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Behind the Façades in France: What expats and the mainstream media (French and American alike) fail to notice (or fail to tell you) about French attitudes, principles, values, and official positions…
Castro’s Flunkies
From the magazine Human Events: «In early 1957, when the only thing he commanded was a half-starved band of a dozen "rebels" in Cuba's Sierra Maestra mountains, Fidel Castro was approached by some of his rebel group's wealthy urban backers.
Fast forward to the present:
"What can we do?" They asked. "How can we help the glorious rebellion? We can write you some checks. We can buy you some arms. We can recruit more men. Tell us, Fidel, what can we do to help?"
"For now," answered Castro, "get me a New York Times reporter up here."
Bingo! The rest is history. They quickly complied and The New York Times' ranking Latin American expert, Herbert Matthews, was escorted to the rebel camp with his notepad, tape recorder and cameras. Within weeks Castro was being hailed as the Robin Hood of latin America on the front page of the world's most prestigious papers.
Within two years he was dictator of Cuba, executing hundreds of political prisoners per week, jailing thousands more -- all the while being hailed as "the George Washington of Cuba!".» «This April in front of "the Union of Young Communist Leaders, the Officers the Revolutionary Armed Forces and Relatives and Surviving Victims of the Empire’s Terrorist Attacks on our Country," Castro gave one of his famous "speeches." This one blasted John Bolton's nomination as U.N. ambassador.
"The longer John Bolton’s Senate hearing for the post of United Nations representative went on," Castro raved to the suffering crowd, "the more outrageous it seemed that President Bush could have nominated this man!"
Much applause erupted here (his honored guests knew they were being watched. They wanted their starvation rations that week.)
Castro was simply reading from a (translated) New York Times article dated April 13th titled "Questioning Mr Bolton." Castro spent three-fourths of his time at the lectern reading from the article verbatim, spicing it up with exclamation marks and a few quips of his own. "See what kind of man this Mr. Bolton is?" He asked while poking his finger skyward and arching his eyebrows.
The rest of Castro's speech came mostly from Newsweek and The Washington Post. And who could blame him? Why put Cuba's propaganda ministers to work fashioning anti-Yankee diatribes and puff pieces on himself when he can simply pick up America's Mainstream media?»
They’re still at it. The western left still doesn’t understand the wrongness that holds people down, diminishes their lives, and keeps them miserable and manageable by dictators large and small, their industries, and their contrived ideologies.
The Blackest of Lies…
It does not seem unfitting that today is the birthday of Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892), the English poet who wrote A lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies.
More discussion of Hiroshima…
Friday, August 05, 2005
Hiroshima, 60 Years Later
Discussing the means that brought the War in the Pacific to an end:
Erik Svane: Unlike the endgames of the majority of wars, World War II in the Pacific grew increasingly bloody as U.S. forces approached the Japanese homeland (read more)…
Thomas Sowell: the atomic bomb spared us (and the Japanese) a bloodbath that would have dwarfed the death toll from Hiroshima and Nagasaki (read more)…
Charles de Gaulle: Les trois cent mille morts d'Hiroshima ont épargné bien davantage de Japonais, qui auraient été écrasés sous des bombes ordinaires (read more)…
The Wall Street Journal: The Japanese army was expected to fight to the last man, as it had during the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Since the ratio of Japanese to American combat fatalities ran about four to one, a mainland invasion could have resulted in millions of Japanese deaths—and that's not counting civilians (read more)…
A Japanese-American: Lance or spear practice was a regular women's exercise to practice for the anticipated U.S. landing (read more)…
Bret Stephens: Whatever side one takes here, the important point is that the debate fundamentally is about results. … In other words, the question here isn't about the intrinsic morality of the bombing. It's about whether the good that flowed from the bombing outweighed the unmistakable evil of the act itself (read more)…
Victor Davis Hanson: Post-facto critics never tell us what they would have done instead — lay off the German cities and send more ground troops into a pristine Third Reich; don’t bomb, but invade, an untouched Japan in 1946; keep out of WWII entirely; or in its aftermath invade the Soviet Union? (read more)…
Robert Maddox: the veteran historian ("I regard Hiroshima [revisionism] as the greatest hoax in American history") is interviewed by Victor Fic on every Atomic bombing subject imaginable (read more)…
In addition, check out the information below the subhead "Watching for the 'Fool-Proof' Cards", about two thirds to three fourths down the drag zone of the AA page…
Examining the Issues Surrounding the Dropping of Atomic Bombs on Japan
A critical examination of some common charges against the Americans regarding the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Nobody suggests that the Japanese be grateful for being the target of at atomic bombs — but, bearing those figures in mind, who can doubt that far more lives — as millions of soldiers and civilians rushed to the defence of their homeland — would have been lost in conventional warfare than actually were at Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
Incidentally, this was not as fanatical as it may sound at first, given their own behaviour on enemy soil. The Empire of the Sun expected American soldiers to submit the Japanese people to the same atrocities — in fact, it expected the "foreign devils" to treat them worse — that its soldiers had hoisted upon foreign civilians such as those at Nanking or Manila. Japan's coming victims might as well avoid dishonour and at the same time contribute to holding back the U.S. onslaught by, if possible, taking a few enemy soldiers with them to their death. Fight to the last had been the Japanese motto throughout the war.
Thus, the war promised to become even more bloody, as it indeed already had.
Still, the atomic targets were not chosen out of the blue. The Honshu island city was (correctly) referred to as an "important naval base" by Le Monde back in August 1945, although it is typical that in a retrospective 60 years later (scroll to bottom), the independent daily omitted all types of strategic information and all types of context, for expressions such as "martyrdom", "crimes against humanity", "a haughty indifference of the laws created by men to check barbarism", and "a graduation as useless as indecent into horror". (Needless to say, Japanese actions at Nanking and the Bataan Death March did not figure into this kind of rants.)
Well… exactly! If pride is involved, to what extent can you be sure the peace offer — or any message — is sincere, and especially, how much power does the individual (or the band of individuals) have in proffering it if he or they are surrounded by sizable parties of prideful leaders, soldiers, and other individuals?
As it happens, if and when you get a message (be it a peace proposal or anything else) from a mortal enemy — or even from a traditional friend (think Chirac and Villepin at the UN in early 2003), how are you to know they are sincere? Is disinformation of some kind involved? How do you know they're not stalling for time? Time for what? To prepare their fellow leaders, and the population, for surrender? (In that case, how do you know what the chances are they will be successful in the task?) Or to build more weaponry, arm more combattants, launch more attacks, and/or kill more of your own nationals?
And who would the peace feeler have been from? From the entire government (in which case they could have made it public, supposedly)? From a clique in the government? And if, so, how much power did its members actually have — and were the latter sincere, were they wishful thinkers, or might they the victims of manipulation (from those who wanted to stall for time for military reasons)?
To use a surreal example of a peace feeler (from the same conflict), in May 1941 Rudolf Hess asked for peace between Britain and Germany (after flying a Messerschmitt solo to Scotland), only to be immediately disowned by Adolf Hitler. For months — years, really — British citizens, commoners and responsible leaders alike (not to mention nervous foreigners, and their governments), wondered what secret intentions, if any, might have laid behind the feat.
Also, to what extent should we go in trusting today's Japanese accounts of their willing and innocent peace-seeking forebears?
In any case, here are some things to ponder: it is well-known that the Imperial Army was full of officers and men of the type as those who, when they learned that Japan would eventually surrender, tried to prevent Hirohito's message to that effect from being broadcast. It is also known (not least to the Navy personnel at the time!) that while the Japanese were supposedly desiring peace, kamikaze pilots were crashing their Zeros into U.S. Navy warships. What is less known is that over 400 people were arrested in Japan in 1945 on the mere suspicion of favoring negotiation.
In conclusion: the Americans were aware of the propensity of the Japanese to fight to the very end, and untold thousands had bled, suffered, and died in so learning. And for very good reasons, Americans were not very trustful of the Japanese; indeed, the formers' tendency to regard the latter as duplicitous cannot be ascribed only to racism, far from it (remember Pearl Harbor?).
Racism
Americans may have felt hatred for the Japanese during WWII, but it was not for what race the Japanese belonged to and it was certainly not a hatred that allowed them to murder on sight (what did the so-called American racists hate, and fight, the Nazis for, then ; for being blond, blue-eyed Aryans?!). It was for what they had done, the treachery in Hawaii (remember Pearl Harbor?), the murders of POWs on the Bataan death march, and the numerous other atrocities committed throughout the Pacific, of which the rape of Nanking is only the most repellent. Still, that anger alone was not what led U.S. authorities to drop atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was the Japanese refusal to surrender, backed by the prospect that the blood-letting would continue and that the fighting would, in fact, intensify.
The Americans' Uncalled-for
Intensification of the War
Many more Japanese died in the hell-hole of Okinawa than in the nuclear blast of Hiroshima. More were killed in the battle of Leyte Gulf than in the explosion at Nagasaki. Based on America's 35% casualties on Okinawa, if 767,000 Americans were to attack Kyushu, one prediction said the dead and wounded would number 268,000, as many as the number of battle deaths that the U.S. had experienced in the war so far. As for Japanese battle death figures, they inevitably dwarfed those of the U.S. (On average, the ratio of combat fatalities was 4:1; on Iwo Jima, three Japanese died for every American; on Okinawa, that figure was 15:1; at Leyte Gulf, 20:1; on Attu, in the Aleutians, 50:1.) Japanese casualties on the battlefield by summer 1945 numbered 1.2 million total. Intensification of the War
Nobody suggests that the Japanese be grateful for being the target of at atomic bombs — but, bearing those figures in mind, who can doubt that far more lives — as millions of soldiers and civilians rushed to the defence of their homeland — would have been lost in conventional warfare than actually were at Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
War on Civilians
Those who criticize the Americans for waging war, nuclear or otherwise, on civilians forget that the Japanese armed forces were arming every person available in Japan, from women and children to the elderly, and with everything from advanced firearms to primitive pointed bamboo sticks, to fight the Yankee invaders to the death. Incidentally, this was not as fanatical as it may sound at first, given their own behaviour on enemy soil. The Empire of the Sun expected American soldiers to submit the Japanese people to the same atrocities — in fact, it expected the "foreign devils" to treat them worse — that its soldiers had hoisted upon foreign civilians such as those at Nanking or Manila. Japan's coming victims might as well avoid dishonour and at the same time contribute to holding back the U.S. onslaught by, if possible, taking a few enemy soldiers with them to their death. Fight to the last had been the Japanese motto throughout the war.
Thus, the war promised to become even more bloody, as it indeed already had.
Still, the atomic targets were not chosen out of the blue. The Honshu island city was (correctly) referred to as an "important naval base" by Le Monde back in August 1945, although it is typical that in a retrospective 60 years later (scroll to bottom), the independent daily omitted all types of strategic information and all types of context, for expressions such as "martyrdom", "crimes against humanity", "a haughty indifference of the laws created by men to check barbarism", and "a graduation as useless as indecent into horror". (Needless to say, Japanese actions at Nanking and the Bataan Death March did not figure into this kind of rants.)
Peace Feelers Ignored
It has become common for some to say that the Japanese were ready to sue for peace, and that the treacherous and demagogic Americans (or their leaders, if you want to be cute) ignored the peace feelers. There's so much to say to this charge one hardly knows where to begin. First of all, we are told the peace feelers were secret. If it was so obvious as we are told that the Japanese (or, at least, their government) as a whole were desirous to establish an era of peace and goodwill (unlike the murderous Yankees), why didn't they simply make the call for peace public (and thereby stigmatize the leaders in Washington, had the latter refused to take them up on it)? If asked the question, we will be told that it wasn't that easy and that Japanese pride was involved.Well… exactly! If pride is involved, to what extent can you be sure the peace offer — or any message — is sincere, and especially, how much power does the individual (or the band of individuals) have in proffering it if he or they are surrounded by sizable parties of prideful leaders, soldiers, and other individuals?
As it happens, if and when you get a message (be it a peace proposal or anything else) from a mortal enemy — or even from a traditional friend (think Chirac and Villepin at the UN in early 2003), how are you to know they are sincere? Is disinformation of some kind involved? How do you know they're not stalling for time? Time for what? To prepare their fellow leaders, and the population, for surrender? (In that case, how do you know what the chances are they will be successful in the task?) Or to build more weaponry, arm more combattants, launch more attacks, and/or kill more of your own nationals?
And who would the peace feeler have been from? From the entire government (in which case they could have made it public, supposedly)? From a clique in the government? And if, so, how much power did its members actually have — and were the latter sincere, were they wishful thinkers, or might they the victims of manipulation (from those who wanted to stall for time for military reasons)?
To use a surreal example of a peace feeler (from the same conflict), in May 1941 Rudolf Hess asked for peace between Britain and Germany (after flying a Messerschmitt solo to Scotland), only to be immediately disowned by Adolf Hitler. For months — years, really — British citizens, commoners and responsible leaders alike (not to mention nervous foreigners, and their governments), wondered what secret intentions, if any, might have laid behind the feat.
Also, to what extent should we go in trusting today's Japanese accounts of their willing and innocent peace-seeking forebears?
In any case, here are some things to ponder: it is well-known that the Imperial Army was full of officers and men of the type as those who, when they learned that Japan would eventually surrender, tried to prevent Hirohito's message to that effect from being broadcast. It is also known (not least to the Navy personnel at the time!) that while the Japanese were supposedly desiring peace, kamikaze pilots were crashing their Zeros into U.S. Navy warships. What is less known is that over 400 people were arrested in Japan in 1945 on the mere suspicion of favoring negotiation.
In conclusion: the Americans were aware of the propensity of the Japanese to fight to the very end, and untold thousands had bled, suffered, and died in so learning. And for very good reasons, Americans were not very trustful of the Japanese; indeed, the formers' tendency to regard the latter as duplicitous cannot be ascribed only to racism, far from it (remember Pearl Harbor?).
Starved by Socialism
«The director of the World Food Program, James Morris, says one-third of Burma's children are chronically malnourished, and, in some areas, the proportion is as high as two-thirds. And, noting that many mothers are also malnourished, he said the humanitarian cost is enormous.»
Burma, an authoritarian socialist proves what the erasure of free enterprise and the decapitation of capitalism can accomplish, just as they have in Cuba and South Korea, and may inflict itself on Venezuela.«"When numbers this large of children are at risk, to say nothing of the anemia condition of so many women in the country, the country's future is severely at risk," he said.
Burma has lush and productive land. Unlike corrupt states, or ones that cannot live with their land and weather events, what’s killing people in Burma, and holding them back is distinctly ideological.
Mr. Morris, talking to reporters in Bangkok after a trip through Burma, said Burmese government policies on agriculture, marketing and the movement of people make it difficult for many Burmese to subsist.
He said the WFP is allowed to operate in Burma with relatively few restrictions. But he said many humanitarian workers are hampered by complex bureaucratic procedures, taxes and market restrictions on staples, such as rice.
"The government needs to be much more thoughtful and committed to addressing these tough issues that I have described," he said.»
The agitators can complain all they like. The leftist view of the world comes down to the illiberal behavior of the control freak within.
Media note: We’re linking to an article by the Voice of America on this item, but huzzah and bravo to the BBC for not holding the statement back or maligning it with the Radio 4 politburo “chat panel” treatment (yet).
Malatsia’s Star masks the attribution to severe market controls, and alludes to “Army rule”, as does Reuters, which rather improbably throws HIV/AIDS in there as an implied side effect. Through droning repetition and advocacy, in lieu of disciplined reportage might have brought this bubbling up with the usual Reuters pedantic bubbling of teenage angst.
Unlike the ends of the majority of wars, World War II in the Pacific grew increasingly bloody as U.S. forces approached the Japanese homeland
A shortened version of the following text appeared in the International Herald Tribune of January 9, 1998.
In what is perhaps a laudable attempt to declare that underneath the skin, all humans are basically the same (i.e., equally racist), one of your readers compares the World War II ravages of the Japanese and German armies to the massacre at My Lai. Widespread references to "gooks" notwithstanding, the revelation that more than 300 villagers had been killed in one day in Vietnam by fellow Americans immediately brought about uproar, self-questioning, and opposition in U.S. society, not least in military circles which soundly condemned the massacre. In comparison, the few attempts in the past 60 years to simply present the Japanese nation with a straightforward account of its army's involvement in the slaughter of 300,000 civilians at Nanking and other atrocities have been met with wholesale resistance.Another reader coyly suggests that because they produced the same number of dead, the rape of Nanking is no less racist than the atom bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He overlooks a fundamental difference. The atom bombs did not appear out of the blue, but after years of gruelling fighting, suffering, and dying at the hands of the fanatical armies of the society which passively allowed its soldiers to slaughter civilians, work prisoners of war to death, and otherwise inflict the most cruel atrocities known to modern man.
Unlike the majority of wars which flicker out when the outcome becomes obvious, World War II in the Pacific grew increasingly bloody as U.S. forces approached the Japanese homeland. For instance, the battle for Okinawa, the costliest battle for the Americans — and one of the costliest as well for the Japanese — did not end until June 21, 1945, i.e., after the Germans' surrender in the European theater. The prospect of ever-increasing numbers of dead soldiers, and not racism, was the decisive element in deciding the use of the atomic bombs six weeks later.
In comparison, the Japanese had encountered little effective resistance and few losses in their 1930s occupation of China, and again, at any point during the two-week rape of Nanking, some commander (not least the Emperor) could have stepped in and said "Enough".
More discussion of Hiroshima…
Is Some Kind of "Peace Process" What Causes Wars to End?
…what causes wars to end?asks Victor Davis Hanson.
We hear a lot about the peace process — the quartet, the U.N. peacekeepers, and so on. I can’t think of one war that the U.N. has stopped or ended to bring lasting peace. I really can’t. I wish I could, because I don’t like necessarily to accept the bitter wisdom of the Greeks that is so often depressing given its pessimistic appraisal of human nature. In short, wars end when one side wins and one side loses — and thus the condition for which they went to war no longer exists. Let’s see if that makes sense. What made the Falkland war end? Did the U.N. send down peacekeepers? Is there a green line there today? No, the U.N. didn’t do anything. Britain didn’t even go to the U.N. on that issue. That conflict ended when the British forces physically removed Argentine forces from the Falklands and the government that sent them there fell in humiliation. Now there’s apparently not a problem and surely not a UK East Falklands and an Argentine West Falklands with sniping in between.
Why is there an axis of evil that includes Iran, Iraq and North Korea? Whatever you think about the nomenclature or the rhetoric of that provocative phrase, it is interesting that we have these problems with Iran, that started with the Iranian hostage crisis, that were never resolved. Our sovereign territory inside an embassy was attacked and hostages taken. We didn’t really respond to it successfully, and as a result have been in a de facto state of hostility with the mullacracy ever since.
Again, wars usually end when one side wins and one side loses. Look at World War I and World War II. At first glance their outcomes would seem to refute that thesis. Didn’t we defeat Germany in 1918? Yet if you look at the Versailles peace treaty, it combined the worst aspects of diplomacy, a harsh peace on an enemy that does not feel defeated, but rather cheated. It doesn’t matter what the winner thinks; it has to be the defeated who accepts defeat. If you look what people were writing in Germany in 1918 and 1919, it was exactly opposite of what Woodrow Wilson said they felt.
The German army was a magnificent, frightening machine; and although we thought it was beaten badly, and I think it was beaten, it didn’t always think it was so defeated. When Pershing suggested that he should march a million men — French, English and American — into Berlin and physically take that government and expel the Prussian autocrats, Wilson said that would be too costly. Well the problem is that when we didn’t do that, the German army surrendered in Belgium and France, not in Germany. It claimed that it still was on the move. It was stabbed in the back by Jews; it was stabbed in the back by Marxists; it was stabbed in the back by traitors. And so the legend grew that the German army was invincible, and the enemy could only stymie but not defeat it — and, worse still, perhaps even didn’t have the guts or the power to defeat it. World War II came along and the Allies did not make that mistake twice.
So when you look at the axis of evil, look what’s not there: Germany and I might add Japan for obvious reasons as well. I would add that Vietnam is not there either, because I think that although we could argue, if we had time, that the United States military really did win the war, it lost the peace: the country was unified under a communist government, and the issues for which we went to war were settled. We were defeated, we left, the communists got their wish (beware what you wish for). So Vietnam is not any longer in the Axis of Evil because that issue is resolved — one way or the other. Whether we like it or not, defeat or victory seem to be the arbiters that close wars.
Why, in conclusion, do we find all of this sort of bone-chilling? Why, when we mention the name William Tecumseh Sherman, do we all sort of shudder? I think I don’t need to tell you that people from this state of Ohio went down with Sherman in his thirty-seven day romp through Georgia and his two month swing through the Carolinas. Yet they killed only 600 Confederates in Georgia while that prior summer ten thousand were being killed in northern Virginia. They freed 40 thousand slaves; they lost about one hundred men. Yet to paraphrase what Machiavelli said, "A man can forgive you if you kill his father, but not if you damage his patrimony." And in Mr. Sherman’s way of thinking, the people who started the war were precisely the plantation class who were sending eighteen year olds who did not own slaves to their deaths; and he wanted to reverse that moral calculus by bringing humiliation to those reckless instigators who put such a high premium on honor.
In other words, the use massive force in a moral cause is in fact humane, and saves lives in the long run as it disabuses the enemy of its many false conceptions. What’s inhumane are long drawn out wars — often over entire decades — where people decide for political or ideological or religious reasons that they don’t want to seek victory and instead turn to processes that only prolong the killing. Then the corpses start to pile up.
Again, why do we find this so disturbing? I’ll just leave you with some propensities common in Western civilization that people have remarked upon from Plato to Hobbes to the German nihilists like Nietzsche and Hegel and Spengler.
The combination of values in Western culture that makes us fight so well also are responsible for enormous affluence and security, what the Romans called luxus —almost a sort of license. In this way of thinking, for a post-heroic, post-enlightened society, war can be passé, or war is fought among ignorant people in need of education or money, or war is an innate part of our distant and embarrassing Neanderthal past. Then usually affluent and very educated people in the West in their smugness — we see that in Europe to an astonishing degree today — believe that they are beyond the reach of war or, worse still, that the entire human community is at the end of history and thus has evolved to a higher state of peace. Then innocent people — whether they be in Bosnia or Rwanda or in Iraq or in Manhattan — will get killed. And this tragedy un-folds precisely because of the intellectual or moral or even religious arrogance of an elite few in positions of leadership and influence who don’t understand, whether we like it or not, that evil is always with us, and it is our duty on our watch and according to our station to combat it wherever we see that it poses a threat to civilization itself.
Another Vindication of Ronald Reagan's Ridiculed Views
Once again, we see another vindication of Ronald Reagan’s much ridiculed view that there were lots of natural (or non-human) sources of smogmuses Ashbrook's Steven Hayward, while Peter W Schramm points out to this map of the growth of the United States.
Stick em up!
The leftist reaction to the London bombings are worthy of Pavlovs dog:
Grab your ankles, and hope for nicer terrorists, next time.
Unaware that they're being mugged by reality, they surrender immediately and turn out their pockets.
And each day seems to brings us yet another Jane Fonda story to enjoy.
Thursday, August 04, 2005
Lefty Makes a Date With His Future Beheader
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1072-1716156,00.html
Antony Brown, in the Times (UK):
«"They may not want a global theocracy, but they are like the West’s apologists for the Soviet Union — useful idiots. … The support of Islamic fascism spans Britain’s Left. The wacko Socialist Workers Party joined forces with the Muslim Association of Britain, the democracy-despising, Shariah-law-wanting group, to form the Stop the War Coalition. The former Labour MP George Galloway created the Respect Party with the support of the MAB, and won a seat in Parliament by cultivating Muslim resentment.
"The BBC and The Guardian regularly give space to MAB to promote sanitised versions of its Islamist views. John Ware, one of the BBC’s most-respected reporters, spent years trying to make a programme on Islamic fundamentalism in Britain, but was repeatedly blocked by senior editors who feared it was too sensitive. Last month it emerged that The Guardian employed a journalist, Dilpazier Aslam, who is a member of the Hizb ut-Tahrir, an Islamist group that wants a global theocracy… The Guardian used Dilpazier Aslam to report not just on the London bombings, but on Shabina Begum, the Luton schoolgirl who, advised by Hizb ut-Tahrir, won a court case allowing her to wear head-to-toe fundamentalist Islamic clothes.»
Even the house organ of the “World Socialists” finds the über-moonbats in their midst a wee smidge creepy:
«Instead of combating such a negative development [the turning of public scrutiny on Near Eastern and Asian immigrants in Britain], the SWP and its Respect vehicle lend it a pseudo-socialist cover. In doing so, they champion a perspective that represents a betrayal of the democratic interests of Muslim workers, and is bound to alienate and disorient other sections of the working class.
To cite one example, spokespersons for Respect have repeatedly glorified the wearing of the Muslim headscarf, or hijab, and other more concealing clothing for women, as being somehow progressive. It should be recalled that on the occasion of Respect’s founding, SWP leader Lindsey German spoke of her pride at addressing an audience where so many young women were wearing the hijab.
A recent Respect Newsletter article by Summer Khan claims, “Women are often judged by their looks or bodies. Hijab forces society to judge women for their value as human beings. A woman in a Hijab sends a message: ‘Deal with my brain, not my body!’ “ He continues, “For British Muslims facing the fear of losing their identity, RESPECT is THE only party.”
Khan’s argument is a ludicrous defence of the oppression faced by Muslim women. In a more extreme form, it could be advanced by the Taliban to justify the segregation of men and women and the wearing of the Burka. Would not the complete removal of women from the lustful gaze of men be an even better safeguard against sexism?»
Even a narrow-focus collection of
Amazing.
An Inexcusable and Terrible Disservice to Millions of Iraqis
I was saddened to read of the murder of Steven Vincent in Basra, not only because the independent journalist wrote one of the best books to emerge from post-Saddam Iraq.
Among other pertinent insights on his four months' worth of solo expeditions through the country, Vincent takes the mainstream media to task in In the Red Zone, saying "words matter":
Vincent used to point out that when the mainstream media reported on similar groups of masked reactionary killers operating in Latin American countries, they use the phrase "paramilitary death squads." This is not semantics, he would note: Same murderers, different designations.Once, in a Baghdad restaurant, I overheard some Westerners and Iraqis discussing the conflict — when the Westerners asked what they thought of the "occupation", one Iraqi retorted, "What 'occupation'? This is a liberation."
…How, then, should we describe this war? What words and concepts define the situation more accurately? Since Iraq is now liberated, we might replace "occupation" with a word taken from the post-Civil War era: "Reconstruction," as in, "the Coalition is reconstructing Iraq." We might then exchange the term "guerilla fighters" for the more precise term "paramilitaries." Rather than noble warriors fighting to liberate their people, "paramilitaries" evoke images of anonymous right-wing killers terrorizing a populace in the name of a repressive regime — which is exactly what the fedayeen and jihadists are doing. Or we could simple dust off the venerable term "fascists."
I repeat: words matter. Terms like "paramilitaries," "death squads", and "fascists" clarify the nature of the enemy and underscore a fundamental point that the American media has inexcusably ignored. it is the Iraqi people who are under attack. They are the victims, their future is threatened, they are bleeding from wounds inflicted by pan-Arab Baathists and pan-Islamic jihadists. By calling these neo-fascists the "Resistance" the media reverses the relationship of assailant and defender and renders a terrible disservice to the millions of Iraqis who oppose, in ways large and small, these totalitarian forces. …
How did this happen? How did the media confuse the real forces of resistance — police officers, administrative workers, translators, truck drivers, judges, politicians and thousands of others — with men who plan car bombings, assassinate government officials, and rampage through religious shrines in their quest to reinstate tyranny? Part of the reason is the anti-American bent of the international media: many reporters will sacrifice anything — including journalistic integrity — to defame the U.S. effort in Iraq.
Read Leo Buchignani's book review and
check out the Cox and Forkum homage…
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Highly Recommended
Steven Vincent was prominently featured in one of the first articles I wrote on my blog…
Update: Read why words matter
The sick man among the world's developed democracies
This will be the year that the decline of France came home to the Frenchwrites Nicolas Baverez (merci à RV).
After the collapse of the giant strikes of 1995, after the civic crash of 2002 that saw the far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen get through to the second round of the presidential elections, the failure of the May 29 referendum on the EU constitution and of Paris's bid last month for the 2012 Olympic Games finally tore the last shreds of an illusion and revealed France as the sick man among the world's developed democracies.
The Angry Reaction to Socialist Decadence
From the journal "Foreign Affairs" - Europe's Angry Muslims«A Nixon Center study of 373 mujahideen in western Europe and North America between 1993 and 2004 found more than twice as many Frenchmen as Saudis and more Britons than Sudanese, Yemenites, Emiratis, Lebanese, or Libyans. Fully a quarter of the jihadists it listed were western European nationals -- eligible to travel visa-free to the United States.»
And what is it that they seem to be reacting to? At least in part:«The footprint of Muslim immigrants in Europe is already more visible than that of the Hispanic population in the United States. Unlike the jumble of nationalities that make up the American Latino community, the Muslims of western Europe are likely to be distinct, cohesive, and bitter. In Europe, host countries that never learned to integrate newcomers collide with immigrants exceptionally retentive of their ways, producing a variant of what the French scholar Olivier Roy calls "globalized Islam": militant Islamic resentment at Western dominance, anti-imperialism exalted by revivalism.
- Remerci, RV...
In Europe, host countries that never learned to integrate newcomers collide with immigrants exceptionally retentive of their ways, producing a variant of what the French scholar Olivier Roy calls "globalized Islam": militant Islamic resentment at Western dominance, anti-imperialism exalted by revivalism.»
Ze Tittle, Messieurs Dames, Ze Tittle! Do Not Be Forgetting Your Tittle!
Mais pourquoi i' comprennent pas ce qu'on leur dit?!
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Paul Begala, Solipsistic, Paranoiac Tosser
This via the Opinion Journal’s Best of the Web:«Begala's presence on the panel created a stir when he declared that Republicans had "done a piss-poor job of defending" the U.S.
This affirms my point that it isn’t just a hatred of pluralism and modernity that Jihad despises, it’s also a hatred of absolutely everything the loony left’s has to offer. Putting the left in power is a terrorist's wet dream. Want to really provoke them? Try something like state funded transgendered divorce settlements, or something similarly oafish that fringe group agitators always seem to be contriving.
Republicans, he said, "want to kill us."
"I was driving past the Pentagon when that plane hit" on Sept. 11, 2001. "I had friends on that plane; this is deadly serious to me," Begala said.
"They want to kill me and my children if they can. But if they just kill me and not my children, they want my children to be comforted--that while they didn't protect me because they cut my taxes, my children won't have to pay any money on the money they inherit," Begala said. "That is bullshit national defense, and we should say that."»
In fact the only thing they have in common is a low view of the value of life, and that they're both a kind of death cult. The only difference is that western leftists take it out on children when they aren't exploiting them politically the way Begala and Marian Wright Edelman do.
This is how they shake their little fists at the world
Even the little freedom-hating neo-nazi pillow biters are at it.
Reuters: British military graves vandalised in France «The veterans' minister, Hamlaoui Mekachera, said he was outraged and expressed his solidarity with the families of those interred in the cemetery.
This is what they get "shaken" about, as opposed to getting a grip on the thug culture that socialiam has created.
"He stresses the French people's unfailing gratitude towards the British and Commonwealth soldiers who came to fight by our side during the two World Wars and the respect owed to those soldiers who rest forever on our soil."
Hundreds of graves have been vandalised in France over the last year, but most of the attacks have been in the east of the country. Many targeted Jewish graves, but some Muslim and Christian graves were also defaced. Police blamed neo-Nazis.»
| Profiling | Même face, même race |
| 6% of British muslims approve of the terrorist attacks (roughly 100,000 British citizens) and 25% condemn the attacks but understand the "motivation". Using the same pourcentages for the French population (the figure is certainly much higher than 6% in France) tells us that roughly 300,000 French muslims think the same way. Profiling is not racist. It's a mathematical necessity. | 6% des musulmans britanniques approuvent les attaques terroristes (environ 100.000 citoyens britanniques). 25% condamnent les attaques mais en approuvent les "motivations". En appliquant les mêmes pourcentages à la population fwançaise (et il s'agit sans aucun doute de beaucoup plus de 6% en Fwance) on peut estimer à environ 300.000 le nombre de musulmans français qui pensent de la même manière. Le profiling n'a rien de raciste. C'est tout simplement une necessité mathématique. |
 | |
| UPDATE: French muslims: a ticking time bomb. | DERNIERES INFOS: Les musulmans français: une bombe à retardement. |
France gets its wake-up call ...
Les islamo-fascistes nous ont déclaré la guerre
Alain Marsaud, député UMP, ancien magistrat antiterroriste, a remis un rapport au Premier ministre sur la lutte contre le terrorisme et parle des menaces qui planent sur notre avenir.
Le Figaro Magazine - Vous êtes l'auteur d'un rapport sur «L'Union européenne et la lutte contre le terrorisme». Après Madrid, Londres et Charm el-Cheikh, quelle sera la prochaine cible ?
Alain Marsaud - Il serait temps que les responsables politiques cessent de dire que tout le monde est gentil et que la société occidentale aurait perverti un certain nombre d'individus. Les attentats ne résultent pas de cela. Nous sommes en plein syndrome de Stockholm ! Or nous ne sommes pas ces «salauds» qui devraient «expier». Ce discours que j'entends jusque dans la bouche de certains chefs de gouvernement ne doit pas nous faire oublier que nous sommes dans une nouvelle guerre, déclarée par des islamo-fascistes réunis sous le label al-Qaida. Leur revendication n'est pas religieuse mais politique. Ils disent : «Nous allons mettre en place une société qui nous ressemble, tous autant que nous sommes», où, croyez-moi, la femme ne sera pas reine et où il ne nous sera pas facile d'aller à la messe le dimanche. Un pays d'Europe occidentale a tout à craindre, notamment s'il a une politique étrangère digne de ce nom.
Les victimes sont toujours les mêmes innocents. Les terroristes, eux, ont-ils changé, depuis les années 70 ?
On retrouve aujourd'hui le même mode d'action pseudo-révolutionnaire que dans les années 70. Ce qu'il y a de nouveau, ce sont les kamikazes et l'utilisation de moyens de destruction massifs : voitures piégées, etc. Les terroristes recherchent désormais le carnage maximal pour faire avancer leur cause. Le néo-islamisme a remplacé le néo-stalinisme et lui ressemble étrangement.
Al-Qaida n'a pas de hiérarchie pyramidale. Cela ne rend-il pas la lutte contre le terrorisme plus compliquée ?
Bien sûr. Ben Laden à la tête d'al-Qaida était beaucoup plus rassurant ! Al-Qaida est un label, franchisé et opportuniste, difficile à cerner. La guerre a lieu désormais au coeur de nos villes. Il va falloir réformer nos écoles de guerre...
Lutter efficacement contre le terrorisme ne consiste-t-il pas à lutter contre l'analphabétisme, la pauvreté et l'utilisation à mauvais escient de l'aide internationale ?
Si c'était le cas, nous aurions le même type de terrorisme avec les groupes révolutionnaires d'Amérique latine. Or ceux-là ne cherchent pas à étendre leur influence, tandis que Ben Laden - qui n'a, que je sache, aucun mandat des damnés de la terre pour mener son combat - s'efforce évidemment d'étendre son influence.
L'espace Schengen n'est-il pas une Europe ouverte au terrorisme aussi ?
Schengen a ouvert un espace à beaucoup de monde, et c'est bien. Mais cela l'a fermé, dans le même temps, aux juges et aux policiers.
Le terrorisme n'est-il pas l'échec de l'éducation publique dans les pays musulmans, remplacée par des écoles coraniques ?
La force de l'islam intégriste est d'avoir utilisé les carences des pays musulmans et du tiers-monde en termes de santé, d'éducation, etc. Les islamistes radicaux se sont infiltrés là où devrait être l'Etat.
A la télévision, un Pakistanais au passeport britannique se disait musulman d'abord, pakistanais ensuite et, enfin, britannique. Avez-vous le sentiment que les Britanniques et les Européens doivent avoir peur de leurs citoyens d'origine étrangère ? Et, dans le fond, avons-nous fait le nécessaire pour intégrer véritablement ces étrangers ? Ne les avons-nous pas au contraire délaissés ?
Il faut reconnaître que l'intégration des minorités, partout en Europe, est un échec, au point que certains Français d'origine étrangère se demandent un jour ou l'autre s'ils font véritablement partie de notre société. A cette interrogation, les islamistes radicaux répondent en leur proposant un nouveau passeport, celui de l'islam radical. Et c'est ce nouveau passeport que nous avons à gérer à Madrid, à Londres, et que nous aurons peut-être un jour à gérer à Paris.
Les islamo-fascistes nous ont déclaré la guerre
Alain Marsaud, député UMP, ancien magistrat antiterroriste, a remis un rapport au Premier ministre sur la lutte contre le terrorisme et parle des menaces qui planent sur notre avenir.
Le Figaro Magazine - Vous êtes l'auteur d'un rapport sur «L'Union européenne et la lutte contre le terrorisme». Après Madrid, Londres et Charm el-Cheikh, quelle sera la prochaine cible ?
Alain Marsaud - Il serait temps que les responsables politiques cessent de dire que tout le monde est gentil et que la société occidentale aurait perverti un certain nombre d'individus. Les attentats ne résultent pas de cela. Nous sommes en plein syndrome de Stockholm ! Or nous ne sommes pas ces «salauds» qui devraient «expier». Ce discours que j'entends jusque dans la bouche de certains chefs de gouvernement ne doit pas nous faire oublier que nous sommes dans une nouvelle guerre, déclarée par des islamo-fascistes réunis sous le label al-Qaida. Leur revendication n'est pas religieuse mais politique. Ils disent : «Nous allons mettre en place une société qui nous ressemble, tous autant que nous sommes», où, croyez-moi, la femme ne sera pas reine et où il ne nous sera pas facile d'aller à la messe le dimanche. Un pays d'Europe occidentale a tout à craindre, notamment s'il a une politique étrangère digne de ce nom.
Les victimes sont toujours les mêmes innocents. Les terroristes, eux, ont-ils changé, depuis les années 70 ?
On retrouve aujourd'hui le même mode d'action pseudo-révolutionnaire que dans les années 70. Ce qu'il y a de nouveau, ce sont les kamikazes et l'utilisation de moyens de destruction massifs : voitures piégées, etc. Les terroristes recherchent désormais le carnage maximal pour faire avancer leur cause. Le néo-islamisme a remplacé le néo-stalinisme et lui ressemble étrangement.
Al-Qaida n'a pas de hiérarchie pyramidale. Cela ne rend-il pas la lutte contre le terrorisme plus compliquée ?
Bien sûr. Ben Laden à la tête d'al-Qaida était beaucoup plus rassurant ! Al-Qaida est un label, franchisé et opportuniste, difficile à cerner. La guerre a lieu désormais au coeur de nos villes. Il va falloir réformer nos écoles de guerre...
Lutter efficacement contre le terrorisme ne consiste-t-il pas à lutter contre l'analphabétisme, la pauvreté et l'utilisation à mauvais escient de l'aide internationale ?
Si c'était le cas, nous aurions le même type de terrorisme avec les groupes révolutionnaires d'Amérique latine. Or ceux-là ne cherchent pas à étendre leur influence, tandis que Ben Laden - qui n'a, que je sache, aucun mandat des damnés de la terre pour mener son combat - s'efforce évidemment d'étendre son influence.
L'espace Schengen n'est-il pas une Europe ouverte au terrorisme aussi ?
Schengen a ouvert un espace à beaucoup de monde, et c'est bien. Mais cela l'a fermé, dans le même temps, aux juges et aux policiers.
Le terrorisme n'est-il pas l'échec de l'éducation publique dans les pays musulmans, remplacée par des écoles coraniques ?
La force de l'islam intégriste est d'avoir utilisé les carences des pays musulmans et du tiers-monde en termes de santé, d'éducation, etc. Les islamistes radicaux se sont infiltrés là où devrait être l'Etat.
A la télévision, un Pakistanais au passeport britannique se disait musulman d'abord, pakistanais ensuite et, enfin, britannique. Avez-vous le sentiment que les Britanniques et les Européens doivent avoir peur de leurs citoyens d'origine étrangère ? Et, dans le fond, avons-nous fait le nécessaire pour intégrer véritablement ces étrangers ? Ne les avons-nous pas au contraire délaissés ?
Il faut reconnaître que l'intégration des minorités, partout en Europe, est un échec, au point que certains Français d'origine étrangère se demandent un jour ou l'autre s'ils font véritablement partie de notre société. A cette interrogation, les islamistes radicaux répondent en leur proposant un nouveau passeport, celui de l'islam radical. Et c'est ce nouveau passeport que nous avons à gérer à Madrid, à Londres, et que nous aurons peut-être un jour à gérer à Paris.
Horn of Arabia
Some sheiks later gave [Army Staff Sgt. Dale L. Horn] five sheep and a postage stamp of land, fulfilling some of the requirements for sheikdomwrites the Associated Press's Antonio Castaneda (shookhran to Gregory and Hervé).
Others encouraged him to start looking for a second wife, which Horn's spouse back in Florida immediately vetoed.
Yankee-Bashing: "The brutal imagery by French schoolkids echo what they hear from their parents and teachers and see in the media"
On a regular basis, people in France — French citizens as well as foreigners — are informed of the usual blarney — that the French (and the Europeans) are wiser than everyone else, and more lucid than everyone else, and more humanistic than everyone else, and more pacifist than everyone else, and more tolerant than everyone else, and more reasonable than everyone else, especially les Américains. This is usually told in the following BUT language: "Granted, we may have flaws (indeed, we probably have many), BUT! in the final analysis, we're wise, lucid, etc, etc" — the corollary being "Granted, the Americans have many good points (indeed, they have much to teach us), BUT! in the final analysis, they are reactionary, greedy, treacherous, fanatical, clueless, sods."
What a BUT sentence does, offhand, is contrast two truths, but (and notice that here is that word again) the fact remains that the second part invalidates the first part. Imagine a lovers' quarrel: "I love you, Name, but (beat) you're a good-for-nothing jerk." Now invert this: "You're a good-for-nothing jerk, Name, but (beat) I love you." You don't have to be a graduate of the Actors Studio to realize that the tone of the first sentence will be different from (as in: slightly more bitter than) the second.
Of course, all politicians (of whatever country) who want to sound fair and wise do this all the time: "The opposing party/My distinguished colleague has some good ideas, BUT! what they fail/he fails to see…" That is to be expected in politics, with its active "duels", and is part of the show, so to speak. It's when this attitude becomes an automaticism in a population, and that its (passive, or at least non-duelling) members start to believe it unfailingly, that it becomes a problem…
After living for 10 years in France (and even longer in Europe), I have to say that it is the (very) rare conversation (on whatever subject — foreign policy, culture, any component part thereof, or anything else) where the basic content and message doesn't boil down to the following: When France or Europe is discussed, the negative part comes first and is invalidated by the positive message; when America, its allies, or capitalism is the subject, the positive aspect comes first, but is invalidated by the negative message. (You can check this out in some of the comments we receive, where the same outline returns again, and again, and again, and again…)
For instance, in the educational department, this becomes: granted, there may not be total objectivity in French schools, and sure we could do better, BUT: in the final analysis, this is nothing to worry about, and — snicker — aren't you silly to think otherwise. (The corollary: of course, people (Americans, other foreigners, or Frenchmen) can (and should) criticize the system, BUT if, in the final analysis, they do not laud it overall and realize how lucid and reasonable the French and their system obviously are, they are obviously blinded fanatics.)
In his response to a post showing how today's pacifist language of forebearance has little changed from their predecessors' in the 1930s (and 1940s!) — "Hitler requires, not condemnation, but understanding" — one reader claimed that comparisons with Hitler were nonsense or exaggerated (deliberately misreading the post's true message) — and yet, as David Horsey points out, none of the thousands of French visitors to Carquefou (nor our reader) seemed to find the least problem with one French student's image of the axis of evil being Stalin, Hitler and… George W Bush.
As If Predictions Aren't Foolish Enough
Bloomberg:
Aug. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil dropped from a record on speculation that Saudi Arabia, the world's top exporter, will keep meeting demand for its oil after the death yesterday of King Fahd.Then again, Auntie Beeb can alway seem to find the cloud in the silver lining:
"The market has realized there isn't going to be much alteration to Saudi oil policy,'' said Christopher Bellew, a broker at Bache Financial Ltd. in London. Yesterday ``was a knee-jerk reaction.''
Oil prices have hit new records after the death of Saudi Arabia's king and amid concerns over refineries and Iran.
Analysts said concerns over the Saudi succession, as well as US refinery outages and tensions over Iran's nuclear ambitions had upset the market.
Will They Blame Marv Albert?
From Expatica: "A rejected Congolese asylum seeker has prevented his deportation from Belgium for a second time by biting and injuring accompanying police officers."
As for the connection between an Amercan sportscaster and the Congolese, detainee - in all liklihood - in Belgium they would discipline the cops for trying to muzzle anyone.
As for the connection between an Amercan sportscaster and the Congolese, detainee - in all liklihood - in Belgium they would discipline the cops for trying to muzzle anyone.
Monday, August 01, 2005
If You Really Want to Fight Poverty in Africa, You Should Bring a Complete End to Development Aid and Have the NGOs Pull Out
If [Westerners] really want to fight poverty, they should completely halt development aid and give Africa the opportunity to ensure its own survival. Currently, Africa is like a child that immediately cries for its babysitter when something goes wrong. Africa should stand on its own two feetsays James Shikwati to Thilo Thielke (thanks to Hervé) as the Kenyan economics expert pleads, "For God's Sake, Please Stop the Aid!"
[Good intentions such as eliminating hunger and poverty] have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years. If the industrial nations really want to help the Africans, they should finally terminate this awful aid. The countries that have collected the most development aid are also the ones that are in the worst shape. Despite the billions that have poured in to Africa, the continent remains poor.
…Huge bureaucracies are financed [with the aid money], corruption and complacency are promoted, Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be independent. In addition, development aid weakens the local markets everywhere and dampens the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so desperately need. As absurd as it may sound: Development aid is one of the reasons for Africa's problems. If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn't even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid.
…Africa is always only portrayed as a continent of suffering, but most figures are vastly exaggerated. In the industrial nations, there's a sense that Africa would go under without development aid. But believe me, Africa existed before you Europeans came along. And we didn't do all that poorly either.
…Millions of dollars earmarked for the fight against AIDS are still stashed away in Kenyan bank accounts and have not been spent. Our politicians were overwhelmed with money, and they try to siphon off as much as possible. The late tyrant of the Central African Republic, Jean Bedel Bokassa, cynically summed it up by saying: "The French government pays for everything in our country. We ask the French for money. We get it, and then we waste it."
…There must be a change in mentality. We have to stop perceiving ourselves as beggars. These days, Africans only perceive themselves as victims. On the other hand, no one can really picture an African as a businessman. In order to change the current situation, it would be helpful if the aid organizations were to pull out.
The Diplomacy of Impotence
«The Islamic Republic issued a Sunday deadline for the EU to submit its plans for the economic and political incentives it would provide in return for Iran's indefinite suspension of uranium enrichment, nuclear fuel reprocessing and related activities.
But the British Foreign Office said the EU, represented by Britain, France and Germany, had informed Iran only that "full and detailed proposals" would be delivered in a week.
The conversion plant near the central city of Isfahan takes processed uranium ore, mined in Iran's central desert, and turns it into uranium hexafluoride gas. This gas can be pumped into centrifuges that spin at supersonic speed to enrich uranium. »
Even the New York Times, in all it’s wishful thinking, takes the statement at face value, and little else: «The three powers are scheduled to offer Iran a package of economic, political and security, as well as technological incentives by Monday. But Iran had warned that no incentive could persuade it to quit its uranium enrichment program, even though it has voluntarily suspended the operation for now.Of course not. They’re just starting up their program again in order to NOT enrich Uranium!
The Uranium Conversion Facility near the city of Isfahan turns uranium ore, known as yellowcake, into gas. The gas can later be fed into centrifuges and enriched to be used as fuel in nuclear plants or, if highly enriched, can be used for making nuclear weapons. Iran said it would keep the nuclear site in Natanz where the centrifuges are kept under suspension.»
Reuters again:
« The EU3 is due to offer Iran some economic and political incentives in return for an indefinite suspension of uranium enrichment, nuclear fuel reprocessing and related activities.So it looks like the Iranians have the North Korean nuclear blackmail routine down pat. They’ve also found a willing punter in the “EU3” who will, at most, refer the whole thing to a UN dominated by tin pot governments in the General Assembly if they get a black eye.
If Iran does not comply, the EU has threatened to back calls by the United States for the Islamic Republic to be reported to the United Nations Security Council and face possible sanctions.»
It’s a good thing that they can give the Chechens, once and future Bosniacs, a “nuclear option”, eh?
Double Standards for Iraq Commentators
Behold a clear double standard for Iraq commentatorswrites Michael Fumento.
If you attack U.S. war efforts, you may do so all you wish from the safety and comfort of American soil. Conversely, don’t even think about writing something positive unless you’ve spent time in Iraq – notwithstanding that your dispatches may be filed from the safety and comfort of a cozy hotel behind layers of concrete barriers and concertina wire.
Questions for the Cynics, the "Lucides", the Armchair Generals, and Other Know-It-Alls
asks Jeff Jacoby.‘‘And mark my words, he will develop weapons of mass destruction. He will deploy them, and he will use them’’ -- President Clinton, Dec. 16, 1998…the botched terror assessment [of Britain's intelligence agencies] raises a question for us, too: Which kind of intelligence failure is better — the kind that badly understates a threat, such as the one in London [three weeks before the London bombings of July 7, Britain’s Joint Terrorist Analysis Center advised policymakers that "at present there is not a group with both the current intent and the capability to attack the UK"], or the kind that overstates a threat, such as the insistent warnings before the invasion of Iraq that Saddam Hussein was armed with weapons of mass destruction?
Of course no intelligence failure is desirable. But even in the best intelligence services, they are sometimes inevitable. Foresight will never be as sharp as hindsight. Only after the fact -- after the Underground blows up, after 9/11, after the stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons are nowhere to be found -- is it clear what the picture looks like once the ‘‘dots’’ are ‘‘connected.’’ Before the fact, it isn’t always clear that there are even any dots to search for, let alone what shape they might take or how reliable they might be.
So what kind of culture do we want intelligence agencies to foster among their operatives and analysts: one that tends to be overly focused on possible threats, or one that is more likely to downplay them? In general, would we rather take action to eliminate a danger that turns out to have been overstated -- or take no action, and then be stunned when the enemy strikes?
Surely the question answers itself. When the enemy is an international terrorist organization or a violent and dictatorial regime, preemption must trump reaction. Ousting the most brutal and homicidal tyrant in the Arab world, even if we then discover that he didn’t pose the WMD threat we had envisioned, beats watching Osama bin Laden’s acolytes steer jetliners into the World Trade Center. Bombing the Iraqi nuclear plant at Osirak, as Israel did in 1981, beats waiting until Iraq launches its first nuclear strike.
…most Americans understand that intelligence failures are not the same thing as lies. And the intelligence failures about Saddam Hussein['s] WMD capability did not begin under the incumbent President Bush. Back when his father was president, before the first Iraq war, the CIA badly underestimated the extent of Saddam’s quest for chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons.
Fortunately, Saddam was stupid enough to invade Kuwait. That triggered the Gulf War, in the course of which the world discovered just how deadly a WMD menace the Iraqi butcher had become.
| The death of France's multiculturalism | La mort du multiculturalisme à la fwançaise |
| 'Europe means peace.' Bwahahaha! | 'L'Europe signifie la paix.' Mouarf! |
| ... et le coup de grâce était asséné par Yannick Noah et Zizi Empeste: Je suis métisse, un mélange de couleurs oh oh Oh métisse, je viens d’ici et d’ailleurs Marcher pieds-nus dans la ville, en sandales dans la jungle Tu sais le mélange est facile, il suffit d’être simple Je suis une éclipse, une rencontre insolite, Je suis fier d’être métisse, j’ai la chance de choisir Je suis métisse, un mélange de couleurs oh oh Oh métisse, qui viens d’ici et d’ailleurs Je suis métisse, un mélange de couleurs oh oh Oh métisse, je viens d’ici et d’ailleurs oh oh Si parfois je me perds au milieu des deux rives Si j’ai besoin de repères, mes racines me guident Un sentiment basique, un élan, une chance Une si belle mosaïque et dans mon coeur ça danse Je suis la preuve vivante que tous les humains sont les mêmes Je suis l’enfant d’Adam et Eve Je suis un rêve comme Ismaël en Israël Renie ta haine et fais sourire les anges Mélange le Gange et la Tamise Métisse des Indes et du Brésil On est métis comme Sade, Bob Marley Tu peux te marrer ou bien te barrer On peut en parler Multicolores, anti-connards et tous mes colocataires Caracolent en tête pour des idées D’un monde plus métissé Métisse, un mélange de couleurs oh oh Oh métisse, qui vient d’ici et d’ailleurs oh oh Je suis métisse, un mélange de couleurs oh oh Oh métisse, qui viens d’ici et d’ailleurs oh oh Je suis métisse Deux êtres différents qui se mélangent et ne font qu’un Je suis métisse Deux cultures, deux passés qui se rassemblent et ne font qu’un Je suis métisse Deux façons de penser qui se rassemblent pour ne faire qu’un Je suis métisse Pas besoin de voyager pour dire que je viens de loin Na na na na na na na na na oh oh Na na na na na na na na na oh oh Métisse Na na na na na na na na na oh oh Oh métisse na na na na na na na na na oh oh Je suis métisse, un mélange de couleurs oh oh Oh métisse, qui viens d’ici et d’ailleurs oh oh Je suis métisse, un mélange de couleurs oh oh Oh métisse, qui viens d’ici et d’ailleurs oh oh Je suis métisse, un mélange de couleurs oh oh Oh métisse, qui viens d’ici et d’ailleurs oh oh | |
The Terrorists' Strategy in Europe
Simply put, Old Europe's thinking today is that of 1930s, when the Oxford Union voted "under no circumstances [to] fight for King and Country," and British PM Neville Chamberlain believed appeasement should be the policy and "peace in our time" the goalwrites Pete du Pont.
Winston Churchill had the better understanding: "You ask what is our aim? I can answer that in one word, victory at all costs, victory in spite of terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival." He was talking of Hitler and Nazi Germany, of course, but without victory there will be no survival against Islamic terrorism either.
Meanwhile, the terrorist network has changed its focus, making the fighting of the war more complex. An al Qaeda planning document found by Norwegian intelligence in 2003 laid out its revised strategy: spectacular attacks like those of 9/11 against the United States need to be supplemented by attacks on European nations so they will withdraw their support of the Afghan and Iraqi military operations in order to increase the burden on the United States.
University of Chicago professor Robert Pape's excellent New York Times piece of July 9th lays out its specifics: attack Britain, Poland, and Spain as the most vulnerable nations. "It is necessary to make the utmost use of the upcoming general election in Spain . . . we think the Spanish government could not tolerate more than two, maximum three, blows . . . then the victory of the Socialist Party is almost secured and the withdrawal of Spanish forces will be in the electoral program." They hoped that would put "huge pressure on the British presence that Tony Blair might not be able to withstand, and hence the domino tiles would fall quickly."
The terrorist strategy may have changed, but the objective remains the same. Al Qaeda understands that in the end the United States is what matters. The United Nations is irresolute and corrupt, and important European nations are indecisive and vulnerable. So drive the United States from the Middle East, establish control of all its nations, and then force the Western European nations to appease and accept an Islamic, theocratic global society.
Combating terrorism is thus the modern version of war--no huge armies, but nevertheless a real war--and winning this war is no less important to global freedom than winning the World War II and the Cold War.
Making Stupidity Noble...
...yet making it somehow seem serious and meaningful, but decidedly unfunny. They seem to be able to take the picque out of irony.
Austrian Museum Lets Naked People in Free
For example: here are three attempting eithier hip-hop or a synchronized proctology. making both painful.
The Crew of Columbia: Killed by Do-Gooders?
From the blog "Pardon My English": Enviromentalist-Wackoism and NASA caving-in linked to Columbia failure. In other words, NGO "pressure groups" killed seven Astronauts and Mission Specialists through their inability to accommodate and accept, pushed a policy that killed the crew of STS-107. Never mind the softly-softly language about "do this wherever you can" - wherever to these exterminating angels is everywhere, regardless of the risk. For example - how do hospitals function safely without latex?
-The Philadelphia Inquirer«Before the environmentally friendly new insulation was used, about 40 of the spacecraft's 26,000 ceramic tiles would sustain damage in missions. However, Katnik reported that NASA engineers found 308 "hits" to Columbia after a 1997 flight. A "massive material loss on the side of the external tank" caused much of the damage, Katnik wrote in an article in Space Team Online. He called the damage "significant." One hundred thirty-two hits were bigger than 1 inch in diameter, and some slashes were as long as 15 inches.
"As recently as last September [2002], a retired engineering manager for Lockheed Martin, the contractor that assembles the tanks, told a conference in New Orleans that developing a new foam to meet environmental standards had 'been much more difficult than anticipated,'»
The Greenie notion of "success at all costs", wether that cost is sovereignty or people's lives needs to be re-evaluated. It's time to question their authority, and their "power without responsibility".
But to them, I'm sure they think that it's only their sentiment that counts.
"Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it"
Today is the birthday of Milton Friedman (1912- ), the American economist who has said that
A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.
Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.
Governments never learn. Only people learn.
History suggests that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition.
I am favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible.
I'm in favor of legalizing drugs. According to my values system, if people want to kill themselves, they have every right to do so. Most of the harm that comes from drugs is because they are illegal.
Inflation is the one form of taxation that can be imposed without legislation.
Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.
Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned.
Tool or Wind-up Toy?
Canada Free Press: "Anti-American MP slams Defence Chief".
MP Carolyn Parrish is at it again:
Basically because he is, as she referred to him, a "testosterone-filled general". "I’m totally offended by him… We are also not a country that is going to easily throw away 100 years of peacekeeping reputation and noble reputation in the world by a testosterone-filled general, and I think somebody should put a clamp on his mouth."
Oh those NASTY NASTY GUNS! Why can't they just uninvent them so all the peaceful völk of the world... you know them, the ones that aren't white looking, can just live in peace, fly kites, play Cuban Jazz, and listen to the woodland creatures who pass on their superior wisdom to them... Her ilk have already dessicated the Canadian Armed Forces as it is for little more than their own emotional satisfaction.
What's left for them? Peacekeeping, which most of the time is an elaborate word for "mopping up" - it's also one of the only dignified tasks that can accomplished reasonably by an underfunded force which is demoralized by the likes of the self-absorbed former schoolmarm MP Carolyn Parrish. At least it gives her a way to act out her borderline behavior, so she won't abuse the neighborhood kids. Otherwise she could just stamp her feet and think she's insulting him by calling him "a man!"
«Parrish, a Liberal backbencher of no particular note for 11 years, hit the spotlight when her comment, "Damn Americans--I hate those bastards" was picked up by a boom microphone. Milking it for all it was worth, she appeared on the now defunct television show of alleged comedian Mike Bullard and played to the largely anti-American crowd. Parrish told the audience that her only regret was that her elderly mother was upset that she used the word, "bastards".And just what was it that bugs her so much about Hillier?
Parrish again appeared on television last year when she went on CBC’s "This Hour Has 22 Minutes" and stomped on a George Bush doll. Fearful Leader told her to apologize whereupon Parrish opined that she wouldn’t shed a tear if Paul Martin lost the next election and said that Martin’s advisors could go to hell. She was then dumped from the caucus and forced to sit as an independent.»
«...the straight talking Hillier had said the obvious--the job of Canadian soldiers is to be able to kill people. Hillier also referred to terrorists (apologies to the CBC) as "murderers and scumbags".»So she already played the "it's my football and I'm going home" game with her own party. All becuase of those icky boys playing war in a world where she seems to want Afghans to live in terror of gangsta-thug former Talibs. Quite frankly, I'd be all for her volunteering to wear a Burkha for the rest of her days in "solidarity" like the rest of the attention seeking fake empathy crowd.
As for the Liberal Party, she also seems to want back in now. In a political system where the parties so heavily control and manage their legislators, do you think this former apparachik could tax their patience again?
