...born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad

Looking through the wrong lens: Veteren Ceeb reporter Joe Schlesinger reviews Tony Jugt's doorstopper, a nearly 900-page tome on the history of Europe since the end of WW2, in the Globe and Mail and concludes with these thoughts:

Yet when it comes to the future, this hearheaded chronicler of the continent's terrible past puts on his rosy glasses and sees "Europe's emergence as a paragon of the international values...an exemplar for all to emulate...The 21st century might yet belong to Europe."

After what the Europeans have been through this past century, one could wish them no less.

One has a sense that Schlesinger, a Czech by origin who is familiar with totalititarianism in its Communist form, is somewhat less sanguine about Europe's prospects than Tony is. But not wanting to rock the boat, he is reluctant to express his doubts. It's apparent, though, that neither the Tony Jugt book nor its reviewer have a clue about what really been happening in Europe at the moment; Bat Ye'or's Eurabia and even Bernard Lewis's prediction that Muslims will become the majority population on the continent in the next 50 years, seem to have passed them by completely.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:31 | link | comments

A brave critic: MEMRI (lights the corners of my mind...) has a translation of an article which appeared a few days ago in an Arabic newspaper in London. It's a blistering attack on the resurrence and rapid spread of Holocaust denial in the Arab/Muslim world, a situtation which the columnist attributes to ignorance and the belief that denying this historical reality is an effective way to attack Israel:

"Mahdi 'Akef has joined Khaled Mash'al, who, in his turn, had joined [Iranian President] Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in denying the existence of the Nazi holocaust that targeted the European Jews. The issue is no longer tackled or discussed, except in intellectually and educationally retarded milieus. When the denial is being uttered by Arabs and Muslims, this adds another dimension, which is the inability to achieve any progress in reality, then proceed to contest history with myth.

"For the millionth time, the truth must be reiterated: the stance towards the Holocaust is not linked to the stance towards Israel. Those who connect the two are either staunch Zionists who consider that the attitude towards the Hebrew State is automatically the same towards the Holocaust, and vice versa; or Jewish haters who consider that acknowledging the Holocaust is tantamount to supporting Israel, and leave no space for contradicting it.

"As it was previously mentioned, there is no longer a need to discuss this settled issue, despite what an Iranian official said when he dubbed [Ahmadi]nejad's opinion as 'an academic point of view,' and despite 'Akef's muddy sources ranging from David Irving to Roger Garaudy.

"Most importantly, the 'culture' of denying the Holocaust - which is, among other things, the outcome of lack of education - has grown to occupy a dominant position in public Arab and Islamic life. Although the issue was about to come to an end and be confined to narrow margins that gather utter fanaticism with utter retardation, the heavy, poisoned Iranian rain blew on us and was welcomed, quite avidly, by the eager Arab deserts.

"The issue is now no longer restricted to narrow margins. The reason is that [Ahmadi]nejad, regretfully and painfully, is the President of the Republic elected by millions of Iranians. As for Mash'al, he is one of the symbols of the organization that bit at Palestinian municipalities, and may now bite at its Parliament too, in case legislative elections take place, confusing the world over the way to avoid such a stalemate. As for 'Akef, he is the rising star in Egypt, as his Muslim brethren have secured more than a quarter of the Parliament's seats. They could even have achieved more in better electoral circumstances.

"Ushered by some writings of the former Syrian Defense Minister Mustapha Tlas, or some letters and instructions of Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the library of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hizbullah abounds with long excerpts drawn from Protocols of the Elders of Zion, The Jewish Peril, and other yellow pages intermingled with mythical visions about martyrdom and graves.

"This means that we are not to be envied at all. The ailment is swelling up from the heart of the societies to the decision makers therein. It is no coincidence that the elements of the bloc spreading and disseminating the above mentioned 'ideas' are those same elements who promise us salvation from occupations and darkness to a brighter and more glowing horizon. It is also no coincidence that the same bloc represents an anti-modern sensitivity coupled with a certain regression to what has [been] tried many times before, in power as well as in opposition…"

It's a hopeful sign that at an Arab is willing to stand up for the sake of truth--especially when his stance is unlikely to earn him any Brownie points in his own community. At the same time, however, his acknowledgement that this particular strain of Jew-hatred is spreading so rapidly underscores how dangerous it has become. It's no longer the domain of fringe loonies like Ernst Zundel and David Irving, both of whom are safely ensconced in jail (Zundel in Germany; Irving in Austria). It has leapt beyond the fringe and is edging closer and closer to the Muslim mainstream. Just one more reason for them to despise us (and want to get rid of us)--that and Mo having turned us into simians and swine and all.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:08 | link | comments

No experience necessary: The usual practice when looking for a job is to scan the want ads, log on to Monster.com, and send out lots and lots of resumes. Not in Gaza. In Gaza when you want a job, you grab your machine gun, put on your battle clothes and storm government offices, shaking your weapon angily as you demand to be put on the payroll--or else.

In reading all these reports of enthusiastic, gun-toting job-seekers, it never mentions what kind of jobs these lads are looking for. IT development? Financial analysis? Vice president of graft? I'm sure that a life of thuggery equips you with a certain amount of street skills, but it's hard to see how it can prepare you for a high-tech career.

But maybe these guys aren't really looking for long-term employment. Maybe they'd prefer something cushier and less taxing--like a regular pay-off to keep them from making trouble for the already beleagured authorities.

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:29 | link | comments

Return of the native: Learning absolutely nothing from her ordeal, Kate Burton, the human rights worker who was kidnapped along with her parents in Gaza (and released with them two days later), has vowed to continue her crucial Israel-bashing work. Wearing a fetching, black and white checkered kefiyah and looking every inch the sympathetic Arabist who's "gone native," Ms. Burton says she's returning post haste to her job with Al Mezan, an organization working for the rights of Palestinians in occupried territory, which, as CNN reminds us in this report, no longer includes Gaza but still takes in the West Bank:

LONDON, England (CNN) -- A British rights activist who was freed by kidnappers in Gaza has vowed to continue her work in the region despite her two-day hostage ordeal.

Kate Burton, a 25-year-old worker for the Palestinian rights group Al Mezan, and her parents who were visiting her were abducted Wednesday in Rafah, near the Gaza-Egypt border. They were released Friday.

The British Foreign Office on Saturday distributed a statement written by the Burton family, saying Kate "plans to stay in the region and continue working with the Palestinian people."

"Kate remains committed and passionate about working alongside the Palestinians to improve their external image and alleviate the difficult conditions being suffered by the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip," the statement said.

The Burtons also thanked Britain and the Palestinian Authority for their help in obtaining their release and called the ordeal "just one in the context of a severely increasing state of insecurity in the Gaza Strip."

"We are glad that these last few days are over and we would like to express our gratitude to the Palestinian Authority, the British government and all groups and individuals in Gaza and worldwide who have been supporting us and working around the clock to secure our release. We are in good health and have been treated extremely well through the ordeal."

Israel withdrew troops and settlers from Gaza this summer, but maintains a presence in the West Bank...

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:25 | link | comments

Name nonsense: An animal rights activist is so convinced that a certain fried chicken chain is finger-lickin' bad that he's changed his name in protest. From now on, you can call Chris Garnett, 19 year-old youth outreach co-ordinator for PETA, by his new name: KentuckyFriedCruelty.com.

No word yet as to whether his fiancee, Dolores Lipschitz, is planning to hyphenate her name after marriage or if there are likely to be any little Lipschitz-KentuckyFriedCruelty.coms. running around the house in the future. (Okay, I made up that last part up.)

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:07 | link | comments

Hasta la vista '05; Bienvenue '06: I trust few of us will be sad to see the end of 2005. All in all, it was a pretty crappy year. We can only pray that the one that begins a second after the stroke of midnight will be an improvement, but realistically speaking, what are the odds?

As the year winds down and the new one fast approaches, I invite you to join me in a rousing chorus of the song we traditionally sing to usher in the New Year:

Should auld jihadis be forgot
And find a new pursuit
Like jumping from an air-o-plane
Without a parachute.
Without a parachute they’ll plunge
And plummet down so fast
While we will cheer and celebrate
That jihad’s gone at last.

Brings a tear to the eye, doesn't it?

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:48 | link | comments

RoK* update: Human rights worker Kate Burton and her mom and pop and still in the clutches of unknown kidnappers, and there's been nary a word from those who abducted the four CPTers since a deadline to meet the kidnappers' demands came and went earlier this month. Along with these "successes", kidnappers can claim another victory: they've chased the Sudanese out of their Baghdad embassy. From the Ceeb website:

Sudan will close its embassy in Baghdad in an effort to win the release of six kidnapped employees, a Sudanese diplomat said Friday, a day after Al-Qaida in Iraq threatened to kill the captives if the diplomatic mission remained...

Al-Qaida in Iraq, which has kidnapped and killed a string of Arab diplomats and embassy employees in a campaign to scare Arab governments from setting up full diplomatic missions in Iraq, had set a Saturday deadline for Sudan to "announce clearly that it is cutting its relations" with the Iraqi government, or it would kill five Sudanese hostages.

The Sudanese Foreign Ministry reported on Dec. 24 that six of its embassy employees were kidnapped, including the mission's second secretary. It was not immediately clear if the Al-Qaida statement referred to the same group.

"A statement was issued by the Sudanese government to close the embassy in Iraq to win the release of our kidnapped citizens," the embassy's charge d'affairs, Mohamed Ahmed Khalil, told The Associated Press.

The Qatari-based Al-Jazeera satellite channel on Thursday aired video showing the five kidnapped Sudanese sitting on chairs, talking to the camera, but no audio was heard. The channel said it received the video from the kidnappers.

Al-Qaida's statement said if Sudan did not close its embassy, "this government will bear the responsibility of presenting their diplomats as sacrifices."

*Religion of Kidnapping

Update: Good news--Kate and her folks have been released. She can now get back to her gratifying work of protectiing the human rights of the people who kidnapped her.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:11 | link | comments

Border brouhaha: Those tender reunions are on hold for the moment. Palestinian police have shut down the border. From Middle East News:

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories -- Palestinian police added to the sense of anarchy in Gaza on December 30 by forcing a halt to crossings into Egypt as security forces admitted drawing a blank in their search for three kidnapped Britons.

Around 100 members of the police force gathered outside the front of the Rafah terminal, prompting staff to retreat to their offices, in protest against the killing of one of their colleagues on Thursday.

Fearing that the protest could spiral out of control, Palestinian security chiefs told European Union observers at Rafah to move temporarily to their nearby headquarters several kilometers away from the terminal.

"The Palestinian police, who are responsible for our security, told us to go to Kerem Shalom and we are waiting to see developments on the ground," said a spokesman for the EU mission, Julio de la Guardia.

"When things are 100 percent under control and if we get the green light by 4:00 pm (1400 GMT), we will go back to work. If not, we will go back tomorrow," he said.

One policeman and a civilian were killed on Thursday in Gaza City when an argument between a local family clan and security forces degenerated into a gunfight.

Security in the Gaza Strip has increasingly broken down in the weeks since Israeli troops withdrew from the territory and handed over total control to the Palestinian Authority in September...

But we're still allowed to blame it all on Israel, right?

Incidentally, nothing has been heard from Kate Burton and her parents since they were bundled into a car with no license plates and driven away by unkown kidnappers two days ago. Kate, a Rachel Corrie type who was concerned about the predicament of the Palestinians vis-a-vis their Israeli oppressors, had been working for something  called the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, an organization which, given its mission statement, seems to be at a loss now that the evil Israelis have departed, leaving rights in Gaza in the hands of the Palestinians themselves. (Ms. Burton had previously worked in the area for the UN, but that organization am-scrayed because it deemed the area too dangerous for its workers.) Not much fun or sense of purpose in working for human rights once the villains have left, especially when members of the group whose rights you're supposed to be protecting up and kidnap you and your unsuspecting folks, who've dropped in for a visit. And these kidnappers don't seem to be following the rules--snatch 'em, complain about your grievences and/or embarrass Abbas, and release your hostages unharmed several hours later.

No, these kidnappers are straying from accepted practice, and all the terror outfits are mighty peeved because it reflects poorly on the more genteel kidnappers, as well on the larger Palestinian cause.

A British newspaper is astounded and confounded by this unusual kidnapping. What's the point, it queries. Why would kidnpappers behave in such an irrational, counterproductive way?

A real puzzler, that one. Anarchiasts, nihilists, terrorists, jihadis behaving irrationally--how curious. That is until you consider that rationality and common sense are often tangential to the behaviour of these kind of folks, and that there's either no point to the kidnapping, or that the point of the kidnapping is the kidnapping--the act itself--and not whether or not it furthers a cause.

Update: You can always count on those intrepid EU observers--to run away at the first sign of trouble.

Update: More on the Corrie-esque Ms. Burton from the unashamedly pro-Palestinian Beeb:

Ms Burton was at the European School II (Woluwe) in Brussels from 1987 to 1999 before studying at the London School of Economics.

Afterwards, she worked with the UN in Gaza and intended to remain there for another year.

Michaela Meeraus, 22, from Oxford, a friend of Kate's from university, told the BBC she had had an email from Kate a couple of weeks ago, telling how she had been scared by recent Israeli missile strikes on Gaza.

The fact that she speaks Arabic and is with her parents probably comforts her a little bit

Kate, she said, is a passionate person who had an interest in the fate of the Palestinians. When the UN project ended, she felt she should stay in the area to continue her work.

She had studied Hebrew and Arabic and her interest in the region had been fuelled by a stay in a kibbutz.

"She is a very genuine, honest, person," she said. "Always really interested in meeting people - speaking several languages and having lots of international friends."

She was optimistic about how Kate would deal with being held by kidnappers, but said she would probably be worried about her older father.

"She's a calm person but would be quite upset and emotional. The fact that she speaks Arabic and is with her parents probably comforts her a little bit."

Sounds like the idealistic Ms. B. has a solid education in Israel-demonization--nurtured at the European School, watered and fertilized at the L.S.U., and finally, blossoming into a lovely Venus Fly-Trap of Israel-hate through her work with the UN. Ironic and tragic that Kate, like those passive aggressives of the Christian Peacekeepers Teams who were kidnapped in Iraq, is being treated in such a thankless manner by those whose cause has meant so much to her--and for which she has worked so hard.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:47 | link | comments

The Barbarians of Seville: Seems Hamas's liberation plans don't stop at Palestine. In the latest issue of its periodical for faithful tots, the terror outfit calls upon its moppets to reclaim the city of Seville. And to make the appeal more personal, it has the city speak to the kids directly. From Front Page Magazine:

This is how the magazine has the city Asbilia (Seville) telling its story to Hamas’ children: “Salaam Aleykum my dear beloved. I would like to introduce myself: I am the city Asbilia, the bride of the country Andalus (Spain). In the past I was the Capital of the Kingdom of Asbilia… the Arab Muslims, led by the hero-commander Musa bin Nusair, conquered me in 713, after a siege, which lasted one month.

“In the year 97 of the Muslim calendar, the ruler of Andalus, Ayoub bin Habib al-Lahimi moved the Capital to my sister city, Cordoba… in the year 646 of the Muslim calendar, Ferdinand III besieged me and conquered me after a siege which lasted one year and five months, and that was due to the strength of my fortifications and my walls. This is when the Golden Age of the Muslims ended, and Asbilia (Seville) was lost by the Muslims.”

And the story goes on: “However, Muslim cultural expression and symbols still remain witness to the superior Muslim culture on my soil…I yearn that you, my beloved, will call me to return, together with the rest of the lost cities of the lost orchard [Andalus] to the hands of the Muslims so that joy and happiness will fill my land, and you will visit me because I am the bride of the country of Andalus.”

Let's see, Spain hasn't been ruled by Muslims since 646, yet some of them are convinced it still belongs to them. Compared to that, the disagreement with Israel, which has been going on for less than sixty years, is a mere nanosecond on the historical clock. Just goes to show that some differences--like which parts of the world belong in perpetuity to Dar al Islam--are intractable.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:34 | link | comments

Don't want to live like a refugee: Did you know that the Palestinian "refugees" weren't the only refugees in the world? No? Me neither, since everyone is so exercised about the fate of those refugees who've been languishing in those supposedly pestilential UN-sponsored camps for decade after decade. But it seems there are other refugees around, not that you're likely to hear about them until something awful happens. Something like this. From CTV News:

At least 10 Sudanese refugees, including a young girl, died when police in Egypt broke up a protest early Friday.

The clashes occurred shortly before dawn. Reports say upwards of 2,000 riot police encircled a refugee camp in a small park alongside a main Cairo street.

Some of the police were swinging truncheons and sticks, striking the protestors who have been camped out at the site for more than three months.

Egypt's Interior Ministry said 10 protesters died and 23 police were wounded. But Boutrous Deng, one of the protest leaders, told The Associated Press that 15 Sudanese were killed, including two children.

The protesters fled to Egypt to escape violence in neighbouring Sudan, and set up the camp on Sept. 29 to draw attention to their demands to be resettled in a third country. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) stopped hearing the cases of Sudanese seeking refugee status after the January peace deal that ended Sudan's 21-year north-south civil war.

The showdown with police began when most of the protestors refused to leave on buses authorities brought in to take them to camps elsewhere in the city. They said they wanted instead the office of the UNHCR to arrange for them to be flown out of the country.

Instead, police fired water cannons at the group. Authorities negotiated with the protest leaders in between bursts of water canon. At about 5 a.m., after a final dousing with water canons, police swarmed into the park from all directions.

This tragic event highlights a multitude of unresolved problems in the region--the festering situation in Sudan, the fecklessness of the UN in dealing with it, the authoritarian government of Egypt's sledge-hammer approach to its refugee crisis. I think the best way to handle it is to set up permanent camps where their grievences can be allowed to stew for generation after generation. It would give UNRWA something to do now that Gaza has been liberated.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:47 | link | comments

Hollywood's equivocations: Victor Davis Hanson takes on Hollywood's efforts--in films like Flightplan, Syriana and Munich--to remake the good guys as bad guys and the bad guys as not-so-bad guys. From the Honolulu Advertiser:

...Moral equivalence is perhaps the most troubling of Hollywood's postmodern pathologies — or the notion that each side that resorts to violence is of the same ethical nature. Steven Spielberg best summed up the theme of his recently released film about the 1972 murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics and the subsequent Israeli hunt of the perpetrators: "A response to a response doesn't really solve anything. It just creates a perpetual-motion machine."

Spielberg's "Munich" assumes just such a false symmetry between the killers who murdered the innocent athletes and the Israeli agents who hunted them down — each in their own way victimized and caught in a cycle of "perpetual" violence.

Lost in this pop moralizing is the reality of 1972, when none of Israel's neighbors were willing to accept the existence of the Jewish state within even its original borders. Then there was no chance that Israeli agents would storm an Olympic event and murder athletes — but every probability that the Soviet bloc, Western Europeans and Middle East autocracies would never hunt down international terrorists who had done so to Israelis.

Actors, producers, screenwriters and directors of Southern California live in a bubble, where coast, climate and plentiful capital shield the film industry from the harsh world. In their good intentions, these tanned utopians can afford to dream away fascist killers and instead rail at Western bogeymen — even in the midst of a global war against Middle East jihadists who wish to trump what they wrought at the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

If Hollywood wants to know why attendance is down, it is not just the misdemeanor sin of warping reality, but the artistic felony that it does so in such a predictable manner.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:28 | link | comments

Spielberg's pride: Steven Speilberg says he's very proud that the widows of two of the Israeli atheletes murdered by Palestinian terrorists during the Munich Olympics have endorsed his movie. From the Miami Herald:

Steven Spielberg is ''very proud'' of two early endorsements for Munich, his controversial new movie, from the widows of two of the 11 Israeli athletes killed in the 1972 Olympic massacre detailed in the film.
Munich neither dishonors their husbands' memories nor tarnishes their country's image, the women said after a screening this week.

''We had heard their reaction soon after the screening and we were obviously very, very gratified,'' Spielberg's Los Angeles-based spokesman, Marvin Levy, said earlier this month. ``That would clearly be the most sensitive screening we would have. When they said that any concern they might have had was satisfied, this was enormously gratifying and Steven is very proud of that.''

Ilana Romano, widow of weight lifter Yosef Romano, and Ankie Spitzer, who was married to fencing coach Andre Spitzer, are the only Israelis to see the film in Jerusalem before its official release late next month. The movie opened in the United States on Friday.

Munich already has drawn fire from Jews and Israelis concerned that it distorts history and is too sympathetic to the Palestinian terrorists who carried out the massacre -- though many of the critics haven't seen the film, which has been closely guarded.

But Romano and Spitzer gave what amounts to an endorsement.

''We didn't feel it was an affront or a negative thing, or an equation between the terrorists and the people who were trying to eliminate them -- not innocent people, but people who would try to make another Munich,'' Spitzer said, alluding to Israel's determined pursuit of vengeance.

Romano, who along with Spitzer has dedicated her life to preserving the memory of the slain athletes, downplayed the criticism that the film blurs fact and fiction.

''It is a Hollywood movie,'' she said. ``What is true, what isn't true, I cannot say. I think it doesn't harm Israel.''

Perhaps I could help Ms. Romano discern truth from fiction. What is true is that her husband was murdered by Palestinian terrorists. What isn't true is Tony Kushner's imagining of what happened after that.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:43 | link | comments

Chirac's priorities: When excitable lads were running riot through the streets of Paris recently, President Jacques Chirac decided not to mix in and hid out for the duration in the Elysée Palace. But when it came time for Ron Howard and Brian Grazer to film The Da Vinci Code, the President jumped in with the eagerness of an round-heeled ingenue on a producer's casting couch. From the Times Online:

PRESIDENT CHIRAC was the butt of fresh jokes yesterday after it emerged that he had tried to place one of his daughter’s friends in a leading role in the film The Da Vinci Code.

The President also requested a bigger fee for Jean Reno, the French actor who is cast as the stubborn Gallic detective Bezu Fache in the film, according to Ron Howard, the director.

“That was hilarious,” Mr Howard said. “Fortunately, the deal was already closed.”

The $125 million film version of Dan Brown’s novel, which has sold 25 million copies worldwide, opens in May with Tom Hanks playing the Harvard symbology professor at the heart of the intrigue.

Alongside him, in the part of the young cryptologist Sophie Neveu, is the 27-year-old French actress Audrey Tautou.

Tautou is known to have beaten at least a dozen other French actresses to the coveted role in what is likely to be one of next year’s biggest movies.

Mr Howard told Newsweek magazine that she had also defied the President, who wanted a family friend to play Neveu.

Mr Howard did not reveal the name of the actress touted by the French head of state. However, a French film industry source said that it was rumoured to be Sophie Marceau, 39, who was on the shortlist for The Da Vinci Code.

Although Marceau was on friendly terms with François Mitterrand, the late French Socialist President, who was said to have been besotted with her, she has since become close to M Chirac and his daughter, Claude, who acts as his communications manager. Marceau remained loyal to M Chirac during the 2002 presidential election when a host of glamorous actresses, such as Elsa Zylberstein and Virginie Ledoyen, who both also auditioned for The Da Vinci Code, backed his opponent, Lionel Jospin.

The President intervened when Mr Howard and Brian Grazer, the producer, visited Paris a year ago to seek authorisation to shoot scenes in the Louvre museum.

They were summoned to the Elysée Palace. “We thought it was going to be a five-minute thing, like a trip to the Oval Office, a photo and a handshake,” Mr Grazer said.

But they had coffee and an hour-long chat, during which M Chirac said that he would use his influence to ensure a smooth shoot at the Louvre. Then he plugged the name of the actress who he thought should play Neveu and “halfseriously” suggested a pay rise for Reno...

That Chirac--such a "hands-on" President, especially when a pretty family "friend" is involved.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:21 | link | comments

"Youths" get political: It's coming on New Year's Eve in Clichy-Sous-Bois and other benighted 'burbs, and you know what that means--an extra-zestful round of car-B-cueing. (It's a wonder there are any vehicles left in Paris and environs.) But this year, the "youths" who had such success rampaging through the streets have decided that, while torching cars is extremely satisfying, that alone won't advance their fortunes. And so, in the run to the 2007 National elections, they're lining up in droves to register to vote, and thus flex their muscle in a more socially acceptable way. From the Globe and Mail:

In the dull concrete suburbs outside of Paris, two crowds could be seen forming this week in anticipation of the New Year's Eve celebrations.

The first was a flood of blue, as French authorities announced yesterday that they are mobilizing more than 4,500 extra national police and gendarmes to the high-rise slums known as banlieues, to repress what many authorities expect to be a return of major rioting.

Young men in these poor districts have called for riots to follow those in November, when more than 9,000 cars and 200 public buildings were set on fire, marking France's worst civil unrest since the student uprisings of May, 1968, and triggering a political crisis that has paralyzed France.

New Year's Eve has become a traditional moment for fiery protest by members of the poor and perpetually unemployed underclass of the banlieues, with hundreds of cars burned in most years, and police fear that the violence could explode this weekend into major urban centres.

But the other crowd that has formed every day this week says more about the political dimension of the riots. It was a throng of brown-skinned young men and women, who gathered in unprecedented numbers outside the town halls of their poor neighbourhoods.

They were lining up to meet the Dec. 30 deadline to be registered to vote in the 2007 national elections. Voter turnout usually falls below 50 per cent in these districts.

But the young people -- who come from the same second-generation immigrant communities as those who rioted, and, by their own admission, were often rioters themselves -- have suddenly been politicized by the riots and their aftermath.

In Seine-et-Marne, one of the riot-torn areas, officials at the Melun city hall yesterday reported "an enormous surge in people [registering to vote], and young people in particular." In Clichy-sous-Bois, where the riots began in October, officials reported a tripling in the usual number of registrations.

When French newspapers and TV stations interviewed the teenagers in the lineups, they all said they were registering for one reason: To prevent the election of Nicolas Sarkozy, the Interior Minister who denounced the riots in November and condemned the rioters as "scum."

One 19-year-old man in the lineup, who told the newspaper Le Monde yesterday that his name was Kamel, said he wanted to vote "against Le Pen and Sarko, who treated us like riff-raff," referring to Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front....

Now may be the opportune moment for Hezbollah to field a slate of candidates in France.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:27 | link | comments

Surprise!: Of all the disreputable characters who had a hand in Saddam-UN joint project known as Oil-for-Food, perhaps my favourite is Benon Sevan. Sevan is the guy who helmed the scam from its launch in 1997 until it was unceremoniously shut down by the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. You'll recall that before he left he had some 'splainin' to do about a large sum of money which ended up in his bank account. Some suggested the money was a payoff, but Benon assured them it was a gift from his elderly aunt in Cyprus, a woman of modest means who, sadly, had an unfortunate encounter with an empty elevator shaft shortly after the inquiry into Oil-for-Food was announced. In recent days, Sevan has made himself scarce, no doubt because his presence is an embarrassment to Kofi Annan, the man who put him in charge of the oily scheme and who has so far managed to distance himself sufficiently that the idiots are still allowing him to run the asylum. Also, if Benon stays away, no one's likely to throw him in jail.

Claudia Rosett in Opinion Journal keeps us up-to-date on Benon's whereabouts. I caution you that her story is so uproariously funny that you may want to run to the local pharmacy and buy some incontinence supplies:

...Which brings us to Mr. Sevan, the longtime U.N. staffer to whom the secretary-general entrusted from 1997 through 2003 the running of Oil for Food. That blew up into the biggest scandal in U.N. history--involving billions in graft and smuggling, a global network of kickbacks to Saddam Hussein, payoffs by Saddam meant to bribe members of the U.N.'s own Security Council, and assorted instances of alleged bribes to U.N. officials. One of those officials, allegedly, was Mr. Sevan himself, who while running Oil for Food took some $147,000 in payoffs from Saddam's regime, according to the Volcker committee. Mr. Sevan, through his Washington lawyer, has denied these allegations.

Mr. Sevan has not been called to account under any regime of law. Having been retained in New York by Mr. Annan after Oil for Food ended as a $1-a-year "special adviser" to assist in the inquiry into the program, Mr. Sevan skipped town in mid-2005, shortly before Mr. Volcker weighed in with his allegations on Aug. 8 of this year. Since then the U.N. has said that Mr. Sevan, despite the allegations against him, is entitled to collect his U.N. pension--which a spokesman for Mr. Annan confirmed to me again this week is "untouchable." The U.N. will not give out any information on Mr. Sevan's current location. At last week's press conference, when Mr. Annan was asked in passing about Mr. Sevan, he did not even address the question. Anyone inquiring further has had to make do with hearsay that Mr. Sevan has returned to his native Cyprus, which does not have an extradition treaty with the U.S.

But to such sketchy accounts, investigators for Rep. Henry Hyde's International Relations Committee are now prepared to add some illuminating details--starting with their encounter with Mr. Sevan himself, less than three months ago, in Cyprus. As it happens, they were not expecting to find Mr. Sevan in person. They went to Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, trying to track down details of the case, including the fate of Mr. Sevan's deceased aunt, Bertouji Zeytountsian. By Mr. Sevan's account to Mr. Volcker, this aunt, while living in Nicosia as a retired government worker on a pension, had sent him funds totaling some $160,000 during the last four years in which he was running Oil for Food, 1999-2003. The day after the U.N. investigation into Oil for Food was announced, in March, 2004, Zeytountsian fell down an elevator shaft in her Cyprus apartment building. A few months later, she died.

Mr. Hyde's investigators decided while in Nicosia to have a look at the elevator shaft. On Oct. 14, a Cypriot police official showed them the way to the building. There, printed plainly on a mailbox at the entrance to the apartment block, was the name not of Mr. Sevan's aunt, but of Benon Sevan himself. After shooting the picture shown nearby, the investigators went up to the eighth-floor apartment where the aunt had lived. They knocked, and the door opened.

There stood Benon Sevan. As one of the investigators describes it, Mr. Sevan came to the door "in shorts, no shirt, and sandals, smoking a cigar." Apparently everyone was surprised to come thus face-to-face. Mr. Sevan was polite but did not invite them in. They chatted across the threshold. He told the congressional investigators to address all questions to his lawyers, saying, "My conscience is clear."

The investigators turned to go, and, as one of them recounts, as they headed for the stairs, Mr. Sevan told them, "You can take the elevator. It's fixed now."...

I can't wait for the movie version of "All the Secretary-General's Men"--an edge-of-your-seat thriller starring Danny De Vito as Benon.

Maybe Spielberg can direct.

Posted by: scaramouche at 00:00 | link | comments

Spielberg's delusions: Steven Spielberg had hoped that Munich, his "prayer for peace", would persuade the two peoples contending for that itty-bitty parcel of Jewish land to embark on a new round of negotiations, and finally hash out their interminable differences. It doesn't seem to be working out that way. The Palestinians are pissed off that Steve framed the flick from "the Zionist" perspective; the Israelis (at least some of them) are incensed that he's incapable of seeing the larger picture--you know, the one in which Israel is surrounded by hostile neighbours who have never come to terms with its existence, and who pray every day for its demise; the one in which another maniac with genocide on the brain is itching to eliminate another six million Jews.

A piece in the American Thinker by Richard Baehr examines some of Steve's delusions, and rips into the man who directed both Schindler's List--a film about one good German--and Munich--a film about lots of bad Jews:

...Spielberg has devoted time and money to ensuring that people remember the Holocaust. Shindler’s List is his film about a good German, one who overcame the suffocating Jew-hatred of the Nazi regime and saved over a thousand Jews. The Germans massacred 6 million Jews, and Spielberg’s one Jewish-themed movie before Munich finds one good soul among them, a hero of sorts.

Munich is a movie about Jews who kill and attack, and treat their enemy as, get this, an enemy. Munich shows Palestinian victims of the Israeli attack team as real people: poets, and fathers and husbands, and so on (I guess that they only killed Jews as their day job).

Of course the Israeli victims of terrorism – those blown up on a bus or a restaurant or in their car – are also real people. In fact, they are civilians in most cases, while the targets of Israel’s attacks after Munich and during the intifada were not civilians, but soldiers in the cause of destroying Israel. And of course, there are innocent bystanders at times, but they are not the targets. There is a difference, even if Spielberg and Kushner believe this is just tit-for-tat.

Where is the Palestinian Tony Kushner? Where is their soul-searching for innocent Israeli victims of their murderous attacks? The only thing any Palestinian has been allowed to say is that sometimes the bombings may not help the Palestinian cause, not that they are wrong, immoral, or a crime. Only that maybe they are not good politics at the moment.

Spielberg expects more of the Israelis. And he seems to think it is good Israeli behavior – defined as turning the other cheek, trying to understand the Palestinians and offering more concessions – that will end the conflict. But history says he is wrong. Israel can never offer enough, unless it is to follow the advice of the Iranian President, and have the Israeli Jews pack up and move to Germany and Austria. I strongly suspect no welcome mat will be out for such a return in any case.

Tony Kushner is more hard-hearted, less dreamy about Israel’s plight. He now says that there are two people with rights, and hence a conflict. If it were that simple, then all that would be necessary would be a grand compromise to resolve the conflict. Like say Camp David? But it didn’t happen there, even with all the players present, and everything on the table.

Kushner’s public statements over a long period have not been so balanced. He has shed few tears for Israel’s dead and wounded, and been vicious in his attacks on Israel’s conduct. He is a proud member of the Noam Chomsky/Norman Finkelstein mindset on Israel’s founding and behavior. Kushner also condemned America’s attack on the Taliban in Afghanistan after 9/11. Perhaps a better strategy would have been for President Bush to have extended a peace pipe to bin Laden with a gift-wrapped DVD boxed set of Angels in America. My suspicion is that Kushner is uncomfortable with a Jewish state, and even more with Jewish power. He admires victimhood. Perhaps if he could meet some gay Israelis dying of AIDS, he might pen a sympathetic play. Did Spielberg select a moral cretin like Kushner for this movie to prove to the Arab viewers that the movie was evenhanded?

Spielberg appears to be stunned by the virulence of the attacks on the movie. A self-styled King of the Jews is being ridiculed as an equivocator, someone unwilling to lend his creative powers to support Israel. He has begun a rehabilitation campaign. He started with a phone conversation with Chicago film critic Roger Ebert. And then called back. Wow! Is Ebert a player or what? Spielberg told Ebert, who, in typically sycophantic style loved Munich, that what is important about Munich is starting a “conversation.”

Fine, the conversation has begun. But the reality is that this long war continues, and Steven Spielberg’s delusions won’t end it.

Update: Former Mossad agents said Steve got all the details wrong, wrong, wrong, including his portrayal of Golda Meir as a sort of Jewish M (a la the 007 flicks).

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:28 | link | comments

Taming the jihadis: An editorial in the Financial Times notes the most alarming aspect of democratic elections in Arab lands--the rise of jihadis (or as the Times calls them, Islamists) as the official opposition. The editorial, which completely misreads the jihadis' true intentions (the phrase "Dar al Islam", apparently, being unfamilar to the editorialist) then proffers some lame--and dangerous--suggestions:

...Outside Iraq and to a certain extent Palestine, elections remain a well-controlled exercise in democracy. For now, a strong showing at the polls translates into increased Islamist influence but not yet into political control. But some liberal intellectuals are already quietly joining governments in calling on the US to tone down its enthusiasm for democracy.

Yet this would be a grave mistake. The Islamists are part of the future of the region and their participation in the political process remains the best hope of moderating their often radical views. The challenge they pose should be addressed through deeper, though gradual, political reforms that lift restrictions on all political parties, secular and Islamist, and encourage higher participation in elections.

International pressure should also be applied on regimes to reform themselves into more honest and responsible governments. When the only choice is between a corrupt regime and an untested Islamist party promising social justice, many voters will inevitably be swayed by the utopia of a religious message.

Yeah, that'll work.

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:10 | link | comments

Snatch and grab: The Religion of Kidnapping has been working in overdrive lately, what with a former German politician and his family being abducted while on vacation in Yemen and three Brits--a human rights worker and her visiting parents--being nabbed in Gaza. (Even though the Jews left months ago, the Foreign Office flak who confirned the story spoke of "three Britons missing in the Occupied Territories." Force of habit, I guess.) That's in addition to four members of Christian Peacekeepers Teams of whom nothing has been heard since the deadline to meet their captors' demands--that all coalition troops be withdrawn from Iraq--came and went  earlier this month.

Then there's this hapless abductee--a French water engineer who was snatched three weeks ago in Iraq. His kidnappers are demanding that France immediately pull all its forces out of Iraq. One small problem--France doesn't have any forces in Iraq.

Maybe Chirac can send some in and withdraw them right away, you know, as a show of good faith.

Update: You'll be pleased to know that the Gaza kidnappings aren't motivated by hatred. At least, that's how that  that trustworthy, unbiased news source, the Beeb, sees it:

It is not an unusual event and is unlikely to lead to them being harmed, says an expert in the region.

Palestinian-Israeli conflict expert Dr John Strawson, a reader in law at Birzeit University on the West Bank, says abductions are usually driven by a desire to embarrass the authorities rather than by a hatred of foreigners.

The woman, reported to be 24-year-old Scot Kate Burton, and her parents who were visiting her, were snatched by gunmen near the southern Rafah crossing in Gaza, Palestinian police say.

The kidnapping comes just one week after two other Westerners were abducted in the "chaotic" territory.

It will be a big change to the situation if anything happened to them - Palestinian society is traditionally much more open to outsiders

After two teachers at an American school - one Australian and one Dutch - were kidnapped, the UK Foreign Office tightened its travel advice.

It "strongly advised" British nationals against all travel to the region.

The teachers were later released.

Since Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in August, President Mahmoud Abbas has been struggling to maintain law and order.

Rival gangs occupy the streets and foreigners are snatched to blackmail the government, but are generally released unharmed.

"Unlike in Iraq, the kidnappings are not so much aimed at the foreigners themselves as at embarrassing Mahmoud Abbas and trying to show he has no control over the Gaza Strip," said Dr Strawson.

So it's business as usual in the "chaotic" terrority. I'm a bit confused by the scare quotes around the word "chaotic", though. Is the Beeb implying that the joint isn't chaotic, or that it is chaotic but the Beeb's okay with that since it isn't as chaotic as Iraq, which, as everyone knows, is chaotic because of the Americans and not because of all those nice, traditionally more hospitable Palestinians?

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:30 | link | comments

Exercising control: Some day in the distant future, women in the Magic Kingdom may be allowed to operated a motorized vehicle--provided they've received permission from their menfolk, of course. For now, Saudi chicks are consigned to the passanger seat. And if you think that's backward and repressive, consider the plight of female high school students. They can't even take a gym class. From Arab News:

A few public girls’ schools in Jeddah submitted requests to have gymnasiums built, but their hopes for introducing physical education classes were dashed after the Ministry of Education announced that physical education for girls would not be allowed. Speculation in the media and among the public had circulated in the past year that the ministry would allow physical education in girls’ schools by this year, but the ministry refuted this “rumor” as baseless.

Some media reports indicated that Education Minister Abdullah Al-Obaid would introduce the subject in the curriculum due to its health and behavioral benefits. Two days ago the Ministry of Education stated that it “would not introduce physical education in girls’ schools” and requested that the media “respect religious, literary and national responsibility” in this regard, according to Arab News’ sister publication Asharq Al-Awsat.

The office of the director general of Girls’ Education Administration in Makkah region confirmed to Arab News that there have been no changes or discussions regarding this policy of forbidding physical education in girls’ schools.

Arab News contacted a girls’ high school that had submitted a request two months ago and had already set up a gymnasium with exercise machines for the girls to use in their spare time and was waiting for the approval. The school’s principal said that she was not allowed to speak to the media about this but she did not deny setting up the gym and submitting a request. “Religious men have a great influence on our education and the ministry listens only to those with certain views about women and their role and place in society,” said a source at the Education Administration of Makkah region.

I can see why religious authorities would want to prevent girls from becoming physically fit. They might be tempted to run away.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:06 | link | comments

No contest: The "winner" of this year's award for Dishonest Reporting--by a wide margain, it's the Beeb. From FrontPage Magazine:

But one news service's skewed coverage stood out the most, "winning" the award in a landslide. From the first day votes came in, it wasn't close, which may explain the dearth of nominations for perennial runner-ups like the NY Times, Associated Press and The Independent. The 2005 Dishonest Reporter of the Year Award goes to the British Broadcasting Corporation.

The impact of BBC coverage cannot be understated. A Google study found that for breaking news, internet users around the world were more likely to turn to the BBC than CNN. More than 270 million TV viewers around the world watch BBC World. Even more people listen to BBC World Service, which broadcasts in 42 languages.

Readers provided a full laundry list of complaints and we found the most effective way to condense the biggest offenses was in a simple list form. The examples of bias from the year past indicates a pattern of naiveté, dishonesty, forcing facts conform to a narrow worldview and, arguably, a desire to inappropriately influence events-all paid for by British television viewers through the TV License Fee, which costs the typical household £126.50 per year...

And a lovely list it is, full of the kind of Jew-bashing and Palestinian-fetishizing we have come to expect from the Mother Corp. I urge you not to read it on a full stomach. You might lose your lunch.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:23 | link | comments

Accounting for gun violence: Two days ago during the height of the Boxing Day frenzy, seven passersby were caught in gunfire between rival gangs at the corner of Dundas and Yonge, Toronto's most famous downtown intersection. One of them, a 15-year-old girl, was killed; her mother and sister, who had been shopping with her, watched her die.

This is only the latest in a series of violent incidents in the city involving young people and guns. And when I say "young people", I mean young black males, who, as leaders like Paul Martin and Jack Layton rushed to explain  in the aftermath of the downtown incident, feel marginalized, disaffected and shut out of mainstream society. 

Hmmm, sounds familiar, thought I when I heard their comments on the news this morning. Where have I heard that before?

Oh yeah. Isn't that the French said about the pyromaniacal "youths" of Clicy-Sous-Bous? I suppose we should be thankful that Toronto "young people" haven't taken to the streets and started torching cars.

An editorial in the Toronto Star calls upon Torontonians to remain calm. Just because people are being shot at downtown doesn't mean we've  suddenly become "Dodge City." Not by a--you should pardon the expression--long shot. No, we need to take a deep breath and try to come up with an effective way to get out of this mess:

Still, the wave of murders in public places, including the killing of Amon Beckles last month outside a Rexdale church where he was attending the funeral of a friend who was shot to death, have prompted police, politicians and community groups to focus their attention on getting guns out of the hands of criminals and addressing the root causes of crime.

Unfortunately, there are no easy answers to the gun violence. Fighting this scourge requires a multi-faceted approach. More officers need to be deployed on the streets and at the malls. Judges must get tougher with sentencing repeat offenders charged with gun-related crimes. Other actions include more recreation programs, mentoring and job training for at-risk youths in crime-ridden or poverty-stricken neighbourhoods.

For his part, (Toronto Police Chief Bill) Blair has adopted a positive approach by forming a task force to deal with gangs and guns in high crime areas. He is rightly supporting community policing, getting officers out of their cars and meeting the people in the areas they patrol. At the same time, Prime Minister Paul Martin has taken a bold step by promising to ban handguns in Canada.

But a letter to the editor in the Globe and Mail cites a "root cause" unmentioned by the Star, one that's far more difficult to tackle:

I wonder how many of the children involved in gun violence have a father who plays a positive, influential role in their lives.

As a young black female, I know that "the block" is filled with children and very few fathers. My father stuck around; maybe that's why I'm at university....

Community centres and after-school programs can partly fill the "father void," but until young black males are shown by example that they are capable of much more than a life of violence, we will continue to mourn these children.

Black males who have achieved success and power without pursuing the gangster route need to step up and show these young males that black males have other options besides being a rapper, a gangster or a basketball player.

When your cultural heroes are swaggering, sexist thugs who glorify violence (and that means you, "Fitty")--and when you don't have a father around to present an alternate and positive role model--it's hard to feel respect for anything but the almightly phallic gun.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:07 | link | comments (3)

True to form: The film reviewer on the Ceeb website hails Munich as Spielberg's "masterpiece":

...While Munich is a fraught look at the justifications of violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it may also be the last word on spy films. Whether it’s the Jason Bourne movies or the Bond franchise, espionage thrillers generally present good guys as unerringly good and baddies as irredeemably bad. Those demarcations don’t exist in the real world — nor in Munich. On several occasions in the film, Avner meets his unsuspecting victims before killing them, and is struck by their humanity. For the most part, these are men and women with families and career aspirations — who happen to be extreme nationalists. Are Avner and his cohorts much different? More importantly, are they more righteous?

Thanks to a skillfully nuanced screenplay by Eric Roth and Angels in America playwright Tony Kushner, Munich evokes sympathy and cynicism for all sides — even the “ideologically promiscuous” Louis, whose group distrusts all governments and pledges loyalty to the party with the fattest cheque book. (If there’s one party that comes off wholly negative, it’s the CIA, an invisible presence that seems to abet all sides in order to further its own nebulous agenda.)

Part of what makes Munich so compelling is Spielberg’s determination to keep the focus on the story, rather than the telling. Compared to Spielberg’s summer entry, War of the Worlds, the marketing campaign for Munich has been remarkably subdued. The film also eschews A-list star power. Geoffrey Rush gives a marvelously coiled performance as Avner’s Mossad contact. Daniel Craig (the next James Bond) is equally forceful as the macho, impetuous Steve, the most jingoistic member of Avner’s team, while the underrated Mathieu Kassovitz plays Robert, the chief bomb maker, as a man tyrannized by his own expertise. But the film ultimately belongs to Bana, who represents the film’s shifting moral centre. At first dubious about his task, Avner soon grows into his role as avenging angel.

It’s hard to overstate just how gutsy Munich is. Spielberg has taken a tremendous gamble — politically, morally and creatively. The result is his masterpiece.

Anyone who thinks there's no clear line between good and evil in this world and who, movever, thinks that Tony Kushner has the ability to write anything even remotely "nuanced" is a critic whose insights I am quite happy to dismiss. Also, those "men and women with families and career aspirations" she mentions are jihadis whose greatest career aspiration is to blow up Jews and rendezvous with virgins in the afterlife. Not really a career with a future, if you ask me.

Posted by: scaramouche at 23:28 | link | comments (1)

Understatement of the day: Headline on aljazeera.net--Hamas: Palestinians suffering from moral crisis.

You can say that again.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:36 | link | comments

Jew-hatred in Edmonton: The brain-corroded nightcrawlers have very busy over in Alberta. From the Ceeb:

Edmonton's police hate crimes unit is investigating an act of vandalism at a synagogue where swastikas and lettering were painted on its walls on Christmas Day.

Vandals had painted a metre-wide black swastika, along with the acronym ZOG, with a circle and line through it on Beth Shalom synagogue.

ZOG stands for Zionist Occupation Government, a fictional body cited in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, which claims Jews control global seats of power.

Const. Dave Huggins said the symbol was not commonplace, leading police to suspect the vandalism was a definite show of anti-Semitism and not a childish prank.

The symbols are commonly associated with neo-Nazi skinheads and white supremacists.

Rabbi David Kunin said the slogan suggested the vandal or vandals had a sophisticated knowledge of anti-Semitism.

On Monday, religious leaders spoke out in solidarity with the rabbi. Officials from Christian, Muslim, Sikh and Unitarian faiths denounced the graffiti.

"It is the kind of act I think that all of us understand is not a part of what Canada is," said former politician Larry Shaben, who was Alberta's first Muslim cabinet minister and is a member of the Edmonton Interfaith Centre.

The vandalism was on Christmas and at the start of the eight-day Hanukkah festival, making it even more disturbing to the leaders.

"We're standing together, saying that we need to move forward to create a season of light, not a season of darkness as these things represent," said Kunin.

Beth Shalom has been the target of vandalism and other forms of harassment in the past five years. It has received racist phone calls, letters and e-mails. In the fall of 2000, it was firebombed twice.

The damage was minor but the incidents startled the Jewish community, which has since increased security at synagogues.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:45 | link | comments (1)

Terrorist whinges about Munich: Steven Spielberg has said that  the movie Munich is his "prayer for peace". The Palestinian who planned the murder of the Israeli athletes demonstates why the prayer is likely to fall on deaf ears: because, in seeking to fall squarely in the middle, Spielberg has failed to satisfy either side. From Reuters:

The Palestinian mastermind of the Munich Olympics attack in which 11 Israeli athletes died said on Tuesday he had no regrets and that Steven Spielberg's new film about the incident would not deliver reconciliation.

The Hollywood director has called "Munich", which dramatizes the 1972 raid and Israel's reprisals against members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), his "prayer for peace".

Mohammed Daoud planned the Munich attack on behalf of PLO splinter group Black September, but did not take part and does not feature in the film.

He voiced outrage at not being consulted for the thriller and accused Spielberg of pandering to the Jewish state.

"If he really wanted to make it a prayer for peace he should have listened to both sides of the story and reflected reality, rather than serving the Zionist side alone," Daoud told Reuters by telephone from the Syrian capital, Damascus.

Daoud said he had not seen the film, which will only reach most screens outside the United States next month.

But he noted that Spielberg arranged previews in Israel, where some have accused "Munich" of lacking historical accuracy.

Several Israeli historians have also complained about what they see as a moral symmetry in the film between slain Olympians and the Palestinians assassinated by the Mossad spy service.

"Spielberg showed the movie to widows of the Israeli victims, but he neglected the families of Palestinian victims," said Daoud. "How many Palestinian civilians were killed before and after Munich?" ...

Yeah, Steve, if you wanted to be really fair, you would have hired Mo as a consultant and aranged for a screening in Ramallah--and Damascus.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:40 | link | comments

Yasser Abbas: He may sound like an Arafat and act like an Arafat but, writes Tom Gross in the JWR, the Western media have yet to acknowledge that Mahmoud Abbas actually is another Arafat:

...For over a year now, since Mr. Abbas succeeded Yasser Arafat, his boss of 40 years, many in the West have done their utmost to "explain" or ignore Mr. Abbas's failings. But if Americans and Europeans are genuinely interested in promoting Palestinian-Israeli peace, it is time for them to take a realistic look at his record. Some Western commentators were quick to emphasize his condemnation of the Netanya attack. But did they really listen to what he actually said? True, Mr. Abbas condemned the Netanya suicide bomb — but only in the Palestinian Authority's usual inadequate and half-hearted terms. He said that it "caused great damage to our commitment to the peace process" and that it "harmed Palestinian interests." But he could not bring himself to say that murdering people is simply wrong.


His outright refusal to confront and disarm terrorists, in violation of the Road Map, hardly registers anymore in the Western media and where it does, it is usually excused and attributed to his relative political weakness. However, the media also give very little idea of the extent to which the Palestinian Authority continues to glorify terrorists. A typical instance is the elevation of Al-Moayed Bihokmillah Al-Agha, who murdered five Israelis in a suicide bombing in December 2004. When the Rafah crossing, the scene of his terror attack, was re-opened at the start of this month, the Palestinian Authority renamed it "in honor of Shahid (martyr) Al-Agha." Then there is the soccer tournament named in honor of the terrorist who murdered 30 people at a Passover celebration in Netanya, or the girls' high school named by the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Education after a female terrorist who murdered 36 Israeli civilians and an American nature photographer. (The school was recently renovated with money from USAID, channeled through the American Near East Refugee Aid.)


Examples could easily be multiplied. A poetry collection published by the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Culture, for instance, is named in honor of a suicide terrorist (dubbed "the Rose of Palestine" in one of the poems) who killed 21 at a restaurant in Haifa. (The collection was distributed this August as a special supplement in the daily Al-Ayyam. Most of Al-Ayyam's editors are appointed by Mr. Abbas.) Reliable nongovernmental organizations like Palestinian Media Watch meticulously translate such hateful material, but Western journalists almost invariably refuse to report it. They prefer to cling to the illusion that the present-day Palestinian leadership is genuinely striving to achieve peace and coexistence.


This lack of proper coverage leads many people, including even many who are broadly sympathetic to Israel, to hold a false view of Mr. Abbas and to persuade themselves that the Palestinian Authority has undergone a fundamental change for the better since Arafat's death. No amount of wishful thinking, though, can obscure the fact that the true "root cause" of Palestinian terrorism is the leadership of the Palestinian Authority...

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:13 | link | comments

Dave speaks freely: You never know what sort of toxic flotsum you'll turn up when you surf Arab/Muslim media websites. Stuff like this--a deranged rant by ex-Klan guy and close personal pal of Boy Assad, David Duke. Dave is all hot and bothered because you know who is trying to take away the Ukrainians' God-given right to speak freely about a well-known threat to humanity. From Albawaba:

The Union of Councils of Jews in the Former Soviet Union has revealed an effort to shut down Ukraine’s largest university for criticizing Jewish extremism and the state of Israel.

In one more example of unbridled chutzpah, the Israeli government and International Zionists have demanded that the largest and most respected university in Ukraine be prohibited from publishing or teaching points of view that are critical of Israel and Jewish extremism. In fact, Israel has demanded that the whole university be shut down if it dares to continue to expose Jewish extremism and the Israeli state.

Israel is, of course, a racial supremacist, apartheid state, led by extremists such as Ariel Sharon, a criminal who even the Israeli Kahane Commission found responsible for the massacre of over 1000 men, women and children at Sabre and Shatila in Lebanon. Israel limits immigration almost entirely to those of Jewish descent (religious or not), and forbids intermarriage of Jews and non-Jews. It does not even permit the marriage of its priest class, the Kohanim, to a person of the Jewish religion who has but a single drop of non-Jewish blood. It segregates non-Jews in housing, settlements, schools and whole villages and towns. It oppresses three million Palestinians on the West Bank and has many major religious and educational institutions that teach abject hatred and inferiority of all non-Jewish people, including Christians, Muslims, and especially the Palestinian and Arab people.

In addition, Jewish supremacists who dominate International Zionism promote Jewish supremacism among Jews in other nations. There is a Jewish supremacist organizational effort to control through a unified effort both government policy and media in many countries. For example, in the USA the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (CPMAJO) coordinates 122 separate Jewish organizations to secure the supremacy of Jewish strategic interests, such as advocacy of the Iraq War. In addition, Jewish extremist groups such as the ADL, monitor educational institutions and media to prevent the exposure of Jewish supremacism. Proof of a powerful Jewish supremacist element can be shown by simply quoting a major Jewish leader in the United States...

Yikes. Someone call a doctor (preferably, a Jewish one). Dave is clearly off his meds.

On the other hand, the highlight of my morning was reading David Duke use the word "chutzpah" in an Muslim rag. I can just see all those Yiddishly-challenged readers scrathing their heads right now as they try to figure out what the heck he's talking about.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:37 | link | comments

The honourable schoolboy: "Cheeky schoolboy" James Bone lays into Kofi Annan for avoiding the issue of his son's dirty deeds. From Opinion Journal:

UNITED NATIONS--Kofi Annan, U.N. secretary-general and Nobel peace laureate, is normally the meekest of diplomats. He is so accommodating he once described Saddam Hussein as a man "I can do business with." These days he spends a good deal of time on the phone with Syria's Bashar al-Assad. Yet he seems to have problem with me.

It was with some amusement that I found myself the target of a decidedly undiplomatic tirade by the U.N. chief at a news conference last week. The usually mild Mr. Annan erupted in an ad hominem attack, calling me "cheeky" and belittling me as an "overgrown schoolboy." Although I have covered the U.N. in minute detail for The Times of London since 1988, and have known Mr. Annan for almost all that time, he suggested I was not a "serious journalist."

The cause of Mr. Annan's ire was a question I put to him about a Mercedes car that his son Kojo had imported into Ghana (and which cannot, now, be traced). The facts indicate that Kojo had bought the car in his father's name, thereby obtaining a diplomatic discount and a tax exemption totaling more than $20,000. The question about the car--to which Mr. Annan again refused to give a satisfactory answer--is part of the wider probe into his role in the U.N.'s Oil for Food scandal. Despite months of investigation, important questions about the integrity of public officials remain unanswered. If we are serious about U.N. reform--as Mr. Annan claims to be--they must be resolved...

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:03 | link | comments

"I can highly recommend the kidnappers to everyone": Susan Osthoff is the German woman who was kidnapped in Iraq, held for several weeks, and released in exchange for a Hezbollah terrorist.  Osthroff says shaid she wasn't worried about being killed by her captors, and during her time in captivity seems to have come down with a wicked case of Stockholm syndrome. From Reuters:

DUBAI (Reuters) - A German held hostage in Iraq for three weeks said on Monday that the kidnappers who freed her a week ago promised not to hurt her because she was a Muslim.

In her first interview since the ordeal, Susanne Osthoff, 43, told Al Jazeera television at its Qatar headquarters that they also said they did not want money.

"They said 'Ms. Susan, we know you and you are Iraq's friend'," said Osthoff, a convert to Islam who speaks fluent Arabic. She is an archaeologist who has spent more than a decade working on excavations in Iraq.

"'We're informing you now this was a political reason why we kidnapped you, and we'll inform you later about what will happen, so don't be afraid, we don't harm women or children, and you are Muslim'," Osthoff quoted a kidnapper as saying.

"I was very happy because I knew I wasn't in the hands of criminals," she said. Her comments were translated into Arabic from English and parts were unclear...

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:24 | link | comments

Flogging Munich: Mr. Spielberg, who is nothing if not a canny marketer, has persuaded some folks to help him sell his new film, Munich, to Israelis. One of them is the mother of an murdered athlete; another is one of Sharon's political advisors. In this way, Spielberg hopes to defuse criticism about the moral vaccuum at the heart of this work of fiction.

A woman whose  son was killed by terrorists during another attack is unimpressed by the director's tactics. From israelinsider:

...The fact that heavyweights like Dennis Ross, former US envoy to the Middle East under two former presidents, and Eyal Arad, a current political advisor to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, have been hired by Spielberg to mollify his Jewish audience leaves us in no doubt. It tells us precisely how much weight Spielberg wants this work accorded.

Some influential Jewish spokesmen have lauded the film. The Jerusalem Post reported that Anti-Defamation League national Directory Abraham Foxman assured us "We do not think this is an attack on Israel." In the same breath, however, he said it asks the same sorts of questions? as Israelis today ask about their government's response to terrorism."

Israel doesn't need its morality assessed by condescending Hollywood movie producers, thank you. It is the only democracy in the Middle East and does an exemplary job of retaining its morality in the face of a relentless and immoral enemy. We punish every reported misconduct within our army's ranks. We have checks and balances that ensure the juggling of the security of our people with our compassion.

This film is bad news in itself. Let's not exacerbate the damage, as the Prime Minister's office already has, by joining the sycophant bandwagon. The Prime Minister has got more important issues to deal with. Spielberg may be convinced that the biggest enemy in the Middle East is, in his words, "intransigence." We, who have actually felt the enemy, know he is far more lethal and demonic than that. And that's what should be engrossing our government. Not appeasing a Hollywood hero.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:09 | link | comments

Trading with the enemy: Officially speaking, the Arab nations (with the exception of Egypt and Jordan) have banded together to boycott Israeli goods. Unofficially, however, it looks like there's a lot of trade occurring on the q.t. From the Jerusalem Post:

Staff members at a Riyadh hospital got a surprise when they looked at the fine print on the paper cups they were using.

Workers in a storeroom at a Dubai hospital were similarly shocked when they took a close look at the tags on a large shipment of uniforms, towels and sheets.

The labels said "Made in Israel," according to recent newspaper reports from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, both of which have laws that ban imports from the Jewish state.

Experts say the camouflaged trade - just a small portion of such imports that have received publicity - has been going on for years between Israel and its officially hostile Arab neighbors.

The hidden trade is worth about US$400 million a year - about two and a half times what Israel sold to its official Arab trading partners, Egypt and Jordan, in 2004 - said Gil Feiler, the director of Info-Prod Research, a Tel Aviv consultancy specializing in Arab markets, and an economic professor at Bar Ilan University.

Others say such estimates are significantly inflated.

"All the figures are very sexy for the press, but the reality is much less than what is written," said Dan Catarivas, foreign trade director at the Israeli Manufacturers' Association.

The true amount of Arab imports from Israel is impossible to establish because neither side makes it public, with Israeli-made goods moving to Arab customers through third countries - Cyprus or the Netherlands, for example, which list the shipments as local exports...

Sounds like a Red Crystal sort of arangement--"we're willing to have dealings with you so long as you disguise your national/religious origin."

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:50 | link | comments

Scaramouchies, 2005: Never mind the Nobels. The most coveted prizes in the world are the "Scaramouchies". And here, without further ado, are this year's recipients:

The Martha Stewart Housekeeping Award for Regional Neatness: To Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Mr. A. expressed a desire to put the Middle East’s house in order by wiping the Jews off the map. This passion for ethnic cleansing is combined with a passion for another kind of sanitizing—wiping away the historical reality of the Holocaust. All of which results in certain, shall we say, inconsistencies. Although he insists the Holocaust never happened, all these Jews seem to have shown up in his backyard in the wake of this non-event. And even though it didn’t happen, he (A) wants Europe to take responsibility for it and (B) is not averse to launching a second one. After all, says Martha Ahmadiniejad, that blot on the impeccable Muslim landscape is just so unsightly.
Honourable Mention: The UN. During celebrations for its annual “We Love the Palestinians and Hate Israel Day” (the UN calls it something else, but, trust me, that’s what the event amounts to) bigwigs like Kofi Annan sat in front of a huge map showing a country that does not exist—Palestine but which had conveniently wiped away a country that does exist (at least for now)—Israel.

The He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Son Award: To Kofi Annan, for continuing to take flak for the malfeasance of his venal spawn Kojo. Kojo’s former employer, Coltecha was involved in some oily shenanigans with Saddam during his lucrative joint venture with the UN. Kojo was also involved in a shady car deal, shipping a Mercedes to Ghana with daddy’s name on the ownership so as to avoid paying onerous taxes. London Times reporter, James Bone, has been keeping the car issue on the front burner, prompting the usually unflappable Kofi to blow his cool at a recent press conference and castigate the rumpled reporter for acting like a cheeky schoolboy. Meanwhile, everyone there knew who the real cheeky schoolboy was: the kid with the tax-free car.

The Kleptomaniacal Phoenix Award: To once and future NDP M.P., Svend Robinson. Robinson didn’t let a little thing like the theft of an expensive bauble—the result he said of the stress of his political career—put the kibosh on his, er, political career. After a brief rest to recoup his senses, Robinson has jumped back in the political saddle with the ardour of a cowboy on Brokeback Mountain.

The Sinn Fein Award for New-Found Political Legitimacy: To terror outfit, Hamas. Although they continue to be committed to Israel’s destruction, the ardent jihadists had their best year ever, gaining street cred among the Arab masses for shooing the Jews out of Gaza, and piling up some impressive numbers in democratic elections. At this rate, they’re headed straight for the top—like a seat on the UN Human Rights Commission..
Honourable Mention: The Muslim Brotherhood. Although the “bruthahs” are officially banned, the Egyptian electorate found their platform so appealing that they elevated them to the status of (dis)loyal opposition in Egypt’s parliament. One small hitch—Egypt’s democratically-elected dictator had the M.B. leader thrown in the slammer for the next five years.

The Robert Fisk Award for Wilful Whitewashing of a Terrorist Organization: To New York Times scribe, Steve Erlanger. In a March 13, 2005 article, Erlanger, the Times’ man in Israel, referred to Hamas as “the Islamic group that combines philanthropy and militancy.” You know, sort of like the Ford Foundation—with semtex belts.

The Hunker in the Bunker Award for Hapless Leadership: To France’s president Jacques Chirac. While excitable lads from the ‘burbs were spending their evenings torching every vehicle in sight during the recent riots, M. Chirac spent his evenings (also mornings, afternoons and nights) hiding out like a timorous souris in the Elysee Palace, waiting for the crisis to pass.

The Float like a Butterfly, Sting like a Butterfly Award: To Mohamed ElBaradei. The IAEA chief and his organization won a Nobel Peace Prize this year for taking their mandate literally—they “watched” as the mully-bullies edged e’er closer to nuclear capability. Unfortunately for Israel, likely to be on the receiving end of a Shia nuke, watching is pretty much all they did.
Honourable Mention: The EU. ElBaradei’s partner is feeding the Shia crocodile—and as feckless and toothless as he is.

The Neverland is a State of Mind Award: To ex-King of Pop, Michael Jackson. As soon as he was acquitted of kid-diddling, Jackson packed up the whole mishapacha, including youngest son, Shmatta, and moved them all to a new “Neverland”: Bahrain.

The only drawback: those scorching desert rays are a killer on the delicate Caucasian complexion.

The Owen Wilson/Vince Vaughan Award for Most Inept Wedding Crasher: To Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Al Qaeda’s go-to man in Iraq made a gross miscalculation when he dispatched a pair of married human bombs to crash a lavish wedding in Annan, Jordan. Although only one of them managed to self-detonate, it was enough to bring down the ceiling on the revelers—described as members the Palestinian elite. The ensuing death, injury and destruction turned out to be the worst possible P.R. for Zarqawi and his “cause.” It didn’t help that he’s Jordanian, and was thus perceived as murdering his own landsmen. Nor was he too convincing when he later tried to pin blame for the attack on, well, you know who. The Jordanians, who aren’t exactly displeased when a bomber targets Jews, drew the line at being targets themselves. They took to the streets by the thousands to voice their contempt for Zarqawi and his despicable act.

The Love’s Young Nightmare Award: To Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. Not long after berating Brooke Shields for using anti-depressants to regain her equilibrium following a bad case of post-partum depression, the Sci-Fi-entologist impregnated his new girlfriend, C list starlet Katie Holmes. Tom is tracking the progress of his spawn with his very own sonogram machine. And to ensure that the baby isn’t too thetan-ridden, Katie has to endure a form of torture called “silent delivery”—meaning she has to keep mum as she passes a watermelon through the birth canal without benefit of analgesics. And, if afterwards, she finds herself feeling disoriented, depressed and suicidal, she’s not allowed to resort to medication because the Hubbardites believe that anti-depressants, like all psychoactive drugs, are the work of the devil.

Poor Katie. They never had problems like this on Dawson’s Creek

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:10 | link | comments

Chiding Israel: The Archbishop of Westminster had a few choice words for the Jews today. He's not impressed with the negative impact their anti-terrorism measures have had on Jesus' hometown. From the Times Online:

THE Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, used his Christmas sermon to attack the way that Bethlehem has been treated.
He described it as a town “corralled” and “blocked in” by checkpoints, with the economy decimated by the security measures taken by Israel in its own fight against terror. Pleading for the soul of Bethlehem, the Cardinal said: “The Christ Child is crying for the town of his birth.” Using imagery of the Crucifixion of Christ to argue that conflict in the Holy Land had inflicted a terrible wound on humanity, he said: “I want tonight to issue a plea. Violence is not the answer. Terror and repression are not the way of the Christ Child. To those with power, I want to say, ‘Seek peace with justice’.”

Sure thing, Cardinal. Now, if you could have a word or two with the jihadis who want to wrest the "power" from the Hebrews, we might actually get somewhere.

Posted by: scaramouche at 23:52 | link | comments (2)

One last thing: Ron Rosenbaum, one of my favourite essayists, has a terrific piece in the New York Observer about "terror-porn." That's his phrase for TV shows like Sleeper Cell and movies like Munich which attempt to titillate the audience as they "humanize" the terrorists.

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:38 | link | comments

Holiday greetings: In an unusual quirk of the calendar, this year Channukah, the Jewish Festival of Lights and Christmas, the Christian holiday which celebrates the birth of Jesus, occur on the same weekend. This synchronicity has encouraged some to combine the two holidays in a monotheistic portmanteau: Chrismakkuh. While I appreciate the the warm feelings behind the effort (which was actually invented by a character on the TV show, The OC) I prefer to keep the two separate; despite their convergence they are, after all, very different holidays.

In honour of the holidays, I will be taking a blogging break for the rest of today and tomorrow. I'd like to wish everyone the appropriate seasonal greetings: Merry Christmas, Happy Channukah and all that. In the spirit of the season, I offer a quote from Randy, Earl's sweet but slow-witted brother on my favourite new TV show, My Name is Earl. In the very special Christmas episode that ran this week, Randy was trying to persuade Catalina, the wised-up illegal alien from Mexico who works as a chambermaid at the motel where Randy and Earl live, to act unselfishly and help him win a car for Earl to give to his ex-wife, Joy. (Earl wants to give Joy the car because, during the six years they were married, he always ruined Christmas for her. Earl is trying to make amends for his past wrongs--he's even itemized them on a long list--and if he gives Joy the car, he can cross her off and move on to atone for another infraction.)

Anyway, Randy and Catalina are the last two contestants in a contest where those hoping to win the car have to keep at least one hand on it. Catalina tells Randy she has no intention of winning the car for Joy, whom she hates. She plans to win it for herself. 

"But Catalina," says Randy, "what about 'Feliz Nabeeblob?"

"That means nothing to me," says Catalina.

"Well, it may mean nothing to you, but here in America it means Merry Christmas in Mexican."

So to one and all, Feliz Nabeeblob. May your holidays be filled with joy and humour and love.

And, oh yeah, some peace would be really nice, too.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:10 | link | comments (2)

The plight of Christian Palestinians: The Ceeb would have you believe that the only persecution of Christians taking place in and around the Holy Land is that of Christian pilgrims whose visit to Bethlehem has been inconvenienced by Israel's construction of a security barrier (or "wall" in Ceeb parlance). Here's the story that the Ceeb and other mainstream outlets have missed and/or ignored: Palestinian Christians being persecuted by Palestinian Muslims. From FrontPage Magazine:

FP: Tell us about the persecution of Palestinian Christians and why their persecution became so much worse since the Oslo peace process began.

Weiner: These are acutely trying times for the Christian remnant residing in areas ‘governed’ by the Palestinian Authority. Tens of thousands have abandoned their holy sites and ancestral properties to live abroad, while those that remain do so as a beleaguered and dwindling minority. They have faced virtually uninterrupted persecution during the decade since the Oslo peace process began, living amidst a Muslim population that is increasingly xenophobic and restless. Chaos, nepotism, and corruption are endemic. Their plight is, in part, attributable to the influence of Muslim religious law (Sharia) on the inner workings of the Palestinian Authority. Moreover, the Christians have been abandoned by their religious leaders who, instead of protecting them, have chosen to curry favor with the Palestinian leadership.

My new book reveals and analyzes why this persecution, largely ignored by the international community, the media, and even the human rights organizations, has metastasized to the extent that it threatens the very existence of this 2000-year-old community. If current demographic trends continue Bethlehem runs the risk, in another 15 years, of becoming a Christian theme park for tourists -- with no "real" living Christians.

FP: Christian Palestinian women have suffered terribly. Can you tell us some of the details of their plight?

Weiner: Christian women suffer rampant sexual harassment, rape and even forced marriage. For example, Islamic militants have attempted to force Christian women wearing modern, revealing clothing to conform to the strict, modest Muslim dress code. In addition, Muslim men have attempted to rape Christian women, sometimes achieving their objective. These victims may, ironically, end up marrying the man who raped them because in their society they are regarded as unclean for marriage purposes.

Christian men risk being jailed when they intervene to rescue Christian women being attacked or insulted. The Muslim perpetrators get off scot-free because they have family members in the upper echelon of one (or more) of the 12 "security" forces.

FP: Why does the international community ignore the plight of Palestinian Christians?

Weiner: This is something I have never fully understood. This is a human rights issue par excellance, not merely a Christian issue.

Perhaps a partial answer is simple ignorance -- as only of late have a few courageous Christians begun to complain to the media and human rights groups. Scholars are beginning to address this tragedy as well. But really, there can be no justification, just excuses...

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:13 | link | comments

Are you there, Allah? It's me, Saddam: Has Saddam Hussein undergone a "jailhouse conversion"? Maybe. Maybe not. But the man who once opened a vein so a Koran could be written in his blood seems to have suddenly--and conveniently--become a lot more "religious." From Newsday:

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- He tried poetry. He tried sob stories. Now, in his latest attempt to win sympathy, Saddam Hussein is getting religion.

Over the past two days of his trial in Baghdad, Hussein has gone to great lengths to prove his religious piety and, in the process, appeal to Iraqis' growing Islamic fervor. He has repeatedly quoted from the Quran and the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. On Wednesday, he asked for a break in the proceedings so he could perform his afternoon prayers. When the chief judge refused, Hussein closed his eyes and began praying in his seat. He later asked the judge, "How can you put God on hold?"

Such antics seem calculated to make Hussein appear to be a devout Muslim who defers to the will of God. This renewed religious piety is unlikely to win Hussein any sympathy among Iraq's Shias and Kurds, who were persecuted by his regime, but it does play well to his Sunni supporters.

"Saddam is trying to tap into religious sentiment among Iraqis, especially Sunni Arabs, by appearing to be a humble, pious man," said Zuheir Jazairy, an Iraqi writer and political analyst. "He is trying to portray himself as the one being oppressed, rather than the oppressor."...

To answer the purportedly pious reprobrate's query: You can't put God on hold. But even it you do, He's got "call waiting."

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:17 | link | comments

Shades of grey: Steve's flick garners a mediocre review (two stars out of four) from Rick Groen in the Globe and Mail. Groen, who from a philosphical standpoint at least should be very receptive to Spielberg's message that there's not much difference between Palestinians who murder Israeli athlethes and Israelis who track them down, says he applauds the director's efforts to "move off that bright track (of good vs. evil) into the dense thickets where morality comes only in troubling shades of grey." Unfortunately, says Groen, rather than illuminate the grey area, all Spielberg manages to do is dredge up lots of murk.

Since the review is available online only to those willing to pay for it, I offer a couple of paragraphs to give you a taste of what Groen has to say:

...The contemporary parallels are obvious and should have us deeply engaged. But they don't, because the script--a disappointing ramble from Angels in America playwright Tony Kushner in tandem with Eric Roth--never gets beneath the transparent surface of the moral dilemma. Instead, like a schoolboy in the first flush of ethical discovery, it just keeps repeating the variations on the same old question of whether the end can justify the means.

And this:

Relying strictly on the word of Israeli intelligence, they have no direct evidence of the targets' guilt. Although theirs is not to reason why, the assassins are developing qualms, and their growing ambivalence would be interesting to explore. But the script delves no more deeply; rahter it keeps inserting telegraphed niceties intended to keep the moral equation in a state of inoffensive balance--here, a random Palestinian conveniently pops up to remark: "You don't know what it is not to have a home"; there, a load of clumsy exposition lumbers in to re-tip the scales: "Unless we learn to act like them, we will never defeat them."

Groen may not be thrilled with Munich, but, not surprisingly, it's already gained some Muslim fans (although I'm sure lots of Jews of the Spielberg/Kushner/Foxman political bent will also swell box-office coffers). They're so pleased with Steve's reimagining of events that someone on the alt.muslim website has suggestions for films he might want to make in the future:

1. King David Hotel: The bombing of the King David Hotel, which served as headquarters of the British administration in Palestine, killed 91 Arabs, Jews, and Brits in 1946. Two future Prime Ministers of Israel, David Ben Gurion and Menachem Begin, masterminded the attack. Disguised as Arabs, members of Begin's Irgun placed 350kg of explosives inside the building. In this action-packed thriller, David (Pierce Brosnan) — a British officer ordered to hunt down the killers — falls for Margaret (Uma Thurman), an American journalist working for Life Magazine. But is Margaret really in love or is she a secret Zionist assassin out to stop David in his tracks?

2. Nakba: A story of innocent love in a time of war and tragedy. Layla (Penelope Cruz) & Salam (Orlando Bloom) are a Romeo & Juliet against the backdrop of the 1948 Nakba, the Palestinian national catastrophe. During the Nakba, over 700,000 Palestinians fled — voluntarily & involuntarily — their homes. Can their love survive conflict?

3. USS Liberty: When Israeli boats and fighter jets attack the US Navy intelligence ship USS Liberty in the middle of the 1967 Six Day War, 34 US servicemen are killed and 173 are wounded. The official word from Washington and Tel Aviv is that the attack was a mistake. But Brad Pitt & Tom Cruise, who play surviving officers from the Liberty, swear vengeance after discovering that the attack was actually part of a plot to start World War III.

4. Sabra & Shatila: It's 1982 and the war in Lebanon rages on. British war correspondent Robert Fisk (Star Wars star Ewan MacGregor) hides in the camps of Sabra & Shatilla, while a Lebanese militia aided and abetted by Israel slaughters thousands of Palestinian refugees. Sahar (Sandra Bullock) is a Palestinian mother determined to protect her family at any cost.

5. Vanunu: A political thriller set in Israel, Australia, Thailand, England, and Italy. "Syriana" star George Clooney plays Mordechai Vanunu, the nuclear technician who exposes Israel's nuclear weapons program and pays the ultimate price. Nicole Kidman plays Cheryl Bentov, the American Mossad agent who seduces and kidnaps him.

6. Hebron: A story of tragedy and torn loyalties. In 1994, Brooklyn Jewish doctor Baruch Goldstein opened fire on Muslim worshippers in Hebron, killing 29. Palestinian American Mazen Khalili (Tom Hanks), a State Department official assigned to investigate the massacre, struggles with his job responsibilities and his roots. Leah Rabinowitz (Meg Ryan) is a Jewish American journalist who discovers a dark family secret that will change her life forever.

7. Qana: On April 18, 1996, Israeli shelling of a UN Compound that shelters Lebanese refugees kills more than 100 & injures over 300 men, women, and children. Jessica (Angelina Jolie) is a UN worker determined to let the world know what happened after witnessing the atrocity. Yossi (Robert De Niro) is a Mossad agent assigned to kill Jolie.

8. Gaza: Chris Hedges (Harrison Ford), a New York Times correspondent in Jerusalem, files stories from his hotel room. Hedges reaches a turning point when he witnesses Israeli soldiers killing young Palestinian boys for sport, then defies his editors by writing stories that humanize Palestinians. David Schwimmer & Sarah Jessica Parker make cameo appearances as the parents of Muhammad al-Durra, the 12 year old Palestinian boy killed by Israeli troops in 2000.

9. Rachel: Rachel Corrie (Gwyneth Paltrow) is the idealistic young American activist crushed to death by the Israeli army with a Caterpillar bulldozer. Sally Field, well-known for her role in "Not Without My Daughter", plays Rachel's mother.

10. Refuseniks: When a fellow soldier commits suicide after killing an unarmed pregnant Palestinian woman (played by Natalie Portman) in cold blood, two young Israeli soldiers (Matt Damon and Ben Affleck) decide that the occupation and the killing of Palestinians is immoral and unjust.

Can't wait for the Spielberg-Kushner version of numbers 2 and 9.

Update: Groen's seems to be a dissenting opinion. Most film critics (74% according to Rotten Tomatoes) were captivated by Steve's shades of grey.

Update: The approval rating has climbed to 78%.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:59 | link | comments

Another country heard from: Moo Jihad's words about the mythical nature of the Holocaust seem to have inspired other like-minded seethers to speak up. From the Jerusalem Post:

Mohammed Mahdi Akef, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's main Islamic opposition group, said Thursday that the Holocaust was a myth and slammed Western governments for criticizing disclaimers of the Jewish genocide.

The comments by Akef - made on the heels of his group's strong showing in Egyptian parliament elections - echoed remarks made recently by Iran's ultra-conservative president, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which sparked international outrage.

"Western democracies have slammed all those who don't see eye to eye with the Zionists regarding the myth of the Holocaust," Akef wrote in a weekly article meant as a directive to the group's followers on its official Web site.

Akef's hard-line rhetoric was in contrast to the moderate tone the Brotherhood took in November and December's parliament elections, during which it played down its calls for implementing Shariah, or Islamic law, in Egypt and instead touted itself as a pro-democracy movement.

The outlawed Brotherhood surprised many with its election showing, winning 88 seats in the legislature - about 20 percent of the body - and establishing itself as the top opposition bloc.

In his article, Akef lashed out at the United States and other Western powers for what he described as a campaign against Islam.
"These words are meant to expose the false American rule which has become a nightmare of a new world order," Akef said.

"I am making these comments to all free people in the world, aiming to wake up the conscience in humanity," he wrote. "The sword of democracy is only unsheathed against those who raise the flag of Islam." ...

I must admit, in its own way that last bit is a masterpiece of totalitarian doubletalk: the unfree claiming to speak for the free, meanwhile invoking the flag of Islam and its determination to prevail in the face of democracy's unsheathed sword.

Or something like that.

Posted by: scaramouche at 23:06 | link | comments

Parrish on the Ceeb: There's no clearer indication of current Ceeb mindset than this: Carolyn Parrish is set to host Ceeb radio's "The Current" tomorrow. To refresh the memories of those who've forgotten, Parrish is the "maverick" (in the literal sense of a runaway horse) M.P. who was tossed out of the Liberal caucus by Prime Minister Paul Martin for stomping on a George W. Bush doll. Parrish, who fancies herself an intrepid critic of U.S. malfeasance, has been sitting as an Independent ever since, and, seeing that her political life has hit a dead end, has decided not to run in the upcoming election. So nice of the Ceeb--which shares her opinion of Bush--to give her a shot at a new career.

Here's how Parrish's hosting stint is described on the Ceeb site:

Carolyn Parrish, former Liberal MP turned Independent (and not a candidate in the current campaign), is your Friday host for The Current this week. She'll host a panel about President Bush's recent candour regarding his Iraq policy. Is this a new Bush, or just old-style politics? Also, the unlikely NDP strategist behind Jack Layton's successful leadership campaign, a man who chain-smokes and jogs, who's good at a job he's not sure he should be doing.

What next? Svend Robinson hosting "As It Happens"?

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:36 | link | comments

Speak softly as he carries a big nuke: In the L.A. Times, Jonah Goldberg takes aim at Time Magazine's mild-mannered description of "notable personage" Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:

AMONG THE PROUD recipients of Time magazine's fluffy end-of-year "People Who Mattered" feature, is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Here's how it begins: "He is an unlikely firebrand: the soft-spoken son of a blacksmith who still sometimes drives a 30-year-old Peugeot. But Iran's new President doesn't shrink from controversy. After winning a disputed election, he said…. " Now, before I finish that sentence, let's at least note that so far Time is using the same tone it might use to talk about John McCain, Joe Wilson, George Clooney or some other "soft-spoken" "unlikely firebrand" beloved by the media.

So, does Ahmadinejad have a wacky blog? Did he admit on "Larry King Live" that he voted for Ralph Nader in 2000? What makes him such a charming rogue?

Let's pick up that sentence where we left off and see: "After winning a disputed election," Time reports, "he said he would continue Iran's nuclear program, called the Holocaust a 'myth' and pledged to destroy Israel. Even some of the nation's ruling clerics are nervous about what he will do next." So even some of Iran's terrorism-supporting theocratic dictators are "nervous" about this guy.

What, one wonders, would it take for the editors to get really rough? Perhaps if Ahmadinejad offered a deeply negative review of "Brokeback Mountain"?...

Or a deeply negative review of "Munich"?

On second thought, given the movie's spin, that would be highly unlikely.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:31 | link | comments

United Church raises white flag, urges Martin to salute: What's the best way to get Iraqi kidnappers to release their hostages? According to the United Church of Canada, it's by showing them how spineless, stoneless and cluess we can be. From the Ceeb website:

The United Church of Canada wants Prime Minister Paul Martin to help free four western hostages in Iraq by demanding that all coalition troops be withdrawn from the country.

The church issued an open letter to Martin on Wednesday saying the foreign military occupation of Iraq must end.

"We implore the Government of Canada and the international community to call for the full withdrawal of coalition forces from Iraq," the letter reads.

It goes on to say: "We further implore the Canadian government to use all diplomatic means to press the Iraqi government to take appropriate legal and just actions regarding detainees held in Iraqi detention facilities."

The letter also expresses the church's prayers for the safe release of the four hostages, including two Canadians.

James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, as well as Briton Norman Kember, 74, and American Tom Fox, 54, were taken hostage on Nov. 26.

Loney is from Toronto and Sooden has lived in Montreal.

A group calling itself the Swords of Righteousness Brigades had threatened to kill all four by Dec. 10 unless the U.S. and Britain freed all Iraqi prisoners. That deadline came and went and there's been no word on the hostages since.

"Like many Christians around the world, we have offered our prayers for their safe release," the United Church letter says.

"Four men came to Iraq with Christian Peacemaker Teams to work for human rights. Unfortunately, they were kidnapped."

Unfortunately, they were working for the human rights of Saddamites and jihadis. Hence their predicament.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:28 | link | comments (2)

Searching for Spears: Some say the world is going to aitch-E-double hockey sticks because of the Jihad. Not me. I say the world's in the bog because far too many people are pissing away their time searching for "Britney Spears" on google.

Wake up, people. Everyone knows that Jessica Simpson is far more compelling.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:42 | link | comments

Mulling Munich: I'm still deciding whether to see Steven Spielberg's new movie Munich, which, as we all know has more to do with events after the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. On the one hand, I feel I need to see for myself how Steve and Tony massacre history. On the other hand, I'm not keen to put any shekels in Steve's pocket (not that my paltry contribution will make a difference to what will inevitably be a blockbuster--one that should play especially well in those lucrative Asian and European markets). Also, after reading the following passage in Debbie Schlussel's review for FrontPage Magazine, I don't know if I'll be able to stomach it:

Then, there is something I haven’t read in other critics’ accounts of Munich – something that made me sick to my stomach. Are the lives of the innocent Israeli athletes so worthless that the scenes in which they are murdered by Palestinian terrorists are interspersed with the self-doubting Mossad agent having sex? How would Steven Spielberg like it if a loved one was shown being bludgeoned in between scenes of a law enforcement official bouncing up and down on top of the agent’s naked wife? This happens twice, the first time with a pregnant woman and a sexual position I thought was reserved for NC-17 and X-rated movies. Thanks for cheapening these murdered athletes’ lives, Spielberg.

From the beginning of this movie, the memories of these innocent victims of terrorism are desecrated, their lives morally equated with Palestinian terrorists’ lives. The work Kushner and Spielberg expended to create this undue symmetry of the asymmetrical is the hardest work they did in the entire film.

Schlussel describes another "touching" scene in which a Palestinian moppet, soon to be minus a Dad because he's one of the terrorists on Mossad's snuff list, is shown playing the piano. Schlussel notes that the movie doesn't show any other the Israeli children whose fathers were murdered at Munich.

Wouldn't want to elicit any undue sympathy for Israel, after all.

Update: Munich as perceived by The American Thinker. The reviewer says, "Way to feed the crococile, Steve":

Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List taught a new generation of movie-goers the reality of the World War II Holocaust. Spielberg’s new movie, Munich, regrettably undoes some of his earlier good work, in recounting Israel’s response to the slaughter of 11 Israeli athletes by the Palestinian Liberation Organization at the 1972 Olympics. Israel’s Prime Minister Golda Meir ordered Israeli agents to hunt down and liquidate the PLO assassins, as a “Never Again!” message of life affirmation to the evil forces of the world.

Recent statements by Mr. Spielberg (Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, Time) regarding his new movie suggest that his “close encounters” with “extraterrestrials” are taking their toll. We all know that Hollywood history is not history, but Steven Spielberg is taking great pains to carefully position his new movie as “historical fiction.”

“Historical Fiction”

Historical fiction means some of the events in this movie are real, but the story is imagined. Specifically, this means that the horrific murders that occurred at the Olympics in 1972 actually happened, but the story Steven Spielberg is telling about the Israeli response to those murders is fictional, that is, imagined by the writers and director.

The presumed name of the Israeli Mossad’s secret team was “Caesarea,” although there is rumor of another undisclosed “X” name, and the media called their mission “Wrath of God.” There is very little known about this secret unit because Israel has not opened its intelligence files to the public. Steven Spielberg’s movie is based on a book called Vengeance by George Jonas. According to press materials, there were no Mossad consultants to this movie, nor were there PLO consultants. But there were political consultants who assisted the writers, producers and director. Their collective representations about the people and events of this secret unit are the imagined part of the story.

Munich vs. Vengeance

The American movie is entitled Munich, however, the French release of the film reportedly is called Vengeance.

The word “Munich” is synonymous with appeasement. In history, The Munich Pact of 1938 is viewed as the catastrophic mistake of the 20th Century that paved the way for The Final Solution – Hitler’s extermination of 6,000,000 Jews. Great Britain’s Neville Chamberlain, together with Daladier of France and Bonnet of Italy, appeased Adolf Hitler in Munich, with the ceding of parts of Czechoslovakia to the Reich. When Chamberlain arrived home in London, he announced that he had secured, “Peace in our time!” Abandoned by its allies, Czechoslovakia surrendered to Hitler. World War II began shortly thereafter, and even today, the word “Munich” remains the international symbol of appeasement that encouraged Hitler to invade Poland and Russia, in his fascist quest to exterminate the Jews.

The word “vengeance,” as commonly understood, is reserved only for God. But justice is the universal window into the human condition. To characterize the Israeli response as a “response to a response” as Spielberg states in Time Magazine and his new movie implies, is a clear effort to deny the objective morality of what happened, not only in 1972, but throughout history. Justified Deterrence is the moral precept that Israel relies upon to defend itself and prevent its destruction from terrorism and other forces of aggression. Reducing the events of September, 1972 and its aftermath to an existential melodrama about manmade vengeance denies the political nature of the Olympic assassinations and its implication for the safety of all Jews.

“Intransigence”

According to Time Magazine, Steven Spielberg is attempting to create a “prayer of peace” – an analogy to correct the “stalemate” of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He cites the biggest enemy as “intransigence.” The cause of the conflict – as he would have his audience believe – is that neither Palestinians nor Jews are willing to make any changes in their approach to one another.

The Middle East conflict is neither vague, nor abstract. This is not an “eye-for-an-eye” battle of humanity. This conflict has existed since the 7th century. While people in the media and political consultants refer to the “Arab-Israeli” conflict, the source of the Middle East conflict originates with Jihad, the force that drives the modern terrorist organizations and Muslim regimes that support the destruction Israel and all non-Muslim civilizations, including the United States of America.

Militant Islam is not limited to the Middle East—nor are its tactics—as America learned on September 11, 2001....

Islamic Jihad and The “Schism” of Civilization

The Israeli athletes who were assassinated by the PLO in Munich in 1972 did not die by tragedy, nor by moral failings. They were slaughtered. This was a massacre of innocents. At that time, and today, there are no doubts about what happened at the Olympics. We saw much of it live on television. Creating a fictional story about the secret Israeli response—based on speculative feelings of a fictional protagonist – distorts the truth of what actually happened in history.

The command to “Convert by force, subjugate as dhimmis or kill the Infidel” is a core belief of Islam. This Jihad, or Holy War, is 1400 years old, not just a few decades. This command is the basis for what is universally recognized as the “schism” of civilizations. Jihad is not like blasphemy or heresy, which can be debated and rejected by theologians. Jihad is fueled by the Islamic belief that murder is a holy act. Jihad is a permanent theological imperative as well as a political tactic to destroy freedom-loving people everywhere, not just Jews and Christians, as the world has learned since 9/11.

It is important to understand that Osama bin Laden publicly declared war on America well before 2001. Officially, he declared “Holy War” on America in August of 1996, but there were other provocations before and after. In fact, the early 1970s saw a major rise in terrorism throughout Europe, the Middle East, and the Far East. The 1972 PLO killings at the Olympics occurred in this contemporary context, but they originate in modern Islamic Jihad, arising from the ashes of Hitler’s Holocaust. This is why recasting the present day Middle East conflict as a “tragic stand-off” or as a “stalemate” of the last few decades is historically incorrect.

In real history, there is an enemy. The enemy is Islamic Jihad, although sometimes Jihad is called Militant Islam or Islamofascism. Jihad is a permanent war. This means Jihad excludes the idea of peace, but allows for truces (hudnas) to regroup, infiltrate, and attack again. Ignoring the facts of history is dangerous, but recasting the facts of history into a relativistic “fiction” leads audiences to scream, “Steven Spielberg…phone home!”

Jihad—like fascism and totalitarianism – destroys the moral order of humanity. This Jihad is same evil force that denies Israel the right to exist. If Israel has no right to exist, then be my guest, declare that this is a narrative about manmade vengeance. But if Israel does have the right to exist—and there is a moral order to humanity—then the moral compass of civilization drives this story – for all mankind—and commands that Israel defend herself and the safety of all Jews, despite any personal struggle...

Update: The journal Foreign Policy has a discussion about Munich. Among those putting in their 2 shekels' worth are the film's coproducer, Kathleen Kennedy, and former U.S. Middle East envoy, Dennis Ross. Ross demonstrates the kind of rapier-edged insight which he deployed during his days as envoy:

Ross: There is an element here that is fundamental to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The conflict is two national movements competing for the same space. What makes it a tragedy is that they both have a claim. What makes it a tragedy is that they both can be right. And this issue of home is more basic than anything else. It goes to the heart of identity. Our responses have to be consistent with who we are, so we don’t become who it is we are going after. That’s the essence of not giving up our values.

Wow. He sounds just like Steve. No wonder he never got anywhere in those "negotiations." 

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:12 | link | comments (3)

Boo, Jews: Several times in the past few days, I have heard reports on Ceeb radio news by correspondent Margaret Evans about how Israel is impeding the free flow of tourists into Bethlehem. The story has all the earmarks of standard CBCese--oppressed Palestinians just minding their own beeswax and trying to get from point A to point B; mean-spirited Jews and their humiliating checkpoints; that dastardly "security fence" which separates people instead of bringing them together in the kind of mulicultural amity we in the multicultural utopia of Canada are fortunate to enjoy. (The fence is also a sneaky land-grab, don'tcha know. A caption under a photo on the Ceeb website describes "the wall" in egregiously negative terms, as being part of "Israeli's controversial security barrier - a series of fences and ditches that snake in an out of Palestinian territory as protection against attacks by militants. Note how something Israeli "snakes" but Palestinian terrorists are "militants"--classic Ceeb-spin.)

Here's the story on the Ceeb website:

It may be best known as the birthplace of Jesus, but some Arab merchants say the Israeli army is making it harder for tourists to visit Bethlehem.

This Christmas season, it's expected about 80,000 Christian pilgrims will visit the historic West Bank town. But locals say the presence of a towering concrete wall and metal gate controlled by the Israeli army is damaging both the tourist trade and the city's image.

The Christmas season should be one of the biggest times of the year for the Bethlehem tourist trade, but that's not so say the vendors at this year's annual Christmas market in Manger Square.

Shereen Matar, a Christian Palestinian who helps in her mother's stall, says it may be because of the security barrier. "Maybe because of the situation and the new checkpoint," she says. "You know because they giving tourists a hard time coming in and out."

The new Israeli checkpoint controlling entry to and from Bethlehem now cuts between the West Bank city and Jerusalem. Israeli officials say the barrier saves lives. "It seems like Bethlehem is a quiet place but don't mistake with it," says Lieut.-Col. Aviv Feigel, the head of the Israeli army's Bethlehem liaison office. "You have a lot or terror organizations and attacks from inside Bethlehem towards Israel."

In 2004, two suicide bombers who carried out attacks against Israelis came from Bethlehem.

Israel has opened a special tourism branch that it says will ease crossings. And Lieut.-Col. Feigel says the number of tourists is actually on the rise.

"We will make sure everyone can go to Bethlehem during Christmas without any problems," he said.

But the Palestinians who live here say the tourism industry has been wrested from their control. They say the wall will discourage tourists from staying overnight.

"The Israeli soldiers will tell the people, 'You are going to Bethlehem? Be careful there are no Israeli police there. Are you sure you want to enter?," said Nasser Allawi, who owns small shop selling religious icons. "Bethlehem is empty," he says.

The "wall" will discourage tourists? Seems to me the prospect of terror attacks is more of a turn-off than a barrier designed to prevent them. But don't tell that to the Ceeb. Wouldn't want to spoil its anti-Israel reveries with a bracing dose of reality.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:05 | link | comments

Funny business at the UN: What traits should the next UN Secretary-General have in his or her repertoire in order to withstand the exigencies of the office? According to its current occupant, Kofi Annan, he or she requires "a thick skin and a sense of humor, and they should laugh a lot inside and outside at themselves..."

Sadly, Kofi was unable to summon up these resources when James Bone, the Times of London's UN reporter, queried him once again about an embarrassing episode in the Oil-for-Food fraud. Bone, who has been dogging Annan with the same question for a while now, asked him what happened to the Mercedes-Benz his son Kojo bought in his name and had shipped to Ghana. With Kofi as official owner, Kojo could avoid paying the kind of unpleasant taxes that only the little people--those whose daddies don't have Kofi's exalted diplomatic status--have to pay. "Your version of events don't really make sense," said Mr. Bone.

Kofi, thin-skinned and humourless, lost his much-vanted cool. Reuters details how the no-longer unflappable Annan responded to the question--an outburst of epic proportions. (You can also watch the videoclip on CNN):

"I think you're being very cheeky," Annan said. "Listen James Bone, you've been behaving like an overgrown schoolboy in this room for many, many months and years.

"You are an embarrassment to your colleagues and to your profession. Please stop misbehaving and please let's move on to a serious subject," Annan added.

The president of the U.N. Correspondents Association said that Bone had a right to ask a question. Annan said he agreed with that "but I think we also have to understand that we have to treat each other with respect."

The Volcker commission faulted Annan for bad management of the oil-for-food program but cleared him of personal wrongdoing, including influencing a contract that went to a company that employed his son.

Asked again if he bought a Mercedes tax-free for his son, Annan said, "I know you are all obsessed about the car. If you want to know more about it, please direct the questions to his lawyer or to him."

"I am neither his spokesman nor his lawyer," the Secretary-General said of his son.

"The report of Paul Volcker is clear. I am not going to rehash it," he added.

I don't know if James Bone--who looks like a cliche of a scruffy, disheveled Brit reporter and appears to have rolled out of bed after spending the night in his corduroy suit, the antithesis of the bespoke-tailored Annan--is behaving like "an overgrown schoolboy." But Kofi sure is behaving like an an autocratic headmaster. And a pretty humourless one at that.

Update: Claudia Rosett says that Kofi blew up because Bone's question about the Mercedes was a little too close to the, uh, bone for Kofi's liking. From the NRO:

...Bone’s question involved sludge turned up by Paul Volcker’s U.N.-authorized inquiry into the U.N. Oil-for-Food program for Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Among other things, Volcker examined the work done by Kofi Annan’s son, Kojo Annan, for a Swiss-based private company, Cotecna Inspection, which in December, 1998 won an important U.N. contract to inspect Oil-for-Food relief goods imported into Iraq. While digging into these matters, Volcker came across evidence that toward the end of that same year, in November, 1998, Kojo Annan allegedly misused his father’s name and U.N diplomatic status to buy a Mercedes-Benz at a discount in Europe and ship it duty-free into Ghana. There, the U.N. resident representative at the time certified to the Ghanaian customs authorities that the Mercedes was for “personal use by Mr. Kofi Annan, U.N. Secretary-General” — thus obtaining a customs exemption on the car of more than $14,000.

That discovery raised the question of whether Kofi Annan himself had been complicit in the alleged misuse of his own name and U.N. privileges. According to Volcker, Kofi Annan when asked about the deal claimed ignorance, saying “he did not know that Kojo Annan was buying a Mercedes-Benz in his name.” Volcker reported that he had found no evidence to contradict Annan. And there Volcker’s inquiry abandoned the trail, leaving the fate of the Mercedes itself a mystery.

But unless the Mercedes simply vaporized — lock, stock and documentation — upon arrival in Ghana, there is presumably more to the story — quite possibly involving paperwork with a U.N. stamp. So, for months, Bone and a number of other reporters, myself included, have been asking Annan’s aides what became of the Mercedes — and getting no answer except that Annan’s office does not consider this a U.N. matter.

Indeed, before Bone spoke up at Wednesday’s press conference, CNN had lobbed a softball version of the Mercedes question, to which Annan had replied, at some length, that he felt no obligation to provide any information related either to the car in particular, or the Volcker reports in general. On the Mercedes, he said: “My son and his lawyers are dealing with it. If you want to know more about it, please direct the questions to his lawyers or to him. I am neither his spokesman nor his lawyer.” On Volcker’s findings, Annan delivered what has become the U.N. Secretariat’s refrain: “The report of the Volcker commission is clear, and you have all read the thousands of pages of that report. And I am not going to rehash it here.”

So Bone tried to focus the question, seizing the chance to ask Annan directly: “The Volcker report says that the Mercedes was bought in your name, so as the owner of the car, can you tell us what happened to it and where it is now?”

Rather than answer, Annan chose to insult — and distract....

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:32 | link | comments

Pessimistic Pipes: A real downer of an article by Daniel Pipes in the JWR. I advise you not to read it without first reaching for a stiff drink. (My pick: a festive Crantini.)

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:59 | link | comments (1)

Clueless Abe: Abe Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League, has seen Steven Spielberg's soon-to-be released movie, Munich. And even though it really deals with events which occurred after the Munich massacre of Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorists and it's scripted by notorious anti-Zionist, Tony Kushner, Abe says the flick is aces with him. From the Jerusalem Post:

Anti-Defamation League National Director Abraham Foxman on Tuesday defended Steven Spielberg's new film Munich from criticism that it morally equates Israel with terrorists and is historically inaccurate.

"We do not think this is an attack on Israel. We do not think this is a film of moral equivalency," Foxman told a group of journalists.

He said the movie, which recounts the murder of 11 Israeli athletes by the Palestinian group Black September at the 1972 Munich Olympics, portrays that tragedy as an act of "brutal terrorism" with no humanizing of the perpetrators.

Most of the film, however, is devoted to Israel's decision to hunt down and kill those responsible for the terror attack, a depiction which some have described as equating Israel's acts with those of the Palestinians. But Foxman - who pointed out that, unlike him, many of the critics hadn't seen the movie - said the Israelis are portrayed in human terms, asking the same sorts of questions about their task as Israelis today ask about their government's response to terrorism.

Moreover, he said, the film "shows with respect and understanding ... the need to respond to terrorism." In that sense, he added, the movie could even be seen as a defense of America's actions in Iraq.

He also dismissed the assertion that Munich strays from the historical record, since, "This is not a documentary and nobody's pretending it is."

He concluded that the subject matter was a movie-in-waiting, and overall, "If I had my choice, I would choose Spielberg, not [Mel] Gibson."

The latter directed the controversial 2004 film, The Passion of the Christ. Foxman's was among the loudest voices to complain about the film's likelihood to fuel anti-Semitism.

Foxman also repeated his criticism of the agenda of the religious right and their use of legislation to accomplish their goals - criticism which has itself been attacked, particularly by Jews who point to the support evangelical Christians have given to Israel.

Foxman countered that real friends can take criticism....

In that case, here's some constructive criticism, Abe. If you had even a scintilla of fragment of a clue you might notice that a more genuine threat comes not from all those "scary" evangelicals, but from those soft-headed folks who believe that's what's going on in Israel is simply a difference of opinion over a parcel of land. Out of delusions such as these, ones which fail to situate the issue in its proper context--as one site, admittedly a particularly incendiary one, in the global jihad--comes notions such as Stephen's that it's simply a matter of getting the two sides together to hash out their disputes in a rational, reasonable manner. As if Jew-hatred, dhimmitude, Holocaust denial, lunatic conspiracy theories and Islamic supremacism don't even enter into the picture.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:01 | link | comments

Chatting with seethers: According to a new poll, 50% of Israelis think there should be "talks" with Hamas.

As far as I can tell, there are only two things Hamas might be interested in discussing:

• How soon can the Jews leave?
• If they aren't planning to leave, how soon can we kill them?

Perhaps the next poll can ask the loquacious 50% whether they think those are fruitful topics of conversation.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:49 | link | comments

Moo Jihad fan: When I clicked on the name "Mahmoud Ahmadinejad" in google news's "In the News" section, the following piece came up. It's a comically unhinged screed by someone named Preston Taran, "a writer and editor from New York." Mr. Taran thinks the zealous Shia should be admired for standing up to the Zionists. Unlike those other Arab leaders, the big wusses:

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has taken the bold step that few if any Arab leaders have engaged in. Instead these Arab leaders mouth platitudes, while working for the CIA and taking part in the torture of their own people, whether for their own reasons or at the behest of the American government. He has called the Zionists on their historical accuracy. The Iranian leader gave the European and American opposition the opportunity to prove him wrong.

Mr. Ahmadinejad stated that since the Holocaust happened on European soil, it would be only fair for those who perpetrated these atrocities to make amends by creating a Zionist state on their own soil. He posed the question as to why the Palestinian people have to suffer for the crimes of the Europeans. It is similar to one being robbed and getting the similar items back by robbing another innocent party.

"Today, they have created a myth in the name of the Holocaust and consider it to be above God, religion and the prophets," he said.

It has been widely reported that Mr. Ahmadinejad denied the Holocaust occurred. In fact I believe he intended to place the Palestinian question in the forefront of the important issues of the day. He just wanted to open the issue of Palestinian sovereignty to more serious discussion. Let us bear in mind that the Israelis, who are allies of the Turks, never mention or recognize the Turkish massacres of the Armenians. Exhibits of this genocide never appear in any Holocaust museum. This is not to say the Israelis do not believe in its occurrence, but rather that they tend not to emphasize this event due to their relationship with Turkey. The same holds true of Israel’s past friendship with Uganda’s dictator Idi Amin. It was just a matter of convenience.

The Europeans who in essence are the real anti-Semitic parties, put on their act of taking umbrage at the words of Ahmadinejad. This is all a ruse to cover the tracks of the aggressors who plan on hitting Iran militarily for their sovereign right to produce nuclear power of any kind. In the America view Israel may pursue a nuclear policy, whether for civilian benefits or of a military nature. One day a group of nations might try to impose their will on U.S. sovereignty. I am certain this will not be appreciated by the United States.

Hamas has stood up to defend the Iranian leader. Mr. Abbas is silent. We see from this that Hamas is a group that puts loyalty and honor above catering to foreign interests. This group is appreciative of the unbending support they have received from the Iranians. They promised retaliation against Israel, should this state attack the Iranians.

One must not discount a joint Israeli-American strike against Iran, for Iran is considered Israel’s true enemy. Saddam Hussein was never taken seriously by the Israelis. It was just a convenient starting point to direct attention away from Israel’s atrocities against the Palestinian people and instead focus us on this so-called “war on terrorism instead.

Just goes to show you never know what kind of flotsam google news is likely to turn up. Sometimes its gold. And sometimes, like the above, it's Hamas-lauding pond slime.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:39 | link | comments

Heaven sent: Barbara Walters had a two hour special last night on ABC about the Afterlife. She spoke to representatives of various religions--as well as some  celebrities who are thought to be "spiritual", like Richard Gere. They explained how their faiths perceived heaven, while Babs asked some of her typically probing questions. (Example: Is there sex in Heaven? My response: Yes, there is. But if you need Viagra, you're out of luck.)

I didn't watch the whole thing because, frankly, two hours of Babs being all solemn-like is more hellish than heavenly. I watched with interest, however, when she interviewed a failed 'sploder serving a long stretch in an Israeli prison. The sploder, a mature looking lad in his late teens, had attempted to detonate himself in a crowd of Israelis. The impetus, as he affably explained to Barbara, was those 72 virgins up in Paradise eagerly awaiting his martyrdom.

Babs then asked the lad if she was going to Hell because she's isn't Muslim. "Of course," he said.

Of course.

Afterwards, Babs trotted out a Muslim expert who assured us that suicide and the needless murder of infidels was unIslamic, quoting  those pre-hejira passages they use to convince the gullible and the ignorant of their good intentions. You would think that someone at ABC might have done some homework and found that the 'sploders and the soothing experts are literally on a different page. But no, that would be telling us something we don't want to hear.

As for whether Muslims were allowed to "martyr" themselves in the cause of shifting Jews off their land--well, that was kind of a grey area. Seems exceptions, as always, are allowed when it comes to the Jews.

In "honour" of the failed 'sploder and his apologist, I am posting a song parody that first appeared in an LGF thread two days ago. It's about the disappointments martyrs face once they reach Paradise, the result of an unfortunate mistranslation. It's sung to the tune of "76 Trombones":

72 raisins up in Paradise,
Though they all were expecting compliant houris.
There were more than a thousand shaheeds
Who had pow’rful needs
That weren’t met
By things that grow on trees.
72 raisins up in Paradise,
Ev’ry one of ‘em ripe and white and so sweet.
But they wouldn’t have been a bomb
And perhaps may have stayed calm
Had they known that’s all they’d get to eat.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:48 | link | comments

Democracy on the move: Just because Egypt and the P.A. (and, for that matter, Iraq) have been convinced to alter their political system doesn't mean the jihadis will be sidelined. In fact, democracy may actually be the means by which organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas gain a legitimacy which would have been unavailable to them had the system remained the same. Hamas, for example, which was once little more than a bunch of scruffy 'sploders--one of many such groups--is now looking to become the jihadi Sinn Fein--a formerly disreputable terror outfit that has been repositioned as an integral part of the political scene. And, as the Jerusalem Post reports, Hamas is hoping to hook up with the M.B. as they both march to power:

Hamas and Egypt's banned Muslim Brotherhood organization, which have historical ties, have begun coordinating their moves ahead of next month's parliamentary elections in the Palestinian Authority, PA security officials said on Monday.

Meanwhile, Said Siam, a senior Hamas official in the Gaza Strip announced on Monday that his movement was planning to form the new PA cabinet after it wins a majority of seats in parliament. "Hamas will be a clear voice in the new parliament," he said. "We will enter all the institutions to reform them and put an end to corruption. We will also enter the Palestinian security forces, which are very corrupt."

Siam did not rule out the possibility that his movement would halt terror attacks on Israel once it takes over the PA establishment. "The suicide bombings are not the only means that Hamas possesses," he explained. "We resort to suicide attacks only in response to Zionist atrocities. We use them only when they serve the interests of our people. But when they don't, we stop."

For the first time in Egyptian parliamentary history, the radical Muslim Brotherhood, whose candidates ran as independents, won 88 seats in the People's Assembly, accounting for 20 percent of a total of 432 races concluded so far.

"Hamas is trying to copy the Muslim Brotherhood model," a senior PA official in Ramallah told The Jerusalem Post. "They are now dispatching envoys to Cairo to meet with the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood."

One of the Hamas candidates for the parliamentary elections, Miriam Farhat, visited Cairo over the weekend, where she met with Mehdi Akef, the spiritual leader of Muslim Brotherhood...

And, heaven knows, those Muslim brothers have heavy-duty "spiritual" needs. Most of which involve defeating the infidel and asserting Islamic supremacy as exemplified by their hero and recorded in his book of adventures.

Update: Islam Online is offering a live Q and A session with a Hamas bigwig. The following is only one of many intriguing queries (the capricious typos are their's, not mine--for a change):

Question: Please, can you address the policies and issues that Hamas plans in the future? What is his future goals for his relations with Israel and the United States?

Answer: Our hostility AGAINST Israel and the US does not depend on religous creed, but we are fighting Israel to get back our lands, holy places and rights. And for the sake of the return of five million of our people who have been expelled outsid their homes. Thus our polices dependes on two thing; firstly is to liberate our occupied land, and secondly establ;ishing our democratic land that befits all the palestinian people whichever there affiliations or culture are.then we are to seek establishing good relatioin that depend on mutual respect with all those countries that respect us and recognize our rights.

See--they are devoted to democracy.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:00 | link | comments

Torturing Barbie: Creepy story of the day, courtesy AP (via the Toronto Star):

LONDON—Barbie, beware.

The iconic plastic doll suffers mutilation and "torture" at the hands of some young girls, according to research published yesterday by British academics.

"The girls we spoke to see Barbie torture as a legitimate play activity, and see the torture as a `cool' activity in contrast to other forms of play with the doll," said Agnes Nairn, one of the University of Bath researchers.

"The types of mutilation are varied and creative, and range from removing the hair to decapitation, burning, breaking and even microwaving."

Researchers from the university's marketing and psychology departments questioned 100 primary school children about their attitudes to a range of products as part of a study on branding. They found Barbie provoked the strongest reaction, with youngsters reporting "rejection, hatred and violence," Nairn said.

"The meaning of `Barbie' went beyond an expressed antipathy; actual physical violence and torture towards the doll was repeatedly reported, quite gleefully, across age, school and gender." ...

Microwaving? My, that is creative.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:43 | link | comments

The root of all evil: A report on the news last night showed Elvis's kid at the grand opening of Sci-fi-entology's latest project: a museum on Sunset Boulevard devoted to what it calls "Psychiatry: Industry of Death." The museum is chock-full of all the "instruments of torture" that were used to keep inmates of psychiatric institutions under control in the days before anti-psychotic drugs. Its purpose is to show that psychiatry is still evil and that Scientology is the only effective way for people to rid themselves of their demons, er, thetans, er,  problems.

I found more about the museum on ReligionNews Blog, a blog devoted to cults, sects and world religions:

...Created by the Citizens Commission on Human Rights - which was founded by the church in 1969 "to investigate and expose psychiatric violations of human rights" - the museum will also show new documentaries featuring "dozens of medical doctors, attorneys [and] educators."

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights is one of several Scientology front groups. It is involved in hate propaganda against psychiatry and psychiatrists.

"It was like stepping into a time warp," one source, who attended the meeting, told The Post. "All this horrific turn-of-the-century stuff that hardly exists anymore - patients convulsing from electroshock therapy, torture caps on people's head, Pavlov and his dogs."

Before a clip from one "educational" documentary was introduced, a church spokesman warned the audience that some images were "too gruesome to show" with "women and children" present, the source said.

According to Scientology, psychiatry is the root of all evil on the planet...

Really? I 'd always heard it was the Jews.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:34 | link | comments (2)

A leg up: One of my late Bubby's favourite expressions was, "Where there's a will, there's a way." Bubby might have been describing Nourddine Zendaoui, a man who didn't let the lack of a limb impede his will to jihad. As described on the front page of the National Post, Zendaoui is indeed an inspiration. A so-called "explosives expert" back in his native Algeria ("so-called" because his "expertise" resulted in one of those jihadi "work accidents" which, afterwards, prompt people to nickname the expert "Lefty"), Nourddine led a rich, full life here in Hogtown. Although missing a leg, he drove a school bus, was an ardent soccer player (the goalie, no less) and, oh yeah, was identified by CSIS as the "ringleader" of an Algerian terror cell.

He might be here still had CSIS not shown up at his soccer games and badgered him with unpleasant questions. Now, Nourddine (affectionately known as "Haji") is somewhere back in Algeria, and his soccer pals can't believe the eager goalie with the prosthetic leg was actually the kingpin of a terror group.

Or so they say:

A former Toronto school bus driver was the ringleader of an alleged Algerian terrorist cell that operated in the city until it was dismantled by Canadian counterterrorism agencies, the National Post has learned.

Nourddine Zendaoui, 40, a one-legged Algerian known as Hajji, has been identified as the alleged central figure of a group of Toronto men targeted by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

Canadian investigators believe Mr. Zendaoui is a seasoned terrorist and explosives expert affiliated with the Algerian terrorist faction Salafist Group for Call and Combat, which is loyal to Osama bin Laden.

Before coming to Canada in 1998, investigators believe, Mr. Zendaoui was an instructor at the Khaldun terrorist camp in eastern Afghanistan, where several of the 9/11 hijackers were trained.

Mr. Zendaoui is also suspected of having been involved in the conflict in Chechnya and the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, where authorities believe he lost his lower left leg. He has denied any involvement in terrorism.

The existence of the cell was first reported in the National Post last month after a senior CSIS official told a closed-door conference that the agency and its partners had broken up the Toronto-based group of Algerian extremists.

"We may never know if these guys would have taken things to the next level and carried out an attack in Canada or the United States," Larry Brooks, the CSIS chief of counterterrorism for the Toronto region, told delegates at the National Security Workshop on Oct. 31.

"But one thing I can say with certainty is they are not here any more and that's because you, the people who were involved, made the system work."

CSIS did not disclose the names of the alleged cell members, but the Post has confirmed Mr. Zendaoui was the central target of the counterterrorism operation, which involved at least five other Toronto Algerians.

Mr. Zendaoui lived in an apartment in downtown Toronto with his wife, Amel, and son, Salah, and made his living driving a school bus.

Although he has a prosthetic leg, he played goalie for a soccer team composed mostly of Algerians who knew each other from a downtown mosque and played at fields in one of the city's affluent midtown neighbourhoods.

CSIS officers began showing up at the weekly soccer games in at least 2002 and later met with the players to ask them about the one-legged goaltender who was known as Hajji because he had made the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca.

"We don't know this guy," said Halim Ameuroud, 35, who was among the players interviewed by CSIS. "He told me that he lost [his leg] in Algeria at work. But the security, they have another story. They told me he was in Afghanistan and he lost his leg and he was a bomb specialist."

While Mr. Ameuroud admitted he knew little about Mr. Zendaoui's past, he said he doubted what CSIS told him. He added he never heard Mr. Zendaoui espousing violence.

"He never sat with us and said, 'He's an infidel, we have to kill him,' " Mr. Ameuroud said. "I don't believe that he's a terrorist. We know he was in Saudi Arabia, he told us that, but he never said anything about Afghanistan." ...

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:08 | link | comments

De Nile, er, de Seine is a river in France: It's official. According to French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, Islam had absolutely nothing to do with the recent riots. From Islam Online:

France's Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said on Sunday, December 18, that the recent riots in Paris suburbs had nothing to do with Islam.

"Let's not mix Islam, which is a religion of peace, with the actions of thugs," Sarkozy said in an interview with Al-Jazeera, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"Islam has nothing to do with the actions of criminals, assassins and thugs"...

As I always say, Islam is indeed a peaceful religion. Right up until the time that Mo heads to Medina.

After that--mmm, not so much.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:55 | link | comments (2)

"Cozy" tchochkes of hate: In bygone days, how did Jew-haters express their fear of and disdain for "the Chosen"? Why, by turning them into grotesque household knick-knacks, of course. The Jewish Museum in the Austrian town of Hohenems has an exhibit of hundred of these horrible items, mementos from a pre-Nazi era when Aryans expressed their distaste for the Jews by turning them into salf and pepper shakers. From AP (via Jewsweek):

..."These objects were part of a certain coziness. They were meant to be cozy," he (the exhibit's curator) said. "It takes three to five minutes, and then people realize it's not cozy at all. The disturbance they feel when they realize that themselves is much more effective than if we were to put up a sign saying, 'This is dangerous."'

On display are 580 objects from the collection of Gideon Finkelstein, a Jew who bought anti-Semitic items over 15 years.

Though the objects dating from 1880 to 1920 are nothing more than "kitschy knickknacks," they were a way for their original owners to exert power over Jews, whom they perceived as threatening, Loewy said.

"They are in a way transforming a fantasy of something dangerous into something you could control," he said.

Among the most eye-catching displays is a fairground shooting stand depicting a Jew and a ferocious dog. By hitting the target, shooters set off a mechanism that sets the dog on the Jew, who uses an umbrella in an attempt to fend off the attack.

In a separate room, visitors can listen to an interview in which Finkelstein says he considers it important to save these items because they show just how widespread anti-Semitism was long before Nazi leader Adolf Hitler rose to power.

"In the 80 years before Hitler, people in Germany, in Austria, in France, lived with anti-Semitism in their everyday lives," Finkelstein says in the presentation. "When someone like Hitler came and brought anti-Semitism to a climax, everything was already prepared. And I think it's important to show that."

The exhibit, which runs through Feb. 26, is the first public display of the Finkelstein collection. In his interview for museum visitors, Finkelstein says modern anti-Semitism is expressed in other forms.

"Today, there are books, there is the Internet, there are many other ways to disseminate propaganda like this," he warns...

Or, as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad might say to another Holocaust denier, "Pass the salt, Ernst." 

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:27 | link | comments

Hamasjungen apprehended: From the Jerusalem Post:

Two armed Palestinian teens planning to carry out a terror attack in Jerusalem were arrested Monday near the security barrier on the outskirts of the southeastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Homa, police said.

The two youths, 16- and 17-year-old members of the Hamas youth movement, were apprehended after a security team spotted them near the fence and gave chase.

During the pursuit the two suspects hurled a firebomb at the security men, who fired in the air to stop them, Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said.

There were no injuries reported during the late-morning incident.

Police subsequently found two firebombs, two knives, a Hamas flag in their possession as well as material for two pipe bombs.

The two Palestinians, residents of Dehaishe refugee camp near the West Bank city of Bethlehem, told police investigators that they planned to attack a border police patrol in the area in revenge for the imprisonment of a brother of one of the suspects for security-related offenses, the police said.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:05 | link | comments

Ian's explanation: Yesterday evening George W. Bush went on TV to urge Americans to stay the course in Iraq. The president says the U.S. is winning the war and, at least for now, must stay to ensure that progress continues.

Contrast the president's statements with those in this article in Egyptian weekly Al-Ahram. The writer, Ian Douglas, claims, in clunky, cliche-ridden prose, that the U.S. is losing the war, and that its prosecution of Saddam Hussein (which, in an amusing mispelling which may or may not be intentional, he calls "the lynchpin in America's bid for global hegemony") is doomed to fail. And, oh yeah, it's all about the oil:

The trial of Saddam Hussein is the straw that will break the back of America in Iraq, whichever way it goes. A conviction on the basis of what we are seeing will make a martyr of Saddam, reveal the entire process as a foregone conclusion, and steel the national popular resistance for years. Unless the neocons in Washington have a secret agenda of bankrupting the United States, it is already over for them, bar the shouting. The resistance fights not for Saddam, but the trial will be seen -- like the constitution, like the elections -- as another fait accompli railroaded upon Iraq, and to which the resistance will respond. Even if Saddam's defence fails, America has already lost. It is one thing to establish an illegal tribunal (and under articles 64 and 67 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, the keystone of international humanitarian law, this tribunal is outlawed), but it is quite another to televise proceedings which expose law as machination in naked iniquity. This is what this trial is achieving. On the other hand, if the prosecution fails, and Hussein walks -- and on the basis of its opening salvo it would be hard to proffer otherwise -- the second shoe falls, after the lies about weapons of mass destruction, and no justification remains for the illegal pre-emptive war the neocons waged. Bye, bye the Iraq chapter of the Project for a New American Century.

Let us roll up our sleeves and be frank. The United States did not enter Iraq to liberate the Iraqi people. Nor was the euphemism of Saddam being a "threat to his neighbours" -- read the state of Israel, not Kuwait or Iran on Iraq's borders -- credible. The United States waged war on Iraq because the oil economy is on death row. At current rates of consumption, it has 35 years left. So the world's most oil-dependent economy, backed by the world's least ethically educated military, took advantage of the opportunity of the "new Pearl Harbour" that was 11 September in one of the most audacious moves in the history of power politics. But ours must be an infamous age, because none could tell the truth of what was really in play. Every justification, bar the honest one, was evoked: weapons of mass destruction, Saddam's regional ambition, ties to Al-Qaeda and the events of 9/11, gross human rights violations. While the majority of the world's population instinctively understood the lie, corporate media -- fearful of government disfavour -- fell into line. The best we get now is "We should have probed deeper." Yet truth was on the surface. Who but the gullible or idle was convinced by Powell's UN performance? Not even he is proud of it. And who believed Hans Blix had a free hand, or that anyone would have listened if his final report contradicted what had already been decided, as indeed it did?...

Questions for Ian:

1. How, exactly, does one "railroad" a fait accompli? Do you need a Eurail pass to do it?
2. You speak of an "illegal tribunal" (and cite the pertinent Geneva Convention articles). Would a quick and dirty lynching (or, as you might say, "lynchpinning") have been fairer?
3. Is ours really an infamous age because "none could tell the truth of what was really in play"? Might that not be said of practically every age. And anyway, isn't our age more infamous for the XBox and Paris Hilton?

What ever happened to Hans Blix? I kinda miss the little guy.

Update: We wait in vain for Ian to realize it's not about the oil, it's about the ears. From The Sun:

A BRITISH plastic surgeon has been teaching Iraqi medics how to reconstruct ears — to help restore more than 1,300 lost in acts of punishment by Saddam’s regime.

Three surgeons have visited London to learn specialist David Gault’s technique of using rib cartilage to build new ears.

It is estimated around 350 ears were removed in Basra and more than 1,000 in Baghdad, as punishment for people who defected from, or refused military service.

You see, Ian, there was a pressing need to put the ear-slicer out of business.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:07 | link | comments (2)

Life imitates Earl: My favourite new TV show is My Name is Earl. It's a half-hour comedy on NBC Tuesday night which follows the travails and triumphs of one Earl Hickey. Earl is your basic white trash kind of guy with a crappy life and history of petty crime. His life is a series of disappointments until, one day, he scratches a lottery ticket and wins a hundred grand. In his glee, he runs out of store and directly into the path of an oncoming car. While recoving from innumerable injuries in hospital, he has an epiphany while watching, of all people, Carson Daly on TV. Daly explains that he reason he's enjoyed so much success (a claim which some might dispute) is he believes in karma--"do good things, and good things happen to you." The statement resonates with the batterered Earl who has an epiphany: If he turns his like around and lives by karma, maybe his life won't suck anymore. And so makes a list of all the bad things he's ever done in his life and sets out to redress each one. Every episode consists of Earl's effort to cross one more bad deed off the list.

A good deal of the comedy comes from the interplay between Jason Lee, brilliant and hilarious as Earl (and with perhaps the most expressive eyebrows in showbiz) and his ex-wife, Joy. Joy is a blonde spitfire who married Earl the night they met. At the time, she was six months pregnant with another man's child, but Earl was too drunk to notice. The baby that emerged--Earl Junior--is black and has a huge corona of frizzy hair--just like his father, who Joy ends up marrying after she dumps Earl. (The child is now five or six and calls Earl "old Daddy": For some reason I find that very funny.)

Early in the season one of the plot points turns on Joy's efforts to get her hands on Earl's money. She fails because of her own greed, stupidity and, of course, bad karma.

The only reason I mention any of this is that the Globe and Mail has a story about a real-life Joy and Earl, but Canadian and with a much bigger payoff:

You might think that winning $30-million would be a good thing, but according to a new statement by Ray Sobeski, who collected the biggest individual lottery jackpot in Canadian history in April, 2004, money has been a cruel mistress.

There have been broken windows, midnight police interventions, sordid revelations about swinger weekends, and an ex-wife who just won't go away. "Nynna has a terrible temper, and often acts out physically. I have the scar to prove it," said Mr. Sobeski in a newly filed court document.

After more than a year and a half of silence, Mr. Sobeski's 36-page affidavit provides dark insight into life after the big win and, in particular, on his relationship with ex-wife Nynna Ionson -- a marital battle that could be described as The War of the Roses as imagined by Jerry Springer.

"These proceedings (and the related media coverage) have caused me and my family nothing but stress and embarrassment," Mr. Sobeski said. "My children are not safe, my parents have been ostracized from a community in which they have always lived, I have had to sell my farm, and cannot go anywhere in Southern Ontario without being recognized, whispered and pointed at."

Ms. Ionson has asked the court to award her half of Mr. Sobeski's $30-million win, charging that he abused her, and that he waited nearly a year to collect the lottery jackpot as part of a scheme to keep the money out of her hands.

But in his new document, filed as part of an upcoming court appearance in London, Mr. Sobeski says that it is Ms. Ionson who has played the role of abuser and manipulator. Mr. Sobeski catalogues years of alleged assaults, stalking and harassment by Ms. Ionson.

"When I answered the door, Nynna immediately began to viciously attack me, shouting obscenities at me in front of my children and smashing the furniture," he said of one 1999 incident. "When I was finally able to get her under control and out of the house, I returned to find my seven-year-old daughter terrified and cowering in the corner of a dark room. I ended up with many bruises and a black eye. I called the police and Nynna was charged with assault."

Mr. Sobeski's affidavit continues with page after page of similar material, including a description of an incident in the summer of 2001: "I called the police again when I arrived home to discover that someone had thrown a rock through my bathroom window and had torn all the screens from my windows and thrown them onto the roof. When I told Nynna about the incident, she proudly admitted that she was responsible."

Ms. Ionson's lawyer, Alfred Mamo, scoffed at the allegations levelled by Mr. Sobeski, and said that this week's court appearance will help set the record straight: "There are two versions of what happened here. By Wednesday, people will understand that Nynna's is the accurate one. And they'll see that his is a perjured account."

Mr. Sobeski said he met Ms. Ionson in 1994, at a Woodstock-area strip club where she was appearing onstage. Mr. Sobeski characterizes their 1998 marriage as a calculated act of deception on the part of Ms. Ionson. He said that she forced him into the marriage, which he agreed to on the condition that she sign a prenuptial agreement. He said that Ms. Ionson pressured him into a specific wedding date, promising that she would sign the agreement afterward, but then reneged....

Classy people. Eminently deserving of their own reality show.

But even if they got one, it wouldn't hold a candle to my Earl.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:51 | link | comments (1)

The face of jihad: It's round, cherubic, with wire-framed glasses and just a hint of a grin. It's the face of Abdullah Khadr, and its in glorious (or rather, inglorious) colour on the front page of the Globe and Mail.

Funny, you say, Khadr doesn't look jihadish. In fact, he looks more like the kid next door who used who used to earn an extra few bucks by raking your leaves. The kid you watched grow up and leave home for university.But Khadr hasn't been doing much leaf-raking or studying the past few years. According to a statement released by the U.S. Department of Justice yesterday, he's been otherwise engaged, procuring "munitions for al-Qaeda to use against the United States and Coalition Forces in Afghanistan."

Khadr, the eldest son of the late Ahmed Said Khadr, a close personal friend of attenuated al Qaeda chief, Osama bin Laden, says, au contraire. He hasn't been up to any jihadi hijinks. He's spend the last 14 months locked up in Pakistan, where he was subjected to brutal treatment ("torture", claim his lawyers) by agents from Pakistan, the U.S. and Canada. No way he could have been spending his spare time buying grenades and other explosives to hurl at Western interlopers in Afghanistan.

Since Abdulluh has the good fortune to be an alleged jihadi with Canadian citizenship, he won't be treated like William Sampson was in Saudi Arabia, or Zahra Kazemi was in Iran. No, he will be afforded the full protection of the law and every last right to which he, as a citizen of Canada, is entitled. That means he may be here a while longer as his lawyers toil mightilty to keep him on Canadian soil.

Such a nice looking young man. You just want to reach out and pinch his chubby cheek.

Update: Abdullah's arrest came as a complete surprise to the whole family. That includes his mama, who kicked up a fuss when they came to arrest her son. From CTV News:

Police arrested Khadr in Scarborough at approximately 7 p.m. on Saturday. They took the eldest son of the notorious Khadr family to Toronto's Metro West Detention facility. He made a brief appearance in court on Sunday.

Police also took Maha Elsamnah, Khadr's mother, into custody on Saturday after the sight of them arresting her son incensed her. She is not facing any charges.

Mama Maha, a committed jihadi herself who's stated her views in the media, is already what you might call "incensed". She must have thrown quite a hissy fit when the infidels came to her door.

Update: The Ceeb reports that Abdullah's bail hearing has been postponed for the moment. Meanwhile, his brother Abdurahman, the purported white sheep of the family, the one who supposedly washed his hands of all that jihad stuff, says his family is being "persecuted" for visiting Afghanistan.

If all they were doing was taking in the sights of Kabul, there'd be no prob, Abdurahman. (By the way, did you manage to catch those incredible statues of Buddha before the Taliban blew them up?) But let's be honest--we both know there's a lot more to it than that.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:02 | link | comments

The case for Islamist democracy: Implanting democracy in non-democratic nations, postulated Natan Sharansky in his book The Case for Democracy, is essential for world peace since democracies are disinclined to cause trouble for other democracies. Except, of course, when the "democracies" have voted for an Islamist slate. From the L.A. Times:

When Iraqis swarmed to the polls last week to cast ballots in parliamentary elections, the Bush administration hailed a democratic victory in a region creaking under the weight of corruption, cronyism and dictatorship.

But the outcome may not be what the administration had in mind when U.S. forces swept President Saddam Hussein from power more than 2 1/2 years ago. Iraq's elections were dominated by Islamic clerics, and the incoming parliament is likely to include a large proportion of Islamist legislators, many of whom have ties to the mullahs of Iran.

In recent elections across Iraq and other countries in the region, Islamist parties have capitalized skillfully on new political freedoms to gain clout and legitimacy unprecedented in the modern Middle East. The growing strength of the religion-based parties is the single most unpredictable element in the Bush administration's grand vision to replace despots with democracy.

Whether it's the Shiite Muslim-dominated United Iraqi Alliance, Lebanon's Hezbollah, the Palestinian group Hamas or Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, Islamist parties have benefited from the administration's promotion of democracy in the Arab world. But the Islamists also have gained strength from widespread opposition to U.S. policy, which has convinced some Muslims that their religion is under attack.

"U.S. foreign policy has helped directly in the rise of the Islamists," said Gamal Banna, a liberal Egyptian writer and brother of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. "The intervention in Iraq and the support for Israel's policies are creating so much anger in the region. The Islamists are benefiting from that anger."

Privately, U.S. officials acknowledge that they are concerned about the level of anti-Americanism and the power it has given Islamic-based parties at the ballot box, but they insist that the danger of extremist ideology can be contained.

Barry F. Lowenkron, an assistant secretary of State, referred to the risks that extremist governments — Islamic-based or not — might come to power as "bumps in the road." In an interview last week, he listed steps needed to encourage competition from secular parties in the Arab world, including the lifting of emergency laws, expansion of press freedom, allowing the right of assembly and other measures to ensure that diverse voices can be heard.

He also pointed out that there was a difference between what he called "extremists" and Islamic parties.

Still, Islamic groups present a dilemma for the United States. Although Washington historically has kept Islamists at arm's length, the widespread popular support for religious parties is difficult for any advocate of democracy to ignore.

Across the region, Islamist parties have proved themselves best poised to gain from any democratic opening. They enjoy easy access to mosques, which are virtually the only spaces where politics are publicly discussed in many Arab countries. Their slogans tap into deep religious feelings, and their legacy of social and welfare work gives them easy credibility on the street.

And Islamists have been clever in recasting themselves to suit the current mood. Many religious politicians stopped talking about Islamic republics and became unabashed democracy cheerleaders.

"We believe in democracy. The ballot box has the final say in whether you'll be ruling or not. We don't believe in any other means of taking power," Mahdi Akef, the leader of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, said in a recent interview. "How would I be a Muslim and abolish freedom at the same time? This is nonsense."...

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:08 | link | comments

Bad Santas: No milk and cookies for these guys. From the Ceeb website:

A group of 50 young, drunken New Zealand men dressed in Santa suits found an alternative way of celebrating the season by throwing rocks and bottles, stealing from stores and urinating in public in the city of Auckland.

"It's just a pack of clowns, just a bunch of idiots getting together and taking the opportunity to be relatively anonymous by all wearing the same clothing, making it difficult to identify who's done what," police officer Matt Rogers told the New Zealand Herald.

"It doesn't mean anything and it's not against anyone. It's just having fun. That's what life's about," Alex Dyer, who organized the spree, told the paper.

"I can't physically restrain people from doing stupid things. I can't say, 'OK 50 drunk men, all listen to me. Please, nobody do anything stupid.''"

Calling themselves Santanarchy, the men got drunk on Saturday. Some of them threw stones at buses, the Herald reported.

A smaller group made its way to the waterfront, where one Santa climbed a rope to a moored ship.

He was met by security guards when he came down. Bottles flew, and two security guards were treated for cuts.

Three people were arrested.

"If someone does something stupid and gets caught for it, that's their problem," Dyer said. "I had a great time."

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:49 | link | comments

Bye bye Abdullah: Since his return from unspecified activities in Pakistan, Abdullah Khadr, the eldest spawn of the al Qaeda clan, has been enjoying a long-delayed family reunion with ma, sis, and two brothers. (Another brother, Omar, has been catching the rays at Club Fed in Gitmo for the past few years because he allegedly killed an American solidier). When Abdullah arrived from his jihadi sojourn, there was much crowing by his lawyer about his client's innocence and how unfairly he was being treated by authorities. (The RCMP had subjected him to a thorough going-over at the local Tim Horton's, compelling him to ingest cruller after cruller in a type of torture that will soon be outlawed by our neighbour to south...Okay, maybe they weren't crullers. Maybe they were dutchies. Or apple fritters. Or lots and lots of assorted timbits. Or maybe they just bought him a cup of java and sent him on his way.)

The taste of crullers and freedom is sweet, but sadly for Abdullah, it is also shortlived. After a mere ten days of liberty, Abdullah has been picked up and detained for allegedly plotting to kill American soldiers abroad. He is expected to be deported to the U.S.

Hasta la vista, Abdullah. And please give Omar our regards.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:36 | link | comments

Tolerating denial: There's truth--the Holocaust was a historicial reality during which six million Jews were murdered for being Jewish. And there's fiction--the Holocaust, which saw far fewer than six million killed was a conspiracy by Europe to offload its Jews into the heart of  Dar al Islam. Iran, a nation which has embraced the fiction for much the same reason Adolf Hitler embraced Jew-hatred, as a means to focus and unite the populace on a common demonic enemy, is asking for the world's understanding in allowing it to adopt the fiction as a national policy. The world must be "tolerant", it insists, of its right to redraft history to its own advantage. From Reuters:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's denial of the Holocaust is a matter for academic discussion and the West should be more tolerant of his views, Iran's foreign ministry spokesman said on Sunday.

Ahmadinejad last week called the Holocaust a myth and suggested Israel be moved to Germany or Alaska, remarks that sparked international uproar and threaten diplomatic talks with Europe over Iran's nuclear programme.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi defended the president's remarks, which also drew a rebuke from the U.N. Security Council.

"What the president said is an academic issue. The West's reaction shows their continued support for Zionists," Asefi told a weekly news conference.

"Westerners are used to leading a monologue but they should learn to listen to different views," he added.

Some 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis and their allies between 1933 and 1945.

Ahmadinejad, a former Revolutionary Guardsman who was elected president, also said in October Israel was a "tumour" that must be "wiped off the map".

A statement drafted by European Union leaders described last week's Holocaust comment as "wholly unacceptable". The White House termed the remarks "outrageous".

Asefi denounced international condemnation as emotional and illogical.

"The EU statement is not based on international diplomatic norms. They should avoid illogical methods," he said.

"Westerners are used to leading a monologue, but they should learn to listen to different views."...

Somewhere down in Hell, the Fuhrer is clicking what's left of his heels and giving Moo Jihad and crew a big thumbs up.

Update: Jeff Jacoby on the Islamic dystopia's "obsessive anti-Semitism"--and why it's so dangerous. From the Boston Globe:

...Thus Ahmadinejad promises a second Holocaust even as he denies the first one, and because his manner is so bellicose and crude, his words make news. But there is nothing new about them. Iran's theocratic thugs have been threatening the Jewish state with genocide ever since Ayatollah Khomeini seized power in Tehran 26 years ago.

When it comes to Jews and Israel, Iran's fanatic rulers speak with one voice. ''We have repeatedly said that this cancerous tumor of a state should be removed from the region," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the current supreme leader, remarked in December 2000. Former Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, whom Western journalists strangely describe as a ''moderate," explained in 2001 how a nuclear weapon would settle Israel's hash once and for all: ''The use of a nuclear bomb against Israel will leave nothing on the ground, whereas it would only damage the world of Islam." The same Rafsanjani once took to the airwaves to explain that ''Hitler had only killed 20,000 Jews and not 6 million." Holocaust denial and calls for a new Holocaust are two sides of the same coin.

That coin -- virulent anti-Semitism -- circulates throughout the Muslim Middle East, not just in Iran. Ahmadinejad's ugly outpourings were condemned in the West, but they provoked almost no protest in Arab and Muslim countries, where Jews are routinely portrayed as evil subhumans fit only for extermination. In much of the Islamic world, Jew-hatred saturates the airwaves, spills from the mosques, fills the classrooms, permeates the press. Jews are represented as pigs and monkeys, as liars and connivers, as vile, hook-nosed scum who deliberately infect children with AIDS and poison Palestinian water. In their quest for power and world domination, they are said to be ruthless and devious. They were behind the 9/11 attacks, for example, and tipped off 4,000 Jews to stay home from the World Trade Center. And, of course, they concocted the ''hoax" of the Holocaust, as part of an elaborate plot to establish a beachhead in the Middle East and extort money from the world.

Outsiders are rarely aware of how intense the Muslim world's Jew-hatred is. ''What has surprised me is the virulence of this new anti-Semitism throughout all the Muslim countries," the distinguished journalist and editor Harold Evans wrote in 2002. ''It is frenzied, vociferous, paranoid, vicious, and prolific, and is only incidentally connected to the Palestinian conflict." Obsessive anti-Semitism almost always characterizes the most dangerous threats to America and the West. Nazism, Communism, Islamofascism -- all have been intensely anti-Semitic. Which is why Ahmadinejad's strident rhetoric should be setting off urgent alarms. Dictators who talk about wiping nations from the face of the earth generally mean what they say. We should know by now that it isn't only Jews who are endangered by the mullahs and their threats. All of us are. And time is wasting.

Update: Moo Jihad sings a seasonal selection:

I'm dreaming that there's no Holocaust.
It's just a myth the Jews concoct
So they can steal our orchards
And 'Rabs are tortured
And maps are blighted with a blot.

I'm dreaming that there's no Holocaust.
With ev'ry crazy thing I say.
Time to make the Zionists pay.
Wipe their loathsome entity away.

I'm dreaming that there's no Holocaust
Down to my very pith and core.
And if six mill weren't murdered before
Wouldn't mind if there were now six million more.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:07 | link | comments

Moonwalking: Ceeb radio's science show Quirks & Quarks just had an interview with James Hanson, who's written First Man, the authorized biography of reclusive moon-walker, Neil Armstrong. Hadley recounted how Armstrong's natural reticence and reluctance to be a public figure after taking his "one small step for man" has given rise over the years to a number of bizarre rumours. One of the strangest is one I'd never heard of (and which I could find no mention of on debunking website snopes.com) that has become widespread in the Muslim world. According to the rumour, when Neil stepped on the Moon, he heard the Muslim call to prayer. He was so freaked out by the sound that, upon his return to Earth, he converted (or "reverted" in their parlance) to Islam and moved to Lebanon, where he has been living as a devout Muslim ever since.

Hadley explains that there is a nugget of truth to this rumour: Armstrong did move to Lebanon, but not the one beside Syria; the one near Cincinnati. As for the rest of it--it's totally bogus, of course, the result of envy, wishful thinking and the peculiar way falsehoods spread and become truth in the Muslim world.

Actually, Muslims are entitled to claim some credit for Armstrong`s feat. If they hadn`t invented algebra, Neil would never have made it to the Moon.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:19 | link | comments (1)

Dementia and denial: Yesterday, Iran's interior minister insisted that Moo Jihad's statements about the mythical nature of the Holocaust had been "misunderstood." Not so fast, says an influential cleric. The mullahs stand behind every deranged pronouncement. In fact, they believe the comments are"completely rational." From IranMania:

A top Iranian cleric defended President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from heated international criticism after he made a slew of anti-Israeli remarks that included denying the Holocaust, AFP reported.

Ayatollah Ali Meshkini, who heads the Assembly of Experts, told worshippers at Friday prayers in the clerical epicentre of Qom that the slaughter of mlns of Jews in World War II was a "false rumour".

"The president's statements ... are completely rational and come from all Iranian hearts. The European countries reacted because they cannot bear to hear the president's rational comments," the IRNA agency quoted him as saying.

"After World War II the Jews and Zionists spread a false rumour that Hitler, Austria and Germany had burned more than six mln Jews in the furnaces," said Meshkini, who heads the body that selects and supervises Iran's supreme leader.

"In order to look like victims and provide for a suitable situation for themselves in the world they deceived the world into believing this and were recognised by the UN," he continued.

Ahmadinejad unleashed a wave of criticism this week when he described the Holocaust as a "myth". The president had previously called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" or moved to Germany or Austria.

Meshinki also echoed Ahmadinejad's comment that Israel should be moved out of the Middle East. "Why should innocent Palestinians pay?" he asked.

"The President said to the Europeans that since you accepted this (the Holocaust) as the truth why don't you give a piece of land to Jews to form a government in your country."

It's official: Iran has overtaken Zimbabwe and North Korea to become the most demented nation on the planet.

Institutionalized Jew-hatred on that scale tends to have that effect on people.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:54 | link | comments

Meddlesome Yanks: The U.S. has predicated aid to Palestinians on their excluding terror outfit Hamas from upcoming parliamentary election. The Al Jazeera.net headline describes this as "meddling":

The Palestinian Authority and Hamas have rejected a resolution by the US House of Representatives that would condition American aid on the exclusion of Hamas from parliamentary elections in January.

The resolution, passed on Friday by a majority vote, warned that the participation of Hamas in the Palestinian government would "potentially undermine the ability of the United States to have a constructive relationship with or provide further assistance to the Palestinian Authority".

Moreover, the resolution, supported by the pro-Israeli lobbying group AIPAC, said the participation of Hamas, a welfare and resistance movement, in the legislative polls "will inevitably raise serious questions for the United States about the commitment of the PA and its leadership to making peace with Israel".

The PA played down the resolution, saying it flies in the face of the "very essence of democracy".

Abdullah Abdulla, the director-general of the Palestinian Foreign Ministry, said: "I don't understand how America calls for democracy in the Middle East and elsewhere and at the same time demands we exclude people we don't agree with from the democratic process."...

That's a real head-scratcher, Abdullah. Might it have something to do with the fact that the people "they don't agree with" are crazed jihadis who want to blow the Jews to smithereens?

That's my guess, anyway.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:07 | link | comments

The fashionable tyranny of What Now To Wear: Political tyranny isn't my only interest. I am also intriguided by another form of tyranny--the ostensibly shallow variety exerted by fashion and the so-called fasionable. In the Toronto section of the National Post, (p. 38--tho' I can't find it online) Alison Cunnigham waxes rhapsodic about What Not To Wear, the makeover show on TLC. The show features two style experts, Clinton Kelly and Stacy London. Each episode, they ambush an unsuspecting fashion victim, someone who’s execrable fashion sense has become so unbearable that relatives, friends or co-workers have taken the drastic step of turning them in to the fashion police. And each time Stacy and Clinton take them in hand, give them some guidelines and a credit card with a $5,000 limit, and set them loose in New York City to buy a whole new wardrobe—and it the process, buy a whole new identity.

For you see, while the show purports to be about revising a wardrobe, it’s really about refashioning a personality. Turning the shlumpy, mouseburger of a new mom who wears leggings and oversized sweatshirts into a confident paralegal in a well-cut suit. Toning down the inappropriate attire of the sexy real estate agent who’s recently lost a lot of weight and likes to show off her new body—far too much of her new body—at the office. Tearing the leather off a biker gal and encasing her in tasteful tweeds. Smoothing out the rough edges of the rock singer so he’s less Fred Flintstone and more Thin White Duke.

Alison Cunningham, who interviewed Stacy and Clinton because they’re promoting their new book, Dress Your Best: The Complete Guide to Finding the Style That’s Right for Your Body, says that “both hosts are impossibly likable” hosts who “treat their makeover subjects with respect, warmth and humour.” Which begs the question, “Has Ms. Cunningham actually seen the show?” The duo may use a great deal of humour, but much of it is withering, bitchy and insulting. And as for warmth and respect, that’s mostly in evidence at the end of the show, when they’ve succeeded in taking an often recalcitrant subject who’s perfectly content with her Duran Duran-era wardrobe and breaking her spirit to the point where she’s willing to kowtow to fascistic fashionistas who want her to look—well, as becomes evident through repeated viewings of the show, to look exactly like them.

To achieve their ends, Stacy and Clinton subject their victim to a ritualistic process of criticism, torture and self-abnegation which is so simple—and so effective—that the North Koreans could take a few pointers. First, unbeknownst to her, they capture her fashion faux pas on video—and, cruelly, make her watch it. Next, after she agrees to sign up for their regimen, they go through her wardrobe piece by piece, making snide and insulting comments as they force her to cast aside her favourites in a sort of Bonfire of the Vanities--without the flames. Out with that old AC/DC t-shirt she likes to wear when she goes to the supermarket; away with the fuzzy bunny slippers with the missing ears she likes to slip into after a hard day’s work; hasta la vista, Laura Ashley dress with the humungous flowers and the hole under the left arm which makes her look like Raggedy Ann. Then, the ultimate humiliation: they force her to wear some of her now-discarded wardrobe and step in front of—ugh!—a three way mirror lit by the brightest, most unflattering lights possible. Lights so harsh that even Stacy and Clinton, always impeccably turned out, look pasty. Lights that would make Tyra Banks look like Mike Tyson. After a few more insults (often interspersed with some back-handed compliments along the lines of “You’re so beautiful—but those horrible stirrup pants show all your bulges") the victim has been crushed sufficiently so as to be receptive to the new rules. Rules like: No more boxy jackets. No more giant flower prints. No more t-shirts with "funny" messages. No more clunky shoes. In fact, no more of whatever it was that made you look like you. The you you looked like before you agreed to give up your identity and become one of us.

After watching this ritual on TV last night—and I admit to having a perverse fascination for it since I seem to watch it all the time—I finally figured out what it reminded me of. In Tom Wolfe’s book The Right Stuff, he describes how NASA subjected the astronauts wives to makeovers (although that’s not a word they would have used at the time) so they—and by extension, the Space Program—would look their best in the pages of Life Magazine. As Wolfe describes it, every last “rogue cilia” was plucked and airbrushed until each wife was Stepfordized into an unreal ideal of the perfect--and perfectly lovely--wifey sending hubby off to his job in space.

None of Stacy and Clinton’s victims is headed for space, but like the astronauts wives, all have been refashioned into something new. Something that strips away their individuality—which, after all, is what all their bad taste amounts to—and turns them into tasteful clones of the people doing the refashioning. At the end each episode, as the clones reveal their new selves, they usually swear allegiance to their new masters and aver their faith in their new rules; sometimes they are so overcome that they're moved to tears. (There’s an occasional male makeover, like that previously Neanderthalish rock singer, but WNTW seems to prefer female victims—perhaps because they’re more inclined to weep?) But I often wonder: what happens a month or two after the show? When the new haircut starts to get a bit shaggy and they can’t afford to go to a fancy stylist like the one who did their hair on the show. When the idea of dressing up to buy some groceries starts to lose its appeal. When they just want to throw on some sweats, open a bag of Doritos and watch Oprah on the tube. Since I’ve yet to see any follow-up shows, I have a feeling that many of the madeovers revert to their former habits, maybe hit the local WalMart or Value Village to load up on the same type of synthetics they were forced to repudiate on the show. Maybe some of them even wonder, “What the heck was I thinking when I let Stacy and Clinton bully me that way?

At least, that’s what I like to imagine.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:35 | link | comments

Mr. Rogers' neighbourhood: Ted Rogers is the head of a communications empire which includes Rogers wireless, the cellphone branch of his corporation. He usually hangs out with the high and mighty of corporate Canada, but a story in the Globe and Mail reports that his cell phone, as well as those belonging to other top Rogers executives, has been keeping company with some pretty disreputable characters.Terrorists connected to Hezbollah have figured out how to "clone" the cellphones of Mr. Rogers and his flunkies, and have been using these faux phones to make gazillions of calls to their terror confreres in countries where these sorts of folks usually lurk--Syria, Libya, Pakistan, Kuwait, etc. In so doing, they've racked up immense phone bills which Rogers has been thoughtfully paying, thus wittingly or unwittingly helping to ease the jihadis' financial burden.

The story may never have come to light had a law professor named Susan Drummond not received a phone bill with astonomical charges to places she'd never called: 

Ms. Drummond, who had just returned from a month-long trip to Israel, went numb as she looked at the stupefying figure, which was more than 160 times higher than her typical monthly bill of about $75. The Rogers Wireless bill included a five-page list of calls charged to her phone, almost all of them to foreign countries that included Pakistan, Libya, Syria, India and Russia.

Ms. Drummond quickly determined what had happened: Someone had stolen her phone while she was away. She called Rogers Wireless, which told her there was nothing it could do, and she would have to pay the entire amount.

"I was shocked," she said. "Who wouldn't be?"

Since making that call to Rogers last August, Ms. Drummond and her partner, Harry Gefen, have been researching the cellphone giant, yielding some unexpected discoveries, among them that the phones of senior Rogers executives, including Mr. Rogers himself, were repeatedly "cloned" by terrorist groups that used them to make thousands of overseas calls.

That bit of information came out at a conference Mr. Gefen attended in September, where he spoke with Cindy Hopper, a manager in Rogers security department, who told him that the phones of top Rogers executives had been the target of repeated cloning by a group linked to Hezbollah. (Cloning involves the duplication of a cellphone's identity by capturing its number and encrypted security code.)

Speaking into Mr. Gefen's tape recorder -- and unaware that he was an aggrieved customer -- Ms. Hopper said terrorist groups had identified senior cellphone company officers as perfect targets, since the company was loath to shut off their phones for reasons that included inconvenience to busy executives and, of course, the public-relations debacle that would take place if word got out.

"They were cloning the senior executives repeatedly, because everyone was afraid to cut off Ted Rogers' phone," Ms. Hopper says on the tape.

"They were using actually a pretty brilliant psychology. Nobody wants to cut off Ted Rogers' phone or any people that are directly under Ted Rogers, so they took their scanners to our building, like our north building, where our senior top, top, top executives are. They took their scanners there and also to Yorkville, where there are a lot of high rollers and like it would be a major PR blunder to shoot first and ask questions later. . . . Nobody wants to shut off Ted. Even if he is calling Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and Kuwait."...

Unbelievable as it sounds, even though the calls were made by terrorists who'd cloned her phone, Ms. Drummond is still on the hook for the charges. Currently, she is fighting with Rogers to get the charges taken off her bill, but the small print in the contract she signed says that she can't take the communications giant to court but must resolve the matter through binding arbitration. This "divide and conquer" strategy prevents other disgruntled customers from banding together and launching a class action claim--a strategy almost as brilliant as terrorists cloning executives' cell phones. Rogers has offered to settle the matter for a mere $2,000, but Ms. Drummond says she refuses to pay for stolen services.

Now that the story has been publicized--and Rogers has all sorts of egg on its face--it must take immediate steps to curtail the thievery of these high-tech Salafists. In other words, if mysterious calls to terror hot spots show up on Ted's bill, maybe give him a quick call to confirm he's been on the blower to, say, Damascus and/or Tripoli. If he hasn't, it might be a good idea to change his number--immediately. No need to worry about any resulting embarrassment. It could never compare to how foolish, irresponsible and unreasonable Rogers looks today on the front page of Canada's national newspaper.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:16 | link | comments (1)

Advantage, Kazakhstan: Well, the Kazakhs have finally done it--they've silenced that pesky Borat. From the IHT:

PARIS The official Web site of Borat Sagdiyev - the fictitious, self-styled second-string Kazakh journalist and sixth-most-famous man in Kazakhstan - was hardly a postcard extolling this vast, oil-rich nation sandwiched between Russia and China.

"Kazakhstan is as civilized as any other country in the world!" Borat, as he is known, boasted in a Web site posting that is actually the work of the British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, star of "Da Ali G Show," a television comedy in Britain and the United States.

"Women can now travel on inside of bus, homosexuals no longer have to wear blue hat and age of consent has been raised to 8 years old."

But now, the grainy image of Borat - posed in his trademark dark curls, below a Kazakh flag and dueling pistols - has vanished along with the Web site, shut down this week by the Kazakh authorities, who were not joking.
For almost a year, government officials have been grumbling about Borat, the loutish anti-ambassador of Kazakhstan who is a master of fractured English and likes to expose prejudice by showing how easy it is to encourage a crowd in a bar to sing a chorus of "Throw the Jew down the well so my country can be free!"

In the latest skirmish, Borat's official home page, www.borat.kz, was closed by the Association of IT Companies of Kazakhstan. It issued orders to KazNIC, which presides over registration of the country's domain name.

"This is a political matter," said KazNIC's managing director, Alexander Bolshakov, who insisted that he did not know who made the decision.

However, a document obtained by the International Herald Tribune indicated that the association received two complaints in December from the government and the security service for Kazakhstan's president, which accused the borat.kz Web site of besmirching the "international image of Kazakhstan." They also asserted that the Web page had been registered by a nonresident of the country with the aims of "unconscientious usage."...

"Unconscientious usage"--without meaning to and without even trying, people devoid of a funny bone just succeeded in defining political satire.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:14 | link | comments (1)

Apocalypse, soon: Great news from Iraq, writes Charles Krauthhammer. But right next door there's a maniac with an itchy trigger finger who wants to lob a nuke at the Jewish state. And even worse--he's a zealot who believes in that final cosmic battle. From RealClear Politics:

Lest you get carried away with today's good news from Iraq, consider what's happening next door in Iran. The wild pronouncements of the new Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have gotten sporadic press ever since he called for Israel to be wiped off the map. He subsequently amended himself to say that Israel should simply be extirpated from the Middle East map and moved to some German or Austrian province. Perhaps near the site of an old extermination camp?

Except that there were no such camps, indeed no Holocaust at all, says Ahmadinejad. Nothing but ``myth,'' a ``legend'' that was ``fabricated ... under the name `Massacre of the Jews.'''

This brought the usual reaction from European and American officials, who, with Churchillian rage and power, called these statements unacceptable. That something serious may accrue to Iran for this -- say, expulsion from the U.N. for violating its most basic principle by advocating the outright eradication of a member state -- is, of course, out of the question.

To be sure, Holocaust denial and calls for Israel's destruction are commonplace in the Middle East. They can be seen every day on Hezbollah TV, in Syrian media, in Egyptian editorials appearing in semiofficial newspapers. But none of these aspiring mass murderers are on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons that could do in one afternoon what it took Hitler six years to do -- destroy an entire Jewish civilization and extinguish 6 million souls.

Everyone knows where Iran's nuclear weapons will be aimed. Everyone knows they will be put on Shahab rockets that have been modified so they can now reach Israel. And everyone knows that if the button is ever pushed, it will be the end of Israel.

But it gets worse. The president of a country about to go nuclear is a confirmed believer in the coming apocalypse. Like Judaism and Christianity, Shiite Islam has its own version of the messianic return -- the reappearance of the Twelfth Imam. The more devout believers in Iran pray at the Jamkaran Mosque that houses a well from which, some believe, he will emerge...

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:04 | link | comments

If it looks like Holocaust denial and quacks like Holocaust denial...: Sometimes, it's all just a big "misunderstanding." So says an Iranian cabinet minister who, unlike his president and his puppeteers, seems uncomfortable with the heat Iran is taking over the mythical Holocaust remark. From the CBC:

Controversial remarks about Israel made by the president of Iran were "misunderstood," said the country's interior minister.

Mostafa Pur Mohammadi told the Associated Press on Friday that western condemnation of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's anti-Israel remarks was misguided.

Earlier this week, Ahmadinejad said that if Europeans insist the Holocaust occurred, then Europe should provide land for Israel.

But speaking from an immigration conference in Athens on Friday, Mohammadi said the president's remarks were misinterpreted by western governments.

"He wanted to say that if certain people have created troubles for the Jewish community they should bear the expenses, and it is not others who should pay for that," said Mohammadi...

Thanks for clearing that up, Mostafa. And, hey,  good luck with those nukes.

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:27 | link | comments

Siddiqui's propoganda: You know all that Al Qaeda/Muslim Brotherhood stuff about how jihadis want to turn the remainder of Dar al Harb into Dar al Islam and restore the caliphate? It's all a crock put forward by conspiracy-minded American leaders who want to scare their own people as a means to keep them united against a spectral enemy. At least, that's the word according to the Toronto Star's resident Islamist (or resident apologist for Islamism--at a certain point it becomes virtually impossible to distinguish between the two) Haroon Siddiqui:

We had Wahhabism. We had the madrassas. We had the houris of Heaven. Now we have the caliphate.

Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld et al have been raising the spectre of a worldwide Islamic rule by a caliph, as envisaged by Osama bin Laden, Abu Musab Zarqawi and other terrorists.

The chances of a caliphate coming are zero. But raising its spectre helps keep Americans scared. Never mind that, just as the reasons given for the Iraq war proved false, the explanations offered for terrorism have not met the test of time either.

When 15 of the 19 terrorists of 9/11 turned out to have been Saudis, Washington and its apologists blamed Wahhabism, the essentialist Islam practised in Saudi Arabia. The problem with that theory was that the Saudi ruling family, the guardians of Wahhabism, was and remains the staunchest ally of the U.S. and guarantor of its energy needs.

We were also told that terrorists were hatched primarily in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere in religious schools. But we know now that most of those who bombed Bali, Jakarta, Istanbul, Amman, etc. were not graduates of those schools. Nor were those responsible for the train bombings in Madrid and London. They were Muslims born or raised in Europe.

So were the two Britons who went to Israel in 2003 to be suicide bombers. So was the man who murdered Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh in 2004. So have been some of those turning up in Iraq to join the insurgency.

The third theory was that suicide bombers were inspired by Islam's promise of a Paradise full of virgins. That may have motivated the religiously inclined but not others, certainly not women bombers, who had no such sexual favours to look forward to in Heaven.

Now comes the caliphate — from the Arabic word, khil'afah, rule by a khaleefah, successor to the Prophet Muhammad, who died in 632 A.D.

A caliphate is an ideal Islamic polity governed by God's law. But a debate has raged for 1,400 years over whether it's a religious requirement or just a tool to regulate social order and public welfare. Is it local or worldwide? There's no consensus.

The first caliphate lasted until 661 A.D. Others followed, the last one being the Ottoman Empire that ended in 1924.

Since then, debate has turned to how best to combine religion and state. There's no agreement. States labelling themselves Islamic have offered varying models — Afghanistan of the Taliban, Iran of the mullahs, the semi-dictatorships of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and the moderate Malaysia. Iraq now calls itself an Islamic democracy, á la Israel's Jewish democracy.

The dream of a caliphate is confined to the marginalized: a rallying cry by the bin Laden-Zarqawi crowd, and, among others, by a Central Asian group battling the dictatorships there...

The article is so suffused with lies, half-truths, and outright distortions (like the one above equating Iraq's "democracy" to Israel's--about as outrageous, revolting and untimely a claim as I've ever read in a mainstream publication) that, were it a factual piece of reportage, it would never have been allowed to run. Since it's an opinion piece, though, much lower standards apply, and Siddiqui is allowed to make the most ridiculous statements with complete impunity. (As a corrective, I would refer you to jihadwatch, dhimmiwatch, MEMRI, Palestine Media Watch and many other websites which, contrary to Siddiqui's assertions of the jihad's harmlessness, regularly post items detailing its true--and truly malign--intentions.) And because he can make them in Canada's highest circulation newspaper, lots of people who don't know any better and read no further--and who think, "If it's in the Toronto Star, it must be authoritative"--believe him.

A close reading of Siddiqui reveals one salient fact: this is not "opinion"; this is dangerous propoganda masquerading as opinion. And Haroon Siddiqui is an Islamic Lord Haw Haw with a bully pulpit in Canada's most popular paper.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:49 | link | comments (2)

United they stand: For all those who still harbour delusions that the Palestinian issue is stricly one of frustrated nationalism unconected to the world wide jihad, here's a Hamas spokesman to set you straight. From aljazeera.net:

The Palestinian group Hamas will step up attacks against Israel if it takes military action against Iran.

Khaled Meshaal also praised Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, for his "courage" in having dismissed the Holocaust as a myth and calling for Israel to be moved out of the Middle East to Europe or North America.

"Just as Islamic Iran defends the rights of the Palestinians, we defend the rights of Islamic Iran," Meshaal told reporters in Tehran on Thursday. "We are part of a united front against the enemies of Islam.

"Each member of this front defends itself with its own means in its region. We carry the battle in Palestine. If Israel launches an attack against Iran, we will expand the battlefield.

"We are part of a united front, and if one member of this front is attacked it is our duty to support them."...

And Hamas stands poised to make good on its promise. According to another althatjaz story, its star is ascending while Abbas's is rapidly declining. Or asThe Australian puts it, "Arafat's party defeated by Hamas."

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:50 | link | comments

Defending Israel from the outside: A blistering piece by Caroline Glick in the JWR. An angry Glick in high dugeon is indeed thrilling to read. In this one, she flays Israel's Foreign Ministry for failing, nay, refusing to safeguard the interests of the Jewish State. Glick says it's pathetic to see Israel bow and scrape for a few pitiful crumbs thrown its way at the endemically anti-Semitic U.N. She says these days it's not Israel's Foreign Ministry that's looking out for the Jewish state; it's Americans like John Bolton--the UN ambassador who's under no illusions about the nature of the international forum; it's Anne Bayevsky, a private citizen and human rights activist who smuggled in a digital camera to record a UN event where, shades of Ahmadinejad, Israel had been literally wiped off the map and replaced by an entity called Palestine; it's an anonymous editorialist in the Wall Street Journal who, on the morning following Israel's "great victory"--being allowed into the International Red Cross with the proviso that it efface the Jews' ancient symbol--wrote that the victory was Pyrrhic at best, completely illusory at worst. At this stage, writes Glick, Israel seems to have lost the ability to identify its best interests, much less defend them:

...What the Journal's editorial, Bayevsky's activism and Bolton's actions at the UN have in common is that in all cases, foreigners, rather than the Government of Israel, are the ones protesting Israel's mistreatment by international bodies.

Indeed, since the outbreak of the Palestinian terror war, as Israel's international standing and the standing of Jews throughout the world have deteriorated to a level not seen since the Holocaust, the most effective actions taken in defense of Israel internationally have been conducted by private organizations and private individuals, mainly in the US. These actions run the gamut: from countering anti-Semitism on college campuses; lobbying the US Congress and the EU to cut off funding to the Palestinian Authority, Egypt and Saudi Arabia; exposing the finding arms of terrorist organizations; to monitoring the US media for distortions in Middle East coverage. The Middle East Media Research Institute, which monitors and translates the Arabic press, has done more to expose the anti-Westernism, misogyny, anti-Americanism and genocidal anti-Semitism that is rife in Arab culture than any government of Israel ever dreamed of doing.

In some cases, these organizations have been supported by the Foreign Ministry. In others, they have been undercut by the Foreign Ministry. But regardless, it is impossible to deny the fact that the incompetence of the Israeli government in defending Israel in the international arena, and particularly in the US has been mitigated substantially by the valiant efforts of these organizations and individuals, many of whom work as volunteers.

Rather than demand that the Foreign Ministry operate more effectively, the time has come for Israelis to simply acknowledge that for whatever reason, the ministry is incapable of operating differently. The fact of the matter is that since the beginning of the Oslo process in 1993, the Foreign Ministry has preferred fancy, empty ceremonies to actual diplomatic achievements. Perhaps one day we'll get our own Bolton who will fix the situation. But regardless of whether one ever appears, the time has come for Israelis to start advancing private initiatives...

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:25 | link | comments

Strange adjective: A Globe and Mail article (and the headline adorning it) describes Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (Hip Hop name: Moo Jihad) as a "fiery leader".

Fiery, huh? Makes him sound almost appealing. Passionate. Committed to his cause. A real crowd-pleaser.

Too bad he's also a demented, brain-corroded Holocaust naysayer who thinks green auras emanate from his noggin.

Just wait til he gets that nuke, though. Then he'll be really fiery.

Update: More evidence that Ahmadinejad is Howdy Doody to the mullahs' Buffalo Bob. From Reuters:

A senior Iranian cleric on Friday backed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent comment that the Holocaust was a myth, the official IRNA news agency reported.

"The recent comments made by the president ... are completely logical and are what all Iranians say," Ayatollah Ali Meshkini told worshippers at Friday prayers in the city of Qom.

Ahmadinejad on Wednesday said the Holocaust was a myth and suggested Israel be moved to North America or Europe, comments that drew swift international condemnation.

"After the Second World War, the Zionists have spread lies that Hitler, Austria and Germany killed more than six million Jews in the furnaces in order to create a favorable situation for themselves in the world," said Meshkini.

Meshkini is chairman of Iran's Assembly of Experts, a clerical body that elects and supervises the performance of Iran's Supreme Leader, currently Ayatollah Ali Khamenei...

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:46 | link | comments

Abiding Iran: An Associated Press report about the world's supposed impatience with the Iranian Green Lantern, the superhero who singlehandedly wants to wipe Jews off the map. (Okay, maybe not all by himself.) Rather than demonstrating the world's impatience, however, the report really shows precisely the opposite: how willing everyone is to put up with Iran no matter how ill-mannered, belligerent and genocidal the mully-bullies and their mouthpiece happen to be:

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- European leaders warned Thursday that patience with Iran is running thin less than a week before envoys from Britain, France and Germany are to resume negotiations with Tehran over its nuclear program.

A day after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the Holocaust a "myth," Europe's foreign ministers were expected to discuss his comments at a summit. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said his delegation would demand a European Union condemnation.

"The government in Tehran must understand that the patience of the international community is not endless," he told the German parliament in Berlin before leaving for Belgium....

Benita Ferrero-Waldner, EU external relations commissioner, called Ahmadinejad's views "absolutely irresponsible." Denying the Holocaust - in which 6 million Jews died during World War II at Nazi hands - is a crime in several European nations.

China, which maintains good relations with both Iran and Israel, said such remarks could undermine world stability.

"We are not in favor of any remarks detrimental to stability and peace," Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said Thursday. "Israel is a sovereign state."

Moscow did not directly criticize Ahmadinejad but condemned any attempts to deny the Holocaust, and said it was necessary to restate Moscow's "principled position."

"Speculation on these themes runs contrary to the principles of the U.N. Charter and the opinion of the world community," the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

Arab governments appeared reluctant to condemn Ahmadinejad. In Saudi Arabia, government-controlled newspapers picked up the remarks from international news agencies but did not comment on them.

The Palestinians tried to distance themselves. "Ahmadinejad's statements hurt the Palestinian cause because Israel and the Holocaust enjoy international recognition, and any denial of the Holocaust and Israel hurt not only those behind it but also justify Israeli actions against them," said Hani al-Masri in the Al Ayyam newspaper, which is close to the Palestinian Authority.

Steinmeier said Ahmadinejad's comments weighed heavily on talks over Tehran's nuclear program and showed "with how much irresponsibility and cynicism the Iranian government currently regards the situation of Israel and the Near East."

Envoys from Germany, France and Britain have been leading diplomatic efforts to allay fears over Iran's nuclear intentions. They are to resume negotiations with Tehran on Dec. 21.

Some German lawmakers urged the government to consider excluding Iran from the World Cup soccer tournament to take place in Germany next year, but the organizers ruled that out...

And there you have it. Anyone who believes the EU has either the stones or the will to prevent Iran from acquiring nukes should take note: these stoneless crocodile-feeders don't even have enough courage to exclude Iran from a soccer game.

Good to know that the nutjob's comments weigh so heavily on them, though. One would hate to think they were entirely without feeling.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:18 | link | comments (1)

"Democracy" in Palestine: Given a choice between freedom and tyranny, Natan Sharansky assured us in his influential book, The Case for Democracy, you can usually count on most people to opt for the former.

'Cept, of course, if they're in the grip of Jew-hatred borne of their own religious supremacism. From Israelinsider:

In a new Hamas pre-election video, the terror organization again declares that it will not give up its armed struggle until Israel is destroyed.

The Hamas message likewise celebrates its love of death as superior to the Israeli love of life. It also expresses support for those Israeli Arabs that wish to destroy Israel "from the interior." Hamas looks forward to a day when its flag will fly over not only Jerusalem, but over all Israeli cities, including Acre and Haifa.

The release of the new video on the Hamas website, reiterating its goal of destroying Israel, coincides with two polls this week showing Hamas turning into a major political force, with between 32% and 45% of Palestinians saying they will vote for Hamas in January's parliamentary elections. What are the implications for peace, should nearly 50% of the Palestinian Authority parliament be open supporters of Israel's destruction?

It will be interesting to see if the continuing Hamas election campaign calling for Israel's destruction will prompt a change in United States or European Union policy. The US State Department has made clear that while it continues to transfer hundreds of millions of dollars of support to the PA, it will make no demands on it to prevent the Hamas from participating in the upcoming elections. The EU and United Nations have also agreed that Hamas can participate in the elections.

The following are the words on the new Hamas video:

"We succeeded, with Allah's grace, to raise an ideological generation that loves death like our enemies love life. We will not abandon the way of Jihad and Shahada [Martyrdom] as long as one inch of our holy land is in the hands of the Jews.

"Congratulations to our people of 1948 [Israeli Arabs] on the liberation of Gaza. You wish to destroy them [the Israelis] from the interior. We will never forget you, and never leave you. A day will come when our flag will fly above all the quarters of our land. Our flag will fly on the minarets of Jerusalem, and the walls of Acre, and the quarters of Haifa."

Any questions, Condi? George?

Arik?

Anybody home?

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:39 | link | comments

Travels in dystopia: Despite the Iranian president's off-putting remarks about genocide, Iran is keen to attract lots of tourists to its shores. They figure they have the goods to entice foreign visitors, including ancient sites and gorgeous scenery. To market themselves, they've been casing about for an appropriate slogan to entice the masses and think they've hit on the perfect one. From the aptly-named IranMania:

LONDON, December 15 (IranMania) - Iran's hardline president may have given the country some bad press of late but the Islamic republic's tourism authorities are nevertheless hoping to lure visitors with "civilisation and friendship".

"From now on, the expression 'Iran, the Land of Civilization and Friendship' will be seen on Iran's advertising catalogues and posters in international fairs," Iran's CHN cultural news agency reported.

Mehdi Jahangiri, director general of Iran's state-run Tourism Development Company, said the new catch phrase was chosen over another possibility, 'Iran, the Land of Wonders', but said ideas for other slogans were still welcome.

Iran has had a tough time attracting foreign tourists since the 1979 Islamic revolution, despite offering breathtaking architectural wonders and stunning desert and mountain scenery.

Small specialist tour groups still visit, but many tourists are deterred from travelling to a country which the United States describes as "evil" and at the centre of an international crisis over alleged attempts to acquire nuclear weapons.

The shock presidential election win in June of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has added to tourism sector difficulties, according to the industry's workers, with the president now best known for his rather unfriendly call for Israel to be "wiped off the map".

Um, I hate to break it to these folks, but ethnic cleansing and nuclear warheads ain't exactly Vegas.

Love the motto, though, even if "Iran, the Land of seething Shia Jew-haters" is more accurate.

Some other slogan suggestions;

• Iran, the Apex of the Axis of Evil;
• Iran, We Try Harder;
• Iran--if you hate Jews, you'll love us.
  
  

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:40 | link | comments

Poisoning impressionable minds: If the future depends on the ability of the young to discern truth from lies and fact from distortion, Western civilization is in big trouble. The jihad on university campuses has already been waged--and won. From the New York Sun:

At Columbia, the course catalog indicates that this spring the anthropology professor, Nicholas DeGenova, who called for "a million Mogadishus" and said "the only true heroes are those who find ways that help defeat the U.S. military," will be teaching a graduate class on "The Metaphisics of Antiterrorism." At least he isn't teaching spelling. At the University of South Florida, our Josh Gerstein reports elsewhere on this page, there's talk of rehiring Sami Al-Arian, whose lawyers conceded during a recent trial that he had "an affiliation" with the people in Palestinian Islamic Jihad. That is a deadly terrorist group.

Meanwhile, Harvard and Georgetown universities announced this week that they had received $10 million each from a Saudi Arabian prince, Alwaleed bin Talal, to fund Islamic studies. Alwaleed, the so-called Saudi Warren Buffett, has also amassed sizable stakes in Citigroup and in Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, owner of Fox News Channel and of the New York Post. The prince became notorious when Mayor Giuliani turned down a $10 million gift from him after September 11, 2001, because the gift came with a statement saying that America should tilt its foreign policy more in favor of the Palestinian Arabs.

Not all anti-Israel or anti-American professors receive funding from overseas, and not all professors who receive funding from overseas are anti-American or anti-Israel. That said, it will be illuminating to watch to see whom Harvard selects to fill the new chair that will be known as the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Professor in Contemporary Islamic Thought and Life. Somehow we doubt it'll be a scholar who reckons that Mecca and Medina should be redistributed to the Hashemites and the oil rich Saudi eastern provinces to the Shiites or who criticizes the Saudis for funding the Hamas terrorist group and for distributing audiotapes in the West Bank describing the Jews as "the sons of monkeys and pigs." Somehow we doubt it will be a scholar who criticizes the Saudi kingdom for obstructing the American investigation into the 1996 Dhahran barracks bombing. It will be interesting to see how the scholar stands on the petition calling on Harvard to divest from Israel and from American companies that sell arms to Israel...

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:12 | link | comments

Bleak continent: Novelist Paul Theroux lambastes do-gooders like Bono who think the solution to Africa's problems is to throw lots more money at the place, hoping that this time it will do the trick. Theroux, who spent a good deal of time on the continent, compares the Nobel Peace Prize-aspiring rock star to Mrs. Jellyby, one of Dickens's most comical--and comically misguided--characters. From the New York Times:

THERE are probably more annoying things than being hectored about African development by a wealthy Irish rock star in a cowboy hat, but I can't think of one at the moment. If Christmas, season of sob stories, has turned me into Scrooge, I recognize the Dickensian counterpart of Paul Hewson - who calls himself "Bono" - as Mrs. Jellyby in "Bleak House." Harping incessantly on her adopted village of Borrioboola-Gha "on the left bank of the River Niger," Mrs. Jellyby tries to save the Africans by financing them in coffee growing and encouraging schemes "to turn pianoforte legs and establish an export trade," all the while badgering people for money.

It seems to have been Africa's fate to become a theater of empty talk and public gestures. But the impression that Africa is fatally troubled and can be saved only by outside help - not to mention celebrities and charity concerts - is a destructive and misleading conceit. Those of us who committed ourselves to being Peace Corps teachers in rural Malawi more than 40 years ago are dismayed by what we see on our return visits and by all the news that has been reported recently from that unlucky, drought-stricken country. But we are more appalled by most of the proposed solutions.

I am not speaking of humanitarian aid, disaster relief, AIDS education or affordable drugs. Nor am I speaking of small-scale, closely watched efforts like the Malawi Children's Village. I am speaking of the "more money" platform: the notion that what Africa needs is more prestige projects, volunteer labor and debt relief. We should know better by now. I would not send private money to a charity, or foreign aid to a government, unless every dollar was accounted for - and this never happens. Dumping more money in the same old way is not only wasteful, but stupid and harmful...

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:53 | link | comments

Ahmadinejad's new fans:  While Ahmadinejad's map-wiping, myth-quashing project isn't going over too well in the West, it seems to be gaining traction with its intended audience in the Muslim world. MEMRI has a translation of a recent symposium at Lebanon's largest university in which students voiced their approval of the Green Lantern's urban renewal scheme. Here, for example, is how a student named Hisham sees it:

Hisham Sham'as: "The state shouldn't be only within the 1976 borders... Or rather, 1967... Israel must be wiped out."

Mediator: "You mean, reviving the motto of erasing Israel from the map."

Hisham Sham'as: "Israel should be completely wiped out, so the Palestinians will have a country to return to."

Mediator: "If someone tells you this motto is unrealistic, how would you respond?"

Hisham Sham'as: "There is no such thing as unrealistic. Just as Israel... Just like Hitler fought the Jews - We are a great Islamic nation of Jihad, and we too should fight the Jews and burn them."

Nothing banal about that kind of evil, eh Hannah?

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:45 | link | comments

Ceeb news selection: Can't find the link on its website, but Ceeb radio news just informed us that the mayor of Bethlehem is mighty upset about Israel's "separation wall." Difference of opinion about the whole point of the wall, 'course. As the Ceeb explains it, Israelis say it impedes terrorism while Palestinians see it as "a land grab." And relatively speaking (the Ceeb's native tongue) they both have a point. Except, as the Ceeb sees it, the Palestinians have more of a point. Why else broadcast this non-story about the mayor is worried that the "wall" cuts off his town from Jerusalem and might inhibit the flow of tourists at Christmas?

That's the CBC for you--redefining "news" to mean anything that advances its anti-Israel, anti-U.S. agenda.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:23 | link | comments

Sharia transport: If you're a woman in the predominantly Muslim Nigerian province of Kano who's looking to get from point A to point B, you may be out of luck. Women are no longer allowed to travel in three wheeled motorized taxi bikes--the primary source of public transit in the area--with men. To do so contravenes those sensible and emminently fair sharia laws. From Islam Online:

...Authorities in the state have introduced about 500 three-wheeled motorbike taxis and 100 women's-only buses to implement the ban. But Nigerian women say this is not sufficient.

Under the ban, commercial motorcylists seen carrying women could be fined.

But since implementing the ban, officials in the city have not arrested or fined offenders, only warning them about the new ban.

But Nigerian Muslim jurists, both male and female, say Shari'ah is an opportunity to help downtrodden women.

But wait. There seems to be a difference of opinion on the matter:

Islam says it is permissible to allow women to ride bikes, cars and other means of transportation.

The only condition is that women should stick to the Islamic manners while riding the bike.

She should abide by the Islamic code of dress and she should not sit on the same bike behind or in front of a non-Mahram male, for this leads to forbidden touching.

May as well stay home, sister, and contemplate how sharia has elevated you from your "downtrodden" status.

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:06 | link | comments

Religion and politics don't mix: And I ain't talking sharia. From the New York Sun:

An anti-war letter sent to President Bush yesterday by the Union for Reform Judaism has ignited a furor among some Reform Jews who say they support American policy in Iraq and the statement is not representative of Jewish opinion.

The letter, a copy of which was sent to members of Congress last week, alerts the president to a resolution the union passed at its Biennial General Assembly last month in Houston. The resolution calls for a "clear exit strategy" from Iraq that includes specific troop withdrawals after the parliamentary elections on December 15. The statement also condemns the use of torture and abuse of prisoners and detainees, demands more transparency from the Bush administration, and calls for the creation of a bipartisan commission to investigate administration failures before and during the war.

The letter to President Bush, signed by the union's president, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, and its chairman, Robert Heller, claims the Iraq war had to the "discrediting of America in the international community" and contributed "to the growth of terrorism."

Several Jewish leaders, including Reform rabbis, swiftly rebuked the letter yesterday.

A rabbi of a Reform synagogue in Danbury, Conn., Clifford Librach, said the letter "amplifies the extraordinary alienation from Israel and Israel's security on the part of the American Reform elite."

"There may be a majority of American Reform Jews who are currently opposed to this war under any circumstances," Rabbi Librach said, "but the role of leadership is not to rubberstamp misguided popular opinion. The new peace process in Israel has advanced in part because Iraq has been neutralized and removed from the equation."...

Ah, yes--Rabbi Yoffie. Might that be the same Rabbi Yoffie who, at that Houston Assembly last month said that some Orthodox Jewish Rabbis were acting like Nazis?

Indeedee do.

Sounds like Rabbi Yoffie is a Tony Kushner/Harold Pinter/Noam Chomsky kind of Jew--the kind that hates Zionism and Jews who look and sound "too Jewish." Who knows? Maybe that kind of attitude may save them come the next "mythical" Holocaust.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:08 | link | comments

Mything person: The Persian Peacock is preening to the masses again, wailing about the "mythical" Holocaust. It's all a plot, you see, by sneaky Europeans to unload their Jews in the the heart of Dar al Islam and, dammit, he's had enough of it. From the Times Online:

The President of Iran claimed today that the Holocaust was a myth put about by Europeans to justify creating a Jewish state in the heart of the Islamic world.

Speaking to thousands of people in the southeastern city of Zahedan, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said: "Today, they have created a myth in the name of Holocaust and consider it to be above God, religion and the prophets."

Mr Ahmadinejad said that it was the Europeans who committed crimes against the Jews and they, the United States or Canada, should give part of their land to the Jews to establish a state.

The President pleased hardliners in Iran but provoked an international outcry when in October he called Israel a "disgraceful blot" that should be "wiped off the map".

Last week, he suggested that Israel should be transferred to Europe.

"If you (Europeans) committed this big crime, then why should the oppressed Palestinian nation pay the price?" he asked rhetorically today.

"You (Europeans) have to pay the compensation yourself. This is our proposal: give a part of your own land in Europe, the United States, Canada or Alaska to them (Jews), so that the Jews can establish their country," he said.

He said that the West had harmed Muslims, invaded their countries and plundered their wealth.

"If your civilisation consists of aggression, making oppressed people homeless, suffocating the voices of justice and bringing poverty to a majority of the world’s people, we say loudly that we hate your hollow civilisation," he said.

That last sentence is as good a definition of the holy war as you're likely to read in the mainstream press. Sounds like Mr. A. is engaging in what a psychotherapist might call projection. And the inability to discern truth from "myth" (all the while being in the grip of his own religious myth)--another indication that the man has slipped the bonds of sanity and is hovering somewhere in the realm of dementia.

All of which makes him even more dangerous.

Also, if he's so uncomfortable with the neighbours, perhaps he's the one who should relocate.

I suggest a nice padded cell in, say, Anchorage.

Update: Do you get the feeling that the Peacock's rants have as much to do with the Jews as they do with the cat and mouse gaming he's currently playing with the EU? The game goes like this: Peacock says something outrageous about the Jews; EUnuchs, who've had their own issues with the tribe, condemn the remarks; meanwhile, Peacock and crew get on with the fulfilling business of going nuclear. Listen, for example, to the German reaction to the Peacock's latest move. From CNN:

Germany's foreign minister described as "shocking and unacceptable" Wednesday the Iranian president's description of the Holocaust as a "myth," warning that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's comments weighed on relations and talks over Iran's nuclear program.

Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said his government had summoned the charge d'affaires at the Iranian Embassy and made "unmistakably clear" its displeasure.

"I cannot hide the fact that this weighs on bilateral relations and on the chances for the negotiation process, the so-called nuclear dossier," he told reporters.

Steinmeier said Berlin is hoping for "a clear signal of the strongest disapproval" from this week's European Union summit...

Whoa. I wish he hadn't mentioned that part about "bilateral relations" and "the negotiation process" and "the so-called nuclear dossier." That sexy diplomacy-speak this early in the morning gets me so hot  that I'm useless the rest of the day. Better hop in a cold shower and cool down.

Update: Der Spiegel Online has an interview with an Iranian who tries to decode the Peacock's "cryptic" comments:

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Dr. Ansari, this is the third time Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has spoken of either destroying or moving Israel. Is he serious?

Ansari: I think he's serious. I think he thinks he's serious. But his enemies, even in Iran, must be rubbing their hands.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Who are his comments on Israel and the Holocaust intended for?

Ansari: It will help him with a particular constituency in Iran. We have to remember there may be about 5 million people in Iran of that particular ilk, who want to hear the things he's saying. Even among the people who believe him, though -- here I'm talking about the conservative political management -- he's getting a little out of hand. While they may agree with him, they think he's getting tactically out of hand.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Out of hand for what reason? Are they worried about the international reaction at all?

Ansari: I think most Iranians have gotten used to him, because he says these kinds of things all the time. But they may be quite embarrassed by the international reaction. A sense of honor is very important in Iran, and what people feel is almost as important as what people think. So people might feel they're being embarrassed -- even if they agree with his ideas -- and this will have an impact. Remember that he's moved beyond just saying that Israel is a problem. You can say 'Israel is a problem,' and many people in the Middle East will agree with you. But he's moved qualitatively away from that particular argument. There is a Jewish population in Iran that is not insignificant, and to say the Holocaust is a myth is to give up any hope of working with them politically. To say the Holocaust is a myth, as a private person, might be one thing; but for a leader to say it is something else.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Internationally, the only times we hear from Ahmadinejad are when he talks about Israel. What do people in Iran think about him otherwise?

Ansari: I think where he really crossed the line where the domestic audience is concerned is when he said a green aura was coming out of his head during his speech to the United Nations. This conversation got filmed, and people can watch it on DVD. Ahmadinejad came home from his speech and told an ayatollah that everyone at the General Assembly -- all these world leaders -- didn't even blink for thirty minutes (out of awe). Lots of people have seen this in Iran, and it makes him seem a bit too superstitious.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Are his comments tactical in any way -- part of Iran's attempt to get nuclear weapons?

Ansari: It's got nothing to do with the nuclear thing at all, but it will have an impact.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: How?

Ansari: Because basically Israel and others can say look, how can we let this country have nuclear weapons? An Iranian official told me that even if Israel and the United States had spent 'a billion dollars in propaganda against us,' they could not have done a better job. In that sense he's a gift. The Israelis are rubbing their hands in glee.

Thanks for that incisive analysis, Doc. Pardon me while I conjure up a mental image of Israelis gleefully rubbing their hands as a lunatic who thinks he's the Green Lantern reiterates his intention to murdelize the Jews--and the world community barely bats an eyelash

Nope, except for the part about the eyelash, can't quite seem to summon it up.

But I'm so relieved to hear that "it's got nothing to do with the nuclear thing at all." 

Update: Another Iranian pundit sees a method in Ahmadinejad's madness. From Monsters and Critics:

'What Ahmadinejad is doing is making very calculated statements with a clear purpose in mind,' said Alireza Jafarzadeh, president of Strategic Policy Consulting, and a former Washington spokesman for Iran`s parliament in exile, the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

Jafarzadeh is the one who revealed to the world in August 2002 that the Iranians were building nuclear facilities in Natanz and Araj.

'Ahmadinejad is trying to rally the Revolutionary Guards and the most radical elements in the regime to be fully behind him and boost their morale,' Jafarzadeh told United Press International.

At the same time, Ahmadinejad is also trying to reach out to the Muslim population in the Arab world, he believes. Hence the visit last week to Tehran by Hamas` leader Khalid Mashal.

'Ahmadinejad was placed at the head of the Islamic republic by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei with the aim to head toward a confrontation with the United States,' said Jafarzadeh.

'I believe he was tasked with a mission when he was selected by Khamenei,' claims Jafarzadeh. His mission is two pronged.

-- To get Iran its first nuclear weapon as quickly as possible and at whatever cost.

-- Establishing an Islamic republic in Iraq, or at least gaining a very significant influence over Iraqi affairs.

If Khamenei were not planning for a confrontation, he would not have chosen Ahmadinejad as president, he would have backed a less conservative candidate such Hashemi Rafsanjani.

'Ahmadinejad`s mission is not to negotiate,' says Jafarzadeh, 'but to confront. That is what he is doing on the nuclear side, and that is what he is doing in the entire region.'

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:08 | link | comments

The romance of jihad: The current issue of Rolling Stone magazine has a lenghty piece about "Khalid", a Yemen-born jihadi who's participated in every holy war that's gone done the pike for the past 15 years. A battle-scarred veteren, Khalid (not his real name of course) is posed handsomely against what looks like an Iraqi backdrop. Slim and dashing in immaculate whites (surely not his regular combat apparel), with a large, ornate dagger (very phallic, that) tucked into a leather holster at his waist and a red-chequered kefiyah masking his entire face except for the slits of his eyes and a thin strip of flesh above his eyebrows, Khalid looks every inch the holy warrior. But, according to this story by Tom Downey (who admits he has no way of corroborating the details but is convinced the broad strokes of the story are true), Khalid has grown weary of jihad. The problem, writes Downey, is that it's just not as fun as it used to be in Afghanistan, and Somalia, and Bosnia, and Kosovo. No, the jihad as it's being waged in the latest battleground, Iraq, has drained it of all its zest. The reason: the Baathist portion of the "insurgents", secular dregs of humanity who used to serve as Saddam's flying monkeys, have dragged the holy warriors down to their level. They're killing their own people--innocent civilians--for no apparent reason, and no decent holy warrior wants to partake in that kind of warfare. (As Downey recounts, Khalid and his cohorts were thrilled to bits when jihadis destroyed the WTC and 3,000 infidels--but that's a different kind of killing, right?)

Khalid doesn 't talk like a crazed religious fanatic (causing Downey to comment, "In short, he is not the kind of enemy we have been led to believe we are fighting." No? Speak for yourself, Tom. He sounds exactly like the kind of enemy we've become familiar with--the polite lad who packs a home-made bomb in his rucksack and sets out for a rendezvous with destiny on a London subway train). For him, the jihad seemed almost like the Arab version of the French Foreign Legion--a way to have thrilling adventures in exotic locales and bond in an almost homoerotic way with other brothers in arms: Join the jihad; see the world. It's not like he had anything better to do. He had no ambition, and aside from a stint as a clerk in a corner store in London, has never worked a day in his life. The jihad gave purpose, panache and excitement to what would have otherwise been a drab and colourless life. Without it, Khalid would have been just one more Kat-chewing Yemeni, drifting through his days in a drug-addled stupor with nothing to do and nowhere to go.

But jihad, as we know, is a younger man's game, and Khalid has decided it's time to settle down. Get married (actually, get married again--his first marriage to an Irish waitress when he was living in England, lasted only a short time. Seems she wasn't too keen about being forced to wear a hijab). Have kids. Move to the 'burbs. Problem is, like Michael Corleone in The Godfather, every time he tries to get out, they keep dragging him back in.

So, will Khalid manage to ignore the siren call of jihad from now on? Downey is dubious. He concludes

But Khalid can see no way to escape from his past. Like many veterans, he looks back on his years of fighting with nostalgia -- the thrill of battle, the feeling of brotherhood, the steadfast devotion to a cause. But on some days, it feels as if he has no place in the world. He lives in Sanaa, but it no longer seems like home. Every few days he walks down to a storefront calling center and phones his brother in England. He doubts he can ever go back to the life he knew there. He often visited the mosques frequented by the London bombers, and he fears police will arrest him if he tries to return. But if he stays in Yemen, the brothers will keep trying to draw him back into the struggle.

These days, when they come over to his house and try to rally him for a mission to Iraq or Sudan, Khalid looks bored and says that he can't go anywhere now, that it would put his family in Yemen at risk. Even his fiancee's younger brother tried to enlist his aid to join the insurgency in Iraq. Khalid told him he couldn't help. He doesn't want any part of the fighting, but uncertainty might be seen as betrayal. So he keeps silent, and waits, and imagines the day when the war, and all that comes with it, will finally end.

Of course he does. Because, as a committed jihadi, he knows exactly when the jihad, the holy war and all that comes with it, will end. It will end when the world has finally been vanquished by Dar al Islam.

He knows it, even if the gullible reporter who wrote up his story as if it were a Boy's Own adventure tale, doesn't yet know it--and likely never will..

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:26 | link | comments

Farewell, '05:

Two ought ought five is nearly through,
A year of ups and downs, it’s true.
So let’s take a mo’ and try recalling
Some names and events which were truly appalling:

Excitable lads from un-picturesque quarters
Torched Renaults and Peugeots despite gendarmes’ orders
To cease and desist.
Meanwhile, a feckless French Prez who preferred not to meddle
Hid out in his palace ‘til the ashes could settle.
(All the rampage and chaos managed to expose
The fault lines in France's "La Vie en Rose.")

Over in London, lads who thought they’d found God
Did something that most of us found very odd.
In a bid to date hotties holed up in Paradise
Each lad became an explosive device
And killed lots of folks who, it can’t be denied,
Had no desire to go along for their ride.

In Iran, a tidy young zealot with genocidal intentions
Announced he’d come up with some brand new inventions.
A tool to wipe Israel clean off of its spot,
And one to re-sketch the landscape, minus the blot.
(Though sad and “dismayed”, Kofi couldn’t explain:
Was the man anal retentive or merely insane?)

Al Zarqawi sent lovebirds to crash a nice wedding,
A decision he soon was sincerely regretting.
For, along with derailing the deluxe celebration
He managed to trash his own reputation.
(Although later, Abu M., in enormous distress,
Tried to pin it on--well, you can probably guess.)

The Swedes gave a prize to a washed-up play-writer
Not for dramas, per se, but because he's a fighter
Who writes execrable "poems" and pages and pages
Of venom about so-called U.S.outrages.
(Only Swedes and those in a similar huff
Could pretend to abide such untalented stuff.)

Georgie G. once again lived up to his name
Putting "gall" in Galloway--his real claim to fame.
As he fumed and he flailed at C. Hitchens and Yanks
The seethers and self-loathers gave him undying thanks.
(Some said his antics were utterly sizzling;
While to others they proved him an out-and-out quisling.)

And Red Ken, the Lord Mayor, had similar gall.
But, as my mother used to tell me,
"If you can't say something nice about someone,
It's best not to say anything at all."

So I'll say nothing more about Kofi and Condi,
(Though many think both are just fine and dondi.)
My lips now are sealed lest I criticise Svend
(Though had hoped his career had come to an end.)
Nor will I allude to Liberal corruption.
(Since they'll continue to rule without interuption.)

About Fisk and Assad--the less said the smarter.
Ditto for Saddam and Jacko and Carter.
And all those whose brains are loaded with hate.
With them, there's simply no debate.
And as for the imminent avian flu--
For the moment I prefer not to think about you.

So let's bid adieu to ought ought five
And embrace ought ought six--
And try to survive.
Okay, too depressing.
Let's try something more cheery. Here goes:
Ought ought six is destined to be
A much better year,
I suppose.

Nope, that won't do either
So how's this instead:
Eat, drink and be merry
For tomorrow a crazed jihadi with a dirty bomb may decide to unpack his uranium-rigged luggage in a shopping mall--
And we could all be dead.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL (EVEN THOSE WHO PREFER THE OTHER SCARAMOUCHE).

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:47 | link | comments

Bad timing: Taking time off from their crocodile feeding, the EU has been persuaded to shelve a report slamming Israel for its policies in Jerusalem. The reason for setting it aside, at least for now, is not because the Europeans think, as Israel does, that the report is outrageously biased against Israel and weighted unfairly in favour of its pet vicitms, the Palestinians. No, according to EUnuch Jack Straw, now's not the right time to release it. From the Jerusalem Post:

The European Union on Monday decided against publishing a report on east Jerusalem that is highly critical of Israeli settlement activity and the security barrier Israel is constructing to keep out Palestinian attackers.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who chaired an EU foreign ministers meeting, said publishing the report now was inappropriate as Israel was heading for national elections and the EU does not want "to get embroiled in domestic (Israeli) politics in the run-up to elections."

The decision was welcomed by Israeli diplomats who have lobbied hard in Brussels in recent weeks against publication, saying the report is very biased against Israel.

Based on information provided by European envoys in the Middle East, the report contained "very unpleasant language" about Israel and the security barrier without referring to terrorist activities Israel invokes as the reason for its construction, said an Israel diplomat who asked not to be named.
The report raised concerns about restrictions on the movement of Palestinians in east Jerusalem, Israeli "settlements" there and the impact of the security barrier on Palestinian communities.

Apart from the Israeli elections, EU diplomats said privately now was not the time to tangle with Israel so soon after it evacuated the Gaza in a move widely seen as having improved chances for peace with the Palestinians.

EU-Israel relations have been improving greatly of late...

Considering that the EU is only postponing the "tangle" until after elections, that last sentence struck me as particularly hilarious.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:15 | link | comments (10)

Hooligans and the jihad: Remember how the riots in France (which have now subsided, with only a mere score or two of cars being every night instead of the hundreds set aflame during the height of the crisis) were supposed to have absolutely, positively, nothing whatsoever to do with the religion of most the rioters?

The problems, we were told ad infinitum, were due to poverty, prejudice and marginalization and were completely unrelated to events going on elsewhere in the the world.

Wrong. From the Ceeb website:

French intelligence officers says they've arrested 22 people, smashing an alleged network thought to be planning attacks.

Agents of the DST, the country's national intelligence service, staged raids in homes and internet cafes before dawn Monday. Officials say the suspects, mostly of Tunisian and Moroccan origin, had been under surveillance since the spring.

They described the arrests as a "major operation aimed at disbanding an Islamist network linked to terrorism."

The French police did not identify the targets of the alleged plots. The investigation is continuing.

It's believed to be one of the largest raids of its kind in France this year. Agents swarmed locations in the Paris area and the Oise region north of the capital.

A police statement said the network included suspects known to police as well as "common criminals."

Under French law, the suspects can be held up to four days for questioning. French MPs backed a tough new anti-terrorism bill last month, permitting police to install surveillance cameras on potential targets such as public transport and shops. The bill also enables police to hold suspects for up to six days. It still requires approval from the Senate.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:58 | link | comments

An open letter to Mo ElBee: Could it be, asks the writer of this letter to Mo on the occasion of his receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, that there's a reason why everyone seems to be dragging their heels about Iraq? And might that reason be so the Jews will have no other option but to do the world's "dirty work"? From isracast:

...In light of Iran’s track record, is it not reasonable to assume that the fanatic Ayatollahs in Teheran might also engage in nuclear terror, if and when they acquire the bomb? And might this include the supply of nuclear devices to terror organizations such as Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad? Yet when warning IsraeI not to pre-empt the looming threat to its existence do you, and the IAEA and the international community, not have an obligation to provide a serious alternative course of action. Namely, the immediate transfer of the Iranian nuclear threat to the U.N. Security Council for the imposing of sanctions. However, the IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz doubts that your diplomatic effort will dissuade the Iranians from halting their nuclear weapons project. General Halutz gives the impression the international community is dragging its feet. This, at a time that IDF intelligence chief Aharon Zeevi-Farkash warns that Iran will pass the nuclear point of no return at the end of March. Those involved in the international effort are obviously aware of the gravity posed by threat of Iranian nuclear weapons and not only to Israel. Yet there seems to be no true sense of urgency. Could it be that Europe and the U.S. are simply going through the motions and actually waiting for Israel to do the job for them? I would draw to your attention the comment by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney last December that Israel might decide to go it alone if it sees the diplomatic effort is going nowhere when it comes to blocking the production of Iranian nuclear weapons.

There is of course a way to disprove this theory and that is to get serious and act promptly before Iran indeed reaches the point of no return.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:20 | link | comments

Pinter, unhinged: Here, in all its rancid glory, is Harold Pinter's Nobel Prize acceptance speech. (The speech was videotaped and delivered to the august Swedes because Hal is suffering from cancer and is too ill to travel.) You'll notice I left out the word "Literature", and with good reason. Aside from an except of a poem by Pablo Neruda, the speech--or, to be more accurate, harangue--contains little of the literary and much more of the political--underscoring why the Swedes saw fit to award him the prize. I offer the following as only one of the speech's many overheated pronouncements on American iniquity (with a slam at the Blair thrown in for good measure):

...The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law. The invasion was an arbitrary military action inspired by a series of lies upon lies and gross manipulation of the media and therefore of the public; an act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East masquerading - as a last resort - all other justifications having failed to justify themselves - as liberation. A formidable assertion of military force responsible for the death and mutilation of thousands and thousands of innocent people.

We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call it 'bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East'.

How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought. Therefore it is just that Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice. But Bush has been clever. He has not ratified the International Criminal Court of Justice. Therefore if any American soldier or for that matter politician finds himself in the dock Bush has warned that he will send in the marines. But Tony Blair has ratified the Court and is therefore available for prosecution. We can let the Court have his address if they're interested. It is Number 10, Downing Street, London...

Oh, my. Could someone please throw a bucket or two of cold water on Hal before he blows out all his circuits?

Update: Niall Ferguson in The Australian heeds my call and takes apart Hal's speech bit by bit, until nothing remains except a pile of ashes and a conical black hat.

Oh, wait. I seem to be mistaking Harold with the Wicked Witch of the West.

No matter. Ferguson nails the great playwright for his faulty reasoning and intellectual dishonesty:

...Let me say right away that I am not about to mount a defence of the use of torture on suspected terrorists -- though if anyone could provoke me into doing so, the insufferably vain Pinter is the man. I do not care at all for Pinter's plays; if the Nobel committee wants to boost his bank balance and his ego, then that is its affair. God knows, the latter is big enough. Pinter's account of writing The Homecoming was surely worth a Nobel prize for pomposity: "It's a strange moment, the moment of creating characters who up to that moment have had no existence." Gee, almost like being God, Harold.

Leave aside for today the invasion of Iraq, which he denounced in familiar terms. More intriguing was his extended critique of US policy -- and secrecy -- during the Cold War. Here are Pinter's five charges:

• The US engaged in "low intensity conflict throughout the world", causing "hundreds of thousands" of deaths. Pinter cites the case of Nicaragua, where American aid helped overthrow the "intelligent, rational and civilised" government of the Sandinistas.
• "The US supported and in many cases engendered every right-wing military dictatorship in the world after the end of the Second World War", specifically those in Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, Greece, Haiti, Indonesia, Paraguay, The Philippines, Turkey and Uruguay. The deaths of all the people murdered by these regimes were "attributable to American foreign policy".
• These "systematic, constant, vicious [and] remorseless" crimes bear comparison with those committed during the Cold War by the Soviet Union (no mention, be it noted, of China, Vietnam or North Korea).
• But these crimes "have only been superficially recorded, let alone documented, let alone acknowledged". It is as if "it never happened", thanks to "a highly successful act of hypnosis".
• This mass hypnosis has been achieved by repeated use of the phrase "the American people", which "suffocates [the] intelligence and critical faculties" of all Americans, apart from "the 40million people living below the poverty line and the two million ... imprisoned in the vast gulag of prisons which extends across the US".

Brings it all flooding back, doesn't it? The demand that the president and his allies be tried as "war criminals". The denunciation of the "infantile insanity" of nuclear weapons. No, don't worry, you haven't stepped into a time machine. It's not the 1970s, and that wasn't Henry Kissinger in drag, it was only Condi Rice. But yes, I am afraid that is still Harold Pinter, spouting the same old anti-American drivel he was spouting 30 years ago...

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:23 | link | comments

A closer look at Canada's vote: Much was made recently of Canada's decision to vote against several of the anti-Israel resolutions during the UN's annual Jew-bash. But a letter in the National Post questions whether this was actually such a bold stance (one lauded at the time by a Post editorial) by examing the four anti-Israel resolutions Canada did vote for:

On reading this editorial, I was tempted to ask what the Post's editorial board had been smoking. Canada, opined the Post, has done the right thing by changing its vote on three resolutions at what has become the UN General Assembly's annual "Let's Kick Israel in the Teeth" festival.

But how substantive are these changes in Canada's shameful record of not supporting Israel, and just what do they mean? Of 17 UN resolutions this year, Canada voted against Israel 11 times, down from 12 in 2004. By comparison, the United States voted against Israel zero times, and Australia 4 times. Now examine language from the resolutions on which Canada cast votes against Israel:

- "Any actions taken by Israel to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration on the Holy City of Jerusalem are illegal." Through this resolution, Canada is effectively agreeing that Israel has no jurisdiction over any part of Jerusalem. (Earlier this year, Canada withdrew all passports that had "Jerusalem, Israel" listed as place of birth.)

- "... the grave impact of the events that occurred in the Jenin refugee camp in April, 2002." Canada is implicitly endorsing the fabricated "Jenin Massacre" that has been discredited as a hoax.

- "... calls upon Israel particularly to cease obstructing the movement of the staff, vehicles and supplies of [UNRWA]." Canada is endorsing free movement of UNRWA after Reuters videos showed ambulances being used to transport terrorists and an admission by UNRW's secretary-general that many of their paid employees are Hamas members. There is no call for UNRWA to end its involvement in terrorism.

- "... reiterates its calls for the prevention of all acts of violence by Israeli settlers, especially against Palestinian civilians and property." Canada condemns Israeli violence against Palestinians, almost all of which is defensive, with no balanced call for an end to offensive Palestinian violence against innocent civilians.

- "... reaffirms the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, including the right to their independent State of Palestine." Canada endorses the right of Palestinians to their own state with no obligation to end terrorism against Israelis or remove the destruction of Israel from their charter.

Is this a reason to praise the Canadian government? Hardly.

E. Joan O'Callaghan, Director of Communications, Canadian Coalition for Democracies

By any reckoning, Canada's is still a shameful record.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:09 | link | comments

Beach Blanket Imbroglio: In an effort to figure out what the heck is going on in Sydney, Australia, where white louts have been clashing with Muslim louts over beach turf for the past couple of days, I turn to that voice of sanity in Oz, Tim Blair.

If he can't shed light on the subject, no one can.

Update: I thought this comment by Shinoliite (on a dhimmiwatch thread about the beach riots) was excellent:

One thing we don't need in this battle of civilizations is the trashy, reactionary element (thinking along the lines of the Ewells from "To Kill a Mockingbird" or Cletus from "The Simpsons") of our societies embarrassing the rest of us.

It only lets that self-righteous, jihadist minority see themselves that much more as "victims," and further deludes them into blaming *their* victims-- those infidels who just want a nice day at the beach with (gasp!) arms and legs exposed.

Granted, people such as the Australian beachgoers are more likely to resort to violence when the dhimmitized authorities look the other way in the name of "tolerance."

But it's incumbent on Western societies to act like the "adult" in the clash of cultures, neither stooping to the level of the aggressor, nor pretending, like the parent whose child is throwing a tantrum in a restaurant, that everything's fine, and everyone's ok with it.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:35 | link | comments (2)

Dishonourable conduct: Was a Bangladeshi father within his rights as upholder of the family's honour when he ordered his teenaged sons to murder his daughter's boyfriend? A British court answered that question today with a resounding "No!." From the Telegraph:

A father who ordered his two teenage sons to carry out the "honour killing" of a university student who made his daughter pregnant has been told he must serve a minimum of 20 years behind bars.

Chomir Ali, a Bangladeshi waiter, ordered his sons to kill 19-year-old Arash Ghorbani-Zarin, an Iranian Muslim studying electrical engineering at Oxford Brookes University.

The judge today sentenced Ali and sons Mujibar Rahman, 19, and Mamnoor Rahman, 16, to life imprisonment for murder.

Mr Justice Gross ordered that Mujibar Rahman should serve a minimum of 16 years before he could be considered for parole. Mamnoor Rahman will have to serve a minimum term of 14 years.

The Crown Court jury heard of how Ali had become angry in the summer of 2003 when his 20-year-old daughter Manna Begum began dating Mr Ghorbani-Zarin, since he already had an arranged marriage planned for her.

It "embarrassed" the family that the loving couple were seen in public holding hands and kissing.

After months of attempting to stop the relationship, Ali ordered his sons to kill their sister's boyfriend.

On November 20 last year, Mr Ghorbani-Zarin's body was found in his car in an Oxford suburb with 46 stab wounds, mostly to the chest.

The judge told told the three, who were all present in the dock: "Far from vindicating your family's honour you have permanently dishonoured your family with the stain of murder."

No cultural relativism in that court, thank heavens.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:27 | link | comments

Revoke that poetic license!: When my book group had its monthly meeting last week, discussion turned to a novel that was about to be released as one of the Christmas season's blockbuster movies: Memoirs of a Geisha. Most had adored the novel by Arthur Golden--it's exoticism, its beauty, its evocative depiction of a hitherto unfamiliar slice of Japanese culture.

There were two naysayers in the group--me and another member. She was uncomfortable with the subject, which, after all, was essentially about a prostitute in fancy dress. Me? I had already read a first person account of life as a geisha, so the subject was neither new nor exotic. And I hard a hard time getting past the often execrable prose. I remember in particular the author referring to a character's breast as her "Mount Fujis." Cassabas, I can deal with.  Boobies, headlights, even bodacious ta-tas. But Mount Fujis? That's a bad and silly metaphor indicative of a writer who may have a poetic spirit but who, unfortunately, also posesses a tin ear.

In FrontPage Magazine, Debbie Shlussel reminds me of why I hated the novel so much by quoting the following line of dialogue from the new movie: "Sayuri, you know that men have eels and women have caves? Sometimes, a man's eel likes to visit a woman's cave. A man likes his eel to visit a new cave that has never been visited by other men's eels."

Eels, caves and mountains. Makes you long for the bracing, unmetaphored prose of a pornographer like Henry Miller.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:43 | link | comments

Another seasonal selection:

The Jihad Song
(To the tune of "The Christmas Song")

Shias seething in an open rage,
A maniac egging them on.
In Tehran and Mecca they gather in hopes
That soon the Jews'll all be gone.
Ev'rybody knows the EU and ElBaradei
Have stones no larger than a gnat's.
Should nukes hit the bull's eye in old Tel Aviv
They'll wring their hands as they exclaim, "Oh, rats."

We know the jihad's really here.
A quick perusal of the news'll make it clear.
And though that Persian may sound quite absurd
We're well advised to take him at his stated word.

And so he's offering a simple plan
In what seems just like déjà vu.
Although we've been killed many times, many ways
They still can't stand "the Jew." 

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:14 | link | comments (2)

A mess o' politesse: The inimitable Mark Steyn eviscerates the international community's tepid response to a genocidal maniac's second overt threat to the Jewish state. Steyn says that the world is gripped by a type of politesse that is as outdated as knee britches and powdered wigs. Nonetheless, the world refuses to be perturbed by Ahmadinjihad's heated comments, retreating into the comfort and security (and wimpitude) of diplomacy-speak.

Steyn also notes that while the international community may tut-tut egregious comments about Holocaust denial, it's not too difficult to figure out how it really feels about Israel sharing a dorm with the Arabs. From the Chicago Sun-Times:

...Look at the broader picture. The State Department's Ereli noted that President Ahmageddon's comments appear "to be a consistent pattern of rhetoric that is both hostile and out of touch with values that the rest of us in the international community live by."

Is that even true? That the Iranian president is "out of touch" with the "values" of the "international community?" The Hudson Institute's lively "Eye On The U.N." Web site had an interesting photograph of how the "international community" marked Nov. 29 -- the annual "International Day Of Solidarity With The Palestinian People." Kofi Annan and other bigwigs sat on a platform with a map flanked by the "Palestinian" and U.N. flags. The map showed Palestine but no Israel. The U.N., in other words, has done cartographically what Iran wants to do in more incendiary fashion: It's wiped Israel off the map.

There has always been a slightly post-modern quality to sovereignty in the transnational age: We pretend the Syrian foreign minister is no different from the New Zealand foreign minister, and in so doing we vastly inflate the status of the former at the expense of the latter. But with Ahmadinejad we're going way beyond that. If a genocidal fantasist is acceptable in polite society, we'll soon find ourselves dealing with a genocidal realist.

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:41 | link | comments

Two Moos and a Mo: That's the name of my latest Broadway-bound musical. It's all about the hilarious antics of three guys who cavort on the world's stage with varying degrees of success. The guys are:

• Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: Passionate, committed, a loose cannon with a short fuse, this "Moo" is the family hothead who's looking to redraw the Mideast's map, this time leaving out the Jewish eyesore;
• Mahmoud Abbas: Timid, colourless, but very well groomed, this "Moo" is catapulted on the scene following the death of his much shleppier but far more charismatic predecessor. A fussy, Felix Ungar-type, he's trying to keep the place tidy while louts like Hamas and Islamic Jihad keep threatening to make a godawful mess;
• Mohamed ElBaradei: Dim, self-important, clueless, this "Mo" has been charged with the task of preventing Armageddon--even though an employment assessment pegged him as being more suited to a job as a parking lot attendant.

Laugh, you'll cry, as the Moos and the Mo sing their patter, do that old soft shoe, and squabble interminably over the same gal next door who, much to their Mama's dismay, happens to be Jewish.

Do I smell a Tony?

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:04 | link | comments (2)

Up in smoke: As Hitler was getting on with his Final Solution, one of the world's great pacifists counselled them not to kick up a fuss and calmly accept their fate.

In an eerie recapitulation of Gandhi, the man just handed the Nobel Peace Prize has instructed Israel to sit still while another genocidal lunatic pursues his Jew-cleansing goals. From the aptly named IranMania:

Director General of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohammad Elbaradei warned the Zionist' regime on any military attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, IRNA said.

Following his recent Noble Peace Prize and speaking to an Oslo daily Afetnposten he said "There can be no success in thwarting any nation' access on nuclear program by attacking their facilities because military forays will merely delay their programs, but they will come back after a while and want to take revenge."

He further called for nuclear states to set a good example for other nations.

Some nations which do not posses nuclear weapons, due to their feeling of insecurity against nuclear-rich countries want to acquire atomic armaments and hence those who have nuclear weapons should set a good example for others, IRNA noted.

One cannot tell other nations that nuclear facilities are dangerous and then opt for producing nuclear weapons, "similar to if, I as a smoker cannot tell my children not to smoke."...

This is the man we've assigned the task of keeping the world safe from nuclear catastrophe--a man who compares acquiring nuclear weapons to a kid sneaking a Marlborough?

Far be it from me to point our the obvious, but the man has insufficient neurons to patrol a parking lot.

Moreover, if, as in the case of Iraq with its Osirek facility, Israel has a sense of a clear and imminent threat, it has every right to protect itself by removing that threat. Period.

I'm sorry if that stymies Iran's Final Solution, Part II, and doesn't put Israel in line for another Nobel Peace Prize, but Mo'll just have to relax and get over it.

I suggest sex with the wife followed by a post-coital ciggie.

Just be careful not to set the sheets on fire, Mo.

Update: Looks like Israel has no intention of following Mo's advice.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:12 | link | comments

Osirek, anyone?: An editorial in Rocky Mountain News (link via RealClear Politics) says that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's deranged pronouncements are actually a good thing: they have alerted the world to the danger posed by a Islamic Republic with nuclear designs. And now that we know about Iran's genocidal intentions re: the Jewish blot on the Muslim landscape, it's time to shut them down:

...No doubt one reason Ahmadinejad's anti-Israel obsession tends to concentrate the minds of diplomats is that Iran is drawing nearer to developing a nuclear weapon. That, at least, is the consensus of international experts such as Nobel prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The country is now engaged in uranium conversion, a precursor to enrichment and a sustained nuclear reaction. Think what a nuclear-armed Iran in two to three years could do to destabilize the Middle East.

Iran already is in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and its case should be referred to the Security Council for political and economic sanctions. But that hasn't happened - in part because ElBaradei's agency has yet to do its duty and refer the issue there but also because the U.S. and its European allies have essentially deferred to a Russian plan to let Iran proceed with its nuclear program right up to enrichment. Iran has consistently lied about its program, but once again the West may be poised to let it off the hook.

It is extraordinary to contemplate a nuclear power dedicated to physically eliminating another sovereign state. Iran is vulnerable to economic sanctions, and it should be made an international pariah, soon. Maybe if Ahmadinejad continues his bellicose patter, it will. Until then, who can blame former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for saying he'd support a pre-emptive strike against Iran's nuclear facilities? When survival is at stake, you don't necessarily wait for the bully to move first.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:18 | link | comments

Armageddon a little tired of it all: More pointless yammering and hammering is on the horizon--maybe--for the EU and Iran. From the Khaleej Times:

The European Union and Iran will hold nuclear talks on December 21 but expectations that Teheran will abandon sensitive nuclear activities are “very low,” Western diplomats told AFP on Saturday.

Diplomats said the two sides would be meeting alone, and not with Russian experts as originally planned. The meeting will probably be held in Vienna, although this could change.

“December 21 is confirmed. It will probably be in Vienna but the venue is not totally locked up,” said a Western diplomat, who asked not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue.

This information was confirmed by a second diplomat, who asked only to be identified as a European envoy.

The Western diplomat said: “Expectations are very low. The EU-3 (EU negotiators Britain, France and Germany) expects Iran to press for agreement on a pilot centrifuge plant. The EU-3 will make clear that that is unacceptable and that time is about to run out on the Iranians.”

Centrifuges are used to enrich uranium into what can be fuel for nuclear power reactors or the raw material for nuclear devices.

The meeting is “to talk about talks,” the European diplomat said, to see at a senior level if formal, possibly ministerial-level talks on winning guarantees that Iran will not make nuclear weapons can resume.

The nutjobs are on the cusp of nuclear capability and the EUnuchs want to "talk about talks." Oh brother. Sounds a bit hasty to me. Maybe they should back off a bit and talk about the possiblity of holding talks about talks. At some point in the not too distant future. Not saying exactly when, though: wouldn't want to mullahs to wig out because of the pressure and blow anyone up.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:04 | link | comments

Hamas to Israel--your hudna subscription has expired and we're not renewing: After less than a year of sitting on their hands and adding to their political lustre because of the Gaza withdrawal and the haplessness of P.A. leadership, Hamas has announced they have no plans to sign up for another year of "peace and quiet."

Or whatever it was they signed up for.

Nope, once the hudna expires, they're getting back to what they do best--seethin', shoutin' and 'splodin'. From CNN:

The leader of Hamas said Friday his group was growing weary of its pact with the Palestinian Authority to avoid conflict with Israel.

"There is no room for truce. I say to our brothers in the [Palestinian] Authority that we are witnessing political stagnation," Khaled Meshaal said in a fiery speech at a rally in the Syrian capital of Damascus.

"I say it loud and clear, we will not enter a new truce. Our people are preparing for a new round in this struggle," Meshaal said.

Meanwhile, Israel's Channel 2 reported the country's defense chief, Shaul Mofaz, was planning an economic siege of Gaza if the Palestinian Authority did not crack down on militant groups.

Channel 2 said Mofaz was considering closing the Karni and Eretz border crossings in Gaza, where Palestinian exports are brought into Israel, if the authority did not act within 48 hours.

The Israeli Defense Ministry did not return calls seeking comment on the Channel 2 report.

In recent days, Israel has suspended talks with the Palestinian Authority on staging truck convoys between the West Bank and Gaza.

This follows a suicide bombing Monday at a mall in the northern Israeli city of Netanya that killed five Israelis. (Full story)

The bombing came a day after Israel said it was resuming targeted air strikes in retaliation for Palestinian missile attacks launched from Gaza.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which claimed responsibility for the bombing, is dedicated to the creation of an Islamic Palestinian state and the destruction of Israel. The U.S. State Department labels it a terrorist organization.

Israel arrested some of the bomber's family members, and since the bombing Israeli attacks have killed four Palestinian militants in two strikes in Gaza.

Hamas, which also is labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, was one of several militant groups that agreed with the Palestinian Authority to not attack Israel in a deal brokered by Egypt that has been honored for the past nine months.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said the pact should continue: "I think it's a paramount Palestinian interest that all parties involved in the Cairo declaration must adhere and be committed to the cessation of violence and to the cease-fire."

Meshaal said he called for an end to the cease-fire because there will be no room for political negotiation until the middle of next year, at the very least.

"What are you expecting our people to do? Are you expecting us to be stuck in this void? Are you expecting us to totally surrender?" he asked during his speech.

In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri echoed Meshaal's sentiments, but in a less virulent tone.

Zuhri said Hamas would continue to honor the cease-fire until it expires at year's end, but after that "we will consider not renewing it."...

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:16 | link | comments (2)

A portion also goes to needy widows, cute puppies and fluffy bunnies: That vigilant watchdog, Mo ElBee, was in Norway to collect his Nobel Peace Prize. The Prize honours Mo and his UN agency for their tireless efforts as they watch more and more nations--some ruled by out-and-out lunatics--join the Mushroom Cloud Club.

Upon receiving his award, the affable Mo announced he's giving all his earnings--a cool 5 mill--to "worthy causes". From Aftenposten:

Mohamed ElBaradei said he'll give his share of the prize, SEK 5 million, to orphanges in his native country of Egypt. He said he believes that poverty enhances feelings of insecurity, and helping impoverished children may lead to more peace in the future.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which ElBaradei heads and which shares the Peace Price in equal parts, announced that its winnings will be donated to medical research.

Not everyone is pleased with the selection of the IAEA and its secretary general as this year's winners. Environmental organization Greenpeace held peaceful demonstrations in Oslo on Friday and Saturday, arguing that atomic energy can never be peaceful and protesting the use of nuclear power plants.

But ElBaradei remains committed to his belief that his agency can indeed help make the world more secure, and he intends to keep a watchful eye on "hotbeds" like Iran and North Korea.

It's nice of Mo be so charitable, but he could have done a lot more to foster a spirit of peace among Egyptian orphans had he earmarked a portion of the money to educate them about the dangers of being lured into the ranks of jihad by organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood.

Also, it would be helpful if someone told him he and his IAEA flunkies were supposed to do more than just watch.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:57 | link | comments

Ix-nay on the ihad-jay: The Muslim world is holding a conference in Mecca, yes, Mecca, designed to show the world how peaceful, tolerant, terror-fighting and innocuous is the one true faith. Unfortunately, a certain loose cannon over in the Shia Magic Kingdom, er, Islamic Republic, went and shot off his mouth again about his desire to give the Middle East an extreme makeover--one which would see the permanent removal of the Jewish blot to another location. The Sunni Magic Kingdom is understandably appalled by this diplomatic faux pas. After all, it spends big P.R. bucks to try to lull us into a false sense of security, even as it continues to export its toxic Wahabism around the world. Don't worry, though: the Saudis will try to smooth it over as best they can. From AP:

Saudis fumed Friday that Iran's hard-line president marred a summit dedicated to showing Islam's moderate face by calling for Israel to be moved to Europe, and the chief U.N. nuclear inspector said he was losing patience with the Tehran regime.

Even some of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's conservative allies in Iran were growing disillusioned, fearing he has hurt the country with his wild rhetoric. Iranian moderates also called on the ruling clerics to reel him in.

"The president has to choose his words carefully. He can convey his message to the world in better language tone," Hamid Reza Taraqi, a leader of a hard-line party, the Islamic Coalition Society, told The Associated Press.

The United States, Israel, Europe and Iranian ally Russia condemned Ahmadinejad over his remarks about Israel, made Thursday on the sidelines of the Mecca, Saudi Arabia, summit of more than 50 Islamic nations intending to show a Muslim front against terrorism.

Hours before the participants issued the summit's centerpiece - the Mecca Declaration, promising to stamp out extremist thought - Ahmadinejad spoke at a press conference, casting doubt on whether the Holocaust took place and suggesting Europe give land for a Jewish state if it felt guilty about it.

"Let's give some land to the Zionists in Europe or in Germany or Austria," he said. "They faced injustice in Europe, so why do the repercussions fall on the Palestinians?"

Privately, Saudi officials were furious Friday. Three senior Saudi officials who spoke to The Associated Press complained that the comments completely contradicted and diverted attention from the message of tolerance the summit was trying to project.

They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the kingdom's often stormy ties with Tehran...

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:38 | link | comments

M.A.D. is much better than mad: A piece in The American Thinker examines whether the mullahs are the only Mad Hatters in Shia Wonderland. The answer, of course, is not by a longshot:

So the important question is whether Ahmadi-Nezhad (aka, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) is a sane man, in the way that Krushchev and Deng Xiao Ping were. Would he risk tens of thousands of Iranian lives by attacking Israel? This is a man who was almost certainly a mover in the 1988 Iran massacre, when thousands of civilians were murdered by the regime. He was no doubt deeply involved in the Iran-Iraq war. He led the most fanatical types in the El Qods brigade, and his regime claims to sign up thousands of volunteers for suicide attacks. What we know adds up to a ruthless fanatic.

Insane people have led to war before. In his magnificent history of the 20th century, Modern Times, Paul Johnson points out that in the weeks before Pearl Harbor, clinically mad people came to power in Imperial Japan, leading straight to what Japan’s top military leaders knew to be national defeat.

”(US) Ambassador Grew reported (22 October 1944) that the Emperor was told plainly he would be murdered if he opposed the war policy. ... The result was to precipitate into power the reckless, indeed the emotionally unstable, such as (Foreign Minister) Matsuoka. ... Roosevelt, who, thanks to ‘Operation Magic,’ which cracked the Japanese codes, read some of Matsuoka’s messages, thought them ‘the product of a mind which is deeply disturbed.’

This view was shared by Matsuoka’s colleagues. After one liaison conference the Navy Minister asked, ‘The Foreign Minister is insane, isn’t he?’” (p. 389)

We have other examples. Muammar Qaddafi was once called “schizophrenic” by Anwar Saddat of Egypt. North Korea’s glorious leader Kim Jong Il is wildly eccentric or worse. Robert Mugabe seems to be extremely unstable, and even France’s Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin, fancies himself as a new Napoleon, a pretty good example of what psychiatrists call narcissistic personality disorder.

In paranoid psychosis people show no sign of unreason except in a narrow range of bizarre beliefs. Paranoid schizophrenics seem to be normal, but as soon as their paranoid system kicks in they are in fantasyland. Such people are convinced they are being followed by the CIA, or that they are really Jesus resurrected, or that they are on a mission from God. Even normal people develop paranoid beliefs if they are shut into cults with constant indoctrination. The Jim Jones cult took ordinary people and drove them to mass suicide in Guiana.

Martyrdom has a special role in the Khomeini sect of Shia Islam. Shias believe in the resurrection of the martyred Twelfth Imam, who will rise to bring Allah’s rewards to the faithful, and render final defeat to the infidel. Many Shia Muslims practice ritual self-mutilation in imitation of the Hidden Imam. Ayatollah Khomeini took over Iran when President Jimmy Carter refused to support the Shah, so that today we have a martyrdom cult in control of Iran’s formidable military. We have Jimmy Carter to thank for the greatest danger in the world today...

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:47 | link | comments (1)

Taking us for a ride: In Macleans, David Eddie examines the concept of "limousine liberals"--people of wealth and influence who presume to stand forall that is righteous and moral in the world, but who's behaviour is at varience with their statements. This m.o. has been captured in a new book by Peter Schweitzer called, appropriately enough, Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy. Schweitzer zeroes-in on 11 of these plaster saints, who include several of my favourite sanctimonious gasbags

"Thus 'tis with all; their chief and constant care / Is to seem everything but what they are," the playwright Oliver Goldsmith wrote in the 18th century. Then as now, of course, no particular group or organization could hope to hold the monopoly on hypocrisy. So why is it, Peter Schweizer asks in his new book, Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy, conservatives seem to be the only ones with a reputation as hypocrites? He cites the hullabaloo over recent revelations that William J. Bennett, author of numerous books promoting virtue, was a heavy gambler, and that Rush Limbaugh, who often inveighed against drug use, was addicted to the painkiller OxyContin. But "there has been very little investigation into hypocrisy on the left," he says. "Liberals pose as our moral superiors . . . less concerned with money and self-interest than anyone else." But "when it comes to the things that matter most in their personal lives they tend to behave -- ironically -- more like conservatives than liberals."

To prove the point, Schweizer, a research fellow at the Stanford-based Hoover Institution, pulled IRS records, real estate transactions, and court documents on 11 prominent liberals and activists to see if they indeed practise what they preach.

He found some glaring contradictions. Noam Chomsky, who says he opposes the very concept of private property, owns an $850,000 house in an exclusive Boston suburb and a $1.2-million vacation home in Wellfleet, Mass. Chomsky has frequently criticized the American tax code for its "complicated devices for ensuring that the poor . . . pay off the rich," but has set up at least one tax-dodging trust for his children. (In an email to Maclean's, Chomsky said he has seen "excerpts" of the book and "every one, without exception, is either an outright fabrication, or so ridiculous it is surprising anyone could have put it in print.")

Some of the examples would be funny if they weren't so sad. Senator Ted and the other Kennedys have been tireless cheerleaders for alternative energy -- until they caught wind (so to speak) of a plan to build wind turbines off the coast where they have their compound in Hyannis Port. Robert Kennedy Jr., who had been beating the drum for alternate energy sources for more than a decade, complained the project would be built in one of the family's favourite sailing and yachting areas.

Then there's Michael Moore. The back cover of the book is a quote from Moore saying "I don't own a single share of stock" above a list of stocks held in Moore's name, which includes shares in Halliburton (the company he denounced as run by a bunch of "thugs"), Honeywell and Boeing. Moore comes off as the most egregious offender in the volume (in a phone interview, Schweizer said while "all 11 are really bad, Moore seems to be particularly pathological, in the way everything he says is 180 degrees from what he does"). In other words, the biggest, fattest hypocrite.

Unless it's Barbra Streisand. She berates capitalists and conservatives for their "indifference to the suffering of many" and speaks of the need for labour unions to protect a "living wage." Yet one of her former employees recalls that she and Jon Peters once hired some Mexican labourers with no green cards for $3.50 an hour. When she wanted them to work longer, "they asked for an additional 25 cents an hour overtime. She told me to fire them and have them replaced."...

It looks like Babs continues to pose prettily (or something like that) from her high hobby horse. There was a story yesterday that she cancelled her subscription to the Los Angeles Times to protest its decision to can her favourite columnist, Robert Scheer.

Maybe she can hire him to trim her hedges.

Clean her swimming pool?

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:03 | link | comments (1)

Sweet dreams: A Sydney-based journalist has some hesitation about this era's version of Islamic revival.

Moi aussi, but unlike him I don't harbour the following delusions about "the good old days" and its fruits--nor about the prospects for the future. From Peace Journalism:

...Any ism or ideology cannot provide better principles in all walks of life than Islam has provided to the Muslims. Islam is the religion that emphasizes deeply on knowledge, literacy, social security, justice, equality and democracy. It is very unfortunate that the followers of Islam, in the era we are witnessing, could not implement these rules in their individual life or in the affairs of the sate except providing lip service for others.

Today, Muslims are facing all sorts of problems socially and economically as an individual or as a nation whereas history shows that the Muslims rulers had become a global power until they followed the golden rules of Islam. There was a time when Muslims produced great educationist, scholars, scientists, doctors, chemists, mathematicians and so on. Muslims were the originator of knowledge, civilisation and moderation.

So, most important resolution, above all, for Muslim head of states, is to work with honesty to bring true democracy, social justice and freedom of speech with corruption free environment so that they could successfully achieve their ultimate goals for prosperous status of Muslim Ummah in the world.

Mr. Hassan fails to realize that it is this obsession with the "golden age" of Islamic dominiance--fueled, of course, by jihad, a central tenet of the religion--that is largely responsible for the world's current predicament. In a way, his vision of Utopia--a vision of freedom, democracy and social justice co-existing alongside fascism and sharia law--is every bit as fanciful as the Salafist one.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:04 | link | comments

How 'bout a nice little timeshare in Alsace-Lorraine...or Uganda?: The lunatic spokesman of the Shia asylum ordered Israel to vacate the premises yesterday. He suggested they might purchase some real estate in Europe. Yes, Europe, where, aside from there not being an available square metre of unpopulated land--land that, in many places is taken up unassimilated Muslims masses who move in post-Holocaust--the residents are no more well disposed to having Jews in their midst than the Shias and Sunnis in the Mideast.

Oh, well. At least this Final Solution doesn't involve wiping Jews off the map.

And speaking of Final Solutions, that, too, is a femur of contention between Muslims like Ahmadinejad and the Jews. Mr. A. says there wasn't one. The Jews, who can list the names of a large number of the fatalities, beg to differ.

But then, as the New York Sun reports today, Holocaust denial has always been an integral part of the Islamic dystopia's mental landscape--a place that's been so corroded by prions of Jew-hatred as to become non-functional:

As world leaders expressed shock at the latest "appalling and reprehensible" statement by President Ahmadinejad yesterday, Iran-watchers in Israel said Tehran's Holocaust denial and suggestions that the Jewish state be moved to Europe are part of a broader pattern of hostility.

Prime Minister Sharon's spokesman, Raanan Gissin, told The New York Sun that the Ahmadinejad statement reflects deeply ingrained sentiments in the wider Middle East. And a scholar specializing in Farsi culture, Menashe Amir, said Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism have always been part and parcel of the Islamist regime that has ruled Iran since the 1979 revolution.

An Iranian-produced film questioning the veracity of the Holocaust is expected to be broadcast soon on Iranian state-owned television and on the Lebanese al-Manar TV, owned by the Iranian terrorist proxy organization Hezbollah, Mr. Amir said. The French Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy has visited Tehran several times, as has the British denier David Irving. "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," the classic anti-Semitic fraud, is a best seller in Iran, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the group that Mr. Ahmadinejad belonged to since early life, teaches that Jews control America's banking and Hollywood.

"Some European countries insist on saying that Hitler killed millions of innocent Jews in furnaces and they insist on it to the extent that if anyone proves something contrary to that they condemn that person and throw them in jail," Mr. Ahmadinejad said at a news conference in Mecca yesterday, according to the Iranian news agency IRNA. "Although we don't accept this claim, if we suppose it is true, our question for the Europeans is: Is the killing of innocent Jewish people by Hitler the reason for their support of the occupiers of Jerusalem?

"If the Europeans are honest," he added, "they should give some of their provinces in Europe - like in Germany, Austria, or other countries - to the Zionists, and the Zionists can establish their state in Europe. You offer part of Europe and we will support it."...

Update: When Ahmadinejad made his map-wiping remark, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan admitted to being "dismayed". This time, he's ratcheted up his response incrementally to the slightly more heated "shocked".

Kofi's reaction--once again--is as tepid as it is ill-spoken. There is nothing shocking about the comment. It is merely more of the same from a man who has vaulted to centre stage precisely for making such remarks. Had he said, "You know, folks, I've had a chance to do some research and I've come to the conclusion that Holocaust denial--like Jew-hatred--is the product of hateful, ambitious fascists seeking to build national (and international) cohesion through a focus on deranged fantasies about "the Jews""--now that would have been truly shocking.

Once again, thanks for nada, Kofi.

Update: It seems the appropriate time and place to revive one of last year's seasonal selections. (Hint: think "Winter Wonderland.")

In Iran if you're lookin'
Yellow cake is still cookin'.
They're makin' some nukes
Despite our rebukes,
Building an Islamist arsenal.

They'll say, "Hey, glad to see ya."
As they practise taqiyah,
And tell Mo ElBee
There's nothin' to see,
Building an Islamist arsenal.

In the silo they can hide a bomb now
Then pretend it isn't what we think.
They will tell us lies with such aplomb now.
If we buy them we all need to see a shrink.

Later on, they'll conspire.
Say they plan to retire.
They'll sing us a song
And string us along,
Building an Islamist arsenal.

Update: MosNews, a Russian news site, has a summary of some of the reaction to Ahmadinejad's relocation scheme. Not surprisingly, the Europeans are in the forefront of nixing the plan.

Russia's  Mideast envoy, Alexander Kalugin said it's "in line with previous Iranian statements on Israel" and called it  "unacceptable" “Yes, Israel has problems with Palestinians, but there is a path to peace. According to the roadmap plan, both states, Israel and the Palestinian state, should finally live together in peace and security,” Kalugin said.

Germany's new Chancellor, Angela Merkel, called the suggestion "totally unacceptable."

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the EU's nuclear diplomacy, already a tricky business, is “not made easier by the fact that Mr Ahmadinejad comes up with new ideas, that the people of Israel could move to Germany and Austria, to resolve the Middle East problem”.

Austria's Chancellor, Wolfgand Schuessel, who was in Washington to meet with President Bush, called it “an outrageous gaffe, which I want to repudiate in the sharpest manner.” He also said that relocating the Jewish state was “no solution” to the Middle East conflict.  (Perhaps a more sensitive communications advisor might have alerted him to avoid the word "solution" in this context; at least he didn't refer to its finality.)

The Americans, of course, were also most perturbed. White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the comment “just further underscores our concerns about the regime in Iran...“It’s all the more reason why it’s so important that the regime does not have the ability to develop nuclear weapons."

Foggy Bottom's functionary Adam Ereli called the remarks “appalling and reprehensible.”

And finally, Senator John Kerry, who, during his Presidential campaign described Islamic terrorism as a criminal matter that could best be addressed through more stringent policing and prosecution of terrorists, said that for a leader “of any country to question whether the Holocaust happened and suggest Israel be moved to Europe is beyond unacceptable." Kerry added, "If President Ahmadinejad has any doubts about the Holocaust, he should have the guts to visit Auschwitz or talk to Holocaust survivors about the horrors they can never forget.”

Not gonna happen, John. But, hey, maybe we can "arrest" him.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:22 | link | comments (2)

No doubt: Lede paragraph of Reuters article:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday expressed doubt the Holocaust took place and suggested the Jewish state of Israel be moved to Europe.

I, too, have my doubts. I doubt the Iranian election that raised this lugnut to the Presidency of his Islamist dystopia ever happened, and suggest he be moved as soon as possible to the nearest insane asylum.

Oddly enough, Reuters has yet to report my suggestion.

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:37 | link | comments

You say you want a revolution: In Iraq today, some savages did what they said they would do: execute an American hostage. The hostage was a member of a group which is convinced that there is spark of humanity in the most bestial of humans--a belief that will certainly be tested by today's events.

Personally, I share no such belief. I am the product of people who have endured pogroms, massacres, blood libels and a Holocaust. If you ask me, there are people so twisted by their beliefs, hatreds and grievences that they are beyond redemption. I would place those who murdered the American in that category. As foolish, misguided and, yes, plain old arrogant as he was to believe that he and his cohorts could find a glimmer of humanity in deposed Baathists and other Muslim supremacists, he did not deserve to die in such a barbaric way.

Perhaps another peace activist, one who was murdered 25 years ago today, said it best in his rueful song about revolutions:

You say you’ve got a real solution
Well, you know
We’d all love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well, you know
We are doing what we can
But if you want money for people with minds that hate
All I can tell is, brother, you’ll have to wait....

It's both tragic and ironic that an organization who's motto is "get in the way" can do nothing more active at the moment than sit and wait.

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:29 | link | comments

Still more seasonal selections:

Mo El Bee Ain't Coming to Town

You don't need to fume.
There's no need to fret.
So go hide your nukes 'cause it's a safe bet
Mo El Bee ain't comin' to town.

A toothless watchdog
Without any bark.
For mullahs with nukes
A walk in the park.
Mo El Bee ain't comin' to town.

Let's give him a nice Peace Prize.
To show that he means well
While Shiites go on with their plans
To blow the Jews to hell.

So, there's no need to hide.
He'll let you proceed.
A roar and a lie are all that you'll need.
Mo El Bee ain't comin' to town.


Oh, There' No "T"
(To the tune of "Oh Christmas Tree")

Oh, there’s no “t”,
Oh, there’s no “t”,
No “t” word at the CBC.

Oh, there’s no “t”,
Oh, there’s no “t”,
No “t” word at the CBC.

There’re rebels and insurgents, too.
Hardliners who despise “the Jew.”
But there’s no “t”,
Oh, there’s no “t”.
No “t” word at the CBC.


Pay the Folks
(To the tune of "Deck the Halls")

Pay the folks a splodey-bonus.
(Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.)
Then assert it's Israel's onus.
(Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.)
Don you now a double face.
(Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha)
Act as though it's no disgrace.
(Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha)

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:37 | link | comments

Jew-love, Ukranian style: The land that gave us cossacks, pogroms and blood-libel trials demonstrates that, despite the fact that they managed to unload most of their own during the Holocaust, Ukrainians still love the Jews.

And by "love", of course, I mean "loathe." From the Jerusalem Post:

Iran's president, who wants to see a world without Israel, has a vociferous ally in Ukraine.

A Kiev-based university that already has gained international notoriety for its anti-Zionist propaganda and anti-Semitic publications now wants the United Nations to "close" Israel.

The call came in November from the Interregional Academy for Personnel Management, known by its Russian acronym MAUP, whose leadership said the United Nations should revoke its 1947 resolution on the creation of a Jewish state.

"Mankind lived without the State of Israel exactly 2,670 years, but after the second of its creation all the world feels a constant aggression of the old 'sons of the devil,' " according to a university statement, published last month in the school newspaper, supporting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent call to destroy Israel.

MAUP in recent months has become a major purveyor of anti-Semitism in Ukraine. But the silence until recently of Ukrainian authorities - many of whom have ties to the university - has led to criticism from the local Jewish community, international Jewish organizations and Israeli officials.

Critics say the issue could seriously compromise Ukraine's hard-earned reputation as a new democracy seeking full acceptance by the international community, including the European Union and NATO.

Stung by growing criticism, Ukrainian officials may finally be taking the issue seriously. President Viktor Yuschenko this week urged his country's elites to condemn anti-Semitism and xenophobia.

"There can be no ethnicity issue in a European country," Yuschenko was quoted as saying Monday by the Interfax-Ukraine news agency. In his remarks, directed toward artists, journalists and academics, Yuschenko specifically condemned MAUP for the first time.

The anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism of MAUP's leaders run against Ukraine's official policy line, but the school appears to have close ties to leading policymakers, including Foreign Minister Boris Tarasyuk, an expert on Arab countries who only recently gave up his job at MAUP, reportedly under pressure from Yuschenko.

Many of Ukraine's top politicians - including Yuschenko, Tarasyuk, former president Leonid Kravchuk and several members of Parliament - have received honorary degrees or titles from MAUP. Many lesser-known politicians and bureaucrats also call MAUP their alma mater.

These leaders find themselves in good company: The school has bestowed honorary titles and degrees on some internationally renowned hate-mongers, including U.S. white supremacist David Duke, who has a doctorate in history from MAUP and has participated in a number of MAUP-organized anti-Zionist conferences in Kiev...

Zoya Borisova, head of the school's Department of Russian and Ukrainian as Foreign Languages, dismissed accusations of anti-Semitism.

"This is a fight against Zionism, but not against Jews," she said.

MAUP is the country's largest private university. With a dozen branches throughout Ukraine, MAUP has about 35,000 students, including hundreds of foreigners, mostly from Arab and developing countries...

Some reccommendations for future doctorates: Ernst Zundel, Louis Farrakhan and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:43 | link | comments

Svend/Must end: A Toronto Star editorial skewers NDP leader Jack Layton for crowing about his "moral compass" while welcoming sticky-fingered Svend Robinson back into the fold:

Canada is enduring a winter election campaign because New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton decided the ruling Liberals had lost the moral authority to govern.

"We cannot express confidence in a government under the leadership of a party that cannot be trusted to clean up the politics it tainted," Layton said in a Nov. 7 speech.

Those words began the long countdown to the Nov. 28 non-confidence vote that toppled the government.

But if integrity is such an important factor for Layton, why has he acquiesced in accepting Svend Robinson, a convicted thief, as the NDP's candidate in Vancouver Centre?

Robinson resigned his seat in Parliament and left public life — briefly, it turns out — in August 2004, after pleading guilty to stealing a costly ring at a jewellery auction.

Certainly, Robinson has served his sentence and is free to return to politics. But as party leader, Layton could have rejected his candidacy.

Layton needs to explain how he can attack the Liberals over integrity, ethics and corruption on the one hand, but then bow to political expediency on the other hand by accepting a high-profile, yet tainted candidate who might just win a seat.

Strange, but isn't this the same kind of cynical political calculation Layton is so quick to condemn in others?

And could he explain again why we are having this election now? Something about ethics and leadership?

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:20 | link | comments

Straw bends: In a show of flexibility befitting a man with his name, Jack Straw says he's open to discussions with terrorists. From the Ceeb website:

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on Thursday again appealed to a previously unknown group holding four peace activists in Iraq to get in touch.

The group, Swords of Righteousness Brigade, extended the deadline for meetings its demands until Saturday. "If the kidnappers want to get in touch with us, we want to hear what they have to say," Straw said in a brief statement outside the prime minister's office. "We have people in Iraq itself and in the region, and they are ready to hear from the kidnappers."

Straw made a similar statement Wednesday appealing for contact with the kidnappers.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:09 | link | comments

How now, Mao?: Looking for a novel idea for a Christmas/Chanukah/Festivus/Kwanza present? Something to show your cheeky sense of humour and precarious grasp of history? How about this: a retro-looking wristwatch with the rosy-cheeked image of a man who has a good claim to the title of "greatest mass murderer in history"?

Greatest in terms of sheer numbers, of course, not the quality of his character or statesmanship.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:50 | link | comments

Bye, bye, Abbas?: Mahmoud Abbas, who just okayed monthly survivor pay (a splodey-bonus?) to relatives of suicide bombers, is holding onto power by the whites of his fingernails. He's far from the most popular politician in the P.A., and commands nowhere near the same respect his predecessor did. In the Globe and Mail, Barry Rubin looks at Abbas's sinking fortunes and predicts he will soon shuffle off the world stage for good:

The fact that the Palestinian national movement is collapsing and its leaders are paralyzed is the single most important fact dooming any hope of Middle East peace for years to come. In local elections, Islamist Hamas did very well against the Fatah group, which has led the movement for almost 40 years. In the Fatah primaries for next month's parliamentary election, relative moderates were roundly defeated by those engaged in terrorism.

But the problems are not only electoral ones. Mahmoud Abbas, the elected leader of the Palestinian Authority, is a weak figure incapable of doing anything. His regime has been unable to impose order in the Gaza Strip after the Israeli withdrawal, and there is no reason to believe this will change. It is making no serious effort against corruption or to stop terrorist attacks against Israel. While the leadership condemned the attacks, at least in statements aimed at the Western media, it also announced the payment of large stipends to the families of suicide bombers.

Even the biggest apparent victory for the Palestinian leadership -- the takeover of Gaza and control over the Gaza-Egypt border -- is actually hurting Mr. Abbas. The Palestinian Authority's border controls are a joke, and both terrorists and weapons are passing through freely. Neither Egyptian security forces nor European Union observers are going to risk any confrontations for the purpose of saving Israeli lives. Yet, Israel is not the one most endangered by this situation.

Israel can defend itself far better than can the Palestinian Authority from an influx of Palestinian terrorists. The group that most needs to smuggle across fighters and weapons is Hamas. Fatah already has plenty of guns and armed men. While Hamas would like to use its guns against Israel, these arms are going to end up ensuring it can defy Mr. Abbas and Fatah...

The other big Palestinian story has been Marwan Barghouti's good showing in the Fatah primaries to choose candidates for its parliamentary slate. This is not so significant on a personal level. After all, the fact that Mr. Barghouti won big in Ramallah, his hometown and main base, is hardly surprising. But, in general, Fatah militants involved with the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades did well, while traditional Palestine Liberation Organization figures and Abbas supporters did poorly...

Thus, Mr. Abbas faces a whole mess of dilemmas. If he holds no more primaries and chooses a Fatah list full of his own supporters, the young radicals may resist with violence, as well as by running independent candidates and splitting the Fatah vote. Mr. Abbas will be even weaker and, if elections are held, Hamas will gain even more. But if he lets his opponents dominate Fatah, his career will essentially be over.

No doubt, the final round of Palestinian local elections will also bring more success for Hamas, which is also doing well in student government elections. In addition, the Fatah primaries, like Hamas's victory in local elections, shows that the best campaign event in Palestinian politics is a terrorist attack on Israel. Ironically, Mr. Barghouti's wife said her husband's local success showed he "is not a terrorist, he is a leader of his people." But the exact opposite is true: Mr. Barghouti did so well precisely because he has been a terrorist.

Could it possibly be clearer that Mr. Abbas is the Palestinian leader in name only and is incapable of negotiating any agreement with Israel or implementing anything he promises?

What does it say that the most popular forces in Palestinian politics are Hamas and Fatah hard-liners who engage in terrorism and insist that military force, not diplomacy, is the way to reach their goal?

What does it signify that the big winner in Jenin, Jamal Abu Rob, who chose "Hitler" as his nom de guerre, is another terrorist leader?

The answer is this: Moderates have no chance of leading the Palestinians; there is no prospect of progress toward a negotiated peace for many years. But there is an even more immediate problem for the Palestinians: Mahmoud Abbas cannot lead the Palestinians, Fatah cannot unite itself, and Fatah cannot defeat Hamas

I'd say that about sums it up.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:38 | link | comments

Al Qaeda piggybacks on 'Pegger: Just 'cause you're a small time web host in Winterpeg doesn't mean a hot-blooded jihadi won't want to try to hitch a ride. From the Ceeb website:

A teenager in Winnipeg says he's trying to clear his name after his web business unwittingly hosted video footage of al-Qaeda leaders.

Justin Fitzpatrick, 19, said his small, home-based company hosted a website briefly in October that showed video content of al-Qaeda head Osama bin Laden and his right-hand man, Ayman al-Zawahri.

After it was reported by a Winnipeg newspaper, Fitzpatrick told CBC News on Wednesday that he was stunned to find the al-Qaeda material was on his company's site.

He said his website allows people from around the world to purchase space to host their own sites.

In turn, he rents server space to host those sites from a company in Dallas.

Someone who wants to post a site through Fitzpatrick fills out an online form, agrees to certain terms and conditions about the content, and agrees to pay a small monthly fee by credit card.

Once the credit card is approved by an external company – a process that generally takes only a few minutes – the person has the ability to start putting web content online.

When Fitzpatrick saw the Arabic-language text and videos on the website he was hosting, he consulted with the company in Dallas.

After reviewing the material, Fitzpatrick said the Dallas company's legal department recommended he remove the material.

Fitzpatrick said he promptly removed the site and refunded the $4.95 monthly fee to the credit card. All told, he said he hosted the material for about 10 days.

The teenager said he has no idea why the people behind the site targeted his company, which hosts a total of 15 to 20 websites – a small player in the world of website hosting.

He speculated he was chosen specifically because his company is small, with fewer eyes on the content.

Fitzpatrick said he has not been contacted by law enforcement officials about the content, and he considers the matter closed.

Posted by: scaramouche at 23:03 | link | comments

Insentient furniture: Times Online headline--Saddam storms out leaving empty chair in the dock.

I have it on good authority that while the trial went on in his absence he could be heard crooning the following old favourite in his jail cell:

I am, I said
To no one there
And no one heard at all
Not even the chair.
I am, I cried
I am, said I.
And I am lost, and I can't even say why.

Betcha didn't know the old reprobate was a fan of the shmaltzy Jew.

Update: Drudge has a pic of the empty chair:

Looks comfy, and I love the vintage black vinyl. But maybe they could make Saddam feel more at home if they installed a potted palm and a plastic shredder.

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:47 | link | comments

He's baaack: Back from Pakistan and rarin' to go: Ladies and gents, I give you Abdullah Khadr.

Yup. One of those Khadrs. From the Toronto Star:

Abdullah Khadr, who Western intelligence services allege ran an Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan in the late 1990s, has been released from custody in Pakistan and returned to Toronto, a free man.

The Toronto Star has learned the 24-year-old Canadian, whose brother is the only Canadian held in the U.S. detention centre in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was accompanied by Canadian officials on a flight to Toronto's Pearson International Airport last Friday.

Khadr is the eldest of Ahmed Said Khadr's four sons. The senior Khadr, an accused terrorist financier, was killed in a 2003 shootout with Pakistani forces.

Abdullah Khadr was questioned at the airport by RCMP investigators, then dropped off at his grandparents' home in Scarborough and told he was a "free man," according to his relatives and lawyer.

Court documents show that Khadr and his sister Zaynab are under investigation by the RCMP for terrorism-related offences. But Khadr has not been charged criminally in Canada.

Two days after he returned, RCMP investigators visited him again and questioned him at a local doughnut shop.

The revelation of Khadr's return raises a series of questions about who precisely was holding him in Pakistan and why he was quietly released.
"How did he get flown into the country? Who was holding him? Why has his family been told nothing?" Khadr's Edmonton-based lawyer Dennis Edney asked yesterday.

U.S. officials told the Star yesterday they may seek to have charges laid against Khadr, then have him extradited to the U.S. to face trial.

"He is a Canadian citizen, so when he returns to Canada, he is in the Canadians' hands," one source said. "But the U.S. has an interest in this man."...

Whoa. Those Mounties are mighty crafty. Forcing jihadis to submit to their cruel version of donut shop interogation, otherwise known as "Timbit torture." I hope they managed to extract the requisite information to protect our shores from the likes of Abdullah.

I, for one, sleep more soundly at night knowing Dudley Do-Right and the boys are on the job.

Update: Meanwhile, Abdullah's brother, the one who co-operated with the CIA and even agreed to be their man inside Gitmo, the only Khadr who's switched sides, the designated family pariah, can't get a Canadian passport.

Of course, my question is: why does he want one?

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:33 | link | comments

Google's unbiased selection: This is what the random, unbiased, computer-generated news selection over at Google has barfed up and placed in the numero uno position--a  piece from the UAE Khaleej Times about how an Israeli missile destroyed a building in Gaza belonging to a "Muslim charity."

I don't know about you, but when I hear the words "Muslim" and "charity" joined together like that, the words that immediately spring to mind are "jihad" and "semtex."

Update: And here, in an uncanny concatenation, is a story just posted on LGF about a "Muslim charity" in Denmark that claimed to be raising funds for widows and orphans and other really, really pathetic but deserving souls.

I don't have to tell you where the money was really going.