view, Conservative leader Stephen Harper espouses an extreme-right agenda. Mohammad Sherif Kamel of the Canadian Muslim Forum sounded the same warning bell: “The Conservatives are so right-wing they put Bush to shame; its members are all racists and Zionists.”
In addition to defeating the Conservatives, the Muslim leaders want to shake Canadian Muslims out of their electoral apathy. While the last national voting rate hovered around 60%, it was below 50 % among Muslims. Elmasry warned Muslims that if they refrain from voting, “we will end up with anti-hijab laws, and just like in France, will need to ask the police for a permit to pray in our workplace.”
CIC President Elmasry explained that thanks to the report he commissioned, Muslims were projecting political power for the first time in Canada’s history: “All MPs and their opponents know we are watching them. But don’t believe that all deputies who scored well are happy about it. Many resent, for obvious reasons, being associated too closely with Muslims.”
These “obvious reasons” were made explicit by Kamel: “The Zionists and corporations run the show in Canada, the Zionist Global Television and the Issi Asper Foundation want to form our minds and the next government.” ...
“I could not vote for a thief. Zionism is theft. A proud Zionist candidate commits a fatal mistake. I’ll name some people: Jacques Saada [Montreal liberal deputy and now minister] is a Zionist, he is therefore a thief!”
Kamel also denounced Prime Minister Paul Martin as a “Conservative in Liberal clothing whom the Zionists and the corporations elected as leader of the Liberal Party.”
Elmasry was upbeat about the emerging Muslim vote: “With an average age of 37 years, the Muslim population is young and growing twice as fast as the rest of the population. For the first time in Canada’s history, Muslims are projecting political power.”
The day after the elections, the CIC reported an improbable 88% vote participation among Muslims and congratulated itself on helping defeat the “Zionist” Conservatives.
Imam Elmenyawi was elated: “A Conservative victory would have been disastrous for Muslims. A minority government is a victory for us. We Muslims will wield greater power, especially with regards to foreign policy. There is no better shield from terrorism than Muslim participation in Canadian political life.”
In case you missed it, that last quoted sentence is a thinly veiled threat.
Marwan Barghouti: Not Hungry
The Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strike is the same sort of event as their various peace deals and truces with Israel—a farce, staged to manipulate the gullible: Tape shows Marwan Barghouti breaking hunger strike.
The Prison Services released a film Wednesday filmed by a hidden camera that shows a man, apparently Barghouti, eating in his cell with the door and window covered by a cloth.
Marwan Barghouti, the highest ranking Palestinian in Israeli custody, is serving five consecutive life terms after being convicted of involvement in fatal attacks.
Barghouti, the West Bank leader of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, was one of the organizers of the hunger strike.
The black and white film carries a date of Aug. 17 in the lower right corner. It shows a bare-chested man who looks exactly like Barghouti washing his hands and then eating.
Prison Services spokesman Ofer Lefler said Barghouti asked wardens for the food and ate without knowing that a camera was filming from a small hole in the wall. Israel wanted to show fasting prisoners how their leader was behaving, Lefler said.
“I want to show the world and the Palestinians that we are dealing with terrorists,” Lefler said. “Barghouti is sitting on a pot of meat and he sends his friends to die.”
Smash the State! See a Show!
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has an ... innovative ... idea for preempting the violent protesters at the Republican Convention—give ’em cheap tickets to Broadway shows: Just Keep It Peaceful, Protesters; New York Is Offering Discounts. (Hat tip: Ms Andi.)
Thinking about smashing windows or overturning cars during the Republican National Convention? Think again: that will cost you a discounted buffalo chicken salad from Applebee’s or a cheaper ticket to see “Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding.”
In a transparently mercantile bid to keep protesters from disrupting the Republican National Convention later this month, the Bloomberg administration will offer “peaceful political activists” discounts at select hotels, museums, stores and restaurants around town during convention week, which begins Aug. 29.
Law-abiding protesters will be given buttons that bear a fetching rendition of the Statue of Liberty holding a sign that reads, “peaceful political activists.” Protesters can present the buttons at places like the Whitney Museum, the Museum of Sex, the Pokemon Center store and such restaurants as Miss Mamie’s Spoonbread Too and Applebee’s to save some cash during their stay.
If only the Romanovs had thought of this.
“It’s no fun to protest on an empty stomach,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said yesterday, when he announced the program at NYC & Company, the city’s tourism office, which will distribute the buttons to all comers to its Midtown office.
Protesters can also get the buttons from groups that have a legal permit to rally. But Mr. Bloomberg conceded yesterday that not everyone who wore a button would be strictly vetted for his or her peacefulness. “Unfortunately, we can’t stop an anarchist from getting a button,” he said, though he doubted any of them would want to wear one.
The Holy City of Beheadings
A day in the life of the police chief of the holy city of Najaf.
NAJAF, Iraq — Militants had just kidnapped and dragged his ailing 80-year-old father through the streets. They also beat his brothers until they collapsed. Forty of his men were killed and several were beheaded.
It’s tough being the police chief of Najaf — the Iraqi city that is sacred to millions of Shi’ites and a battleground pitting Shi’ite militia against U.S. Marines and Iraqi police and national guardsmen.
“They told me that I could go in the place of my father,” said Chief Ghalib al-Jezairy who is high on the militant hit list. As he spoke late Monday night his father was still being held.
The stress and exhaustion showed on the face of the man who is trying to keep morale high in a police force facing thousands of supporters of firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Many are holed up inside the sacred Imam Ali shrine in anticipation of a major U.S. offensive.
But they still have time to roam the streets, some hoping to fire assault rifles or rocket-propelled grenades at Iraqi police officers, who say they are in dire need of more flak jackets and heavier weapons.
“What they did to my father was inhuman. He is a dying old man. They beat my brothers until they fainted,” Chief al-Jezairy told reporters as the sound of mortars being fired could be heard in a nearby cemetery that has turned into a battle zone.
They beheaded one of his relatives and Sheik al-Sadr’s Mahdi’s Army militants have gouged out the eyes of some of his officers and boiled them in water, he said.
“Do Iraqi police behead people?” he asked. “This is barbaric. They enter people’s homes, and they kill the relatives of policemen.”
LA Times: Sadr "Steadfast"
The Los Angeles Times sings a paean to Muqtada al-Sadr and his “steadfast defiance:” Steadfast in Defiance, Cleric Gains Stature With Iraq Masses.
BAGHDAD — Militant cleric Muqtada Sadr’s refusal Tuesday to meet with a delegation of Iraqi religious and political leaders is the clearest indicator yet that recent fighting in Najaf has strengthened the anti-American leader, some analysts say.
The snub, which followed last week’s breakdown of talks with envoys of interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, made it clear that Sadr expected any resolution to the two-week confrontation to proceed on his terms and timetable. The message was reinforced by the 1,000 militiamen who greeted the delegation with raised fists and shouts of “Long live Muqtada!”
Although Allawi’s government had decided to resume military operations to oust Sadr’s forces from the sacred Imam Ali shrine they have occupied, he opted to let a new round of talks proceed.
Several observers say Allawi and U.S. forces have no viable options other than trying for a negotiated end to the uprising because attempting to crush Sadr militarily would carry too high a political price.
“In all probability, it would take an unacceptable level of force in and around the shrine,” noted Cliff Kupchan, a Middle East specialist at the Nixon Center in Washington. “Whether Iraqi troops do this or Americans, it would be a generational setback for U.S. legitimacy in the Arab world.”
Never mind that the only reason Sadr can be so “steadfast” in his defiance is that we’re allowing it.
There is a grain of truth here; the more Sadr gets away with his murderous Iranian-backed behavior, the bolder he will get. But if US and Iraqi forces had gone into the mosque and cleaned it out when this first began, the screaming from the Arab world about “unacceptable” damage would already have died down and they would have moved on to their next cause for seething. Every time we go right to the edge, make threats, and then back away out of concern for the enemy’s feelings, the seething gets louder and Sadr gets bolder.
Steyn: Sing or Fight?
Here’s an excellent Mark Steyn column on the removal of US troops from Europe: Do you want to sing Waterloo or fight it?
A wealthy continent liberated from the burdens of military expenditure is also liberated to a large degree from reality. Poor peoples have no choice but to live in the real world: if a drought wipes out their crops, they starve. Likewise, rich, powerful nations have traditionally required great vigilance to maintain their wealth and power.
But Europe increasingly resembles those insulated celebrities being shuttled around town from one humanitarian gala to another — like Barbra Streisand flying in by private jet to discuss excessive energy consumption with President Clinton. Just as elderly rockers and Hollywood divas are largely free from the tedious responsibilities of rich industrialists or supermarket magnates — payroll costs and plant upgrades — so the EU can flaunt its “concerns” about the world and leave the logistics to others.
The US security umbrella, along with the Eurovision Song Contest, was really the prototype pan-European institution. The Americans helped build a continent in which you could sing Waterloo rather than fight it, and, if in their excessive generosity they accelerated an inclination to softness and decadence, well, it’s not their problem. For the wars of the future, it makes sense to have a mobile presence using old colonial bases in the Horn of Africa or old Soviet bases in Central Asia as temporary homes.
The EU, meanwhile, has challenges of its own, and in the coming clash between a shrinking secularised Euro-elite and its swelling Islamist populations it’s not clear whether, as James Baker would say, America has a dog in that fight. The only question for the Continent is whether it’s over over there in a more profound sense than those singing doughboys ever contemplated.
tuesday, august 17, 2004
Kerry Wins the Arab Vote
Amir Taheri says that John Kerry has the Arab vote sewn up.
Dislike for Bush has created the most curious Arab coalition in a long time.
The pan-Arab nationalists are angry at Bush because, toppling Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime in Baghdad, he destroyed the illusion of a “strongman” leading Arabs to unity and socialism. “It may take a generation before anyone talks of Arab unity without being laughed out of the room,” says columnist Ahmad Rabii. “Those who dreamed of an Arab superpower will never forgive Bush.” The pan-Islamists also dislike Bush, but for different reasons.
They see his talk of democracy as an attempt at preventing them from establishing their “ideal Islamic” system based on the Shariah rather than elections.
Bush’s “Broader Middle East and North Africa Initiative” is seen by Islamists as “a plot to impose a Western model.”
“The Muslim world is not a blank sheet on which Mr. Bush could draw what he likes,” says writer Walid Abi-Merchid, who would vote for Kerry if he could. Opposition to Bush’s plans for democratization in the Middle East is put even more dramatically by Muhammad Shariatmadari, a mullah of Arab origin now acting as an advisor to Iran’s “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenehi.
“Bush is trying to develop an American Islam,” Shariatmadari says. “He thinks that Americans will not be safe in their homes until the Muslim world is dominated by pro-U.S. governments.”
That view is echoed in sermons preached at mosques throughout the Middle East, Europe and the United States in recent weeks with an eye on the forthcoming American election.
One theme of these sermons is that Bush’s call for free elections and reform in the Muslim world amounts to “an act of cultural aggression.”
“Our Prophet did not run for office in any election,” the sermon says. “He did not win any political debate. [Instead] he won the war against the infidel.”
Lantos Slams Egypt on Smuggling Tunnels
Democratic Congressman Tom Lantos (a Holocaust survivor) shows his party how it’s done, courageously standing up and telling the truth to the Egyptians: US congressman Lantos criticizes Egypt on Palestinian weapons smuggling.
Congressman Tom Lantos accused Egypt of not doing enough to halt the smuggling of weapons by Palestinian militants across the Egyptian border.
“I do not believe that the Egyptian government has done enough historically,” Lantos, the high-ranking Democratic Party member on the House International Relations Committee, told a news conference in Cairo.
Israel has repeatedly accused the Palestinians of using tunnels dug under the Rafah border crossing to smuggle weapons from Egypt for attacks against Israel.
“I believe Egypt has the capacity to shut down these tunnels,” said Lantos but added: “I am totally opposed to terrorists obtaining weapons whether through tunnels or through some other means.”
Lantos held a series of meetings in Egypt with the Egyptian leadership, including President Hosni Mubarak, intelligence chief General Omar Suleiman, presidential advisor Osama al-Baz and Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit.
He said much of the discussions “related to our joint efforts...to terminate this murderous activity through the tunnels at the Gaza border”.
He added: “I am strongly and irrevocably opposed to arming terrorists,” referring to Palestinian militant groups.
Iraqi Bloggers Go for the Gold
The two Iraqi brothers who run Iraq the Model have announced their candidacies for the Iraqi National Assembly, under the banner of the Iraqi Pro-Democracy Party.
We believe that we represent an important segment of the Iraqi people that was never organized before under any category as a result of the oppression of the past regime. Now this segment has come to see the necessity to contribute to the building of a new Iraq in a way that is entirely different from the old ways that are still dominant in the Middle East and that are governed by religious fanaticism and pan-Arab nationalism.
We see that remaining silent is not an option in our battle towards democracy and freedom and that everyone who seeks a better future should take part in this battle.
—Ali Fadhil
Through our writings in our weblog and communication with different opinions and view points we find ourselves committed to reconsider the way in which we can serve our nation.
We also saw that our somewhat daring opinions were accepted by many people whether westerners or Iraqis and we see that we have the capability to clarify our vision about Iraq’s future through talking to Iraqis directly.
Our work on the weblog opened our minds more, made us bolder and encouraged us to communicate with our fellow citizens as they’re the ones who can make the change and they’re the ones we started to write for their sake.
—Mohammed Fadhil
Palestinian Work Accident Watch
Terrorist Killed While Preparing a Bomb.
(IsraelNN.com) PA sources reported during the night that terrorist Majdi Salah was killed in a village in the Ramallah area during the night when a bomb he was preparing exploded. According to the report, his parents were critically injured in the explosion.
Flipper Needs Every Vote
John Kerry’s sister Diana is campaigning for her brother—in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada: Democrats Abroad Canada Upcoming Events. (Hat tip: Fay.)
Dear Democrats in B.C.,
We have an extraordinary opportunity to get the word out to B.C. ex-pats — both U.S. and U.S./Canadian Dual citizens — about our right to register and vote absentee in the November election.
As part of a worldwide tour organized by Americans Overseas for Kerry (AOK) to Get Out the Ex-Pat Vote this November, Diana Kerry will be speaking at our monthly Democrats Abroad meeting at 7pm this NEXT Wednesday, August 18th, at our regular location, the Roundhouse Community Arts Centre in Yaletown.
Diana is the younger sister of Senator John Kerry and chairs Americans Overseas for Kerry. Having lived abroad for many years, she is an internationalist who has taught Theater and English in Indonesia, Iran, Paris and Bangkok. Diana is a major hit wherever she speaks. She is a vociferous advocate for change in the coming election.
The press for this event, including TV coverage, could make a crucial difference in our efforts to get as many U.S. and Dual citizens registered as we can before the September 15th deadline.
UPDATE at 8/17/04 8:00:11 pm:
Diana Kerry has also been trying to get out the vote in Mexico. (Hat tip: Athos.)
MEXICO CITY — John Kerry’s sister urged Americans living in Mexico to support the Democratic presidential candidate, saying Thursday they could help the United States “get back to having a president we can feel proud of.”
Diana Kerry, chairman of Americans Overseas for Kerry, campaigned for a second day in Mexico City. Absentee ballots from Americans living abroad have taken on new significance since the 2000 U.S. presidential election.
The U.S. Embassy estimates that 385,000 U.S. citizens live in Mexico — not including those with dual citizenship.
Diana Kerry, a volunteer worker in her brother’s first U.S. Senate campaign in 1984, has spent most of her professional life teaching in Indonesia, Thailand, Iran and France. She answered questions Thursday at the home of her brother’s Mexico campaign coordinator, Ana Maria Salazar, a former Pentagon official.
Librarians For Terror
Lee Kaplan writes about the hijacking of the American Library Association by radical far-left pro-Palestinian groups and Arab advocacy organizations: Librarians For Terror.
It is ... not surprising that American libraries, those on college campuses as well as in neighborhood communities, include a disproportionate number of anti-Israel books. Works by Edward Said and Noam Chomsky condemning “American imperialism” or that call Israel a “colony” of America are commonly found with other similar materials available regardless of the speciousness of their content. Solid scholarly research with factual information about Israel is difficult to find, if at all.
As well, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an organization that bills itself as an Arab civil rights group but was shown to have links to Hamas, has utilized American libraries’ budgetary problems to provide books “free of charge” to advance the “Arab point of view”. CAIR has given books to more than 7,000 American libraries so far.
To librarians uninformed about Middle Eastern history, or to those who intentionally wish to attack America and Israel, the chance to stack the racks with free books is certainly enticing. But while donating books to our library system should be a laudatory thing, CAIR’s agenda is to persuade readers that Israel must be dismantled, an idea that conforms to Hamas doctrine. And such donations are not limited to just books; today’s public and college libraries feature DVDs; videotapes; symposiums; and educational outreach to public schools and community groups using such one-sided resource materials. Research becomes tainted when the information is not objective, but rather a subtle form of indoctrination.
The film Jenin, Jenin is a good example of such propaganda with its staged scenes that falsely claim a massacre by Israelis; it is screened at “events” or “lectures” designed to misinform the same way as in any totalitarian, Middle Eastern, educational system. Hamas, Islamic Jihad or Hizbollah are no longer perceived as terrorist groups but political, and even human rights organizations, as was done on Duke University’s library website.
UPDATE at 8/17/04 9:21:25 pm:
A librarian may have been instrumental in getting Michael Moore’s book Stupid White Men published: Librarian Makes A Difference For ‘Stupid White Men’ Author Michael Moore. (Hat tip: Blogaddict.)
Tired of Moore’s resistance to censor himself, his editor called to tell him in late that his book “was going to be pulped.”
On December 1st Moore found himself giving a presentation in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He told the audience about the struggle to get his book published and that the only copies in existence were about to be recycled and probably would come back as Rush Limbaugh or Bill O’Reilly books. Moore read the first of chapters of his book to the group. “You’re probably the only people in America who will ever hear these words,” he said. He asked the people in the room that day not to go to the press and make a fuss over it. It was his battle and he was determined to fight alone, away from the public eye. Somewhere in the audience that day was Ann Sparanese, a librarian from Englewood, New Jersey. She did not heed his warning about going public.
Like a cyberspace Paul Revere, Sparanese sent word to various email lists including SRRT (Social Responsibilities Round Table) and Library Juice, explaining Moore’s situation. She conveyed this battle wasn’t just one man’s struggle with a publishing house, but was a battle to preserve free speech and to stop censorship.
Two days later Harper Collins phoned Moore. “What did you tell the librarians?” they asked. “We’re getting hundreds of letters a day from angry librarians. Do you know how much business we do with these people?”
Call for Protest Against Shari'a in Canada
Homa Arjomand, who fled Iran in 1989 to escape the brutal misogynistic barbarism of shari’a law, is one of the leaders of an international demonstration against the legitimization of shari’a in Canada: Call for an International Demonstration Against Sharia Court In Canada. (Hat tip: Dhimmi Watch.)
Call for an International Demonstration Against Sharia Court In Canada.
September 8th
Come out and fight Sharia Court in Canada.
To protect women’s rights
To protect secularism
To protect human dignity
We call upon all freedom loving, organizations and individuals to join us in opposing the Ontario Arbitration Act 1991. This act allows religion to interfere with the Canadian justice system. This act allows family disputes to be resolved outside of court by arbitrators according to their own religious and cultural beliefs. This act allows Islamic groups to legalize the suppression of women by implementing the proposed Sharia Court.
Join the protest and make your voice heard.
When: Wednesday September 8th at 12 noon
Where: Queen’s Part, Ontario legislation
A previous LGF entry about Homa Arjomand: Canadian Shari’a Watch.
The Animal Metaphors Multiply
Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a flying dolphin named Flipper!
No, wait! It is a bird! It’s ... Super Chicken!
(Blame lizardoid minion PDM for this one.)
Israel Strikes Hamas Again
The IDF has carried out another missile strike in Gaza, targeting a top Hamas leader—who got away with wounds, unfortunately. But among those killed was a relative of now-deceased Pediatrician of Death, Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi. The Palestinian propagandist at al-Reuters, Nidal al-Mughrabi, headlines it in typically biased fashion: Israel Kills 5 in Attempt to Assassinate Hamas Man.
You know, a Hamas “man.” A dude. A guy.
GAZA (Reuters) - A senior Hamas leader survived an Israeli assassination attempt on Wednesday but at least five other Palestinians were killed in the night-time explosion that tore through his Gaza home.
Hamas gunmen said a missile fired by an Israeli drone hit the residence of Ahmed al-Jabari, a top commander in the militant Islamic group’s armed wing, the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades. Doctors said he suffered leg wounds.
“In an Israeli security forces operation in the northern Gaza Strip, the Israel Defense Forces targeted a senior Hamas terrorist,” the army said in a terse statement.
The army, which killed Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin in March and his successor, Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, a month later in air strikes, did not say how the latest attack was carried out. Residents said they saw no aircraft at the time of the blast.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon plans to pull Israeli settlers and soldiers out of the Gaza Strip by the end of next year and Israeli forces and Palestinian militants have been bent on scoring “victory” in the run-up to the withdrawal.
Medics said five people — Jabari’s son, a brother, a son-in-law, a cousin and one of Rantissi’s son-in-laws — were pronounced dead in hospital and about a dozen others were wounded. At least three of the dead were known militants.
...And I’m sure the rest were engaged in a peaceful struggle for self-improvement.
Where's the Media on the Kerry Story?
John Kerry’s lies about Vietnam are finally breaking out into mainstream media; the Houston Chronicle is the latest paper to show some guts. Today they published an op-ed by Chronicle special projects editor and Vietnam veteran Lee Cearnal—and to be complete, the story must now also include mainstream media’s appalling reluctance to cover it: Where’s my colleagues’ interest in Kerry’s war records?
The same news media that demanded George W. Bush release his National Guard records — and went over them with a microscope — have shown an appalling lack of interest in John Kerry’s military service. And as it turns out, there are far more legitimate questions about the latter than the former.
Kerry has made his four months and 11 days in Vietnam the central theme of his presidential campaign. This is entirely understandable given his 20 years as the Senate’s leading dove. He needs the cover that Vietnam can give him.
Just last week, one of his more fatuous claims came a cropper. Beginning in 1979, with an op-ed for the Boston Herald, Kerry has claimed repeatedly that he spent Christmas Eve of 1968 on a secret — and illegal — mission in Cambodia aboard his swift boat.
Kerry: Secret Agent Gun Runner
Hugh Hewitt reports on another amazing story, in the saga of John Kerry’s ever-expanding Cambodian adventures. In an article for the May 8, 2000 issue of US News & World Report, Kevin Whitelaw wrote:
Sen. John Kerry made his first forays into Cambodia during the Vietnam War as a Navy lieutenant on clandestine missions to deliver weapons to anticommunist forces.
Kevin Whitelaw also confirmed to Hewitt that John Kerry told him, explicitly, that he ran guns into Cambodia.
Perhaps it’s time to ask whether anything John Kerry told the United States about Vietnam (in particular, the war crimes and atrocities he said were committed by American soldiers) is true?
The Unseen Intifada
At Israpundit, Patrick O’Brien interviews LGF reader and IDF soldier “IDF Dave,” whose photos from the Kalandia checkpoint were featured here last week: The Unseen Intifada.
S. Africa Makes Deal with Iran
In a very unsettling development, South Africa is planning to sell uranium to Iran—and they’re parroting Iran’s line about “peaceful nuclear energy:” SA, Iran discuss defense cooperation. (Hat tip: ploome.)
South Africa’s Defense Minister Patrick “Terror” Lekota and his Iranian counterpart Rear Admiral Ali Shamkhani met on Monday to discuss an expansion of mutual cooperation between the two countries, especially in the domain of defense, the Islamic Republic’s news agency (IRNA) reported.
At the conclusion of the meeting the two countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding on bilateral cooperation, which included an arrangement for South Africa to sell uranium to Iran, Channel 1 TV reported.
SA Defense Minister Lekota stressed that making peaceful use of nuclear energy “is the legitimate right of the Islamic Republic,” the IRNA reported on Tuesday.
Moonbat Hackers Plan Sabotage
Who needs Al Qaeda to attack America, when we’ve got radical fascists like the Electronic Disturbance Theater living right here among us: Hackers Take Aim at GOP. (Hat tip: Dave Ray.)
The point of the electronic demonstrations isn’t to take down a site, according to Ricardo Dominguez, co-founder of the Electronic Disturbance Theater, or EDT, which is releasing a FloodNet program of its own. Unlike hackers’ denial-of-service attacks, which often hijack computers against their users’ will, EDT’s JavaScript-based software depends on how many people use the program. “It’s a way to let people around the world gather and let their presence be felt,” Dominguez said.
Not that he would mind if a Republican server just happened to crash along the way. In 2002, at the EDT’s direction, 43,000 people flooded the site of the World Economic Forum during its meeting in New York. The organization’s website went offline for several hours following the demonstration.
The Black Hat Hackers Bloc is hoping to cause a whole lot more trouble when the Republicans start to gather in New York. The groups will be targeting not only GOP computers, but “e-mail, faxes and phones, too,” CrimethInc said, as well as unspecified “financial disruption.”
Officials from the Republican Party and from Computer Horizons, the Mountain Lakes, New Jersey, firm responsible for network services at the GOP convention, did not respond to requests to comment for this article.
It’s unclear exactly how effective these online actions will be. In an interview, CrimethInc boasted that his associates defaced the website for Drug Abuse Resistance Education, or DARE, with a pro-pot-legalization screed, and promised similar strikes against Republican sites. In the past, veteran online activists have called these tactics the “kind of stupidity that gives hacking a bad name.”
The attacks during the Republican convention may be just the beginning, however. At the Hackers on Planet Earth gathering in New York City, one speaker promised attendees, “You will learn how to infiltrate organizations like the RNC, how to look for and find security holes, and how mischief and mayhem is achieved.”
Murderous Filth Charged in UK
Eight of the Muslims arrested in raids across London have been charged; BBC has the full list of the charges. (Hat tip: McKinnon of that ilk.)
DHIREN BAROT, 32, OF WILLESDEN, LONDON
Conspiracy to murder.
Conspiracy to commit a public nuisance by the use of radioactive materials, toxic gases, chemicals and or explosives.
Possessing a reconnaissance plan of the Prudential Building in New Jersey.
Possessing reconnaissance plans of the International Monetary Fund in Washington, the stock exchange and Citigroup, both in New York, and two notebooks with information on explosives, poisons, chemicals and related matters.
MOHAMMED NAVEED BHATTI, 24, OF HARROW, MIDDLESEX
Conspiracy to murder.
Conspiracy to commit a public nuisance by the use of radioactive materials, toxic gases, chemicals and or explosives.
ABDUL AZIZ JALIL, 31, OF LUTON, BEDFORDSHIRE
Conspiracy to murder.
Conspiracy to commit a public nuisance by the use of radioactive materials, toxic gases, chemicals and or explosives.
OMAR ABDUL REHMAN, 20, OF BUSHEY, HERTFORDSHIRE
Conspiracy to murder.
Conspiracy to commit a public nuisance by the use of radioactive materials, toxic gases, chemicals and or explosives.
JUNADE FEROZE, 28, OF BLACKBURN, LANCASHIRE
Conspiracy to murder.
Conspiracy to commit a public nuisance by the use of radioactive materials, toxic gases, chemicals and or explosives.
ZIA UL HAQ, 25, OF PADDINGTON, LONDON
Conspiracy to murder.
Conspiracy to commit a public nuisance by the use of radioactive materials, toxic gases, chemicals and or explosives.
QAISAR SHAFFI, 25, OF WILLESDEN, LONDON
Conspiracy to murder.
Conspiracy to commit a public nuisance by the use of radioactive materials, toxic gases, chemicals and or explosives.
Possessing an extract of the Terrorist’s Handbook containing information on the preparation of chemicals, explosive recipes and other information about explosives
NADEEM TARMOHAMMED, 26, OF WILLESDEN, LONDON
Conspiracy to murder.
Conspiracy to commit a public nuisance by the use of radioactive materials, toxic gases, chemicals and or explosives.
Possessing a reconnaissance plan of the Prudential Building in New Jersey.
The Enemy Within
Abdurahman Khadr, a Toronto man who trained at Al Qaeda terror camps in Afghanistan, has testified that he saw “a lot” of Canadians there, training for jihad—and they’re now living in the West.
“A lot” of Canadians trained at al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and some still live freely in Canada, Abdurahman Khadr testified at a court hearing at which he revealed chilling new details about Canadian terror suspects and his father’s ties to Osama bin Laden’s training camps.
Mr. Khadr, a 21-year-old Toronto man who underwent weapons and explosives training at four camps in Afghanistan, said in testimony made public yesterday that he had given CIA agents the names of several Canadians who trained at camps such as Khalden.
“I know a lot of people that are living in the West and are living in Canada, and that live their everyday life now and are not under arrest or anything, that have been to Khalden,” Mr. Khadr testified at a July 13 hearing in Montreal.
“I had a lot of friends that were Canadians that came to Afghanistan and went to training,” Mr. Khadr said. “Some of them are dead now and some of them are back in Canada and some of them are under arrest.”
His contention that graduates of the Afghan camps are living normal lives in Canada comes as U.S. officials are concerned that al-Qaeda might try to use Canada as a staging ground for a terrorist strike some time before November’s presidential election.
Guns Interrupted
We’ve backed down again in Najaf: Delegation of Mediators Arrives in Najaf.
Ralph Peters says we are setting ourselves up for disaster, by refusing to win: Guns Interrupted.
Our unwillingness to target even a derelict neighborhood mosque packed with ammunition, weapons and terrorists is not only militarily foolish — it’s based upon the assumption that Muslims are so stupid that they don’t know the rules of their own religion. That’s nonsense. They know that mosques aren’t supposed to be used as bunkers. But they’re not going to shout it from the rooftops to help us out.
Were we to destroy a series of local mosques used by terrorists throughout Iraq, there would be an initial outcry — which the media would exaggerate. But it would blow over with remarkable speed. The only lasting effect would be to put the terrorists on notice that we won’t let them make the rules any longer.
Make no mistake: It’s our folly and moral cowardice that encouraged our enemies to make widespread use of mosques. We created this monster, as surely as our timidity inflated Sadr. Prime Minister Allawi may yet summon the courage lacked by President Bush (and certainly by that human weathervane, John Kerry). But if Allawi folds and lets Sadr walk again, it means our troops are merely pawns in a game we’re determined to lose. Our troops deserve better. We need to let them win.
NZ Columnist Forgives Antisemitism
A New Zealand journalist weighs in with a sneering, whining, utterly wrong-headed column, arguing that there’s no such thing as antisemitism. And if there is, well, it can be forgiven—especially if it comes from Arabs: Cemetery wreckers hurt us, not Israel. (Hat tip: Backspin.)
Anti-Semitism was a pathology, I think, of Europe before the global migrations of the last century. When Europeans lived in homogenous communities, Jews and Gypsies were probably the only distinct minorities they knew. With the washback from global colonialism those groups would have paled in comparison to new arrivals.
To find anti-Semitism in western societies today you need to go to the demented fringe of xenophobic politics or treat seriously the mindless paraphernalia of yobs and militaria collectors. [...or read John Roughan in the New Zealand Herald. —ed.]
Many of the statements that groups such as the Jewish Council nowadays regard as anti-Semitic are in fact anti-Israel - there is a difference - and most of those that cross the line come from Arab or other Middle Eastern sources which, really, can be forgiven.
monday, august 16, 2004
Another ISM Tool Expelled
Israel has deported another International Solidarity Movement useful idiot: Israel Deports Pro-Palestinian American.
A Tel Aviv District Court judge ordered Adam Wilson, a 28-year-old union organizer from New Orleans, La., to leave the country by Tuesday.
Wilson is affiliated with the International Solidarity Movement, a Palestinian-sponsored group in the forefront of protesting Israeli military operations and the separation barrier Israel is building near its boundary with the West Bank.
The deportation order came as an Israeli court prepared to take up the case of Ewa Jasiewicz, 26, an ISM sympathizer from London who was stopped at Ben Gurion Airport on Aug. 11.
Wilson said he was detained by authorities at an airport detention center the same day as Jasiewicz after he refused an order to leave Israel. “They interrogated me and I spent about 10 hours at the airport,” he said, adding authorities later tried to put him on a plane but he refused to leave.
Wilson’s attorney Yael Berda said the judge ordered Wilson’s deportation after he was unable to pay some $890 to cover court costs. “They’re asking for money to be guaranteed for the state expenses of the court fees,” Berda said. “(ISM activists) don’t have that kind of money. They are here for their own volunteer opportunities.”
Saudi Arabia: Now With Fewer Zionists!
Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah says they got all the terrorists. It’s all over. Mission accomplished. The House of Saud is now extremist-free.
What a relief.
Major Battle with Terrorism is Over, Saudi Prince says.
Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler says the kingdom’s major battle with terrorism is over, and security forces are pursuing the last remaining al-Qaida militants.
In an interview with a Kuwaiti daily, Crown Prince Abdullah said, in his words, “We are past the stages of terrorism,” and “What you see now is the elimination of the last pockets” of militants.
He said Saudi security forces have effectively targeted the leaders of the al-Qaida militants. In his words, “We went directly to the heads of the snakes to cut them off.”
I guess this means they eliminated all those pesky Zionists.
IJF: "No Decision" on Iranian Hate Stance
The mad mullahs of Iran lift their masks and reveal their naked hatred—and the International Judo Federation blinks: Tehran Defiant as Israel Urges Penalty.
ATHENS (Reuters) - Judo’s governing body failed to reach a decision on Monday about punishing Iran for its refusal to compete against Israel at the Athens Olympics.
Israel’s top judo official had said Iran should be penalized but Tehran remained defiant in the face of accusations that its political boycott was a challenge to Olympic ideals.
International Judo Federation spokesman Michel Brousse said an emergency IJF executive board meeting, following an inconclusive session on Sunday, had been postponed because some executive committee members were unable to attend.
He could not say when it might now take place. [Don’t hold your breath. —ed.]
But the IJF would set up a committee, he said, to examine why Iran’s world champion Arash Miresmaeili failed to fight Israeli Ehud Vaks in the 66 kg first round on Sunday.
Before the meeting, Israeli judo chief Eddy Koaz said: “I think the IJF must stand and say that we cannot involve politics in sport and I think also they must punish them, because it is not the first time that they (Iran) have done this.
“We cannot let them just do it because if they do it and nothing happens, other countries will do it again.”
Tehran said it had no regrets.
“Our policy is not to recognize the Zionist regime in any international event ... We cannot accept the presence of anyone in international events under the flag of that regime,” government spokesman Abdollah Ramazanzadeh told a news conference.
Ramazanzadeh described Miresmaeili’s action as voluntary but made clear it expected its competitors to avoid Israelis. “We thank all our athletes who voluntarily follow our policy in international events and consider them our real national champions and heroes of peace,” he said.
He also charged that Israel, not Iran, was the country that was trampling on the Olympic spirit — in occupied Palestinian land: “The spirit of peace and friendship suggests that occupation must end and international organizations should help to end it,” the government spokesman said.
UPDATE at 8/16/04 8:22:36 pm:
And in a horrible postscript, the Israeli judoka weeps for and admires his Iranian opponent: An Israeli weeps for a foe never fought. (Hat tip: Allah.)
ATHENS — At the rear of the Ano Liossia Olympic Hall yesterday, Yudi Vaks squatted down onto his heels and buried his big square head in his arms — imagine the fetal position gone vertical — and sobbed.
The 24-year-old judoka wept for Arash Miresmaeili, the young Iranian who didn’t fight him because Mr. Vaks is a Jew from the hated state of Israel, and the Islamic Republic of Iran does not let its athletes compete against Israelis. He would rather have had Mr. Miresmaeili beat the snot out of him, as indeed the reigning world champion in the half-light class likely would have done, than advance through the first round via a DNS — short for did not show.
“It’s not the way I wanted to win,” Mr. Vaks said. “Sport is more than two people fighting judo; it’s contesting. It’s really unfair for him. It’s a small world, judo. I admire him. He’s a great player.
”I’m sure, given the chance,“ he said, voice breaking a little, ”he would fight. It feels horrible, for him. I don’t have to imagine how I feel when I lose, but this is worse. They didn’t even let him fight."
Well, maybe. But it’s also possible that he really hates you, isn’t it, Yudi?
When the Palestinian delegation marched into the Olympic Stadium at the opening ceremonies last week, they were warmly welcomed. When the Iraqis came in, they got a standing ovation and the loudest cheers of the night. Even the Americans were greeted with polite, if unenthusiastic, applause.
But the small Israeli team — 36 athletes competing in 14 sports — was met with quiet so complete it was shocking.
Gandhi's Grandson, Useful Idiot
Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson, Arun, will travel to Ramallah and address “Palestinian peace activists,” at rallies against Israel’s security fence: Gandhi heir to lead rally in Ramallah.
The “wall” Gandhi said in a telephone interview with The Jerusalem Post from his home in Memphis, can only disrupt the peace process. “Building a wall to separate people is the ultimate [expression] of violence and the culture of violence. It doesn’t bring about any solution, it only adds to the problem,” said Gandhi. “The whole point of building a wall is not only keeping people out, but you are locking yourself in,” he said.
Mohammed Alatar, who leads the US-based grassroots group Palestinians for Peace and Democracy, said the needless bloodshed on both sides “breaks his heart.”
In an attempt to stop the violence he invited Gandhi, who has devoted his life to following in his grandfather’s footsteps, to the region to meet with Palestinians and Israelis. Alatar said the Palestinians can learn from the examples set in India by the elder Gandhi and Nelson Mandela in South Africa. “Our main goal is to regroup the Palestinian peace camp and to offer a different way to resist the occupation,” said Alatar.
Palestinian educator Terry Boulata of Abu Dis, who is also one of he trip’s organizers, said the “wall” has become one of the “icons of the occupation.” Among the slogans will be, “freedom is the key for peace,” “end occupation,” and “down with the wall,” she said. They will also be calling for the right of all children to live in peace.
But while she and Alatar said they believe peace is a message that binds Israelis and Palestinians together, neither of the rallies call for an end to suicide bombings.
“People are whispering about that [the need to stop suicide bombing]. There is no need to talk about it publicly,” said Boulata. The focus of the rallies is the occupation and the harm it causes both sides, said Boulata, even though both she and Alatar are personally against suicide bombings.
Gandhi, however, said he will be talking about stopping all forms of violence, including suicide bombings.
WaPo Best Blog Contest
The Washington Post is holding a contest to name the best political blog.
Saddam's Agents on the Syrian Border
There’ve been stories floating just under the surface of the media sea (and occasionally coming up for air) for quite some time, alleging that during the run-up to the war, Iraq shipped most of its arsenal of banned weaponry to Syria.
Saddam certainly had enough time. We spent months telling him, “Attack coming, pal! It’s on the way, any day now! Here it comes!” It wouldn’t have taken genius brainpower to dispose of the evidence; dumb criminals do it every day.
Today, the Washington Times reports on the Iraqi shell game that may have enabled these shipments to take place: Saddam agents on Syria border helped move banned materials.
Saddam Hussein periodically removed guards on the Syrian border and replaced them with his own intelligence agents who supervised the movement of banned materials between the two countries, U.S. investigators have discovered.
The recent discovery by the Bush administration’s Iraq Survey Group (ISG) is fueling speculation, but is not proof, that the Iraqi dictator moved prohibited weapons of mass destruction (WMD) into Syria before the March 2003 invasion by a U.S.-led coalition.
Two defense sources told The Washington Times that the ISG has interviewed Iraqis who told of Saddam’s system of dispatching his trusted Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) to the border, where they would send border inspectors away.
The shift was followed by the movement of trucks in and out of Syria suspected of carrying materials banned by U.N. sanctions. Once the shipments were made, the agents would leave and the regular border guards would resume their posts.
“If you leave it to border guards, then the border guards could stop the trucks and extract their 10 percent, just like the mob would do,” said a Pentagon official who asked not to be named. “Saddam’s family was controlling the black market, and it was a good opportunity for them to make money.”
Moonbat War Council
Radical moonbat gangs are meeting in New York, planning to tediously act out their long-denied need for parental supervision—again: NY’s Finest Prep for Anarchy. (Hat tip: ted.)
August 16, 2004 — Cops are bracing for radical attempts to “shut down” the Republican convention, with protesters blockading or disabling delegates’ buses — and the NYPD is even warning McDonald’s and Starbucks that they could be anarchist targets.
The radicals and other activists — who’ve sparked stormy protests from Seattle to Genoa — will be meeting here Friday in a war council to plan protests for the convention.
The radicals claim protests for the four-day event beginning Aug. 30 will be peaceful — and the only threat of violence stems from cops.
But sources said the NYPD is anticipating efforts by radicals to:
* Stop delegates from getting to Madison Square Garden, the convention site, by puncturing the tires of their shuttle buses or lying down in front of them.
* Disrupt subways, especially near the Garden.
* Create chaos at the 40 hotels housing delegates.
Several high-profile members of the radical protest movement will meet Friday at a “Life After Capitalism” conference at Hunter College to discuss a final strategy.
Among them are Canadian activist Jaggi Singh; Lisa Fithian of Los Angeles, a top organizer in the umbrella group United for Peace and Justice; and Miriam “Starhawk” Simos of San Francisco, author of a widely read essay, “How We Shut Down the WTO.”
“We’re not calling for a shutdown of the convention,” Fithian said. “No one has an intention of being arrested. If the police exercise restraint. . . they have nothing to fear.”
But she said there may be people who want to “go beyond marching.”
Hate Like an Egyptian
Another noxious blast of evil Jew-hatred from our friends (and recipients of $2 billion a year in foreign aid) the Egyptians, from an article published in a religious journal linked to the ruling National Democratic Party: The Jews Slaughtering Non-Jews, Draining their Blood, and Using it for Talmudic Religious Rituals.
“Dr. Muhammad Abdalla Al-Sharqawi says in his book ‘The Talmudic Scandals’ that the Talmud ... exposes the hidden aspects of the Jewish psyche... The Jewish Rabbis came up with it as a result of the deep distress over [their] exile and fragmentation, which cultivated in the Jewish psyche hatred and loathing and a raging need for vengeance and tyrannical control over non-Jewish nations. To this day Jewish life is based to a great extent on the Talmudic dictates and principles...
“Dr. Al-Sharqawi adds that if we examine the Talmudic attitude toward other, non-Jewish nations, we will find it to be as close as can be to a desire to completely annihilate the ‘Goyim’ - the non-Jewish nations. For instance, the Talmud says: ‘Murdering a non-Jew whenever possible is an obligation. A Jew is a sinner if he can murder non-Jews but does not do so. And a Jewish priest who blesses a person [Jew] who brings evidence that he murdered one or more non-Jews is a blessed priest. Murdering non-Jews pleases God, because the flesh of non-Jews is the flesh of donkeys and their sperm is the sperm of animals.’
“The Talmud also says ‘Kill anyone who is not Jewish even if he is pious. The Jews are prohibited from saving from death any member of the other nations, or rescue him from a ditch in which he fell, because that would mean saving an idolater, even though he is pious.’
“Also, the Talmud says that ‘it is righteous for a Jew to kill a non-Jew with his own hands, because whoever kills a non-Jew is offering a sacrifice to God...’ ...
“The Talmud did not only deal with killing non-Jews, but permitted the violation of their honor [i.e. women] and property, when it says: ‘The Jew is not in the wrong if he rapes a non-Jewish woman, because non-Jewish women are permitted...’
“Dr. Al-Sharqawi concludes by saying: ‘All this proves the principle that the killing of non-Jews by Jews is a sacred obligation that the Jew should carry out whenever he can, because, according to the Talmud, his arm is connected to his body for the sole purpose of killing and not for recreation.’”
’The Talmudic Dictates Urge Jews to Draw the Blood of Muslims and Christians for Religious Rituals’
“Dr. Jama al-Husseini Abu Farha, instructor in theology at the University of Suez, points out that what the media shows us every day about Israeli conduct in the occupied territories is no different than what their history shows us about their inhumane practices towards humanity as a whole. One need only point out that they are ‘blood suckers’ according to the Talmudic dictates, which urge them to murder and draw the blood of Muslims in particular, and Christians even more so, and to use this blood in religious Israeli rituals.”
A Peaceful Islamic Earthquake
Terror group threatens Dutch with ‘Islamic earthquake’. (Hat tip: Right Wing Conspirator.)
“We address this message to all crusader countries plotting against the Muslims, and which are sending forces to Iraq and Afghanistan, especially Italy and the Netherlands,” organisation al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad said on an website on Sunday.
Al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad is said to be group connected to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the reputed leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq.
“Expect a hell that will turn your nights into bloodbaths,” warned the statement posted on an Islamic website and addressed “to the European countries.... to the Dutch government and people.”
The group warned the Netherlands that the statement was “a final message that we are sending to you, and it is a simple message, namely the pullout of Dutch forces from Iraq.”
“Or else, your fate will be similar to the fate of Italy and other states,” which have been the target of deadly terror attacks, it said.
“You will be surprised by the Islamic earthquake that will shake your country. You did not learn from the lesson of Spain and other countries. You only understand the language of blood and car bombs,” the statement warned.
The Terror Masters Revisited
Most LGF readers know that the world’s terror gangs cooperate and share resources. But amazingly, as Michael Ledeen writes, many people who should understand this simple concept are still shocked when they discover evidence of it: The Terror Masters Revisited.
Saturday’s Washington Post had an article that quotes the usual unnamed intelligence sources saying that they are surprised to discover that al Qaeda has “reconstitute[d]” itself. This surprise derives from, inter alia, the computer data found recently in Pakistan, intelligence sources (both ours and friends’), and simply looking at the range of activities in which the terrorists engage.
This surprise is, as usual, unsettling, since it has been quite clear for some time now that al Qaeda and the other major terrorist groups — Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Jamaa, etc. — are all working together, and have been ever since we went into Afghanistan. The cooperation increased in the run-up to Operation Iraqi Freedom, and was only possible because the regimes who gave the bulk of the operational support to the terrorists — Syria, Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia — worked closely to coordinate the anti-American jihad. That coordination has, for the most part, continued (note the visit of Bashar Assad to Tehran at the time of the turnover of “sovereignty” in Iraq. At those meetings, Syria and Iran agreed on a five-point plan to attack us in Iraq, Europe, and at home, and to do everything possible — including massive efforts to get the price of oil as high as they can — to defeat President Bush in November’s elections).
This helps understand the coordination between, say, attacks by the forces of Moqtada al Sadr and Baathist “loyalists.” The infrastructure was created before we ever arrived in Iraq.
Kerry's Brief Brotherhood
Last week we mentioned a story questioning whether David Alston, one of John Kerry’s “band of brothers,” was actually on Kerry’s Swift Boat at the time he claimed. Today Byron York squashes the allegation that Alston was never on Kerry’s boat—he was—in an article that raises a host of new questions: Kerry’s Brief Brotherhood.
In light of the timeline and interviews with the participants, it seems likely that Alston’s time with Kerry was at most two weeks, and, if Short’s recollection is correct, as little as one week. Given that, it is possible that some of Alston’s public statements might have left audiences with the impression that he and Kerry were together for a longer period of time. “I know him from a small boat in Vietnam where we fought and bled together serving our country,” Alston said at the Democratic convention. “We usually patrolled the narrow waterways of the Mekong Delta, flanked on both sides by thick jungle.” After combat engagements, Alston said, “Lieutenant Kerry always took the time to calm us down, to bring us back to reality, to give us hope, to show us what we truly had within ourselves. I came to love and respect him as a man I could trust with life itself.”
In addition, Alston has on at least one occasion seemed to give the impression that he was present for Kerry’s Silver Star-winning actions on February 28. “I know when John Kerry told [crew member Del Sandusky] to beach that damn boat, this was a brand-new ball game,” Alston told ABC’s Nightline on June 22. “We wasn’t running. We took it to Charlie.”
For his part, Kerry has sometimes left the impression that he was present when Alston was wounded. Paying tribute to Alston’s service during a speech before a South Carolina veterans’ group in May 2002, Kerry said, according to an account in The New Republic, “He [Alston] sat up in a turret above my head in the pilot house — firing twin fifty-calibers to suppress enemy fire from ambushes. We were extremely exposed — always shot at first.... On one occasion in an ambush his turret was riddled with almost one hundred bullets penetrating the aluminum skin. This gunman kept firing even though he was wounded — one bullet going through his helmet, grazing his head and another hitting his arm....”
That description sounds precisely like the incident on January 29, 1969 in which Alston was wounded. But Lt. Peck, and not Kerry, was in command of PCF-94 that day.
Kerry's Cambodian Problem
In June 2003, the Boston Globe’s Michael Kranish wrote about John Kerry’s (nonexistent) Christmas in Cambodia—including a lovely story about shooting down a civilian: John Kerry: A Candidate in the Making. (Hat tip: foreign devil.)
The Christmas Eve truce of 1968 was three minutes old when mortar fire exploded around John Forbes Kerry and his five-man crew on a 50-foot aluminum boat near Cambodia. “Where is the enemy?” a crewmate shouted.
In the distance, an elderly man was tending his water buffalo — and serving as human cover for a dozen Viet Cong manning a machine-gun nest.
“Open fire; let’s take ‘em,” Kerry ordered, according to his second-in-command, James Wasser of Illinois. Wasser blasted away with his M-60, hitting the old man, who slumped into the water, presumably dead. With a clear path to the enemy, the fusillade from Kerry’s Navy boat, backed by a pair of other small vessels, silenced the machine-gun nest.
When it was over, the Viet Cong were dead, wounded, or on the run. A civilian apparently was killed, and two South Vietnamese allies who had alerted Kerry’s crew to the enemy were either wounded or killed.
On the same night, Kerry and his crew had come within a half-inch of being killed by “friendly fire,” when some South Vietnamese allies launched several rounds into the river to celebrate the holiday.
To top it off, Kerry said, he had gone several miles inside Cambodia, which theoretically was off limits, prompting Kerry to send a sarcastic message to his superiors that he was writing from the Navy’s “most inland” unit.
Back at his base, a weary, disconsolate Kerry sat at his typewriter, as he often did, and poured out his grief. “You hope that they’ll courtmartial you or something because that would make sense,” Kerry typed that night. He would later recall using court-martial as “a joke,” because nothing made sense to him — the war policy, the deaths, and his presence in the middle of it all.
French Antisemitism Watch
Over the weekend, someone wrote “Death to Jews” on a wall of the Notre Dame Cathedral.
PARIS - Anti-Semitic graffiti, including a sign saying “death to Jews,” was found Saturday scrawled on the grounds of the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris.
The graffiti, which included a swastika, was written in black marker on a low wall along the cathedral facing the Seine River. Three stones of the wall had been dislodged, police said.
Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe said he was “saddened and sickened” by the vandalism. “I deeply hope that those responsible for this new insult to the values of our civilization will be quickly identified and severely sanctioned,” he said.
The graffiti was discovered four days after vandals wrote anti-Semitic slurs on about 60 tombstones in a cemetery in the southeastern city of Lyon. Similar graffiti also covered a World War II monument to Jewish soldiers at the entrance to La Mouche cemetery.
|
frank says:
