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

Jihad a la carte: I must be tired because I read this headline from the New York Sun—Taliban Resurgent—as Taliban Restaurant. And right then and there I started to hear old Arlo singing in my head:

You can’t get anything you want

At Taliban Restaurant.

You can’t get anything you want

At Taliban Restaurant.

Bow and scrape

‘Else they’ll decapitate.

Sharia is the law that they appreciate.

You can’t get anything you want

At Taliban Restaurant.

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:00 | link | comments (2)

Learning curve: The U.S.’s  top intelligence official says that Iran—you know, the country that is supposed to sit down and talk things over with Great Satan at an upcoming conference—is instructing Shias in Iraq in the niceties of using armor-piercing ammo. From Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iran is training anti-American Iraqi Shi'ites at sites inside Iran and Lebanon in the use of armor-piercing munitions blamed for the deaths of 170 U.S. troops in Iraq, a top U.S. intelligence official said on Tuesday.

In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, newly installed U.S. intelligence chief Mike McConnell said it was "probable" that Iranian leaders including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were aware that weapons known as explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, had been supplied to Iraqi Shi'ites.

But he and other senior intelligence officials told a hearing on threats to the United States that al Qaeda remained the greatest threat facing the United States and had reestablished itself in Pakistan since being driven out of Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks.

"We inflicted a major blow. They retreated to another area. And they are going through a process to reestablish and rebuild, adapting to the seams, or the weak spots," McConnell said in his first congressional testimony as the U.S. director of national intelligence.

McConnell, a retired Navy admiral and career military intelligence officer, took over the intelligence chief's job a week ago, replacing John Negroponte who was sworn in on Tuesday as the new deputy secretary of state.

In describing Iran's role in Iraq, he stopped short of he stopped short of saying the Islamic Republic was directing EFP attacks on U.S. forces… 

But, hey, I’m sure Condi can convince them to quit with the armour piercing and help restore calm in Iraq.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:33 | link | comments

Ban’s blunder: The UN’s new Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, has been trying to foster warmer relations between his organization and the city which acts as it’s host—but he’s chosen a decidedly bizarre way of going about it. From the New York Sun:

UNITED NATIONS — Secretary-General Ban met yesterday with local dignitaries at the landmark 21 Club in a bid to improve the uneasy relationship between the United Nations and its host city.

Mr. Ban's host, Roy Goodman, a former state senator who now leads a corporation charged with renovating the U.N. headquarters, brought together a star-studded group of former and current officials and businessmen for what was billed as a welcome luncheon for the new U.N. boss.

Mayor Koch, Governor Pataki, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, Edward Cardinal Egan, and some high-profile ambassadors to the United Nations, among others, voiced hope for improved relations between the world body and the city.

Even a meeting last week in Austria between Mr. Ban and a U.N. secretary-general between 1972 and 1981, Kurt Waldheim — who later became a pariah in New York when his service as a Nazi storm trooper in World War II was disclosed — appeared to elicit no outrage from yesterday's attendees.

"I have no problem with people going to see the elderly, as long as he knows he was a Nazi," Mr. Koch told The New York Sun…

 

You gotta love Ed Koch, a man who refuses to mince words.

 

Way to endear yourself there, Ban. Who are you planning to visit next—Ernst Zundel?

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:21 | link | comments (2)

Jurisprudence in Egypt: It resembles a large marsupial that has a pouch and a wicked hop. From the Ceeb:

The trial of a 31-year-old Egyptian-Canadian charged with spying for Israel resumed in Cairo Wednesday amid a fractious courtroom scene where media and the accused shouted at the judge.

CBC's Peter Armstrong, who's covering the trial of Mohammed Essam Ghoneium al-Attar, said dozens of journalists and television crews disrupted proceedings by shouting questions at the judge. Al-Attar also shouted, trying to get the attention of Judge Sayyad al-Gohari to press claims that he was tortured by the Egyptian police to confess to being an Israeli spy.

"He was bellowing out his innocence, saying that the police beat him and made him drink his own urine" Armstrong said.

Al-Attar also said he wanted Prime Minister Stephen Harper to intervene in his case. Consular officials from the Canadian embassy in Cairo were in the courtroom Wednesday but did not comment when questioned by journalists.

Al-Attar was arrested in Cairo at the beginning of this year when he was in Egypt visiting his family.  

Prosecution documents allege al-Attar was recruited by Israeli intelligence in Turkey to spy on Egyptian nationals living abroad. The Egyptian authorities said al-Attar came to Canada in 2003 and provided information to Israel on a number of Arabs living here. Israel denies the allegations.  

In an earlier court appearance, al-Attar said he had been held in solitary confinement and tortured for four weeks before confessing to crimes he didn't commit…

Al-Attar is gay, an apostate and was supposedly spying for Israel—in Islamic terms, that’s a trifecta of infamy. This sham of a trial makes a mockery of the judicial process and reminds us that, dollar for dollar, the billions that the U.S. has paid out to Egypt since the Camp David Accords is quite possibly the biggest waste of money in American history.

 

Moreover, I’ll wager that no one has been handing the prisoner the Christian holy book to offer him solace while in jail, nor donning protective latex gloves before daring to touch it.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:58 | link | comments

Impending treason: So what if Moo and the boys go through with plans to nuke the Jews? No biggie. At least, that’s the feeling of some top military brass, who say they’ll resign en masse should the President ever decide he's reached the point of no return with Iran. From the Times Online:

SOME of America’s most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defence and intelligence sources.

Tension in the Gulf region has raised fears that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely before President George Bush leaves office. The Sunday Times has learnt that up to five generals and admirals are willing to resign rather than approve what they consider would be a reckless attack.

“There are four or five generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an attack on Iran,” a source with close ties to British intelligence said. “There is simply no stomach for it in the Pentagon, and a lot of people question whether such an attack would be effective or even possible.”

A British defence source confirmed that there were deep misgivings inside the Pentagon about a military strike. “All the generals are perfectly clear that they don’t have the military capacity to take Iran on in any meaningful fashion. Nobody wants to do it and it would be a matter of conscience for them.

 “There are enough people who feel this would be an error of judgment too far for there to be resignations.”

A generals’ revolt on such a scale would be unprecedented. “American generals usually stay and fight until they get fired,” said a Pentagon source. Robert Gates, the defence secretary, has repeatedly warned against striking Iran and is believed to represent the view of his senior commanders...

The Jews stand alone, the Jews stand alone. Heigh ho the merry-o, the Jews stand alone.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:36 | link | comments (1)

They’re reviewing the situation: Even as the U.S. is preparing to prostrate itself in front of the mullahs, it sounds like the idea of holding a confab holds much more appeal for Washington, currently reeling under the influence of the ISB report, than it is does for the mullahs. From AP via the Houston Chronicle:

…Ali Larijani, the head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said earlier that Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari contacted Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki to discuss the conference. "We are reviewing the proposal," Larijani said, quoted by the state TV Web site.

"We support solving problems of Iraq by all means and we will attend the conference if it is expedient," Larijani said. "We believe Iraq's security is related to all its neighboring countries, and they have to help settle the situation."

Larijani suggested the U.S. presence was not a problem for Iran. Asked by reporters if Iran was running a risk by attending the conference alongside the Americans, he replied, "One should not commit suicide because one is afraid of death" — meaning Iran should not hurt itself just to avoid possible negative results…

So there’s no problemo attending a face-to-facer with Great Satan, per se, save for the fact that it could be akin to committing suicide.

 

Makes sense to me.

 

I think it’s a fairly safe bet that this conference will never take place.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:25 | link | comments

Liberal lunacy: “Kudos” (that’s mirthless sarcasm, in case you were wondering) to the Liberal Party of Canada and its leader Stephane “My Doggy’s Name is Kyoto” Dion. They have been of inestimable assistance to those who want to murder Canadians in the name of their true beliefs. You’ll be happy to know, however, that if and when the terrorists blow us up, every last one of our “human rights” as set out in Pierre Trudeau’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms will remain intact, even if, sadly, our bodies do not.

I was going to do an in-depth analysis of the infamy, but the Canadian Coalition for Democracies has spared me the effort. Here’s how their press release lays it all out:

 

Ottawa, Canada - Today, the Liberal opposition lead by Stéphane Dion joined with the other Opposition parties to kill two provisions of Canada Anti-Terrorism Act that were passed into law by the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien in 2002. With all the hyperbole generated by these provisions, it is essential that Canadians understand their implications and judge for themselves if today's vote was a win for human rights or for those plotting acts of terror in Canada.

 

The "preventative arrest" provision is an appropriate and constitutional response to today's mass-casualty terrorist threat. This provision allows police to detain persons whom they believe "on reasonable grounds" to be about to commit an act of terror. Within one day, or as soon as constitutionally possible, the detainee must be brought before a judge to validate the detention.

 

The other provision authorizes the use of "investigative hearings" to require a person who has material knowledge of a terrorist act to be examined by a judge with regard to information that may prevent a planned attack or help identify the perpetrators of a past attack. Again, the law requires "reasonable grounds" to proceed. Moreover, it allows the person in question to have counsel, and prohibits the use of information drawn from the person to be used against that individual in any later criminal proceedings, save for reasonable exceptions relating to perjury and associated offences.

 

CSIS has identified over 50 terrorist groups  operating on Canadian soil and over $256 million have been identified by FINTRAC in 2005/2006 as having possible links to terrorism. Today, Canadians lost vital tools needed to stop a massacre before it happens and to compel those with knowledge of terrorist activity to disclose such vital information to a judge.

 

CCD notes with deep concern the record of the Liberal Party in relation to several terrorism issues. These issues include its opposition for thirteen years while in government to proposals for a judicial inquiry into the Air India bombing, its refusal to ban Hezbollah until finally being forced to do so by court action, and its refusal to list the notorious Tamil Tigers as a terrorist organization. And now in Opposition, the Liberals are further weakening our ability to break up terrorist cells and prevent the kind of massacres of civilians that have occurred in London, Madrid, New York, Amsterdam, and countless other cities. Along with other elements of the public record, these matters raise grave questions about whether the Liberal leadership is pandering to radical religious and ethno-cultural voting blocks at the expense of Canadians' safety and security.

 

"For over a decade, the Liberals ignored pleas from victims' families for an inquiry into the Air India bombing," said David Harris, Senior Fellow for National Security for CCD. "Today's vote ordered by Stéphane Dion may have effectively killed the ongoing police investigation by making it impossible to compel testimony from material witnesses. One must question the determination of the Liberals to leave unexamined the worst act of airline terror in history and its bungled 20-year prosecution, and to abandon those whose lives were shattered by this atrocity."

 

"Liberal leaders' continuing disregard for the innocent terror victims of Canada, Sri Lanka, Lebanon, Israel and India triggers disturbing concerns about the price politicians are willing to pay for votes," said Alastair Gordon, President of CCD. "By opposing extension of their own Party's anti-terrorism provisions at a time when Canada is specifically targeted by bin Laden and Islamic extremism, Liberals owe Canadians an explanation. Is the risk to Canadians' safety and security to be regarded as just another reasonable trade-off in the struggle for political power?"

 

All I can say is: God help us all.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:59 | link | comments (1)

In the grip of the ISG: More confirmation that the Bush administration is falling in line with the recommendations of the Iran Study Group—ISG co-chairman Lee Hamilton gives his thumbs-up to Condi’s announcement that the U.S. is planning to “engage” Syria and Iran in diplomatic discussions and ask for their help in restoring calm to the region.

In the annals of bad ideas, that one ranks even lower than the one where they brought a terrorist warlord out of exile, gave him lots of guns and money, and told him he was responsible for preventing his people from blowing up Jews.

 

And once again it looks like the Jews are expendable.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:37 | link | comments

Vitamins are bad for your health: Some of ‘em, anyway.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:09 | link | comments (2)

A “new” tack: Taking a page from the odious ISG report, the Bush administration has decided to try elicit Iran and Syria’s help in making the region more peaceful and stable.

Trouble is they’re the ones causing most of the unrest and instability. But for the new realists in Washington, that’s just a niggling detail.  From the New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Feb. 27 — The United States will join other nations in high-level talks with Iran and Syria over the situation in Iraq this spring, in the first such engagement between the Bush administration and those two countries in three years.

The announcement today that the United States will take part in two sets of talks between Iraq and its neighbors, including Iran and Syria, represents a major shift in President Bush’s foreign policy, which has eschewed direct, high-level contact between Washington, Damascus and Tehran.

While these talks are to focus on stabilizing Iraq, they crack open a door to a diplomatic channel, which has long been sought by administration critics who say that Washington should do more to engage Iran and Syria to help stem the violence in Iraq.

“I would note that the Iraqi government has invited Syria and Iran to attend both of these regional meetings,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said today, in announcing the talks, which will also include the Britain, Russia and a host of international organizations and Middle East countries. “We hope that all governments seize this opportunity to improve their relations with Iraq — and to work for peace and stability in the region.”…

The only thing the mullahs plan to seize is the opportunity to nuke the Jews. But don’t tell Condi. She sounds so goshdarned optimistic that it would be cruel to make her face reality.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:05 | link | comments

Another ‘inconvienient truth’: Al Gore is an energy hog.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:35 | link | comments (1)

Saudi one-liners: MEMRI has a translation of a “poem” that reads like a Saudi version of Southern fried comedian Jeff Foxworthy’s “you might be a Redneck” shtick. Or would, if it were funny:

"When you cannot find a single garden in your city, but there is a mosque on every corner - you know that you are in an Arab country…

"When you see people living in the past with all the trappings of modernity - do not be surprised, you are in an Arab country.

"When religion has control over science - you can be sure that you are in an Arab country.

"When clerics are referred to as 'scholars' - don't be astonished, you are in an Arab country.

"When you see the ruler transformed into a demigod who never dies or relinquishes his power, and whom nobody is permitted to criticize - do not be too upset, you are in an Arab country.

"When you find that the large majority of people oppose freedom and find joy in slavery - do not be too distressed, you are in an Arab country.

"When you hear the clerics saying that democracy is heresy, but [see them] seizing every opportunity provided by democracy to grab high positions [in the government] - do not be surprised, you are in an Arab country…

"When monarchies turn into theocracies, and republics into hybrids of monarchy and republic - do not be taken aback, you are in an Arab country.

"When you find that the members of parliament are nominated [by the ruler], or else that half of them are nominated and the other half have bought their seats through bribery… - you are in an Arab country…

"When you discover that a woman is worth half of what a man is worth, or less - do not be surprised, you are in an Arab country…

"When you see that the authorities chop off a man's hand for stealing a loaf of bread or a penny, but praise and glorify those who steal billions - do not be too surprised, you are in an Arab country…

"When you are forced to worship the Creator in school and your teachers grade you for it - you can be sure that you are in an Arab country…

"When young women students are publicly flogged merely for exposing their eyes - you are in an Arab country…

"When a boy learns about menstruation and childbirth but not about his own [body] and [the changes] it undergoes in puberty - roll out your prayer mat and beseech Allah to help you deal with your crisis, for you are in an Arab country…

"When land is more important than human beings - you are in an Arab country…

"When covering the woman's head is more important than financial and administrative corruption, embezzlement, and betrayal of the homeland - do not be astonished, you are in an Arab country…

"When minorities are persecuted and oppressed, and if they demand their rights, are accused of being a fifth column or a Trojan horse - be upset, you are in an Arab country…

"When women are [seen as] house ornaments which can be replaced at any time - bemoan your fate, you are in an Arab country.

"When birth control and family planning are perceived as a Western plot - place your trust in Allah, you are in an Arab country…

"When at any time, there can be a knock on your door and you will be dragged off and buried in a dark prison - you are in an Arab country…

"When fear constantly lives in the eyes of the people - you can be certain that you are in an Arab country."

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:29 | link | comments (1)

Why do they hate Hirsi Ali?: Ann Applebaum of the Washington Post tries to account for the Continental loathing of Ayaan Hirsi Ali:

…Curiously, what seems to rankle Europeans most is the enthusiasm with which Hirsi Ali has adopted their own secularism and the fervor with which she has embraced their own Western values. Though this continent's intellectuals routinely disparage the pope as an irrelevant dinosaur, Hirsi Ali's rejection of religion in favor of reason, intellect and emancipation seems to make everyone nervous. Typical is the British feminist who complained that not only does Hirsi Ali paint "the whole of the Islamic world with one black brush," she also "paints the whole of the Western world with rosy tints," which is, of course, far more objectionable.

Others have compared her unfavorably to the Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan, who argues that Islam can be made compatible with modern European democracy. He, it is said, offers a way forward for millions of pious European Muslims. By contrast, Hirsi Ali's rejection of religion in favor of Western secularism is said to be a form of integration that works for no one but herself.

I suppose this latter charge might be true. On the other hand, it might not be: Maybe "Infidel" will inspire a generation of Muslim teenagers to study, work hard, join the mainstream -- and then say what they think and spoil the political consensus. Either way, I'm not sure that the impulse to dismiss Hirsi Ali for her lack of utilitarian value reflects well on those who do it. Nor does the underlying assumption: that religious faith must be respected and defended on behalf of the dark-skinned immigrants who live among us, even though we natives no longer seem to require it.

But perhaps it is just a question of time. In America, the phenomenon of the flag-waving first-generation immigrant is familiar. In Europe, such a thing is unknown. Maybe once Europeans get used to the idea -- a Muslim immigrant who embraces Western culture with the excitement of the convert! -- they'll like Hirsi Ali better. And if they're lucky, others will follow in her footsteps.

I think Applebaum is way off base here. The real reason Hirsi Ali seems to “rankle Europeans most” is because she dares to speak the inconvenient truth (to borrow a phrase)—something Eurabians (and not only Eurabians) are extremely reluctant to hear no matter who’s doing the talking. The final paragraph is the tip off that, while she’s not unkind toward Hirsi Ali, Applebaum simply doesn’t get it. If she did, she would know that at this stage Europeans would be thrilled to find Muslim immigrants embracing Western culture with the excitement of the convert. As it is, largely due to the Euro-policy of multiculturalism and the Muslim policy of Islamic primacy, significant numbers of immigrants are embracing the jihad with the excitement of a convert, er, revert, er, whatever.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:15 | link | comments (1)

The awful truth: What happens when people fight back and try to get the truth out? Other people who prefer the lies or who are afraid to rock the boat try to silence them. From Islam Online:

CAIRO — Incendiary, intimidating, seriously flawed and unproductive were the terms used by American rabbis, professors and Muslims to describe a documentary screened on campus showing Muslims urging attacks on the US and Europe.

 

"(It is) a way to transfer the Middle East conflict to the campus, to promote hostility," Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller, director of the Hill Jewish advocacy group at the University of California, told the New York Times on Monday, February 26.

 

"Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West," which was screened recently in UCLA, features scenes like the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Muslim children being encouraged to become bombers.

 

The images are interspersed with those of Nazi rallies in an attempt to force a linkage or association.

 

Norah Sarsour, a Palestinian-American student at UCLA, said it was disheartening to see "a film like this that takes the people who have hijacked the religion and focuses on them."

Adam Osman, president of Stony Brook’s Muslim Students’ Association, echoed the same sentiments.

 

"The movie was so well crafted and emotion manipulating that I felt myself thinking poorly of some aspects of Islam."

The documentary has become the latest flashpoint in the bitter campus debate over the Middle East.

 

"The situation in the Middle East has been a major issue on campus for decades, but the heat has noticeably turned up lately," said Greg Lukianoff, the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

 

At San Francisco State University, for example, College Republicans stomped on copies of the Hamas and Hizbullah flags last October at an "antiterrorism" rally.

 

At the University of California, Irvine, the Muslim Student Union drew criticism last year for a "Holocaust in the Holy Land" program about Israel…

 

The above makes the whole thing sound like it’s an even-steven thing—although right-wingers stomping on Hezbollah flags sounds somewhat more alarming than Muslim students studying the Holocaust in Israel. (The Holocaust? Or Holocaust denial? Or that chimerical Palestinian "Holocaust"--a.k.a. the naqba?) In fact, the balance on campus is so strongly skewed in favour of the leftist/Islamist anti-Western agenda being pushed by most academics that pro-democracy voices have been virtually silenced. Hence the outrage when something like Obsession shows up and challenges the prevailing dogma.

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

Stuck in reverse: Der Speigel has an interview with Mina Abadi, an Iranian-born human rights activist and the founder of Germany’s “Council of Ex-Muslims.” Abadi, who has received death threats because of her views and now has to live under police protection, says the idea that Islam can be “modernized” is a non-starter.

SPIEGEL: Together with 29 other immigrants from Muslim countries you have declared that you have renounced Islam. The campaign is similar to one launched in the 1970s by women who declared publicly that they had had abortions. What is your purpose?

Ahadi: I haven't been a Muslim for 30 years. I'm also critical of Islam in Germany and of the way the German government deals with the issue of Islam. Many Muslim organisations like the Central Council of Muslims in Germany (ZMD) or Milli Görüs engage in politics or interfere in people's everyday lives. They were invited to the conference on Islam (hosted by the government in Berlin last year). But their aims are hostile to women and to people in general."

SPIEGEL: Why?

Ahadi: They want to force women to wear the headscarf. They promote a climate in which girls aren't allowed to have boyfriends or go to discos and in which homosexuality is demonized. I know Islam and for me it means death and pain.

SPIEGEL: What will your organization do?

Ahadi: One example: One representative of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany said that a carnival procession float (during the recent carnival in Germany) showing Islamists with explosive belts had offended Muslims. But there was no evidence of that. The associations pretend that they represent everyone and to some extent are acknowledged as such by the German side. That's bad. We have to give a signal against that and say: Not in our name. We are secular humanists. We want to give these people a voice. Someone has to make a start. We're advocating human rights.

SPIEGEL: Some of your members are also active in communist organizations in their home countries.

Ahadi: Yes, many were active in left-wing groups. We have received more than 100 membership applications in recent days. We want to create a new movement, in other European countries too. We hope that soon there will be 10,000 of us representing many more people.

SPIEGEL: Won't your campaign just harden the battle lines?

Ahadi: I don't think it's possible to modernize Islam. We want to form a counterweight to the Muslim organisations. The fact that we're doing this under police protection shows how necessary our initiative is.

She’s right. How can you update something that is considered to be “perfect” as is?

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:23 | link | comments (1)

He’s hatin’ it: The Islam-loving heir to the U.K.rabian throne is visiting one of his favourite spots in the Arab world, and has lashed out at one of most despised symbols of American hegemony. From the Times Online:

The Prince of Wales told a nutritionist in Abu Dhabi today that the “key” to people eating healthily was to ban McDonald’s fast food restaurants.

Prince Charles was attending the launch of a public health awareness campaign aimed at fighting diabetes in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

He visited the Imperial College London Diabetes Centre and watched as a group of children chose from a selection of “good” and “bad” snacks for their school packed lunches.

Talking to Nadine Tayara, a nutritionist from the centre who had put the children through their paces, he asked her: “Have you got anywhere with McDonald’s? Have you tried getting it banned? That’s the key.”

A McDonald’s spokeswoman said that Charles’s remark was “disappointing”.

Other members of his family had visited the fast-food chain, she said, and “have probably got a more up-to-date picture of us.”

The spokeswoman added: “This appears to be an off-the-cuff remark, in our opinion. It does not reflect our menu or where we are as a business.”

Charles was clearly unaware of some of the moves the company has made, she said, such as improved labelling, supporting sustainable agriculture and nutritional changes with choice and variety…

Chuckles? Unaware? Now there's a shocker.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:57 | link | comments

Apartheid murders: There is a racist apartheid state in a Middle East, a place where members of the prevailing religion are given preferential treatment, while everyone else is considered a lesser creature. That country, of course, is Saudi Arabia, where the other day three such lesser creatures were killed when they accidentally ventured into a believers-only zone. A story worthy of at least a good quarter page in a quality daily paper, wouldn’t you say? Well, the Toronto Star thinks it's worth all of two paragraphs tucked inside a column of other international news briefs. Here’s the entire report:

3 French expats killed in Muslim-only area

 

Three Frenchmen who lived in Saudi Arabia were killed by gunmen yesterday as they were resting on the side of a desert road leading to the holy city of Medina in an area restricted to Muslims only. A fourth Frenchman was seriously wounded.

 

Maj.-Gen. Mansour al-Turki of the Interior Ministry said it was too early to determine if the attacks were terror-related.

 

Terror-related, huh? Why must it be terror-related? More likely it’s about some true believers insenced that infidels veered off the apartheid road and defiled holy Islamic turf with their bestial cooties.

 

No doubt Patrick “Sid” Ryan and Jason Kunin are even now preparing to launch a boycott and education program to protest such heinous Afrikaner-like bigoty. (Just jesting, of course. They’re probably far too busy with all their anti-Zionism activities.)

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:13 | link | comments (1)

A pox on Blix: The former chief UN nuclear watchkitty who, if you can believe it, was even more feckless than the current one—and who has certainly shown himself on many occasions to be far more dangerous—says he thinks he has a handle on what’s really going on in Iran. According to Hans Blix (remember him?) it’s all about the mullahs feeling “insecure” and “humiliated.” From the National Post:

NEW YORK — Hans Blix, the former head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, said Monday the world's approach to Iran's nuclear ambitions humiliated Tehran by insisting it stop research without giving any security guarantees.

Blix, who was chief U.N. inspector for Iraq after 16 years as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Tehran feared for its government's safety, with U.S. troops in neighbouring Iraq and in Afghanistan.

"People have their own pride whether you like them or don't," Blix told reporters. "We haven't heard anything about offers on guarantees for security in case they will go along with a renunciation of enrichment.

"It's the United States that can deliver assurances about security. It's U.S. that can deliver recognition or normalization of relations."

Blix was briefing reporters at the start of a conference on international security, organized by The Century Foundation, a Washington-based research institute.

The United States, Germany, France and Britain are considering imposing additional U.N. sanctions against Iran because Tehran has failed to meet Security Council deadlines to stop uranium enrichment, which can produce fuel for nuclear power plants or bombs.

The Bush administration and some Western nations believe Iran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of peaceful research while Tehran insists its nuclear program is for power generation only.

Blix said the United States and other western nations should engage in direct talks with Iran, rather than simply ordering Tehran to suspend research first.

"This is in a way like telling a child, first you will behave and thereafter you will be given your rewards," Blix said. "This, I think, is humiliating."

He said it was like a poker player tossing "away his trump card before he sits down at the table."

The Europeans had given Iran a list of incentives, which the United States eventually supported last year.

Blix said he did not know what stage of development Iran had reached in its nuclear research, begun after Iraq had invaded its territory. But he said Saddam Hussein had had a far more developed nuclear program in the early 1990s than Iran seemed to have after nearly two decades of research.

Contrasting the Iran situation with the six-party negotiations on North Korea's nuclear program, Blix noted that security concerns as well as Pyongyang's relations with the United States were being addressed. But he said a deal with North Korea could have been concluded "much earlier" and prevented the country from conducting a nuclear test last year…

There’s only one thing to do when an “expert” like Blix shows himself to be so completely clueless about a crucial international issue: give the man a Nobel Peace Prize.

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:13 | link | comments

Fair weather “friend”: U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney is in Pakistan, laying down the law with America’s “ally,” President Musharraf. From The Hindu:

ISLAMABAD: United States Vice-President Dick Cheney made an unannounced visit here for a few hours for talks with President Pervez Musharraf on Monday.

 

The Pakistani Foreign Ministry said the talks covered "our bilateral relations, Afghanistan, and counter-terrorism co-operation".

 

The spokesperson said she had no other details about the talks.

 

The New York Times reported from Washington hours after the visit that Mr. Cheney delivered an "unusually tough message" to Gen. Musharraf, with the warning that the new Democratic Congress would cut aid to Pakistan unless he showed results in hunting down the Al-Qaeda from suspected safe havens on the border with Afghanistan.

 

A day earlier, the same newspaper reported that the White House had concluded that Gen. Musharraf was not living up to earlier commitments that Pakistan's peace agreements with tribal militants in North and South Waziristan were not at the cost of the military efforts against Al-Qaeda.

 

U.S intelligence officials now assess that terrorist infrastructure in these tribal areas on Pakistan's north-west is being rebuilt, the newspaper reported.

 

You’ll be interested to know that our old friend Harpoon Siddiqui, the Toronto Star’s resident shill for Islamism, has been visiting the region and has a somewhat different take on the subject. Here’s what he had to say in his most recent column:

 

PESHAWAR–Those who invaded Iraq claiming it had weapons of mass destruction and have been blaming Iran and Syria for the murderous mess in Iraq, are also the same people now blaming Pakistan for the mess in Afghanistan.

 

They say Pakistan is aiding and abetting the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Maybe it is. But U.S. President George W. Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karzai have offered little or no proof.

 

The American media are running a parallel campaign, hurling a more serious allegation, that the Pakistan army is extending logistical help to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Most such stories are based on unnamed sources.

 

The New York Times, which in the pre-Iraq war days carried phony WMD stories, is back practising the same sort of discredited journalism.

 

In a Washington-datelined story last week on ostensible Al Qaeda camps in North Waziristan, I counted 20 attributions to unnamed "American officials," "intelligence officials and terrorism experts," "American analysts," "counterterrorism officials," etc.

 

The assertions of Pakistani involvement have been repeated so often they have become part of the received wisdom of many Canadian politicians, editorial writers and pundits as well. I do not know and have not been able to ascertain whether Pakistan is guilty or not. But, given the track record of those making the allegations, we should be skeptical.

 

In the circumstances, it is useful to know what the Pakistanis, from President Pervez Musharraf down, have been saying.

 

  Pakistan cannot possibly fully control the 2,400-kilometre border, most of it uninhabited terrain.

 

"If the U.S. cannot stop infiltration from Mexico, how do you expect us to control our border with Afghanistan that's mostly desolate and mountainous?" pleaded Tariq Azim, minister of information, in an interview in Islamabad, the capital. 

 

  Pakistan has done more in battling terrorism in the neighbourhood than any other nation. It has deployed 80,000 troops along the Afghan border, double the entire American and NATO contingent in Afghanistan, and has lost more than 700 soldiers, more than double the casualty count of all the allies.  

 

  It has helped arrest dozens of Al Qaeda and Taliban operatives, in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Musharraf: "Tell me how many Taliban leaders have been caught in Afghanistan. Name me one."

 

  The Taliban do have sympathizers among their 15-million fellow-Pushtuns in Pakistan and among the 2.6 million Afghan Pushtun refugees living in Pakistan. But the main problem lies in Afghanistan, because of widespread corruption, opium production and the incompetence of the American and NATO forces, which have failed to bring security and economic development to the population. 

 

"We don't deny that Taliban come and go but that's not the entire truth," Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, spokesperson for Musharraf, told me. "If 25 per cent of the problem lies on our side, 75 per cent lies on that side."

 

  Pakistan admits that a few dozen, or perhaps hundreds of Al Qaeda members are hiding in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP).

 

Pakistan waged war on them and the Taliban over the last five years, but ended up alienating the local population. That's why it signed deals with the local tribes in North and South Waziristan, under which the army was withdrawn in return for the elders keeping the foreigners at bay.

 

"We did the same thing in Waziristan that the Brits did in Afghanistan," said Azim, referring to the arrangement the British made in Musa Qala in Helmand province. Both deals were opposed by the Americans, who insist on a military approach.

 

The deals did work, until recently, in that attacks on troops stopped.

 

But in both cases, some elements of the Taliban/Al Qaeda are now overriding the local elders and regrouping.

Lt. Gen. Ali Jan Mohammed Orakzai, governor of NWFP, architect of the deal, says: "It was imperative to switch tactics to a political approach after 700 soldiers had died, traditional tribal structures had collapsed and anti-government sentiments had soared, helping Islamic extremists."

 

In other words, Pakistan decided to cut its losses…

 

Yeah, that must be it.

 

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it sounds like Harpoon is on Musharraf’s payroll. I would never, ever make such a suggestion, of course, since I know that Harpoon is perfectly willing to do his shilling pro bono.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:15 | link | comments (1)

Agita in Iran: The Beeb is reporting that Moo’s intransigence is causing him all sorts of problems with the rabble: 

 As world powers seek new ways to put pressure on Iran, Sadegh Zibakalam, professor of politics at Tehran University, looks at how much popular support President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has at home.

No-one had expected Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to face such a strong barrage of criticism at home so soon after his impressive election victory more than 18 months ago.

In the past few weeks, criticism has been coming from all political quarters, the left, the reformists, former president Hashemi Rafsanjani, influential conservative figures and even some of his hardline allies.

Ever since his election victory in July 2005, Mr Ahmadinejad has been on the offensive.

Iranian officials responsible for handling the country's nuclear negotiations with the International Atomic Agency and European countries were lambasted for "acting weakly and being too docile to the wishes of the decadent Western powers".

At this stage, it's a race to the finish to see which will blow up first—the populace or Moo’s nukes.

 

My money is still on the nukes.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:51 | link | comments

 You mean there’s hope for Jimmy Carter?: The L.A. Times reports that retarted rodents have become smarter after taking an experimental drug.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:42 | link | comments (1)

Condi makes ‘em an offer they can’t help but refuse: Condi holds out what she thinks is a tempting carrot: If the mully-bullies are prepared to halt their enriching, the U.S. is prepared to hold “direct talks” with Iran. From AP via the Houston Chronicle:

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the U.S. would hold direct talks with Iran if Tehran suspended its nuclear program. Iran's president, however, pledged to move ahead with enrichment activity that Washington contends masks weapons development.

"I am prepared to meet my counterpart or an Iranian representative at any time if Iran will suspend its enrichment and reprocessing activities. That should be a clear signal," Rice said in Washington.

Earlier Sunday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad comparing his nation's nuclear drive to a train without a reverse gear or brakes. "We dismantled the rear gear and brakes of the train and threw them away sometime ago," he was quoted on the radio as telling Islamic clerics.

Iran says its energy program is peaceful…

Wow. Quel enticement. I’m sure Moo and the boys will be tempted to drop all thoughts of global domination and the return of their Messiah, the occluded 12^th imam who leapt down a well in the Middle Ages and hasn’t been seen since, for the chance to sit down and hash things out with Great Satan’s Foggy Bottom harlot.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:19 | link | comments

It’s ba-ack: Blood libel, that is. And this time the big, bloody lie is being spread by two university professors, both Jews. Rachel Neuwirth on the American Thinker site has all the gory details:

With the revival of anti-Semitism as a global phenomenon, everything old is new again. A new Holocaust is threatened in Iran, a former top military leader and presidential candidate speaks in code of the dark power of New York money circles, and now, shockingly, the ancient blood libel against the Jews is revived in seemingly respectable quarters.  After all the terrible things that have been done because of this lie, who could be so reckless as to give it new life?

Two Jewish professors, one an Israeli of Italian origin who teaches at a prestigious religious Jewish university in Israel, Bar-Illan, and is the son of a former chief rabbi of Rome, the other an Italian Jewish historian, have just revived the notorious "blood libel" that has caused the cruel murder of thousands of their co-religionists since medieval times. Professor Ariel Toaff has just this past week published a book in Italy called Pasque di Sangue, or "Bloody Passovers," reasserting that the long-discredited medieval Christian legend that Jews ritually murder Christian children, drain their bodies of blood, mingle the blood in their matzah during the Passover festival and ritually consume it, has some truth in it.

 

In an interview with the Italian newspaper La Stampa, Toaff asserted,

"My research has shown that in the Middle Ages, a group of fundamentalist Jews did not respect the biblical prohibition [against the consumption of blood]. . . It is just one group of Jews, who belonged to the communities that suffered the severest persecutions during the crusades. From this trauma came a passion for revenge that in some cases led to responses, among them ritual murder of Christian children." 

According to Israel's Haaretz newspaper, Toaff's book alleges,

"... some blood libels - accusations that Jews killed Christians in ritual murders to add their blood to matzah and wine on Passover - may be based on real ceremonies in which the blood of Christians was actually used."

Italy's most influential newspaper, left-leanig Corriere della Serra, has published extracts from Toaff's book, together with an article praising it by Italian Jewish historian Sergio Luzzato. Luzzato describes Toaff's book as a

"magnificent work of history. . .Toaff holds that from 1100 to about 1500. . .several crucifixions of Christian children really happened, bringing about retaliations against entire Jewish communities-punitive massacres of Jewish men, women and children. Neither in Trent in 1475 nor in other areas of Europe in the late Middle Ages were the Jews always innocent. A minority of fundamentalist Ashkenazis . . .carried out human sacrifices."

According to Luzzato's summary of Toaff's purported research, the fifteenth-century accusation made against the Jews of the Italian city of Trent, where 16 Jews were tortured and hanged on charges of murdering a two-year-old Christian boy and using his blood to make matzot, "might have been true." According to Luzzato, Toaff also alleges,

"a black market flourished on both sides of the Alps, with Jewish merchants selling human blood, complete with rabbinic certification of the product--kosher blood." 

To substantiate the charges of ritual murder against the Jews, Toaff relies not on any new evidence, but on the original confessions extracted through torture from the accused Jews in Trent and elsewhere...

 

Good going, guys. Your scholarship will doubtless prove as invaluable to the Jew-haters as anything delivered by one of the august academics at the hairy Islamic Hitler’ Denialpalooza. More valuable, in fact, because it was written by Jews.

 

As an aside, a relative of mine received a strange call the other day from two friends, a couple, who are not Jewish. They said they wanted to make matzoh balls, but when they googled for recipes on the Internet, the link they clicked on listed an ingredient they weren’t expecting: the blood of a juicy young Christian lad. They wanted to know what THAT was all about.

 

My relative, who wasn’t at all familiar with the medieval canard, expressed alarm and assured them that, no, Jews most definitely do not put blood into their matzoh balls. (And when you think about it, how could they, when it would turn the ecru dumplings a telltale shade of pink?)

 

When I first heard the story I was shocked at the thought that any unsuspecting person looking online for an ordinary m.b. recipe would dredge up this example of judenhass. Then I went online myself. First I googled “matzoh ball recipes.” Then just plain old “matzoh ball.” Then, I googled “matzoh ball blood recipes.” In all cases, I came up empty. To be sure I found receipes that called for a number of what I would call weird ingredients—butter? Cajun seasoning?—but nothing instructing cooks to “kill a young Christian/Muslim boy. Drain his blood. Blend well with eggs, oil, and matzah meal.” So unless these friends speak Arabic and are accessing some hate site in Saudi Arabia, I don’t know how they came up with the recipe they did.

 

Suggestions?

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:04 | link | comments

The old ball and chain (named Bill): In her bid to become president, Senator Hillary Clinton has an Achilles heel. Actually, she’s married to him. And she’s put her co-contenders on notice that she will not tolerate anyone alluding to that little indiscretion way back when that resulting in the heel’s embarrassing impeachment. From the Washington Post:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has a new commandment for the 2008 presidential field: Thou shalt not mention anything related to the impeachment of her husband.

With a swift response to attacks from a former supporter last week, advisers to the New York Democrat offered a glimpse of their strategy for handling one of the most awkward chapters of her biography. They declared her husband's impeachment in 1998 -- or, more accurately, the embarrassing personal behavior that led to it -- taboo, putting her rivals on notice and all but daring other Democrats to mention the ordeal again.

"In the end, voters will decide what's off-limits, but I can't imagine that the public will reward the politics of personal destruction," senior Clinton adviser Howard Wolfson said Friday, when asked whether the impeachment is fair game for Clinton's opponents. Earlier in the week, Wolfson dismissed references to President Bill Clinton's conduct as "under the belt."

But the reality, of course, is that the impeachment was conducted very much in public…

Yeah, I think I remember it. Wasn’t it back in those carefree days when we though the really important news was about a soiled navy blue GAP dress worn by a zaftig intern who spent a lot of her time on her knees in the Oval Office, and who came up with an inventive use for a stogie? (As one wag said at the time—okay, it was me—“An intern is only an intern, but a good cigar is a smoke—unless Monica gets to it first.”)

So much different than today, of course, when the top-of-mind issue is when they’re finally going to plant the decomposing corpse of a bleach blonde ex-stripper who was as promiscuous as she was pneumatic.

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

Runaway train: As the diplomats continue their fruitless politesse, the hairy Islamic Hitler compares Iran’s nuclear program to a train moving ahead at full throttle with no brakes and no way to go back.

High time to derail the bugger, no?

 

From Reuters via YNet News:

 

Ahmadinejad compares his country's nuclear drive to a train which has no brakes. Iranian deputy foreign minister says Tehran is ready for any possible scenario 'even for war'

Reuters

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Sunday Iran had "no reverse gear" on its way to mastering the technology to make nuclear fuel, voicing fresh defiance before major powers meet to discuss the dispute.

An Iranian deputy foreign minister echoed the tough talk, saying the Islamic republic, which is accused by the West of trying to build nuclear weapons, was ready for any possible scenario "even for war."

The United States insists it wants a diplomatic solution to the row but has not ruled out military action if that fails. Vice President Dick Cheney said on Saturday Washington and its allies must curb Iran's atomic ambitions.

"Iran has obtained the technology to produce nuclear fuel and Iran's move is like a train ... which has no brake and no reverse gear," Ahmadinejad was quoted by Iran's student news agency ISNA as saying.

Officials from the Security Council plus Germany are due to meet in London in the coming days to examine the chances of drafting a resolution that could impose more restrictions on Tehran. UN sanctions were slapped on Iran in December.

"We have prepared ourselves for any situation, even for war," Manouchehr Mohammadi, one of the deputies to the foreign minister, was quoted by ISNA as saying at a conference in the central city of Isfahan.

"If they issue a second resolution, Iran will not respond and will continue its nuclear activities," he said.

And for anyone who still thinks it’s all bluster and that Iran doesn’t have the guts or the will to carry it off, I’d direct you to that childhood classic, The Little Engine That Could.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:17 | link | comments

A whiff of Vichy: France, a nation that has some experience in such matters, has decided to have dealings with genocidal totalitarians who want to murder millions of Jews. From the Jerusalem Post:

France has pledged to cooperate with a coalition Palestinian government that would include Hamas, in a key boost for Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. But Abbas's European tour failed to make headway on resuming aid for his struggling people.

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy's promise Saturday to work with a government including Hamas and Fatah was the bright spot in Abbas's four-country swing through Europe this week. Other European leaders were more cautious, preferring to wait until the government is formed before making any commitments.

"I encouraged Mr. Abbas to persevere in his efforts to quickly form a national unity government," Douste-Blazy told reporters Saturday evening as Abbas wrapped up his trip.

If the government is formed according to the power-sharing deal worked out in Mecca last month, Douste-Blazy said, "France will be ready to cooperate with it. And our country will plead on its behalf within the European Union and with other partners in the international community."

Abbas welcomed the pledge - yet it may mean little. It was unclear how far France could go in supporting the Palestinians without the backing of the rest of the EU or other members of the Quartet working for Mideast peace: the United States, the United Nations and Russia…

“It may mean little”? Don’t count on it. The last time France signed on with the Arabs, it resulted in the transformation of Europe into Eurabia.

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

Who got the bagman’s bags?: The fallout from the UN’s Oil-For-Food scam continues as a South Korean businessman, Tongsun Park, has just been convicted for his part in the fraud. Park was paid some $2.5 million dollars by Saddam Hussein to throw around in bribes at Turtle Bay as he saw fit. The strange thing, as Claudia Rosett, the Oil-For-Food bloodhound/pitbull notes, is that we know Park received the moolah (often in the forms of envelopes or shopping bags stuffed with loot); we know that Saddam, who wasn’t exactly flush with cash at the time the bribery started,  expected to get value for money. What we don’t know is who at the UN was on the receiving end of the lucre—nor are we ever likely to find out:

…Digging deeper into this matter is difficult, because Volcker despite his initial promises to release the underlying documents of his investigation has instead turned them over to the UN’s own legal department, which refuses to release them to the public, or the press.

 

So what to make of this curious scene? — in which Saddam’s government paid Tongsun Park more than $2.5 million to bribe an official (or perhaps several) at the UN; but at the UN itself, no one has been accused of taking any money from Park. By many accounts, while Saddam’s regime was massively corrupt, it did not throw money around without expecting some performance in return. And the period most of interest, 1996-1997, was a time at which Saddam was scrimping for cash — Iraq was under sanctions, but the torrent of Oil-for-Food kickbacks, payoffs and smuggling had not yet seriously begun.

 

Tongsun Park did not receive one lump sum for efforts. He got a series of payments from Baghdad, spread out over at least two years. That raises the question of why, if Park was somehow failing to actually deliver bribes to the UN, Saddam’s regime would have continued forking over the cash. Witnesses at Park’s trial testified that in 1996, while the UN under Boutros Boutros-Ghali was setting up Oil-for-Food, Park received stacks of Iraqi cash delivered to him in the U.S. But in 1997, which was after Oil-for-Food had begun, but while it was being further shaped during Kofi Annan’s first year as UN Secretary-General, Park on two separate occasions, in July and September of 1997, received two more big payouts from Baghdad.

 

The first, for about $1 million, was deposited by an Iraqi in July, 1997 into the Jordanian bank account from which Park the following week delivered a check for $988,885 to Maurice Strong (Strong told investigators he did not know the source of the funds, and that Park was handing over funds to invest in a Strong family company). Then there was a second big Baghdad payout, in which Park himself, according to a witness at his trial, walked into the same Jordanian bank in September, 1997 with a bag containing $700,000 in cash and deposited the bundle. Later that same day, Park drew down almost the entire account to issue a number of checks, including several for businesses in which he had an interest, and one for $30,000 to M. Strong. What became of that check has not been explained.

 

And so we arrive at this curious moment in the Oil-for-Food saga. Tongsun Park, to whom Baghdad paid more than $2.5 million for his role in a conspiracy to convey bribes to the UN, is now doing five years in prison for his crime. We can be grateful to the U.S. system of justice that this much has been done. But one might have supposed that given all Park’s efforts, worth millions to Baghdad in bagman fees alone, there would have been someone at the UN on the receiving end of this particular connection; perhaps someone dining out well tonight on bribe money skimmed from the people of Iraq via a job of high public trust. But no one, not one person, has been named. It’s a funny world.

 

And some people at the UN are laughing all the way to the off-shore account in the Grand Caymans, or wherever it is they've hidden their ill-gotten gains.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:26 | link | comments

Empty blather: Caroline Glick, cutting through the blarney as always, on the pointlessness—and perils—of “talking” to Iran and Hamas. From JWR:

…From Washington to Brussels to Moscow to Turtle Bay, everyone applauds the fact that both the so-called international community and its Iranian antagonist desire negotiations. This, they say, is proof that there is no reason to abandon diplomacy.

But this is nonsense. The American, European and UN defense of negotiations with Teheran is nothing more than a willful act of collective delusion. For while it is true that everyone wants to talk, it is equally true that there is absolutely nothing to talk about.

In theory, nations engage in negotiations in order to advance their national interests, whether separately or collectively. In the case of Iran, the US and its allies seek to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. They maintain that the best means of achieving that aim is diplomacy.

For its part, Iran wishes to acquire nuclear weapons unmolested. It chooses to negotiate with the West in order to achieve that aim.

The problem here is that the sides' intentions are mutually exclusive so one side's gains come at the other's expense. Since Iran refuses to suspend its uranium enrichment, diplomatically engaging its emissaries serves only to legitimize the regime and enable its leaders to acquire nuclear weapons under the cover of international diplomacy.

This same disturbing pattern repeats itself with the so-called international community's engagement of the Palestinians. This is particularly the case in the aftermath of the Mecca agreement which relegated the Fatah terror organization to the position of junior partner in the Hamas' terror organization's government. As with Iran, so too with the Palestinians, while everyone agrees that negotiations are the answer, they ignore the fact that there is nothing to negotiate about.

The so-called international community argues that it wishes to engage the Palestinians in order to peacefully resolve the Palestinian conflict with Israel. For their part, the Palestinians in Hamas and Fatah claim that the purpose of negotiations is to advance their strategic aim of destroying Israel.

In their dealings with both Iran and the Palestinians, the leaders of so-called international community assert that were they to abandon diplomacy they would strengthen the most radical elements on the other side. As Baradei put it with regard to Iran, "We know that if you jolt a country's pride, all the factions, right, left and center will get together and try to accelerate a program to develop a nuclear weapon to defend themselves."

Unfortunately, experience shows that just the opposite is the case. The so-called international community's engagement of the Iranians and the Palestinians has in no way weakened the most radical elements in those societies. Rather, it has weakened the West's willingness to confront those radical elements and so brought about an effective radicalization of the West…

We have put the fate of the world is in the hands of idiots like Mo ElBaradei and weasels like Tony Blair. To paraphrase T.S. Elliot: This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang but with the whimper of feckless diplomacy.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:46 | link | comments

Fuggedaboutit, Abdullah: The Peace in Our Time process is as defunct as a corpse on CSI, CSI Miami or CSI New York. It was dealt a coup de grace when Stinky hitched his wagon to Hamas. But is that stopping the Hashemite potentate from trying to get it going again? 

Heck no!

 

From Monsters & Critics:

Amman - Jordan's King Abdullah II is to address a joint session of the United States Congress next week, in a last ditch effort to jump start the Mideast peace plan before the end of US President George W Bush's tenure in 2008, officials said Saturday.

In his 'historic' speech - the first by a foreign leader before the bicameral legislature since mid-term elections last fall - Abdullah II will concentrate on the Palestinian cause as the core crisis in the region, said one of the sources.

'It will be a collective Arab message to spur influential power circles across the US into listening the voice of the other party,' the source said.

In July 1994, his late father King Hussein delivered a similar speech alongside the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin - nine months after the two leaders initialled the 'Washington Declaration' which paved the way for the 1994 Jordan-Israeli peace treaty.

Before the US tour, the King will hold 'coordination' talks in Egypt and Saudi Arabia - two pillars of the so-called 'moderate Arab quartet' in addition to Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.

En route to the US, the Jordanian leader will stop in London for talks with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush's staunchest ally abroad - who is deeply involved in efforts to settle the Palestinian crisis.

Abdullah ii - a frequent visitor of Washington on yearly basis since he ascended the throne in 1999 - is also scheduled to launch a diplomatic and media offensive on the need to wrest a six-month window of opportunity in the Middle East crisis.

In an interview Friday with the Israeli Television Channel 2, Abdullah warned that the region stood at 'crucial crossroads, related to our life and future as Arabs and Israelis.'

He went on to caution: 'I am afraid that this is the last chance to achieve peace for all of us and to live in harmony in the future.'

If Abdullah was seriously interested in peace, he’d offer to make the West Bank a province of Jordan and let the Palestinians run roughshod over his kingdom.

 

On second though, that won’t work either.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:42 | link | comments

The A-Bomb Serpent: Who dat? 

The hairy Islamic Hitler, dat Who:

Ever since he was a young boy,

He wanted shiny bombs

From Qom down to Tehran

For when the Mahdi comes.

‘Cuz they ain’t seen nothing like him—

The occluded 12^th imam.

That deft, daft and dire boy

Sure has some mean A-bombs.

 

He swaggers like a braggart,

He boasts of primacy.

He calls us all to Allah.

He wants us to agree

That Mo’s the one and only,

The Prophet of Islam.

That deft, daft and dire boy

Sure has some mean A-bombs.

 

He’s an A-bomb serpent,

Just listen’ to him hiss.

An A-bomb serpent

Wants an Apocalyse.

 

How do you think he does it?

(I don’t know)

What makes him so bad?

 

He ain’t got no distractions

He’s focused on his goal.

Since no one’s takin’ action

He thinks he’s on a roll.

And now it’s close to blast-off

He hasn’t any qualms.

That deft, daft and dire boy

Sure has some mean A-bombs.

 

I thought he told

Some huge, outrageous lies

But now the world

Just wants to hide its eyes.

 

He laughs at Blair and Dubya,

At UN watchdogs, too.

Ain’t no one gonna scotch him.

He knows just what to do.

So better start to practice

Your grovels and salaams.

That deft, daft and dire boy

Sure has some mean A-bombs.

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

Method to their madness: Want to know why various UN busybodies are busyily zeroing in on Israel at this particular moment? According to Arutz 7, it’s part of a concerted international “blitz” designed to discredit Israel while boosting the fortunes of the genocidal coalition which, along with the UN and the leftoids, want Israel to take a permanent hike:

(IsraelNN.com) The United Nations, Russia, Arab states and the media have escalated an international broadside against Israel while touting the Hamas-Fatah coalition.

A report by the U.N. Human Rights Council has provided the background for the Arab position, backed by Russia, that the Western-led economic boycott of Hamas must be lifted in order to fight poverty in the Gaza area.

The council report was commissioned to John Dugard, who formerly campaigned against South Africa apartheid and who concluded that the racist policy is similar to that of Israel. He defined Jews as a "race" and charged that the Israeli army is guilty of terror worse than that of Arab terrorists. Dugard's draft is to be published next month in a full report by the U.N.

Dugard wrote that "Israel's laws and practices in the [Palestinian Authority (PA)] certainly resemble aspects of apartheid. Can it seriously be denied that the purpose of such action is to establish and maintain domination by one racial group, Jews, over another racial group, Palestinians, and systematically oppress them?"

The report accuses Israel of terror by flying jets that set off sonic booms, forcing "residents to live in fear of settler terror." Dugard also alleges that Israel still is "occupying" the Gaza region despite the expulsion of Jewish residents from their communities and the handover of the land to the PA. "Gaza became a sealed off, imprisoned and occupied territory," he wrote.

He cited Arabs for committing war crimes by attacking Israel with Kassam rockets, but added that the IDF has "committed such crimes on a much greater scale."

U.N. Report Ignores Economic Aid to PA
Media throughout the world have headlined the report's assertion that Israeli "restrictions on trade and movement" have created conditions where "the poorest families are now living a meager existence totally reliant on assistance, with no electricity or heating and eating food prepared with water from bad sources."

The report's timing "is especially sensitive, coming to light after both Israel and the U.S. indicated that they will maintain the boycott after the planned Fatah-Hamas coalition cabinet takes office unless it clearly commits itself to recognition of Israel, renunciation of violence and adherence to previous agreements with Israel," noted the London Independent.

The report ignores aid that has been redirected through the offices of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in order to bypass Hamas, leaving the PA as one of the world's largest recipients of foreign economic aid. The International Monetary Fund (International Monetary Fund (IMF) has reported that the PA received $709 million in aid in 2006, double the amount received in 2005.

The aid figures do not include hundreds of millions of dollars invested by various U.N. agencies in Gaza.

In addition, Hamas leaders have smuggled more than $60 million into Gaza.

Another report by a U.N. agency and published by Reuters News Agency blames Israel's attack on Gaza's "only power station" for leaving the "Occupied Palestinian Territories" without electricity. However, Dugard does not mention that Israel's Ashkelon power plant also provides electricity to many PA residents.

Britain To Deal with 'Moderate' Hamas Elements
The increasing blame on Israel for problems in the PA, along with the mounting pressure from Russia have contributed to a change in the policy of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has indicated he is prepared to deal with Hamas.

"It is far easier to deal with the situation in Palestine if there is a national unity government," he said. "I hope we can make progress, including even with the more sensible elements of Hamas."…

Insanity, pure and simple.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:11 | link | comments

Israel slammed again: Israel is in the UN Human Rights Councils’ bad books yet again for systematically denying Palestinian terrorists their “right” to blow up Israeli civilians. From AP via the Ceeb:

GENEVA (AP) - An independent report commissioned by the United Nations compares Israel's actions on the West Bank of the Jordan River and in the Gaza Strip to apartheid in South Africa - charges that have drawn angry rebuke from Israel.

The report by John Dugard, independent investigator on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for the UN Human Rights Council, is to be presented next month. It has already been posted on the body's website.

In the report, Dugard, a South African lawyer who campaigned against his country's system of state-sanctioned racial segregation in the 1980s, said: "Israel's laws and practices in the (Palestinian territories) certainly resemble aspects of apartheid."

The report catalogues a number of accusations against the Jewish state, ranging from restrictions on Palestinian movement to house demolitions and preferential treatment given to Jewish settlers on the West Bank.

"Can it seriously be denied that the purpose of such action is to establish and maintain domination by one racial group - Jews - over another racial group - Palestinians - and systematically oppress them?" he wrote in the report.

Israel maintains its actions are aimed at preventing Palestinian suicide bombings and other attacks that have killed more than 1,000 Israelis in the last six years. Officials say the violence broke out in 2000 after Israel's proposal to pull out of the vast majority of the West Bank and Gaza in exchange for peace was rejected.

Israel's ambassador in Geneva criticized Dugard for directing attacks only at the Jewish state.

"Any conclusions he may draw are therefore fundamentally flawed and purposely biased," said Yitzhak Levanon...

Would that be the same Yitzhak Levanon who was so thrilled to receive a crumb of praise from another UN probe into Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, seeing it as an encouraging sign that for once the UN would be able to rise above its inbred anti-Israel bias?

 

Yes, indeedee.

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

“Rights” and lefties: Aren’t we Canadians lucky? We have so many “rights.”  In fact, you could say we are stinking with “rights.” And you don’t even have to be Canadian to partake in them. Yesterday, the Supreme Court of Canada affirmed these “rights” when it ruled that Canadian authorities had no “right” to use security certificates—a system that’s been in effect since 1977—to detain suspected foreign terrorists. The Ceeb and other mainstream outlets are crowing that the decision to uphold the “rights” of these unsavoury intruders (who can’t be deported because they claim they would be tortured back home) is a great victory for, natch, civil “rights.” Here’s how the Ceeb spins it:

The Supreme Court of Canada has struck down the security certificate system used by the federal government to detain and deport foreign-born terrorist suspects.

In a 9-0 judgment handed down Friday, the court found that the system, described by the government as a key tool for safeguarding national security, violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The high court gave Parliament one year to re-write the law that's keeping three men at the centre of the case in legal limbo.

The system was challenged on constitutional grounds by three men — Algerian-born Mohamed Harkat, Moroccan-born Adil Charkaoui and Syrian native Hassan Almrei, who have all denied having ties to al-Qaeda and other such groups.

"It's a very good decision and we're certainly very pleased," said lawyer Barbara Jackman, who represents Almrei. "What the Supreme Court decided was the law was not fair."…

On the other hand, the National Post, a refreshing voice of sanity, sees it a bit differently:

We were slightly baffled Fri- day morning, when the Supreme Court of Canada released its decision in Charkaoui vs. Canada. Headlines immediately flooded onto the Web declaring that the court had "struck down" or "reversed" the system whereby foreigners on Canadian soil can be detained on the issuance of security certificates by the federal Cabinet. It would be much more accurate to say that the court had reviewed every aspect of the system, found that most of it was justified by national security, and asked only for minimal changes designed to protect the rights of the arrestees. Barring stronger legal arguments against them, the certificates -- along with the safeguards already built into the system by its legislative creators --are here to stay.

The defining feature of the certificate scheme is that it allows for non-citizens suspected of being a threat to national security to be deported, and to be detained in the meantime, on the basis of information that remains secret. The court upheld these central features of the system, reasserting strongly that "non-citizens do not have an unqualified right to enter or remain in Canada" and that they can be deported without special consideration for their Charter rights to life, liberty and security of the person.

Absent a security certificate, Canada's essential obligation to a non-citizen is to give him a fair hearing in front of a judge before he is detained indefinitely awaiting deportation. The core question faced by the court was thus how to reconcile this baseline due-process requirement with the state's need to keep certain national- security information secret.

The system at issue before the court permits a minister to ask a Federal Court judge to rule on the "reasonability" of a security certificate in private, without any notice to or participation by the person named in the certificate. Such a procedure runs somewhat contrary to our legal traditions, which generally ensure that individuals are properly notified of the case against them, and have an opportunity to be heard by an adjudicator. The presence of advocates for both sides serves to ensure that the adjudicator has the facts and the most relevant law before him, and is not simply relying on cherry-picked facts and specious arguments…

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:30 | link | comments

Simon sez: Here’s an intriguing idea: Times columnist Gerard Baker suggests that U.S. presidential candidates be lined up and assessed by cranky American Idol judge Simon Cowell. (Incidentally, I happened to catch the female competition on this week’s Idol and think the contestants can, with one notable exception, be boiled down as follows: skinny white chicks who can’t sing, and fat black chicks who can belt it out a la hefty Oscar-nominated former Idol-wannabe--she sure showed them, didn't she?--Dreamgirl Jennifer Hudson.

…This could just be the germ of an idea. Since American Idol, the musical talent show, is the most successful programme in television history, watched by tens of millions of people every night, perhaps a more useful way of winnowing the presidential field would be to have them stand up and perform in front of Simon Cowell, who could offer withering assessments of their efforts: “Did you say you were the grandson of a Kenyan goat herder, Mr Obama? I think you might want to get back into the family business.”

Furthermore, since the primary elections, in which the two main parties select their presidential candidates, are now to be bunched into a short period early next year, it means that by early February 2008, we will know who those candidates will be and will face — at nine months — the longest general election campaign in history.

All this raises two intriguing possibilities. First, one of the handful of American-born citizens over the age of 35 who is not a candidate for President at the moment could emerge from nowhere as a contender in the late stages of the blood-spattered primaries.

Who could this be? On the Republican side, clearly Mr Gingrich himself is a potential contender, though, even on the sidelines he remains a divisive figure in American politics, after a bruising decade with the Clintons.

On the Democratic side, much attention will focus on Al Gore, the former Vice-President. But I doubt that he will want to risk his Oscar and Nobel-prize-winning purity by diving once again into the mucky pool of presidential politics.

More likely is that one of the current second-tier candidates in the Democratic race — Bill Richardson, the former Governor of New Mexico, pictured, for example, or even Tom Vilsack, the former Governor of Iowa, will get catapaulted into the front ranks.

The second possibility is that, as the long general election next year bores and alienates more voters there must be a similar chance of a third-party candidate emerging to take on the designated Democrat and Republican — as Ross Perot did in 1992, and again, less successfully in 1996.

Step forward, President Donald Trump?

President Comb-over? Shudder. That’s almost as scary a concept as President Hillary Clinton.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:07 | link | comments

Jim Carrey’s numeric fixation: Some folks think the Mossad was behind 9/11. Other folks think that George W. Bush and his cabal of neo-cons were responsible (which means the Jews are on the hook either way). Then there’s Canada’s own rubber-faced clown with a frown, Jim Carrey. He’s invested the number 23 with profound significance, and has made an entire movie about his obsession. From Weekend Q:

Philosophical funnyman Jim Carrey believes all things happen for a reason, so it was no surprise to him that the script for The Number 23 came his way. In this psychological thriller from director Joel Schumacher, Carrey plays a family man who becomes obsessed with a book that appears to be based on his life.

To some, the number 23 has spiritual and mystical significance. For example, there are 23 letters in the Latin alphabet. The Knights Templar had 23 Grand Masters. Ancient Egyptian and Sumerian calendars start on July 23. Key dates in world history add up to 23 – including Sept. 11, 2001.

Naturally, the movie opens in theaters tomorrow, Feb. 23.

Carrey, 45, insists that he has encountered the number in both important and mundane events in his life. "It's always been kind of a fun thing," he says. "It's a little spooky but fun spooky." So when his agent sent him the script, the actor says he was "compelled" to do it.

Widely acclaimed for his comedies but known to take on the occasional dramatic role, Carrey knew the film would require him to go into a dark place emotionally. But he found the production to be light and fun. He credits Schumacher as well as co-stars Virginia Madsen and Danny Huston with keeping an upbeat mood on the set.

He doesn't consider himself superstitious but believes that everything in life is a creation of the mind. "It may not come in exactly literally the way you thought of it, but it comes."

Okay, Jimbo, that’s about as clear as muck, but how do the international Zionist conspiracy and global warming fit it in to it all?

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:46 | link | comments

Tom who?: I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but former Goveror Tom Vilsack has been forced to withdraw from the field of Democratic candidates vying to become the next president of the U.S.

I know. It’s a bitter pill to for me to swallow, too.

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

Seeing things: You know how Moo Ahmadinejad thinks he sees green auras when nobody else can see them? It seems that Mo ElBaradei, the UN’s nuclear watchkitty who won a Nobel Peace Prize for doing absolutely nothing, also sees strange visions. Mo thinks he detects “a window of opportunity” to convince Iran to drop its nuclear program.

They’re both hallucinating.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:29 | link | comments

No oinks today: When I read this headline—"Rare praise for Israel in U.N. probe"—I thought, “wow, could be a flying pig moment.” As it turns out, though, it’s not even a semi-airborne piglet moment. From the Jerusalem Post:

In a surprising move, the United Nations anti-racism panel on Thursday praised Israel for the detailed report it had provided on issues relating to racism and discrimination, according to Israel's Ambassador to the UN in Geneva Yitzhak Levanon.

As a result, Levanon told The Jerusalem Post from Geneva, "I'm optimistic" that Israel would receive a fair hearing as the UN conducts its periodic review of the state's compliance with its convention against racial discrimination.

Levanon's appearance in front of the panel on Thursday marks the first time in nine years that Israel has had a formal hearing before the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD).

  'Israel resembles an apartheid state'

The two-day hearing in which Israel will defend its record on racism and discrimination is part of CERD's 70th session scheduled to run from February 19 to March 9. During that time it will review the records of 13 of the 173 countries which have ratified its treaty. Israel signed onto it in 1979.

Lauding the Zionists for compliantly crossing their t’s and dotting their i’s—I think that’s what you call damning with faint praise. And the Jews are so starved for any internationalist approval, as evidenced by Levanon’s  misguided assessment (he’s “optimistic,” is he? On the basis of this crumb of praise? How pathetic!) that they’re willing to ‘umble themselves before yet another absurdly skewed UN body. (The UN Committee on the Elimination and Racial Discrimination, huh? How much you want to bet that this august panel is mighty concerned with all the “racial discrimination” going on in Israel, and not excessively concerned about the discrimination occurring in the Arab/Muslim world? In the same way that the UN Human Rights contraption is obsessed with human rights infringements in the same tiny locale, but willing to overlook those taking place in the festering dictatorships that—paging Mr. Orwell—serve as the arbiters of human rights on the planet? I say phooey on the UN in all its various malign manifestations. Rather than looking for love in all the wrong places—in the wrongest of places—Israel should have the gumption to toss out these busybodies on their internationalist keesters.)

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:10 | link | comments

The way we live now: Further to the Goredolatry, conspiracy theories and judenhass that make our times seem so loopy, I am reading Nick Cohen’s book What’s Left? and came across the following quote. It was written in 1996 by Norman Cohn, author of that seminal book about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Warrant for Genocide:

Yet it is a great mistake to suppose that the only writers who matter are those whom the educated in their saner moments can take seriously. There exists a subterranean world where pathological fantasies disguised as ideas are churned out by crooks and half-educated fanatics for the benefit of the ignorant and superstitious. There are times when this underworld emerges from the depths and suddenly fascinates, captures and dominates multitudes of usually sane and responsible people, who thereupon take leave of sanity and responsibility.

 

Now that’s a prophet.

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:40 | link | comments

Varieties of denial: Al Gore, the god of Gaia-worship, warns of some churlish folks who refuse to march in lock-step with his eco-agenda. He accuses these miscreants of “climate denial,” the inference being that those given to the practice are akin to the likes of Ernst Zundel, David Irving and other Holocaust deniers.

Thanks for the unequivocal moral equivalence, Al.

 

On the FrontPage Magazine site, Dore Gore, author of a new book about Jerusalem, explains another kind of denial, one that also disrespects the memory of six million murdered Jews but which, unlike environmental skepticism, is part of the global effort to undermine the Jewish claim to their ancestral homeland. It is called “Temple Denial”:

 

FP: What inspired you to write this book?

 

Gold: Originally, I felt it was necessary to respond to the charges that Yasser Arafat made at the end of the Camp David summit in July 2000 that denied the core of our Judeo-Christian heritage. As you might remember he tried to assert that there never had been a Temple in Jerusalem.

 

But what he essentially did was to throw a stone of historical lies into a lake and its ripples spread all over the Middle East. “Temple Denial” became a common theme at seminars in the UAE or in Jordan in the years that followed. European professors joined in this anti-biblical trend. A friend of mine in Britain, who works in the Gulf states, told me that most of his Arab contacts these days tell him that there never was an ancient Kingdom of Israel or Kingdom of Juhad.

 

I felt I must at least begin the effort to negate these trends. So in the beginning of the Fight for Jerusalem, I dealt with these issues but I also put into the book striking color photos from the Israel Antiquities Authority with some of the greatest archaeological finds of recent years that bolster the veracity of the Biblical narrative and contradict the trend Arafat sought to initiate. How can you deny there was a Kingdom of Judah when you see in my book royal seals of the Davidic dynasty—like the seal of Hezekiah, King of Judah?

 

FP: Why is the battle for Jerusalem intensifying today?

 

Gold: The battle for Jerusalem began with the war of ideas I just described, but it has since become far more intensive. One of the key figures in inciting Palestinians with the lie that Israel’s reconstruction of an access ramp to the 35 acre Temple Mount endangers the foundations of the Al-Aqsa Mosque has been Sheikh Rael Salah, the head of the northern wing of the Islamic movement in Israel. While he is an Israeli, Salah has been well-connected with Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, more generally. When I started this book I noticed that upon leaving an Israeli prison last year, Salah announced that Jerusalem will become the capital of a future global caliphate. I was stunned by his statement. I knew that Jerusalem was never the seat of any of the Islamic caliphates in the past, like Damascus or Median. His declaration indicated the role of Jerusalem was changing for some radical Muslims—clearly intensifying in manner that most foreign policy experts did not follow.

 

FP: What are the greatest threats to Israel today?

 

Gold: The greatest danger to Jerusalem comes from mistaken Western policies crafted on the basis of the assumption that in order to reduce the flames of the rage of radical Islam toward the West, Israel should be encouraged to undertake further withdrawals in the West Bank and even in Jerusalem.  I conclude my book that rather than lowering the flames of jihad, a withdrawal in Jerusalem will likely shoot up these very same flames to unprecedented heights.

 

What I uncovered is that while Jerusalem was the third most important holy city to Islam, after Mecca and Medina, nonetheless for those engaging in apocalyptic speculation about the “end of days” in Islam, its importance is actually rising. Sheikh Salah is not alone in this sense. There is a widespread literature in Sunni Arab states—some of which has appeared as bestselling books—that anticipates the coming of an Islamic Messiah called the Mahdi, who fights the anti-Christ (known as the Dajjal) in Jerusalem, and then launches a great global jihad. These books do not always have the backing of the religious establishment but they have created important undercurrents that should not be ignored.

 

Now if Israel pulled out of parts of the Old City—or even began speaking about such a possibility in the context of giving the Palestinians a “political horizon,” it would inadvertently be confirming many of these apocalyptic scenarios for the masses. It doubt that many Western embassies are aware of these undercurrents and would not be able to warn their governments that they are advocating a policy on Jerusalem that could be at a minimum highly self defeating and [would] result in what I can (sic) a new terrorist tsunami.

 

FP: How is uncovering Jerusalem’s past a key to saving it?

 

Gold: There are three choices of what to do with Jerusalem: split it with the Palestinian Arabs, which I assert would be a disaster, asking the UN to step in (we tried that in 1947 and only Israel saved the people of the city—not the UN), or leaving it united under the sovereignty of Israel. I believe that only a democratic Israel can protect the free access to Jerusalem of all the great religions. We must create a modus vivendi in Jerusalem based on the mutual respect of all the great monotheistic faiths. But that modus vivendi will be inpossible to reach if the radical Muslims succeed in spreading a culture of total denial with regard to the historical connection of the Jewish people and Christianity to Jerusalem. Classic Islam had no problem recognizing these earlier connections. Indeed the great Islamic historian al-Tabari describes the first visit of the second caliph, Umar bin al-Khatab to Jerusalem, during which the caliph asks where the Temple stood. Umar did not engage in “Temple Denial,”  but Arafat and his contemporaries did.

 

That’s probably because Umar lived at a time when that sort of denial would have gotten him laughed off his throne, and there was no sovereign Jewish entity in the middle of Dar al-Islam. Today, however, there is such an entity, and it's the impediment to an otherwise impeccable Muslim landscape. For that reason, when today’s jihadists want to advance their claims, they're not too concerned with such niggling details as the historical record. Why should they be, when they can simply rewrite it?

 

As for that mutual respect that Islam supposedly accords Christians and Jews, sadly, it doesn’t exist. As Islam sees it, non-Muslims are kafirs and are ipso facto unequal to Muslims. Christians and Jews living under Muslim can only to continue to live if they acknowledge their second class status and adhere to the humiliating dhimma laws.

 

I don’t know how anyone, especially Dore Gold, whom I greatly admire, could mistake such treatment for “mutual respect.”

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

More Goredolatry: As reported by Rosie DiManno, the Toronto Star’s token non-loon:

He doesn't walk on water. But, if he did, it would surely be Evian.

Al Gore – the man who coulda-shoulda been president – has, fittingly, recycled himself.

From "Gore the Bore'' to American Idol. And, with James Brown gone to soul heaven, inheritor of the title: Hardest Working Man in Showbiz.

Who needs the Oval Office when you've got a cosmic platform from which to preach the Gospel of Global Warming Warning?

Though White House Bid No. 3 there might yet be, once the other Democratic contenders knock themselves silly in the rope-a-dope leadership undercard. The evangelizing ecologist's road tour – hottest ticket on this poor, imperilled planet – landed in Toronto last night, wreathed in gassy emissions of adoration, a rock star for the Age of Apocalypse by weather and waste.

"Hello, I'm Al Gore,'' he said by way of introduction. "I used to be the next president of the United States.''

Ba-da-boom.

"I love Al Gore!" somebody yelled from the balcony.

Riffed a bit, self-mockingly, with his exquisite newfound sense of comic timing. Lauded Toronto, in those mellifluous southern tones.

Had the audience in his palm from the get-go.

"Heed the Goracle"!, urged one placard among many welcoming signs outside the University of Toronto's Convocation Hall, where pro-demonstrators (and a polar bear) held a candlelit vigil for Kyoto, just beyond the bank of gas-guzzling limousines.

Once a policy wonk stiffy, so wooden in crowds that he left splinters, Gore has been transformed into Father Earth, ardent advocate for the fragile eco-system, suddenly in sync – arguably catalyst for – a worldwide obsession with the climatic state of the planet.

"It's the difference between watching a video and seeing it on screen," said Tom Sheppard, a 22-year-old University of Waterloo student who was prepared to part with up to $60 for a scalper ticket, which was nowhere near enough for sidewalk entrepreneurs.

"I'll get a much more impassioned view, hearing it from Gore himself. Not that I need any convincing.

"Actually, I'm hoping to become an ambassador for climate change. That's one of his programs."

They could have just gone to see the movie – An Inconvenient Truth – those 1,500-or-so (at least 500 of them VIPs, ducat-bestowed, thus circumventing the online ticket sale crush that crashed the system in minutes), who settled into the rotunda for the evening.

The modest, even humble, slideshow documentary, nominated for two Academy Awards, has already raked in $44 million, a stunning hit that's made an iconic star out of both the narrator and the monde we inhabit.

But the travelling show version that first found an audience on campuses has the centre-stage presence of Gore himself, live and in full alarmist throttle, the Mr. Greenjeans guru becoming every day a more revered celebrity draw, such that like of tinsel celebrities, Cameron Diaz et al, hang off him.

"We've seen the movie but I thought it was important for the kids to have the experience of this event,'' said Julie Quenneville, who arrived with spouse and children in tow.

"I want my kids to embrace the environment because they're the ones who will inherit it. We've already done the damage.''

And, from Gobi Kathirgamantha, another awed spectator: "Gore brought the environment back onto the agenda.''

If this éclat could be retroactively applied, Gore would have made mincemeat out of George W. Bush in 2000, rather than conceding defeat in the hanging-by-a-chad election that went all the way to the Supreme Court for validation.

Instead, back then, he gave bland speeches, ticked off the Bill Clinton electoral machine and essentially botched a campaign that was his to lose…

The wheel of fortune is truly astonishing, as evidenced by Al Gore’s incredible journey from goat to God in less than a decade.

 

Why, some admiring folks might even describe it as a “second coming.”

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:23 | link | comments (1)

Goredolatry: I don’t know what’s more disturbing—the thoughtless elevation of failed presidential candidate Al Gore to a God-like stature, or the collection of weirdos, whackos, cranks and eco-nutters who came out to hear their “Goracle” (yes, that’s what they’re calling him these days) pontificate last night.

From the Globe and Mail:

They came in their hundreds to hear him speak, and even those left standing outside the crowded hall would not be deterred from lingering in the proximity of the Baptist prophet from Tennessee.

It wasn't any old-time religion that drew these believers to Convocation Hall at the University of Toronto, but a concept they feel is every bit as crucial to humanity -- global warming -- that made them want to get close to Al Gore, the impassioned former U.S. vice-president, as he delivered his now famous Inconvenient Truth about climate change.

Like many a bygone leader who happened along at a key moment in history, Mr. Gore -- who has been sounding the environmental warning bell for years -- has suddenly inspired the kind of faith and fervour in others that he insists will be needed to overcome such a monumental problem.

"From my perspective, it is a form of religion," said Bruce Crofts, 69, as he held a banner aloft for the East Toronto Climate Action Group amid a lively prelecture crowd outside the old hall.

"The religion for this group is doing something for the environment."

While he no longer espouses traditional religion, Mr. Crofts recalled how, as a Sunday school teacher decades ago, he included Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi and Robert Kennedy as well as Jesus Christ in his lessons, as examples of great leaders who stepped forward when called upon by circumstance. In that sense, he feels Mr. Gore fits the bill.

"We don't have seats tonight, but we just felt it was important to show some support for this guy," Mr. Crofts said. "He's flown in the face of the Bush administration and a lot of negative politics in the U.S. in order to do this stuff."

Mr. Gore's Toronto appearance was undoubtedly the hottest ticket in town, judging by the many adherents milling about outside, hoping to score tickets, few of whom succeeded.

With just 1,500 seats, 500 of which had been reserved for invited guests, the hall sold out in just three minutes when tickets went on sale for $20 each on Feb. 7.

The university's website for ticket sales crashed under the weight of 23,000 people vying for the prized seats. In the intervening days, some of the lucky few took full advantage of the chance to profit from the demand, asking for up to $200 for a single ticket on various Internet sites.

Victor Storm, who owns a chain of Toronto-area bedding outlets, went online Feb. 7 and offered a $40 duvet in exchange for a ticket. He wound up surrendering a $150 duvet instead, after a fair bit of questioning over thread counts.

"Because it was so cold, it was something people warmed up to," Mr. Storm said yesterday.

Last night, before Mr. Gore gave his slideshow, it looked more like a sideshow outside, as hopefuls looked for tickets, scalpers told reporters they were not scalpers, and bona fide ticket holders ran a gauntlet of activists handing out leaflets for various causes.

There were vegans seeking new recruits, people calling for the closing of Ontario's coal-fired power plants, a Greenpeace mascot dressed as a polar bear -- even the UFO believers showed up.

"I know you won't believe this," one of them, a man named Victor Viggiani, said with a practised tongue, "but the extraterrestrial technology involved in this . . . it's free energy, man. Absolute free energy, and it'll be the end of fossil fuels."…

As G.K. Chesterton (a writer I’m loath to quote due to his flagrant Jew-hatred) noted, “When people cease to believe in something they do not believe in nothing; they they believe in anything.” And it seems the “anything” they’ve chosen to believe in at the moment is the religion of climate change as iterated by self-styled prophet and messenger of impending eco-doom, Al Gore.

In light of the adulation, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if, at some point in the future, the true believers started appended PBUH after his name in recognition of his final, perfect revelation.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:10 | link | comments (1)

Tony’s baloney: This one made me physically ill. From the Jerusalem Post:

British Prime Minister Tony Blair met with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday and praised him for being committed to peace in the Middle East.

At a news conference after their meeting, Blair said the overall goal of long-stalled international talks was to ensure a secure Israel and an independent, sovereign and viable state of Palestine.

"Obviously, there's going to be a lot of negotiation and talking over the formation of the national unity government. And it's important, as I said to President Abbas, that that conforms to the principals laid down" by the so-called Quartet of Middle East peacemakers, Blair said.

Blair predicted a difficult time in future negotiations, "but I have no doubt that the president is sincerely and completely committed to this," Blair said. "I would like to pay tribute to the president's vigor and determination in moving this forward."

Abbas said the Palestinians were committed to rejecting violence, to international law and to meeting all agreements reached previously with Israel.

"We are really concerned about getting the kind of peace that is based on a two-state solution - Israel and Palestine - which live in security and peace side by side," Abbas said.

Blair spoke earlier Wednesday by telephone with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, a spokesman at Downing St. said, without providing any details.

Before his meeting with Abbas, Blair told the House of Commons on Wednesday that bringing democracy and justice to the Middle East was the best way to guarantee the future security of the West.

He told the British lawmakers he planned to tell Abbas there was a "total determination to use the new opportunity to create the chance for peace."

Blair said that establishing a proper Palestinian state was essential "for the sake of Israel as well as for all we want to achieve in the Middle East."…

Oh, brother. I haven’t heard so much hogwash since another blind, sycophantic, appeasing British Prime Minister returned from a German city with a “peace” pact. Just to be clear, Tony, Abbas is a silver-tongued liar who is about as committed to “peace” as is Hamas, the Islamo-Nazis with whom he’s joined forces. What he’s really committed to is the Peace in Our Time process, which is a whole ‘nother beast.

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

Turki will all the trimmings: The Saudis, who, as custodians of the two mosques and purveyors of global jihad, have long considered themselves to be top dog in the Islamic pack. Now, along comes the Shias and their dreams of nuclear Apocalypse, and suddenly the Saudis have to take drastic action if they don’t want to be trounced by the mullahs, guys who make the Wahabi version of Islam, as nutty as it is, seem almost (almost) sane in comparison.

What’s an anxious oil tick to do? Why, wade into the trenches with offers to combat judenhass (chutzpah of the highest order, considering how deeply implicated the Saudis are in promoting it around the world), and extend a hand of "friendship" to members of a lower order who the Prophet once turned into simians and swine.

 

As this piece on the JWR site warns, it behooves us to be extremely wary of such a disingenuous offer:

The Saudis are rolling out a charm offensive and getting good publicity for it. In the latest manifestation, the outgoing Saudi ambassador, Prince Turki al-Faisal, attended a reception in Washington last month backed by American Jewish organizations to honor a State Department diplomat appointed to — here comes the chutzpah bit — combat anti-Semitism.

Prince Turki, the head of Saudi intelligence for a quarter of a century and a senior prince in line to the Saudi throne, was even glimpsed in photos shaking hands with Jews.

That might be a source of joy were it not for the anti-Semitic slurs heaped daily on Jews in the Saudi press, the anti-Semitic diatribes from evangelical-style Saudi television preachers, or the endless references in school lessons to Jews and Christians as "descendants of pigs and monkeys."

Saudi surges of warmth toward Jews crop up whenever danger lurks, but they rarely survive beyond the menace. This time around, the warmth is motivated by Iran's looming Shiite hegemony in the Persian Gulf, a direct menace to Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Muslim states in the region.

My Saudi friends explain that it is perfectly normal to seek the protection of daddy (read: America). Who else could do it? And, in the mercantile ways of the oil rich, that protection has been secured with multibillion-dollar purchases of weapons systems from America's military-industrial establishment and millions more in investments benefiting former American officials and presidents, lobbyists, and the American oil industry.

It is equally logical for the Saudis to seek America's affections through American Jews. In the Saudis' bigoted view, the Jews control America. However, the Saudis reason, the profoundly fundamentalist Saudi population does not, repeat not, need to see any of the fraternizing with Jews in the Saudi press, because the poor souls would be confused.

Amazingly, even the most progressive Saudis believe that this makes sense. The last gush of Saudi good will occurred in 1990, after Saddam Hussein invaded neighboring Kuwait and was intent on annexing Saudi Arabia, too. That love story ended with 500,000 American-led, Saudi-based troops liberating Kuwait. But when these "infidels" were needed, the Saud royal family ordered the Wahhabi religious establishment it shares power with to stop criticizing the presence of these non-Muslims so close to the holy Islamic sites of Mecca and Medina.

The discipline was remarkable — and showed that the crazed Saudi imams could be reined in. Alas, once the troops left, the rants resumed in a hurry. Promises to rid Saudi schoolbooks, TV programs, and mosques of hate-mongering speech have yet to be fulfilled.

But why should American Jews, or anyone else, go along with such a charade? Is it such a great honor to be photographed with a Saudi prince or ambassador?...

No, but it does make for a colourful photo in one’s scrapbook. About the only good thing you could say about it.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:00 | link | comments (1)

Itchy trigger finger:

In a story about Moo balking at the latest international efforts to shut down his nuclear program (he still claims, in a brazen display of taqiyah, that Iran is suffering an energy shortfall that can only be remedied through nuclear means), he displays the finger with which he hopes to push the nuclear launch button that will incinerate Israel. Either that, or it symbolizes the position the Shias plan to hold in the Muslim world once they've bested the Sunnis ("we're number 1!").

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:20 | link | comments

 Ask a silly question…: On the NRO site, Keith Roderick, who’s apparently unfamiliar with the concept of dhimmitude, asks whether “international legitimancy for Hamas (will) lead to a future of unity and reconciliation”; more specifically, how such “unity” will affect Palestinian Christians.

I think I can answer his query: No, international legitimacy for Hamas will not lead to a future of unity and reconciliation, and Christians, as dhimmis, are likely to bear the brunt of the ensuing chaos and disharmony.

 

Knowing how Islamic primacy works, how could anyone think it would be otherwise?

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:10 | link | comments

Don’t miss it: What every American (and Canadian, and Australian, and Brit and…oh, heck, let's open it up to include every infidel) needs to know about jihad, a video flash presentation from FrontPage Magazine.

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

Jewish Israelhass in the Anglosphere: Two articles about Jews who are actively seeking Israel’s demise. The first, by Melanie Phillips, is about a new movement in the U.K. called Independent Jewish voices—essentially, Jews for a Jewish genocide. The second, by Edward Alexander, deals with Jewish anti-Zionists in the U.S., including the Meistersinger of Jewish Israelhass, Noam Chomsky.

You can put a good portion of these folks in the same category as the Jews who, way back when, opted for Hellenism over Judaism; who helped the Inquisition get established; who insisted that, all in all, the French had a pretty good case against Alfred Dreyfus; and who, more recently, served as capos for the Nazis.

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

 Hateful fool: In a blog post, a Ha’aretz scribe says he’s fairly confident that Barack Obama will turn out to be good for Israel. I don’t know enough about the candidate or his convictions to weigh in on the subject. In any case, what interested me most about the post was the first comment that followed it. Someone named “clickfool” from Sussex, England, left this delightful little spoor and titled it “Toadying” (the toadying in question presumably refers to Obama’s, not clickfool’s):

It is a degrading spectacle, watching a US presidential candidate grovelling (sic) before the American Jewish Lobby.
It is amazing that non-Jewish voters don`t automatically eliminate from consideration such toadies.
The American Jewish Lobby isn`t even representative of American Jews. It is a tiny, unelected cabal of influential and ultra-rich Jews, far away from all the danger, with an extreme Zionist agenda that puts them at no personal risk.
The American Jewish Lobby is a cancer in American democracy.

 

Thanks for setting us straight, clickfool. I had always thought the cancer was the judenhass of those who fulminate about imaginary Jewish cabals.

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

Moo’s outrageous offer: He says he’ll talk--talk--about stopping his enriching providing everyone else stops theirs first.

Chutzpah in spades, has our Moo. From Ha’aretz:

 

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaking on the eve of a UN Security Council deadline to halt unranium enrichment, called on Western nations Tuesday to stop their own enrichment programs if they wanted his country to stop its own and return to negotiations.

Ahmadinejad told a crowd of thousands in northern Iran that it was no problem for his country to stop, as long as Western nations did the same.

 

"Justice demands that those who want to hold talks with us shut down their nuclear fuel cycle program too," he said. "Then, we can hold dialogue under a fair atmosphere."

The Iranian president also said that Iran wanted talks over its nuclear program, but would not accept preconditions to freeze uranium enrichment as demanded by a UN Security Council resolution.

"They tell us 'come and negotiate on Iran's nuclear issue but the condition is to stop your activities.' We have said that we want negotiations and talks but negotiations under just conditions," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a speech broadcast on state television.

 

Justice demands they get rid of the religiou nutter and his Mahdi-minded masters before any of them can put a finger on a nuclear launch button.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:21 | link | comments

 A little traveling music, please: The headline of this AP story in the Washington Post—Rice, Abbas leaving for Jordan, Europe—makes it sound like Condi and Stinky are setting off as a team. In fact, they are embarking on separate efforts, Condi to try to persuade Arab nations that they have a stake in effecting a rapprochement between Israel and the Palestinians. Stinky, however, has another agenda:

AMMAN, Jordan -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Jordan on Tuesday for talks with King Abdullah II and envoys from other Arab countries a day after hosting an inconclusive Israeli-Palestinian summit.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas also was expected to arrive in Jordan for talks with the king. Abbas then was headed to Germany _ along with stops in Britain and France _ in a campaign to convince skeptical Western leaders that the deal he forged with the ruling Islamic Hamas reflects his moderate stand…

Rots of ruck with that one, Stinky. It’s going to be a tough sell considering you’re officially in bed with a bunch of crazed, genocidal Islamists. There was nothing very “moderate” about your stand before. Now, it’s about as “moderate” as the jihad your regime is waging against the Jews.

 

But don’t think Stinky isn’t looking forward to his international perambulations. Why, if you listen closely, you can hear him singing his favourite Willie Nelson traveling song:

 

On the road again.

Just can’t wait to get on the road again.

The life I love is scamming jizya for my ends

And I can’t wait to get on the road again.

On the road again.

Going places to see many friends.

Showing them that I can really make amends.

And I can’t wait to get on the road again.

 

On the road again

Like a weasel with the ease of a shrewd leader.

Tho’ I’m at wit’s end,

I’m insisting I’m the guy they really need here.

And the one they need here

Is one the road again.

Just can’t wait to get on the road again.

The life I love is scamming jizya for my ends

And I can’t wait to get on the road again…

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:53 | link | comments

Another woeful display of ignorance: On the one hand, you have a 1,400-year-old religion in which jihad—and I ain’t talkin’ that personal, internal struggle to lead a virtuous life according to laid down by Allah—is a duty. On the other hand, you have clueless infidels who find it too much of a chore to read up on Islamic doctrine, and Muslims who are not prepared to own up to those problematic portions of the Koran, Hadith and Sira, and which, down through the ages, have inspired the faithful to wage holy war. Put them together and you have this: a BBC World Service survey in which the majority of respondents say that the difficulties between the two worlds—Dar al Islam and Dar al Harb (although the poll didn’t describe them that way)—can be imputed to political, not religious differences:

Most people believe common ground exists between the West and the Islamic world despite current global tensions, a BBC World Service poll suggests.

In a survey of people in 27 countries, an average of 56% said they saw positive links between the cultures.

Yet 28% of respondents told questioners that violent conflict was inevitable.

Asked twice about the existing causes of friction, 52% said they were a result of political disputes and 58% said minority groups stoked tensions.

Only in one country, Nigeria, where Christian and Muslim groups often clash violently, did a majority of those polled (56%) cite religious and cultural differences between communities as the root cause of conflict.

Poll results: Common ground or conflict?

Doug Miller, president of polling company Globescan, said the results suggested that the world was not heading towards an inevitable and wide-ranging "clash of civilisations".

"Most people feel this is about political power and interests, not religion and culture," he said.

He pointed to the polarisation of communities in Nigeria as a warning sign to others, but hailed the results from Lebanon, a country frequently caught up in conflicts.

Some 78% of Lebanese strongly believed West-East tensions were politically motivated, while 68% felt common ground could be found between the West and the Islamic world…

Would these be the selfsame Lebanese who even now are trying to keep God’s Party from engulfing them? What “common ground,” I’d like to ask, do they think the West (or any non-believer) can find with Hezbollah and the other jihadists?

 

Doesn’t anyone in the world have a clue?

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:29 | link | comments

 A world turned upside down: George and Condi want to get cracking on a Peace in Our Time deal; Democrats, seeing the madness of it all, are trying to get them to back off. From the Jewish Daily Forward:

Washington - If Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas wanted to get a feel for just how upset Congress is over his decision to form a coalition government with Hamas, he should have caught Rep. Gary Ackerman’s opening comments Wednesday at the meeting of the Middle East subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Ackerman, the New York Democrat who chairs the subcommittee, had been a leading proponent on Capitol Hill of the position that the United States should be doing more to back Abbas in his power struggle with Hamas.

Not anymore.

“What has Abu Mazen done to strengthen himself? He’s capitulated to Hamas,” Ackerman said. “The Mecca Accord neither strengthens him nor helps the cause of peace…. We now have what Secretary Rice once said we could not accept: a Palestinian Authority with one foot in terror and one foot in democracy.”

Ackerman concluded that Abbas “has gutted his own credibility.”

Ackerman’s attack on the Mecca accords set the tone for the rest of the meeting. The ranking Republican on the subcommittee, Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, asked how Congress could be expected to support funding for the P.A. when Abbas sides with Hamas. Other lawmakers followed a similar line, urging the administration to continue insisting that the new Palestinian government recognize Israel and to avoid linking the situation in Iraq to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In just one session, the Democratic-led subcommittee made it clear that at least on issues regarding the Palestinian conflict, it stands to the right of the Bush administration...

Get me some Dramamine. The unexpected disorientation is making me queasy.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:46 | link | comments (1)

Looking for peace in all the wrong places: On the heels of a “unity” government deal between Hamas and Abbas, Condoleezza Rice sees “a window of opportunity” for Peace in Our Times talks.

Condi is, what’s the word?, delusional.

 

From the New York Post:

 

…For Rice, there is another dynamic at play: The American secretary of state believes that a Sunni Arab world unified by fear of a radical Iran may finally force the Palestinians into peace with Israel. In other words, the Arabs will deliver the Palestinians, and the Americans will deliver the Israelis.

 

This is old think at its worst. Before 9/11, American policy in the Middle East rested on the premise that "moderate" Sunni states - like Egypt and Saudi Arabia - offered lasting stability in the region, by serving as a counterweight to states like Iran and Syria. George Bush repudiated that premise, insisting that true stability would flow from democracy.

 

Now, it increasingly appears that the Bush administration's democracy push is done. American diplomats are again talking up the important role of "moderate" or "reasonable" Arab states, ignoring the fact that most foreign fighters in Iraq are Saudis or that Egypt has launched an unprecedented crackdown on civil society.

 

In keeping with the effort to bolster the "moderates," the administration is trying to funnel $86 million to Abbas for his security forces. The fact that those self-same security forces are indistinguishable from the Fatah terror group known as the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, and that Fatah itself pursued a policy of terror over peace throughout its tenure in power, has not slowed the administration's eagerness to engage in a new peace process.

The logic behind today's meeting is unclear. Clever State Department diplomats believe that by describing a "horizon," or shape to a future Palestinian state, they will undercut Palestinian rejectionists and, in turn, destabilize Hamas. But embracing one terrorist to weaken another is not a foreign policy strategy, it's just unprincipled gamesmanship.

 

Similarly, the Bush administration's new fondness for so-called moderate Arab states over extremists ignores all the lessons learned after 9/11. Al Qaeda and its ilk have a foothold in the Middle East because supposedly moderate dictators and autocrats deny people basic rights. Getting back into bed with those moderates at the expense of the 300 million people of the region is a terrible mistake for which the United States has paid dearly once already. Secretary Rice is looking for diplomatic successes in all the wrong places.

 

The person who wrote the above is someone named Danielle Pletka, vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. In a sane world, she (or someone like her) and not Condi would be the Secretary of State.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:28 | link | comments

Power play in Iran: Caroline Glick says there are signs that Iran is about to implode, but that the Americans have yet to decide whether to take advantage of it. From JWR:

…The regime's fear of unrest grows by the day as the regime itself shows increased signs of disintegration. With the supreme leader Ali Khamenei reportedly suffering from the late stages of cancer, Iran expert Michael Ledeen reported this week that factional fighting for succession between forces loyal to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and forces loyal to former president and leader of the powerful Guardians Council Hashemi Rafsanjani is gaining momentum. The succession battle has engulfed the ayatollahs who are themselves turning against one another.

 

Furthermore, according to the Iran Press Service, the attack in Baluchistan that killed a dozen Revolutionary Guards troops on Tuesday was only one of many violent attacks against regime targets to have occurred in recent days. If the US and its allies act wisely, there is every reason to believe that they could successfully foment a revolution that would bring down the regime.

 

Yet it is far from clear that the US is interested in bringing down the regime. This week Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn released a report on US Farsi language broadcasting into Iran. From an analysis of those broadcasts, Coburn reached the disturbing conclusion that far from working to advance the US's stated aim of overthrowing the regime, these US taxpayer-funded broadcasts "undermine US policy on Iran, often even supporting the propaganda of the Islamic Republic of Iran."

 

Needless to say, this is not the sort of behavior one would expect from the US if the administration was seriously pursuing the overthrow of the mullahs or planning a strike against Iran's nuclear facilities…

 

Get a move on, Dubya. The sands of time in the world’s hour glass are rapidly running out.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:46 | link | comments

Unnatural urges: What do you call the overwhelming urge to lash out violently at infidels in America—as a young Muslim did the other day in Salt Lake City? An Investor’s Business Daily editorial suggests it be called “sudden jihad syndrome”:

Terror: It looks like the Muslim teen who opened fire on shoppers in a Salt Lake City mall is yet another case of "sudden jihad syndrome," a condition in which normal-appearing American Muslims abruptly turn violent.

Taken together, this and other cases add up to an invisible jihad inside America. But don't tell that to the FBI. The politically correct bureau does everything it can to avoid recognizing the obvious Islamic factor in these heinous crimes.

Sulejman Talovic, an 18-year-old Bosnian Muslim immigrant, was loaded with enough ammo to "inexplicably" kill dozens of victims — and he would have, if an alert off-duty cop hadn't returned fire and stopped him. Talovic still managed to methodically murder five and wound four others with a shotgun.

Witnesses say it was an act of coldblooded violence aimed at random victims — something otherwise known as terrorism. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, Talovic attended Friday prayers at a mosque about a block from the mall.

Yet the FBI saw no religious motive, and quickly ruled out terrorism. Nor could it find anything to indicate terrorism in several other Muslim-tied cases since 9/11, including:

• A 30-year-old Muslim man, Naveed Afzal Haq, who went on a shooting rampage at a Jewish community center in Seattle, announcing "I'm a Muslim-American; I'm angry at Israel."

• An Egyptian national, Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, who shot two and wounded three at an Israeli airline ticket counter at LAX.

• A bearded 21-year-old student, Joel Hinrichs, who blew himself up with a backpack filled with TATP (the explosive of choice in the Mideast) outside a packed Oklahoma University football stadium not long after he started attending the local mosque.

• A 23-year-old student, Mohammed Ali Alayed, who slashed the throat of his Jewish friend in Houston after apparently undergoing a religious awakening (he went to a local mosque afterward).

• The D.C. snipers — John Muhammad and Lee Malvo, both black Muslim converts — who picked off 13 people in the suburbs around the Beltway as part of what Muhammad described as a "prolonged terror campaign against America" around the first anniversary of 9/11, which he had praised.

• Omeed Aziz Popal of Fremont, Calif., who police said hit and killed a bicyclist there then took his SUV on a hit-and-run spree in San Francisco, mowing down pedestrians at crosswalks and on sidewalks before police caught up with him, whereupon the Muslim called himself a "terrorist."

• A 22-year-old Muslim, Ismail Yassin Mohamed, who stole a car in Minneapolis and rammed it into other cars before stealing a van and doing the same, injuring drivers and pedestrians, while repeatedly yelling, "Die, die, die, kill, kill, kill" — all, he said, on orders from "Allah."

• A 22-year-old Iranian honors student, Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, who deliberately rammed his SUV into a crowd at the University of North Carolina to "punish the government of the United States" for invading Iraq and other Muslim nations.

Described by other students as "kind and gentle," Taheri-azar was a student council president and a member of the National Honor Society in high school. He told the judge he was "thankful you're here to learn more about the will of Allah."

He wrote a letter to a TV station citing Quranic verses justifying his attacks and told a detective that Muslims "all over the world are being killed, and now it is the people in the United States' turn to be killed."

This is not terrorism, the FBI said. Just some nutty kid. In all these cases, the feds' first reaction was to shrug. They said the perps were lone individuals who just went ballistic after having a bad day, as if anyone could have done such crimes.

But they weren't just anyone. They were all young Muslim men. Of course, the FBI can't treat all law-abiding young Muslim men as potential killers. But neither should the agency ignore this trend...

I guess the FBI suffers from another malady: sudden ostrich syndrome.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:36 | link | comments (2)

Now is the winter of their discontent: Betcha didn’t know that Shakespeare was Muslim. Well, maybe not Muslim so much as someone who was especially prescient about the kind of travails Muslims would be facing at the outset of the second millennium. And if you don’t believe me, read this Islam Online story about how Richard III (my favourite play by the Bard) has been performed in Arabic. In Will’s hometown, no less:

LONDON — Exploring Middle East politics, tyranny and power struggle, an Arabic version play of Shakespeare's masterpiece Richard III closed Saturday night, February 17, in the birthplace of the legend poet, Stratford-upon-Avon.

 

The modern Middle East, like so many of Shakespeare’s tragedies, offers a painful plethora of examples of how not to rule,” director of “Richar III: An Arab Tragedy told Agence France-Press (AFP) in an interview.

The play, which opened on February 8 in Arabic with English subtitles, transplants the famous British playwright's play about power struggle, tyranny and family conflict in 15th-century England to the present day.

"The play is a parable of the crisis of succession turning into a nightmare and I think it can be seen as a cautionary tale," British-Kuwaiti Director Bassam said.

He drew a comparison with powerful monarchies in the Gulf, such as Saudi Arabia, and their potential for running into trouble over the transfer of power.

"I see 'Richard III' as a world that's ruled by tribal allegiances and in that world, if blood is shed within my family, it's my duty to make that compensated for," the director said.

This is not the first time Bassam, whose company features actors from Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon and Syria, has used Shakespeare's drama to explore Gulf politics.

His 2004 production "The Al-Hamlet Summit", staged in Tokyo and London, applied the same trope.

Bassam, whose work has also been performed in London, Kuwait and Cairo, hopes to stage his new production in Abu Dhabi later this year and then take the play around Europe.

Actually, Al-Bassam sounds like he kind of “gets it”—just so long as it doesn’t lead to the type of cultural appropriation so common in the Muslim world (and which gives the true believers credit for inventing everything from mathematics to duct tape). Let’s just hope his next translation isn’t of Hitler’s favourite play, The Merchant of Venice; it’s bad enough that it will be performed at this summer’s Stratford Festival in Canada.

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

Incitement in the Old City: Israeli authorities are trying to determine if there’s sufficient grounds to arrest a splenetic cleric who’s been trying to whip up the masses into seethe ‘n’ stampede mode. Here’s what he said as reported in the Jerusalem Post:

During his Friday sermon in Jerusalem's Wadi Joz neighborhood, Salah urged supporters to start a third intifada in order to "save al-Aksa Mosque, free Jerusalem and end the occupation."

Salah had called on the members of the Islamic Movement's Northern Front to join him for Friday prayers in the neighborhood, to protest the building project and archaeological digs at the site of the Mughrabi Gate.

Following a violent protest almost two weeks ago, Salah, one of the most vocal opponents of the Mughrabi Gate project was barred by a court from coming within 60 meters of the Old City walls. On Monday, the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court agreed to a police request that he be barred from coming within 150 meters of the walls for 60 days.

Salah's speech also attacked Jews, saying that "They want to build their temple at a time when our blood is on their clothes, on their doorsteps, in their food and in their drinks. Our blood has passed from one 'general terrorist' to another 'general terrorist.'" He also quoted assassinated Hamas-leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, saying: "The powerful won't remain powerful forever and the weak won't remain weak."

Yeah, there’s nothing more dee-lish to us ritual-minded Jews than adding a dash of feisty young Muslim to our Bloody Caesars and Bloody Marys. It’s even zestier than Tabasco. And as for those “bloodentaschen” on Purim—as excruciatingly perky talk show host/foodie Rachael Ray would say, “Yummo”!

 

Seriously though, I think it’s time to stop investigating and put this blood libelist on ice before he manages to spark a rampage.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:52 | link | comments

Anna's faulty analysis: Anna Morgan, wife of Ed Morgan, head of the Canadian Jewish Congress, thinks Israel should become more like Canada. From the Sunday Star:

In these overheated days of right-wing fundamentalism and leftist apartheid rhetoric, Mohammed Saif-Alden Wattad presents a unique perspective on Arab-Jewish relations. Since both sides see him as provocative, he might, in fact, have something interesting to say.

The visiting research fellow at the University of Toronto portrays ethnic relations in the State of Israel in a way more reminiscent of our own Canadian social problems and legal solutions than a product of the impossible divides that have become so familiar in the press.

It's not that Wattad belittles the serious issues that plague the Middle East. Indeed, he lays them all out for discussion. But as a lawyer educated at Haifa University and a former law clerk to the Supreme Court of Israel, Wattad believes it is the Israeli political and legal system itself that holds the most promise for his community's future.

As an Israeli Arab, Wattad could be torn between historical links to his Arab heritage and connections to his Israeli citizenship, a country most Arabs despise. And while many Arabs in Israel feel loyalty only to their heritage, Wattad does not. As a scholar, he sees a clear distinction between nation and state. He acknowledges allegiance to the Arab nation through language and culture. But, at the same time, he feels strongly about loyalty to his country – the State of Israel.

That doesn't mean that Wattad is blind to the discrimination his community sometimes faces. He would like to see minorities in Israel receive a more equitable proportion of the state's resources.

He wants his country to be more inclusive of all of its citizens and has argued for the Jewish symbols in the national anthem and flag to be changed. In return, he is willing to concede that Arab citizens owe the full range of responsibilities to their country, including being drafted into the Israeli army.

Unlike many Arabs in the region, he accepts that the State of Israel is a political entity that is here to stay. He certainly doesn't endorse its destruction. Rather, Wattad feels he has a duty to defend his country from its enemies and that he has the right to demand equality using every democratic tool within his power – the courtroom, the Israeli parliament and the press.

What is interesting about Wattad's views is that they are so close to the way many Canadians feel about their own divided loyalties. Italian Canadians may root for Italy in World Cup soccer games and Scottish Canadians may actually like haggis, yet there is no question about their devotion to Canada (though there may be plenty of questions about their taste). And, most importantly, when it comes to their rights, our citizens turn to the Canadian courts, the legislature, and the press for protection.

As minorities, many Canadians have certainly struggled against injustice…

I think Anna and the professor are out to lunch, and wrote a letter to tell the Star so:

 

Anna Morgan paints a rosy picture of what might happen if Israel takes a cue from Canada and endeavours to be more considerate of its Arab minority. Part of making them feel more at home would be to remove those Jewish symbols such as the Star of David that tend to make them feel excluded—in other words, to divest Israel of its essential Jewishness.

 

I’m sure that would make the Arabs who live inside and outside Israel very happy—they’ve been trying to do much the same thing for decades. But it wouldn’t do much for the Jews. In fact, robbing Israel of its Jewishness—its  raison d’etre—would inevitably lead to disaster as the Arabs would be no more inclined to want to “share” power the with Jews of Israel than Arabs/Muslims want to “share” power with the Christians of Lebanon.

 

In the event, no one would ever call upon the Arab and Muslim nations of the world—and at last count there were over 50 of them—to remove those symbols which may be upsetting to their minority populations. Why, that would be absurd.

 

No, the problem here isn’t that Israel isn’t enough like Canada. The problem, as always, is that the Arabs of the region cannot abide the sovereignty of non-Muslims. And that problem isn’t going to be solved by implementing a Canada-style constitution in Israel, a nation which, aside from military service, already accords its minority citizens the full gamut of rights. Something which, it must be noted, cannot be said of minorities living in Arab and Muslim countries.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:59 | link | comments (2)

The culture of doom ‘n’ gloom ‘n’ trashy behaviour: Mark Steyn, as hilarious as he is perceptive, writes about those forces in the U.S. which are determined to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. As Steyn writes, even the good news from Iraq—the capture of an al Qaeda leader, kooky Mooqy al Sadr high-tailing it back to Ayatollahville in advance of the surge—is positioned as bad news, as the masses wallow in the culture of defeat; the culture in which Anna Nicole Smith’s impending embalming and Britney Spears’s close shave lead the news. To paraphrase Karl Marx, CNN is the opiate of the people:

…There was a TV station somewhere -- was it Thunder Bay, Ontario? -- that used to show a continuous loop of a roaring fireplace all night, and thousands of viewers would supposedly sit in front of it for hours because it was such a reassuringly comforting scene. The networks could save themselves a lot of money by adopting the same approach: Run a continuous loop of a smoking building in Baghdad all night while thousands of congressmen and pundits and think-tankers and retired generals run around Washington shrieking that all is lost. America is way out of its league! A dimwitted tourist in a fearful land of strange people who don't watch "American Idol." Iraq is so culturally alien that not a single Sunni, Shia or Kurd has come forward claiming to be the father of Anna Nicole's baby!

Get a grip, chaps! In Iraq, everyone's a tourist. This al-Qaida honcho, al-Masri, is an Egyptian. His predecessor, Zarqawi, was a Jordanian. Al-Sadr is a Persian stooge. For four decades, the country was a British client. Before that, it was a Turkish province. The Middle East is a crazy place and a tough nut to crack, but the myth of the unbeatable Islamist insurgent is merely a lazy and more neurotic update of the myth of the unbeatable communist guerrilla, which delusion led to so much pre-emptive surrender in the '70s. Nevertheless, in the capital city of the most powerful nation on the planet, the political class spent last week trying to craft a bipartisan defeat strategy, and they might yet pull it off…

I'm not so sure Iraq's democracy experiment will ever succeed, especially since it is fatally hampered by an allegiance to sharia law, a system that's intrisically inequitable and the antithesis of democracy. However, I do know this: The U.S. has to do something about those persky Persians before their nukes are operational, and handing them a victory in Iraq isn't the way to do it.

 

As always at such times, I feel a song coming on. In this case, it’s inspired by my line about Mooqy Al Sadr’s decamp:

 

Nibblin’ on pita.

Puttin’ my feet up.

Glad to be outta the chaos and smoke.

The surge is a-comin’

And I am a-runnin’,

And now I look like a big scaredy-cat joke.

 

Hidin’ away again in Ayatollahville.

Searchin’ for my lost insurgency.

Some people claim that the Jews are to blame.

Just so long as they aren't blamin' me.

 

I do know the reason

I’ll stay here all season.

Has somethin’ to do with savin’ my skin.

I’m hunkerin’ down now,

Stayin’ in Tehran town now.

And when the surge settles I’ll go back ag’in.

 

Hidin’ away again in Ayatollahville.

Searchin’ for my lost insurgency.

Some people claim that the U.S. is to blame.

Just so long as they aren't blamin' me.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:58 | link | comments

Jewish purveyors of the “big lie”: The dirty little secret of Jewish history—Jews have always been in the forefront of spreading judenhass. As it was then, so it is now, with Jews marching shoulder to shoulder with the enemies of Israel and the civilized world. By Rachel Ehrenfeld on the American Thinker site:

The most potent weapon in the arsenal of the Arab and Islamist extremists seeking the destruction of