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

Liar, liar, nukes on fire: Iran says it's looking to go nuclear in order to meet future energy demands. And they're sticking to that story, even though the nuclear watchkittens have uncovered incontrovertible evidence that Iran is looking to build nukes. From The Guardian:

The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said in a report Tuesday that Iran obtained documents and drawings on the black market that serve no other purpose than to make an atomic warhead. Tehran warned of an ``end of diplomacy'' if plans to refer it to the U.N. Security Council are carried out.

The report by the agency, ahead of a meeting of its 35-member board Thursday, also confirmed information recently provided by diplomats familiar with the Iran probe that Tehran has not started small-scale uranium enrichment since announcing it would earlier this month.

Nevertheless, the findings added to pressure to refer Tehran to the Security Council within days. Such a move, Iran said, would lead to a halt in surprise U.N. inspections beginning Saturday and prompt it to resume frozen nuclear activities.

``If it happens, the government will be required under the law to end the suspension of all nuclear activities it has voluntarily halted,'' Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said late Tuesday, speaking on Iranian television.

Iran insists its nuclear program is civilian only and has no other purpose than to generate power. Enrichment can produce either fuel for a nuclear reactor or the material needed to build a warhead...

Posted by: scaramouche at 23:22 | link | comments (2)

Hamas in a huff: Hamas is in a snit because the West is threatening to turn off the spigot unless the Islamo-kazi-nazis renounce terrorism and accept Israel's right to exist. The 'Slammers have a word to describe this demand that they engage in civilized behaviour: "blackmail." From The Washington Post:

A senior Hamas official said Tuesday the Islamic militant group is already looking for new sources of funding after the international community threatened to cut off aid, warning that Hamas will not be "blackmailed."

Osama Hamdan, a member of the group's exiled leadership, spoke a day after international donors said millions of dollars in aid could be in jeopardy if Hamas does not change its violent ways.

Palestinian youths throw stones after two Islamic Jihad militants were killed by Israeli troops in the West Bank village of Arabah near Jenin Tuesday Jan. 31, 2006. Israeli troops killed two Islamic Jihad militants, including the group's top leader in the West Bank, during a shootout that erupted during an arrest raid, according to the army and Palestinian officials.(AP Photo/Mohammed Ballas) (Mohammed Ballas - AP)
Hamas will likely find it difficult to persuade Muslim nations to make up a shortfall from a Western aid cut, and the threat of no money remains the international community's best weapon to get Hamas to moderate its ideology.

Hamas, which has killed hundreds of Israelis in suicide attacks over the past decade, is poised to lead the next Palestinian government after a landslide win in parliamentary elections.

"We are looking for alternative sources and we will not allow ourselves to be blackmailed," Hamdan said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press from Beirut, Lebanon. "We will not accept any conditions from anybody. At the same time, we are ready for dialogue." ...

Of course they are. Because as long as they can string us along with endless, circuitous, pointless yammering, there's a chance they can keep the money rolling in.

Time for one of those Saudi telethons, Osama. I suggest you run scenes of IDF soldiers roughing up the faithful, or maybe Palestinian moppets hurling projectiles at Jewish tanks; always gets 'em to dip into their bottomless wallets.

BTW, The Washington Post thoughtfully provided Hamas with space on its Op-Ed page to explain its agenda. Here's some of what a leading Hamas terrorist had to say:

...The Islamic Resistance Movement was elected to protect the Palestinians from the abuses of occupation, based on its history of sacrifice for the cause of liberty. It would be a mistake to view the collective will of the Palestinian people in electing Hamas in fair and free elections under occupation as a threat. For meaningful dialogue to occur there should be no prejudgments or preconditions. And we do desire dialogue. The terms of the dialogue should be premised on justice, mutual respect and integrity of the parties.

As the Israelis value their own security, Palestinians are entitled to their fundamental rights to live in dignity and security. We ask them to reflect on the peace that our peoples once enjoyed and the protection that Muslims gave the Jewish community worldwide. We will exert good-faith efforts to remove the bitterness that Israel's occupation has succeeded in creating, alienating a generation of Palestinians. We call on them not to condemn posterity to endless bloodshed and a conflict in which dominance is illusory. There must come a day when we will live together, side by side once again.

The failed policies of the U.S. administration are the result of the inherent contradiction in its position as Israel's strongest ally and an "honest broker" in the conflict. World nations have condemned the brutal Israeli occupation. For the sake of peace, the United States must abandon its position of isolation and join the rest of the world in calling for an end to the occupation, assuring the Palestinians their right to self-determination...

 Of course, when Hamas speaks to an Arab audience the message is apt to be different, as in this MEMRI-translated interview on al Jazeera TV with a Hamas leader:

”... we are committed to the liberation of the land and to Jerusalem. We will not agree to any kind of disregard [of our right] to Jerusalem. We are Committed to… the Resistance and Adhere to its Weapons (i.e., suicide bombers). ... As for Recognizing [Israel] and Amending Our Charter – Hamas is not the kind of movement that succumbs to pressure… We will not recognize it, no matter how much time passes… We will establish our state on any piece of land we liberate, providing we have real sovereignty over this land, Allah willing.”

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:58 | link | comments

Dumb Juifs: Back from my Jamesian reverie, which briefly transported me back in time on The Wings of the Dove, I snapped to attention upon reading this revolting piece in Islam Online:

The Jewish French Union for Peace (JFPP) has criticized the ferocious campaign by the US, the EU and Israel against Hamas after the group’s landslide victory in last week’s legislative elections and called for respecting the democratic choice of the Palestinian people.

The same call was echoed by Canadian Muslim leaders, who urged the new government to recognize Hamas and give it a chance.

"A media campaign stereotyping Hamas as a threat to the Middle East peace process and no peace partner with Israel has picked up steam since the group came to power in a real democracy," the Paris-based NGO said in a statement, a copy of which was obtained by IslamOnline.net on Sunday, January 29.

"The same feeble excuses were used to question late Palestinian president Yasser Arafat’s peace intentions and give the US-backed Israeli government of Ariel Sharon a pretext to impose his unilateral steps," it said, referring to Sharon’s plan for disengagement from the Palestinians.

Hamas has swept the parliamentary elections, winning 76 seats in the 133-seat Palestinian Legislative Council, while President Mahmoud Abbas's ruling Fatah only got 43 seats.

The statement, entitled “The End of Occupation is the Only Solution After Hamas Election,” said Israeli and Palestinian officials have not met for months except for a handful of meetings to arrange security matters.

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal dismissed on Saturday, January 28, claims that his group was responsible for the Palestinians' problems.

"Even during the time of Arafat and Abu Mazen the political process was blocked. There is a political, security and economic crisis. Hamas will strive to resolve it," he said.

The leftist-leaning Jewish union said the Palestinians have voted for the resistance "which will, no doubt, end the occupation."

"The Palestinians said no for grinding poverty, desperation, the racist West Bank separation wall and the destruction of their society," the statement added.

"It is also a vote against Israel’s ridicule of the Palestinians..."

Memo to les Juifs: no matter how much you love and support them, Hamas will still hate you because--newsflash--you're Jewish.  As such, given the opportunity they would dispatch you with the same relish with which they murdered Daniel Pearl.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:55 | link | comments

A Tuesday time out: For the sake of my own well-being, I'm taking a break from the subject of Hamas for the rest of the day. The notion that we in the West are obliged to continue funding a terrorist outfit no less committed to the Jews' liquidation than Hitler and Co.--and who draw inspiration for his example--is starting to wreak havoc with my kishkas, and I need to take a deep breath stop reading the gut-churning news stories. So for now, I'm off to luxuriate in some Henry James, a soothing alternate reality in which the words "jihad", "Hamas" and "Holocaust" are never mentioned.

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

Hollywood applauds moral equivalence: The Oscar nominations were announced this morning, and as expected, the Academy gave a nod to both Munich and Paradise Now. Ironic, no, that Stephen Speilberg's "prayer for peace" and the Palestinian justification for suicide bombers (it's "the impotence", explained the director when he picked up his Golden Globe) have both been nominated in the same year--and the same year that the Palestinians selected the Islamokazi-Nazis to be their official representatives?

Timing, as they say, is everything, and it may be that the unfortunate timing of a Hamas victory with Oscar balloting will sink both films. On the other hand, nothing was ever gained by overestimating the insight of Academy members, many if not most of whom see things from the Munich-Paradise Now perspective. As such, it would be foolish to expect them to be swayed by current events--even if it exposes the flawed thinking behind the films.

That being said, it either or both movies win--Munich for best picture and best adapted screenplay, Paradise Now for best foreign film--it will demonstrate the utter moral bankruptcy of the Academy.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:16 | link | comments

Get out your snot rags: You're going to need one when you read the sad, sad tale of the Palestinians. They thought they could elect a slate of Islamo-kazi-Nazis no problemo, only to find that their funding is now in jeapordy. From those sympathetic souls as Reuters:

Saleh Billo, a father of five who teaches at a Palestinian Authority school, is not sure where his next pay cheque will come from.

"If my salary stops then I will have a hard time buying food for my children," said Billo, one of 140,000 Palestinian Authority employees waiting anxiously to see whether the United States and the European Union will slash aid in response to last week's election victory by Hamas.

"I don't know what I will do. It will be disastrous for us," Billo, 48, told Reuters.

The Palestinian Authority is the biggest single employer in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. But it is nearly bankrupt and highly dependent on foreign aid to stay afloat.

Last year, it received 500 million euros ($612 million) from the European Union and it was expecting a similar amount this year, as well as over $200 million from the United States.

Israel also transfers about $500 million annually of taxes it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority.

But that money could soon dry up...  

Were one churlish, one might suggest that had the gazillions sunk into the Palestinian sink hole actually found its way into the pockets of the people instead of being deposited into the offshore accounts of their kleptocratic officials, Saleh could probably send his kids through college and retire with his wives to a seaside condo on the Costa del Sol. Instead, he is forced to whine to scribes from Reuters about his dodgy financial situation, and we're supposed to feel his pain.

Sorry, Saleh. You'll have to tap some other honeypot for a change. I hear the custodians of Mecca and Medina are pretty flush with bucks.

You have to give Saleh and the rest some credit, though. Not even Adolf Hitler had the chutzpah to ask the West to fund the Third Reich.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:23 | link | comments

Wishing and hoping: A song for the EU:

Wishing and hoping and paying and dreaming.
Placating, berating and waiting
And getting all tied up in knots
Won't get Hamas to change its spots.
So if you're lookin' to hold 'em back
All you gotta do is squeeze 'em and bleed 'em
And don't give 'em dough to attack.
Show them that you're wise to their lies,
You won't fund the Jews' demise.
Tell 'em that their jizya's been cut.
You will find 'em,
Lying and denying,
Robbing and jihading.
Just wishing and hoping and paying and dreaming.
Placating, berating and waiting
And getting caught up in their lies
Will lead to a weak compromise.
So if you're looking for a Shoah redux.
All you gotta do is fund 'em, support 'em, reward 'em
And give them your bucks...

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:58 | link | comments (2)

Future funding for Hamas: It was crazy enough when the West convinced itself that peace could be furthered by its funding a semi-crypto-terrorist organization. Billions of dollars disappeared forever into the bank accounts of corrupt Fatah officials. They got rich while the people got nothing, except for a grudge against their leaders and a desire to speed up the Entitity-obliteration project. Enter Hamas, (well, actually, not enter so much as take centre stage;  they'd been lurking on the scene and biding their time for quite a while) Hamas is an overt terrorist organizations which is committed to Israel's destruction--not at some future date after the parties shuffled down a road map to nowheresville a little more; not after they've somehow managed to sign a sham peace agreement. No, they're not willing to defer their fun. They want the Jews gone pronto, achshav, am-scray-right-now-and-don't-forget-to-leave-your-keys.

And, having made no secret of its genocidal intentions, Hamas fully expects the West to keep coughing up the moolah to fund their destruction/Jewish-relocation efforts--a demand which the EU and US are balking at.

For the moment., anyway. But you can already feel the direction of the wind (i.e., the mainstream Western media) making a subtle shift--right in Hamas's direction. On Ceeb radio this morning, for instance, Middle East correspondent Margaret Evans seemed to be shilling for terrorists. She included a statement from a poor Palestinian woman, who is "humiliated" that her people must go cap in hand to the West for their money. "It makes me feel like a beggar," she said. Then there was the guy in the P.A. Security Force who earns $500 a month but is concerned that, what with Western funding being up in the air for now, his salary is bound to be cut. (To which Ms. Evans might have--but didn't--ask why they don't go knocking  on a stinkingly rich oil sheik's door instead of pestering their sworn enemies for financial support.)  It was clear where Margaret's sympathies lay--with the poor, pathetic folks whose lives and livelihood depend on the West's beneficence, and who are about to fall on even harder times should it be revoked.

Maybe. Maybe not. The constrant thrum of stories like the Ceeb's are bound to have an effect on Western resolve. Oh, sure, it's firm for the moment, with Rice and Bush hanging tough. But you know and I know that the EUnuchs are generally more, shall we say flexible in these matters, and it's going to take a lot of gumption to ignore the plaints of their Palestinain pets whom, after all, they like a whole lot more than they do the Israelis.

So my prediction is this: Hamas will make some feeble promises it has no intention of keeping, and the EU agree to keep sending them dough on the off-chance that the terrorists plan to follow through. Thus, we'll be faced with the most ridiculous spectacle yet--the West overtly funding a second Holocaust, as well as its own demise.

Update: The Palestinians should try knocking on this guy's door. He's just bought a whack of ultra-posh hotels that, until today, were Canadian-owned. And being a Saudi Sheik, he's certain to have plenty of spare shekels stashed around his palace. Also, he belongs to the same religion as Hamas, and from a practical standpoint it makes a lot more sense to ask a Muslim to fund your "government" than depending on the people you're waging jihad against to come up with the cash. 

And if that avenue turns out to be a dead end, there's always the UN. Surely it has a few coins left over from Oil-for-Food it would be willing to share with the desperate victims/terrorists.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:54 | link | comments

Phillips on Hamastan: A must-read post by Melanie Phillips on why it's ridiculous to assume that Hamas will be tamed by the demands of power. Quoting copiously from the Hamas Charter, Phillips says it's absurd to compare the Palestinian terrorists to the the IRA, who now sit defanged and mostly docile in their political incarnation--Sinn Fein--in the British House of Commons.  That's a highly unlikely scenario for Hamas:

...Ah yes, the IRA. (Hamas suppporter and Guardian writer Azzam) Tammimi’s argument is calibrated to chime with the inexhaustible gullibility of his western audience which so desperately does not want to believe that what it is looking at is a threat the like of which has never before been seen on this planet and which makes the analogy with Irish terrorism or any other kind of terrorism simply ludicrous (quite apart from the fact that the IRA only entered the political process because militarily they were beaten). The fact is that Hamas is a religious army whose jihad is said to be prosecuted in God’s name. And that programme is founded upon a pathological prejudice against the Jews, based on their belief that the grotesque libels of European Jew-hatred are true. Here’s that Covenant again:

With their money, they [the Jews] took control of the world media, news agencies, the press, publishing houses, broadcasting stations, and others. With their money they stirred revolutions in various parts of the world with the purpose of achieving their interests and reaping the fruit therein. They were behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we heard and hear about, here and there. With their money they formed secret societies, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, the Lions and others in different parts of the world for the purpose of sabotaging societies and achieving Zionist interests. With their money they were able to control imperialistic countries and instigate them to colonize many countries in order to enable them to exploit their resources and spread corruption there...
They were behind World War I, when they were able to destroy the Islamic Caliphate, making financial gains and controlling resources. They obtained the Balfour Declaration, formed the League of Nations through which they could rule the world. They were behind World War II, through which they made huge financial gains by trading in armaments, and paved the way for the establishment of their state. It was they who instigated the replacement of the League of Nations with the United Nations and the Security Council to enable them to rule the world through them. There is no war going on anywhere, without having their finger in it....Their plan is embodied in the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion'...Israel, Judaism and Jews challenge Islam and the Moslem people. 'May the cowards never sleep.'

Tammimi is a smart guy, and may be more than just a Hamas ‘supporter’. On BBC Radio Four’s Moral Maze not long ago, he said -- in response to evidence of the Hamas Covenant’s virulent Jew-hatred -- that ‘I am rewriting the Covenant’ to exclude such material. He knows perfectly well that the west is eager to hear that Hamas has excluded such material so that it can persuade itself that it no longer hates the Jews. Just to write that sentence is to expose the risibility of the thinking. Read the Covenant and then ask whether people who have sanctified boundless, irrational, demented hatred in the name of God can really unthink this and resile from their ‘sacred’ duty to kill Jews wherever they find them. But the capacity for self-delusion in the west appears to be boundless....

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

Laying blame: Personally, I blame the UN for Hamas's victory. Decade upon decade of UN-funded refugee camps led directly to the kind of festering hatred and disfunctional society which now squats in all its hateful, Islamist glory on Israel's doorstep. But an associate professor of history at--where else?--Berzerkely, thinks someone else is to blame. Guess who--and I'm sure you won't need more than one guess. From the San Jose Mercury News (via the L.A. Times):

...It wasn't really Hamas that eviscerated Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah in the elections. It was the Israeli governments that engineered the failure of the ``peace process'' to produce fruit, and the Fatah leadership's gluttony that blinded them to the consequences of their own failures. Still, the Hamas victory will make it much easier for Israel to sell the ``no partner for peace'' line.

Elections are but a snapshot, and there are myriad factors that can skew results. But there is a larger truth: After Oslo, the daily life of Palestinians in the occupied territories has deteriorated to almost subhuman levels, largely because of Israeli policies. The best that people hope for is to keep their heads above water and pray that their society will not suffer a complete collapse. At times like these, people turn to God and to each other. Hamas has helped them to do both, and it has something to show for it....

The gentleman who wrote this piece is creditied with a tome called "Rediscovering Palestine." Those inclined to do embark on that  journey of rediscovery had better do so before the place sinks once and for all into chaos and darkness.

Update: Israel Harel writing in The Globe and Mail attributes Hamas's success to two key factors:

...Most Israeli politicians and commentators are now rationalizing their short-sightedness in predicting the results of the elections by explaining that Hamas did not win for ideological reasons but because they are not as corrupt as Fatah.

Nonsense. There are two real, major reasons for the success of Hamas. The first is the backing given by the Palestinian public to Hamas's ideology -- the negation of Israel's existence. This public wishes to continue the terrorist war against Israel, even at the price of further suffering. In contrast to Israelis, this population is prepared to pay a price for the achievement of its national aims.

The second is the adoption by the Palestinian street of the pan-Islamic ethos, led by Osama bin Laden, that calls for the annihilation of the West and the establishment of world Islamic rule. Two obstacles lie in the way of the realization of this aspiration: the great Satan (the United States) and the small Satan (Israel). This is what is being said over the Palestinian state broadcasting system, and this is what is being taught in schools, not only within the area of the Palestinian Authority but also, in not a few cases, in schools of the Islamic movement inside Israel.

The rise to power of Hamas should give Israel and the entire civilized world an opportunity to open their eyes. However, it is doubtful whether Israel, or the West, will take this opportunity to abandon the erroneous conception.

Israelis, in particular, love deluding themselves into thinking, again and again, that if they continue to give up parts of their historic homeland, the terror will cease and they will be accepted as a legitimate entity in the Middle East.

What a delusion.

I think that more or less says it all.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:56 | link | comments

They're altogether ooky: No doubt about it: the folks next door are extremely disturbing:

They’re creepy and they’re zealous,
Relentless, mad and jealous.
Their mission is to fell us—
The Hamas entity.

They’re longing to replace us,
Annihilate, efface us,
Expunge, extract, erase us—
The Hamas entitiy.

Duh duh duh dum…crazed.
Duh duh duh dum…dazed.
Duh duh duh dum,
Duh duh duh dum
Duh duh duh dum…unfazed.

They say Islam’s supree-um.
The Taliban’s their dree-um.
They really are a scree-um—
The Hamas entitiy.

Duh duh duh dum…they’re brash.
Duh duh duh dum…panache.
Duh duh duh dum
Duh duh duh dum
Duh duh duh dum…they want cash.

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

Hamas-inspired humour: My friend E. has located comedy in the Muslim world. It's all the rage these days in Hamastan. From the Jerusalem Post:

This city has been renamed Abdullah (Allah's slave). Al-Bireh (Arabic for Beer) has been renamed Zamzam (after the blessed Muslim Zamzam water). These are only some of the most recent jokes that have flooded the Palestinian street since Hamas scored a landslide victory in last week's parliamentary election.

Reflecting the Palestinians' long-standing tradition of relating to serious matters with a sense of humor, especially during times of stress, the jokes are being spread through SMS messages to cell phones and on the Internet.

While world leaders are continuing to express deep concern over the victory of Hamas, many Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are competing among themselves to see who can come up with the best joke on the new regime that will run their day-to-day affairs.

In the cafes of many Palestinian cities, young and old men have been gathering over the weekend to hear the latest jokes about the political earthquake that hit the West Bank and Gaza Strip last week. Most of the jokes reflect the Palestinians' fears about the establishment of a Taliban-style regime.

A Palestinian policeman stops a car for a routine check in downtown Ramallah, goes one of the most popular jokes. Do you have insurance, he asks the driver. No, replies the driver. Do you have wudu [ablution - the Muslim act of washing parts of the body before prayers]? continues the policeman. Yes, yes, comes the answer. Okay, then you won't get a ticket, the policeman assures him before allowing him to drive on.

Another joke goes like this: What is the new penalty for illegal parking in Ramallah? Two rakahs [units] of the Muslim prayer. And for passing a red light? Four rakahs.

A joke that has been circulating among many taxi drivers in the city: The new Hamas transportation minister has issued instructions that all orange-colored taxis must be painted green (Hamas's colors).

Palestinians have also been cracking jokes about the possibility of having to adapt to a new life under strict Islamic laws. What is the penalty for watching Rotana TV's music video clips? Twenty lashes. For holding a video clip of [Lebanese sex-symbol and singer] Nancy Ajram? Eighty lashes. For having a satellite dish? Stoning to death...

Here's one: What does Hamastan have in common with my breakfast? Answer: They're both toast.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:30 | link | comments (2)

Introspection at Davos: As usually occurs when internationalists get together in places beginning with the letter "D" (Durban, Davos), the Jews come in for some criticism. Well, lots of criticism, actually.  But don't think that the Jew-bashers are incapable of taking a hard look at their own flaws. In fact, at the most recent "D" conference, some influential Muslims made a sincere effort to account for all the tsuris being fomented by the "submissives." And, no surprise, some say it's the West's fault for trying to foist alien values on Muslims, while others see those values as their salvation. From Middle East Online:

With Muslim extremists blamed for fomenting global unrest, leaders from Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan and Pakistan met here to mull the Islamic world's fractious relations with the West.

The discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, switched from areas such as terrorism and modernisation to the nuclear balance in the Middle East.

Since the September 11, 2001 attacks against the United States, Islamic extremists have been blamed for attacks as far apart as Amman, Bali, Istanbul, London, Madrid and Saudi Arabia, among others, leaving many hundreds dead.

Queen Rania of Jordan told the audience that terror groups which used Islam to justify attacks had "led the Muslim world to a critical crossroads of self-examination and self-definition."

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf argued that the tensions had more to do with Western, rather than democratic, values or modernisation.

"If you're talking of westernisation, yes, that is in conflict with Islam and Islamic teaching because we have our different values," he said, adding it was normal for all cultures to maintain their respective identities.

But Hajim Alhasani, president of the Iraq National Assembly, argued that Muslim intellectuals and reformers saw more of Islam's core values outside the Middle East.

"They find Islam more in the West than they find it in Muslim countries," he maintained, because while Islamic philosophers had helped foster human values in the 19th century, "the problem with Muslim countries is that you don't find these values and principles implemented within the Muslim society.

"You find corruption everywhere and Muslim values are against corruption."

The parliament chief said that in Iraq: "We think democracy is a solution for Muslim nations." ...

I think the Hamastanians are with you on that one, Hajim.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:19 | link | comments

A nation takes shapes--sort of: Behold, the new state of Hamastan.

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

Potholes and power: The post-election whitewashing of jihadi terrorists continues apace, now that Hamas is legitimately democratic and all. An article in the online magazine Slate poses this burning question: "Will Hamas be too busy fixing potholes to wages jihad?"

Perhaps I might answer that question with another question: Did the exigencies of power deter Adolf Hitler--who, lest we forget also came to power through the levers of democracy-- from persuing his stated agenda?

On the other hand, who says Fatah's going to step aside and give Hamas the opportunity to fill in any potholes?

Mark Steyn, as hilarious and perceptive as ever, says the media can't disguise the obvious--that Hamas wants to destroy Israel--because Hamas has never tried to disguise it. From The Chicago Sun-Times:

...Hamas doesn't support a two-state solution, it supports the liquidation of one state and its replacement by other, and they don't see why they should have to pretend otherwise. And in last week's elections for the Palestinian Authority they romped home. It was a landslide.

As is the way, many in the West rushed to rationalize the victory. The media have long been reluctant to damn the excitable lads as terrorists. In 2002 the New York Times published a photograph of Palestinian suicide bombers all dressed up and ready to blow, and captioned it "Hamas activists." Take my advice and try not to be standing too near the Hamas activist when he activates himself.

Oh, no no no, some analysts assured us. The Palestinians didn't vote for Hamas because of the policy plank about obliterating the state of Israel but because Fatah is hopelessly corrupt. Which is true: The European Union's bankrolled the Palestinian Authority since its creation and Yasser and his buddies salted most of the dough away in their Swiss bank accounts and used the loose change to fund the intifada. After 10 years you can't blame the Palestinians for figuring it's time to give another group of people a chance to siphon off all that EU booty.

So I'd like to believe this was a vote for getting rid of corruption rather than getting rid of Jews. But that's hard to square with some of the newly elected legislators. For example, Mariam Farahat, a mother of three, was elected in Gaza. She used to be a mother of six but three of her sons self-detonated on suicide missions against Israel. She's a household name to Palestinians, known as Um Nidal -- Mother of the Struggle -- and, at the rate she's getting through her kids, the Struggle's all she'll be Mother of. She's famous for a Hamas recruitment video in which she shows her 17-year-old son how to kill Israelis and then tells him not to come back. It's the Hamas version of 42nd Street: You're going out there a youngster but you've got to come back in small pieces.

It may be that she stood for parliament because she's got a yen to be junior transport minister or deputy secretary of fisheries. But it seems more likely that she and her Hamas colleagues were elected because this is who the Palestinian people are, this is what they believe. The Palestinians are the most comprehensively wrecked people on the face of the earth: After 60 years as U.N. "refugees," they're now so depraved they're electing candidates on the basis of child sacrifice. To take two contemporaneous crises, imagine if the population displacements caused by the end of the Second World War and by the partition of British India had also been left to the U.N. to manage and six decades later they were still running the "refugee" "camps," now full of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, none of whom had ever lived in any of the places they're supposed to be refugees from. Would you wish that fate on post-war Central Europe or the Indian subcontinent?

So what happens now? Either Hamas forms a government and decides that operating highway departments and sewer systems is what it really wants to do with itself. Or, like Arafat, it figures that it has no interest in government except as a useful front for terrorist operations. If it's the former, all well and good: Many first-rate terror organizations have managed to convert themselves to third-rate national-liberation governments. But, if it's the latter, that too is useful: Hamas is the honest expression of the will of the Palestinian electorate, and the cold hard truth of that is something Europeans and Americans will find hard to avoid...

Update: Like other mainstream media outlets, Time Magazine is having a hard time wrapping its noggin (metaphorically speaking) around the concept that the Palestinians have elected overt terrorists over semi-crypto-terrorists. As Time sees it, there's always a chance genocical jihadis will moderate their stance once they've tasted power. I'm not really sure how Time and the others have arrived at this unlikely scenario. A combination of wishful thinking and an inability to comprehend history, I guess

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:19 | link | comments

Defending Munich: Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner, director and screenwriter of a fanciful imagining of Israel's retributive actions following the massacre of Israeli athletes during the Munich Olypics, have been taking some heat for their version of events. Much of the outrage has come from other Jews, who don't cotton to the way Steve and Tony see fighting back against against the jihad as merely encouraging those waging it (for example, by ending the movie with a shot of the Twin Towers, as if to suggest that the purported tit-for-tat cycle of violence culminating in Mo Atta and crew's attack began with Israel's actions post-Munich). Now, Steve and Tony are responding to their critics.

Here's Spielberg in an interview with Der Spiegel in which he avers his love for Israel, a country he says he "would die for":

SPIEGEL: Mr. Spielberg, can you remember the hours of the Olympic massacre? Do you know where you were when you heard the terrible news?

Spielberg: Yes, I do. I was watching a "Wide World of Sports" live broadcast from Munich when the news suddenly flashed in, and the well-known sports commentator Jim McKay became a man for the hard facts of world politics. I was glued to the TV for the next few hours. I think it was then that I heard the words "terrorist" and "terrorism" for the first time - they hadn't been part of my vocabulary up to then.

SPIEGEL: Later, you were frequently approached with ideas for a "Munich" film. For a long time you couldn't warm to the material, and kept putting it off. Why?

Spielberg: I declined for several years because I didn't like the scripts and because I considered it too complex a problem. I discussed this film with all kinds of people who mean a lot to me, in the hope that they would talk me out of it, even my parents and my rabbi. But no-one would do me that favor. So my scriptwriter Tony Kushner and myself took on the project as seriously and politically unbiased, and as uncompromisingly as possible.

SPIEGEL: And do you regret it?

Spielberg: Not at all. I am now extremely happy that I had the courage to make "Munich".

SPIEGEL: Were you really aware of the political minefield you were stepping into? You portray not only the Palestinian acts of terrorism, but above all the tough Israeli response, the campaign of vengeance. You show agents who have doubts about their moral superiority when liquidating their enemies. Did you deliberately set out to offend -- or at least consciously risk offending -- your many Jewish friends whose admiration for you was almost unlimited following "Schindler's List"?

Spielberg: Believe me, I did not approach the subject naively. I am an American Jew and aware of the sensitivities involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

SPIEGEL: You are celebrated enthusiastically by the critics, and you have also been slammed. But rarely has a director been attacked and vilified so personally for a film as you have now. You have been called a blind pacifist, even a traitor to the cause of Israel.

Spielberg: Fortunately, the people who write that kind of thing are a small but very loud minority. It saddens me to see how narrow-minded and dogmatic some of the right-wing fundamentalists here in the USA are. I thank God that people who are important to me see "Munich" quite differently. Liberal American Jews, for example, but also some families of the victims from that time in Israel. They have embraced the message of the film.

SPIEGEL: The main charge against "Munich" is political or, if you wish, ideological: you are accused of morally equating the Palestinian terrorists with their Israeli pursuers.

Spielberg: That is utter nonsense. Those critics are behaving as if we all had no moral compass. Naturally, it is a terrible, despicable crime when, as in Munich, people are taken hostage, people are killed. But probing the motives of those responsible and showing that they are also individuals with families and have their own story does not excuse what they did. Wanting to understand the background to a murder doesn't mean you accept it. To understand does not mean to forgive. Understanding has nothing to do with being soft; it is a brave and very robust attitude to take.

SPIEGEL: Your opponents say that you "humanize" terror.

Spielberg: Do these critics really mean that terrorists are not human beings? I try not to demonize them. Again, this has absolutely nothing to with relativizing their acts or sympathizing with them. But I do believe that it sullies the memory of the victims if we do not ask questions about the reasons, about the roots of terror. My film is not supposed to be a pamphlet, not a caricature, not a one-dimensional view of things. I refuse to give simple answers to complicated questions.

SPIEGEL: Isn't that also part of the problem: the situation in the Middle East is so complex that even an almost three-hour, multilayered film cannot come close to tackling it?

Spielberg: I do not claim to be providing a peace plan for the Middle East with my film. But is that a reason to leave it all to the great simplifiers? Jewish extremists and Palestinian extremists who to this day regard any form of negotiated solution in the Middle East as some kind of betrayal? Keep my mouth shut just to avoid trouble? I wanted to use the powerful medium of film to confront the audience very intimately with a subject with which they are normally familiar in an abstract sense at the most -- or only from a biased point of view...

You see, if a point of view is expressed by someone who sees things like Spielberg, is not biased. It's the default position of everyone he knows and hence is the only legitimate one. It's those who see things differently--those extremists, those Bushies, those crazy right-winger who have dared to question the man George Jonas, on whose book the film was suppsedly based, calls "the King of Hollywood"--who have the bias.

Tony, too, bemoans how he's been misunderstood by his co-religionists, the ones whose tiny right-wing minds render them incapable of appreciating Munich's subtleties. Here's his piece from the Toronto Star:

At a recent family gathering, my cousin-in-law, Janice, asked me to respond to complaints she'd read over and over again about Munich, the Steven Spielberg film I co-wrote with Eric Roth, which she hadn't yet seen.

The movie is stirring up a lot of controversy, which I anticipated when I agreed to work on it. I even considered it a side benefit that my "mishpocheh," my family, an occasionally argumentative bunch, would have fresh subject matter for the discussion part of our next few seders. Matzo balls might be flung, but arguing is good for the digestion.

In the last month, the co-creators of Munich have been accused of being apologists for the Palestinians, apologists for Israel, defamers of Palestinians and of Israel, softheaded Hollywood liberals, dupes of the radical left, dupes of the radical right, even of being anti-Semitic or self-loathing, for showing Jews talking about receipts and handling money. We're morally confused, overly complicated, simplistic. We're cowards who refused to take sides. We took a side but, oops! the wrong side.

I wondered which of the charges Janice had in mind.

Is it the case, she asked, that Munich is based on a discredited book, Vengeance? No, I answered, it's based on a book, Vengeance, that has been challenged but never discredited — these are not the same things. There is no definitive account of what was, after all, a covert Mossad operation. But no one is challenging the central historical fact in the debate that Munich is meant to catalyze: Palestinians were assassinated by Israel, following the Palestinian murder of the Israeli athletes in Munich.

Next question: Why does the movie show Mossad agents having doubts and regrets about killing terrorists when apparently they never have doubts and regrets? Why did you make that up?

I've never killed anyone, but my instincts as a person and a playwright — and the best books I've read about soldiers or cops or people whose jobs bring them into violent physical conflict — suggest that people in general don't kill without feeling torn up about it. Violence exacts a psychic toll, unless you're a sociopath, and who wants to watch a movie about sociopaths?

Munich dramatizes the toll violence takes. This bothers a few people at both ends of the political spectrum. I understand why those who think Israeli agents are villainous, unfeeling killing machines disparage our conscience-ridden characters. I'm confused by those who think that a depiction of the agents as conscienceless would make them more impressive and heroic.

Janice asked a third question: Why do I, her cousin-in-law, apparently have a secret plan to destroy Israel?

I have indeed been critical of Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza — well, Janice knew that already. I'm an American and a proudly diasporan Jew. I believe that the best hope for any oppressed minority is found in the constitution's promise of equal protection under the law, in secular pluralist democracy. I believe that governments — and our souls — are nourished by honesty, open-mindedness and public debate, even of scary ideas and uncomfortable truths. But my criticism of Israel has always been accompanied by declarations of unconditional support of Israel's right to exist, and I believe that the global community has a responsibility to defend that right. I have written and spoken of my love for Israel.

This inconvenient complication in my views has been carefully edited out of the caricature of me that's being offered up by people whose disregard for truth has informed their account of Munich. The film is neither the simple cartoon their distortions make of it, nor a mirror image of its wicked screenwriter....

I find Tony's equivocations interesting but unconvincing. I'd sure like to meet his cousin-in-law, Janice, though. She sounds like she has a much clearer grasp of the situation.

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

Look for the silver lining: Every cloud, they say, has its silver lining--even one that's replete with genocidal terrorists. Thus, some Israelis see the election of Hamas as new opportunity for peace. Here's their convoluted thinking (from the New York Times):

TEL AVIV, Jan. 28 — Arie Schmidt stopped on Saturday to place a pebble on the memorial to the 21 dead at the Dolphinarium disco, killed in a suicide bombing by Hamas in 2001. The dead were mostly teenagers.

Mr. Schmidt sighed, then chained one careful word to the next on what it means that Hamas is now the official Palestinian power. "I tell you," he began, "we think it is actually the best thing that can happen to Israel.

"Because now we see the real face of the Palestinians," said Mr. Schmidt, 56, a computer engineer from Haifa who considers himself neither on the left nor the right. "From their vote we can understand their theory to destroy the state of Israel is not a theory but a fact.

"So," he said, in a conclusion that may not seem immediately logical to outsiders but was repeated again and again in interviews here, "I think it is the best chance for peace. I think Hamas can understand there is no way to destroy the state of Israel and will take a course to peace.

"Hopefully."...

And maybe my retriever will get up on his hind legs and whistle "Dixie."

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:08 | link | comments (2)

Bumpy transition: The problem with the kind of sham democracy in places where people elect the Islamist ticket is that those voted out of office are unlikely to wait around until the next election. Witness today's kerfuffle in the democratic theocracy of--what's that place called again? From Reuters:

Firing into the air, Fatah gunmen and police stormed Palestinian parliament buildings on Saturday in growing unrest after their long-dominant party's crushing election defeat by Hamas Islamists.

Hamas leaders meanwhile rejected as "blackmail" Western demands that it renounce violence against Israel or risk losing aid vital to the survival of the Palestinian Authority. Hopes of peacemaking with Israel have been pushed further into limbo...

Never mind "peacemaking with Israel." These folks can't even navigate the tricky shoals of changing governments.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:50 | link | comments

The cheetah and the snails: As the Shoah-scoffers race to the nuclear wire with the speed and and determination of the "cheetahs" that they are ('cause "cheetahs" always prosper), the rest of the world continues to bring up the rear at a snail's pace. In Davos, Switzerland, where the world's internationalists are feasting, pontificating and basking in their mutual self-regard (taking time, as always during these galas, to bash the Jews), British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw assured the world that he and his confreres are pretty sure that Iran's interest in nuclear capability isn't solely directed toward meeting its future energy needs. And they plan to get right on it--just as soon as the IAEA has the "emergency" meeting it scheduled about two and a half weeks back (which somehow got transmuted into a regularly scheduled meeting), and the nuclear watchkittens determine once and for all that Iran has nefarious intentions. After that, there are certain "procedures" which must be followed, but you can be sure that sometime around, oh, say 2008 or thereabouts, the issue has a good chance of being referred to the fiersome Security Council. So watch out, you mullahs, 'cause our Jack's on a tear. From Bloomberg:

Iran is probably developing a nuclear weapons capability, U.K. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said, five days before board members of the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency meet to consider Iran's nuclear program.

``It is prudent to assume that Iran is seeking to develop a nuclear weapons capability so that they have the choice of whether to activate it,'' he said today at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

Negotiations with Iran's head nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani will continue next week, and foreign ministers of the U.K. and its European allies will also hold talks before a planned board meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency on Feb. 2, Straw said...

The U.K. is considering referring Iran's case to the United Nations Security Council for possible sanctions, if the IAEA, the UN's nuclear watchdog, finds that Iran has violated the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

``There are procedures,'' Straw said. ``If they are in non- compliance then the matter goes to the Security Council.''

Prudence, patience, procedures--pathetic!

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:32 | link | comments

A Little Day Music: Mahmoud Abbas serenades his victorious political rival, Hamas:

Isn’t it rich?
Are we a pair?
Me here at last on my duff.
You with power to spare.
But where are the clowns?

Life is a bitch.
Misplaced my groove.
You who kept tearing around
While I didn’t move.
But where are the clowns?
There ought to be clowns.

Just when I thought
I got my wish
Expected to be here like Yasser
‘Til I was a dead fish.
Making an exit like him
In a chopper so sleek.
Just never thought
I’d be so weak.

Don’t you hate farce
Even worse than the Jews?
That’s what we’re left with, alas—
When Hamas wins, we lose.
But where are the clowns?
Quick, send in the clowns.
Look—we’re both in the news.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:44 | link | comments

Eureka!: I can, with confidence, make a claim that Albert Brooks never could: I have located comedy in the Muslim world. Turned up when I wasn't even looking for it--in a Times Online interview with Hamas's fearless leader (who's been hiding out in Syria but plans to return to Gaza now that Hamas has swept to power):

T.O. Question: How will Hamas make its internal decisions?

"Why are you interested in that? We have no problems. We are not using guns to choose our representatives. We are not using guns in the primaries. We use knives. (Joking.)

Just goes to show: even a genocidal terrorist can have a sense of humour.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:36 | link | comments (1)

Meeting of media minds: Here's a real treat. Islam Online comments--favourably, of course--on The Guardian's interpretation of the Hamas victory:

The Palestinians deserve respect and support as their real democratic legislative elections proved that civil society in Palestine is more vibrant than anywhere else in the region and owes nothing to Washington's selective efforts to promote democracy out there, Britain's mass-circulation the Guardian commented on Friday, January 27.

"Today's priority is to accept that Palestinians have spoken freely. They deserve respect and support," the British daily said.

It said that Wednesday's election proved that the Palestinian politics has its own dynamics, dictated not by outside pressure but the social and economic demands of ordinary people in appalling conditions.

The resistance group Hamas swept the Palestinian legislative elections, winning 76 seats in the 133-seat Palestinian Legislative Council, nearly 57.6 percent of the seats up for grabs.

The daily said that the elections were a more impressive expression of democracy and freedom than any other in the Middle East.

"The poll was a more impressive display of democracy than any other in the region, outstripping last year's votes in Lebanon and Iraq both in turnout and the range of views that candidates represented.

"Whereas in Iraq parties that opposed the occupation had to downplay or even obscure their views, Palestinian supporters of armed resistance to Israel's expansionist strategies were able to run openly," it said.

The British daily said Europeans were making much fuss about Hamas's refusal to accept Israel.

"History and international politics do not march in tidy simultaneous steps. For decades Israel refused even to recognize the existence of the Palestinian people, just as Turkey did not recognize the Kurds," it said.

The paper said until 15 years ago the Palestinians had to be smuggled to international summits as part of Jordan's delegation.

The Guardian said that Hamas could disarm itself and recognize Israel in future.

"That will be the end of the process of establishing a just modus vivendi for Israelis and Palestinians in the Middle East. It cannot be the first step." ...

But don't think that's the only delight The Guardian has in store for you. Don't miss alleged political cartoonist Steve Bell's depiction of Hamas's wheelchair-bound sheik (gone but, alas, not forgotten) blazing through the centre of the Israeli flag. It's a charmer.

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:16 | link | comments

A song for Jimminy and the Palestinians:

When you wish upon Hamas
There will be a lot of fuss.
'Cause its raison d'etre is a genocide.

As they strive to reach their dreams
They'll resort to some extremes.
Well, at least, unlike Abbas, they've nothing to hide.

Fate it sucks, she brings to those who hate
A chance to incubate their overt longings.

Fools will say that they'll reform
As fascism becomes the norm.
When you wish upon Hamas
It's suicide.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:46 | link | comments

When you wish upon Hamas: The Toronto Star, that bastion of dangerous internationalist/leftist foggymindedness,  has an "exclusive interview" with Jimminy "Cricket" Carter, the former U.S. President (arguably its worst) and self-styled conscience of self-loathing Westerners. Fresh off his role as overseer of the Palestinian election, Jimminy regales the Star scribe with an annecdote about his past efforts to bring Hamas--now the Palestninians' government-elect--onside in the "peace process" (my scare quotes, not his). It's a toss-up as to who's more clueless--the cricket or the paper:

At 81, clear-eyed and calm, America's most beloved ex-president — who yesterday sanctified the Palestinian election as head of the 950-strong international observer mission — took the earthquake in stride.

With the debate turning to whether the Palestinians' major international benefactors, the European Union and the United States, should allow themselves to maintain contact with a government led by Hamas — a group that has not unequivocally abandoned its founding principle of the destruction of the state of Israel — Carter let us in on a fascinating anecdote he has never spoken of publicly.

Ten years ago, Carter himself sat down with Hamas in an attempt to bridge the gap between PLO chief Yasser Arafat and the then-fledgling militant Islamic group.

As a personal favour to the late Palestinian leader, and in the spirit of the newly minted Oslo Accords, Carter went hunting for Hamas, to lasso them into the political process.

"Arafat asked me if I would contact Hamas and see if they would accept the new government with him as president, and to find out what their demands might be," Carter said.

A series of meetings ensued with various Hamas leaders in the Israeli-occupied territories, and Carter initially found himself confounded by the multi-headed hydra of leadership, Hamas-style. But some of those he spoke to showed interest.

Even 10 years ago, there were indications Hamas might be ready to make the great leap forward into reason and rationality — and perhaps even to accept Israel as its legitimate partner in a future that would become two states living side by side.

Finally, a secret summit was arranged for Cairo involving every voice that mattered to Hamas. And just as Carter was preparing for the flight to Egypt, Hamas called it off.

"They cancelled the meeting. Either they decided no, or they decided I wasn't the right person. But they cancelled," said Carter.

"That's the way it was then. Clearly there was no discernable person who could speak on behalf of Hamas and I'm not sure there is yet."

Carter didn't rule out modern-day disaster in the 17 minutes and 29 seconds he gave the Star yesterday. But he would like everyone to take a deep breath and consider an opposite scenario. To his way of thinking, any notion of peace was already a political fiction long before Hamas came calling. Maybe, just maybe, confronted with the reality of responsibility, Hamas will be the one to awaken it...

And maybe, just maybe, Hamas means what it says--what it has always unequivocally said--and plans to get on with its Jew-killing project. And maybe, just maybe, "the reality of responsibility" will re-energize that project, as it did when the Jews left Gaza.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:55 | link | comments (3)

Stomach-turning headline: Islamic Hamas wins Palestinian hearts.

Yeah, 'cause they sure won't voting with their heads. And doesn't it warm the cockles that the Palestinians allowed their "hearts" to be captured by genocidal Jew-hating jihadis?

About as "heartwarming" as necrotizing faciitis, I'd say.

More stomach-turning headlines:

- Hamas urged to embrace peace, Israel rejects talks--from our friends of Reuters, of course, who frame the story as a matter of Israeli intrasigence (those stiff-necked Jews!).

- Arabs jubilant at Hamas victory--from the Seattle Times.

- Ballots triumph over bullets--from the Toronto Star.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:54 | link | comments

"Conservative" win in the P.A.: The Palestinians have elected the Muslim Brotherhood's combat/terror arm to be their official government, but to the Globe and Mail this can be viewed as a positive development because they were finally able to participate in the democratic process. "Chance to vote democratically elicits pride, joy in Palestine", reads the headline that tops the story by the Globe's man on the scene, Mark McKinnon. McKinnon, who found little apparent joy in Israel's security fence (or as the Globe called it, THE WALL), recounting its joylessness in an interminable five-part series, seems to find much that's appealing in the carnival atmosphere surrounding the Palestinian elections:

The decision before them was momentous and difficult to make: Did they put their trust once again in Fatah, the party of Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas that many Palestinians believe has failed them for too long, or turn to Hamas, the Islamic movement that promises to end corruption, but also comes with a bloody history of orchestrating suicide attacks on Israel and a strictly conservative social agenda?

While tension crackled in the air outside some polling booths yesterday, many were simply delighted to be able to choose which direction their stateless nation will next head...

Sounds like McKinnon's a bit jealous that he couldn't join in to the festivities and had to maintain his facade of unbiased observer. Heck, even the Globe's headline writer gets caught up in the excitement. But then, it's hard to remain calm with all that "pride" and "joy" zinging through the air like so many exploding martyrs.

And you have to give the terrorists credit, n'est-ce pas?, because they're bound and determined to "clean up" the joint (like they've done in Gaza?) and rid the P.A. of "corruption". That their plan requires the population to adhere to a particularly stringent version of sharia law seems incidental, at least to scribes like McKinnon who prefer to divest it of its unpleasant religious connotation by refering to it not as sharia, but as Hamas's "strictly conservative agenda."

Just to be clear--something McKinnon seems loath to do in these circumstances--that's "conservative" not in the Stephen Harper sense of the word. That's conservative not in the neo-Con sense of the word. That's "conservative" in the Taliban sense of compelling an entire gender to perambulate while wearing a black pup tent and slicing off hands and heads as a punitive measure.

We'll see how long Palestinian elation lasts under those conditions

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

Cosmic comedy: Looks like I counted out Hamas too soon. Silly me. I should have known better than to underestimate the appeal that fascism holds for a people in chaos, especially if it's a religiously-based fascism which gives people scriptural assurance that eliminating Jews can be considered a righteous exercise. (So much for Making the Case for Democracy, eh Natan?) Now, at least, Israel will be spared the empty rigamarole of Peace in Our Time talks; there's not much to discuss with people who challenge your right to draw breath, much less your right to be sovereign in the land of the gold and silver mosques.

So, to review the current situation: There's a terrorist regime in Gaza and the West Bank; the "secular" Baathists of Syria are shoring up power by aligning themselves with the religious fascists of Iran, who seem bent on perpetrating a Holocaust (to their way of thinking, the first one, since that one in Europe is largely a myth); and much of the world is looking to delegitimize Israel for having had the temerity to reafirm its place in the region and defend itself against those who have no intention of ever accepting it.

Were I a pious Jew, I"d think now would be a good time to ratchet up the instensity of my prayers. Since I'm not--pious, that is--I can't help but think that maybe it's all part of a great, cosmic jest. When we signed on to that Covenant--that "light onto the world" project--back in the ancient day, we forgot to read the fine print. It said: "Warning: agreeing to be "God's chosen" may be hazardous to your health. It will earn you the eternal emnity of those p.o.'d by that designation."

Joke's on us. We forgot to bring a lawyer.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:21 | link | comments (2)

Iran's obsession: Only two days to go until Iran's Shoah-denial-palooza, and Israel's ambassador to the UN, Dan Gillerman, says he thinks he knows why the mullocracy has become so obsessed with the Holocaust. From YNet News:

"I fear that the only reason Iran is showing so much interest in the Holocaust is because they may be preparing another Holocaust and it is up to the world and the United Nations to prevent that from happening," Gillerman said.

He pointed to Iran's alleged nuclear ambitions as proof of how dangerous the nation is.

"I think this matter must be referred as quickly as possible to the Security Council because only the Security Council will take the necessary steps to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear possessing power," Gillerman said.

If we have to depend on the UN to ensure Israel's survival, we're well and truly doomed.

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:33 | link | comments

Peace in our time back on track: Fatah has won handily over Hamas, so I guess the Jews and Arabs can get back on that Peace in Our Time treadmill. From Bloomberg:

The ruling Fatah Party took first place in Palestinian elections today, beating the armed Islamic group Hamas, which will enter the Legislative Council for the first time with more than a third of the vote, exit polls showed.

Fatah, the party founded by the late Yasser Arafat, took 46 percent of the ballots cast throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip, compared with 39 percent for the Hamas-supported Change and Reform list of candidates, according to the poll of voters conducted by Bir Zeit University in the West Bank.

Palestinian Authority Deputy Prime Minister Nabil Shaath, a leader of Fatah, earlier cited unspecified exit poll results showing his party won between 40 percent and 46 percent of the vote and Hamas got 30 percent to 32 percent.

Hamas, which is classified by the U.S. as a terrorist organization and has staged 58 suicide bombings against Israeli targets in the past five years, would join the Palestinian Legislative Council for the first time since the body was founded in 1996. The group campaigned on a platform opposing the Palestinian Authority's efforts to resume peace negotiations with Israel.

``We need the world's support to help us get back to the negotiating table with the Israeli side in order to renew the peace process and implement what hadn't been implemented,'' Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, a leader of Fatah, told reporters at his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Voter turnout was almost 78 percent, the Palestinian Central Election Commission said on its Web site. Voting was heavier in the Gaza Strip, where 82 percent had gone to the polls, compared with 74 percent in the West Bank, it said.

Wow, that's pretty impressive. Here in Canada, where we didn't have any terrorists on the ballot (although some suffering from Harper Derangement Syndrome might suggest otherwise) voter turnout was only around 65 percent.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:38 | link | comments

Different perspectives: The National Post frames the Palestinian election as a matter of chosing between peace and confrontation. The website israelinsider, on the other hand, says it's about choosing between war now or a little later.

If only the Post had it right.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:18 | link | comments

The big sleep: Iran, again, sounding all genocidal. From IranMania:

Iran's defence minister hit back Wednesday at veiled Israeli threats of an attack, saying Iran and its allies could put the Jewish state "in an eternal coma" like that of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said AFP.

"Israel does not have the courage to attack Iran, and if it commits such a big mistake, the defenders of Islamic Iran will put Israel in an eternal coma like Sharon," Mostafa Mohammad Najjar was quoted as saying by state television.

Najjar branded the United States and Israel as the "Great and Little Satan, who are using psychological wars to intimidate Iran." The United States has been branded the "Great Satan" since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

The two countries are among a number that suspect Tehran of using its civilian atomic energy programme to hide efforts to develop nuclear weapons. Washington is pressing for Iran to be hauled before the UN Security Council.

Iran, a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, says its nuclear programme is legal under the NPT and merely designed to meet its energy needs.

Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz said Saturday that Israel, widely believed to possess nuclear arms, would not tolerate a "a nuclear option" for Iran, but reaffirmed his commitment to diplomacy over the escalating crisis.

"We are giving priority at this stage to diplomatic action ... but in any case we cannot tolerate a nuclear option for Iran and we must prepare ourselves," the Iranian-born Mofaz said.

But Najjar said the "vigilance of the Iranian people, regional and global nations will defuse their sinister plans against humanity."

Israel and Iran are arch-enemies, with Tehran refusing to acknowledge the Jewish state's right to exist. Tension between them has grown recently over a string of outbursts by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahamadinejad, including a call for Israel to be "wiped off the map."

Me, I refuse to acknowledge Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's right to exist. From now on I plan to refer to him as "the Iranian entitiy."

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:04 | link | comments

Enabling terrorists: A blast of fresh air from Daniel Pipes, who like me is sickened by the spectacle of terror outfit Hamas being accorded a respect it doesn't--and will never--deserve. From USA Today:

As Hamas, the Islamist terror group, surges in the polls with a prospect of joining the Palestinian Authority or even running it, governments worldwide must decide on their responses.

An increasing number of voices are calling for Hamas to be recognized, arguing that the imperatives of governance would tame it, ending its arch-murderous vocation (it has killed about 600 Israelis) and turning it into a responsible citizen.

Even President Bush made this argument in early 2005: “There's a positive effect when you run for office. Maybe some will run for office and say, ‘Vote for me, I look forward to blowing up America.' … I don't think so. I think people who generally run for office say, ‘Vote for me, I'm looking forward to fixing your potholes, or making sure you got bread on the table.' ”

The historical record, however, refutes this “pothole theory of democracy.” Mussolini made the trains run, Hitler built autobahns, Stalin cleared the snow and Castro reduced infant mortality — without any of these totalitarians giving up their ideological zeal nor their grandiose ambitions. Likewise, Islamists in Afghanistan, Iran and Sudan have governed without becoming tamed. If proof is needed, note the Iranian efforts to build nuclear weapons amid an apocalyptic fervor.

Hamas might have hired a spin doctor to improve its image in the West, but its leadership candidly maintains it has no intention of changing. Responding to a question on whether Bush is correct that U.S. engagement with Hamas would moderate the terror group, Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas founder, laughed and declared that this tactic “will not succeed.” In recent days, Zahar has publicly reiterated that Hamas still intends to destroy Israel.

Fortunately, U.S. policy remains steadfast: “We haven't dealt with Hamas, and we won't deal with Hamas members who are elected,” says U.S. embassy spokesman Stewart Tuttle in Israel. That is a good start; ideally, there should be no dealings at all with a Palestinian Authority that includes Hamas in its leadership.

It was a mistake to permit Hamas to compete in elections. Like al-Qaeda, Hamas should be destroyed, not legitimated, much less courted.

Update: The Ceeb calls Hamas a "radical Islamic movement" (sanitized Ceeb-speak for jihadi terrorists) and says heavy turnout at the polls means we can count on some Hamassholes being in Abbas's cabinet.

Minister of Splodeyation? Minister of Holocaust Denial? Minister of Hate?

Just some suggestions.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:55 | link | comments

Searching for comedy in the Muslim world: Did you hear the one about the Saudi Arabian comedian who became a suicide bomber? They say he killed! From MEMRI (via FrontPage Magazine):

Voice: "This is footage of an event held by the Zulfi province education department. This event was filmed by an amateur in early 2003, but the distribution of the file was later prevented. The event was presented by the suicide bomber Muhammad bin Shazaf Ali Aal Makhzum Al-Shehri, who would blow himself up a few months later at the AI-Hamraa residential compound in east Riyadh."

Muhammad Shazzaf Al-Shehri: "Whom must we all hate? Only the American leaders? No, all of America. We must boycott all American products, right? Does anyone disagree, brothers? I know I may be killed for this, but let's fight, brothers. Let's listen to the truth, brothers. Does anyone oppose the truth? No one.

"America is raiding our brothers in Iraq, while we sit here perfectly content."

Voice: "After Al-Shehri's speech, songs inciting to Jihad began, describing non-mujahideen as being fast asleep."

Singing: "Get up and shake off your slumber, because Islam is back. We have come for the sake of Allah, and we have declared Jihad. We have returned with submachine guns. We have the leadership today. We have awakened our generation, individually and as a whole."

Voice: "Gradually, the song, in Hijazi dialect, began to have an effect on those present."

Singing: "For the sake of my religion, everything else is meaningless. Even if they deport me and make me cry. Even if they torture me, they will not succeed. Even if they threaten me - no matter what they say. Even if they torture me, they will not succeed. Even if they threaten me - no matter what they say."

[...]

"We treat the woman like a protected pearl. In the West, the woman is degraded. We treat the woman like a protected pearl. In the West, the woman is degraded. A hidden pearl, a protected pearl."

No wonder shahids are so eager to get to Paradise. Who wants to have sex with a pearl?

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:32 | link | comments

Kanfer on Munich: At a pleasant brunch with friends on Sunday--a farewell to neighbours who were moving--the conversation turned to movies. One of the couples had seen Brokeback Mountain (which the male half of the couple suggested might be more appropriately named "Bareback Mountain") and recommended it to the rest of us. I mentioned that I had just seen Capote, and thought that Philip Seymour Hoffman, one of my favourite actors, was utterly captivating in the role. Then, onto Munich. No one seemed to be aware of the controversy surrounding the picture, my next door neighbour saying he planned to see it because he remembered the event (which seemed to me a good reason not to see it, since the actual massacre was mostly tangential to the Spielberg-Kushner fabrication of events that came later).

"Are you going to see it," I was asked.

"No, I don't think so."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't care to see an exercise in moral equivalence," I said.

Well, that was certainly a conversation stopper.

"Could you elaborate," I was asked.

Sigh. "No, I don't think so. If you want, you can read my blog. I've talked about it in great detail there."

No, I wasn't trying to boost my readership. I simply didn't feel like turning a convivial brunch into a heated discussion about Leftist delusions.

Anyway, for any of my brunch friends who decide to log on and read about Munich, I'm linking to this review by Stefan Kanfer. It is perhaps the most thorough and astute examination of the movie I have read so far. Here's how he concludes his piece in City Journal:

...There are all sorts of reasons to malign Munich for its mendacity, its misuse of history, its refusal to recognize that when Israel has acted strongly it has saved its people—as in the building of the wall that has protected countless Jews (and for that matter Palestinians). Or to recognize that whenever Israel has acted weakly, as in the days of the meaningless Oslo accords, Israelis paid for it with their lives.

Still, all these pale before the criticism of a UCLA professor named Judea Pearl. He is the father of the late Daniel Pearl, a Wall Street Journal reporter who was beheaded by Islamic terrorists in Pakistan for the crime of being a Jew.

Prof. Pearl writes that Munich “does not explicitly justify terrorism, but it leans in that direction by assigning a palatable yet unchallenged rationale to the Palestinian terrorists, and by having the Israeli hero suffer a crisis of conscience. . . . Missing from the script is the most important theme of all: justice.”

Justice, of course, is beyond the scope of Munich. So is reality. The New York Times, never a fan of the stricken Ariel Sharon, notes, “Life for ordinary Palestinians is becoming harder, with less security and optimism than a year ago. The Israelis pulled out of Gaza—a thrilling moment for many Palestinians—but the territory has become practically lawless, not a model for a future state.”

This is what Israel faces in the Middle East, while anti-Semitism grows in Europe along with its Muslim population, while Iran stockpiles weaponry, while Munich pushes its inhumane agenda.

Some prayer. Some peace.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:25 | link | comments (2)

A Rock and a hard place: The Conservative victory means that some highly placed-Liberals will soon be out of work. Take Allan Rock...please! (Sorry, couldn't resist the temptation to pull a Henny Youngman.) Rock has been enjoyng the perks of being Canada's UN ambassador--shmoozing, boozing, indulging in unctous diplomat-speak with folks from far-flung places like Botswana and Bahrain. But it looks like Al will be looking for another position--say, new leader of the Liberal Party?--because his worldview doesn't exactly jibe with the new Prime Minister's. From the Globe and Mail:

Former Liberal cabinet minister Allan Rock has come to enjoy his role as Canada's ambassador to the United Nations, but his tenure may be short-lived under the new Conservative government.

Though the incoming government of Stephen Harper will have far more pressing issues, including what to do about an expected Liberal leadership candidate, Frank McKenna, serving in Washington, at least one observer believes the Conservatives will also want their own appointee in the sensitive UN job.

And Mr. Rock, himself a former Liberal leadership candidate, may well decide to test those waters again.

Even if he doesn't, he would likely find it impossible to work for a Stephen Harper government, and vice versa.

One flashpoint for the left-of-centre Liberal and his new Conservative masters would be Canada's position on the Middle East. The ambassador is known to have resisted a relatively small tilt toward Israel by Prime Minister Paul Martin, and the Conservatives have signalled they have little patience for the UN's ongoing hostility toward Israel over its occupation of the West Bank.

Janice Stein, director of the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto, said she expects the Conservatives to more explicitly align themselves with the United States and defend Israel than the current government has.

"I would expect that there will be greater affinity with U.S. positions internationally than there has been, and the UN will be no exception," she said.

Marc Gold, national chair of the Canada-Israel Committee, said he was pleased to see the Liberal government make progress in shifting its UN voting pattern toward Israel.

"We have every expectation that the new Conservative government will maintain Canada in that direction," he said.

That "shift" in UN voting pattern was more like a twitch, with Canada, as always, voting for the majority of the UN's cockamamie Israel-bashing resolutions, the same ones it trots out (with minor variations) every year.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:33 | link | comments (1)

Mainstream delusions: The media keep talking about Hamas's new-found moderation. Here, for example is how it's described in the Christian Science Monitor:

Speaking easy English and shaking the hand of male and female visitors alike, Adli Yaish is hardly the typical face of Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement.
Rather, the new mayor of Nablus embodies a cadre of Hamas "spinoffs." Gone are the full beards and fiery religious rhetoric. Absent are assertions that all Israel is a "Zionist entity" that Muslims must destroy.

Saying they are inspired by - though not in lock step with - Hamas's militant core, politicians like Mr. Yaish have come to the fore in the group's first campaign for national representation. And when Palestinians vote in Wednesday's legislative elections, analysts say, it's Hamas's more moderate tone, as well as disillusionment with the ruling Fatah Party, that will yield the group significant gains.

At the same time, its mix of moderate and hard-line messages may complicate Israeli and US stands against dealing with Hamas, which both countries consider a terrorist organization...

The implication being, of course that while the U.S. and Israel consider it a terrorist organization, that designation may be a matter of opinion instead of fact. Also, since they've gone to the trouble of toning down the rhetoric and getting a shave, doesn't it behoove Israel to at least consider talking things over with them? I mean, where's the harm? Maybe they could hash out their differences and finalize that peace treaty.

It could happen, right?

Update: Scripps-Howard News Service notes with approval Palestinian society's "artful transformation":

Wednesday's election of the first Palestinian parliament in 10 years will mark a new direction for the Palestinian people, and nowhere is that more evident than in the striking change in the street posters plastered across the walls of the West Bank and Gaza.

For more than four years, the streets of Ramallah and other major cities were festooned with the faces of the dead, row upon row of posters dedicated to each of the 4,000 martyrs killed in the intifada struggle against Israel.

Many were photographed in full battle dress, loaded weapons in each hand and deadly bombs hanging from their tunics.

The posters - pasted on every wall and window, across shop shutters and advertising boards - helped create the image of a society wading through death, a virtual graveyard of photographic tombstones down every turning.

But all that has changed.

Gone are the guns, bombs, barbed wire and military slogans promising resistance and victory. Gone also are the faces of the dead. Gone, even, is the word "Intifada."

They have been replaced by flowers, cartoons, bright colors and election slogans promising to build the future and bring hope to the children.

Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement feared for its suicide bombings and revered for its commitment to Islam, has even jettisoned its own name, campaigning instead under the banner of the Change and Reform Party, which brought huge success at municipal elections last year.

The images that once saturated Ramallah of Israeli tanks, armed soldiers and the loathed Israeli security wall have been replaced by a new breed of posters marking a turning-point in Palestinian political life and the Palestinians' own image of themselves.

"They are less violent in their nature and not one of them shows the wall, or dead people or martyrs. They all start to tackle life. They are using images of children instead of weapons," said Steve Sabella, an award-winning Palestinian photographer and artist from East Jerusalem...

That Hamas media consultant deserves a huge bonus. The gullible mainstreamers seem to be falling for the new and improved Hamas with an alacrity bordering on the deranged.

Update: Even if Hamas doesn't come out on top, it's figured out how to continue endearing itself with the population (so as to bide its time and triumph at the opportune moment). From MSNBC:

...Hamas is expected to ask for service ministries — health, education and welfare — and to leave diplomacy, including contacts with Israel, to others. Hamas, which has long ruled out negotiations with Israel, has signaled some flexibility on the issue recently, but may not be ready for a dramatic shift of positions...

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:35 | link | comments

Coffee chasm: The Conservatives may have captured the flag, at least for now, but they failed to break through in one key sector: latte land. Not a single Tory was elected in Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal, Canada's three largest cities.

Warren Kinsella in The National Post puts a positive spin on this situation, writing, "It wasn't a triumph of Left versus Right. It wasn't about Urban versus Rural. It wasn't about East versus West. It was about Tim Hortons versus Starbucks." (The implication being that regular folks--like hockey Moms and Dads in the sticks--drink Tim's plebian beverage while snobs in city go for that fancier stuff.) 

I disagree. Clearly, it was about Urban versus Rural, the municipalities just north of Toronto, for example, once again showing their Conservative stripes and opting for the man from Calgary (a large city, yes, but one out there in redneck country). And not co-incidentally, city mice and country mice have different coffee preferences, not only because who can afford a Grande Mochaccino in Chilblain, Manitoba (a place I just made up), but because Starbucks isn't likely to set up shop in such an out of the way location.

Coffee aside, I think the Post cartoonist, G. Clement captured it best. On the front of the Post's election section, Decision Canada, there's a half page, full-colour 'toon of Stephen Harper being driven around a city in a car with loudspeakers on the roof. Speaking into the microphone, Harper says, "Attention elite, urbane, sophisticated, cosmopolitan citizens...please remain calm. I repeat...please remain calm."

And then, no doubt, he swings by the nearest Tim's for a double double and a dozen Tim-bits.

Update: The Toronto Star asked Canadians how they felt about Harper's victory. One denizen of latte land, Toronto Branch, responded, "I now can fully empathize with Americans who did not vote for Bush. I am truly mortified that Stephen Harper will be our prime minister."

Well, I guess she could always move to Vermont.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:14 | link | comments (5)

Election results: I admit it: I had my doubts. Despite scandal after scandal and mistep after mistep; despite a Prime Minister who, in the last two weeks sounded increasingly shrill and, yes, even kind of nutty; despite 12 longs years of Liberal corruption, inertia and arrogance, its sense that it alone was capable of steering the nation and preventing its implosion; despite all that, I thought it might take something really big, say like the entire Liberal Cabinet being implicated in a pedophile ring, to convince enough Canadians to "do the right thing" and throw the rotters out.

I was wrong. Canadians came through. Stephen Harper becomes Canada's new Prime Minister and Paul Martin is shipping out for good.

Yes, a majority government would have been better. Harper and crew will have a heck of time getting anything substantial through the House, and will be forced to contend with a senior civil service that has a built-in animus to Conservatives. Harper will also have to deal with a Left-minded mainstream media, which will be hypervigilant and hypercritical. The smallest bump and hiccup is likely to be magnified into a major scandale.

Still, these days one must be thankful for any victory, and I am, I am. I am thankful that Belinda Stronach, who marched her Jimmy Choos over to the Paul Martin side of the House to save his sorry butt and was rewarded with a key cabinet post, is now back to being a powerless backbencher--a Liberal one this time. I am thankful that Svend "Sticky Fingers" Robinson, the Yasser-fan and former kleptomaniac who tried to revive his political fortunes, will not be returing to Ottawa--at least not as an M.P.

But most of all, I'm thankful that Israel will have a friend in Ottawa, a Prime Minister who will have no patience for the sophistries of the UN/Human Rights/NGO gang, the internationalists, Islamists, and other anti-Semites who seek to replace a thriving Jewish democracy with a wasteland of terror and chaos.

The Palestinians have an election today. I have no doubt that, when the results have been tallied, they, like Canadians, will find themselves with the government they deserve.

Update: Margaret Wente says Belinda did Harper a huge favour by crossing the floor. (The online story is available for extra coinage, so I quote from my dead tree copy.):

Her defection had one other remarkable result. It united the Conservative Party. When a shattered Peter McKay (the Tory MP who'd been Belinda's boyfriend, and whom she ditched at the same time as her party switch) came into caucus that day, Stephen Harper stepped completely out of character, and hugged him. The caucus members erupted into cheers. After that, insiders say, the warring factions finally became to bond...

What if Belinds hadn't crossed the floor? It's a tantalizing question. Maybe Mr. Harper would have squeaked in anyway. Or maybe the Conservatives would be having a leadership convention. Personally, my bet is that she did him an enormous favour.

For one brief, shining moment, Belinda Stronach was the most important woman in Canadian politics. Then she made a disastrous career move, and now she's just a footnote. Funny how things work out sometimes.

But shed no tears for Belinda. She's still got looks, brains, mega-shekels and a wardrobe to die for. I'm sure that'll help cushion the blow.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:46 | link | comments (1)

The al Qaeda Book Club: Move over, Oprah. There's a new book maven on the block--and when he talks about a million little pieces, he means it literally. From CBC News:

He's no Oprah, but a plug from Osama bin Laden has propelled a book critical of U.S. foreign policy onto the bestseller list.

In an audio message authenticated by the CIA and aired on Al-Jazeera television last week, bin Laden issued a warning to the U.S. He promised new attacks against the U.S. but also made a vague reference to a possible truce.

During his message, bin Laden makes reference to the book Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower. Written by U.S. historian William Blum, the book is sharply critical of U.S. foreign policy and the country's war on terror.

"If [U.S. President George W.] Bush carries on with his lies and oppression, it would be useful for you to read the book Rogue State," bin Laden says on the tape.

Bin Laden also quoted a line from the book in which Blum says that if he were president, he would stop the U.S. from interfering in the affairs of other nations.

Rogue State leaped up Amazon.com's top-sellers list this past weekend and, as of midday Monday, was listed 10th on the online bookseller's overall top-seller list and third on its top-selling nonfiction list.

Blum, 72, has said that he has a low opinion of bin Laden and was surprised but "not turned off by the endorsement."

"I'm not repulsed and I am not going to pretend I am," he said in an interview with a New York radio station.

Blum has previously stated that he saw the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as "an understandable retaliation against U.S. foreign policy" but has emphasized that he does not justify the attacks.

The Washington-based Blum formerly worked for the U.S. State Department but left in 1967 in protest over the Vietnam War. The extreme-left author's other titles include West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir, Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire and Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:16 | link | comments

Explosive Shahid: One of google news's "names in the news" today is Shahid Afredi. The name is unfamiliar, but seems tailor-made for someone who might be inclined to seek Paradise through suicide. The headline in Independent seemed to confirm this impression--"Afredi fireworks stun India"--but, no, it's not about Shahid's success with Semtex. It has something to do with cricket--a game that, to me, is even more baffling than the motivations of suicide bombers.

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

Democracy in the P.A.: One good thing about being Canadian--at least my choice isn't between Fatah and Hamas.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:49 | link | comments

Heads up: The Toronto Star has a chart of the talking heads on the various networks who'll preside over tonight's election results (chart not available online). They are all middle-aged white guys and can be placed along a hair continuum--from folicularly-challenged Peter Mansbridge on one end to puffy-haired Gord Martineau and helmet-haired Lloyd Robertson on the other.

There is, however, one guys who stands out from this bland WASP group. He's short, cranky, green-haired and, oh yeah, I believe he's made of wool.

I think I'll go with him.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:06 | link | comments

Monday Night Fever: It's election day in Canada and despite the polls Prime Minister Paul Martin is convinced he's on the verge of winning another victory. He's so confident that on the weekend he told the media that the Conservative party, fronted by that scary Stephen Harper, Dubya's Mini-Me (as Liberal attack ads would have it), is as outmoded as....what's the name of that dancing the kids used to do? Oh yeah--disco.

On the way to the polling booth today, Martin will be strutting down the sidewalk and singing this song:

Well you can tell by the way I bob and weave
I’m a Liberal—and I’ll never leave.
Paid my dues in Parliament
When Chretien was in charge
And no matter what, I’ll be livin’ large.
And it’s alright, it’s okay,
No matter what the pollsters say.
Steve Harper is a dinosaur,
As passé as Club 54.
Whether you’re a Tory
It’s still the same old story
I’m stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive.
Harper’s grim agenda
Has plenty to offend ya.
I’m stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive.

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

"There she is...": And she definitely ain't Miss America (although she may have a hankering to become Miss World--in the Dar al Islamist sense of the title). From Islam Online:

Morality and impressive knowledge of Islam and other subjects were the basic criteria for choosing Dilar Sadiqova as "Miss Muslim" in the eastern European country of Tatarstan.

"I decided to take part in the competition to convey the message that you can be a Muslim and still do whatever you want as long as it is moral and respectable," Sadiqova told reporters after her acceptance speech.

"Thus, non-Muslims can have an undistorted vision of our religion," added the 17-year-old high school student, who wishes to become a school teacher.

There was no room in the competition for girls in swimsuits as seen in traditional beauty pageants, but only modestly-dressed and hijab-donned girls in demure smiles, the organizers told IslamOnline.net.

Brains and religiosity set the tone for the unprecedented contest in Tatarstan, where Muslims make up 60 percent of the country’s four million population.

The competition included Qur’an memorization and recitation tests, as well as a set of questions, testing the cultural knowledge of the 56 contesters.

They also took cooking and sewing tests for more points.

Only eight girls, aged 15-19, made it to the finals of the cut-throat competition...

You know how Albert Brooks went looking for comedy in the Muslim world? I think I just found it.

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:06 | link | comments

Voter fatigue: Islam Online reports that voters in the West Bank are taking no joy in the prospect of participating in the upcoming election--not as long as the Jews are still sovereign:

BALATA CAMP, West Bank, January 21, 2006 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – This month Palestinian legislative elections, the first in a decade, are kindling little hopes in the Balata refugee camp, where Palestinians are skeptical anyone can change the daily misery of their lives as long as the Israeli occupation endures.

"These elections are not going to give us a decent future for our children, nor are they going to allow us to move around freely," Alaa Sanakra told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Saturday, January 21.

"The Al-Aqsa Brigades has observed a truce with Israel for months and months but still, nothing has changed," he fumed, in reference to mainstream Fatah's armed wing.

A de facto truce observed by Palestinian resistance factions since President Mahmoud Abbas was elected last January expired with the start of the new year.

The truce has been undermined by Israel’s official resumption of its assassinations policy, prompting resistance factions to announce they were no longer bound by the ceasefire they followed through most of 2005.

"If there was no occupation, these elections would be a positive thing, but at the moment, people aren't interested in voting without getting their land back and getting rid of the oppressor," said Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades activist Ahmed Abu Saltah...

I can see his point. Why bother going through of motions of an election when, at the end of the day, the Jews are still there? For that matter, why bother getting out of bed at all? Unless, of course, you're planning to strap on a bomb to express "the impotence"?

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:59 | link | comments

Image consultants: Hamas has Dr. Aqtash. Fatah, on the other hand, has George W. Bush. From the Jerusalem Post:

The Bush Administration has been investing in the image of the Palestinian Authority ahead of the January 25 PA parliamentary elections, in which PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party runs the risk of being edged out of power by Hamas in the first Palestinian election in over a decade, The Washington Post reported Sunday.

The American initiative hopes to ensure that the PA receives recognition for a number of popular projects.

The US government, however, is keeping a comparatively low profile in the $2 million initiative headed by the Agency for International Development. No official government logos appear during projects and events.

Sources within Israel's defense establishment said Sunday morning that they believe that Hamas will win the upcoming elections and form the next coalition...

And you thought Aqtash had a challenging assignment...

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:01 | link | comments

(The singer is) Bananas Boat Song:  Harry Belafonte, the former Calypso singer who called George W. Bush the world's biggest terrorist, has reworked one of his most famous songs to reflect another of his recent insights: 

Gestapo,
Gesta-ha-ha-po.
Homeland Security is da Gestapo.
Gestap,
Ge-he-stap,
Ge-he-stap,
Ge-he-sta-ha-ha-po.
Homeland Security is da Gestapo.

Come Mr. Dubya-man, actin' like a Nazi.
(Daylight comin' and dey wanna go home.)
It be much bettah to be dat Osama's patsy.
(Daylight comin' and dey wanna go home.)
He’s six foot seven inch, skinny like a rake.
(Daylight come and he be hiding in a cave.)
He speak some words, de CIA say dey no fake.
(Daylight comin’ and he wanna go home.)
A horrible bunch of crazed jihadis.
(Daylight come and dey wanna go home.)
Dey love to pile up all de dead infidel bodies.
(Daylight come and dey wanna go home.)
Come Mr.Cheney-man,
Let dem out of Gitmo.
(Daylight come and dey wanna go home.)
If you do, dey promise not to hit mo’.
(Daylight come and dey wanna go home.)

Gestapo
Gesta-ha-ha-po.
Homeland Security is da Gestapo.
Gestap,
Ge-he-stap,
Ge-he-stap,
Ge-he-sta-ha-ha-po.
Homeland Security is da Gestapo.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:46 | link | comments

Pining for Islamo-fascism: An Arab living in Kandahar--site of a recent suicide bombing that claimed the life of a Canadian diplomat and wounded three Canadian soldiers--gets caught up in a misty-eyed reverie for the Taliban, who knew how to keep people in line. From the Toronto Star:

The days of systematic beheadings, amputations and point-blank shootings hold many fond memories for Mohammed Nasir.

"That time was good," says Nasir, who has worked at Kandahar's sports stadium for nine years.

 "If someone did bad things, they were punished. The Taliban were good because they controlled things. If someone was a robber, under the Taliban they would never steal again."

Probably because the Taliban chopped off his hands. (Old joke: what do you call a first offender in Taliban-era Afghanistan? Answer: Lefty.) To continue:

Under the Taliban, thousands of spectators gathered regularly in the stands (of the sports stadium) to watch as men were beheaded, women were shot and thieves had their hands cut off.

Like I said....

Many of the spectators were forced to attend, so they could see the fate awaiting them if they broke the Taliban's law.

Otherwise known as sharia...

"The people who were executed had done something bad to someone else, so we were happy with the executions," says Nasis. "They stopped people from committing other crimes."

"I don't think there was any problem with (the Taliban's judgment) because no one could corrupt them. They were honest. I would prefer it if there were executions now. The security was good at that time."

Unfortunately, Nasir and others nostalgic for the Taliban's "tough love" now have to contend with the messiness of democracy--and Nasir, for one, doesn't like it one bit:

"We don't have democracy," he says. "They say we have democracy, but there is no security here. If I want to drive a good car, I can't. If I want to carry a lot of money with me, I can't. So there is no democracy."...

Nasir says he's not a fan of everything the Taliban rulers did when they were in charge, but they did bring law and order to his town...

Memo to the Taliban: time to do a Hezbollah/Hamas-style repositioning. That way you can find your way back to power and folks like Nasir can have the kind of law and order they've been hankering for since you where chased out.

You might want to look up a guy named Aqtash. I hear he's really good.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:45 | link | comments

Good old reliable Moo Jihad: During a visit to Syria, Moo Jihad regaled his pal, Boy Assad, with his version of "Take Back Your Mink" from his favourite Broadway Musical, Guys and Dolls. ("Oho, that Miss Adelaide--she is one tasty infidel strumpet.")

He asked to wipe Jews off the Middle East map
And denied that the Shoah was fact.
Then he ranted about his electrical needs,
Said the Mahdi was bound to come back.
Then yesterday in Syria
He went off on a similar tack
And he said, though he knew he’d get flack:

“Take back your Jews.
Take back your Yids.
We’ve had our fill
Of all your Zionist kids.
Take back your Hebes
From whence they came.
They’ve taken our land
And you’re the ones that we blame.

I think that we’ve picked up the tab for your acts
And we’re tired of paying the price.
So it’s time that you owned up to what you have done…
That is, if you wanna be nice.

So, take back your Jews.
They’re so out of place.
They don’t belong here.
Their presence is a disgrace!

Well, isnt it?"

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:35 | link | comments

"Funny" Jew-hater: Albert Brooks went searching for comedy in the Muslim world, with no success. Maybe he would have had more success detecting in had he looked in France, where comedian Dieudonne has been slaying them with his uproarious Jew-hatred (which has elements of classic anti-Semitism married to Third World anti-Zionism) for the past few years. According to this lengthy profile of the comedian in Ha'aretz, Dieudonne has supposedly been experiencing a backlash of late, which may be attributed to his having inspired the Paris rioters. Or maybe they've wearied of his overtly hateful performances, like the time he appeared on French TV decked out in Orthodox Jewish mufti and gave the Nazi salute.

Or maybe--and here I'm just taking a guess--he simply isn't funny:

Dieudonne M'Bala M'Bala, a popular stand-up comic in France, is being ostracized by a large part of the French public, which is staying away from his shows. He is also no longer being invited to appear on television there. It's not because he's not funny. On the contrary - everyone agrees that Dieudonne is a superb comic, a very funny man. But this week he went on trial in Paris for things he said in an interview about a year ago in the French weekly Le Journal de Dimanche, in which he attacked - with typical vitriol - the people he thinks are trying to shove him to the margins of the sociopolitical discourse in France. He has no doubt whatsoever about their identity. "These are the same slave traders who became bankers and media moguls and who currently support Ariel Sharon's policies," he said. "Those that are attacking me have built empires and fortunes thanks to slavery and the black slave trade. But it's Israel that has financed apartheid and its final solution projects."

This isn't the first time that Dieudonne has got into trouble for such statements. Thanks to his big mouth, he is frequently in and out of courtrooms. His name is mentioned as one of the wildest and most influential inciters of the black youth who rioted in the streets of Paris this past October. There's no question that he likes to kick up storms and enjoys the attention. Generally speaking, this man, who cuts a big figure, is hard to miss. Dieudonne is "metis" - of mixed race, tall, strong and bearded, with a wild mane of curls on his head. He will turn 40 next month. During his shows, he has the audience in the palm of his hand and has been one of France's top stand-up artists for close to 15 years now. He can slay an entire audience with just a facial expression or a simple physical gesture. Financially, he's pretty well set. His solo shows were a big success, he has acted in more than 10 films and he owns a small theater in Paris where he directs and produces fringe productions.

Dieudonne, or Dieudo as his fans call him, was born on February 11, 1966 in Fontenay-aux-Roses outside Paris. His mother, who is white, is a sociologist and painter, and his father, also named Dieudonne, is an accountant who immigrated to France from Cameroon. He has one brother and 12 half-siblings from his parents' previous marriages. Dieudonne himself is married to a white woman. He has three small children and lives in Paris.

On the face of it, Dieudonne appears to have achieved the great French dream. His path to the top wasn't paved with long, frustrating years of performing in dingy bars and clubs. In 1990, he teamed up with the French-Jewish comedian Elie Semoun and the two quickly became a very successful comic duo. Dieudonne played "the black," Semoun played "the Jew," and together they mocked all the cliches about racism. Their collaboration lasted until 1997, when they parted on good terms. Each went on to a successful solo career. Yet Dieudonne's life and career up to that point were no preparation for the sort of remarks he began spewing in the year 2000...

The article goes on to detail Dieudonne's rise as edgy comedian with political ambitions, but for those who don't have time to read the whole thing, I would summarize it as follows: Ambitious comedian uses Jew/Israel-hatred--not exactly a foreign concept in France--to advance his career; some debate as to whether he's a genuine anti-Semite or merely using Jew-hatred because it's expedient to do so.

My conclusion: the French have a very strange sense of humour.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:55 | link | comments

The cinematic artistry of humanizing Jew-killers: Looks like the members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association aren't the only ones who appreciate the movie Paradise Now. It seems to have lots of fans in Israel--Jewish ones. From Ha'aretz:

Hany Abu-Assad and Bero Beyer still cannot believe that their film, "Paradise Now," won the prize for best foreign language film at the Golden Globe awards ceremony on Monday.

"I always hoped that the film would go as far as possible," said Bero, who wrote the screenplay with Assad, yesterday, "but we were realistic. Everything went gradually. At first, we were just thankful that the film received widespread distribution throughout the United States, and then we were thankful for the favorable reviews that we got, but winning a Golden Globe - that really is above and beyond."

Abu-Assad stresses the warm reactions and compliments he actually received from Israel after the win. "These reactions and congratulations warm my heart," said the Palestinian director, whose film follows two Palestinian youths who set out to commit a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv.

"Never in my life did I believe I'd win this prize. The other films competing against me, including the French film "Merry Christmas" (Joyeux Noel) and the Chinese film "The Promise," (Wu ji) were so good that to me, merely being a contender was a great honor."

When he was asked about his film's chances of winning the Oscar for best foreign film (for which the nominees will be announced at the end of the month), he was only able to say: "No, no, no, that's too much."

He is happy that thanks to his film, it is possible to relate to Palestinians not just in negative contexts such as terrorist attacks, but also in artistic contexts.

"Palestine is still not a state," said Abu-Assad, "and now we are being recognized as people who are entitled to be free. That is my real accomplishment." Israeli producer Amir Harel, who is one of the producers of "Paradise Now," expressed the hope that the win "would prompt people to take note of what is happening here."

As a result of the film's win, the Tel Aviv Cinematheque decided to bring "Paradise Now" back to the screen and starting tomorrow, the film will be shown twice nightly.

On a double bill with Munich, perhaps?

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

Repositioning Hamas: The Toronto Star has a piece about Hamas's recent efforts to reform its image. The terror outfit's powers-that-be--at least, the ones who remained after Israel's targetting killing had decimated its ranks--realized that being viewed as a group of snorting zealots with a Jew-killing agenda wasn't playing well in the media. And since it's all about optics, not substance, Hamas resolved to take the necessary steps to spruce up its image.

As the story recounts, that mostly involves stealing tactics that had proven effective for another terror outfit, Hezbollah. Sure, Hezbollah also existed primarily to oust the Jews from that little piece of Dar al Islam, but in recent times, it had branched out to media ownership, hospital administration, and involvement in other social welfare endeavours which official governments were unable or unwilling to provide. Hezbollah had also become a poltitical force, taking its place as an opposition party in Lebanon's Parliament. The organization had not set aside its terror ambitions, per se. Far from it. It had situated them within a much larger context, so that the world would come to see them as one facet--the only negative one--of a multi-faceted organization.

And you know what? It worked. The terrorists gained legitimacy and were peceived as making a valuable contribution to their society. So what if they still wanted to murder all the Jews? Have you seen their hosptials?

It was as if Joseph Goebbels had repackaged the S.S to make it more palatable: "Sure, they're still genocidal Jew-haters, but look, folks--they also do Meals on Wheels.

The repackaging of Hezbollah is one of the greatest marketing success stories of our era, and Hamas, already on the cusp of political legitimacy, is determined to follow suit. It has hired a media expert to play up its good points--and play down its distasteful ones:

(Media expert) Aqtash acknowledges there is more happening here than simple a massaging of the message.

The Hamas movement itself, he insists, is transforming away from its fundamental view of perpetual war until final victory over Israel.

"The change started in the (Israeli prisons) after the assassination of Sheik Yassin. There were discussions among the prisoners about the wisdom of pursuing a military victory over Israel," said Aqtash.

"The conclusion was we lost. We don't have the money, we don't have the means to take back Palestinian lands by force.

"Even the hardliners began to accept this basic fact. And the doves of Hamas began to take control."

To hear Aqtash tell it, the imprisoned warriors of Hamas began revisiting the long list of United Nations resolutions advocating a two-state solution — documents the movement had previously rejected as an unacceptable compromise.

Upon review, Aqtash said, Hamas saw in the international rulings "an easier, better, more legitimate way to realize our goals."

With inspiration from Hezbollah, the Islamic Shiite movement that has asserted itself as a major force in Lebanese politics, Aqtash says Hamas saw a political future as the only way forward. Also borrowing from Hezbollah, Hamas is making plans to launch its own television station in the Palestinian territories to better disseminate its message.

But Aqtash's spin takes Hamas only so far. Anxious to sell the party's election manifesto — a war on the until-now-unfettered corruption of the ruling Fatah party is a priority — he demurs when asked about longstanding Hamas principles not listed in campaign material. The eventual, if delayed, destruction of Israel and creation of an Islamic state are talking points the new Hamas does not wish to engage.

"These were the words of (the late Hamas hardliner) Rantisi, always saying things foreigners cannot accept, like promising to remove Israel from the map," Aqtash said dismissively.

"Why talk about destroying when we are incapable of destroying anything? It doesn't make sense."

Aqtash is evasive when asked who approves his message. He says he has never spoken to the Hamas movement's overall leader-in-exile, Damascus-based Khaled Mashal, and seldom confers with the movement's major figures in Gaza and the West Bank. The consultations aren't necessary, he said, since everyone is on the same page, in terms of campaign focus.

A raft of Palestinian polls over the past 12 days show support for Hamas surging, with some analysts suggesting a dead heat with Fatah. It appears inevitable that even if Hamas comes second in votes for the 132-seat Palestinian Legislative Council, it is about to deliver a body blow to the secular movement built by the late Yasser Arafat.

What it all will mean afterward, even Aqtash cannot say with any degree of precision.

Hamas may or may not be willing to form a government. Hamas may or may not be persuaded to part with its weapons, as it deepens its involvement in politics. Hamas may or may not be willing to sit down and negotiate with Israel.

"I personally believe Hamas is taking the route of the doves. They are not going to give Israel any gifts. But the door is open to negotiation toward two states living together peacefully," he said.

"For 10 or 20 or 50 years we can live this way. And then maybe the next generation can find a better solution."

Asked what might happen should his faith prove misplaced, and the old, hard-line Hamas emerges after Wednesday freshly empowered by democracy to reject compromise, Aqtash shrugs.

"So we change our disaster to a different disaster. I believe in the Gandhi approach to liberation and I believe Hamas is taking this route. At least let's give it a try.

"Because what we have now is a disaster."

From a marketing standpoint, I can see why Aqtash would want to emphasize Hamas's "good works." I can see why he'd try to sell it as a legitimate political alternative to an iredeemably corrupt ruling Fatah party--Hamas as the Mr. Cleans who will wipe away the Fatah muck. I can see why he'd want to play down Hamas's genocidal intentions. But trying to draw a connection between Hamas and Gandhi? Man, that's going to be what can only be described as one hell of a one tough sell.

Update: Aqtash seems to be earning his shekels. The Globe and Mail, too, features an article about the possiblity of what the paper calls "a kinder, gentler Hamas" (link unavailable online). The Globe refers to this as an "Extremist Makeover"? Clever, no? (Well, actually, no). The article is by Globe scribe Mark McKinnon, fresh off his in-depth examiniation of THE WALL and rarin' to opine about a freshly-scrubbed, newly-sanitized Hamas. The headline writer helps out, providing the tag line, "The group known for bombings has toned down enough for a possible win in this week's Palestinian elections. But is the switch reality or spin?"

I think I can help out with that one, Mark: It's spin.

Thus the rebranding of genocidal jihadists (who, unless I'm mistaken, still adhere to a charter calling for the liquidation of the Jews in Israel--the Shoah, part II) begins. And the spinmeisters are working overtime to spritz perfume on a turd in an effort to make it smell like a rose.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:15 | link | comments

Suicide and martyrdom: As we're constantly assured, Islam is peace-minded religion which does not permit suicide and abhors the killing of innocents.

Apparently Abu Hamza, for one, didn't get the memo. From the Times Online:

SUICIDE bombing is a legitimate tool of war, regarded by religious scholars as “the highest form of martyrdom”, Abu Hamza al-Masri told an Old Bailey jury yesterday.

The radical Muslim cleric, who is facing charges of soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred, said that he condoned suicide attacks if they were the only way that Muslims had of defending themselves.

Abu Hamza sought to explain remarks that he had made in a video of a lecture delivered in Luton in 1997. Asked, during his second day of evidence, about the legitimacy of “martyrdom operations”, he said: “If it is the only way of preventing the enemies of Islam or resisting oppression, then that would be your only tactic of war.

“It is as if a woman was being raped — are you telling her, don’t use the scissors? Use what is available to you.”

Pressed by Edward Fitzgerald, QC, to give an example of when suicide attacks would be appropriate, Abu Hamza said that Palestinian villagers faced with Israeli tanks and bulldozers could legitimately use such tactics.

He said: “You cannot condemn the suicide bombing if you allow the Apache [helicopter] bombing at the same time.” Respected authorities had ruled that suicide bombs were a lawful and elevated form of martyrdom, he said.

The former imam of Finsbury Park Mosque, North London, denied that when he spoke about suicide bombings he was encouraging his audience to take part in such actions. He said that none of his sermons was intended to exhort his followers to commit acts of violence in Britain...

Ah, yes, rape: a top-of-the-mind issue to a jihadi even as he's sweating it out in a London courtroom.

Might one call it an obsession?

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:21 | link | comments

The plot sickens: Say you're a flailing despot with a fraction of your father's presence, charisma and chin, and the world has been busting your chops just 'cause you ordered a hit on a popular politician next door--to what would you attribute the recent downturn in your fortunes?

Why, to one of those amorphous plots, of course. From al Jazeera.net (Osama's designated news service):

The Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, has blamed his country's deteriorating relations with Lebanon as the work of a "global plot" against the Arab world.

In a typically combative address at a legal conference in Damascus, al-Assad said: "What is happening between Syria and Lebanon is part of a global plot against all Arabs, which has many facets."

The Syrian president said he was in favour of the UN commission of inquiry into the murder of former Lebanense prime minister Rafiq Hariri continuing its work, but on a legal and not political basis.

"Total cooperation with the UN commission must be made while respecting principles of national sovereignty, the neutrality of the inquiry and on a legal basis. National sovereignty is the strongest thing and not UN resolutions," said Assad, speaking in front of a backdrop which read "Defending Syria is National Duty" in English and Arabic...

Such a silver-tongued devil, that Boy. With rhetorical flourishes like that it's a wonder the masses can stay awake long enough to absorb the message. But I suppose that the backdrop (which sounds like something Boris Badenoff might have said back in those good old Cold War days--"defending Soviet Union ees national duty"--says it all.

Update: And speaking of the Cold War, Rich Lowry says it holds crucial lessons for us today.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:06 | link | comments

Debating Munich: FrontPage Magazine has a "lively" (i.e. heated) symposium on Spielberg's Munich. My favourite part: FrontPage editor Jamie Glazov castigates Carl Horowitz, who had praised Munich for being 'honest" because  the terrorist responsible for planning the massacre (how did he manage to evade the "vengeful" Mossad) had condemned the film . Glazov's response:

Munich was honest? A film which propagates moral equivalence should stand insulated from the charge of moral equivalence because a terrorist who hasn’t seen it has made a diatribe against its producer?

Please.

Is the “honesty” to be found in the fact that nowhere in the script can one find even one quote, one speech, mouthed by a terrorist depicting how much the Palestinians/Arabs hate Jews in the context of how this hatred stems from a pathology rather than from a victimization?

Is the honesty to be found in the Mossad agents arguing with each other about how their attempt to kill the terrorists reignites a cycle of violence (moral equivalency if you didn't catch it)?

Is honesty to be found in Spielberg having an Israeli agent saying: "I only care about Jewish blood”? This is how Spielberg chooses to symbolize a nation that has agonized more than any other in history about the urgency of sparing human blood on both sides in the face of fanatic suicidal attempts at its own extermination. Spielberg allows the implication that this disposition represents a nation that, for instance, could have just bombed the hell out of Jenin in 2002 for a revenge against an atrocious suicide bombing in Netanya, but that instead did a house to house job and lost 23 of its own men so that Palestinian civilians could be saved. And this symbolized Israel’s effort to preserve itself throughout its history. And to put words like this into an Israeli's mouth in a movie, to suggest that this is some kind of general disposition of Israel in how it has faced the effort to annihilate it, it is absolutely shameful and shameless.

Indeed.

Further on, Andrea Levy takes on Phyllis Chessler, who, surprisingly (at least to me), defends the film:

To defend the Kushner/Spielberg movie as Phyllis does because the Munich massacre itself is depicted graphically and repeatedly, and because the Israeli hit team members are humanized is troubling. The Israelis are "humanized" by presenting them as anguished, faltering and guilt-ridden about their assingment -- and this is entirely invented. As Aaron J. Klein, author of Striking Back, said on National Public Radio on December 22: "I spoke and interviewed more than 50 sources, most of them ex-Mossad agents and commanders and leaders. I didn't come across [anyone] who had doubts. They are very proud of what they did. They are--they still see themselves as the carrier of the sword, the people who did a holy work, a holy job, in this whole apparatus of assassinations. I don't see--I didn't met with anyone who had remorse or second thoughts or--whatsoever."

The guiding premise of Munich -- and it's pounded into the viewer from early on -- is that force is not only strategically counterproductive in self-defense, but also is catastrophic mentally to the perpetrators. (The bungling bomb-maker who was originally a bomb-defuser -- get it, he used to save lives, not take them -- succumbs to the mental anguish of being an assassin and blows himself up.) The Israeli effort to fight Palestinian terrorists by taking out the masterminds in Europe is deemed a failure on every level. This is Kushner/Spielberg fiction.

After the Israeli counter-terror efforts in the wake of Munich, attacks on Israelis in Europe sharply declined.

In fact, all is fabrication in Munich. Moral fabrication, historical fabrication, emotional fabrication. The movie is a lie.

Kushner's heavy hand is key to the falsities, including the related theme that the emotional devastation entailed in being sent out to kill one's enemies can only prompt a sensitive soul to abandon altogether the nation he's defending and move to America. (The playwright also startles with bizarre dialogue along the way. How many caught the line by Golda Meir in the scene recruiting Avner to the hit team? She congratulates him on his wife's pregnancy, saying: "Mazel tov. You were one of my favorite bodyguards. You know, I like meek, durable men." Meek, durable men?)

Kushner has said repeatedly that Israel does not "represent" him in any way. He told Ha'aretz: "Israel is a foreign country. I am no more represented by Israel than I am by Italy." This is emphatically projected in Munich. Nor is Avner's abandonment of Israel for a life in Brooklyn a "minor" detail, as Ariel Chesler suggests. It's the culmination of the moral crises of the hit team members collectively. Even casual viewers will get it.

The reason Munich matters is not that it will, alone, alter public perception of Israel's true circumstances -- but it will add to misunderstanding. And it is a watershed. Two of America's leading Jewish cultural figures have collaborated to produce an anti-"Exodus" in which Jews abandon a tainted Israel -- and this at a time when Israel remains under decades-long siege, when the ceding of territory to the Arabs prompts hundreds of rocket attacks against Israeli towns and the feverish smuggling of arms and explosives in preparation for more terror and when anti-Semitism is rife globally and Jews are seeking refuge in Israel.

No wonder there's outrage.

"The anti-Exodus": that's the best description of Munich I've heard so far.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:04 | link | comments

Stain removal: Much as those like Steven Spielberg try to frame the Israel-Palestinian problem as one of two peoples contending over a single piece of land--as if the larger Arab/Muslim world isn't a factor (or is a lesser factor)--events, as always, keep proving otherwise. Take yesterday's suicide blitz in Tel Aviv. Israeli authorities report that it wasn't just the work of a lone Palestinian feeling overwhelmed by "the impotence."  A number of neighbouring regimes, which no doubt feel equally impotent about the continuing presence of a sovereign Jewish state in their 'hood, had a hand in it. From BBC News:

Israel has accused Iran and Syria of complicity in a suicide attack that injured at least 30 people in Tel Aviv. It "was financed by Tehran, planned in Syria and carried out by Palestinians," Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz was quoted by security officials as saying.

Mr Mofaz was also quoted as blaming the attack on "the axis of terror that operates between Iran and Syria".

Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad earlier said it carried out the attack near Tel Aviv's old bus station.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the US have condemned the bombing.

It was the first bomb attack in Tel Aviv since February last year.

Israeli newspaper Haaretz quoted Mr Mofaz as saying that Israel had "decisive proof" the Tel Aviv attack could be blamed on the "axis of terror".

"Iran supplied the money, and [Islamic] Jihad's headquarters in Damascus directed the organisation's operatives in Nablus, giving operational orders and instructions," Mr Mofaz reportedly said.

Israel's Army Radio said the minister had shared the evidence with officials in the US, Europe and Egypt.

A spokesman for the Islamic Jihad's military wing - al-Quds Brigades - earlier named the bomber as 22-year-old Sami Abd al-Hafiz Antar, from the West Bank town of Nablus.

For those unfamiliar with the lingo of Muslim supremacism, al-Quds is their word for Jerusalem. You know, the place where they plopped a gold-domed mosque on the site of the ancient Jewish Temple with the aim of erradicating all trace of the previous Jewish presence? That effort predates the despised "occupation" by a good many centuries, but the ancient Muslim desire to expunge the Jewish (and, for that matter, the Christian) presence on that particular swatch of land--that's stayed exactly the same.

Steven Spielberg says he made Munich, his so-called "prayer for peace," because he thought the only way Israel and the Palestinians could resolve their differences would be by locking themselves in a room and staying there until they'd worked things out.

If only.

Steve didn't consider the bigger picture--the one in which Israel continues to be a small, stubborn and unsightly stain on an exclusively Muslim carpet. The one in which the Palestinians continue to be the solvent of choice for those determined, once and for all, to clean up the rug.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:55 | link | comments

Extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of the latte crowd: There are only a few days left until the Canadian election, and Conservative leader Stephen Harper's lead appears to be eroding. No wonder. Considering the collective dread with which the country's mainstream media has been discussing the possiblity of a Harper victory--Danger, Will Robinson! Danger, Will Robinson!--I'm surprised it's taken this long for Paul Martin's fortunes to rebound.

You see, what's important here is not that Martin presides over a bloated, corrupt, arrogant regime in love with its perks and steeped in what Justice John Gomery called "a culture of entitlement." What's important in not that Martin has been tossing around election promises like so many pieces of confetti (a million little pieces?), most of which will be swept away and forgotten should the old toad get re-elected. (As an example, the Liberals came to office 12 years ago on the promise that they would enact a national day care program. So far, it's still only a gleam in the Prime Minister's eye--after being a gleam for many years before that in now discredited ex-P.M. Jean Chretien's eye. But for this year's election, he's revived the promise, dusted it off and vows the program will defintely be a go this time around. Starting in 2009. If we haven't succumbed to bird flu or Osama or a Shia fascist with Hitlerian ambitions. So all you working Moms out there--mark the date on your calendars and procreate accordingly. 'Cause if you want crappy, affordable government-sponsored day care staffed by overworked, underpaid child care workers--the kind that's been available in Quebec for years--in 2009 or thereabouts, it'll be yours. Maybe.)

What's important is that a practicing Christian from Alberta--Canada's Texas, lest we forget--isn't allowed to unleash his diabolical agenda on us peace-minded, America-loathing multiculturalists. (As every clear-thinking person knows, it's those Christian evangelicals who pose the greatest threat to Western society--they want to revoke all our rights and put a fish on every license plate.)

You don't want a Dubya clone running the show in Ottawa, do you?

In the past several days, I've noticed a heightened hysteria, in the media and among individuals, who are frantic about a potential Harper victory. Emails have been flying furiously, with citations from Wikipediia and other sources, all designed to fan the flames of panic. If Harper were a Communist (or former Communist) and this were the 1950s, you might call it a witch hunt. But since Harper's a Tory and this is a new millenium and the people gripped by hysteria are inhabitants of what Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente has dubbed "latte land," one is forced to give it another name: Harper Derangement Syndrome.

The thing is, H.D.S. is spreading fast, and by election day it may become epidemic.

And the problem is, its a malady for which there's no known cure.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:29 | link | comments (2)

Osama, we hardly missed ye: Attenuated al Qaedist slithers out of his hole, issues threat.

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

Paradise now: A frustrated Palestinian who could no longer bear "the impotence" (the words of another Palestinian--the one who took home a Golden Globe for directing a movie which seeks to explain what motivates suicide bombers) blew himself up in a crowded pedestian mall in Tel Aviv, injuring 10 people.

Any one else find it odd that you never hear about "the impotence" being the impetus for explosive paradise seekers who detonate themselves in Iraq and Afghanistan (or, for that matter, London, Bali or Madrid)?

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:02 | link | comments

John, Paul, George, Ringo and Moo: Since, unlike Albert Brooks, I know there's little comedy to be found in the Muslim world (a point I once made to Muslim refusenik, Irshad Manji, who concurred with my assessment), for some time I've felt compelled to manufacture some. (I refer to there being little genuine comedy in that realm, while acknowledging it's easy to locate plenty of the unintentional kind. Like, say, Moo Jihad waxing mystical in front of one of his dystopia's dubious commissions.) Here, for example, is how I imagine Moo reworking an old Moptop favourite. And he's sending it out with love and kisses to Mo ElBee and all his friends in the EU:

Try to see it my way,
I could light some buildings
Or else I could nuke the Jews.
Never see it your way.
Ask me to comply
And I will lie and just refuse.
We can’t work it out.
We can’t work it out.

Can’t wait for that Mahdi.
We he comes the infidel
Will all be bound for Hell.
Have a great big party.
As for when it’s starting,
Baby, only time will tell.
We can’t work it out.
We can’t work it out.

Life is very short
And getting shor-or-or-or-ter
So I will lob a nuke or two.
Damage that results
Won’t be a quar-ar-ar-ar-ter
Of what I’d like to do to you.

Try to see it my way.
My way or the highway
Are the choices now at hand.
Acting in a sly way 
Very soon you'll all see  
All the power I command. 
We can’t work it out.
We can’t work it out.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:20 | link | comments

You schmooze, you lose: Another clueless denizen of Lotus Latte La La Land weighs in with his remedy for the global crisis (and I ain't talkin' global warming). Albert Brooks, whose movie Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World opens tomorrow (spoiler alert: he doesn't find any), says he's shocked by his country's feeble efforts to "schmooze" with the Muslim world. From the Globe and Mail:

And even though Brooks's aim is comedy, it's fuelled by some genuine concerns. Primarily, he's astonished by the spotty efforts made by the U.S. at cultural diplomacy with the Muslim world. "America makes no effort at interpersonal understanding of anybody," he moans. A couple of weeks ago, Brooks attended a screening of the film in Washington, where some of the nation's power players agreed with his jaundiced view.

"There's nothing that replaces meeting an American you like," he says. "John Podesta [Bill Clinton's former chief of staff] said that when they would go around the world, Clinton -- against the Secret Service's wishes -- would break through security to shake hands with people and felt compelled to be, like, 'How are you? How are you?' It makes a big difference. I call it the Schmooze Corps. Hire 50,000 people and just give [the other countries] a different side of America. Hey, the good news is, you can still bomb! Take 'em out to dinner? You don't like 'em, you can still kill 'em!"

Oh, Al, you're such a card. And, hey, ain't that jihad a hoot--except, of course, when the faithful are slicing and dicing everyone.

I guess you could say they're "cut-ups"--just like you.

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

When all else fails, blame the Jews: We're often told that the Sunnis and Shias hate each other even more than they hate the rest of us, but Egypt and Saudi Arabia--both Sunni nations--don't seem to have heard that theory. In nuclear matters at least,  they seem to believe it's more important to show common cause with fellow Muslims, no matter which successor of Mo they happen to follow. From Islam Online:

Heavyweight Egypt has echoed Saudi Arabia's stance on the current Iranian standoff with the West, saying it supports international efforts to fight proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, but criticized the West for turning a blind eye to Israel's nuclear arsenal.

"Israel must place its nuclear program under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)," Egyptian presidential spokesman Soliman Awwad told reporters after talks between Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and visiting US Vice President Deck Cheney, Al-Jazeera reported Wednesday, January 19.

Awwad said a nuclear race in the Middle East carries disastrous consequences for the entire region.

"We have to bear in mind that the Egyptian public opinion rejects this fuss over the Iranian nuclear program as it believes that the West is papering over Israel's nukes," Reuters quoted him as saying.

The UN nuclear watchdog had asked Israel to give up its secret arsenal of nuclear weapons to head off an arms race in the Middle East...

So you mean the only reason Iran wants to go nuclear is because of Israel's secret weapons? I thought Iran only wanted another energy option and that it had no intention of building nuclear weapons.

Egypt and S.A., for two, seem to think otherwise.

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:34 | link | comments

Slow Mo:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mo ElBee, nuclear watchkitten

Always the tortoise and never the hare, the IAEA has announced plans to hold an emergency meeting to discuss the Iran crisis--on February 2. For those without a calendar handy, that's 15 days from today.

Whoa. Better slow down there, Mo. You don't want Iran to get the idea that you're jumping the gun (or in this instance, the A-bomb).

Update: Iran has put the IAEA on official notice. If the matter is sent to the Security Council, Iran will have nothing more to do with the IAEA.

As if anyone would notice a difference.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:01 | link | comments

Transcendental Moo: Taking a break from lashing out at a certain despised entity, Moo Jihad got all Deepak Choprah the other day. In remarks to something called the "Fourth Commission Studying Affects of Social issues on Human Well-being" (those Shias always come up with the catchy titles, don't they?), Moo said that a healthy body is the result of a healthy mind which is the result of a person's total devotion to an all-encompassing religion.

Or something like that. From the Tehran Times:

Peace, tranquility will be achieved through justice, spirituality: Ahmadinejad


TEHRAN (IRNA) -- President Mahmud Ahmadinejad said here on Monday that a permanent international peace and tranquility will be materialized through justice and spirituality since it helps human reach the highest level of social well-being in all aspects.

He made the remarks at a gathering of Fourth Commission Studying Affects of Social issues on Human Well-being.

According to the Press Bureau of the Presidential Office, the president expressed satisfaction with the administration of justice as a major element for promoting social programs and said there is no doubt that justice is considered a determinant yardstick in the international fora having a direct impact on all programs and planning undertaken countries and nations.

There is a direct link between spirit and body, he said adding that spiritual tranquility will be obtained through religious teachings inspired by the prophets (Peace be upon them).

"There is no doubt that if due attention is paid to religions, we will witness peace, tranquility and spirituality in people's life in general," he said.

Highlighting the impacts of psychological well-being and economic security on peoples' life, he said that psychological and economic insecurity are the main causes of human concerns.

Lack of financial support are the roots of many diseases and psychological disorders at the international level, he said.

Faced with these global threats, the performance of governments and their economic and social plans would be harmed, he said.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has initiated a very comprehensive program to safeguard social developments at large, he concluded.

"A determinant yardstick in international fora"? Sounds kind of kinky to me. And that bit about "psychological and economic insecurity" undermining a person's sense of security--how many more editions of this commission do you think these jokers will have to attend before they figure out that living in an Islamic dystopia, one of the world's most oppressive failed states, might be more of a factor?

That's a rhetorical question, of course.

That Moo--he's just so...deep.

Read between the lines a bit, though, and you can see that what Moo's really doing is flexing his Islamist muscles again, (hence the reference to "spiritual tranquility" being a function of one's adhering to the one true faith). On this occasion, though, he has couched his message in less outwardly agressive language.

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

Greed trumps need: The League of Nations, that useless precursor the the UN, was fatally hampered by America's refusal to join it following the First World War. On the other hand, the UN, the League of Nations equally feckless successor, is fatally hampered because, despite the fact that the U.S. is a member, because of how the UN is constituted, the U.S. has no power to override the greed, self-interest and short-sightedness of other nations. For instance, even if the U.S. and the EU mustered the stones to send the Iran matter to the Security Council, their efforts would be subverted by China and Russia. From Reuters:

U.N. Security Council heavyweights China and Russia have too much riding on Iran's energy sector to let the West slap sanctions on Tehran to punish its nuclear ambitions, experts say.

Fears of supply disruption from the world's fourth largest crude exporter, along with rising tensions in fellow OPEC member Nigeria, sent U.S. crude oil futures to a three-month high near $67 per barrel this week.

The United States and three European Union nations are pressing the 15-member U.N. Security Council to take up the Iranian nuclear issue, which could open the door to potential oil sanctions.

But two key U.N. Security Council members that carry veto powers -- China and Russia -- have multibillion-dollar oil and natural gas projects hanging in the balance, and China depends on Iran's imports to quench its oil thirst.

"I have a hard time seeing how oil investments could be targeted given the interests of Russia and China," said Julia Nanay, a senior director at PFC Energy in Washington.

Iran wants to sign a major oilfield deal to give China's Sinopec a stake in the giant Yadavaran oilfield in southern Iran, which could require investment of at least $2 billion....

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:20 | link | comments

Ang vs. Steve: According to Drudge, Stephen Speilberg has his nose out of joint over Universal Studio's support for Brokeback Mountain. Steve thinks it's come at the expense of his film, Munich, which the studio also produced. As a result, all the accolades and awards now seem to be going to Ang Lee's cowboy romance--which cleaned up the other day at the Golden Globes--instead of to Tony Kushner's fanciful exercise in moral equivalence--which wasn't even nominated for best picture and stiffed in the categories in which it was nominated.

Drudge says the studio's favoritism may be based on economics. Brokeback, a movie that cost a comparatively paltry $14 million to make, is raking in the shekels at the box office while Munich, which cost $70 million, isn't doing nearly as well.

Don't know if I buy that reasoning. Many a movie that has been doing lukewarm business at the box office has been reinvigorated after winning an Oscar. The same could well happen were the studio to put the bulk of its efforts behind Munich. No, seems to me something else is going on here--like maybe the movie execs think they have a better shot at landing the big enchillada with Brokeback.

Also, it's a movie which allows those with a vote to feel good about themselves, to pat themselves on the back for being so tolerant of alternate lifestyles, whereas Munich just makes you feel bad about Jews.

Then again, feeling bad about Jews didn't stop the Hollywood Foreign Press Association from giving a Golden Globe to Paradise Now.

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:44 | link | comments

Uri's hysterical rant: A rancid little stinkbomb of Jew-hatred by self-loathing Semite, Uri Avnery, in The Middle East Times. Avnery does his best to further the canard about Jews pulling the strings in Washington--any everywhere else, for that matter:

-- Judas Iscariot is headed for a makeover. According to news reports, cardinals close to the new pope recommend a change in the Catholic Church's attitude toward him: exit the treacherous Jew who turns the messiah over to the cohorts of the evil High Priest - enter the apostle who simply fulfilled his role in the divine design. After all, it was God who decided that his son should die on the cross.

A well-intentioned effort, but a pathetic one. No Vatican decision can alter the image of Judas in the New Testament: a despicable informer who received "thirty pieces of silver" for his betrayal of the Son of God. No Christian who absorbs this story in his childhood will ever forget the picture of the contemptible traitor who kisses Jesus at the moment of betraying him to his executioners. Nothing will help except changing the biblical text itself, and that is, of course, not so easy.

If one of the other 11 apostles had betrayed Jesus, the consequences would not have been, perhaps, so horrible. But since Judas sounds in many languages like "Jews", the betrayal is associated in the consciousness of Christians with Jews in general. Multitudes of Jews throughout history have been butchered because of this. The Nazi battle-cry "Judah Verrecke!" (Perish, Jews!") paved the way to the gas chambers.

Perhaps this had some influence on the young neo-Nazi, Alexander Koptsev, who ran amok this week in the Moscow synagogue, stabbing and wounding 10 people. That act lit up all the red lights. Again, "the rise of anti-Semitism in the world" became a major subject, again the alarm bells shrilled.

There is indeed a growing danger of anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism - two different phenomena that can appear both together and separately. But it is not connected with primitive skinheads like the Moscow knife-wielder. It is much more dangerous, and the fuel that feeds them exists in other places and on other levels.

In one of the stream of speeches in which George W. Bush is now trying to defend his ill-fated invasion of Iraq, this week he let loose a sentence that should light all the red lights. In this sentence he castigated his opponents for asserting that he had attacked Iraq "for the oil and for Israel".

He thus brought to the surface an assertion that had until then been openly voiced only by anti-Semitic marginal groups. They have put together three facts: (a) that the people who most aggressively pushed for the war were the neocons who play a major role in the Bush administration, (b) that almost all the important members of this group are Jews, and (c) that the occupation of Iraq has freed Israel from a significant military threat.

Up to now, the American media have treated this allegation with contempt, as a ridiculous "conspiracy theory". Now that the president himself has spoken about it, it may become part of the legitimate public discourse in the United States and throughout the world...

I don't have time to Fisk the whole bilge-filled rant, but I'd like comment on the two statements that I highlighted. First, Jew-hatred has always been a protean beast, a maleable shape-shifter which has adapted itself to the currents, pressures and beliefs on the times. When there was no state of Israel, and Jews were scattered hither and yon, European Jew-hatred, which was Christian in origin,  harped on the threat of this stranger in their midst. When Europeans succeeded in removing much of that threat, and post-WW 2, the Jewish state became a reality, the focus of Jew-hatred shifted to Israel. There may be a tiny fraction of people whose animus toward Israel isn't rooted in their animus toward the Jews. But, for the most part, anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism are virtually identical--the shape into which modern day Jew-hatred had shifted. Or should I say mutated.

The other point I want to make is that "the occupation of Iraq" may have "freed Israel from a significant miliatry threat," but Israel now faces a much graver threat--one which the world seems unwilling to do anything about--in Iran. It's going to be hard for the Jews to keep yanking those stings once Israel is gone. But I guess Avnery and his ilk would see that as a step in the right direction.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:00 | link | comments

EUnuchs show their mettle: Germany's new Chancellor, Angela Merkel, is on record as saying she's proud of the way the EU "Big Three" have handled the Iran crisis. What's crucial, says Merkel, is not that negotiations have proven fruitless, and that Iran is now on the cusp of nuclear capabilty. What's vital is that, in the face of Iran's intransigence,  the EUnuchs stood together and retained their united front.

Charles Krauthammer is having none of this nonsense, and sets the misguided Ms. Merkel straight. From the Washington Post (via RealClear Politics):

``It was what made this EU Three approach so successful. They (Britain, France and Germany) stood together and they had one uniform position.''

-- German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Jan. 13, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Makes you want to weep. One day earlier, Britain, France and Germany admitted that their two years of talks to stop Iran's nuclear weapons program had collapsed. The Iranians had broken the seals on their nuclear facilities and were resuming activity in defiance of their pledges to the EU Three. This negotiating exercise, designed as an alternative to the U.S. approach of sanctioning Iran for its violations of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, had proved entirely futile. If anything, the two-year hiatus gave Iran time to harden its nuclear facilities against bombardment, acquire new antiaircraft capacities and clandestinely advance its program.

With all this, the chancellor of Germany declares the exercise a success because the allies stuck together! The last such success was Dunkirk. Lots of solidarity there too.

Most dismaying was that this assessment comes from a genuinely good friend, the new German chancellor, who, unlike her predecessor, Gerhard Schroeder (now a wholly owned Putin flunky working for Russia's state-run oil monopoly), actually wants to do something about terrorism and nuclear proliferation.

Ah, success. Instead of being years away from the point of no return for an Iranian bomb, as we were before we allowed Europe to divert anti-proliferation efforts into transparently useless talks, Iran is probably just months away. And now, of course, Iran is run by an even more radical government, led by a president who fervently believes in the imminence of the apocalypse.

Ah, success. Having delayed two years, we now have to deal with a set of fanatical Islamists that we know in advance will not be deterred from pursuing nuclear weapons by any sanctions.

Even if we could get real sanctions. Which we will not. The last remaining months before Iran goes nuclear are about to be frittered away in pursuit of this newest placebo...

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:58 | link | comments

Shaoh 'nuff: A few days ago, Persian Islamo-fascist Moo Jihad announced that his country would be hosting an international conference on the Holocaust. Part of his ongoing agenda to demonize the Jewish people and delegitimize Israel, the conference would feature a who's who of crackpot Holocaust deniers, including discredited historian David Irving (who currently occupies a jail cell in Austria for doing exactly what Moo wants him to do in Iran).

The Germans, whose forebears sparked the pan-European extermination project, are not impressed. From Deutsche Welle:

..."This is international anti-Semitism at work," said Gert Weisskirchen, the foreign affairs spokesman for the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in an interview with German magazine Der Spiegel. His parliamentary colleague, Left Party member Norman Paech, added that the conference was part of an on-going "strategy of provocation" being employed by the Iranian government.

Werner Hoyer from the free-market liberal Free Democratic Party told Der Spiegel that the idea of the conference was "untenable" and that such a meeting of Holocaust skeptics at a time of heightened tensions over Iran's nuclear ambitions was a "dangerous spark in the powder keg."

Green party chief Reinhard Bütikofer said that the planned conference was further evidence that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was pursuing an "unrestrained policy of anti-Semitic indoctrination" in Iran. President Ahmadinejad has called the Holocaust a "myth" and has questioned the right of Israel to exist.

Bütikofer said Ahmadinejad had used public statements questioning the legitimacy of the Holocaust to mobilize Iranian fundamentalists. This will lead, he said, to "the international isolation of the Iranian regime." Everybody which gets involved in anti-Semitism or racism soils its own culture and nation, he added. "This also applies to Iran."

Weisskirchen meanwhile cautioned western leaders not to be sucked into a further row with Iran as the so-called "Holocaust experts" could not be taken seriously. He added that Ahmadinejad was trying to validate his stance on denial by inviting well-known authorities on the subject.

"Ahmadinejad apparently now tries to give a quasi-scientific meaning to his rhetoric," Weisskirchen said.

As well as condemning the conference, German politicians were quick to point out that any Germans who spoke at the conference would have to accept the legal consequences. Holocaust denial is a criminal offence in Germany.

Irving and others would be free to speak in Iran with impunity...

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:52 | link | comments

Fruitless search: Albert Brooks thought he could wrest some yucks out of the concept of an American being sent on assignment by the government to detect any comedy in the Muslim. Had Brooks bothered to do his research, he might have discovered that irreverence and Islam are tempermentally incompatible. Just ask Salman Rushdie, a man who still has a fatwa on his head for daring to poke fun at, well, you know who. But who wants to investigate such weighty topics as jihad? Big downer, if you ask me.

Al thinks so too, it seems. An ad for the movie running on the Salon Magazine site today (you have to watch it if you want a day pass) suggests that Al is at least as concerned with the mishegas of the U.S. in deciding to mess with these dour folks. "From the country that's still looking for weapons of mass destruction," reads the ad, "Albert Brooks is Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World."

Don't think I can help you locate the religious funny bone, Al. But as for those weapons of mass destruction, they'll soon be operational in a Muslim country you probably missed on your travels. The one that wants to wipe smirky Jews like you off the map.

The MSM review is critical of Al's quest. Not because it's quixotic but because, according to the MSM reviewer, it's simply not funny.

Kind of a liability in a film with "comedy" in the title:

Albert Brooks wrote, directed and stars in “Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World.” Whether he found any still remains a mystery.

A self-indulgent, toothless and meandering satire, the film essentially consists of Brooks being himself on cue — that is, neurotically grousing — as he travels to India and Pakistan on a government mission.

The title suggests that the movie couldn’t be more relevant. And to be fair, it is a clever premise. “What makes you laugh?” Brooks asks strangers over and over as Maya (Sheetal Sheth), his enthusiastic yet comically challenged assistant/translator, takes notes by his side.

But he never comes up with an answer, and it almost seems as if that was never his intention anyway, even though he’s saddled with crafting a 500-page report of his findings.

“Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World” allows Brooks to trot out some of his old stand-up routines, including his deconstruction of the traditional ventriloquist act. (It’s easy to forget that, long before movies like “Lost in America” and “Broadcast News,” Brooks got his start nearly 40 years ago performing on Steve Allen’s and Ed Sullivan’s shows and the “Tonight” show, among other variety programs.)

Here and there, he does hit the mark with some of his absurdist observations. He can even laugh at himself at the film’s start by having Penny Marshall trash him for co-starring in the needless, over-the-top remake of “The In-Laws.”

When he bombs on stage in front of an English-speaking audience in New Delhi, though, he gleans no insight. Conversely, when he causes a handful of Pakistanis to fall over laughing at the same material, all he can do is blindly exalt,” “I killed!” Never mind that they’d been smoking a hookah around a campfire all night.

Brooks has said he was inspired to make this movie after seeing how the world had changed post-Sept. 11 and wondering what role humor still played in it. The few political or religious elements he adds to the film feel cursory and tossed-in, though.

In one instance, he meets with representatives of the Al-Jazeera Arab television network for what he believes will be an interview about his research project. Instead, they want him to star in a sitcom they’re developing, which translates into English as “That Darn Jew.” It’s a bit of sketch humor — it comes and goes without really registering.

Later, and more glaringly, is the abrupt suggestion that Brooks’ presence has inspired troop build-up in preparation for possible battle along the Indian-Pakistani border. This isn’t just a half-baked idea that Brooks abandons as quickly as he introduces it; even worse in a comedy, it just plain isn’t funny.

"That Darn Jew"--sounds like a show with possibilities. But it could never be a "My Name Is Earl."

I know. Maybe A-J TV could adapt it for its audience and retitle it accordingly.

"My Name Is Moishe"?

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:50 | link | comments

The amazing Mo ElBee: The Nobel Peace Prize-winning nuclear watchkitten demonstrates astonishing dexterity as he transforms himself into a human doormat--again. From IranMania:

LONDON, January 17 (IranMania) - UN nuclear chief Mohamed ElBaradei held a secret meeting with Iran's chief negotiator, who lobbied for help in avoiding measures against Iran over its nuclear program, diplomats said Tuesday, AFP reported.

ElBaradei and Larijani met in Vienna on Sunday, the day before the five UN Security Council permanent members plus Germany met in London to consider what to do about Iran's controversial nuclear program.

Iran has resumed its nuclear research despite major international protest and amid US charges that it aims to develop atomic weapons.

Um, if it's so secret, how come we know about it?

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:32 | link | comments

Misleading headline: Scanning google news just now, a Reuters headline jumped out at me. "Olmert hopes to resume peace talks,"  it proclaimed.

Odd, thought I. Who's he planning to talk to--Hamas?

Of course, when you go to the story, you discover that Ohmert said something very different: "Israel's interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Tuesday that he hoped to renew peace talks with the Palestinians after elections in March, but only if militant groups are disarmed first."

In other words, there's not a snowcone's chance in Hades he's about to start talking peace.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:21 | link | comments

Birds of a feather...: Can't help but flock together. Just ask Moo Jihad and his new "best bud,"  Venezuelan despot Hugo Chávez. From OpinionJournal:

With Iranian nuclear aspirations gaining notice, it's worth directing attention to the growing relationship between Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez. The Reagan administration repulsed Soviet efforts to set up camp in Central America. Iranian designs on Venezuela perhaps deserve similar U.S. attention.

The warmth and moral support between Ahmadinejad and Chávez is very public. The two tyrants are a lot more than just pen pals. Venezuela has made it clear that it backs Iran's nuclear ambitions and embraces the mullahs' hateful anti-Semitism. What remains more speculative is just how far along Iran is in putting down roots in Venezuela.

In September, when the International Atomic Energy Agency offered a resolution condemning Iran for its "many failures and breaches of its obligations to comply" with its treaty commitments, Venezuela was the only country that voted "no." Ahmadinejad congratulated the Venezuelan government, calling the vote "brave and judicious."

Three months later, in a Christmas Eve TV broadcast, Chávez declared that "minorities, the descendants of those who crucified Christ, have taken over the riches of the world." That ugly anti-Semitic swipe was of a piece with an insidious assault over the past several years on the country's Jewish community. In 2004, heavily armed Chávez commandos raided a Caracas Jewish school, terrifying children and parents. The government's claim that it had reason to believe that the school was storing arms was never supported. A more reasonable explanation is that the raid was part of the Chávez political strategy of fomenting class hatred--an agenda that finds a vulnerable target in the country's Jewish minority--and as a way to show Tehran that Venezuela is on board. Ahmadinejad rivals Hitler in his hatred for the Jewish people...

And Chavez rivals Ahmadinejad in his hatred for the U.S.

It's so nice when people with common interests can connect with each other in a cross-cultural bond of friendship.

You know, like Hitler and the Grand Mufti.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:31 | link | comments

Apocalypse soon: Mark Steyn hits another one out of the park in a column about Jack "Be Nimble" Straw and his excessively diplomatic handling of the Iran crisis. As Steyn rightly points out, Straw stands resolute only in his resolve to keep "mullah-coddling" (Steyn's phrase) the Iranians. Shades of N. Chamberlain, a British appeaser of an earlier vintage who thought he had all the time in the world to mollycoddle a belligerent Jew-hating dicator. And we all know how well that one turned out. (And it might have turned out a lot differently if Hitler had had nukes.) From The Telegraph:

So let me see. On the one hand, we have a regime that is pressing full steam ahead with its nuclear programme and whose president has threatened to wipe another sovereign state off the map.

And, on the other side of the negotiations, we have Her Britannic Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs.

Jack Straw has been at pains to emphasise that no military action against Iran is being contemplated by him or anybody else, but in a sign that he's losing patience with the mullahs Mr Straw's officials have indicated that they're prepared to consider the possibility of possibly considering the preparation of a possible motion on sanctions for the UN Security Council to consider the possibility of considering.

But don't worry, we're not escalating this thing any more than necessary. Initially, the FCO is considering "narrowly targeted sanctions such as a travel ban on Iranian leaders".

That'll show 'em: Iranian missiles may be able to leave Iranian airspace, but the deputy trade minister won't. No more trips to Paris for the spring collections or skiing in Gstaad for the A-list ayatollahs.

Needless to say, the German deputy foreign minister, Gernot Erler, has already cautioned that this may be going too far, and that sanctions could well hurt us more than it hurts the Iranians. Perhaps this is what passes is for a good cop/bad cop routine, with Herr Erler affably suggesting to the punks that they might want to cooperate or he'll have to send his pal Jack in to tear up their tickets for the Michael Moore première at the Cannes Film Festival.

But, if I were President Ahmadinejad or the wackier ayatollahs, I'd be mulling over the kid glove treatment from Jack Straw and Co and figuring: wow, if this is the respect we get before the nukes are fully operational, imagine how they'll be treating us this time next year. Incidentally, the assumption in the European press that the nuclear payload won't be ready to fly for three or four years is laughably optimistic.

So any Western strategy that takes time is in the regime's favour. After all, President Ahmaggedonouttahere's formative experience was his participation in the seizure of the US embassy in Teheran in 1979. I believe it was Andrei Gromyko who remarked that, if the students had pulled the same stunt at the Soviet embassy, Teheran would have been a crater by lunchtime...

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:02 | link | comments

Sorry, Moo: For a few days there, it looked like CNN was going to be banned from Iran. Its offence: a CNN report had "mistranslated" Moo Jihad as saying Iran had a right to "nuclear weapons" instead of quoting his usual taqiyah--that Iran has a right to "nuclear techhnology."

CNN quickly apolgized, however, and promised to try to avoid speaking the truth while covering events in Iran.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:32 | link | comments

Thumbs up for terrorism: I'm not sure who makes up the Hollywood Foreign Press Association--two guys from the Guardian and a stringer from Le Monde?--but last night it awarded its Golden Globe for best foreign film to to a movie from "Palestine"--Paradise Now. (You all know where Palestine is, don't you? It's the country that replaces the Jewish state on gibungous UN maps.)

The movie recounts what may be the last night in the lives of two would-be shahids, whose decision to reconoiter with scores of ethereal virgins has been hastened by their poverty and despair--the fault of the Jews, natch. Here's how Reuters, a news agency which perceives events through the same kind of lens as the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (and Hollywood itself, for that matter) describes the victory:

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Palestinian filmmaker Hany Abu-Assad was perhaps the most surprised man at the Golden Globes on Monday as his drama of suicide bombers crossing into Israel, "Paradise Now," was named the year's best foreign language film.

Abu-Assad, who works out of Holland but is now looking for a house in Hollywood Hills, had expected to lose as he did earlier this month to martial arts comedy "Kung Fu Hustle" at the Broadcast Film Critics awards.

He said he just assumed that too many people had either not seen his film or simply assumed it was too controversial. After all, Palestinian films are a rarity in the United States, especially ones that try to explain the politics of despair.

In his acceptance speech, Abu-Assad made a plea for a Palestinian state, saying he saw the Golden Globe as "a recognition that the Palestinians deserve their liberty and equality unconditionally.

Winning the Globe also gives "Paradise Now" a major boost in its fight for an Oscar on March 5. Its next hurdle is to become one of the five foreign films nominated for an Academy Award on Jan 31. No Palestinian film has ever been nominated.

"I am surprised that we won but I don't believe my film is controversial. It just shows something from a different side that we are all worried about," he told reporters backstage at the Globes.

SIDES NOT TAKEN

Abu-Assad insisted that he had not taken sides in the film but had tried to explain why two seemingly simple garage mechanics would be willing to kill themselves and others. His film presents arguments on all sides of the issue.

"It is a work of cinema. Cinema shows you different points of view," he added.

To make the movie, Abu-Assad had to dodge a missile attack from Israel plus skirt landmines and threats from extremists.

But the filming in the West Bank city of Nablus, where his location manager was briefly kidnapped as a warning by factions afraid the film would be critical, was just one hurdle. Now he has to see if anyone is listening as he tries to explain a new fact of modern life.

"Paradise Now" wants the viewer to understand the mind-set that produces such acts as suicide bombings -- because, as Abu-Assad says, to understand is a first step forward.

One scene in his movie is set in a West Bank video store that might pass for one in the United States or Europe except that it sells tapes made by suicide bombers who explain their actions to inspire those that follow. The tapes seem to take on the role that baseball trading cards might have in the United States.

Abu-Assad says he believes that impotence fuels the bombings. And his characters' words underlie that thought as they go through their daily lives in occupied territory that the film presents as an airless, hermetically sealed prison.

"Under the occupation, we're already dead ... In this life we are dead anyway ... If we can't live as equals, at least we can die as equals" are typical refrains in the film...

So you see, the bombings are fueled by impotence, not by a jihadi outlook which seeks to oust a despised people (the offspring of beasts lower down on the evolutionary scale than Mo's exhalted followers) from land claimed forever and ever, amen, by Dar al Islamists. And even though the kinfolk of ancient apes and pigs have now unoccupied at least part of that land--and the Arabs there are free to live as equals--it hasn't made them any more amenable to the existence of a sovereign Jewish nation in their midst; if anything, it's had the opposite effect.

Like Abu-Assad, though, I'm convinced that the key is "understanding". It's essential to "understand" that most Palestinians have no intention of getting used to that blot on the Muslim landscape. 

Update: Islam Online applauds the great Palestinian victory. For now, just the cinematic one:

Winning the much coveted Golden Globe for best foreign language film, Palestinian filmmaker Hany Abu-Assad has used his acceptance speech to call for an independent state for his people and an end to the injustices done by the Israeli occupation.

"[The prize is] a recognition that the Palestinians deserve their liberty and equality unconditionally," Assad told a host of Hollywood stars, including Harrison Ford and Virginia Madsen, on Monday, January 16, reported Reuters.

The Palestinian filmmaker said he did not taken sides in his masterpiece "Paradise Now," but had tried to explain why two simple garage mechanics would be willing to kill themselves and others.

"I don't believe my film is controversial. It just shows something from a different side that we are all worried about," he told reporters backstage at the Globes.

On May 14 of every year, Palestinians commemorate Nakba Day which marks the creation of Israel on the rubble of Palestine and the bodies of the Palestinians.

Run since 1944 by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), the Golden Globe awards are given to motion pictures and television programs.

Winning the Globe gives "Paradise Now" a major boost for a possible Oscar nomination. No Palestinian film has ever been nominated to the most prestigious prize in the showbiz.

The film made its World Premiere at the Berlin Film Festival 2005, where it won the Blue Angel Award for Best European Film, the Berliner Morgenpost Readers' Prize and the Amnesty International Award for Best Film.

“Injustice”

Assad said his film wants the viewer to understand the mind-set that produces such acts as bombings, mainly because of injustice done to Palestinians and peace impotence under Israeli occupation.

"The feeling of the impotence is so strong that they kill themselves and others to say, 'I am not impotent.' It is a very complex situation, but the overriding umbrella is the injustice situation."...

I was going to comment further, but my feeling of the impotence at hearing such nonsense spouted again and again is such that I am tempted to blow myself up instead.

Update: Seattle (thick as a) Post-(un)Intelligencer reporter D. Parvaz is surprised and thrilled by P.N.'s win:

...Unlike the Oscars, the thank-you speeches at the Golden Globes are neither serious nor used as an opportunity to actually say anything, which we attributed to the magnums of champagne we saw on every table. They're either funny (Geena Davis, Hugh Laurie) or forgettable (almost everyone else). So imagine our surprise when "Paradise Now" -- credited to a country not recognized by most contemporary atlases, Palestine -- won and director Hany Abu-Assad said he saw the award "as a recognition that the Palestinians deserve their liberty and equality unconditionally."

Pinch us, we must be dreaming ...

No pinch required, D. As a famous Zionist once said, if you will it, it is no dream.

Not that we need put much stock in what D. has to say. S/he thought red-carpet host Isaac Mizrahi, who managed to make former hostess and notorious loose canon, Joan Rivers, seem like Miss Manners, was THE BEST PRE-SHOW HOST EVER. To recap some of Isaac's more bizarre moments: He groped Teri Hatcher's stomach; he asked Eva Langoria if she waxed her hoo-hah or left it au natural; he told Natalie Portman, who wasn't carrying a purse, that she needed one to stash her condoms; he felt up one of starlet Scarlett Johansen's golden globes.

Wouldn't it be hilarious if it turned out Isaac wasn't really gay?

Update: Looks like a Palestine supporter has already appropriated the saying.

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

Oprah redeems herself: After selecting a novel that was published as a memoir--James Frey's A Million Little Pieces--Oprah has chosen a novel that is so personal, so real, that it reads like a memoir: Elie Wiesel's Night. From Forbes.com:

Winfrey announced the selection of Wiesel's autobiographical novel about the Holocaust on her show Monday. Wiesel, 77, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 for a lifetime of writing and speaking against hatred, racism and genocide.

She referred to the King Day holiday, saying, "Like Dr. King, I have a dream of my own, too, that the powerful message of this little book would be engraved on every human heart and will never be forgotten again. That you who read this book will feel as I do that these 120 pages ... should be required reading for all humanity."

"Night" is Wiesel's account of his family's placement in the Auschwitz death camp and is the first of more than 40 books, essays and plays he has written. The book is marketed on some online bookstores as a novel, but Wiesel's foundation labels it a memoir.

Winfrey's last book club pick, the memoir of addiction "A Million Little Pieces," has drawn criticism over allegations that author James Frey had fabricated some parts, including a three-month prison stint that apparently never happened.

Winfrey reaffirmed her support last week of Frey's book when she phoned in to "Larry King Live" at the end of an hour-long interview with Frey. Winfrey did not mention Frey's book on Monday's show. The book's publisher, Doubleday, has said that Frey was writing a brief author's note for future hardcover and paperback editions.

Winfrey also said Monday she plans to travel with Wiesel to Auschwitz next month, and her show will have a high school essay contest on Wiesel's book. Fifty winners will be flown to Chicago, where her show is based, for a taping with the author, Winfrey said.

In a 2002 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Wiesel recalled that "Night," written in the 1950s and originally in French, attracted little notice at first. "The English translation came out in 1960, and the first printing was 3,000 copies," he said. "And it took three years to sell them. Now, I get 100 letters a month from children about the book. And there are many, many million copies in print." ...

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:25 | link | comments

The next Great War: Niall Ferguson imagines how a future historian might describe "The Great War of 2007"--a war sparked by a fascist, Jew-hating mullocracy. From The Telegraph:

...The ideological cocktail that produced 'Islamism' was as potent as either of the extreme ideologies the West had produced in the previous century, communism and fascism. Islamism was anti-Western, anti-capitalist and anti-Semitic. A seminal moment was the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's intemperate attack on Israel in December 2005, when he called the Holocaust a 'myth'. The state of Israel was a 'disgraceful blot', he had previously declared, to be wiped 'off the map'.

Prior to 2007, the Islamists had seen no alternative but to wage war against their enemies by means of terrorism. From the Gaza to Manhattan, the hero of 2001 was the suicide bomber. Yet Ahmadinejad, a veteran of the Iran-Iraq War, craved a more serious weapon than strapped-on explosives. His decision to accelerate Iran's nuclear weapons programme was intended to give Iran the kind of power North Korea already wielded in East Asia: the power to defy the United States; the power to obliterate America's closest regional ally.

Under different circumstances, it would not have been difficult to thwart Ahmadinejad's ambitions. The Israelis had shown themselves capable of pre-emptive air strikes against Iraq's nuclear facilities in 1981. Similar strikes against Iran's were urged on President Bush by neo-conservative commentators throughout 2006. The United States, they argued, was perfectly placed to carry out such strikes. It had the bases in neighbouring Iraq and Afghanistan. It had the intelligence proving Iran's contravention of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

But the President was advised by his Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, to opt instead for diplomacy. Not just European opinion but American opinion was strongly opposed to an attack on Iran. The invasion of Iraq in 2003 had been discredited by the failure to find the weapons of mass destruction Saddam Hussein had supposedly possessed and by the failure of the US-led coalition to quell a bloody insurgency.

Americans did not want to increase their military commitments overseas; they wanted to reduce them. Europeans did not want to hear that Iran was about to build its own WMD. Even if Ahmad-inejad had broadcast a nuclear test live on CNN, liberals would have said it was a CIA con-trick.

So history repeated itself. As in the 1930s, an anti-Semitic demagogue broke his country's treaty obligations and armed for war. Having first tried appeasement, offering the Iranians economic incentives to desist, the West appealed to international agencies - the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations Security Council. Thanks to China's veto, however, the UN produced nothing but empty resolutions and ineffectual sanctions, like the exclusion of Iran from the 2006 World Cup finals....

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:36 | link | comments

No more Whoppers for you, Mr. Ahmadinejad: The food police have been pestering us with the obvious for years: that eating fatty, highly-processed foods are bad for our health and can make us, well, fat.

Now comes word they may also make us nuts.

Then how do you account for all the crazy skinny people?

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:01 | link | comments

The window of opportunity is closed: The Beeb says that the outcome of the impasse with Iraq is "uncertain."

Silly Beeb. While the world dithers and dickers about whether to do something as "drastic" as imposing sanctions (oh no, not sanctions!), the Green Hornet and his gang of Jew-hating jihadis (a redundancy if there ever was one) are getting set to nuke the Zionists. Which means that the outcome is clear. Since the world is quite prepared to let that happen, the Zionists will have to take matters into their own hands.

Thus, you can safely ignore the following as being more or less irrelevant:

...If the matter does get to the Security Council, a verbal rebuke of Iran may be the first step. Travel restrictions on Iranian diplomats could be one of the targeted sanctions options as a second step.

Even limited economic sanctions could be highly problematic, because they represent such a potential double-edged sword.

The hope will be that raising the diplomatic temperature will eventually bring the sides back to dialogue.

But there is little disguising the fact that - on both sides of the divide - the stakes are very high.

This could still be a long-drawn-out diplomatic dance, with the calculations and concerns of the main parties changing as time passes.

The problem is that no-one is really sure how wide the window for diplomacy is.

And the risk of miscalculation will continue to rise as time goes by.

Newsflash for the Beeb: that window shut for good when Iran decided to unseal its nuclear facilities.

Update: Jack "Be Nimble" Straw is in no hurry to refer the matter to the Secuity Council. From the Scotsman:

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said that there should be no "rush" to international sanctions on Iran over its controversial nuclear programme.

Officials from Europe, the United States, Russia and China are meeting in London to discuss the call last week by the so-called E3 of Britain, France and Germany for Iran to be referred to the United Nations Security Council.

Speaking at a conference on international terrorism at the Royal United Services Institute, Mr Straw emphasised that a referral to the Security Council did not necessarily mean economic sanctions.

He said the authority of the Security Council in itself could be enough to bring Iran back into compliance over its nuclear programme.

"I don't think we should rush our fences here.

"There are plenty of examples where a matter is referred to the Security Council and the Security Council takes action and that action is followed without sanction," he said.

"The fact that Iran is so concerned not to see it referred to the Security Council underlines the strength of that body."

Mr Straw said it was up to the Iranians to show that they were not seeking to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civil power programme.

"The onus is on Iran to act to give the international community confidence that its nuclear programme has exclusively peaceful purposes - confidence, I'm afraid, that has been sorely undermined by its history of concealment and deception," he said.

Jack, Jack, Jack: The Iranians know you have not intention of rushing your fences--whatever that means--and couldn't give a fig about any "onus." Moreover, they're counting on your continuing timourousness to enable them to get on with the job of building their nukes.

On the plus side, given your position on the matter, you've just put yourself in the running for the next Nobel Peace Prize.

Update: A story in the Sydney Morning Herald about how the U.S. wants "swift action on Iran" may help shed light on the real reason why the world is be so reluctant to impose sanctions on Iran:

Iran stepped up its defiance of international pressure over its nuclear program on Sunday by warning of soaring oil prices if it is subjected to economic sanctions. As diplomats from the US, Europe, Russia, and China prepared to meet in London to discuss referring Tehran to the UN Security Council, its Economy Minister, Davoud Danesh-Jafari, said Iran's position as the world's fourth-largest oil producer meant such action would have grave consequences.

"Any possible sanctions from the West could possibly, by disturbing Iran's political and economic situation, raise oil prices beyond levels the West expects," he told Iranian state radio.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:51 | link | comments

Disciplining the Liberals: No link for it, but there was a report on Ceeb radio that on the campaign trail yesterday, Jack Layton called on Canadians to give Paul Martin's Liberals "a time out."

Fine with me, Jack. Can I also send them to bed without their supper and take away their PlayStations?

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:40 | link | comments (2)

Holiday interuptus: The Ceeb has a story about a Lebanese-Canadian whose holiday plans went south--literally. Sami Kahil and his family had been planning to soak up some rays in sunny Me-hee-co when Sami learned to his dismay that his name was on the American no-fly list. Seems Sami had once been involved with terror outfit Hezbollah, and even though he had since become a Canadian citizen (by marrying a Kuwaiit-Canadian--Canada's Refugee Board had twice rejected his claim because of his Hezbollah connection) he was shocked, shocked, to discover that his previous involvement could put the kibosh on his vacation plans.

The moral of the story: You can become a Canadian citizen even if you have a terror connection in your past; just don't expect to fly south for your honeymoon.

Update: The Toronto Star has more on the story. Sami is claiming that he was coerced into all that terrorism stuff. So what if the Refugee Board rejected his claim--twice? That's all in the past. In his current guise, he's a respectable family man, the owner of a shoe store in Scarborough. So "Why all the fuss?," he asks.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:47 | link | comments (1)

Sanctions, smanctions: Moo Jihad "shrugs off" the threat of sanctions, saying Iran's going nuclear no matter what. But fear not. Despite what you may have heard about him being in thrall to a certain 9th Century iman with armageddon on his mind, he has no intention of building nuclear weapons. To do so would be--what's the word I'm groping for?--un-Islamic. From The Herald-Sun:

BASKING in the nuclear spotlight, Iran's president yesterday gave a rare press conference to again tell the West to back off. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stood behind his decision to resume uranium enrichment research, shrugging off threats of international sanctions. Defending his government's move, he said Tehran had not violated the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, which he said allowed signatories to produce nuclear fuel.

"Naturally, our nation will not accept anything imposed on it," he said. "It is our definitive right to have nuclear technology." He said his oil and gas-rich nation had "leverage" of its own to defend its national interests. Last Tuesday, Iran removed some United Nations seals from its main uranium enrichment facility in Natanz, central Iran, and resumed research on nuclear fuel. The shift alarmed Western nations, which fear Iran may be trying to produce nuclear weapons.

"The time of using language of bullying and coercion . . . is over," Mr Ahmadinejad said. "There is no evidence to prove Iran's diversion (towards nuclear weapons)." What's more, Iran had no use for such weapons, Mr Ahmadinejad said. "Our nation doesn't need nuclear weapons. "You can use nuclear technology in several ways, and we want to do so peacefully," he added, saying that such weaponry violated the tenets of Islam.

Update: Speaking of the 12th imam, Moo seems to think his return is imminent, and he's supposed to be accompanied by a special guest. From The Telegraph:

 ...All streams of Islam believe in a divine saviour, known as the Mahdi, who will appear at the End of Days. A common rumour - denied by the government but widely believed - is that Mr Ahmadinejad and his cabinet have signed a "contract" pledging themselves to work for the return of the Mahdi and sent it to Jamkaran. Iran's dominant "Twelver" sect believes this will be Mohammed ibn Hasan, regarded as the 12th Imam, or righteous descendant of the Prophet Mohammad. He is said to have gone into "occlusion" in the ninth century, at the age of five. His return will be preceded by cosmic chaos, war and bloodshed. After a cataclysmic confrontation with evil and darkness, the Mahdi will lead the world to an era of universal peace. This is similar to the Christian vision of the Apocalypse. Indeed, the Hidden Imam is expected to return in the company of Jesus. Mr Ahmadinejad appears to believe that these events are close at hand and that ordinary mortals can influence the divine timetable...

As we know, however, Moo's no ordinary mortal. He's one of the select few off their meds who can discern green auras.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:52 | link | comments

The terrorist Brittanica: One of the most intriguing aspects of the Abu Hamza trial, now underway in London, is a collection of volumes given place of pride on the behooked terror-inciter's bookshelf. It's called The Encyclopedia of the Afghani Jihad, a comprehensive history of jihad triumph and step-by-step guide for would-be terrorists/jihadis. In ten lengthy volumes, no less. Here's how The Australian describes the contents:

The Encyclopedia of the Afghani Jihad also recommends terrorist attacks on skyscrapers, football stadiums, airports and nuclear power stations for maximum loss of life...

The court was told chapters of the terrorist manual were dedicated to Osama bin Laden, the Pakistan Government and terrorists who died for their cause.

Written between 1989 and 1999, the 10 volumes give information on security and intelligence, handguns, first aid, explosives, topography and weapons.

Headings include "The need to study the principles of war" and "The duty of assassination and kidnap".

Other subheadings give advice on reconnaissance, infiltration, ambush and how to manufacture explosive devices, open locks and train assassins.

One chapter has a step-by-step guide on how to manufacture a home-made silencer for a firearm, while the volume on explosives contains diagrams and guidance on booby traps, demolition and sabotage.

The white books, with red writing on the spine, warn that young Muslims are distracted and anaesthetised by television and sports events.

It says establishing Allah's law requires effort and preparation and that Muslims should wage jihad against even fair and well-loved leaders if they are not sufficiently devout...

The encyclopedia is not available on Amazon, but I'm sure you could track it down on any number of jihadi websites.

Then again, who has the room?

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:11 | link | comments

Ahmadinejad's goal: Charles Moore in The Telegraph offers some insight into the ostensibly mad machinations of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's aura-seeing President. After mocking Jack Straw's efforts over the past few years to "make friends" with the mullocracy, and his five, count 'em, five trips there in search of that most exotic of species, the moderate Iranian, Moore says it's time to stop pussy-footing around and indulging the Iranian leader: He's an driven, ambitious man who is using his belief in the return of the Mahdi--the Shia version of the Messiah--to put himself on top: 

...For years now, the "EU Three" - Britain, France and Germany - have been in charge, emboldened since 2005 by the personal support of Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state. They have wanted to believe that they were dealing with a power that was negotiating in good faith. They have spurred that power on to greater excesses by declaring that Western military action was (Mr Straw's word) "inconceivable". They have hoped against hope and against evidence. Only this week did they finally admit defeat. They agreed, which earlier they had refused, to try to take Iran's behaviour to the Security Council.

What is the West facing in the government of Iran? I read in yesterday's Times that President Ahmadinejad is a "naïve extremist". It is an assumption of Western foreign policy elites that extremists are, by definition, naïve, but is it so?

The point about Iran since 1979 is that it has been governed by revolutionaries; and the history of revolutionaries - successful ones, anyway - is that they are often mad and bad and incredibly skilful all at the same time.

Thus Hitler could genuinely believe in crazed racial theory and outmanoeuvre the chancelleries of Europe. Thus Chairman Mao could promote deranged, famine-inducing economics, while at the same time keeping a grip on power for a quarter of a century.

Westerners tend to see the Iranian revolution as "medieval", but this is a slander on the Middle Ages. "Twentieth century" would be the more accurate description. When Ayatollah Khomeini came to power in Iran, he encouraged his lieutenants to be well versed in the history of revolutions, particularly the communist revolution in Russia.

If you look at Iranian "democracy" today, you will see that the only candidates allowed are those committed to the constitution's idea of the "guardianship of the clergy" (a rule which, at the last parliamentary election, permitted the Council of Guardians to disqualify 6,000 of the 7,000 who wanted to stand).

This is a religious version of the Leninist idea of the "leading role of the party". In 1979, Khomeini said that his revolution was the first step ''in correcting the past of Muslim history''. He meant radicalising Shiism to take over the Muslim world.

That's what Ahmadinejad means, too. Last September, he addressed the United Nations in a speech that called on God to hurry up and send along his "Promised One". This was a reference to the strong Shi'ite belief in a Mahdi, or Hidden Messenger, who will reappear in the world to rule it aright.

Recalling his own speech afterwards, Mr Ahmadinejad said: "One of our group told me that, when I started to say 'In the name of God, the almighty, the merciful', he saw a light around me and I was placed inside this aura. I felt it myself. I felt the atmosphere suddenly change and, for those 27 or 28 minutes, the leaders of the world did not blink."

By putting himself inside this aura, Mr Ahmadinejad may be at once sincere and cynical. He may truly think that God is bringing the Mahdi his way, but he will also know that by identifying with this strand of Shi'ism he can seem to be a Robin Hood for the poor against corruption. He may also be hinting, some experts believe, that, if the Hidden Messenger is coming, the increasingly unpopular clergy and their Supreme Leader (Ayatollah Khamenei) could be superseded by truly holy, non-clerical persons, eg himself and his Revolutionary Guard.

The Bomb, blessed by God, will make Iran proud. It will force the West to let Iran dictate terms in the region, give Mr Ahmadinejad the prestige to crush dissent in his own country and help him grab world Muslim leadership, taking over Iraq. Mad, perhaps, terrifying, certainly, but perfectly sane as a way of staying on top...

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

If you can't stand the heat, get out of the court room:The judge overseeing the case of Saddam Hussein and his cohorts has upped and resigned. The Beeb report says the judge was upset over crticism about how he'd been conducting the trial, but maybe he thought he'd have a better chance of living out his days if he gave up the case before passing what is likely to be a death sentence.

Just speculatin', of course.

Posted by: scaramouche at 23:20 | link | comments

Political correctness at the Holocaust Museum: A piece on the israelinsider website notes a peculiar absence at the Holocaust Museum in Washington: it's failure to make note of Arab/Muslim Jew-hatred and, more specifically, the close association between the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the Nazis:

...Despite the fact that the USHMM has exhibits on significant issues such as propaganda, genocide in the Eastern Congo and Rwanda, persecution of homosexuals and other issues, it makes no mention of Arab anti-Semitism -- not of its history in the last century -- not of its current existence. Other than one brief sentence on anti-Semitism in the Muslim context by the respected Dr. Aron Rodrigue of Stanford University, the USHMM Website has no discussion on Arab anti-Semitism and the Museum has no permanent or even temporary exhibit on the same.

The USHMM makes no mention that al-Husseini was the uncle of the now deceased Arab dictator, Yassar Arafat. Born as Mohamed Abdel-Raouf al-Husseini, Arafat (who once called his uncle "our hero") shortened his name to obscure his relation to his notorious Nazi uncle. Even so, al-Husseini would help Arafat by playing a central role in the creation of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, using his influence to raise funds for the terrorist organization. Although Hitler is long gone and the Nazi regime has been crushed, the paradigm that Hitler created by inciting and having the Arabs join with him remains in place today and is one of the top reasons for continued virulent anti-Semitism in the Arab world. Mein Kampf is being sold throughout Islamic countries to hungry readers while new generations of Arab children are being indoctrinated to radically hate Jews. While the USHMM stands up on issues of murder and hatred in certain African countries, it inexplicably leaves out mention of the same existing in the Arab world today. This begs the question, is the USHMM, a facility funded mostly by the federal government, not discussing a subject which is unmistakably inline with their mission because they risk offending Muslim citizens or Muslim religious leaders?...

Don't be silly. Everyone knows that Muslim antipathy to Jews dates from the birth of Israel, and everything that came before, including that unfortunate episode in the Koran wherein the Prophet transformed recalcitrant Jews into apes and pigs, has nothing to do with it.

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

Highs and lows: I'm all for the co-mingling of high and low culture; heck, I've devoted my adult life to it. But Lynn Crosbie's piece in the Globe and Mail is a bit much, even for me. In a column that, essentially, considers how upset Jennifer Anniston must be at the news that her ex and his paramour are expecting a baby, Crosbie, the Globe's pop culture diva, amps up the pretensiousness to nose-bleed levels. In a single piece she manages to insert references to Eminem, Heather Locklear, Tommy Lee, schlock tabloid The National Enquirer and its editor, Mike Wallace, Vince Vaughan, Mary Tyler Moore and a snippet from Jimmy Buffet's song "Wasting Away in Margaritaville"--touchstones of low or pop culture--as well as such elitist icons as Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, René Descartes and Antonin Artaud.

The result, quite frankly, is ridiculous, as if the Three Stooges had crashed a party at Buckingham Palace.

For me, the highlight (or lowlight) of the piece is the following howler in which Crosbie tries to equate Cartesian mathematics with the appeal of a celebrity love triangle:

Philosopher René Descartes believed that all philosophical conundrums could be resolved through mathematics, and the triangulated nature of this story very likely explains not only its complexity, but our mass infatuation with it.

The entertainment media have been scrupulous to date about representing the third angle of the isosceles: the wobbling Weeble who won't fall down, Jennifer Aniston.

My word. So much cogitation and verbiage expended for so little purpose.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:01 | link | comments

Stephen Harper's eyes:

The above is a photo of Conservative leader, Stephen Harper, who, fingers crossed, could become Canada's next Prime Minister. The Liberals are doing whatever they can to prevent that from happening. They have launched a series of attack ads which have suggested, among other things, that Harper is being secretly financed by the Republicans, and will thus do their bidding should he be elected; that Harper, a neo-fascist, would seld Canadian soldiers to keep order in Canadian cities; and that Harper will dismantle the social safety net which Canadians have come to expect and adore.

One thing the ads haven't mentioned: Harper's eyes. In person, I'm sure, they're quite attractive--a pale, transparent blue. But on TV and in photos, they come across as being cold and lifeless, even a touch other-worldly, and make him seem remote and unapproachable. Not exactly a plus when you're trying to convince people that, despite everything they've heard, you are not one of Satan's minions (or even the big, bad dude Himself).

If I were a Liberal strategist watching her party's campaign implode in the final week before the election, I think I'd play up the eyes. At the moment, it might be the Liberals' best--maybe their only--shot at retaining power.

Update: Harper's eyes remind me of those of this actress. (Whatever happened to her?)

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:40 | link | comments

Royal failure: Not long after the latest haj stampede claimed hundreds of lives of hundreds of pilgrims, a Saudi official tried to pin the blame on God. Now the Saudis have decided, that along with supernatural, some humans are also at fault. From the Globe and Mail:

Hurried pilgrims who ignored instructions to leave behind baggage and others who joined the rituals illegally, swelling the huge crowds, caused the stampede that killed 363 people during the Islamic hajj pilgrimage, Saudi authorities said yesterday.

The Interior Ministry defended the performance of security forces, saying they intervened within minutes and saved lives when the disaster occurred Thursday at al-Jamarat, a giant platform where three pillars representing the devil are located. Pilgrims pelt the pillars with stones in a symbolic purging of their sins.

Some 600,000 pilgrims were squeezed in at the main eastern entrance ramp to the platform when about a dozen people stumbled over baggage, tripping others behind them, ministry spokesman Major-General Mansour al-Turki told reporters.

Saudi Arabia appeared eager to avert criticism that it has not done enough to prevent stampedes, which have plagued the stoning ritual over the past two decades. The Saudi royal family draws legitimacy from its role as custodian of Islam's shrines in Mecca and Medina...

I'm no expert in crowd control, but seems to me if you squeeze that many people into that small a space, you're coutring disaster and shouldn't be surprised when it occurs. Perhaps these royal custodians--who, time after time, have demonstrated their inability to manage the volume of haj visitors--could take some pointers in crowd control from the custodians of that other Magic Kingdom.

You know, the one where Mickey is King.

Update: MEMRI has a translation of a "fun" group activity for Iranian pilgrims that took place during the haj. Notice how, along with building team spirit, it challenged participants by requiring them to follow some potentially confusing instructions:

Following are excerpts from a rally of Iranian pilgrims in Mecca, aired on Channel 1, Iranian TV, and on Al-'Alam TV, on January 9, 2006.

Crowd: Israel is the enemy of Allah.

Man: May the hands of the infidels be chopped off.

Crowd: May the hands of the infidels be chopped off.

Man: May the hands of the infidels be chopped off.

Crowd: May the hands of the infidels be chopped off.

Man: (Chopped off) from the land of the believers.

Crowd: From the land of the believers.

Man: The Audience will now split into two groups: One group will settle the score with America, and the other will settle the score with Israel. This group now: Death to America!

Crowd: Death to America!

Man: Death to Israel!

Crowd: Death to Israel! Death to America!

Man: Death to America!

Crowd: Death to America!

Man: Death to America!

Crowd: Death to Israel! Death to America! Death to Israel!

Man: All together now: Death to America! Death to Israel!

Crowd: Death to America! Death to Israel! Death to America! Death to Israel! Death to America! Death to Israel! Death to America! Death to Israel!...

Too bad you can't see the visual, because during this enthusiastic cheer several pilgrims assembled themselves into a cheerleading squad and performed some hair-raising throws, leaps, cartwheels and other tricky maneuvers. Made all the more difficult because they were wearing their flowy pilgrim outfits at the time.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:31 | link | comments

The curious case of the paragliders in the daytime: Not long ago Iran announced that it was launching a new program designed to promote tourism. Seems tourists have been giving the mullocracy a pass lately--no doubt put off by stories about repression and torture--but Iran's tourism ministry was convinced that, insane Islamism aside, the country had a lot to offer in the way of gorgeous scenery and intriguing archaeological sites.

A few tourists from Turkey--aficionados of paragliding--decided to give Iran a go. Bad move. After some enjoyable soaring, the Turks were kidnapped by unknown abductors, who are now demanding a hefty ransom. From the amusingly-named IranMania (which, also amusingly, miswrites the story's lede so that it sounds like the tourists abducted themselves):

LONDON, January 14 (IranMania) - Three Turkish tourists kidnapped last month in southeast Iran are demanding a ransom of one million euros ($1.2 mln) each, a Turkish diplomat said Saturday.

"The kidnappers are a gang of drug smugglers, this is not a political thing," said the diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, according to AFP.

"We are doing all we can to obtain their release."

When they were seized on December 24, Serdar Durna, Yurdaer Etike and Avi Ozan had just left Zahedan, near Iran's borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Turkish ambassador in Tehran, Halit Bozkurt Aran, said on Thursday.

They had apparently stopped for some paragliding before entering Pakistan on a trip whose final destination was to have been Nepal, Aran told the Anatolia news agency.

Durna managed to telephone his sister on New Year's Day to transmit the ransom demand and tell her that they were being treated well, according to a report Saturday in the Vatan daily newspaper.

On the same date, a Sunni Muslim group calling itself Jundallah (soldiers of Allah) had claimed the kidnaping of nine Iranian soldiers near Saravan, in the same region.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:02 | link | comments

Thanks for nothing, Kofi: Nobel Peace Prize winner Kofi Annan, as clueless and useless (and thus, as dangerous) as ever, thinks folks are being hasty by talking about subjecting Iran to UN sanctions. He thinks EU diplomats should keep nattering on until the last syllable of recorded time (or until everyone's dead--whichever comes first). From the People's Daily Online :

UN chief Kofi Annan said on Thursday that Iran is still interested in talks with the EU about its nuclear program, while the United States and the EU trio are pushing for an urgent referral of Iran to the United Nations Security Council.

Annan said that Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, had affirmed to him in a 40-minute telephone conversation earlier in the day that Tehran was interested in "serious and constructive negotiations" with the EU troika -- France, Germany and Britain.

"Basically, I called him to urge an avoidance of any escalation (of the nuclear dispute), to exercise restraint, to go back and give the negotiations a chance, and that the only viable solution lies in negotiation," Annan told reporters after a luncheon with envoys of Security Council members.

"He in turn affirmed to me that they are interested in serious and constructive negotiations, but within a time frame, indicating that the last time they did it for two and a half years with no result, but (he) did indicate they were also interested in negotiations and they were serious about it."

While stressing that the crisis surrounding Iran's nuclear program should be resolved in the context of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Annan hinted that he is not opposed to the referral of Iran to the Security Council.

"I think we should try and resolve it, if possible, in the IAEA context," he said. "Once that process is exhausted, it may end up in the (Security) Council and then I would leave it to the council, to decide what to do, if it were to come here."

For those who haven't been paying attention, the current  "IAEA context" is that, in the spirit of co-operation, the IAEA has unsealed Iran's nuclear facilities which have supposedly been standing idle for the past two years, thus enabling the mullahs to get on with their nuclear schemes. That "process" will likely only be "exhausted" once an Iran has lobbed an A-bomb at Israel, at which point debate in the Security Council would be--what's the word I'm searching for?--pointless.

But what do you expect from a man who, when he heard Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad say he wanted to wipe Israel--a blot on an impeccable Muslim landscape--off the map, admitted to being "dismayed"?

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:55 | link | comments

A valjean for James:

James Frey, with great conviction,
Insists his memoir’s fact, not fiction.
Has fraud become his new addiction?

Update: I've been pondering the curious genre of the memoir. As the example of James Frey and others has shown, it seems neither fish nor fowl, fact nor fiction, but a strange combination of both. I've been tempted to call it "faction", since it appears to be autobiography unconstrained by truth or research. But since the book stores continue to stock A Million Little Pieces and other such works in the same section as biographies--which are often rigorously researched and often include such nicities as bibliographies, indexes and scholarly footnotes--they seem to be accorded a credibily they haven't earned and don't deserve. It's difficult to see much difference, for example, between what discredited New York Times reporter Jayson Blair was doing and what James Frey has been doing. Blair, as you'll recall, fabricated a bunch of stories which ran in the New York Times. Frey, on the other hand, concocted a bunch of stories designed to make his problems sound more titilating--the better to make his book fly off the shelves. The primary difference seems to be that Blair's stories were about other people while Frey's are about himself--as if the autobiographical gives one leave to invent episodes that never occurred and pass them off as reality.

Jayson's Blair's mistake was that, given his powers of invention, he should have been a memoirist instead of a reporter. That way, he could have created phony incidents, just like James Frey, and ended up with a cushy spot on Oprah's couch, instead of God knows where, scorned and shunned as a dishonest reporter.

James Frey will likely withstand this attack on his truthfulness; Oprah has far too much invested in his survival, and his story seems to have struck a chord with her audience which, like her, can't seem to get enough of hard luck stories with a happy ending. Still, I can't help but think that Frey has exposed the essential flaw in his chosen genre--that's it's largely a sham which can be comfortably fitted into neither fiction nor non-fiction, but which remains a confused and tarted up combination of both. Truth be told (admittedly, something of a novelty in this genre), the modern memoir as exemplified by James Frey often seems like little more than True Confessions Magazine with literary pretensions.

Incidentally, those tiny candy sprinkles--the "million little pieces"--which coat the hand on the cover of Frey's memoir are called "nonpareils." The word also mean "without peer." Since James isn't the only modern memoirist given to invention, he doesn't seem to qualify for that description.

Update: Apparently oblivious to the current controversy, the Jerusalem Post gives Frey's follow up book, My Friend Leonard, a rave review. Its conclusion:

My Friend Leonard is an addictive read. James Frey's a good story teller and while his trademark lack of punctuation does tire after a while, he is able to weave enough of a drama to intrigue readers. I was only disheartened by the contrived ending that seemed a little too Hollywood and formulaic. Then again, any author who can get me to read a 450-page book in two sittings is definitely capable.

Contrived and formulaic, you say? Could that be because, like his previous work, he took the liberty of contriving and formulating it? As for his refusal to use punctuation--that's a big turn off for me. Personally, I like my punctuation marks to go exactly where they're supposed to. I tend to think that those who eschew the helpful little guys--in the name of "coolness" or "edginess" or whatever--probably do so because they haven't figured out how to use them properly in the the first place. 

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:31 | link | comments

So long, Samy: Canada is minus one jihadi today. A drop in the proverbial bucket, perhaps, but it's still nice to see the back of a fellow like Sami Ait Mohamed, who has been sent back from whence he came, in his case, Algeria. Samir is (or at least, was) the best pal of Ahmed Ressam, the guy who wanted to bring in the millenium with a bang by blowing up the Los Angeles airport. He was apprehended at border by Canadian officials, his trunk full of explosives and extradited to the U.S. As part of his plea bargain (he's currently serving a 22-year jail sentence), he squealed to the Feds about his buddy, Samir. Seems the two of them had been plotting to blow up Outremont, a section of Montreal with a large and visibly Jewish (of the Orthodox sort) population.

Initially, Ahmed had promised to testify against his friend in court, but soon reneged, which meant Canada lacked the legal teeth to extradite Samir to the States. That left Canada holding the bag, so speak, and, lacking sufficent evidence to prosecute him, and not wanting to release a dangerous man back into the public, they kept him locked up in a Vancouver jail for the next four-and-a-half years.

Samir wasn't idle during that time. He kept busy trying to claim refugee status, insisting he would likely be killed were he to be sent back home. He even managed to get Amnesty International involved in his case. Ever eager to assist a beleagured terrorist in Western custody, the organization claimed it would be cruel to send Samir back to a place that has so little regard for human rights (as if that's sufficient to oblige Canada to open its doors to jihadis who want to subvert it and kill its citizens). Luckily, Canada kept Samir locked up until his claim was exhausted and he could be shipped back to his home and native land (and out of ours). As a spokesman for the Canada Border Services Agency explains in the story on the Ceeb website, "He had an effective removal order against him, he had a legal deportation order against him, there was no legal prohibition to remove him, and we were of the opinion that he was a danger to the public."

I'd say that about sums it up.

Hasta la vista, Samy, and do forget to write.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:02 | link | comments (2)

Call of the wild: In a British courtroom yesterday, a video was shown of jihadi cleric and former spiritual leader of Finsbury Park mosque, Abu Hamza, gesticulating wildly as he sought to inspire the faithful to kill the infidel. The Times Online describes the video as his "call to arms."

Which I suppose is appropriate since he doesn't have any hands.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:24 | link | comments

Just desserts: Apparently, if you can rise above the chaos and crowds and manage to live through it, the haj is a deeply spiritual experience. From the San Jose Mercury News:

For millions of devout Muslims who make the pilgrimage to Mecca, the experience is deeply moving and spiritual, the ultimate expression of their faith in the place where the Prophet Muhammad preached more than 1,300 years ago.

But the feeling of grace and serenity that comes on the hajj often is mixed with the stress and strain of cramming into holy sites with 2.5 million other members of their faith, and the fear of injury or death when huge crowds get out of control.

Thursday's news of stampede and death in Mecca brought a wince of familiarity to some Bay Area Muslims who have made the trek.

Manzoor Ghori, 59, of Palo Alto has made the hajj four times and can picture exactly where the pilgrims died Thursday. If you're going to get crushed, Ghori said, this is where it will happen. Pilgrims are supposed to throw pebbles as part of the ritual and exit the area quickly. But on Ghori's trips, he witnessed people resting, even sleeping, on nearby pathways, preventing fast getaways and easy exits.

For Ghori, who runs the Indian Muslim Relief and Charities in Palo Alto, the trips he has made to Mecca were the best times of his life. The people were warm and hospitable. The country was beautiful.

But it's hard not to feel anger -- and Ghori does -- at the Saudi government for not doing more to control the crowds. While the government has tried to keep up with supervising the pilgrims, called hajjis, Ghori said he wishes it would do more, and not just with crowd control.

For example, on one trip, he paid about $200 to the government -- a fee that is supposed to include a bus ride from the airport to Mecca. But there was no bus, and he spent his own money to split a cab with several others to get to the holy sites on his own.

``You're not supposed to feel angry,'' he said. ``Before you reach Mecca, you're supposed to shower and be clean and put on an aharm, two pieces of white cloth. I showered and put it on in London so that I could be prepared for the hajj. Everything is done so that you can be of peaceful mind and worship Allah.''

On his most recent journey, five years ago, he arrived at the airport and was greeted by utter confusion. Thousands of people swarmed the terminal. Customs officials told him to go to the airport bank to convert his U.S. dollars to pay a Saudi Arabian tax, and they would hold his passport while he went. But the bank wouldn't cash his traveler's check without his passport.

``I sat there for five hours,'' Ghori said of his airport experience. ``They should have a video in lots of languages explaining what's required of you. The whole process was a nightmare.''...

I know how he feels. I was once at a Jewish event that had a dessert buffet, and I almost fainted in the crush of people crowding to get closer to the cheesecakes. I expect that closely approximates the experience of "stoning the devil" (except in my case "the devil" was the woman who butted into line ahead of me and made off with an entire strawberry cheesecake, which she carried back triumphantly to her table).

Once I ate my dessert, though, I did feel quite serene.

Update: Speaking of just desserts, a spokesman for the Saudi interior ministry says of the haj fatalities, "This was fate destined by God."

There go the Saudis again, blaming God for their own deficiencies in crowd control.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:45 | link | comments (2)

My memoir: After watching the spectacle of James Frey, a man who earned mega-bucks even though he fabricated a significant portion of his memoir, A Million Little Pieces, I'm thinking of writing my own story. It will be all about my unfortunate childhood when, bullied by the gym-teacher's sadistic daughter, I took comfort in food and was compelled to shop in the "chubette" department for several years. Of course, to make my plight sound extra-pathetic, and appeal to Oprah (who we all know, has had her own issues with weight), I may have to resort to a few "embellishments." Like the time I was tossed out of fat camp when I organized a food fight. And the time I scarfed down a dozen cream puffs at one sitting. And that black day when I stole my mother's credit card and ate my way through the neighbourhood deli. Then, at the point when I hit rock bottom, I enroll in a twelve-step program and, slowly, painfully, come to terms with my debilitating addiction--a story I will detail in a "memoir" called A Million Jelly Donuts.

Like James Frey's acclaimed story, it will be sprinkled with lots of four-letter words--to show how impassioned and genuine I am. And like his, it will have a smattering of truth--enough so that I can legitimately call it a memoir. All that's important is that people find my story sufficiently inspiring to prompt them to change their lives, like fans of James's book say his book has inspired them. James, a stubborn individualist who supposedly came through the rigors of therapy by giving practically everyone the finger, even has a two word motto which his fans have taken to heart: "Hold On."

I, too, have come up with a pithy saying designed to inspire my readers: "Don't Eat."

On Larry King Live last night, James--who so far has raked in 3.5 million from his harrowing saga, and has written a sequel so he can rake in even more (you gotta strike while the fire's still hot, after all)--says the truth of individual events in his tale is incidental. As far as he's concerned, what counts it that it's faithful to the essence of his story. Oprah, who selected the memoir for her book club, thus boosting it into the stratosphere of bestsellerdom, phoned in to Larry's show in its closing moments to say that James is still aces with her. Even though the veracity of his book is questionable, what's important, says Oprah is that this document, fraudulent though it may be, continues to inspire countless numbers of desperate and despairing people.

I am convinced that  A Million Jelly Donuts--a similarly bogus work--has the potential to do the same.

Look for it soon at a book store near you.

And look for me on Oprah. I'll be the skinny white chick with the hungry look in her eyes.

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:21 | link | comments

Useless sanctions: The Beeb casts doubt on the efficacy of sanctions on a mullocracy bent on going nuclear:

Sanctions against Iran would herald the start of a new era of confrontation - without being certain of achieving their aim of ending Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Any sanctions would be mainly economic. Their effect is questionable. And there are several stages to be gone through before they could be imposed.

To start with, Western countries have to agree among themselves that Iran's decision to remove UN seals and resume uranium enrichment research crosses a red line and means the end, for now at least, of diplomacy.

The EU three - Britain, France and Germany - which have been negotiating with Iran have reached that conclusion.

Then the West and its allies have to persuade the wider membership of the UN nuclear supervisory agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to agree to refer Iran to the UN Security Council.

Then the Council, if it is sufficiently united, is likely only to issue a warning to Iran before taking any other action. It would probably tell Iran to suspend all activities again and re-enter negotiations.

Only if Iran refused would sanctions then be drawn up.

What kind of sanctions? They would be trade-orientated, aimed primarily at the one major industry that Iran has - its oil and gas.

EU foreign ministers have called for action on Iran's nuclear activity...

 The report goes on to list other reasons why sanctions are unlikely to work, but we can safely ignore it and cut to the chase:

And what if sanctions do not work?

At some stage Iran might reach the point at which it had mastered the technology of fuel enrichment. This, as experts like the former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix has said, might take many years. But sooner or later, it could happen.

Military action might then get onto the agenda.

The West, and Israel, say that Iran cannot be trusted and that it matters because the technology used to enrich uranium for fuel can also be used to enrich it further for a nuclear explosion.

If you master one, you master the other. And that would give Iran what is known as the 'break-out' capability. It could leave the NPT and go ahead and make a nuclear device.

If that moment came, it would be another decision point for the West - and for Israel. President Bush has said time and again that he will not permit Iran to build a bomb. And Israel might not want to wait that long.

In other words, when push comes to shove (which it will in short order)  even the Beeb recognizes that it's going to be up to Israel to neutrilize the threat.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:32 | link | comments

Apologizing for Liberal idiocy: One of the Liberal attack ads was so assinine that it was pulled before it had a chance to run. It asserted that if Stephen Harper were elected, his fascist proclivities would prompt him to send in soldiers to patrol Canadian cities. The suggestion is particularly ridiculous since it was a Liberal Prime Minister, their revered icon, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, who dispatched the army at the first sign of separatist unrest in Quebec.

The flop-sweat of desperation dripping off the floundering Liberal campaign has become so embarrassing that even Liberals feel compelled to apologize for it. From the Ceeb website:

The Liberal candidate in Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca has apologized for this week's release of a Liberal TV ad targeting the Conservatives' defence policies.

The ad suggested that a Stephen Harper government would put "soldiers with guns" on the streets of Canadian cities.

On Wednesday night, Liberal incumbent Keith Martin apologized at an all-candidates debate in the Victoria suburb of Colwood. He told the crowd the ad was a gross error that does not represent the Liberals' view of the military.

He said the ad was one of a series of 12 and it should never have been released.

"Some idiot went and sent it out with the other 11 ads, and it was never sanctioned by the party, never approved, and we are completely appalled that this went out. We apologize to the men and women in the uniform," he said.

The Liberals pulled the ad just hours after it was released to the media earlier this week, saying it was a mistake.

The ad targeted the Conservatives' proposal to set up small army battalions in cities across Canada, that would be used to help out in emergencies such as natural disasters.

Martin's riding of Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca includes thousands of military voters, and is home to Canada's Pacific naval fleet at CFB Esquimalt.

Martin is a former Reformer and Conservative who joined the Liberals before the last election.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:59 | link | comments

Coming soon to the Kuala Lampur Multiplex: Steven Spielberg's Munich is a go but you'll have to look elsewhere to catch the cowboy romance, Brokeback Mountain. From the Jerusalem Post:

A film distributor in mostly Muslim Malaysia - where movies on sensitive issues are often banned - will steer clear of gay-themed Brokeback Mountain, but will try to show Steven Spielberg's Munich despite its Israeli focus.
United International Pictures, which has distribution rights for both movies, said Thursday it will apply to Malaysia's state-run Film Censorship board for approval of Munich, which depicts the aftermath of the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics.

Because of Malaysia's Muslim majority population, the government is cautious about Israeli and Jewish topics, and had initially banned Schindler's List, Spielberg's Oscar-winning epic on the World War II holocaust.

UIP, however, will not even apply for approval of Brokeback Mountain, director Ang Lee's award-winning Western gay romance, said UIP's publicity manager in Malaysia, Dawn Liew.

"We believe there is a market for Munich here, but Brokeback Mountain is definitely not going to make it here because its themes wouldn't be right for our local audiences," Liew told The Associated Press.

Malaysian censors banned Schindler's List in 1993, calling it Zionist propaganda. They later lifted the ban following public appeals, but said scenes with nudity and violence must be cut. The film was never screened because Spielberg insisted it be shown in its entirety.

Other high-profile movies that have been banned include The Prince of Egypt, an animated epic on Moses, which was deemed "insensitive for religious reasons," and Ben Stiller's spy spoof Zoolander, which portrays a plot to assassinate a Malaysian prime minister.

Last year, the government allowed Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ to be shown, but Muslims - who comprise some 60 percent of Malaysia's 26 million people - were barred from screenings. Malaysia's population also includes Buddhist, Christian and Hindu minorities.

UIP wants to start showing Munich in Malaysia on April 13 and hopes it won't be banned because "it has a balanced point of view, with the message that violence is wrong," Liew said...

Really? I thought the message was that Palestinians tend to act out because the Jews deprived them of a home, and those who take steps to end terrorism are no better than the terrorists. But maybe Mr. Liew was confusing Munich with The Passion of the Christ (a film that was not banned in Malaysia).

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:42 | link | comments

Today's unintentionally amusing headline: From ABC News--Europeans say Iran talks reach 'dead end.'

To explain the drollery (although I'm sure it's not required): A 'dead end'  to a certain pesky entity is exactly what Moo Jihad is aiming for.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:15 | link | comments

Hazards of the haj: Every Muslim who is healthy enough and has the financial wherewithal is comanded to go on haj--the pilgrimage to Mecca--at least once in his/her life. Of course, they go on the understanding that the haj itself may be hazardous to their health. They could, for example, be unfortunate enough to select an accommodation which, aside from being a fleabag, collapses on them. Or they could be caught in the crush of pilgrims who were engrossed in stoning the devil--the final ritual of their pilgrimage--and be trampled to death.

I wonder: Is there such a thing as haj insurance?

Update: There's no word yet on the final death toll--they're still counting up bodies--but there seem to be fewer fatalities than in previous haj stampedes. From CTV News:

"It is more than 100," a medic in Mena outside the holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, told Reuters.

Reuters earlier said its journalists counted at least 50 bodies lined up on the ground and covered in white shrouds.

The Saudi Interior Ministry said in an earlier statement that an unknown number of people had been killed in the crush at the eastern entrance of Mena's Jamarat Bridge.

Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Mansour al-Turki said the stampede happened as pilgrims rushing to complete the stoning ritual before sunset tripped over luggage that had fallen from a bus.

The ritual has seen deadly stampedes in the past, including one in 1990 that killed 1,426 people and another in February 2004 that killed 244.

State-run Saudi television Al-Ekhbariyah earlier cited police officials as saying dozens were killed and injured.

Ambulances and police cars streamed into the area, and security forces tried to move pilgrims away from part of the site, though thousands continued with the ritual...

Saudi authorities will no doubt see the decrease in the number of victims (who, after all, died while performing a sacred task) as a sign that they're doing something right.

Update: The Seatle Post-Intelligencer looks back at haj disasters of recent times:

Disasters in recent years at the annual Muslim pilgrimage, or hajj, in Saudi Arabia:

- Jan. 12, 2006: Hundreds of pilgrims are killed and many others are injured in a stampede caused when some pilgrims tripped over dropped luggage amid people rushing to carry out the symbolic ritual of stoning the devil in Mina.

- Feb. 1, 2004: 244 pilgrims killed and a similar number injured in a stampede during the devil-stoning ritual.

- March 5, 2001: 35 killed in stampede during stoning of the devil ritual.

- April 9, 1998: About 180 pilgrims are trampled to death when panic erupts after several fell off an overpass during the stoning of the devil ritual.

- April 15, 1997: Fires driven by high winds tear through an overcrowded tent city at Mina, killing more than 340 pilgrims and injuring 1,500. Aid workers and diplomats said the death toll was at least 500.

- May 23, 1994: 270 pilgrims, most of them Indonesian, are killed in a stampede as worshippers surge forward for devil-stoning ritual.

- July 2, 1990: 1,426 pilgrims, many of them Malaysians, Indonesian and Pakistanis, killed in Mecca stampede in overcrowded pedestrian tunnel leading to holy sites. The worst hajj tragedy of modern times.

- July 9, 1989: Two bombs explode in Mecca, killing one pilgrim, wounding 16. Saudi authorities blame Iranian-inspired terrorists and later behead 16 Kuwaiti Shiite Muslims for bombings. Iran denied involvement.

- July 31, 1987: More than 400 people, mostly Iranian pilgrims, killed and 649 wounded in Mecca when security forces clash with Iranians staging illegal anti-U.S. demonstration.

Update: I was casing around for information about "Haj Insurance" and came across this--helpful hints for haj pilgrims. It's from a site called hajtips.com. (Click on the "death" link):

It is a very emotional scene in many places when pilgrims bid farewell to their families and friends in their homes or at the airport. Many cry.

To a few pilgrims, it is really their final farewell. Some pass away even before they reach The Holy Land, some pass away in the middle of their Hajj rites, and others after completing their Hajj rites but before their return journey.

It is very important that the pilgrim wears his identification tag at all times he/she is out of his place of accommodation. It is easier to live with the news of the death of a loved one than to be told that the identification of several dead pilgrims could not be ascertained and your loved one could be one of them.

Though the Haj tour operator and other authorities will have your home address and contact details, it is important that those closest to you during the pilgrimage also have these details. It is always more comforting to your loved ones to hear about your condition from those who had been closest to you.

If someone who had been close to you during the pilgrimage passes away in The Holy Land, please make it a point to contact the deceased's family in person (if their place is not too far away from yours) and spend time sharing the good companionship you had with the deceased. What you say will be amongst the memories that they will carry of their loved one. It will be a great source of comfort to them and may The Almighty reward you for the good deed.

Though funeral arrangements are usually handled by the Haj tour operator and other Saudi authorities, there are also private companies that provide this service. One such company is "SAMIA - Private Undertaking Transportation Services, Tel: 5705000 (Mecca). The service costs approximately SR 1,000.

Pilgrimage, huh? Sounds more like a religious form of Russian Roulette.

Update: "The Boss" (and I don't mean Allah) sings:

Got a wife and kids in Peshawar, Jack.
I went off to the haj and I never came back.
Threw some stones, got trampled underfoot.
Now lots of pilgrims like me are kaput.
Everybody’s got to make a haj.
Everybody’s got to make a haj.
And if you die it’s for a really good cauj.
Everybody’s got to may-hay-hake a haj. 

Got  to Mecca, seems no time had elapsed.
Slept like a log but then the roof collapsed.
Still did my pilgrim stuff without any fuss.
But then some luggage had to fall off a bus.
Everybody’s got to make a haj.
Everybody’s got to make a haj.
And if you die it’s for a really good cauj.
Everybody’s got to may-hay-hake a haj.

Tried to run, got caught in the melee.
Now there’s only one thing left to say.
If your agent tries to sell you on a round-trip ticket
You better tell him, “Buster, go and stick it.”
Everybody’s got to make a haj.
Everybody’s got to make a haj.
Lay down your life, it’s for a really good cauj.
Everybody’s got to may-hay-hake a haj.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:59 | link | comments (4)

Email to Prime Minister Paul Martin from Communications Director, Liberal Election Campaign 2006:

Dear Prime Minister,

Our current round of attack ads against Conservative leader Stephen Harper seem to have hit a snag. Research is showing that Canadians are offended by the way we’ve been characterizing Mr. Harper, even though we both know he’s every bit as awful as we say he is—and then some. Since the “pitbull” approach seems to be alienating potential voters, we’ve decided try something “friendlier.” We’ve taken a familiar song much beloved by Canadians (I believe children’s troubadour Rafi sang the definitive version) and adapted it to convey our concerns about the Conservatives forming the next government. Please let me know what you think.

To the tune of “She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain”

He’ll be comin’ from Alberta when he comes.
He’ll be comin’ from Alberta when he comes.
He’ll be comin’ from Alberta where the rednecks want to hurt ya
He’ll be comin’ from Alberta when he comes.

He will stomp on fluffy kittens when he comes.
He will stomp on fluffy kittens when he comes.
He will stomp on fluffy kittens and he'll swipe all of their mittens
He will stomp on fluffy kittens when he comes.

He will bring a hidden agenda when he comes.
It’s the one espoused by the Republicans.
He will take away abortion and he’ll steal your well-earned portion
Of our social welfare programs when he comes.

He will hobnob with Great Satan when he comes.
George Dubya Bush is one of his close, pers’nal chums.
He’ll enmesh us in a quagmire,
We’ll be caught up in the crossfire,
And the consequence will be dire when he comes.

Vote for Tories and you all will go to Hell.
When you arrive you won’t be feeling very well.
An eternity of trauma and an everlasting drama—
Like the one should Harper lead in Ottawa…

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:31 | link | comments

Two of a kind: Two of the three states that were once collectively identified as "the axis of evil" seem to be bound up in a mutual admiration/taqiyah club. One of the members--the Islamic dystopian one fronted by a mad, bad Holocaust-scoffer--avers that it's enriching uranium for purely peaceful purposes; the other member--the totalitarian Asian one fronted by an enigmatic tyrant--goes to bat for his loco amigo and backs up his patently false claims. See how many instances of taqiyah you can spot in this item from the Islamic Republic News agency (I counted ten myself):

All Iran's nuclear activities are peaceful and within framework of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said an Iranian official in Seoul on Wednesday.

Deputy Foreign Minister for the Asia-Pacific Affairs Mehdi Safari further told South Korean Acting Foreign and Trade Affairs Minister that Iran has had "good and transparent" cooperation with the IAEA, suspending its nuclear activities within the same framework voluntarily over the past two years.

Safari said Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's plan for partnership of foreign countries and formation of a consortium for production of nuclear fuel in Iran are the measures showing Iran's high transparency in peaceful nuclear technologies.

Iran has been pursuing peaceful nuclear technology and Tehran has been on the frontline in terms of making Middle East free of any nuclear weapons, he added.

He also called for more active contribution of Korean companies into the technical and industrial projects in Iran and for further investment of South Korea in Iranian projects.

The South Korean official for his part stressed Iran's right for civilian nuclear technology, voicing support for continued Tehran-EU3 nuclear talks and calling for their continuation.

He hoped that Iran's nuclear dossier will be solved within framework of the IAEA laws and regulations.

He also said that Seoul is ready to cooperate with Iran in implementation of the development, economic and industrial projects in a third country like Iraq and Afghanistan.

Yet in a meeting with the head of the Iran-South Korea parliamentary friendship group in Seoul on Tuesday, Safari stressed expansion of bilateral ties, especially the parliamentary ones.

Safari is to meet and confer with South Korean acting minister of development and transportation on Wednesday.

He had already met and held talks with South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Ban Ki-Moon, who emphasized Iran's right for peaceful use of nuclear technology.

Ban had said that Iran should be able to benefit from the peaceful nuclear technology within framework of the IAEA regulations.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:48 | link | comments

My Jihadishe Mama: The matriarch of the colourful Khadr clan, Canada's pre-eminent terror family, is upset at all the bad press her family has been garnering lately. Stopping briefly to chat with reporters on her way to court where her eldest son, Abdullah, is trying to avoid extradition to the U.S. for jihadi activity, Mama Khadr said her family has been unfairly "criminalized." The reporters, a respectful bunch, didn't point out to Mama that that's generally what happens when your family engages in (alleged) criminal activity and your late husband was palsy-walsy with Osama bin Laden; they just let the old girl rant.

Another sore point with Mama (who was encased in one of those attractive black pup tents with only an eye slit to indicate there was an actual person inside): Canadians, she says, have been impuging her parenting skills. From the Toronto Star:

The Toronto mother of alleged terrorists says her family "is doomed" by the Canadian government and the media.

"We've been criminalized," a head-to-toe veiled Maha Elsamnah told reporters outside a University Ave. courtroom yesterday.

"Are we terrorists? You are terrorizing. One son is paralyzed (Karim, 16), one is at Guantanamo, (Omar, the youngest detainee, 19) one (her husband Ahmed Said Khadr) is dead," Elsamnah said. "But of course Canadians now think I'm a bad mother so I'm supposed to not have any feelings."

Elsamnah and her mother Fatmah Elsamnah arrived about 15 minutes too late at court to get a glimpse of Elsamnah's eldest son Abdullah Khadr, 24, who faces possible extradition after the United States levelled terrorism charges against him.

"I just came to see my son, not to hear what the court was going to say and that's it," Elsamnah said.

Security was tight as Abdullah Khadr made a brief court appearance before Mr. Justice Michael Dambrot. Khadr, who was denied bail during a court appearance Dec. 23, was remanded in custody yesterday.

Khadr was described as having "high-level links to the Al Qaeda terror organization" by Justice Anne Molloy at the December hearing. Khadr is being held at the request of U.S. authorities, who are seeking his extradition to Massachusetts for trial. He faces charges stemming from an alleged plot to sell bullets, grenades and other explosive materials to Al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan.

Until early December, he had spent 14 months in custody in Pakistan. He returned to Canada Dec. 2 and was arrested Dec. 17 on a provisional arrest warrant issued in the United States.

Crown Attorney Robin Parker told reporters outside court that "the United States has 60 days from the time of Khadr's arrest to submit their request to the Canadian minister of justice for extradition and the minister of justice has 30 days after that to review and determine whether or not he will exercise his discretion to proceed with the United States' request."

Khadr's next court appearance is Feb. 2.

Elsamnah also worries about her son Omar, whose military pre-trial begins today in Guantanamo Bay. He has been held at the U.S. naval base in Cuba since 2002 in the grenade killing of an U.S. soldier in Afghanistan.

To give Mama her due. I don't think she's a bad mother at all. I think she's a very effective mother. She set out to raise a brood of ardent jihadis; she managed to do just that. And if she loses a couple of them along the way, well, there's no greater reward for a jihadi mother than to see your offspring do their part to off the infidel.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:48 | link | comments

Flogging a dead camel: Sharon's in a coma, the P.A.'s in disarray and Hamas is getting set for electoral victory. And you know what that means--time to get that ol' peace process rolling again. From The Age:

SENIOR US officials are on their way to the Middle East to resume peacemaking efforts put on hold by the collapse last week of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

The visits by Assistant Secretary of State David Welch and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams come amid signs of high-level contacts designed to ensure the crucial Palestinian election goes ahead as planned on January 25.

With Mr Sharon still fighting for his life in a Jerusalem hospital, the acting Israeli administration has yet to indicate whether it will allow voting to take place in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has said he might cancel the elections if Israel blocks campaigning and voting in the eastern half of the city, which it seized in 1967 and later annexed in a move not recognised by the international community.

On Monday, Mr Abbas claimed that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had assured him voting would be allowed in the city, a statement the US State Department will not confirm or deny.

Israel has said it will allow some Palestinian candidates to campaign in the city, provided they obtain permission from Israeli police and do not have links to militant groups. But it has not confirmed that it will allow any voters in East Jerusalem — home to 220,000 Palestinians — to actually vote there, with senior figures indicating they might all have to leave their city and travel to the West Bank if they want to vote...

And you thought Khadaffi was crazy.

Posted by: scaramouche at 01:10 | link | comments

Hot air and nukes: Mark Twain once quipped: "Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anthing about it."

Just like Iran's nuclear program.

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

The eschatological Mr. Ahmadinejad: Jews are awaiting the Messiah, who they say has yet to arrive. Christians are waiting for Jesus, who they say is going to come back. And Moo Jihad? He's waiting for the Shia version of the Deus sans machina--the 12th iman. Daniel Pipes explains why Moo's theological bent is so dangerous. From FrontPage Magazine:

Thanks to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, a new word has entered the political vocabulary: mahdaviat.

Not surprisingly, it’s a technical religious term. Mahdaviat derives from mahdi, Arabic for “rightly-guided one,” a major figure in Islamic eschatology. He is, explains the Encyclopaedia of Islam, “the restorer of religion and justice who will rule before the end of the world.” The concept originated in the earliest years of Islam and, over time, became particularly identified with the Shi‘ite branch. Whereas “it never became an essential part of Sunni religious doctrine,” continues the encyclopedia, “Belief in the coming of the Mahdi of the Family of the Prophet became a central aspect of the faith in radical Shi‘ism,” where it is also known as the return of the Twelfth Imam.

Mahdaviat means “belief in and efforts to prepare for the Mahdi.”

In a fine piece of reporting, Scott Peterson of the Christian Science Monitor shows the centrality of mahdaviat in Ahmadinejad’s outlook and explores its implications for his policies.

When he was still mayor of Tehran in 2004, for example, Ahmadinejad appears to have secretly instructed the city council to build a grand avenue to prepare for the Mahdi. A year later, as president, he allocated US$17 million for a blue-tiled mosque closely associated with mahdaviat in Jamkaran, south of the capital. He has instigated the building of a direct Tehran-Jamkaran railroad line. He had a list of his proposed cabinet members dropped into a well adjacent to the Jamkaran mosque, it is said, to benefit from its purported divine connection.

He often raises the topic, and not just to Muslims. When addressing the United Nations in September, Ahmadinejad flummoxed his audience of world political leaders by concluding his address with a prayer for the Mahdi’s appearance: “O mighty Lord, I pray to you to hasten the emergence of your last repository, the Promised One, that perfect and pure human being, the one that will fill this world with justice and peace.”

On returning to Iran from New York, Ahmadinejad recalled the effect of his U.N. speech:

One of our group told me that when I started to say “In the name of God the almighty and merciful,” he saw a light around me, and I was placed inside this aura. I felt it myself. I felt the atmosphere suddenly change, and for those 27 or 28 minutes, the leaders of the world did not blink. … And they were rapt. It seemed as if a hand was holding them there and had opened their eyes to receive the message from the Islamic republic.

What Peterson calls the “presidential obsession” with mahdaviat leads Ahmadinejad to “a certitude that leaves little room for compromise. From redressing the gulf between rich and poor in Iran, to challenging the United States and Israel and enhancing Iran’s power with nuclear programs, every issue is designed to lay the foundation for the Mahdi’s return.”

“Mahdaviat is a code for [Iran’s Islamic] revolution, and is the spirit of the revolution,” says the head of an institute dedicated to studying and speeding the Mahdi’s appearance. “This kind of mentality makes you very strong,” observes the political editor of Resalat newspaper, Amir Mohebian. “If I think the Mahdi will come in two, three, or four years, why should I be soft? Now is the time to stand strong, to be hard.” Some Iranians, reports PBS, “worry that their new president has no fear of international turmoil, may think it's just a sign from God.”

Mahdaviat has direct and ominous implications for the U.S.-Iran confrontation, says an Ahmadinejad supporter, Hamidreza Taraghi of Iran’s hard-line Islamic Coalition Society. It implies seeing Washington as the rival to Tehran and even as a false Mahdi. For Ahmadinejad, the top priority is to challenge America, and specifically to create a powerful model state based on “Islamic democracy” by which to oppose it. Taraghi predicts trouble ahead unless Americans fundamentally change their ways.

I’d reverse that formulation. The most dangerous leaders in modern history are those (like Hitler) equipped with a totalitarian ideology and a mystical belief in their own mission. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad fulfills both these criteria, as revealed by his U.N. comments. That combined with his expected nuclear arsenal make him an adversary who must be stopped, and urgently.

A jihadi who longs for the world to end with his hand on a nuclear button. Sounds like a recipe for one heck of a big bang to me.

Update: Moo Jihad sings:

It’s my Mahdi and I’ll nuke if I wanna
Nuke if I wanna, nuke if I wanna.
You would nuke too just to target “the Jew”.

Nobody knows where my Mahdi has gone.
He’s supposed to come back.
And so to speed his return
I think I’ll launch an attack.

It’s my Mahdi and I’ll nuke if I wanna
Nuke if I wanna, nuke if I wanna.
You would nuke too just to target “the Jew.”

Look at those EUnuchs all cower and quake.
Seems they don’t have a clue
And with my shiny new bombs
I know what I’m gonna do.

It’s my Mahdi and I’ll nuke if I wanna
Nuke if I wanna, nuke if I wanna.
You would nuke too just to target “the Jew.”

The IAEA has just broken our seals
Hey, world, no stoppin’ us now.
Not long from this very date
You’re gonna hear us “KAPOW!”

It’s my Mahdi and I’ll nuke if I wanna
Nuke if I wanna, nuke if I wanna.
You would nuke too to get rid of the Jews.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:46 | link | comments

A moment with Moo Moo: MEMRI has a translation of an interview with Libya's pixilated potentate, the man I "affectionately" call Moo Moo. Not surprisingly, he seems to be a few neurons shy of a fully-functioning brain as he weighs in on subjects as diverse as suicide bombings and democracy (which he claims is an Arabic word). Here's an excerpt:

"I Have Nothing Against America – Except for the Fact That it Opposes the Palestinian People and is Destroying Iraq"

"We befriend whoever befriends us, and we are hostile to those hostile to us. If America comes to Libya, it will encounter men and women who will fight it to the end. If it befriends us, we will extend our hand in friendship. Right now, I have nothing against America, except for the fact that it opposes the Palestinian people, and is destroying Iraq. Apart from this, America and I agree on everything.

"Unfortunately... Look how strange this is. In the past I was against the oppressive, religious, theocratic regimes, while America supported them. We had disagreements with America on this. It was an ally of these regimes, while I fought them. Now America is saying that the oppressive, theocratic regimes that exploit religion are terrorist regimes. It has stopped supporting these regimes in order to topple them.

"So America and I agree these theocratic regimes must be fought. America used to support dictatorships, while I was against them, and I called to confront them. Now America says: I am against dictatorships. Great! 'Opposing dictatorship' is the slogan of the Libyan revolution. We oppose all types of terrorism. When I say 'all types.' I'm referring to terrorism of fleets, of WMDs, and terrorism by individuals.

"America is now talking about fighting 'all types' of terrorism. So that's it. We agree. America is talking about liberalism now. Fine, I'm a liberal too. Liberalism means freedom. It means popular capitalism, rule by the people, people's committees, and leadership by the people. That's liberalism! That's liberalism! Freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom... No oppression, no persecution, no exploitation. America is saying these things. So that's it, we agree.

"What's left for me to disagree with America? I was against the U.S.S.R. myself, and so was America. We had no disagreement. America has said it is against WMDs. I cancelled the WMD program, and I demand that America cancel its own WMD program, and that Israelis be disarmed of their WMDs, instead of the [American] silence in their case.

"We agree about all this. Great. America talks about liberties, human rights, and women's lib – This is what I always call for, while America was against it.

"Apart from Iraq, I have no problem with America. Why should there be a problem? If America is hostile to me, I will be hostile to it. If it wants to occupy my country – welcome! When it attacked me, I shot down its planes, and didn't even care. I said to Reagan tuzz [go to hell] a million times, when I could see his fleet with my own eyes. I wasn't afraid of him."

No doubt about it--the man's as nutty as Jamoca Almond Fudge.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:34 | link | comments

Stoneless Straw: Now that Iran has defied the world and unsealed its "mothballed" nuclear enrichment facilities, the powers that be in the EU and U.S. have shifted into mid-dugeon (as opposed to the high dugeon of actual sanctions). They are now "warning" Iran to knock it off. From ABC News:

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran removed U.N. seals at its uranium enrichment plant and resumed nuclear fuel research on Tuesday, drawing sharp criticism from the West which fears its nuclear program could be used to make bombs.

The U.N. nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, said the research would involve the small-scale enrichment of uranium, useable in power plants or weapons.

The United States and European Union powers warned Iran it risked referral to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions. Russia, Iran's nuclear energy partner, also criticized the move.

Washington said if Tehran began uranium enrichment it would be a "serious escalation" of its dispute with the West.

"Iran's nuclear research centers have restarted their activities," Mohammad Saeedi, deputy head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, told state television. He denied Iran intended to produce nuclear fuel.

"There is a difference between research and producing nuclear fuel … The production of nuclear fuel is still under suspension," he told a news conference.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said he was consulting EU colleagues on how hard to push for a Security Council referral. He said if Tehran showed an intention to develop a nuclear facility, it risked bringing instability to the Middle East region.

But Straw stressed the dispute with Iran had to be resolved by diplomatic means. "Military action is not on our agenda, I don't believe in practice it is on anyone else's agenda," he told parliament.

Interesting that Straw calls for a diplomatic resolution to the issue when a story that appeared in The Guardian on Sunday reports that last August, British authorities looked the other way as a British company shipped radioactive material--which could be used to build a nuclear weapon--to Iran.(link via The American Thinker) You would think that a nation which is helping the mullahs go nuclear would have to decency to be the teeniest bit nonplussed by its own hypocrisy.

Thanks for the warning, Jack, lukewarm though it may be. But don't count on Israel to sit tight while you and other dapper diplomats engage in genteel diplomacy. Were the Jews to leave it up to your nervous Neville-y style of non-brinksmanship, they could all but count on a second coming of the Jewish naqba (to borrow a popular term).

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:57 | link | comments

Forbidden garnish: This morning I had a delicious poppy seed bagel, toasted, with a little unsalted butter and a slather of blackcurrent jam. Yum. As I ate it, I happened to be reading this story in Arab News, which informed me that my innocuous comestible is forbidden in the Magic Kingdom--something apparently unbeknownst to two pilgrams from India caught with illegal poppy seeds in their bags:

ARAFAT, 10 January 2006 — Ignorance of the law is no excuse. This was sadly illustrated to two Indian pilgrims from Gujarat. In their luggage they had 250 grams of poppy seeds (khaskhas) which resulted in their being arrested. Neither knew that the substance was banned in Saudi Arabia and both said that they had brought it for use in cooking while they were here.

In some parts of India, poppy seeds are used in cooking a number of dishes. Though the two pilgrims — Siraj Fareed Muhammad and his aunt, Haneefa Yusuf — arrived with a group of pilgrims, they will not be leaving with the group. Unfortunately, they will remain here until the police inquiry into their case is completed, said Indian Consul General Dr. Ausaf Sayeed. The two were arrested on Dec. 31 shortly after landing at the Haj Terminal in Jeddah.

Siraj explained, “We did not know that khaskhas is banned in Saudi Arabia; we normally add it to food such as halwa. It was in a box in our luggage and when the customs officials found it and opened it, my passport and my aunt’s were seized. We were held at the airport and handed over to the police.”

Siraj manages a travel agency in India and came for Haj with 40 other pilgrims. “I have performed Haj four times and this is my fifth. I never had any problem. This time, however, since my aunt was coming with me, I thought we would do some cooking and so I put the khaskhas into the luggage. In our country, this is a normal substance used in cooking and I had no idea that it would put us in jail,” he said.

The two pilgrims spent eight days in prison but were released on the intervention of the consul general, only to perform Haj. They have been handed over to the South Asian Establishment which gave a written undertaking to return them to the authorities after Haj.

“They were brought to the Indian Haj office in Mina at 4 a.m. today by the South Asian Establisment,” said Dr. Suhel Ajaz Khan, Haj consul at the Consulate General of India. “We are providing them all assistance to enable them to perform Haj and they are happy about that,” Khan said.

Both Siraj and his aunt praised Saudi officials for the treatment they got during their detention. “We were treated well and with sympathy by the police and other officials; we have been well taken care of,” they said.

After their arrest, the consul general wrote to Saudi officials asking them to consider the case sympathetically.

The consul general said a proper orientation program was needed to ensure that such things do not happen in future. He was optimistic that the two would be freed after the investigations. “They must cooperate with Saudi officials. That is the only way to prove their innocence. Giving them permission to perform Haj is a good sign and I am hopeful that they will be sent home after Haj,” he said.

Dr. Ausaf praised the Saudi police as well as the head of the South Asian Establishment, Adnan Amin Katib, for their cooperation.

A cursory search of the Web revealed no sound reason for the poppy seed ban (not that Saudi practices hinge on the rational--look at their laws about women and cars). One can only assume it has something to do with poppies being the source of opium, even though the kind of poppy seeds used for cooking and eating are not intoxicating and are incapable of germinating. The worst they can do is get stuck in your front teeth, so that you walk around looking foolish until someone is thoughtful enough to point out the errant specks.

Unsightly, perhaps, but hardly worth a jail sentence.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:49 | link | comments (1)

Hamas's appeal: It never fails to amaze me how otherwise intelligent people can fall for Hamas's humaniterrorism line. They look at organizations whose raison d'etre is the erradication of the Jewish presence in Israel, and which--incidentally elicit  support from the populace by providing services such as hospitals and schools which failed states harbouring the terrorists fail to provide--and are able to let the "good works" take precedence over the organizations' genocidal impulses. Case in point: an editorial in the Globe and Mail about the abysmal Abbas's seemingly bottomless abyss. You have to fork over some shekels to read it in its entirely online, so I will quote the offending passage from my dead tree copy:

It would be a mistake for Israel to ignore the sources of Hamas's political appeal, which is based less on its antipathy to Israel than on its ability to provide social assistance to the poor and on its reputation for financial integrity.

I'm not sure on what basis the editorialist can make such a claim. From my understanding of Palestinian society, which glorifies the "martyrs"  that Hamas sends to murder Jews by blowing them up, (and whose official government, such as it is, rewards the families of successful lslamokazis by giving them a monthy stipend--a "splodey bonus") Hamas's appeal is based on far more than it's ability to provide social services. It appeals to them on a fundamental level, as jihadis who are sworn to remove the Jews from that little slice of Dar al Islam through any and every means.

As for the pereption of its financial integrity--how pathetic. The world has sunk billions upon billions of dollars into the P.A., only to see it disappear into the black hole of the leaders' greed and corruption. If Hamas has "financial integrity", it's only because it doesn't have to depend on the U.S. and the EU for its coin; it gets scads of cash from other Arab and Muslim states, like Saudi Arabia, who have a stake in seeing the jihadis prevail--over Abbas as much as the Israelis. And who knows how much of the cash actually gets redirected into Hamas's coffers. Impossible to say since it's not like it ever has to open its books for a public accounting.

Even though the Globe gets it wrong about Hamas's appeal, the editorial manages to arrive at the only possible conclusion:

The latest polls show this fomenter of hate garnering close to 25 per cent of the vote. Mr. Abbas has vowed to disarm Hamas after the election, but it is hard to see how he will manage it when his government cannot even guarantee basic security. No wonder observers are calling the Palestinian Authority a failed state in the making.

Agreed, but with one minor quibble. The P.A. is not a failed state in the making. It is a would-be state that has already failed--big time. And no amount of money can revive the decomposing corpse.

Update: Hamas is putting some of its financial resources to good, i.e. bad, use. From the Ceeb website:

Militant Palestinian group Hamas has begun television broadcasts from a secret location in the Gaza strip.

The move comes just two weeks before Palestinian legislative elections, scheduled for Jan. 25. The station could help Hamas present a serious challenge to the ruling Fatah party in the campaign.

The station is named al-Aqsa after the mosque in Jerusalem, one of Islam's most sacred sites. It is based in Gaza and can be received in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

A Hamas spokesman says the station will spread Hamas's message to Palestinian people and the world. Its first broadcast on Sunday included a half-hour reading from the Koran.

"The aim of this step is to establish Islamic culture and an ideological, scientific and political vision that is in tandem with the spirit of Islam, and to spread information about important issues," said Fathi Hamad, a Hamas leader, in a quote from the BBC.

The station intends to establish regular programming in one to three months, including news, current affairs and documentaries.

The TV station is modelled on radical pro-Shiite group Hezbollah's al-Manar satellite TV network in Lebanon, which has a network of Middle East correspondents. The station has plans to launch satellite service to broadcast to a wider area.

The station will promote Hamas's policies and introduce its candidates during the election campaign.

It will also present its interpretation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Hamas wants an end to the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories and calls for the destruction of the state of Israel.

Hamas already has a radio station in the Gaza Strip, the Voice of Al-Aqsa. It was bombed by the Israelis in 2004...

How sickening is it that the Ceeb can recite Hamas's aims, including the destruction of Israel, in the same matter-of-fact way it would report on the Liberals' election platform? Ho hum: Hamas presents its point of view. Another day, another legitimate political party expressing its genocidal desires. Move along, folks. Nothing to look at here.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:02 | link | comments

Campus activism in Iraq: Oh those undergrads--they get up to such hijinks! From the National Post:

BAGHDAD - The spectacle of students dressed in black, many beating themselves with their fists, following an imitation coffin through the campus of Baghdad's Mustansiriyah University was not one its secular professors had sought on their syllabuses.

They knew that the procession in remembrance of the death of a revered Shia cleric would only further inflame sectarian and political squabbles. But no one in authority did anything to stop it, despite the private protestations of senior faculty members. They knew that to do so would risk a riot.

Despite once priding themselves on secular and Westernized attitudes -- while having to be slavishly obedient to Saddam Hussein -- Iraq's universities are increasingly marked by fundamentalism and political struggle.

Elsewhere the country's ethnic and sectarian groups increasingly have less contact with each other -- leaving homes and businesses in mixed areas to the relative safety of those dominated by their own kind -- but on campuses rival groups still study side by side.

This daily contact, mixed with the inevitable over-excitability of youth, has resulted in reports of a growing number of extremist-inspired incidents.

Students tell of political organizations picketing opponents' university meetings, fights breaking out and even the assassination of moderate professors who try to control the worst excesses on their campuses.

Now, with politics particularly fervent as a result of the recent national elections and the negotiations going on among leading parties to form a new government, many are refusing to go to classes to avoid the increasingly frantic politicking and dangers. Entering Baghdad University, the walls are festooned with banners and posters for the leading parties.

"It does not seem like a university any more," said Amir, 21, a third-year communications student.

"People are struggling or quarrelling with each other. The dean has faced two assassination attempts and now she does not say what to do and what not to do. In lectures, students even start chants with the party they support and the lecture turns to chaos."

Looks like that "light unto the Muslim world" project may have hit another speed bump.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:32 | link | comments

Fatwa fun in France: Ah, the fatwa. That edict designed to keep the faithful in line, ensuring they conduct themselves at all times in accordance with the one true law. But sometimes, what one "scholar" says is unacceptable may not jibe with how others interpret the law. Islam Online reports that French Muslims are currently tackling this tough issue, trying to determine which fatwas pertain to them:

PARIS, January 8, 2006 (IslamOnline.net) – French Muslim leaders are debating the universality of fatwa and whether religious edicts should be applicable to Muslims worldwide or be confined to Muslims in a particular place.

"The Islamic jurisprudence heritage is linked to the concept of Fitrah (man’s pure innate nature) in Islam. Therefore, Islamic rules and fatwas, regardless of their geographical considerations, relate to this concept," believes Daw Meskin, the secretary general of the French Council of Imams.

He said fatwas issued by leading Muslim institutions such as Egypt's Al-Azhar and the Islamic Fiqh Council in Saudi Arabia should be sought in dealing with issues of the Muslim minorities in the West.

"Muslim minorities can name representatives to these institutions to raise issues of particular concern to Muslims in the West."

Meskin criticized what he described as "politically-motivated" fatwas, referring to the Union of French Islamic Organizations (UOIF)'s fatwa banning Muslims from joining the recent riots.

"Fatwas are sometimes issued for political purposes or to court certain politicians, especially French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy" he charged.

"Fatwas should not serve any political purposes or personal interests," he told a forum organized by the International Institute of Islamic Thought at the weekend.

Co-incidentally, the National Post has a story about the kind of fatwa that the French (at least, non-Muslim French) might find problematic--and it was pronounced by a former dean of that authoritative Egyptian institution mentioned in the I.O. piece. (The Post doesn't have the link, but, except for the headline, the story is indentical to the one in the link provided. The Post's headline: 'Nudity during sex invalidates marriage'):

Cairo - An Egyptian cleric's controversial fatwa claiming that nudity during sexual intercourse invalidates a marriage has uncovered a rift among Islamic scholars.

According to the religious edict issued by Rashad Hassan Khalil, a former dean of Al-Azhar University's faculty of Sharia (or Islamic law), "being completely naked during the act of coitus annuls the marriage".

The religious decree sparked a hot debate on the private satellite network Dream's popular religious talk show and on the front page of Sunday's Al-Masri Al-Yom, Egypt's leading independent daily newspaper.

Suad Saleh, who heads the women's department of Al-Azhar's Islamic studies faculty, pleaded for "anything that can bring spouses closer to each other" and rejected the claim that nudity during intercourse could invalidate a union.

During the live televised debate, Islamic scholar Abdel Muti dismissed the fatwa: "Nothing is prohibited during marital sex, except of course sodomy."

For his part, Al-Azhar's fatwa committee chairman Abdullah Megawar argued that married couples could see each other naked but should not look at each other's genitalia and suggested they cover up with a blanket during sex.

Maybe someone can design a flannelette burka so women who want to safeguard their marriage can wear it to bed.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:14 | link | comments

Anarchy in the P.A.: As everyone knows, of all the peoples in the world, the Palestinians are singularly deserving of their own state. Far more deserving than, say, the Basques or the Kurds.

Hmmm. I wonder why that is.

Anyway, despite the best efforts of so many folks who are striving mightily to give them a state (many of whom, at the same time, are doing their level best to destroy Israel's economy through divestment schemes) the Palestinians don't seem prepared for the demands of statehood just yet. From the International Herald Tribune:

There is spreading chaos, a sense of deterioration and growing concern among both Palestinians and Israelis that the Palestinian Authority, nearly bankrupt and facing a huge budget deficit, may look like a failed state even before it becomes one.

Life for ordinary Palestinians is becoming harder, with less security and optimism than a year ago. The Israelis pulled out of Gaza - a thrilling moment for many Palestinians - but the territory has become practically lawless, not a model for a future state, and Palestinian voters seem set to punish the divided Fatah movement that monopolizes the Palestinian Authority.

Legislative elections on Jan. 25 are expected to bring the radical Islamic group Hamas, dedicated to a continuing armed struggle against Israeli occupation, into a significant share of power in the authority.

"All the chaos is coming from inside the Palestinian Authority and Fatah," said Khaled Duzdar, a Palestinian analyst at the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information. "Fatah almost seems to be working on behalf of Hamas. This is the lowest the Palestinian Authority has reached."

The splitting of the main Palestinian faction Fatah and the participation of Hamas and its militants in the authority are serious questions that any new Israeli leader will have to confront right away.

By itself, the victory of Hamas or its achievement of a blocking minority within the authority could be enough to put an end to the long-moribund "road map," the peace plan drafted and endorsed by the United States, as well as the Israelis and the Palestinians. Hamas is committed to keeping its armed wing and its weapons, and says it is running in this campaign "to protect the resistance." One of the road map's first requirements is that the authority disarm all militants, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, which is affiliated with Fatah itself.

The Palestinian Authority's president, Mahmoud Abbas, has promised Israel and Washington to disarm the militants after the elections, but no American or Israeli policy maker or intelligence analyst interviewed over the last two months believes that he will be able to do so, and most think he is unlikely even to try.

So, outside of considerations of Israeli leadership, progress toward peace seems unlikely. That can only add to the Israeli inclination to sit tight and manage the current situation while continuing unilateral disengagement from the Palestinians, like the construction of the separation barrier.

"We have an ailing prime minister and the Palestinians have an ailing Authority, and both are on life support," said a senior Israeli intelligence officer, who could not be identified because of the nature of his work. "We have never been through such a period of anarchy in the Palestinian Authority. As far as security is concerned, the Authority is nominal - anyone in the territories does what they please."...

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:42 | link | comments

Iran gets UN go-ahead to nuke the Jews: Well, maybe not in those exact words. But why speak plainly when you can obfuscate, like Iran and the UN? Iran says it's relauching its nuclear powered electrical program, "mothballed" for the past two years over concerns that perhaps the dystopians had other things in mind for all that power. The ever-helpful UN watchdogs, who won a big shiny prize for averting their eyes while Iran went on with its plans, will be arriving in Teheran to help the mully-bullies get down to work. From My Way:

Iran said Sunday that inspectors from the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency would remove seals from some nuclear facilities by Monday, opening the way for Tehran to resume research on fuel production.

The development heightened concerns in the West that Iran was moving toward building atomic weapons.

"Iran is ready to resume the research activities after the inspectors remove the seals," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said. "It is our right as (much as) other members of the Nonproliferation Treaty. Iran should not be exempted."

Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency arrived in Tehran on Saturday to remove seals they had affixed to the research sites after Iran voluntarily agreed to stop all enrichment-related activities more than two years ago as a confidence-building measure.

The Iranians have maintained they will never give up their right under the Nonproliferation Treaty to enrich uranium and produce nuclear fuel, but the IAEA and most of its members want Tehran to maintain the freeze because of growing fears it will misuse enrichment to make weapons.

Iran told the IAEA last week it would resume research Monday, and officials said talks with the inspectors over restarting the research could wrap up by Monday at the latest, the official Islamic Republic News Agency said. Iran has not specified the type of research.

Tehran says its nuclear program is for electricity generation, while the U.S. and Europe suspect Iran is moving to produce nuclear bombs. The U.S. and France have pushed for taking Iran before the U.N. Security Council, which could impose sanctions if Tehran is found in violation of the Nonproliferation Treaty.

Asefi said Iran's research would respect regulations set by the U.N. watchdog and the treaty. "The activities will be under supervision of the agency, therefore there is nothing to be worried about," he said.

So the guys who removed the seals and have done bupkes to curtail the the mully-bullies' nuclear schemes will be also be "supervising" the constuction of the Islamic nuke.

Give these guys another Nobel Peace Prize! (along with an Oscar for "best supporting acting by a genocidal Iranian" to Hamid Reza Asefi; the Oscar for "best actor" in that category goes to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, of course).

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:44 | link | comments

Tony talks: Speaking of deconstruction (see post below), blogger Bookworm deconstructs a radio interview with Munich screenwriter Tony Kushner (link via The American Thinker):

To begin with, Kushner bracketed the interview by admitting that he approached the whole thing with a bone deep bias. In the beginning, he admitted that he had a problem with guns and fighting, which he found "all very butch and scary." He ended the interview by admitting that he started his work being reflexively anti-militaristic, although he hastened to add, he's not a pacifist. (He did not explain how those two ideas can function comfortably in the same mental universe.) He said work on the movie made him move a little away from, or at least question, his reflexive revulsion to all things military, but that really doesn't speak well for a plot written with an open mind.

Surprisingly, he was unperturbed by credibility issues associated with Vengeance, the George Jonas book on which the movie is based. Or more specifically, he was unconcerned about the credibility of "Avner," the single source for Vengeance. (Here's a rundown of some of the problems with Avner.) His personal feeling was that Avner was plausible and, while he "asked around" and did what research he was able, Kushner didn't find anything that changed his mind. The information that crossed his radar included innumerable ex-Mossad agents who have entirely discredited Avner's story, both large and small. Kushner's conclusion about the Mossad stories: they didn't have evidence.

Of course, I'll add here that there is lots of evidence about Mossad operations sdhowing that Avner's story is false, at least in large parts. One example of this type of falsehood is the Vengeance/Munich storyline about the agents buying intelligence from a French family that brokers information. Many ex-Mossad agents in the know said the Mossad never did this. Kushner says it could have happened, and that's clearly enough to boost the illusive Avner's credibility, and destroy everything the confirmed Mossad agents have said.

This is precisely the same type of reasoning, as I'm sure you've all noticed, that allows liberals still to trumpet the Rathergate memos as accurate -- that is, they keep saying that conservatives, even though they've proven the memos to be forgeries, haven't proven the false information in the memos to be false. They're unperturbed by the fact that one can't prove as untrue something that doesn't exist.

Kushner also has absolute faith that people who see the movie will completely understand what is fact and what is fiction in the movie. He doesn't grapple with the fact that the movie relies heavily on original footage from the Olympics, which certainly creates an illusion of reality.

When (interviewer) Terry Gross asks Kushner about objections to his showing the Mossad agents as having moral doubts about the targeted assassinations, Kushner brushes that aside. He's confident Avner had doubts and says that it would be disrespectful to the Mossad agents to assume that they didn't have doubts.

I find this an interesting argument. Kushner is trying to say that he's giving the Mossad agents the moral high ground insofar as he is presenting them as people of conscience. However, it doesn't seem to occur to Kushner that people of conscience might quickly resolve their doubts, precisely because they do distinguish between right and wrong.

Here, on the one hand, we have ruthless killers who slaughtered the innocent and helpless. These same killers then got a free pass from myriad European governments, removing them from the reach of a regular criminal justice system. On the other hand, we have men who believe, based both on ancient principles and the recent Nazi experience, that one can never stand aside when Jews are killed because they are Jews, and expect world governments to act. One can also never stand aside and allow evil freedom to act. One must always raise up roadblocks.

It seems to me that the moral calculus isn't that difficult -- there is, simply, a difference between murder and justice. And when the European courts deny justice, there is nothing wrong with the Israeli government taking upon itself the duty to enforce it...

Personally, I find genocidal jihadis in semtex vests "all very butch and scary." But that's just me.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:24 | link | comments

Discovering Islam: Some lads in London are trying to counter misimpressions people have about Islam--you know, that it in any way sanctions violent jihad or oppresses women--by handing out brochures in the streets. The lads are working under the auspices of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, or WAMY. (WAMY's website features a graphic of a fist clenching another fist along with the slogan "unity is strength". Not that there's anything the least bit fascist about that.) The organization does heaps of humanitarian things in places like Pakistan and other poverty-stricken Muslim countries, so you know that at least part of its heart is in the right place. From the Middle East Times:

In response to the wave of misunderstandings and misconceptions that many British Muslims feel that they are facing, a group of young people decided that the time had come to challenge the general public's popular notions of the nature of Islam by taking to the streets. The "Discover Islam" brochure they give out, produced by the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, seeks to outline, in a simple, logical fashion, the Islamic belief system, thus making the religion accessible to a wider, non-Islamic audience.

"It's difficult," says one of the young men distributing the leaflets at the stand, who preferred not to be named. "There's a lot of fear and a lot of misunderstandings. Lots of people just don't want to know at all. Some people think that all Muslims are terrorists, and that we're really a front for something more sinister. But we persevere, and every single non-Muslim we reach is a victory for us."

It is, he adds, especially important that they try to distribute their message at tube stations, so that while traveling by tube, members of the public can take a look at their publication and think about it in the light of the bombings on that same network.

Directly following the July 7, 2005, attacks, he recalls, Muslim youths traveling regularly on the Underground found that they came under such suspicion, with fellow passengers carefully scrutinizing them or even changing seats to move further away, that the sale of clear plastic backpacks shot up in London. Many young Muslims, he says, found that the only way to avoid suspicion was to expose the contents of their bags to the rest of the world.

The World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), the organization promoting this series of "Discover Islam" brochures and posters, was established in 1972 in Saudi Arabia, as an independent international Muslim forum, to encourage "concerned Muslims to take up the challenge by arming the youth with sound understanding of Islam, guarding them against destructive ideologies, and instilling in them level-headed wisdom".

Its aims today include helping Muslim youth to overcome the problems that they face in modern Western society, introducing Islam to non-Muslims in the hopes of bettering understanding and dialogue within Western countries, and offering charitable aid to needy Muslims in various countries across the globe.

In 1989, WAMY established a hospital in Afghanistan's Chamkani district, which serves roughly 300,000 vulnerable and poverty-stricken citizens. The organization has created nine schools in Pakistan, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan and Saudi Arabia, and built 123 mosques throughout the world, the majority in West Africa, Kurdistan and the Indian sub-continent. It encompasses 450 student and youth organizations, and has 34 offices worldwide.

It has, however, not been all plain-sailing for WAMY. Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, FBI documents obtained by the UK-based Guardian newspaper suggested that the FBI had earlier wished to investigate the group for links with two of Osama Bin Laden's relatives.

One relative, Abdullah Bin Laden, had been US director of the group, with offices just outside Washington DC, until 2000. Moreover, for as long as the last 10 years, the organization has been repeatedly named as a channel for private and public Saudi donations to extreme Islamic groups. One recipient, for example, of its funding has allegedly been the Indian Students Islamic Movement, which is said to have aided Pakistani-supported terrorists in the disputed state of Kashmir, and wishes to create an Islamic state in India.

Nevertheless, the UK branch has continued to refute all claims of links to terrorist or extremist organizations, repeatedly stating that "we seek social change through education and cooperation, not force". Equally, the "Discover Islam" leaflets on offer each week to the British public deal simply and clearly with issues that many less informed non-Muslims might have questions about. Topics covered include the role of women in Islam, Islam's moral system, and beliefs regarding human rights within the Muslim religion. They seek to provide a balance for widespread beliefs that regard Muslims as barbaric, backward or imprisoners of women.

Actually, I give these lads credit for doing something constructive. Instead of doing something deconstructive, like strapping on a bomb and deconstructing the London transit system.

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

Central unintelligence: Mark Steyn, hilarious as always (but also extremely chilling), takes on American "intelligence". He finds that, unfortunately, it doesn't live up to its billing. From the Chicago Sun-Times:

...But CIA reform is like the budget for Boston's Big Dig or the 2012 London Olympics. Think of a number, triple it and update your excuses. Four years after 9/11, it may take 10 years to rebuild the clandestine service. So Tenet would be telling FDR not to worry, we'll have the World War II intelligence operation up and running in time for the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary. OK, make that the Cuban missile crisis. But definitely by the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The latest estimate came from Gary Berntsen, who was the CIA's man on the ground during the hunt for bin Laden in Tora Bora in late 2001. That's what most folks think the agency does, just as "clandestine service" is assumed to be the core activity -- all the super top-secret undercover stuff you see whenever the CIA turns up in movies like ''Syriana,'' in which the sinister spooks subvert a Middle Eastern government. Oh, if only. Away from the glamorous adventuring of the silver screen, alas, the only government they're any good at subverting is the United States'.

It's very hard to fight a terrorist war without intelligence. By definition, you can only win battles against terrorists pre-emptively -- that's to say, you find out what they're planning to do next Thursday and you stop it cold on Wednesday. Capturing them on Friday while you're still pulling your dead from the rubble is poor consolation. For example, in 1988, a British SAS unit shot dead three IRA members on the streets of Gibraltar. The United Kingdom's Joint Intelligence Committee were acting on information that the cell was planning to blow up the changing-of-the-guard ceremony on the Rock. The two men and a woman were subsequently found to be ''unarmed,'' and as a result various civil liberties groups protested and critical TV documentaries were made. But there was no dispute that they were IRA members and that they had bomb-making materials in their car. If the state cannot take action until its sworn enemy uses those materials, it had better be prepared to lose the war...

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

Stating the obvious: Late-breaking developements courtesy Arab News: Palestinians won't miss Sharon.

In other news, Niagara Falls does just that and Michael Jackson likes little boys.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:57 | link | comments

Today's most amusing/bizarre headline (so far): Cannibal goes on charm offensive.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:41 | link | comments

Condi sings alto in the crocodile-feeders' chorus: From Xinhua:

The US has denied the contention that its policy towards Iran has gone soft, insisting that it has been building support from among Europeans and India over the issue as well as seeking the backing of Russia, China and India in the past year.

"I don't think there is any doubt that we will want to demonstrate that we have given diplomacy a chance. And, sometimes it takes a little time to give diplomacy a chance," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in Washington.

She said the US may initiate action to haul Iran before the UN Security Council if it decides to go ahead with its latest threat to resume atomic fuel research.

"They shouldn't do it because it would really be a sign that they are not prepared to actually make diplomacy work...in terms of the next phase, if negotiations have been exhausted, we have the votes, there is a resolution sitting there on the Security Council, we'll vote it."

She, however, declined to give a timeline for such action but said "the Iranians are digging their own hole of isolation deeper and deeper."

Actually, the only hole they're digging is the one that'll remain after they've obliterated Tel Aviv--an event which could finally prompt that stinging rebuke in the Security Council.

A bit after the fact, of course.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:26 | link | comments

Boycott Iran: The unholy alliance between foolish left-wingers and Muslims who want to expunge the Jewish presence in Israel has resulted in some well-organinzed efforts designed to punish Israel for its imagined iniquity. Arabs in Israel, so they have convinced themselves, have no rights. They are beaten down, opressed. subject to all sorts of indignities. Israel, so the slander goes, is a latter-day South Africa, with the Jews as the whites and the Arabs as the blacks. Why, they Jews have even erected an "apartheid wall" so they can keep the Arabs confined to their hovels, away from the rich oppressors who came from afar to steal their land.

Twaddle, balderdash, hooey, but an appealing lie to those predisposed to think ill of the Jews and their state. And so those who've embraced "the big lie"--let's call it "the whopper"--to their part to tear down Israel. They call upon people to boycott Israeli goods. They urge organizations to divest all holdings in Israel. They hold conferences so that the like-minded can exult in their Jew-hatred, though, were you to point out that's indeed what it was, they would say" "Au contraire, we love the Jews; we just hate how Zionism discriminates against Arabs."

But here's how you know it really is about Jew-hatred: because there is genuine religious oppression taking place in the Middle East--horrible oppression. But you'll never see Quebec schoolteachers and feminists (who take their marching orders from Palestinian groups), roiling in outrage against it because, well to be blunt, because it doesn't involve Jews supposedly doing the oppressing. No hook, you see. Nothing "sexy" about Muslims behaving badly, forcing others to renounce their beliefs and accept the one true faith.

So don't expect to see any impassioned "humanitarians" speaking out against what's happening in the Islamist dystopia of Iran. From the Chicago Tribune:

For more than 10 years, prisoner Dhabihu'llah Mahrami was offered opportunities to live as a free man in Iran. All he had to do was disavow his Baha'i Faith. But every time his jailers asked him to recant, international Baha'i leaders say, the prisoner refused.

Mahrami died of unknown causes on Dec. 15, still behind bars in Yazd, Iran. Days later, Baha'i leadership pronounced him a martyr--a hallowed title bestowed by a religious movement that has endured persistent persecution since its birth in Iran 150 years ago.

On Saturday, the North American Baha'i Temple will memorialize Mahrami with rituals echoed in as many as 1,100 local Baha'i assemblies across the U.S. and thousands more around the world. At the temple in Wilmette, a prayer for families of martyrs will be chanted in Arabic and recited in English.

"The trauma of the persecution is something very alive and very current for a large sector of the Baha'i population in this country," said Glen Fullmer, a spokesman for the North American Baha'i Temple in Wilmette, one of seven houses of worship on five continents. "Some have experienced persecution directly. This is something that touches them very closely."

There are about 150,000 Baha'is in the U.S., including about 3,000 in the Chicago area. More than 10,000 American Baha'is are Iranian refugees who fled after a more systematic persecution began in 1979, according to human rights groups.

Mahrami's death--condemned by the U.S. State Department--rekindles concerns that another wave of persecution is on the rise under Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Since taking office in August, his speeches have reflected radical Shiite Muslim beliefs, including a declaration that the purpose of his presidency is to prepare the way for the return of the mahdi, a messianic figure expected to restore peace and harmony on Earth.

Scholars say that core belief in a forthcoming mahdi is at the center of the conflict in Iran between Baha'is and Shiite Muslims. It is also at the heart of the Baha'i movement, a story that begins in 1844, when a Shiite merchant from southern Iran said he received revelations from God.

Baha'is believe the divine messenger, known as the Bab, (pronounced "bob") correctly forecasted the imminent return of the mahdi. The claims spurred conversions among Shiite Muslims, whose orthodox leaders lashed out at those who embraced the claims. The Bab was executed in 1850.

More than 10 years later, Baha'is believe, Baha'u'llah, a follower of the Bab in northern Iran, emerged as the savior the Bab foretold--the savior Shiite Muslims are still waiting for.

Scholars compared the dynamic to that of Christians, who believe Jesus Christ is the savior, and Jews, who are still awaiting the Messiah.

Though Baha'is preach nonviolence, the conflict in Iran has led to bloodshed. Baha'u'llah died in exile and thousands of Baha'is were murdered before the end of the 19th Century.

Since the Iranian revolution in 1979, more than 200 Iranian Baha'is have been killed, the Baha'is report. Hundreds more have been jailed and thousands have faced discrimination.

"Muslim clerics in Iran say the Baha'is are obviously apostates and heretics because they believe there is another prophet who came after Muhammad," said Michael McMullen, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Houston and also a practicing Baha'i. "Even Jews and Christians have some protection because Jesus and Moses are mentioned in the Koran. Baha'is fall out of that protection and legitimacy."

McMullen also pointed out that the teachings of the Baha'i Faith dismiss the need for clergy, stripping Islamic clerics of their authority.

According to the State Department, many religious minorities in Iran have been harassed for their beliefs. Baha'is, however, are systematically denied rights.

And their faith prohibits them from recanting.

"We are always encouraged and motivated to tell the truth," said Marjan Dhavoudi, 46, who fled Iran eight years ago after waiting 12 years for a passport. "The absolute truth is one of the principles of our faith."

Dhavoudi will attend Saturday's Wilmette service with a heavy heart.

Her father vanished in 1980 during an evening stroll. Shortly after, her family lost their home and she was expelled from college for admitting she was Baha'i.

McMullen, of the University of Houston, said martyrs hold a special significance for Baha'is. According to Baha'i scripture and writings, a new global civilization will be built on the commitment of believers willing to die for the faith.

Dhavoudi added the motivation for martyrdom cannot spring from a desire to be one, but a desire to serve humanity.

"We love life. But if it comes to us, the need for sacrifice, we will embrace that," she said.

"We never forget the main principle, which is in fact the love for everybody, including those who take these actions against us."

Say a prayer for the Baha'i. They're dead ducks.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:06 | link | comments

1984-style doublespeak in Iran: I wish George Orwell were still around. He would have loved this one. From one of the world's most perfectly named websites, IranMania:

LONDON, January 7 (IranMania) - Iran's ambassador to Belgium and the European Union, Ali Ahani, strongly condemned Europe's reactions to statements made by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Israel and the Holocaust, according to IRNA.

"It is very regretful that European states react with intolerance to reflections and observations opposed to their framework of views and thought," Ahani said in a meeting with the director general for bilateral relations in Belgium's foreign ministry, Marc Guelen, Friday.

In response to the Belgian official's questions on the matter, the Iranian envoy noted that European countries are impatient and intolerant of views which are based on historical facts and regional realities, Iranian diplomatic sources told IRNA.

Ahani explained that the reaction and response in the public opinion and in regional countries to the Iranian President's clear analysis of the developments of the Middle East crisis are entirely different to that in the West.

Referring to the Iranian President's recent remarks on the Holocaust, Ahani stressed that crimes committed by Hitler and Nazism are condemned by all in the world .

He clarified, however, that the victims of those crimes were not only Jews but also people form other countries and nations.

Ahani said the Zionist regime for its self interests with the support of the West has portrayed this historical tragedy as only directed against the Jews, a position which is not acceptable.

"What role did the Palestinians have in this crime that they are paying the price," he asked.

Referring to the nuclear issue, Ahani voiced regret that Iran's nuclear program which is only for peaceful use and in total transparency and in cooperation with the IAEA is facing threatening reactions.

On the other side, there is total silence over Israel's nuclear arsenal which is the real threat to regional and global peace and security.

Pointing to Iran's decision to renew nuclear research which were voluntarily suspended, he said the matter has only scientific character and is in total cooperation with the IAEA and in accordance with the NPT rules and regulations and is the natural rights of all states.

As dangerous and deranged as the Islamic dystopia is, it does have a hilariously bent world view. In a wierd totalitarian, Joseph Goebbels sort of way, of course.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:44 | link | comments

Thanks, George: Amir Taheri castigates self-styled (and self-loathing) Hollywood activist, George Clooney, for feeding into Arab delusions about American conspiracies in his movie, Syriana. From (of all places) Arab News:

...I saw the film in a pre-release showing in New York last month and did not expect it to be already available throughout the Arab world in a pirated videocassette version. And, yet, in the past week or so I have received more than a dozen emails from Arab friends throughout the Middle East citing the film as, in the word of one of them, another “sure proof” that the US will never tolerate democratic leaders in that neck of the wood.

According to an old saying one can never convince anyone who doesn’t wish to be convinced. The makers of “Syriana” are preaching to the converted if only because an extraordinarily large number of Arabs are comfortable in the certainty of their victimhood. Long before “Syriana” hit the silver screen those Arabs were convinced that whatever misfortune has befallen them is due to some conspiracy by a perfidious Western power.

In North Africa where France ruled for more than a century every shortcoming, and every major crime, is blamed on the French. From Egypt to the Indian Ocean all was the fault of the British, until the Americans emerged as a more convincing protagonist in the fantasyland of conspiracy theories. (In Libya where Italy ruled for a while in the last century, even the fact that the telephones don’t work in 2006 is blamed on the Italians.)

Would it change anything if one were to remind the conspiracy theorists that none of the high profile political murders in the Arab world over the past century had anything to do with the US or any other foreign power?

Let us start with Rafik Al-Hariri, Lebanon’s former prime minister, who was murdered last February. Was he killed by the CIA or, as Abdul-Halim Khaddam, Syria’s former Vice President, now asserts by a criminal coterie in Damascus?

The list of Arab leaders murdered since 1900 is a long one. It includes six prime ministers, three kings, a ruling Imam, seven presidents of the republic, and dozens of ministers, parliamentarians and senior military officials. Every single one of them was killed either by Islamist militants (often from the Muslim Brotherhood) or by pan-Arab nationalists or by radical Arab security services.

That many Arabs should welcome the suggestion that their tragedies are due to evil doings by foreigners maybe understandable.

It is less so when so many Americans come together to make a film to portray their nation as evil incarnate.

“Syriana” is not only about a single political murder. It also depicts the US as the power behind much of the terrorism coming from the Middle East. The film shows American oil companies as employers of Asian slave labor while the CIA is the key source of supply for bombs used by terrorists.

So, why would any self-respecting American want to write or direct or play in “Syriana”? If the US is as evil as they suggest should they not be ashamed of themselves? And if the oil companies control the US government, presumably including the Congress, should we conclude that Hollywood is the last bastion of American democracy?

One answer to why anyone might want to make such a film is, of course, the very American desire to make money. And as things stand today there is a large market for dissent in the United States. In a recent trip to the US I noticed that unless you took a dig at the Americans no one would even listen to you. In one session when I politely suggested that Bush might be a better choice than either Mullah Omar or Saddam Hussein I was nearly booed by my American interlocutors.

The truth is that there is a market for self-loathing in the US today and many, including the producers of “Syriana”, are determined to cash in on it.

Here is how the incomparable Evelyn Waugh described the present American situation when the makers of “Syriana” were still nothing but glimmers in their daddies’ eyes: “There is no more agreeable position than that of dissident from a stable democratic society.”...

Clever chap, that Evelyn.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:25 | link | comments

Guess again: For all those who thought that, after Arafat was brought back for his exile in Tunisia, things couldn't possibly get worse, sorry to have to break it to you, but you guessed wrong. From the Jerusalem Post:

Hamas spoke openly for the first time Saturday about the possibility of forming the next Palestinian government after this month's parliamentary elections.

Hamas is expected to deliver a major drubbing to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party, which has dominated Palestinian politics for four decades, but has fallen into disfavor because of corruption and lawlessness on Palestinian streets. But in the past, Hamas has never said straight out that it might agree to form a government.

During a visit to families of people killed or taken prisoner in the past five years of conflict with Israel, Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar was asked if the atmosphere were ripe for Hamas to form a government that wouldn't deal with Israel, Hamas reported on its Web site.

"Yes. We are running for the Legislative Council to put an end to the vestiges of Oslo," Zahar said, referring to the Oslo peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians of the early 1990s.

Zahar's visit to these families was part of the group's campaign swing...

If there were any justice in this world, the only sort of swinging Zahar would be doing would be the kind from the end of a rope.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:10 | link | comments

Useless blather: As the Iranian nuke gets ready to ejaculate radiation all over Israel, the five acknowledged members of the A-Bomb club do what they do best: dither, whimper and threaten to issue a joint statement. Maybe. If they can get everone to sign on. Which looks highly unlikely at the moment.  From The Age:

THE five major nuclear powers are working on a joint statement that aims to show unusual unified resolve and put fresh pressure on Iran not to resume nuclear fuel research, United States officials and diplomats said on Friday.

Iran, making a confrontation increasingly likely, has defied the international community with its threat to resume atomic fuel research and development on tomorrow, after shelving it more than a year ago at the West's insistence.

In an effort to put new pressure on Iran, the US, Britain, France, Russia and China were working on a statement opposing the Iranian move and urging that Tehran return to negotiations on a compromise proposal.

Although the statement is not expected to contain specific threats, such as bringing Iran to the UN Security Council where sanctions could be imposed, officials said it could have a significant political impact.

"It's another ratchet upward in terms of diplomatic pressure" because it is the first co-ordinated initiative on Iran by the five nuclear weapons states and would "show unity and cohesion among the P5, which has not always been there", said one US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

P5 refers to the fact that the five nuclear powers are also the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.

The aim was to issue the statement over the weekend, but there was still some debate, officials said. China was resisting joint action and wanted each of the five nuclear powers to issue separate statements.

But one diplomat was optimistic that problems could be overcome, saying: "There is a sense that it will not necessarily be the toughest demarche, but there is a consensus." ...

"A joint statement that aims to show unusual unified resolve and put fresh pressure on Iran"? Wow, the mullahs must be quaking in their sheets.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:12 | link | comments

Two views of Sharon: Now that the Israeli Prime Minister is out of commission, the media are in the throes of evaluating his career and are trying to figure out how he would have proceded had the stroke not stopped him in his tracks. The always insightful L.A. Times calls him "a butcher" who offered the Palestinians their best shot at getting a state. The paper is quoting Arab sources who perceive him that way, but one gets the sense the Times sees him as a butcher-cum-statemaker too:

CAIRO — They have called him "the Butcher" and seldom mention his name without listing the places where he has been blamed for bloodshed: Sabra, Shatila, Jenin. During long decades of Middle East strife, few men have been more thoroughly reviled in the Arab world than Ariel Sharon.

But after years of battles and vitriol, and memories of the deaths in those Palestinian refugee camps, many Arabs grappled this week with a nuanced reaction to the failing health of a warrior who helped change the borders of Arab countries.

As the realization hit the region that the Israeli prime minister might no long