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

Alphabetic review: My favourite political cartoonist, the National Post’s Gary Clement, has an amusing 2007 A-Z that takes up nearly the entire front page of today’s paper. It inspired me to have my own alphabetic go at the year that ends at the stroke of midnight:

A is for Annapolis, which was supposed to be dramatic.

B is for Bush, who’s become so “pragmatic.”

C is for Condi, who hasn’t got a clue.

D is for democracy—for me and for you.

E is for effective—what the War of Ideas being waged against us has been.

F is for Foggy Bottom, where bad thinking is alive and well, and which you can always count on to come up with some loopy, dhimmified “spin.”

G is for Gitmo, where some zanies are still imprisoned.

H is for hidden—what Conservative P.M. Stephen Harper’s agenda was supposed to be, but clearly isn’t.

I is for Israel, the despised ‘Zionist entity.’

J is for Jerusalem, at the core of Jewish identity.

K is for ka-ching, the sound of Abbas counting up his mega-takings.

L is for lucrative, as in “it’s lucrative to be a two-time loser, so long as you’re willing to play along with the charade that peace is something you’re making.”

M is for mullahs, Iran’s ruling “clarse.”

N is for the NIE report, which, if there’s any justice, should be  inserted—very slowly—up Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s arse.

O is for Obama, Oprah’s beamish boy.

P is for Pakistan, which the religious zanies are attempting to destroy.

Q is for Queen Elizabeth. I’m kind of fond of the old broad.

R is for reality. If people finally managed to grasp it, wouldn’t it be odd?

S is for superpower, what the jihadists long to destroy and hope to become.

T is for the truth. It’s there if you care to see it, old chum.

U is for “Umbrella,” that unbearable, hiccoughing Rhianna hit.

V is for Viagra, the subject all the infernal SPAM, which, even with a filter, somehow manages to get through and makes me want to spit.

W is for Wahhabis, who want to make us “submit.”

X is for X-ray—of the late Benazir Bhutto’s skull. CSI Islamabad (for those who care to see it).

Y is for yesterday, what the jihadists hope to turn back the clock to.

Z is for zanies—and all the zany places (Sudan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Up-the-Wazooistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc.) where zanies come from and like to flock to.

And with that, I bid you all ta-ta until 2008!

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:43 | link | comments

Rampant absurdity: An editorial in the Jerusalem Post lashes out at Condi Rice’s absurd analogies and the international community’s ridiculous backlash against the “checkpoints” which save Israeli lives:

The story of the murder of Ahikam Amichai and David Rubin, two off-duty soldiers on a hike, is a reminder of the bloodthirstiness of our enemies. It is a story of terrorists who look for any opportunity to kill Jews, regardless of who or where they are.

As it happens, Amichai and Rubin were soldiers, but there is no reason to doubt that the Fatah and Islamic Jihad terrorists who killed them would have been equally eager to kill Israeli civilians, as well.

It is this context that a reported comment from a closed meeting at Annapolis comes to mind: "Like the Israelis, I know what it is like to go to sleep at night, not knowing if you will be bombed, of being afraid to be in your own neighborhood, of being afraid to go to your church," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said.

But, according to the Washington Post, Rice's recollections as a African-American child in the South, being told she could not use certain water fountains or eat in certain restaurants, also made her understood the feelings and emotions of the Palestinians.

"I know what it is like to hear to that you cannot go on a road or through a checkpoint because you are Palestinian," she said. "I understand the feeling of humiliation and powerlessness... There is pain on both sides. This has gone on too long."

At first glance, Rice's reported ecumenical empathy may seem entirely natural and appropriate for America's top diplomat. Indeed, empathy for the suffering on both sides of a conflict is warranted. But a second moment's thought reveals part of Rice's comparison to be terribly misplaced and no guide for policy.

Just imagine, for example, that Rice were to express even the faintest degree of understanding for the barbaric killing of Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto, as being the result of "humiliation and powerlessness." Plainly, that would be absurd and unconscionable. But so, too, is to suggest that checkpoints cause terrorism, rather than that terrorism necessitates checkpoints.

Checkpoints, the security fence and targeted killings are all security measures that some in the West consider humanitarian atrocities and have even branded as "apartheid." The Russian foreign minister, displaying just one of his government's disqualifications for any moderating role, recently called Gaza a "gigantic prison."

It is extremely disturbing that Rice, even in the context of "balanced" sympathy for Israelis, would pile on to this libel of Israel by injecting a racial element into her criticism of such security measures.

What Rice should be saying is that Palestinian terrorism victimizes both sides: Israelis directly and Palestinians indirectly, but necessitates defensive Israeli actions that would automatically cease if terrorism were to end.

If there is analogy to darker days in the American South, it is to the fear that African-Americans had of being lynched if caught alone in the wrong place, and to the complete lack of confidence that local authorities, if they bothered to catch the killers, would bring them to justice.

While the Palestinian Authority has claimed to have arrested suspects in this latest murder case, we have seen how this revolving door works. What credibility do such arrests have, moreover, when the same PA leadership bitterly condemns Israel for killing terrorist kingpins in Gaza, issues posters of Palestine encompassing all of Israel, and continues to broadcast songs describing Israeli cities such as Haifa, Acre and Jaffa as part of "Palestine?"

Either the Palestinians are struggling to eliminate Israel, or to build a state alongside Israel. How is Rice encouraging the Palestinians to build rather than destroy when she paints Israeli security measures as "racist?"

There is a way to empathize with both sides without resorting to libel against Israel. President George W. Bush did so constructively in his famous speech calling for a new Palestinian leadership in June 2002: "I can understand the deep anger and despair of the Palestinian people," he said. "For decades, you've been treated as pawns in the Middle East conflict. Your interests have been held hostage to a comprehensive peace agreement that never seems to come, as your lives get worse year by year. You deserve democracy and the rule of law. You deserve an open society and a thriving economy. You deserve a life of hope for your children."

Israel is more than ready to do its part to fulfill this vision. The international community has pledged billions to pay for it. What is necessary is to stop helping the Palestinian leadership make excuses for not doing its part.

Stop helping it? How can they do that when they keep propping up that sly fox/excuse-maker  Mahmoud Abbas by sending him gazillions in jizya?

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

Totalitarian blow job:  President (Ahmadinejad) felicitates Sudan on National Day.

Oh, wait. He's felicitating Castro, too.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:22 | link | comments

Poor deer: Poor Bilawal Bhutto. Thrust into the international spotlight at far too tender an age—he’s a wet-behind-the-ears 19—he has the stunned expression of a Bambi caught in the headlights of an oncoming Mack truck. (Which is, in fact, exactly what he is.)

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:08 | link | comments

Be afraid. Be very afraid: Reza Aslan urges us to be wary of clueless wishful thinkers—like the Democrats’ clean favored and imperially slim presidential contender, Barack Obama. From the Washington Post (link via Martin Kramer):

Every time I hear about how Sen. Barack Obama is going to "re-brand" America's image in the Middle East, I can't help but think about Jimmy Carter's toast.

When the idealistic Democrat came to Iran in 1977 to ring in the new year with Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the country's much-despised despot, throngs of young, hopeful Iranians lined the streets to welcome the new American president. After eight years of the Nixon and Ford administrations' blind support for the shah's brutal regime, Iranians thrilled to Carter's promise to re-brand America's image abroad by focusing on human rights. That call even let many moderate, middle-class Iranians dare to hope that they might ward off the popular revolution everyone knew was coming. But at that historic New Year's dinner, Carter surprised everyone. In a shocking display of ignorance about the precarious political situation in Iran, he toasted the shah for transforming the country into "an island of stability in one of the more troubled areas of the world." With those words, Carter unwittingly lit the match of revolution.

It's just this sort of blunder -- naive, well-meaning, amateurish, convinced that everyone understands the goodness of U.S. intentions -- that worries me again these days. That's because a curious and dangerous consensus seems to be forming among the chattering classes, on both the left and the right, that what the United States needs in these troubling times is not knowledge and experience but a "fresh face" with an "intuitive sense of the world," and that the mere act of electing Obama will put us on the path to winning the so-called war on terror.

The argument usually goes something like this: Imagine that a young Muslim boy in, say, Egypt, is watching television when suddenly he sees this black man -- the grandson of a Kenyan Muslim, no less! -- who spent a small part of his childhood in Indonesia, taking the oath of office as president of the United States. Suddenly, the boy realizes that the United States is not the demonic, anti-Islamic place he's always been told it was. Meanwhile, all around the Muslim world, other young would-be jihadists have a similar epiphany. "Maybe Osama bin Laden is wrong," they think. "Maybe America is not so bad after all."…

Mind you, Republican wishful thinkers—like George W. Bush and his campaign to win “hearts and minds” by sending Karen Hughes galumphing across the Mideast with all the finesse of an elephant suffering from lumbago—haven’t done a whole lot better in that department.

Word to the un-wised up: it's not about "re-branding" the U.S. It's about "de-fanging" the jihadists.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:28 | link | comments

The bravest woman in Canada : Her name is Homa Arjomand. She’s the Iranian-born woman who spearheaded the anti-sharia campaign that prevented the Ontario government from giving legal teeth to Islamic law. She has put herself in the crosshairs of all the zanies who don’t like uppity women or critics of sharia, and who would no doubt like her to keep her mouth shut. Here she is being interviewed by FrontPage magazine:

FP: You are originally from Iran . Can you tell us a bit about your background and how you ened up leaving Iran ?

Arjomand: I was born and raised in Iran . At the age of 17, I started my social/political activities with a group of medical students and became a dissident against the Islamic regime. I studied in England with the sponsorship of the National Iranian Oil Company. I returned back to Iran and worked as a teacher in various colleges and universities.

In the winter of 1989, I fled Iran through the mountains because my life was endangered by the Islamic Regime. I have lived in Canada since 1990 and have attended and organized countless meetings, international conferences, panel discussions and forums on issues related to women’s, children’s and gay and lesbian rights. I did many interviews with leading newspapers and TV programs in Europe and North America defending secularism.

When the Ontario Arbitration Act allowed family disputes to be resolved by faith-based arbitrations, as an advocator of secularism I formed the International Campaign against Sharia Court in Canada to oppose Sharia Court and the restrictions that political Islam was imposing on women and children and all other faith-based arbitration.

In Toronto, I ran a social talk show on Rogers Cable which dealt with such issues as children’s rights, women’s rights, gay and lesbian rights and elder abuse. Right now I am working as transitional counselor for women experiencing domestic violence.

FP: Tell us about the International Campaign against Sharia Court in Canada .

Arjomand: While living in Iran I saw the rise of political Islam and with it the application of Sharia law.

The rise of Political Islam pushed back the women’s liberation movement in Iran and lowered the standards of that society by legalizing gender apartheid and by enforcing religious family laws that openly discriminate against women and children.

As the power of political Islam grew in Iran , I witnessed the execution of all my fellow activists for their belief and work in human and women’s rights issues in Iran .

I know for a fact that discrimination and gender-based persecution in areas of marriage, divorce, child custody and so on are reasons why many women flee the societies which are ruled by Political Islam and seek refuge in Canada and the West.

For the past 12 years I have worked as a transitional counselor for abused women in Canada . Many of my clients come from so-called “Muslim communities.” I help these women and children to escape abusive and often dangerous family situations and to start a new life in a safe and secure home.

In my work I often see the unfair treatment of women and children when they use faith-based arbitration. Most of these women receive very little in the way of financial support and often have no right to see their children. Sometimes after a divorce, the father will send his children -- particularly the girls -- back to his home country to be raised by a family member and then push them to marry at a very young age even though they are Canadian Citizens.

On October 23^rd, 2003 , Mr. Syed Mumtaz Ali, President of the Canadian Society of Muslims, announced the opening of the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice. In his announcement, Mr. Ali said that to be a ‘good Muslim’, you must use Sharia law for family legal matters. This political statement was not only coercive but also a direct threat to devout Muslims who prefer to use Canadian laws.

Mr. Ali’s statement shocked me because his proposal had nothing to do with someone’s personal belief; it was in fact very political. He claimed his legal authority was based on Ontario law. Through my work as a transitional counselor, I was well aware that faith-based arbitrations were occurring. However, I had wrongly assumed it was being practiced illegally, behind closed doors.

At the time I did not believe that Canada would permit arbitration of family legal matters based on religious laws. However, when I investigated further, I discovered that in the Arbitration Act of 1991, Article 32, Conflict of Laws, did indeed permit family arbitrations to be based on religious laws. This discovery saddened and worried me and other activists. To us, as experienced defenders of women and children’s rights, the Arbitration Act of 1991 provided a green light for political Islam to widen its reach and tighten its grip on the lives of Muslims living in Canada . We felt it was our duty to inform the Canadian public of this threat to their freedoms.

All of us were motivated by a common concern that political Islam was trying to expand in Canada by promoting the use of family arbitrations based on Sharia law. We were sure that the rise of Sharia court in Canada was not just a coincident. It was part of a global move of political Islam.

Our campaign started in Toronto on October 30^th, 2003 with a handful of supporters, and today it has grown to a coalition of 183 organizations from 14 countries with over a thousand activists, who volunteer their time and skills.

FP: Your thoughts on the recent tragic honor killing of Aqsa Parvez?

Arjomand: Aqsa Parvez is obviously another victim of honor killing. She has been tried and sentenced to death by her family’s belief, for not honoring the backward culture and traditions which are promoted and guarded by religious movements -- in particular Islamic movement globally.

Honor killing is a punishment for the women who act not according to the religion, tradition and culture imposed on them. To be more precise it is a punishment for the ones who desire to run their own lifestyle and choose their own partner. The victims are women and young girls who have thirst to be free and are not willing to compromise for less than a modern and humane life style.

The death of Aqsa Parvez at the age of 16 is just a tip of the iceberg in Canada , where respect of backward cultures and religions comes before women’s and children’s rights, where cultural ghettoes have become an ideal heaven to crush any desire in women to be free.

In the case of Aqsa Parvez, a brave girl who put herself at the forefront of the struggle for a well deserved human life, the Islamic groups that promote Islamic law and Islamic schools and are looking for more shares in power should be held responsible the most. They are the ones who push for enclosed and regressive communities in the heart of Canada and have created little Irans , Afghanistans , Somalias and Pakistans . They are the ones to blame for convincing families and individuals to accept the barbaric rules and regulations, and for not having any mercy for their own children and family members.

This cruelty to our children and women should not be tolerated and must be condemned strongly. Harsh punishment must be considered for those who abuse or victimize children and women under so-called Islamic action.

FP: What is the nature of the Islamic regime in Iran ?

Arjomand: The Islamic regime of Iran by nature is Islamic based on Islamic ideology. It is well known as anti-freedom, anti–women and anti-secularism. Its brutal laws represent anti-modernism and anti all progressive social values. This regime is founded on the principles of terror, imprisonment, torture, execution, and stoning.

FP: Share with us some more of your thoughts on political Islam.

Arjomand: Political Islam as a movement is very active in politics and is after its own state and its share of power. Other aspects such as culture and laws serve its political desire and its political needs. This movement rides on the mass of people who are oppressed and isolated. They are the ones who are out of patience with discrimination and oppression and have no hope for social improvement by parties in power and have no hope for modern and progressive alternatives. This movement appears as anti-Western, not necessarily anti-‘western government’, but rather anti ‘western values and standards'. It is misogynistic and goes against modernism. It is extremely anti-secular.

This is a movement that will not hesitate to do anything in order to push back its oppositions and gain recognition by the states in the West. This is sometimes done through terrorizing people by implanting bombs in the busiest streets, cinemas, subway stations, hospitals and schools. This creates a parallel power structure within the surrounding societies. This movement will do anything to penetrate the Legal system, whether it uses a bad piece of legislation such as the Ontario Arbitration Act 1991 or by taking the law into its own hands by imposing a completely different structure of human relations within society. This is done by removing civic culture where citizens are free and equal and replacing it with ethics laid down in Sharia.

This movement has no actual economic or social plan, but it is aware that any form of democracy in countries such as Iran , Iraq , Pakistan and Egypt would end up in a mass secular uprising and the growth of labor movements. Even in Saudi Arabia no Sheik can survive more than a few days if true democracy were allowed to exist…

That’s why the Wahhabis are doing their utmost to subvert democracy around the world, funding, among other anti-freedom endeavours, what Walid Phares calls The War of Ideas. The aim: to “restore” the caliphate and establish the primacy of Allah’s law world-wide.

For 2008, the goal of all those who love freedom and bristle at the thought of having to live under the yoke of totalitarian sharia: find some way to break through the Salafis’ smoke and mirrors and our own social doctrine of multiculturalism which helps keep it in place (the self-loathing and self-abnegation at the core of the environmental movement also gives it a boost) and get out the message to as many people as possible. That’s the only shot we have at turning back the tide (more like a tsunami) that threatens to wash us away.

A very Happy and Free New Year to all!

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

The Academic jihad: I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve heard someone comment about Israel’s pathetic and inadequate “P.R.” If only the Jews, who, after all are supposed to be so clever, could figure out a way to make Israel “look good” in the media and more effectively make its case, the problems, supposedly, would melt away. (The Canada Israel Committee apparently buys this idea because it emails me an intriguing Israeli achievement on a regular basis—part of its campaign to persuade people to like Israel because it does such good things.)

How naïve these P.R.-advocates are. As Walid Phares writes in The War of Ideas, Israel hasn’t stood a chance against the Wahabi oil dollars, which have essentially bought up great swaths of Western academia, thus turning it into the whore of the jihad:

From the early 1990s, considerable Wahabi money was made available for the “academic jihad.” Both government and independent emirs offered money to be invested in the West to “teach about Islam, correct the image of it, and better explain the real problems in the Middle East.” There benign initial offers couldn’t be refused by academic institutions and think tanks hungry to better educate students and better inform them public about this complex region of the world, form which many civilizations emerged. At first sight, the “nice,” philanthropic packaging of these “grants,” in an environment stripped of the capacity to see through the ruse, enabled the subtle assault to penetrate defences smoothly. From coast to coast in North America, and from the Mediterranean to the North Sea, a wave of oil funding hit university after university, college after college, and research center after research center, as well as public libraries, museums, and other places of learning. The offers were coated as strictly “academic”—neutral, balanced, and inclusive. On the donor end, however, the objectives were fully ideological: further the cause of Islam as they envisioned it, support the Palestinian cause as the sole issue in the Middle East, and plant the seeds of the concept of the illegitimate West. This real agenda by the donors merged with the anti-American, anti-Western, and in some cases anti-Semitic elements of the extreme left and extreme right in America and other Western societies.

That mention of Wahabi money infiltrating libraries goes a long way toward explaining why, not long after 9/11, I happened upon a little video gem in the kiddie section of my local library. There, among the Disney flicks and Barney the Dinosaur tapes was a title that leapt out at me because it seemed so out of place. Its title: Osama bin Laden, a non-threating profile. I was able to trace the film back to an outfit in Boulder, Colorado. Run by former denizens of Hollywood, Bunny and Norman Strasser, the company seemed quite legit, producing films for the likes of Shell Oil and other corporate stars. I had a mostly friendly email exchange with Bunny at the time, but she would never reveal who had commissioned such a bizarrely-titled film (which, fulfilling its non-threatening mandate, made Osama look like a Muslim Robin Hood). At the time I had a hunch that Wahabis might have been involved; I have seen no reason, in the ensuing years, to amend my initial assumption.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:42 | link | comments

 Steyn on the "line": From NRO:

It’s worth noting that Muslims next door in India are antipathetic to jihad. Yet they are ethnically and religiously indistinguishable from the fellows in Islamabad wiring up one-year old babies as unwitting suicide bombers. The only reason one’s an Indian and the other’s a Pakistani is because of where some British cartographer decided to draw the line in 1947. Since then, Indian Muslims have been functioning members of a modern pluralist democracy, while Pakistani Muslims have been mired in incompetence, backwardness and dictatorship, and embraced jihadism as the most viable escape route. Reversing that pathology would have been beyond Benazir Bhutto’s pretty face.

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

Maureen Dowd, New-Age wackjob: Newsbusters  deconstructs La Dowd's embrace of crystals, tribal shamanism, rolfing and other New-agey ephemera.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:02 | link | comments

Straight shooting from Newt: Who knew that a man I used to revile (back in those living-in-a-bubble days when I was a clueless lefty) could talk such sense? Here’s part of a speech he recently gave to a Jewish organization. I found it on the CCD’s public message forum:

…Our current problem is tragic. You have an administration whose policy is inadequate being opposed by a political left whose policy is worse, and you have nobody prepared to talk about the policy we need. Because we are told if you are for a strong America, you should back the Bush policy even if it's inadequate, and so you end up making an argument in favor of something that can't work. So your choice is to defend something which isn't working or to oppose it by being for an even weaker policy. So this is a catastrophe for this country and a catastrophe for freedom around the world. Because we have refused to be honest about the scale of the problem.

Let me work back. I'm going to get to Iran since that's the topic, but I'm going to get to it eventually. Let me work back from Pakistan. The dictatorship in Pakistan has never had control over Wiziristan. Not for a day. So we've now spent six years since 9/11 with a sanctuary for Al-Qaida and a sanctuary for the Taliban, and every time we pick up people in Great Britain who are terrorists, they were trained in Pakistan.

And our answer is to praise Musharraf because at least he's not as bad as the others. But the truth is Musharraf has not gotten control of terrorism in Pakistan. Musharraf doesn't have full control over his own government. The odds are even money we're going to drift into a disastrous dictatorship at some point in Pakistan. And while we worry about the Iranians acquiring a nuclear weapon, the Pakistanis already have 'em, So why would you feel secure in a world where you could presently have an Islamist dictatorship in Pakistan with a hundred-plus nuclear weapons? What's our grand strategy for that?

Then you look at Afghanistan. Here's a country that's small, poor, isolated, and in six years we have not been able to build roads, create economic opportunity, wean people off of growing drugs. A third of the GDP is from drugs. We haven't been able to end the sanctuary for the Taliban in Pakistan. And I know of no case historically where you defeat a guerrilla movement if it has a sanctuary. So the people who rely on the West are outbribed by the criminals, outgunned by the criminals, and faced with a militant force across the border which practiced earlier defeating the Soviet empire and which has a time horizon of three or four generations. NATO has a time horizon of each quarter or at best a year, facing an opponent whose time horizon is literally three or four generations. It's a total mismatch.

Then you come to the direct threat to the United States, which is Al-Qaida. Which, by the way, we just published polls. One of the sites I commend to you is AmericanSolutions.com. Last Wednesday we posted six national surveys, $428,000 worth of data. We gave it away. I found myself in the unique position of calling Howard Dean to tell him I was giving him $400,000 worth of polling. We have given it away to both Democrats and Republicans. It is fundamentally different from the national news media. When asked the question "Do we have an obligation to defend the United States and her allies?" the answer is 85 percent yes. When asked a further question "Should we defeat our enemies?" - it's very strong language - the answer is 75 percent yes, 75 to 16.

The complaint about Iraq is a performance complaint, not a values complaint.

When asked whether or not Al-Qaida is a threat, 89 percent of the country says yes. And they think you have to defeat it, you can't negotiate with it. So now let's look at Al-Qaida and the rise of Islamist terrorism.

And let's be honest: What's the primary source of money for Al-Qaida? It's you, recirculated through Saudi Arabia. Because we have no national energy strategy, when clearly if you really cared about liberating the United States from the Middle East and if you really cared about the survival of Israel, one of your highest goals would be to move to a hydrogen economy and to eliminate petroleum as a primary source of energy.

Now that's what a serious national strategy would look like, but that would require real change.

So then you look at Saudi Arabia. The fact that we tolerate a country saying no Christian and no Jew can go to Mecca, and we start with the presumption that that's true while they attack Israel for being a religious state is a sign of our timidity, our confusion, our cowardice that is stunning.

It's not complicated. We're inviting Saudi Arabia to come to Annapolis to talk about rights for Palestinians when nobody is saying, "Let's talk about rights for Christians and Jews in Saudi Arabia. Let's talk about rights for women in Saudi Arabia."

So we accept this totally one-sided definition of the world in which our enemies can cheerfully lie on television every day, and we don't even have the nerve to insist on the truth. We pretend their lies are reasonable. This is a very fundamental problem. And if you look at who some of the largest owners of some of our largest banks are today, they're Saudis.

You keep pumping billions of dollars a year into countries like Venezuela, Iran and Saudi Arabia, and Russia, and you are presently going to have created people who oppose you who have lots of money. And they're then going to come back to your own country and finance, for example, Arab study institutes whose only requirement is that they never tell the truth. So you have all sorts of Ph.D.s who now show up quite cheerfully prepared to say whatever it is that makes their funders happy - in the name, of course, of academic freedom. So why wouldn't Columbia host a genocidal madman? It's just part of political correctness. I mean, Ahmadinejad may say terrible things, he may lock up students, he may kill journalists, he may say, "We should wipe out Israel," he may say, "We should defeat the United States," but after all, what has he done that's inappropriate? What has he done that wouldn't be repeated at a Hollywood cocktail party or a nice gathering in Europe?

And nobody says this is totally, utterly, absolutely unacceptable. Why is it that the No.1 threat in intelligence movies is the CIA?

I happened the other night to be watching an old movie, To Live and Die in L.A., which is about counterfeiting. But the movie starts with a Secret Service agent who is defending Ronald Reagan in 1985, and the person he is defending Ronald Reagan from, is a suicide bomber who is actually, overtly a Muslim fanatic. Now, six years after 9/11, you could not get that scene made in Hollywood today.

Just look at the movies. Why is it that the bad person is either a right-wing crazed billionaire, or the CIA as a government agency. Go look at the Bourne Ultimatum. Or a movie like the one that George Clooney made, which was an absolute lie, in which it implied that if you were a reformist Arab prince, that probably the CIA would kill you. It's a total lie. We actually have SEALs protecting people all over the world. We actually risk American lives protecting reformers all over the world, and yet Hollywood can't bring itself to tell the truth, (a) because it's ideologically so opposed to the American government and the American military, and (b), because it's terrified that if it said something really openly, honestly true about Muslim terrorists, they might show up in Hollywood. And you might have somebody killed as the Dutch producer was killed.

And so we're living a life of cowardice, and in that life of cowardice we're sleepwalking into a nightmare...

Indeed. As I read that line, a quote by Shakespeare popped into my head: “The coward dies a thousand times before his death. The valiant never tastes of death but once.”

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:38 | link | comments

Teeny torah: Israelis scientists, who apparently have a lot of spare time on their hands, have managed to shrink the complete Hebrew bible, vowels and all, to the size of a speck. From the Ceeb:

Scientists have succeeded in writing a full version of the Hebrew Bible — including vowel points — in a space smaller than the size of a pinhead.

Using a scientific device called a Focused Ion Beam, scientists in Israel wrote the 300,000-word tome onto a 0.5-square-millimetre chip.

Tiny particles of gallium ions were beamed onto a silicon surface covered with a thin layer of gold (20 nanometres thick) to create the etching — similar, they said, to using a stream of water to carve into soft soil.

The nano-Bible project was developed by the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute as part of an educational program that asked: "How small can the Bible be?"

The project looked at how to store information using small DNA or other bio-molecules, as well as how to create nanometric structures and imaging.

"The nano-Bible project demonstrates the ability of miniaturization at our disposal," said Ohad Zohar, the institute's scientific adviser for educational programs, in a recent press release.

The team is now trying to photograph the nano-Bible using special technology in order to enlarge it 10,000 times for display on a giant wall.

"In this picture, which will be seven metres by seven metres, it will be possible to read the entire Bible with the naked eye. Near this picture, the original — the nano-Bible itself, which is the size of a grain of sugar — will be displayed," Zohar said.

The mad miniturizationists better not try that with a Qur’an—if they know what’s good for them, that is.

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:02 | link | comments

Hail the conquering (but dead) hero: A tiny minority of Jordanians, citizens of a “moderate” Arab nation, got together yesterday to honour the passing of one of their heroes. From AP via the IHT:

About 2,000 Jordanians demonstrated in the capital on Saturday to commemorate former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein on the one-year anniversary of his execution.

Some supporters in Amman's commerical downtown district waved black, white, green and red flags of Saddam's ruling Baath party and distributed a party newspaper, "al-Wahda," meaning unity, bearing Saddam's picture on the front page.

The protestors, including Jordanian Baathists, leftists and other opposition groups, shouted allegiance to the Baath party, which ruled Iraq under Saddam. The demonstration ended peacefully.

Saddam, toppled by the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, was executed on Dec. 30 after being convicted of crimes against humanity and war crimes for the killings of 148 Shiite Muslims in a 1982 crackdown on the town of Dujail, north of Baghdad.

But he remains revered by sympathizers of his regime and among some, mainly Sunni Arabs, who see his downfall as the start of the chaos in Iraq.

More than 700,000 Iraqis have fled to Jordan to escape the turmoil in their homeland, part of a wave of some 2.5 million Iraqi refugees across the region. But Saturday's protest was made up of Jordanian sympathizers.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:59 | link | comments

Hasta la vista, '07: Some valjeans for the year that was:

Amy Winehouse, one must stress,

What a talent; what a mess.

Go to rehab? Yes, yes, yes.

 

Rosie O, on a show,

Shot her mouth off, had to go.

Do we miss her? A thousand times, no.

 

Mohammed Bear, Khartoum stuffie,

Though very cute and really fluffy

Made Sudan zanies all hot and huffy.

 

That Condi Rice, she means so well.

Wants “peace” and  “justice,” you can tell.

Meanwhile paves our road to Hell.

 

Al Gore, go figure, is now a god.

Al-lah Gore—how very odd.

While some bowed down, some just guffawed.

 

Osama bin Laden natters on and on.

Holy war, encore. It’s such a yawn.

Am-scray, you bore. Vamoose!  Begone!

 

Ahmadinejad, though kind of kooky,

Hasn’t got a single nukey.

So saith the NIE. How spooky!

 

King Abdullah, compassionate dude,

“Pardoned” a gal for too much ‘tude.

The world approved—he’s got the crude.

 

George W. Bush started out fine.

Had some gumption and a spine.

Now he’s Mr. Palestine.

 

Israel’s still here, to much dismay.

They’d hoped that it would go away.

Oh, well. Tomorrow’s another day.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:42 | link | comments

Conventional wisdom: Some 15,000 Muslims have gathered in Toronto this weekend for the annual Reviving the Spirit of Islam convention. This year, the convention focuses on “the family,” but don’t expect the attendees to gain much insight into why a Mississauga teenager was murdered recently by her father. From the sounds of if, they remain firmly committed to the mass denial that is such a prominent feature of Islamic discourse. From the Toronto Star (where denial--in the name of multicultural "sensitivity"--is also rife):

The sound of the faithful rising to their feet echoed through the hall like a small wave reaching the sand.

The collective movement marked the end of Friday afternoon prayer for thousands of primarily Muslim youth at the opening of the annual Reviving the Islamic Spirit convention in the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

In its sixth year, the three-day conference, run primarily by youth, expects 15,000 to attend to hear Muslim and non-Muslim scholars discuss world issues. This year features a topic that recently set Toronto – one of the world's most multicultural cities – on edge: the slaying of 16-year-old Aqsa Parvez.

"I think some cultural factors played into that in a very significant way, but at the end of the day I think it's an issue of domestic violence that got out of hand," said visiting scholar Imam Zaid Shakir, who spoke at the convention opening and will co-lead tonight's presentation "For the Love of our Children."

The strangled teen's father, Muhammad Parvez, 57, was charged with her murder. Her friends told reporters that she was unhappy about her family's conservative Muslim lifestyle and resisted the order to wear a hijab.

"I think it's very important to understand, in Islam there is no such thing as honour killing," said Shakir. "Muslims are not immune from many of the problems that afflict and affect other communities, and sadly, domestic violence is one of them."

For women to wear a headscarf is, in his belief, a religious obligation, but not one that someone can be forced to comply with. Modest dress is mandated for both sexes, he said.

"One of the contradictions in our community sometimes is that some men demand women to dress excessively modest ... (while) they are wearing skin-tight jeans and muscle shirts," he said.

"Those sorts of contradictions also have to be addressed and resolved."

Resolving cultural impasses in the home fits into the overall theme of the conference, "Family: The Basis of a Civil Society."

Discussions will take place on such issues as bridging the generation gap in Muslim families, preventing violence against women, Muslim divorce rates, the definition of marriage, online dating, fighting within families and the reconciliation of power between men and women within the home.

Past guests have included Mayor David Miller and Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk. A speaker this time is Pamela Paul, U.S. investigative author of Pornified: How Pornography is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships, and Our Families.

The convention will also include fundraisers to sponsor orphans around the world and a massive drive for the Daily Bread Food Bank.

In the crowd yesterday were two female cousins attending the conference for the first time.

"Do you see repressed women?" asked Nour Younis, 19, gesturing toward the crowd and pointing out many wearing trendy outfits.

Younis, born in the United Arab Emirates, is studying in Ottawa. She does not wear a hijab but has thought about it. The death of Parvez had nothing to do with her religion, she said. "As a Muslim, I despise that man."

Her cousin Leen Younis, 24, said, "I think parents should try to show their children the right path but shouldn't be extremists."

She does wear a hijab, a decision she calls a personal choice, saying the hijab loses its value as a religious symbol if it's not worn voluntarily. She does think Parvez should have respected her parents' wishes.

The hijab, she feels, is not something a person can wear part-time. "I don't respect people who do that," she said.

Her cousin agreed. "They are not being true to themselves. ... Why do something you don't want to?"

Both agreed that for some young people, the decision to wear a hijab can be held off simply because the idea of taking it off, and what that implies, is too daunting...

Yeah, it can be quite “daunting” to be roughed up or killed by your Dad for refusing to submit to his divinely-decreed authority, even if you know that it’s merely a domestic, and not a religious, matter.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:49 | link | comments

Power play: The UN General Assembly recently passed a resolution which aims to combat “defamation of religion.” Not surprisingly, it was brought forward by the 57 nations which comprise the Organization of Islamic Conference. The OIC has been most perturbed about those who defame their faith, especially in the wake of 9/11, when there have been so many opportunities to do so. Ostensibly, the resolution pertains to all religions, but Islam is the only one mentioned specifically. It thus seems clear that the purpose here is not to clamp down on nasty comments being made about, say, Jews (because that would be well nigh impossible, since it would entail editing a perfect text which refers to Jews as being “apes and pigs”). The true intent is to stop the kafirs from commenting on certain problematic aspects of Islam (like, for instance, the jihad).

In his most recent book, The War of Ideas, Walid Phares sheds light on why many Muslims brook no criticism of their religion:

The radical Islamists do not tolerate the principle of intiqad (criticism), of any aspect of religion, from theology to practice. Because there is not concept of civil freedom in Salafi or Khumeinist thinking, religious critical thinking is nonexistent as well. Muslims and non-Muslims alike may not argue with the core beliefs of religion, and would be sanctioned if they raised these matters. Such a “frozen” attitude of the jihadi dogma is reminiscent of the Christian Middle Ages. But, ironically, back in the tenth century, Baghdad was illumination not only with oil lamps, but also by Muslim minds looking forward and evolving their culture and sciences, in advance of the end of the Dark Ages in Europe (much like China’s eary superiority in technology). Surprisingly to many observers of the movement, twentieth-century jihadists chose to follow twelfh-century Ibn Taymiya’s narrow thinking rather than the even earlier thinking of the Arab enlightenment of the ninth and tenth centuries. An analogy can be drawn with Fascism and nationalsocialism, which opted for recent authoritarian ideologies rather than for previous (but weaker) democratic ideas. Insecure elites seeking power prefer totalitarian doctrines with intellectual rigidness over open thinking and its risky path toward pluralism. Thus a comprehensive analysis of the jihadist mind leads us to see in the Salafists and Khumeinists a move by formerly marginal segments of society who, thanks to their reviving of archaic models, have built their power base on a rigid ideology that are fully in control of. Their reliance on the purity of the doctrinal body ensures their power over it, hence their rejection of any form of criticism of their interpretation of religion. In other words, the rejection of criticism is not essentially about the core belief system as much as it is about their control of this system. The real battlefield for radicals is the tight control of the instrument of power—in this case, ideologically protected religious laws…

So you see folks, it’s all about power and control. And even though many of the 57 OIC nations are neither Salafist nor Khumeinist, but are considered “moderate,” the Salafists and Khomeinists, being the “purest,” carry the most weight. In any case, there being strength in numbers, this powerful block is seeking to control the international agenda. And all the silly kafirs are either so clueless or so fearful—or both—that they’re allowing it to do so.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:25 | link | comments

A James Frey in the making: Does the end ever justify the means? Certainly not in the case of a 6-year-old girl who used “the means” of a lie—she falsely claimed in an tug-from-the-heart-strings essay that her father had been killed in Iraq—in order to justify “the end” of winning some Hannah Montana tickets. From the Houston Chronicle:

GARLAND, Texas — A 6-year-old girl who won four tickets to a Hannah Montana concert with an essay that falsely claimed her father died in Iraq won't be going to the show after all.

The contest's sponsor, Club Libby Lu, withdrew the prize on Saturday and awarded it to another unnamed winner.

"With this decision, we hope to revive the intended spirit of the contest, which was designed to make a little girl's holidays extra special," Club Libby Lu chief executive Mary Drolet said in a statement Saturday.

Officials with the Chicago-based chain surprised the girl on Friday at a Club Libby Lu store in a suburban Dallas mall. Club Libby Lu sells clothes, accessories and games for young girls.

The girl won a makeover that included a blonde Hannah Montana wig, as well as the grand prize: airfare for four to Albany, N.Y., and four tickets to the sold-out Hannah Montana concert on Jan. 9.

The opening line in the essay was: "My daddy died this year in Iraq."

But the girl's mother admitted later Friday that the essay and the military information she provided about her daughter's father were untrue.

"We did the essay and that's what we did to win. We did whatever we could do to win," Ceballos said in an interview with Dallas TV station KDFW on Friday. "But when (Caulfield) asked me if this essay is true, I said, `No, this essay is not true.'"…

Way to teach you kid values, Ms. Ceballos. On the other hand, if your daughter keeps it up, she has a good shot at guesting on Oprah someday.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:21 | link | comments

Harpooning Musharraf: Harpoon Siddiqui really wants to see an end to Musharraf. Which leads me to believe that it might be a good idea for him to stick around right now, at least so things can calm down some and the religious zanies don't get to seize control of the 90-nuke nation.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:03 | link | comments

What’s in a name?:  Ceeb talking head Wendy Mesley has an interview with Syed Sowahardy about Benazir Bhutto. Sowahardy appears in his capacity as the founder of Muslims Against Terrorism. Nowhere is he identified in his more familiar guise—as the head of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, of which M.A.T. is a sister organization; you may also remember him as the guy who complained to Alberta’s Human Rights Commission when the Western Standard published those “insulting” Mo ‘toons. The magazine has since ceased publication, and been forced to submit to the ISCC yet again, apologizing for comments that appeared on its blog.

As a rep for Muslims Against Terrorism, Sowahardy sounds most reasonable. But when he’s wearing his other chapeau as head of the ISCC,  here’s what he stands for:

Islamic Supreme Council of Canada was founded in Calgary on June 18, 2000 with the following mission and objectives. Presently, its head office is located in Calgary, Alberta. ISCC members are from all the denominations of Islam. ISCC believes that the Muslims should not be divided based upon their schools of thoughts. ISCC encourages healthy difference of opinion among its members and follows the Islamic decision-making process, which is more democratic than the western democratic principles. ISCC is a Canadian organization, which is based upon one common belief, " There is no God but Allah and Muhammad (peace be upon him) is his (last) Messenger" and provides nonsectarian environment to its members. ISCC members exhibit this unity through their behaviour.

Mission Statement

To be the leading Muslim organization in Canada helping the government, media and the people of Canada to understand the teachings of Islam and issues of Muslims. To contribute positively in building the Canadian society for the 21^st century and beyond. To provide guidance to the Canadian political, social, Judicial, financial and economical institutions on the issues related to the Muslims in and outside Canada, which may impact the Canadian society. To help Canada in developing better political, trade, social, academic and cultural relationships with the Muslim countries. To organize the political strength of Muslim voters in Canada in order to achieve leading place for Canadian Muslims in Canadian politics.

Major Objectives

1.    To preach and advance the teachings of the Islamic faith and religious tenets, doctrines, observances and culture associated with that faith…

 

So far, so good.

One can understand why the Ceeb may not have wanted to identify Sowahardy as the head of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada. In the context of the murder Pakistan’s last, best hope for democracy, likely by jihadists, it might have jogged memories about the Western Standard controversy and conveyed an entirely wrong impression to viewers. Wrong, as far as the Ceeb is concerned, that is. (Mr. Sowahardy may want to think about removing the "Supreme" from the title of his organization: it tends to make some kafirs a little edgy.)

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:34 | link | comments

No sex, please, we’re Canucks: Sigh. Scandals in Canada are so un-sexy. No Profumos romping in gin-sodden orgies with luscious vixens. No zaftig young interns on their knees in the Oval Office. The sexiest we ever got was back in the 60s, when an East German “hostess” named Gerda Munsinger managed to hook up with some bigwigs in the Diefenbaker government while spying for the Soviets. (Diefenbaker—now there was a stud muffin.)

Okay, maybe that one was a little sexy. Most of the time, though, we Canadians have to settle for decidedly unsexy scandals involving crooked ad execs and free tchotchkes. The lastest scandale to hit Ottawa—l’affaire Schreiber—may be the least sexy one ever. It involves a shady German businessman named Karlheinz Schreiber who apparently gave former Tory P.M. Brian Mulroney—he had just left office—oodles of cash to help him lobby the government on behalf of Schreiber’s client, Airbus; Shreiber wanted it to buy airplanes from the company. Long story short, the scandal was big news here for a while back in the 80s, and would have been consigned to the dust heap of history but for two things: Brian Mulroney wrote his autobiography and went on a big book tour to promote it; and the Liberals, looking for a way to besmirch the current Tory P.M. Stephen Harper who, despite their best hopes has so far proven to be a Mr. Clean/Dudley Do-Right type, seized the opportunity Mulroney handed them to revive the controversy.

In today’s Globe and Mail, Rex Murphy has some amusing things to say about the scandal, which, short term, appears to be working for the Liberals, but may not be enough to unseat Harper. But the real reason I bring all of this up is so that I can post my Karlheinz Schrieber “valjean.” (A “valjean” is the three line poem I invented—my version of the clerihew.)

Karlheinz Schreiber, très Teutonic,

Had some "problems" that were chronic.

Now Brian’s like the plague Bubonic.

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

Manji mangles history: In a Globe and Mail comment piece chiding Benazir Bhutto for having been such a crappy Prime Minister, Irshad Manji offers his bizarro version of history:

In the months ahead, the people of Pakistan will need to recall [founder of Pakistan Muhammad Ali] Jinnah's vision. It may be of comfort to know that Pakistanis are not alone. Countless Americans are now asking about their founders' intentions, desperate to rediscover the better angels of their country after eight years of George W. Bush. Still, Pakistan must avoid America's enduring mistake. The United States lapsed into profound divisiveness following the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. Today's politics of polarization can be traced to the unresolved trauma of the King-Kennedy murders.

It can? While you’re at it, Irshad, why not go back to the “profound divisiveness” of the Civil War? Surely that has something to do with it too. And then there was that Revolutionary War way, way back. Some--mostly in Europe, admittedly--have yet to recover from that trauma.

Or perhaps instead of toddling down memory lane, it would be more helpful to admit that “today’s politics of polarization” has nothing to do with those 60s assassinations, but is about the chasm that exists between two diametrically opposed camps—what a colleague of mine has described as “alternate realities.” On one side are those who “get it” about the jihad imperative; on the other are those who don’t “get it.”

At the moment, it’s not immediately clear where Ms. Manji fits it.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:22 | link | comments (2)

Too many fish: Who killed Benazir Bhutto? At this stage, we don’t know for certain, but it appears likely that it was Al Qaeda or some other like-minded jihadist outfit, perhaps with assistance from rogue elements within Pakistan’s security forces. However, Rami Khouri, the Palestinian who edits Lebanon’s Daily Star, thinks he knows for sure who killed her. Casting his net as widely as possible, the splenetic Mr. Khouri says “we all” did her in. From the Globe and Mail:

…We will hear passionate appeals in the next few days about courage, democracy and terror, from presidents, kings and warlords alike. These emperors appear increasingly naked as they exhort us to higher values. It is hard to take them seriously - these Asians, Arabs, Americans, Israelis, Iranians, Turks, Europeans, Africans and anyone else who wishes to stand up and be recognized. These pontificating presidents, kings, and warlords who preach about life and democracy have spent a generation sending their armies to war, overthrowing regimes, authorizing assassinations, arming gangs, trading weapons for political favours, buying protection from thugs, cozying up to terrorists, lauding autocrats, making deals with dictators, imprisoning foes, torturing at will, thumbing their nose at the UN Charter, buying and bullying judges, ignoring true democrats and blindly refusing even to hear the simple demands of their own citizens for minimum decency and dignity.

I have spent my entire adult life in the Middle East - since the 1970s - watching leaders be assassinated, foreign armies topple governments, local colonels seize power, foreign occupations persist for decades, the rule of law get thrown in the garbage, constitutions be ignored and, in the end, ordinary people finally decide they will not remain outside of history or invisible in their own societies.

Instead, they decide to write themselves into the violent scripts. They kill, as they have been killed. Having been dehumanized in turn, they will embrace inhumanity and brutality.

Who killed Benazir Bhutto? We all killed her, in East and West, Orient and Occident, North and South. We of the globalized beastly generation that transformed political violence from an occasional crime to an ideology and an addiction.

I would point out to the enraged editor that when everyone is to blame, no one is to blame. But I would venture that he already knows that, and that lobbing a blanket accusation against us all is his way of letting the real perpetrators—i.e. the jihadis—off the hook.

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

NOW mired in irrelevance: It was hard to miss the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the first woman to lead a Muslim nation, but somehow, NOW, the American feminist organization, managed to do just that. You can’t fault the feminists, though. They was busy waging battle against the galloping sexism of…an American toy company. James Taranto comments on the now-misnamed NOW (given its irrelevance, it should now be called THEN) on OpinionJournal's Best of the Web:

Benazir Bhutto's assassination was a sort of grim feminist milestone. She was, as far as we can remember, the most important female political figure to be assassinated since Indira Gandhi in 1984. (Another was Safia Ama Jan, an official with Afghanistan's Ministry of Women's Affairs, who was gunned down last year.) And as silly as Hillary Clinton's "fellow mother" comment was, she was right to describe Bhutto as "a pioneering woman"--all the more notably since South Asian Muslim societies are not as forward-looking when it comes to women's roles as we in the West are.

So what does the National Organization for Women, America's premier feminist organization, have to say about Bhutto's life and death? Only this: . We did a search for "Bhutto" on NOW's Web site and it came up empty. The top item under "Hot Topics" on NOW's homepage is "NOW's Naughty List: Stereotyping Toys" Here's NOW head Kim Gandy:

Naturally the NOW office has been abuzz about the ubiquitous "Rose Petal Cottage" TV commercials. If you haven't seen these ads, count yourself lucky. Honestly, if I didn't know better, I would think they were beamed in from 1955, via some lost satellite in space. . . .

According to the makers at Playskool, the Rose Petal Cottage is "a place where her dreams have room to grow." And what might those dreams be? Well, baking muffins, arranging furniture and doing the dishes. The voiceover even declares that the toy house will "entertain her imagination" just before the little girl opens the miniature washing machine and says--I kid you not--"Let's do laundry!" . . .

Through the world of toys, girls and boys are given separate dreams to follow. Girls are prepared for a future of looking pretty, keeping house and taking care of babies. Boys are given a pass on that domain, and instead pointed toward the outside world of challenge, physical development and achievement.

NOW has a different vision. When your daughter grows up, she can follow the example of Kim Gandy: grab a broom and sweep invidious stereotypes right out of the toy aisle! International politics? That's icky, leave it to the boys!

What’s the shock and horror of “Let’s do laundry!” compared to the murder of a leader who should have been—but for some unaccountable reason, apparently was not—a NOW feminist icon?

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:23 | link | comments

Arbour’s award: Louise Arbour, the former Canadian judge who heads up the UN’s Committee for the Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue in Israel, a.k.a the Human Rights Council, has been awarded the highest civilian honour of the land.

Louise is obviously resting on the laurels of her stellar judicial career, since no one with half a clue could possibly see her stewardship of the HRC, the body which sets up the most repressive, tyrannical regimes on the planet to act as the arbiters of international “human rights,” as being worthy of a prize.

Well, maybe a booby prize…

Posted by: scaramouche at 23:25 | link | comments

The Archbish of squish: Don’t expect the head of the Anglican Church, Archbish of Cant Rowan Williams, to act as much of a buttress against the onslaught of jihad. As Brendan O’Neill writes in an amusing—but unsettling—rant, the Archbish is just a big, fat post-Christian tree-loving eco-squish. Just the type to lie down like a compliant dhimmi doormat when confronted by ardent chaps screaming “Allah Akbar”. From Spiked (link via Arts and Letters Daily):

…In his Christmas sermon, delivered at Canterbury Cathedral, Dr Williams finally completed his journey from old-world Christianity to trendy New Ageism. His sermon was indistinguishable from those delivered (not just at Christmas but for life) by the heads of Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth. Williams did not speak about Christian morality; in fact, he didn’t utter the m-word at all. He said little about men’s responsibility to love one another and God, the two Commandments Jesus Christ said we should live by. Instead he talked about our role as janitors on planet Earth, who must stop plundering the ‘warehouse of natural resources’ and ensure that we clean up after ourselves.

Williams has clearly been reading the Good Books – not the Bible, but those Carbon Calculator tomes that are clogging up bookshop shelves around the country, and which instruct people on how to live so meekly that they leave no imprint whatsoever on the planet or human history. He said that Earth does not exist only for ‘humanity’s sake’; it also exists ‘in its own independence and beauty… not as a warehouse of resources to serve humanity’s selfishness’.

Williams warned that our greed – presumably our insatiable lust for warm homes, cars, cookers and other outrageous luxuries – is killing the planet. He welcomed the fact that mankind is ‘growing in awareness of how fragile [the planet] is, how fragile is the balance of species and environments in the world and how easily our greed distorts it’. In 2008, we must take more seriously our ‘guardianship’ of the Earth, he declared (1).

Williams isn’t the only leading Christian who has sold his soul to Gaia and traded in Christian morality for the pieties of environmentalism. The Reverend John Owen, leader of the Presbyterian Church of Wales, said in his Christmas sermon that everyone should remember his or her ‘duty to the planet’. He urged people to recycle leftover food, and ‘redouble [your] efforts to take action and campaign against climate change’ in the coming year (2). Meanwhile, the Vatican is taking steps to become the world’s first carbon-neutral sovereign state by planting trees in a Hungarian national park to offset the CO2 emissions of the Holy See. Cardinal Paul Poupard, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, says that in 2008 there should be the ‘dawn of a new culture, of new attitudes and a new mode of living that makes man aware of his place as caretaker of the earth’ (3).

The reduction of man to an eco-janitor, a being who creates waste and thus must clear it up, is more than a cynical attempt by isolated Christian leaders to connect with the public. Yes, Williams, Owen, the Holy See and Co. no doubt hope and believe (mistakenly, I’m sure) that adopting trendy Greenspeak will entice people to return to the church. But the move from focusing on love for God and one’s neighbour to focusing on ‘respect for the planet’ represents more than a rebranding exercise: it signals a complete abandonment by the Christian churches of the Judaeo-Christian tradition. And in this sense, it is not only God that is being downgraded by the new nature-worshipping priests; so is humanity itself. And that’s enough to make even a committed atheist like me worry about the current direction of the Christian churches.

Me, too. And I’m a Jew.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:19 | link | comments

Bomb(s) away: The great Claudia Rosett, on Bhutto, posthumous hagiography and the Islamic bomb(s):

Following Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, the myth-making is heading into overdrive — depicting the late Bhutto as having been a dependable friend to America, a voice of democracy and the face of salvation for Pakistan. I doubt that was ever true. There are many reasons to deplore her murder and mourn her death — but these do not necessarily imply that if she had survived and returned to power, that would have been the beginning of a better era for Pakistan, or a safer era for America. Bhutto was charismatic, determined, and courageous, and I don’t doubt that she wanted to end Islamic terrorism both inside Pakistan and emanating from it. But the gap between her words and her record was disturbing. When she actually held power as prime minister — not once, but twice — her brand of government, fraught with nepotism and corruption scandals, did not do much to help her country, or end the forces fueling terrorism (or stop Pakistan’s nuclear bomb program and network, for that matter). Rather, it was government of the kind that can give democracy a bad name.

 

Way back in 1988, I interviewed Benazir Bhutto in her hometown of Larkana, Pakistan — where her father is buried. She was then busy with the campaign that led to her first stint as prime minister, and there was plenty to admire in her determination and humor. She had just given birth to her oldest son, she was working 18-hour days, and in answer to a warmup question she confirmed to me with a laugh that she had indeed enjoyed a girlhood passion for romance novels — but had no time anymore for anything but newspapers.

 

Her politics, and priorities, however, were worrisome. Among her campaign slogans was “Socialism is Our Economy,” and her plans for Pakistan included the tired old brand of patronage and state-planning that had by then beggared the subcontinent for decades — and lends itself, anytime, anywhere, to corruption and the erosion of democratic rule. On questions about then-Soviet-occupied Afghanistan, the complex politics of Pakistan, and the Kabul-based Soviet-backed terrorist activities of her brothers (one already murdered at the time, the other killed since) she ducked and weaved in ways that left me worried enough to write at the time: “Ms. Bhutto leaves it far from clear that a new Bhutto administration would bring better times for Pakistan and its allies.”

 

It is possible that this third time around, Benazir Bhutto might have risen to the job. That is now moot. In the wake of this hideous assassination the questions facing those who believed in her, and those more skeptical, have become the same. What now?

 

For Pakistan, there are no simple answers — what was already a volatile and highly dangerous scene has become even less predictable. But there is one glaring message wrapped up in almost every piece of commentary on Bhutto’s murder, and it is this. What happens in the politics of Pakistan today is enormously important to the wider world because Pakistan is a country infested with terrrorists and armed with nuclear weapons. Those bombs are quite a prize for anyone who might seize power. Thus does America now walk a tightrope in its dealings with Pakistan.

 

Meanwhile, we have the flip side of this horrifying arrangement right next door to Pakistan, in Iran — which already has the kind of terror-dedicated government we fear Pakistan might get. Tehran’s regime is busy providing itself with everything needed to make nuclear weapons. And thanks to America’s latest National Intelligence Estimate, with its myopic conclusions, bizarre wording and patently political agenda, the Bush administration seems to have simply scrapped any serious intention of coming between Iran’s mullahs and the bomb.

 

That is a terrible mistake. And while we deplore the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, and brace for the aftershocks in Pakistan, and recite the reasons why it matters so much, the deeper message we ought to be taking from all this is that Pakistan has so far been a cakewalk compared to what we will be dealing with if Iran gets the bomb.

 

Much as I respect Ms. Rosett’s judgement, I think I have to differ with her here. I’d say that,  at the moment, Pakistan, with its 90 nukes, testy jihadists and chronic instability, may pose even more of a threat than Iran.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:06 | link | comments

Hugh and Mark on the mess in Pakistan: Transcript from Hugh Hewitt’s radio show:

HH: …Mark, I just read your post over at the Corner on how Benazir Bhutto represented Pakistan’s past, and today’s tragic assassination of her confirms it. Do you want to expand on what you’re trying to convey with that? 

MS: Yes, I think Benazir Bhutto represented, in a sense, the embers of the Pakistan that Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the country’s founder, wanted to build, which was a country with a Muslim population that generally speaking operated to a secular, socialist, Westernized tradition. Benazir Bhutto, educated at Oxford University, I seem to know…and she was a little bit older than me…I seem to know an inordinate number of her ex-boyfriends I’ve run into at one time or another, urbane Oxford Englishmen, she was quite comfortable dating. She presided, her father was prime minister of Pakistan, not a good prime minister. Benazir Bhutto’s second term was certainly more successful than that. But the idea that this modern, Westernized, glamorous woman would be the solution to Pakistan’s problems in 2007 was a delusion of the State Department, and its logical consequence was her murder today. I weep for her. She was a wonderful woman in many ways. But she should not have gone back to Pakistan, which has profoundly changed.  

HH: I participated in a conference call with Council On Foreign Relations fellow Daniel Markey today, and it’s very depressing. It’s a nation of 160 million people, and at least millions of them are Islamists, and tens of thousands of them violent jihadists. They’ve got 90 nukes, a completely compromised intelligence service, and now a paralyzed political process. And as Stanley Kurtz, the guest next segment, argued in the Claremont Review of Books, Waziristan is sort of extending itself across the entire country of Pakistan. We’ve got a situation that is potentially worse than Afghanistan was, Mark Steyn. 

MS: Well, I think you could, in a sense, Stanley is right. But in a sense, you could say, I think, that Waziristan is extending itself across the entire world, which is that as…a lot of us regard the creation of Pakistan as one of the worst decisions of British imperial policy ever. Lord Mountbatten in 1947 should never have agreed to it. Pakistan’s founder, Jinnah, would have been dead within the year, and who knows then how much momentum there would have been. But in a sense, it developed as the complete opposite of India. India is pluralist, secular, progressive, modern, and Pakistan, instead, has regressed with each generation to the point now where as Stanley points out, what were hitherto relatively modern cities, are now taking on the characteristics of the sort of tribal cave lands, as it were, in their political character. And this is a problem not just for Pakistan, but for where those jihadists export their populations to, which is places like Scandinavia and Britain and Canada.  

HH: And I also worry about these nukes. Now in the past, when Sadat was assassinated in Egypt, Mubarak arrived and immediately clamped down with a repression so severe, people still speak of it in hushed terms. But on this conference today, journalist after journalist asked the Pakistan expert, you know, is this Bush’s fault for pushing too hard, did we push too slow, what will America do now, as though it’s our problem, Mark Steyn, as though we have any…I mean, it is our problem, but we don’t have anything to do with it right now, or very little. 

MS: Well, I think the idea that somehow a guy sitting in Washington can manage a country from thousands of miles away is what got us into this mess. You know, what is it diplomats do? What is it the State Department does? It flies into places, and a lot of the people, Congressman Dreier is a good example, a Congressman flies in, he meets with eminent persons in Islamabad or Karachi, or wherever, and he comes away thinking that these people speak for the country. They don’t. It’s the fierce, implacable young men of 18, 19 and 20, that nobody knows the names of, who never get to meet anybody important, who are Pakistan. That’s what Pakistan is. They’re the people who provide untold numbers of volunteers for the jihad, and who when you say oh, who would like to be the one who blows himself in front, and takes Benazir Bhutto with him, and the whole room puts up its hands. None of those people ever meet with Congressman or Senators, or anyone from the State Department. But they are the reality of Pakistan, and poor Benazir Bhutto, I’m afraid, was a Foggy Bottom delusion.  

HH: You know, a week from now, we might be talking about poor Pervez Musharraf as well. It seems to me that the army is the only institution on which we can have any reliance in Pakistan. And it’s deeply compromised, as everyone who studies the region knows, but the idea that we can rush off to democracy in Pakistan seems to me to be just an absolute illusion, Mark Steyn. 

MS: Yes, and I think you have to look at what has happened, which is that the one safe bet you can make is that Pakistan generally evolves into something worse. You mentioned the army, which was traditionally one of the least corrupt institutions of Pakistan. It has very much, and it honors, people like General Musharraf honor that British-Indian army tradition from which they sprang, and in which they trained. But in recent years, that army, too, has been hollowed out by not just the corruption elements that afflict the political class in Pakistan, but also by Islamism, too. So that a good bet, I would say, is that the Pakistani army, a decade down the road, will be a lot worse than the Pakistani army of the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. And it is the height of arrogance for people to sit around in think tanks and sort of plot courses for this kind of great seething cauldron of anonymous faces on the other side of the world.  

Pakistan has 90 nukes!?

Considering that the religious zanies need only get hold of one or two, we’re in serious flipping trouble.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:22 | link | comments

Oh, please: A letter writer in the Globe and Mail compares Canadian leaders unfavourably with the late Ms. Bhutto:

Canada’s current political landscape might look markedly different if politicians possessed the integrity and personal courage of Benazir Bhutto. Democratic rule throughout the world, particularly in developing countries, has suffered an immeasurable loss.

How might Canada’s “political landscape” look if our politicians were more like Bhutto?  Even were it to be infused with her “personal courage,” it would probably look a lot more like Pakistan. In which case thanks all the same, but I think I’ll go with the “landscape” we have.

Globe columnist Marcus Gee offers a far less rapturous assessment of Ms. Bhutto’s political abilities:

Few world leaders have raised such extravagant expectations as Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto.

Smart, brave, glamorous, she charmed the world when she became the first woman elected prime minister of a Muslim nation at age 35 and charmed it again when she returned from exile this fall to defy death threats and campaign for democracy.

Here, dreamed the outside world, was the woman who might "fix" Pakistan, transforming a chaotic nuclear-armed nation of 160 million into a functioning, progressive Islamic state.

Fond hope. The sad truth is that in two terms as prime minister and a quarter century in the political game, Ms. Bhutto made very little difference to the feudal, often poisonous nature of Pakistani politics.

In fact, in many ways she embodied it.

Her stints as prime minister were marked by the same corruption that seems to cling to every Pakistani regime. Like every leader of Pakistan, she played footsie with Islamic extremists, helping the Taliban's rise to power in neighbouring Afghanistan. And like every civilian leader of Pakistan, she made backroom deals with the all-powerful armed forces, undermining her claims to be a bold crusader against military rule.

Imperious by nature, she ruled her Pakistan Peoples Party like a martinet, inheriting its leadership from her executed father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and calling herself "chairperson for life."

By the time she came back home in October to try for a third go-round, many Pakistanis had soured on her. Pollsters for Washington's International Republican Institute found that just 27 per cent of Pakistanis believed her when she said she was coming back to foster democracy; 47 per cent said she was only trying to "improve her personal situation."

Yet in the West, she was lionized as the Daughter of the East (the title of her 1989 autobiography) who might deliver Pakistan from the twin evils of dictatorship and extremism.

"I know that I am a symbol of what the so-called jihadists, Taliban and al-Qaeda, most fear," she wrote in a new preface to the autobiography last April. "I am a female political leader fighting to bring modernity, communication, education and technology to Pakistan."

That was a message that went down like strawberries and cream in Washington. The United States pressured Pakistan's military-backed strongman, Pervez Musharraf, to let Ms. Bhutto return to Pakistan in April, taking heart when the two negotiated over a possible power-sharing deal.

"She always told us what we wanted to hear," said Marvin Weinbaum, a Pakistan expert at Washington's Middle East Institute, "so we overestimated what she could deliver."…

We’ll never know for sure, of course, what she could or could not deliver. It seems clear, though, that Ms. Bhutto died as a direct result of her “personal courage” (inseparable from her personal ambition) as well as the Bush administration’s “misoverestimation” of what democracy—its panacea for world ills—could bring to the terminal mess that is the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:47 | link | comments

Reality check: Someone else who refuses to partake in the posthumous pieties—Andrew McCarthy on NRO:

A recent CNN poll howed that 46 percent of Pakistanis approve of Osama bin Laden.

Aspirants to the American presidency should hope to score so highly in the United States. In Pakistan, though, the al-Qaeda emir easily beat out that country’s current president, Pervez Musharraf, who polled at 38 percent.

President George Bush, the face of a campaign to bring democracy — or, at least, some form of sharia-lite that might pass for democracy — to the Islamic world, registered nine percent. Nine!

If you want to know what to make of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s murder today in Pakistan, ponder that.

There is the Pakistan of our fantasy. The burgeoning democracy in whose vanguard are judges and lawyers and human rights activists using the “rule of law” as a cudgel to bring down a military junta. In the fantasy, Bhutto, an attractive, American-educated socialist whose prominent family made common cause with Soviets and whose tenures were rife with corruption, was somehow the second coming of James Madison.

Then there is the real Pakistan: an enemy of the United States and the West.

The real Pakistan is a breeding ground of Islamic holy war where, for about half the population, the only thing more intolerable than Western democracy is the prospect of a faux democracy led by a woman — indeed, a product of feudal Pakistani privilege and secular Western breeding whose father, President Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto, had been branded as an enemy of Islam by influential Muslim clerics in the early 1970s.

The real Pakistan is a place where the intelligence services are salted with Islamic fundamentalists: jihadist sympathizers who, during the 1980s, steered hundreds of millions in U.S. aid for the anti-Soviet mujahideen to the most anti-Western Afghan fighters — warlords like Gilbuddin Hekmatyar whose Arab allies included bin Laden and Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, the stalwarts of today’s global jihad against America.

The real Pakistan is a place where the military, ineffective and half-hearted though it is in combating Islamic terror, is the thin line between today’s boiling pot and what tomorrow is more likely to be a jihadist nuclear power than a Western-style democracy.

In that real Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto’s murder is not shocking. There, it was a matter of when, not if.

It is the new way of warfare to proclaim that our quarrel is never with the heroic, struggling people of fill-in-the-blank country. No, we, of course, fight only the regime that oppresses them and frustrates their unquestionable desire for freedom and equality.

Pakistan just won’t cooperate with this noble narrative.

Whether we get round to admitting it or not, in Pakistan, our quarrel is with the people. Their struggle, literally, is jihad. For them, freedom would mean institutionalizing the tyranny of Islamic fundamentalism. They are the same people who, only a few weeks ago, tried to kill Benazir Bhutto on what was to be her triumphant return to prominence — the symbol, however dubious, of democracy’s promise. They are the same people who managed to kill her today. Today, no surfeit of Western media depicting angry lawyers railing about Musharraf — as if he were the problem — can camouflage that fact…

I’m not so sure. It’s far more comforting for much of the mainstream media to rail against Musharraf, that scoundrel!, that Bush lackey!, than to have to look beneath the camouflage and deal with the horrifying reality of the global jihad.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:18 | link | comments

CSI Islamabad: A gruesome report from Reuters.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:57 | link | comments

The talk cure: Ceeb opiner Georgie Binks (hard to take seriously anyone with such a name) asks whether Bhutto’s assassination means that Pakistan’s problems are too big for it to solve on its own. The perspicacious Ms. Binks, quoting a clever academic, concludes that that’s indeed the case, and offers the following by way of a “solution”:

With Pakistan’s upcoming elections less than two weeks away and the prospect that Benazir Bhutto stood a good chance of becoming prime minister, the country's political future may have appeared rosier than it had in a long time.

However, with Bhutto’s assassination comes the depressing reality the country will continue to experience the same unrest that has plagued it since it gained independence 60 years ago.

With this latest act of violence this week, it seems increasingly evident Pakistan’s political turmoil may simply be too much for the country to solve on its own, despite assertions by Mahmud Ali Durrani — Pakistan's ambassador to the U.S. — that Pakistanis are a toughened lot, have survived much turmoil and upheaval in their history, and "will get past this."

Not so optimistic

Other experts on the region said it’s time world powers stepped in to guide the country through this turbulent period, but any involvement must be conducted carefully.

"This assassination is an attack on Pakistan itself," said Carleton University Prof. Elliot Tepper, a specialist in Asian studies. "Because the region is so vital to world peace, it’s time the friends of Pakistan rallied. Those who have not had as cordial a relationship with Pakistan also need to consider their position seriously."

That means countries like the United States, Britain, China and even Canada need to step up to the plate. "The United States is the biggest single player in this whole scenario," Tepper added. "Its engagement with Pakistan, Afghanistan and India, as well being the only superpower at the moment in the global war on terror, gives it a unique position."

That doesn’t mean military intervention, but rather a strong statement from the government supporting democratic elections…

Yeah, that should do the trick.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:50 | link | comments (1)

He has come to bury Bhutto, not to praise her: Ralph Peters, speaking ill of the dead in the New York Post:

FOR the next several days, you're going to read and hear a great deal of pious nonsense in the wake of the assassination of Pakistan's former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto.

Her country's better off without her. She may serve Pakistan better after her death than she did in life.

We need have no sympathy with her Islamist assassin and the extremists behind him to recognize that Bhutto was corrupt, divisive, dishonest and utterly devoid of genuine concern for her country.

She was a splendid con, persuading otherwise cynical Western politicians and "hardheaded" journalists that she was not only a brave woman crusading in the Islamic wilderness, but also a thoroughbred democrat.

In fact, Bhutto was a frivolously wealthy feudal landlord amid bleak poverty. The scion of a thieving political dynasty, she was always more concerned with power than with the wellbeing of the average Pakistani. Her program remained one of old-school patronage, not increased productivity or social decency.

Educated in expensive Western schools, she permitted Pakistan's feeble education system to rot - opening the door to Islamists and their religious schools.

During her years as prime minister, Pakistan went backward, not forward. Her husband looted shamelessly and ended up fleeing the country, pursued by the courts. The Islamist threat - which she artfully played both ways - spread like cancer.

But she always knew how to work Westerners - unlike the hapless Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who sought the best for his tormented country but never knew how to package himself.

Military regimes are never appealing to Western sensibilities. Yet, there are desperate hours when they provide the only, slim hope for a country nearing collapse. Democracy is certainly preferable - but, unfortunately, it's not always immediately possible. Like spoiled children, we have to have it now - and damn the consequences.

In Pakistan, the military has its own forms of graft; nonetheless, it remains the least corrupt institution in the country and the only force holding an unnatural state together. In Pakistan back in the '90s, the only people I met who cared a whit about the common man were military officers.

Americans don't like to hear that. But it's the truth…

Here’s another truth: “Democracy”—or at least, going through the motions of democracy by casting a ballot for a leader—isn’t necessarily the cure for every ill in every country at every time.

One need only cast a glance at what’s been going on in Gaza and the West Bank to see the truth of that. (So why, oh why, can’t George and Condi see it too?)

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:32 | link | comments

Loony lefties: At a family Channukah party this year, a cousin who sees things as I do made this pithy observation: “The Left,” he said, “is insane.”

He’s correct—and here’s the proof.

Also here.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:47 | link | comments

Sultan’s explanation: In an interview with FrontPage Magazine, Wafa Sultan, a brave and trenchant critic of Islamic supremacism, comments on the murder of Toronto’s Aqsa Parvez:

Sultan: The crime committed by Aqsa Parvez’s father is a direct product of the Islamic education he received and the influence of the culture he grew up in. I believe that Muslim men, who adhere to these types of immoral deeds, have become criminals by their Islamic induced indoctrination. This is not an isolated case. Similar crimes have been committed daily in various Islamic countries for the last fourteen hundreds years. The Muslim community at large has been muted and has not condemned these types of crimes. Therefore, the civilized world must take strong action against these brutal offenses.

Western governments need to monitor incoming Muslim immigrants and we should also initiate a proper mechanism within the current Islamic enclaves in the west, to rehabilitate those influenced by Islamism and help them learn to cherish our own western human rights standards.

Regarding this particular crime, I am not a law expert, but it made me so furious when I read that the Canadian court has not decided yet if it is going to consider this crime as first or second degree murder. I think the defendant (the father) should be triad (sic) and convicted for first degree murder as a deterrent and a means to send a clear message to the Islamic community that the nature of these heinous crimes are unacceptable.

FP: Many Muslims and the leftist media are arguing that Aqsa Parvez’s murder had nothing to do with Islam. A father orders his daughter to wear the veil and to submit to other dehumanizing rules of Islamic gender apartheid and she resists and he kills her -- but this has nothing to do with Islam. Am I missing something here?

The last time an atheist or Buddhist or Catholic father killed his daughter because she refused to veil herself was when exactly? A father kills his daughter because he tries to force the rules of his religion on her -- but this has nothing to do with his religion? What is this pathology among many Muslims and Western leftists to absolve Islam of what it fertilizes into earthly incarnation? And if this is not about Islam, then where are all the Muslim clerics who are outraged that this has happened and are now issuing fatwas that veiling can never be forced on a woman and that it must always be her choice?

Sultan: I am not surprised that many Muslims deny correlation between Islam and honor killing. Denial is their way to conceal reality. After all, according to them, Sept 11^th as well as suicide bombing phenomenon, honor killing and the daily terror acts perpetrated by Muslims all over the world, have nothing to do with Islam. They conveniently blame Israel and American foreign policy for all miseries inflicted by Muslims, so naturally they obscure the roots of the commonly practiced murders as that of Aqsa Parvez’s. In Pakistan for example, almost daily at least two women are murdered, legitimized as honor killing. Often it’s excused as a cultural phenomenon. Islamic countries do have diverse cultures. In that case, why is honor killing so widespread in the Islamic world? For how long will Muslims mislead the world regarding the nature of Islamic teachings and its culture?

Regarding the leftist media, I wonder what they really know about Islam. What do they base their opinions on? Do they comprehend the extent of the hatred and disrespect the Quran and Hadith instill on men against their women? Are they aware of the numerous Quranic verses like Sura 4.32 where Allah permits husbands to admonish their wives, refuse to share their beds and allows beating them? It’s an utter disgrace for women, especially in the free world to defend and excuse such values.

FP: What do you think about the poll conducted last May among U.S. Muslims that revealed that one in four younger U.S. Muslims support suicide bombings? How come almost none has heard of this and the media didn’t even seem to mention it?

Sultan: I am not surprised to learn the results. I must acknowledge that young Muslims in the US who believe that suicide bombing is justified are well-versed in their religious teaching. The idea of becoming a Shaheed (martyr) by means of suicide is indeed deeply rooted in the Islamic belief system. The Quran states:

“Allah hath purchased of the believers their persons and their goods, for theirs (in return) is the Garden (of Paradise ): They fight in His Cause, and slay and are slain” (9/111).

I believe that Muslim clerics in the US have explained this verse in the same way that the clerics in Syria had explained it to me at young age. Growing up, I had always believed that suicide bombing was justified for the cause of being a martyr.

The poll results should motivate us to come up with firm ways to face this crisis. We should inspect what is being taught at Islamic schools and mosques here in the US to identify and treat properly the causing factors of this epidemic.

FP: What is your response to Muslim women who claim that it's their own decision to cover themselves? What is your opinion regarding the veil?

Sultan: Let me tell you a short story:

In 2005, I traveled to Syria with my American friend. We visited a small Syrian Island (Erwad). My friend noticed that the majority of women in that place were head covered. I asked our tour guide to explain the reasoning behind it. I asked; “are ALL women in this island covered? Without any hesitation he responded; “Yes, they are ALL covered except for few whores.”

So, yes, it might be their decision, but it’s not their choice. When you make a decision, your society does not necessarily allow you to freely choose. The decision in this case is made to avoid humiliation and reprisal by the Muslim community around these women.

Here in the west, I believe that wearing the Hijab is a way for women to identify themselves as Muslims. It is also a tool for Muslims to prove their superiority over other non Muslims and for Muslim man to control their women. Thus, it’s interesting to note that increased number of veiled Muslim women goes hand in hand with Islamic radicalization. There is a symbiotic relationship between the two. Likewise, head cover had been used to differentiate between “true” Muslim women and the inferior female slaves and it has been that way since then.

Lastly, I must mention that I find it unwise for non-Muslim western women to cover their head for show of respect when they visit Muslim lands (One example is Barbara Walters when she interviewed the Saudi King). This attempt to display their respect to Muslims would have been proper if Muslims respected western values equally. Unfortunately, it is not the case; so in essence, by this type of pacification we weaken our own resolve to demand equal respect.

We can “demand” it all we want; head scarf or no head scarf, we ain’t getting it.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:28 | link | comments

One faction pushed for a broom, while the other one wanted to go with a Swiffer: The custodians of Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity have had a bit of a dust-up—over how to clean the Church. From Breitbart:

Seven people were injured on Thursday when Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests came to blows in a dispute over how to clean the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

Following the Christmas celebrations, Greek Orthodox priests set up ladders to clean the walls and ceilings of their part of the church, which is built over the site where Jesus Christ is believed to have been born.

But the ladders encroached on space controlled by Armenian priests, according to photographers who said angry words ensued and blows quickly followed.

For a quarter of an hour bearded and robed priests laid into each other with fists, brooms and iron rods while the photographers who had come to take pictures of the annual cleaning ceremony recorded the whole event.

A dozen unarmed Palestinian policemen were sent to try to separate the priests, but two of them were also injured in the unholy melee.

"As usual the cleaning of the church afer Christmas is a cause of problems," Bethlehem Mayor Victor Batarseh told AFP, adding that he has offered to help ease tensions.

"For the two years that I have been here everything went more or less calmly," he said. "It's all finished now."…

Well, there’s always next year.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:17 | link | comments

Egregious understatement: A Foggy Bottom spokesperson has condemned the Bhutto assassination, saying that “it demonstrates that there are still those in Pakistan who want to subvert reconciliation and efforts to advance democracy.”

No kidding.

An example of the kind of blinding insight that, alas, has become par for the course at the Foggy Bottom Golf and Pragmatist Club.

Update: Here's President Bush on the assassination. From Breitbart via AP:

President Bush demanded Thursday that those responsible for killing former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir be brought to justice.

"The United States strongly condemns this cowardly act by murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan's democracy," he said. "Those who committed this crime must be brought to justice."

The president looked tense in delivering a brief statement to reporters at a hangar near his Crawford ranch in central Texas. He took no questions. His appearance came as U.S. officials here scrambled to cope with the immense policy implications involving a nuclear-armed country that has received billions in American financial assistance and has been an ally in the war on terrorism.

Bush expressed his deepest condolences to Bhutto's family and to the families of others slain in the attack and to all the people of Pakistan. And the White House also reached out to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, said spokesman Scott Stanzel. He said Bush planned to speak with Musharraf as soon as it can be arranged later Thursday.

"Mrs. Bhutto served her nation twice as prime minister and she knew that her return to Pakistan earlier this year put her life at risk, yet she refused to allow assassins to dictate the course of her country," Bush said.

"We stand with the people of Pakistan in their struggle against the forces of terror and extremism. We urge them to honor Benazir Bhutto's memory by continuing with the democratic process for which she so bravely gave her life," he said.

Here's me, chaneling and paraphrasing Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men, re: the prospects for Pakistan's "democratic process": They can't handle democracy.

Update: Cliff May in The Corner:

Bhutto's murder points to a lesson we (the Foreign Policy Establishment in particular) has been slow to learn:

This is not some extraordinary event. This is not the work of some lone madman. This is how militant Islamists contest elections – not just in Pakistan but also in Lebanon and Gaza and wherever they they get a foothold.

Why bother with opeds, TV commercials, high-priced campaign strategists, spin doctors and pollsters when with one suicide bomber you can eliminate your opponent entirely?

Hard to argue with the logic.

Indeed.

Update: As is usually the case, Mark Steyn "gets it."

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:57 | link | comments

A “just peace,” Arab-style: A Christian Palestinian journalist attributes American support for Israel to Bush’s evangelistic streak.

Bollocks.

But now that Bush has embraced a more “pragmatic” approach, Christian Zionists aren’t likely to be so “one-sided” in their support any more.

Double bollocks.

From the Globe and Mail (a publication that’s always pleased to offer itself up as a soapbox for Israel-bashers):

…Most Arabs don't understand the ideological underpinnings for U.S. support to Israel, which many believe contradicts overall U.S. interests in the region.

One explanation for this special relationship has to do with a strange blend of faith and politics. Mr. Bush, in particular, uses frequent references to divine calling to explain his approach to foreign policy. This unholy mix of religion and policy is best exemplified by the theology and policies of what are commonly referred to as Christian Zionists. These fundamentalist Christians (often, mistakenly, referred to as evangelicals), use their interpretation of the Bible to justify support for Israel and its hard-line policies.

But, after many years of being closely in sync, Mr. Bush and the Christian Zionists are showing signs of a falling-out.

Following the one-day meeting in Annapolis, Md., late in November, aimed at kick-starting Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, a leading pro-Israeli Christian group, The Jerusalem Connection International, stated that “the evangelical support for Israel is shrinking.”

The Jerusalem Connection, which highlights the letters USA in the middle of the word Jerusalem, is run by a retired U.S. Army brigadier-general, Rev. James Hutchens. Mr. Hutchens, who demonstrated in protest along with other Christian Zionists outside the Annapolis summit, blames the reduction in support for Israel on a handful of evangelical leaders who signed a statement supporting a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The 80 leading Christian evangelical leaders, who signed the statement published in the Nov. 28 edition of Christianity Today, are perhaps the best and brightest among U.S. evangelicals. They are not, as Mr. Hutchens describes them, “naive, misguided and dead wrong about Israel.” They have become more vocal of late, but their position follows years of commitment to a just peace.

Evangelical leaders, such as Prof. Ron Sider of Evangelicals for Social Action, have been joined by presidents of Christian universities (such as Wheaton College) and theological seminaries (such as Fuller), heads of major charities (such as World Vision) and editors of publications such as Christian Today and Sojourners. All are calling for a balanced solution to the conflict.

Christian Zionism has suffered of late from a strong theological attack of their hawkish ideas from fellow evangelicals. Critiques from learned leaders such as Rev. Don Wagner of North Park University and Rev. Steven Sizer of Britain have attacked what they see as the theological inconsistencies of the Christian Zionist advocates. The book Whose Promised Land? by Rev. Colin Chapman (now in its fourth edition) laid the ground for debunking religious terminology that justified aggression against Palestinians.

Palestinian Christian leaders, led by Rev. Canon Naim Ateek, director of the Jerusalem-based Sabeel Ecumenical Theological Centre, has also been a major contributor in the weakening of both theology and its application. They have rejected the warped attempts by some Christians in the West to use the Bible in defence of Israeli settlers in the West Bank and Gaza.

The Christian Zionists also have been weakened by the failures of some of the policies put forward by their man in the White House. The failure of the Iraq occupation, a product of divine calling, according to Mr. Bush, has recently been followed by the intelligence report on Iran that contradicted arguments being made by Israel and its Christian Zionist allies. All this has had a significant cooling effect.

The rise and fall of religious fundamentalism has often paralleled political success or failures. Fundamentalist Jews were so excited by Israel's 1967 victory that they began an expansionist settlement program in the West Bank (which they called by its Biblical names Judea and Samaria). That program persists to this day. The Khomeini revolution in Iran encouraged an export of radical Islam. For Christian Zionists, the ascension of Mr. Bush and Ariel Sharon were signs from God that their radical theology was finding an executive arm.

Mr. Bush's apparent rollback from the Christian Zionists could produce a more pragmatic regional policy. That is something that peace-loving Christians, Muslims and Jews will all welcome.

And the “more pragmatic regional policy” this writer and other “peace-lovers” like him would most welcome is the end of Jewish sovereignty in Israel.  However, you’d have to read between the lines and do a little research on the Jerusalem-based Sabeel  Ecumenical Theological Centre (full name, the Sabeel Ecumenical  Liberation Theological Centre—funny  how he left out the “liberation” part—to uncover the truth). From Honest Reporting:

…(W)hy does Christian anti-Israel sentiment continue to appear in the media and elsewhere? One driving force behind this is the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center. According to NGO Monitor, Sabeel is active in promoting an extreme anti-Israel agenda in Protestant churches in both North America and Europe. Sabeel's efforts have promoted the campaign to isolate and delegitimize Israel through the divestment campaign, which have recently been adopted by some church organizations.

As noted in a detailed study by Robert Everett and Dexter Van Zile, and cited in their Jerusalem Post article of July 10, 2005 "Reawakening the teachings of contempt", Sabeel is a major factor in extremist Christian anti-Israel activism. Sabeel's statements consistently highlight Palestinian suffering and place blame on Israel, while ignoring such issues as corruption within the Palestinian Authority, violence perpetrated against Israelis and Palestinians alike by armed Palestinian militias, and attacks against Christian Arabs.

Sabeel director Naim Ateek employs classical antisemitic theological themes, as reflected in the 2001 Sabeel "Easter message": "it seems to many of us that Jesus is on the cross again with thousands of crucified Palestinians around him. […] The Israeli government crucifixion system is operating daily." In similar messages, such as a February 2001 sermon, Ateek accuses Israel of killing Jesus (the Palestinians) as infant, prophet and messiah: "Israel has placed a large boulder, a big stone that has metaphorically shut off the Palestinians in a tomb. It is similar to the stone placed on the entrance of Jesus' tomb…"

For more on Sabeel, see CAMERA's recent analysis.

The same Honest Reporting alert reveals that there may not be too many “peace-loving” Christians left in the Palestinians by the time that “one state power-sharing solution” comes into effect.  They are being treated so brutally by their Muslim “brothers” in Gaza and the West Bank, that they are expected to vacate the premises entirely within the next 15 years.

In other words, no “just peace.” Just more Islam.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:37 | link | comments

Bhutto assassinated: A "moderate" Muslim (and I don't mean Harpoon Siddiqui) takes stock:

First they blew up the Jews,
But I wanted the Jews out of Israel so I did not speak out.
Then they blew up the World Trade Center,
But I hated the U.S. for supporting Israel so I did not speak out.
And for a long time now they've been blowing up Muslims,
But since, as they say,
It only "a tiny minority of extremists" who are doing the blowing up,
And since I can't possibly be expected to stand up to all of them,
'Cause they're likely to do to me
What the jihadists (or was it the Musharrafists?)
Have just done to Benazir Bhutto,
There is going to be no one left to speak
For me when they eventually get me too.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:57 | link | comments

Denial flows wide and deep in Germany: Yesterday I quoted T.S. Eliot’s observation that “Human kind cannot bear very much reality.” Both left and right in Germany—who refuse to accept the unpleasant truths unveiled in a recent survey—are affirming the veracity of that statement (though not, of course, on purpose). From Der Spiegel:

A study released on Tuesday by Germany's Interior Ministry raised questions about the integration of Muslims in Germany. The country's newspapers on Friday, having digested the report, reacted with skepticism and a lack of surprise.

On Tuesday a new study was released by the German Interior Ministry that polled nearly 2,000 Muslims living in Germany -- and immediately stirred strong reactions.

According to the study (more...), approximately 40 percent of Muslims surveyed had a "fundamentalist orientation," which was equated with a strongly religious worldview and moral values. The report also concluded that the vast majority of Muslims in Germany, 92 percent, reject religiously motivated terrorism and violence.

Other numbers were less appealing: Around 6 percent of those surveyed were classified as having "violent tendencies," and 14 percent of respondents had "anti-democratic" tendencies, the report says.

Dissent from the report's findings was sounded quickly. Warning of a misinterpretation of the study's conclusions, Jürgen Mansel, a sociologist at the University of Bielefeld, told the Berliner Zeitung on Friday that "there is no evidence that there is more of a violent tendency among Muslims or immigrants than there is among other groups in Germany." Meanwhile, the head of the evangelical church in Germany, Wolfgang Huber, noted in an interview with the Associated Press how dialogue between Muslims and Christians has taken on a new quality in recent years.

The authors of the report interviewed 1,750 Muslims living in Germany for the study. Of that number, around 40 percent had German citizenship.

The German newspapers on Friday reacted to the study with measured skepticism and a lack of suprise over the findings.

 The left-leaning Die Tageszeitung writes:

"Actually, the study's findings should have a calming effect. They're definitely not surprising. Some Muslim-haters may now feel justified. More generally, though, the study offers very little substance. Just the opposite, in fact: When compared with ethnic Germans and non-Muslim immigrants from the same educational and socio-economic backgrounds, one finds comparable attitudes. And an overwhelming majority of Muslims disapprove of terror in the name of Islam."

"Other findings are truly alarming: A solid majority of Muslim respondents said that they had felt discriminated against because of their ethnicity. Given this, falling back on one's religion seems a logical consequence. Like German youth who flee toward the far-right, many immigrant youth are searching for their own healing in radical Islam. It's too much for society to just go back to business as usual."

The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:

"When a Muslim gives his up his life in an armed struggle for his beliefs, he goes to paradise -- 40 percent of Muslims in the Interior Ministry's report apparently believe this nonsense. This is shocking. So is the 14 percent of Muslims who object to democracy ... In the eyes of Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, Germany therefore has an Islamism (plus a terrorism) problem."

"But 'prepared for violence' is as mushy as it is questionable. So is whether or not 'Islam' plays a more dominant role here than social problems or the effects of discrimination remain unanswered questions. And if you poll Germans about anti-democratic, xenophobic, or anti-Semitic attitudes, as the sociologist Wilhelm Hartmeyer does, one sees minimal differences. That's not good news, but it does quell some of the commotion."

The conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:

"'We Know Very Little.' This is how one should summarize the results of an Interior Ministry poll of Muslims in Germany. Another title could have been: 'Who Would Have Thought?' Forty percent of German Muslims have a clear religious worldview and moral values; they are therefore supposedly 'fundamentalist-oriented.' Six percent are said to have 'violent tendencies.' That there exists a 'clear connection' between 'poor social integration and fundamentalist religious orientation' is anything but surprising -- and it's worth noting that not many Muslim terrorists originate in poverty."

"One can conclude from the study that anti-democratic attitudes are about the same for Muslims and (non-Muslim) Germans. In no way could one conclude that Islam more strongly cultivates an anti-democratic attitude. No study would be allowed to come to this conclusion, at least not publicly.”

Of course not. There would be hell to pay were one to come to such a conclusion.

Oh, wait: one just did. Hell to pay in five, four, three, two...

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:32 | link | comments

Do Bee Do Bee Do: Nahoul, Hamas TV's "adorable" killer bee is at it again, advising all the kiddies to go and nail a Jew or two (or two hundred) today.

In "honour" of Nahoul, that nutty buggins, I've revised an Old Blue Eyes hit. See if you can guess which one:

Shaheeds in the morn
There on the TV
Where it is the norm
To be so skeevy.
Nahoul cheers 'em on
To posthumous glor-ee.
Something in the air
Was really stinking.
Hatred ev'rywhere
Without much thinking.
Blind submission there
As anyone can see.

Shaheeds in the morn
Who know the Prophet sez that they will be reborn
Up there in Heaven where they’ll hook up with the chicks
Who know some sexy tricks.
Love is just a 'splode away
And life's a paltry price to pay...and

Ever since Farfour
They've been inspired
To go off some Yids,
Do what's required.
Please reserve your scorn
For shaheeds in the morn...

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:11 | link | comments

Channeling the left: What’s up with the National Post today? It picks up this repellent story from Bloomberg News about how some hippy, dippy, snippy Israelis have decamped to India, where they are bad mouthing their religion and their former country to the locals. Next, there’s this loco editorial, about how building homes for Jews in Jerusalem constitutes “A needless provocation.” (You know, like publishing those Mo 'toons.)

Why, if you didn’t know any better, you’d think you were reading the Toronto Star.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:37 | link | comments

Boo, hiss for Pallywood: Honest Reporting sent me its look at Pallywood's latest ouevre, inspiring me to write the following parody (with apologies to the late, great Johnny Mercer):

Boo, hiss for Pallywood!

Splenetic, a-Semitic Pallywood.

Where any French news guy who's of the tribe'll

Spread blood libel

By faking a report

That shows how Jews’ll

For their amusal

Shoot a Pali laddie

For their own sick sport.

Boo, hiss for Pallywood.

Demented, documented Pallywood.

Where ev'ry Zionist is so demonic

That it’s a tonic

To see them get their due.

Come on and smear the Yids,

Fun for both ‘dults and kids!

Boo, hiss for Pallywood.

 

Boo, hiss for Pallywood!

That fakey, rattle-snakey Pallywood.

Where they are tearing down a reputation                                                           

So that a nation’s

Dismantled bit by bit.

And lots of lies

Aren't even in disguise

‘Cause people’ll believe the most outrageous sh*t.

Boo, hiss for Pallywood!

It should be clear it’s up to no damn good.

It’s so determined to do dirt and damage,

All it can manage,

Till Israel’s brought down.

It’s so suffused with hate

For the “apartheid state.”

Boo, hiss for Pallywood!

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

Egypt’s dangerous game: The U.S. throws mega-bucks in jizya at Egypt every year, its reward for maintaining “peaceful” relations with Israel. In fact, Egypt is a cesspool of Judenhass and a duplicitous double-dealer, pretending to be a moderating influence in the Middle East while sneaking arms to the jihadis in Gaza. And that can only mean one thing: this year the U.S. will reward them with even more jizya. From the New York Sun:

UNITED NATIONS — On the eve of a Cairo meeting of top Egyptian and Israeli leaders, officials in Israel and Egypt are trading accusations that each is undermining peace in the region, trying to enlist the Bush administration and Congress to support their arguments.

One of Israel's most hawkish figures on relations with Egypt, the former head of the Knesset's powerful defense and foreign relations committee, Yuval Steinitz of the Likud Party, accused the foreign ministry of appeasing Cairo by concealing from the American Congress videotaped evidence showing Egyptian soldiers actively helping in weapons smuggling into the Hamas-controlled Gaza strip. Israel's foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, also accused Egypt of playing a "terrible" role in the border area known as the Philadelphi Corridor.

Israel's defense minister, Ehud Barak, is due to arrive in Cairo today, where he is expected to raise with President Mubarak issues like the Gaza weapons smuggling and negotiations for the release of an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, who is believed to be held in Gaza by a terrorist group. Ahead of the visit, Jerusalem officials attempted to lower the rhetoric.

"Egypt is the largest, most prominent, and most powerful Arab state, and we have peaceful relations with it," Israel's foreign ministry spokesman, Aryeh Mekel, told The New York Sun yesterday. "The advantage of having such peaceful relations is that you can sit down and discuss such issues. And that is exactly what Barak intends to do." But on Monday, Ms. Livni was much more pointed as she appeared in front of the Knesset's defense and foreign relations committee.

"Egypt's role at Annapolis was positive," she said. "But that does not negate the fact that that its activity in the Philadelphi Corridor is terrible and problematic." Such activity, she added, undermines more "pragmatic players" in Gaza and the West Bank…

Where are those much-vaunted “pragmatics”? As far as I can tell, they’re not even in the game, if they indeed exist at all.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:15 | link | comments

The Shtetlization of Israel: In her brilliant book, Jews and Power, Ruth Wisse examines the historical modus operendi of Jews when they had no power—after the dispersion and before the modern Jewish state came into being—and when they finally acquired some power—once Israel was up and running. Her conclusion: having power is far better than being forced to bow and scrape in an effort to placate those hate you, and who may take it into their heads to kill you or throw you out of their county. Today, however, Israel’s current crop of feckless leaders, seem to be reverting to the timid, servile modus operendi of their powerless ancestors, all in an effort to placate the superpower that keeps Israel afloat. Michael Freund of the Jerusalem Post derides this type of pandering as “shtetl diplomacy”:

…To some extent, all this back-and-forth trekking by American officials brings to mind Henry Kissinger's "shuttle diplomacy" after the Yom Kippur War, when he sought to bring about the signing of an interim agreement between Israel and Egypt.

BUT IN fact what we are witnessing now is something much worse. It is what I refer to as "shtetl diplomacy," which is when the sovereign government of the State of Israel reverts back to the age of Jewish powerlessness in 19th century Eastern Europe and acts accordingly.

Instead of doing what is in Israel's best interests, such as strengthening the Jewish presence in Jerusalem and putting an end to Palestinian rocket attacks on Sderot and the Negev, the government turns to Washington for its marching orders.

The result is that our government seems to show more concern for what the US State Department thinks than what the Israeli public deserves.

This hyper-sensitivity to the sentiments of others, even when it comes at the expense of our national security, was on clear display last week. As the Post reported, Israel has refrained from sharing videotapes with the US Congress which prove that Cairo is assisting Hamas with arms smuggling in order "to avoid infuriating the Egyptians."

That's right. We're so afraid of what Hosni Mubarak might think, that we don't want to risk offending him, even if he continues to brazenly arm our enemies.

And as if that weren't absurd enough, Israel also retreated last week from plans to revive a Jewish neighborhood in northern Jerusalem. Less than 24 hours after Haaretz revealed the Housing Ministry's proposal to build thousands of apartments in Atarot, Minister Ze'ev Boim was quick to back-track, with his spokesman admitting the idea had been shelved because of the "peace process."

The Olmert government seems to have forgotten that a sovereign state is not supposed to behave like a submissive serf, but rather like a proud and independent entity.

And that is why it is time to try something radically different. Instead of "shuttle diplomacy" or "shtetl diplomacy," neither of which has worked very well, let's take a page out of the sports sections of American newspapers and give "steroids diplomacy" a try.

As a report issued two weeks ago by former US senator George Mitchell revealed, American baseball players have produced record-breaking results over the past decade thanks in no small measure to the illicit substances, which enhanced their strength and improved their feats.

Scrawny players were transformed into muscle-bound hulks, while meek performers became fearless competitors on the field of play.

Doesn't that sound exactly like what Israel's negotiators so desperately need? Sure, steroids are illegal, but then again, matters of legality have never been this government's strongest point.

Perhaps a little injection of some "Jewish growth hormone," along with an added dose of national pride, would finally do the trick, and help our government to protect the nation's interests rather than forgo them.

Given the way in which they have been conducting themselves of late, a bit of "steroids diplomacy" might just give our feeble leaders the boost they need to stop retreating and to start fighting for what is rightfully ours.

You can’t expect Ehud Olmert, the proverbial 98-lb. weakling, to perform in a “pumped up” manner. That is clearly beyond his capacity. If Israelis want some of that “steroids diplomacy,” they’re going to have to call upon someone with some heft and some stones. I believe the name of that body builder is Benyamin Netanyahu.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:52 | link | comments

Prog gets pasted: Progressive Jew/noted moralist Bernard Katz might be surprised to learn that not all Jews agree with him. Harold Pomerantz of Dundas, Ontario, for example, took issue with Bernie’s version of Middle East “morality.” From the Globe and Mail:

Letter writer Bernard Katz (A Question Of Morality - Dec. 24) questions the "ever-eroding morality" of Israel's defence of its country and its citizens. If the discussion is, indeed, about morality, let's discuss the morality of suicide bombers, the murder of Israeli women and children and the daily launching of rockets on Israeli towns and villages.

Whether or not Mr. Katz believes it, a state of war exists between the Palestinians and the Israelis. To believe the lack of peace rests solely with the Israelis is unconscionable. When it comes to morality, Israel has nothing to be ashamed about.

How disheartening it must be for the progs that there are still some Jews around who love Israel and refuse to climb on board the lefty/Islamist bash Israel bandwagon.

Update: A propos "morality," I offer this from the blog of the erudite Roger Kimball (my bolds):

The Australian philosopher David Stove got to the heart of the problem when he pointed out that it is precisely this combination of universal benevolence fired by uncompromising moralism that underwrites the cult of political correctness. “Either element on its own,” Stove observed,

 

is almost always comparatively harmless. A person who is convinced that he has a moral obligation to be benevolent, but who in fact ranks morality below fame (say), or ease; or again, a person who puts morality first, but is also convinced that the supreme moral obligation is, not to be benevolent, but to be holy (say), or wise, or creative: either of these people might turn out to be a scourge of his fellow humans, though in most cases he will not. But even at the worst, the misery which such a person causes will fall incomparably short of the misery caused by Lenin, or Stalin, or Mao, or Ho-Chi-Minh, or Kim-Il-Sung, or Pol Pot, or Castro: persons convinced both of the supremacy of benevolence among moral obligations, and of the supremacy of morality among all things. It is this combination which is infallibly and enormously destructive of human happiness.

Of course, as Stove goes on to note, this “lethal combination” is by no means peculiar to Communists. It provides the emotional fuel for utopians from Robespierre on down. That is the really sobering thing...that the capacity for evil so easily cohabits and feeds upon the emotion of virtue.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:55 | link | comments (2)

Israel’s raison d’etre:  To offer refuge, when needed, to their Jewish brother and sisters who are being persecuted in other lands (such as Iran). Something which, tragically, Jews were unable to do before, during and right after the Holocaust. 

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

Feel the love:  The Annapolis Conference was mostly predicated on the idea that it was a way to bring Sunni Muslims together to form a common front against the Shia threat.

So much for that one. From Fars News:

Looks like all the believers have made amends and buried the hatchet—right between the shoulder blades of Israel and the U.S.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:42 | link | comments

Drink up: Time to take a stand against the Canuki Human Nice Police, mes amis, before they have a chance to scrub our minds clean of socially “unacceptable” thoughts :

Should old acquaintance with the truth

Be something we defend

So all the barmy Thought Police

Won’t think it’s at an end.

For cheeky scribe Mark Steyn, my friends.

For cheeky scribe Mark Steyn.

Let’s drink a cup of vitriol

For cheeky scribe Mark Steyn.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:26 | link | comments

R.I.P.: Oscar Peterson, a great musician and a great Canadian.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:47 | link | comments

A: Howls of outrage from world leaders, accusations of a"disproportionate response," and condemnatory UN resolutions: Q: What are three things you can always expect when Israel defends itself against its enemies, but which are notably absent when Muslims take on other Muslims?

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:43 | link | comments

Charlie Wilson’s jihad: I have now read Charlie Wilson’s War, the book by George Crile, and seen Charlie Wilson’s War, the movie directed by Mike Nichols that stars Tom Hanks in the title role. And my educated assessment upon taking in both is that Charlie Wilson, the whiskey-swilling, cocaine-snorting, skirt-chasing Texas congressman who was the driving force behind the CIA’s successful covert war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, was a great man. Alas, he was also a hopeless naïf who had little understanding of the long, long history of jihad, no understanding of the jihad imperative as articulated by the Islam’s prophet and recorded in the Koran, and thus next to no awareness of the long term ramifications of empowering a bunch of holy warriors and making them feel invincible.

The truth is—and here the book is a lot more informative than the movie—Charlie Wilson was in love with the jihadis, a kind of love that only a citizen of a highly advanced, decadent culture can feel for those who come from a primitive—and thus, to the “civilized” man, a more “authentic”—culture. A Lawrence of Arabia-type love that ultimately saw the six foot four American donning flowing robes and riding in the company of his beloved warriors—a photo op to beat all photo ops. (And Charlie wasn’t the only one who fell for the jihadis. His office manager, Charlie Schnabel, who didn’t make it into the movie, became so enamoured of them that he “reverted” to Islam one night while on duty in Wilson’s office.)

To Charlie Wilson, in the grip of the myth of the noble savage, these holy warriors were nothing but pure or heart and completely admirable (even if they did have a tendency to shtup the Tennessee mules he had sent to help transport supplies through narrow mountain passages and liked to slice off the arms of Russian prisoners, after endlessly shtupping them, too, of course); Wilson had such fond feelings for the mujahedeen—literally, those who wage jihad—that he shortened its name to the affectionate diminutive, “the muj” Here’s how Crile (who also to a degree has fallen prey to the same myth) describes Wilson’s feelings for his darlings:

It’s hard to fault Wilson for seeing only the good in these men. Most American reporters were also dealing in two-dimensional portraiture when they sought to describe the Afghans. But in the dream Wilson was walking through, there men were without flaws. “Goodness personified” is the way he described the Commander Haqqani, the fundamentalist mullah who guided him around Khost.

The curious thing about Wilson’s romance with these warriors is that he never got to know any one individual mujahid. Deep down, he probably understood that he didn’t dare; the magic might wear off. These were people whose language he did not speak, whose religion he did not share, and whose ordinary way of life, had it been imposed on Trinity, Texas would have turned him into a revolutionary against them. But being with them in the mountains, as they defended their way of life, put Wilson in touch with a people who existed for American in the twentieth century only in the world of myths and legends.

There was a profound calmness to these men. They didn’t move quickly, but they always moved deliberately. They turned together toward Mecca to pray to their god five times a day, but their faith was somehow an individual affair. Even young boys seemed transformed when they spoke of their religion. It was hard for Wilson not to admire and almost envy their faith. When they spoke, it was as if they were revealing divine truths. They were fighting Allahs’s battle against the atheists. They told him it was Allah who had caused Charlie Wilson to come to Pakria province to accept the hospitality of His most faithful mullah, Jalaluddin Haqani (sic)…

Is it any wonder that, after winning their jihad against the atheists, they would feel so flush with success, so convinced of Allah’s blessings, that “the muj” would want to take on and dispatch the only power standing between them and Islam’s conquest of the entire planet? From the book:

Throughout the Muslim world, the victory of the Afghans over the army of a modern superpower was seen as a transformational event. But back home, no one seemed to be aware that something important had taken place and that the United States had been the moving force behind it.

As we know, this lack of awareness ended up having fatal consequences, and we’ve been enduring the fallout from this “transformational event” ever since.

Of course, in both the book and the film, the blame is placed squarely on the Americans and not on “the muj.” If only the U.S. had devoted the same resources to rebuilding Afghanistan as they did to helping the Afghans crush the Russians; if only his Congressional confreres had acceded to Charlie’s request for a paltry $1 million to build a school in Afghanistan; the Afghans would never have fallen prey to the Taliban. (The same self-blame and delusional wishful thinking lives on today, with the West’s notions of fixing things by “rebuilding” Palestinian infrastructure.)

Blaming it all on the U.S. does have its purposes, though. It allows Charlie Wilson—who who, as evidenced by a recent interview with ABC News remains as clueless as ever about the historicity of the jihad—to let himself off the hook. (Charlie seems to think that there’s a “good” muj—the guys he dealt with during the Soviet war—and a “bad” muj—the ones that came after, even though it’s clear that it’s all the same jihad, the only difference being that, for obvious reasons, it’s awfully difficult for an American to romanticize Al Qaeda.) It also allows Americans on the both the left and right to avoid coming to grips with the awful reality of the jihadi mentality and the jihad imperative. An understandable disinclination given that, as T.S. Eliot once observed, “Human kind cannot bear very much reality.” Nonetheless, one that is bound to have dire repercussions for all those who cherish Western freedom.

After reading the book and watching the movie, I couldn’t help but think back to a cartoon that appeared in the New Yorker not long after Mo Atta’s “muj” hit the World Trade Centre. It featured a New Yorker sitting at a bar. The shellshocked customer comments to the bartender, “I miss the Commies.”

Meaning, of course, that one doesn’t really miss the Commies—they were, after all, totalitarian scumbags bent on world domination. But one does miss an enemy that was as averse to dying as we are; an enemy that doesn’t see death as a bonus because it affords the heavenly delights Allah has promised his martyrs.

Sigh. This frosty Christmas morning, I can’t help but feel kind of nostalgic for the godless Commies myself.

Update: The grim effects of "Good Time" Charlie's hearty partying and heavy drinking--especially on his heart--are described in detail in the book and only alluded to briefly in one scene in the movie. I didn't know until just now, though, that the muj-lover recently underwent a heart transplant.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:24 | link | comments

A prog’s progress: How far are “progressive” Jews prepared to go to smear, defame and delegitimize the Jewish homeland? As Caroline Glick writes, one such “prog”—Charles Enderlin, the French filmmaker who fabricated the Al-Dura blood libel and did untold harm to Israel’s reputation—was apparently prepared to go all the way. From the Jerusalem Post:

…The French court is in recess until February but the session last month incontrovertibly destroyed the myth of al-Dura. Yet the truth which took seven years to come out cannot erase the consequences of the falsehood.

Enderlin published his report two days after the Palestinians launched their jihad against Israel. The false image of the victimized al-Dura served as a moral indictment of Israel which fueled the murderous campaign against Israel and Jews worldwide which followed. Just as al-Dura's name was invoked by Palestinians as justification of their massacres of Israeli civilians, so it was invoked by Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl's executioners and by Muslim mobs in Europe as they attacked Jews and Jewish institutions.

Enderlin's alleged hoax went beyond journalistic malfeasance. He put blind faith in the reports of a cameraman who was clearly lying to him. And when faced with the facts of the deception, he aggressively dismissed them over the course of seven years. While it is hard to say how events might have unfolded if he hadn't chosen to act as he did, looking forward the murderous consequences of the al-Dura myth speak volumes about the moral imperative for journalists to get their facts straight and to acknowledge mistakes when they are discovered. So too, it underlines the need for policymakers to base their decisions on facts, even when they expose difficult and inconvenient realities…

In the same piece, Ms. Glick retracts her assertion, made in previous column, that during the Annapolis Conference, the Bush administration bowed to the Saudi’s outrageous demands (they wanted the Jews to use a separate entrance so they wouldn’t be exposed to their ape ‘n’ pig cooties). Apparently, the Saudis did indeed make such a demand, but it was ignored. I offer my sincere apologies to Bush and Condi for accusing them of treating Ehud and Tzipi like the conference’s “darkies.” However, I still think the duo is doing Israel an incalculable amount of harm by pushing for “peace” at this time.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:00 | link | comments

John, Paul, George and...Moishe?: Hava Nagillah, as sung by those loveable Moptops.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:34 | link | comments

The real Grinches: Were Joseph and the about-to-deliver Mary to visit Bethlehem this year, they would once again find there’s no room at the inn. Despite the record number of visitors and a 100 per cent occupancy rate at Bethlehem hotels, some in the media remain determined to spin a “good news” story as a bad one.

Wouldn’t want to give the Jews a swelled head now, would they?

To all the Bethlehem grousers and their media mouthpieces, please be on notice: we’ve got your number:

Away in a manger

There’s really great news—

The tourists have come back

In spite of the Jews.

The hatred of the Arabs

Is never awoved

So ev’ry silver lining

Can be shown with a cloud.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:37 | link | comments

Polling the Saudis:  All in all, it’s a lot like polling the Nazis. From NRO’s Media Blog (which summarizes the survey as follows--"Don't like Jews and Christians, want Israel destroyed and Saudis to have nuclear weapons"):

Opinion polls among Saudi citizens are extremely rare. This survey was conducted for Terror Free Tomorrow by D3 Systems of Vienna, Virginia and KA Europe SPRL. Interviews were conducted by phone from a facility in a country neighboring Saudi Arabia.

The survey was conducted in Arabic, among a random national sample of 1,004 Saudi Arabian nationals aged 18 and older. Among the results:

Please tell me your opinion of each group of people. Is your opinion very favorable, somewhat favorable, somewhat unfavorable, or very unfavorable?

Iranians
Very Favorable 23.4%
Somewhat Favorable 27.9%
Somewhat Unfavorable 15.5%
Very Unfavorable 24.0%
Refused 2.5%
Don't Know 6.7%

Jews
Very Favorable 2.1%
Somewhat Favorable 3.9%
Somewhat Unfavorable 7.0%
Very Unfavorable 81.7%
Refused 4.1%
Don't Know 1.1%

Christians
Very Favorable 13.7%
Somewhat Favorable 25.5%
Somewhat Unfavorable 14.0%
Very Unfavorable 40.3%
Refused 2.5%
Don't Know 4.1%

If all diplomatic means fail to stop the Iranian government from developing nuclear weapons, would you favor the United States and other countries accepting a nuclear-armed Iran, or would you favor the United States and other countries taking military action against Iran to try and prevent the Iranians from having nuclear weapons?

Favor US Accepting A Nuclear Armed Iran 26.6%
Favor US and Other Countries Taking Military Action to Prevent Nuclear Armed Iran 38.1%
Refused to answer 19.9%
Don't Know 15.4%

Please listen as I read the following statements and tell me which is closest to your own opinion?

I would favor a peace treaty recognizing the State of Israel, if an independent Palestinian state is established.29.6%

I oppose any peace treaty recognizing the State of Israel, and I favor all Arabs continuing to fight until there is no State of Israel in the Middle East 51.3%

Refused to answer 13.2%
Don't Know 5.9%

Do you favor or oppose the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia developing nuclear weapons?
Strongly Favor 34.7%
Somewhat Favor 17.3%
Somewhat Oppose 12.1%
Strongly Oppose 19.1%
Refused to answer 9.3%
Don't Know 7.5

But no doubt it would only use such weapons for “peaceful purposes.”

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:28 | link | comments

Jewish Scrooges steal Christmas joy: This being Christmas and all, the Ceeb is working overtime to make the Israelis sound like the world’s worst Grinches. This morning on Ceeb radio, Margaret “The Voice” Evans informed listeners that Israel is attempting to force Bedouins into “townships” (a word which was employed—obviously and cunningly (and despicably)—to draw a parallel between Israel and apartheid-era South Africa). In another story, the Ceeb sheds copious croc tears over the sad plight of Christians stuck in Gaza this Christmas—the fault, of course, of the Jews (while the Ceeb wants you to know that Hamas, that plucky little regime of jihadists, is just doing the best it can under straightened circumstances):

Israel will let 500 Palestinian Christians living in Gaza travel to the West Bank to spend Christmas in Bethlehem. But for the 2,500 staying behind, their first Christmas under Hamas rule will be sombre.

Their priest preaches hope, but sometimes even he despairs.

"Christmas is destroyed, it's smashed in Gaza," says Father Musallam Manue of Holy Family Church. "There is no more joy in Gaza and because of that there is no more peace in Gaza."

These are tough times in the territory, the CBC's Nahlah Ayed reports.

Under an Israeli blockade imposed after Hamas fighters seized control of Gaza in June, the economy has collapsed, prices have gone through the roof and Gaza is even more isolated than in the past. That's why so many Christians want out, even if just for the holidays.

Jehad Anton hasn't seen his Canadian wife since they married last winter and hoped to be with her in the Toronto area to mark their first Christmas together.

"I tell her, I hope you [have] a merry Christmas. I promise to be with you as soon [as [possible]. Please pray for me to come."

But he is not among the lucky ones.

Border crossings are mostly sealed. Hamas denies Israel's right to exist, and under its rule militants regularly fire rockets into Israeli territory. The Israeli government has responded with military strikes.

With most imports and exports blocked, seasonal supplies bound for Husam Mourtaga's shop have been sitting in port for months, and few have come to buy his old Christmas stock.

"This Christmas is very bad, really, very bad for all people," he says. "For me, I think, and for people."

Hmmm. I wonder why that might be?

My Christmas wish for the Twilight Zoners of the Ceeb: I hope and pray you get a clue before you and all the other useful idiots (more than a few of whom, alas, are Jews) manage to put the final nail in Israel’s coffin.

Update: AP has a truer picture (words I never expected to write) of why Gaza Christians are in such a state of despair:

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Gaza's tiny Christian community is keeping a low profile this Christmas, traumatized by the killing of a prominent activist in the wake of Hamas's takeover of the coastal territory.

Few Christmas trees are on display, churches are holding austere services, and hundreds of Christians hope to travel to the moderate-controlled West Bank to celebrate the holiday in Bethlehem. Many say they don't plan on returning to Gaza.

"We have a very sad Christmas," the acting pastor of Gaza's Baptist Church, Essam Farah, said. The church has canceled its annual children's party because of the grim atmosphere.

About 3,000 Christians live in Gaza, an overwhelmingly conservative Muslim territory of 1.5 million people. It has been virtually cut off from the world and its residents driven deeper into poverty since the June takeover by Hamas, which is considered a terrorist organization by Israel and America.

Christians and Muslims have generally had cordial relations over the years in Gaza, but that relationship has been shaky since Hamas seized control and tensions were exacerbated with the recent death of 32-year-old Rami Ayyad.

Ayyad, a member of the Baptist Church, managed Gaza's only Christian bookstore. In early October, he was found shot in the head, his body thrown on a Gaza street 10 hours after he was kidnapped from the store...

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:00 | link | comments

Christmas prezzie: Bruce singing Merry Christmas, Baby. Enjoy!

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:00 | link | comments

Progressive aggressive: Behold, the “progressive” Jew in his natural habitat. Obsessed with Israel’s “immorality”; burning with rage about the “injustice” that’s been done to the left’s designated uber-victims, the Palestinians (they do suffer so); brimming with disdain for any Jew who dares to stand up for the Jews’ right to live free and sovereign in their homeland. Here he is, bloviating in the Globe and Mail:

A question of morality

BERNARD KATZ

Toronto -- Letter writer Mindy Alter (Christmas In Bethlehem - Dec. 22) must be kidding when says the Jewish people are "one of the planet's most endangered species." Ratcheting up the rhetoric, she seems to align all Jews with Israel's acts of brutality at checkpoints, murderous disregard for non-combatants, ongoing expansion of illegal West Bank settlements and unconscionable imprisonment of Palestinians in Gaza. I care deeply about Israel's ever-eroding morality, and I reject Ms. Alter's trivialization. She may be surprised at how many Jews agree with me.

 

Actually, I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t be at all surprised. Nor would she likely be surprised that Bernie’s commitment to the progressive viewpoint has prompted him to expectorate at Israel’s “immorality” on at least one previous occasion. From NOW Magazine:

Jews on disastrous path

Considering the usually nuanced reflection and understanding in his work as a journalist, film critic and former director of programming for the Toronto Jewish Film Festival, I was amazed at letter-writer Shlomo Schwartzberg's brief rant (NOW, October 26-November 1) on Glenn Wheeler's excellent report on the conference hosted by the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid.

Schwartzberg should know that "progressive Jews" can see the forest and the trees clearly – the path Israel has been taking has led and will lead to nothing but disaster for itself and its Palestinian neighbours.

As the great Yeshayahu Leibowitz predicted in 1967, occupying Palestinian lands has eroded the true spirit of Judaism in Israel, bringing with it deep moral corruption. Those who are inured to the suffering Israel has wrought are the real "deluded Jews" and Israel's inner enemies.

Way to go, fellah! The Palestinians and their many, many, champions in the international community applaud your ongoing efforts, and are counting on “progressive” Jews like you to step forward and help them fight the “good” fight.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:51 | link | comments (2)

The Brother Karimov: It’s election day in Uzbekistan.  The only reason I mention it is because the current leader—now “vying” for re-election—has an eye-catching name (at least it caught my eye on Google News just now). From AP:

OSH, Kyrgyzstan (AP) - Uzbeks are voting today in a tightly controlled presidential election that's expected to extend the rule of 1 of the most anti-Western leaders in strategic Central Asia.

President Islam Karimov (EES'-lahm kah-REE'-mahv) is running for a new term in office against three little-known challengers who publicly say they support his policies. State run news says the contested election is "a proof that our country has built a democratic state." Critics are labeling the opposition candidates as puppets meant to create the illusion of a free contest.

During Karimov's 18-year-rule, he has jailed or exiled all his political rivals and has faced wide criticism for human rights abuses.

Karimov has taken a hostile stance toward the west since ordering the shutdown of a U.S. air base in 2005.

EES’-lahm kah-REE’-mahv: catchy moniker. My question: why is the AP correspondent reporting from Osh and not Tashkent?

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

Lefties enraged: The Israelis want to build some housing in Jerusalem, a move that is causing the usual suspects in the lefty media to have a conniption on behalf of their favourite “victims.”  From the Ceeb (headline: New Israeli settlements will cloud peace talks: Abbas):

The confirmation of an Israeli plan to build 740 apartment units in areas the Palestinians view as their own will complicate planned Mideast peace talks, officials and observers warned Sunday.

The Israeli government plans to allocate $25 million to build 500 new units in East Jerusalem and 240 nearby in the West Bank, Rafi Eitan, the cabinet minister for Jerusalem affairs, said Sunday.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, whose Fatah party controls the West Bank, said building the apartments will breach Israel's agreement to halt construction while the two sides try and work out a peace deal.

"We can't understand these settlement activities at a time we're talking about final status negotiations," Abbas said.

Reporting from Jerusalem, the CBC's Peter Armstrong said "this will undoubtably cloud the new negotiations." Palestinians are "outraged" about the building, and the U.S. has already expressed "serious objections" to settlement expansions, he added…

Stick it in your ear, Pete.

From the New York Times (Google headline: Israeli Housing Plans Casts Pall Over Peace Talks):

JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel on Sunday rejected overtures by Hamas, the militant Islamic group that rules Gaza, for discussions about a temporary cease-fire.

At the same time, Mr. Olmert’s government raised the ire of Palestinian representatives from the West Bank, with whom Israel is embarking on negotiations for a permanent peace, by seeking budget approval to build more housing for Jewish residents in areas that the Palestinians claim for their future state.

Israeli officials said that a Housing and Construction Ministry budget proposal for 2008 included plans to build 500 apartments in Har Homa, a Jewish development in a hotly disputed part of East Jerusalem, and 240 apartments in Maale Adumim, the largest Jewish settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank with a population of more than 30,000.

Israeli officials tried to play down the significance of the request. Mark Regev, a spokesman for Mr. Olmert, said that the budget still had to be approved by Parliament, and that “there have been no new decisions authorizing building in Maale Adumim.” It was unclear whether the budget request was for new projects that had not yet been approved or for units already approved but not yet built.

Either way, the action is likely to cast a pall over a meeting of the Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams set for Monday, the second since last month’s American-sponsored peace conference in Annapolis, Md…

…With regard to the budget proposal for additional housing units in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, both Israel and the Palestinians have committed to fulfill the first phase of the road map, a long dormant 2003 peace plan that calls on the Palestinians to act to halt all violence, and the Israelis to cease all settlement construction.

Mr. Olmert has pledged not to build new settlements or to expropriate additional land. But Israel has always reserved the right to build in major settlement blocs like Maale Adumim, which it intends to keep as part of any permanent deal with the Palestinians, and Israel contends that Jerusalem has a separate status.

Har Homa, known to the Palestinians as Jebel Abu Ghneim, was established in the late 1990s in an area of Jerusalem annexed by Israel after the 1967 Middle East war. It has been a point of particular contention between Israel and the Palestinians.

Days before the first meeting of the negotiating teams in December, the Israeli government issued a tender for the construction of 307 apartments in Har Homa. In an unusually forthright condemnation, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the construction would “not help build confidence” for peace talks.

After the Dec. 12 meeting, the Palestinian negotiators said they expected Israel to present answers at the next meeting as to whether it was ready to stop settlement construction or not…

Get stuffed, Palestinian negotiators.

You too, Condi.

(Sorry. The lefties—and Condi— have a deleterious effect on my eloquence.)

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:46 | link | comments

Yack attack: Not content with enshrouding women in black sacks so as to keep their disturbing presence out of plain sight, the misogynistic nutbars in Iran now apparently want to silence them, too. From the Tehran Times:

TEHRAN – Men love silence whilst women are interested in talking.

Men, generally like to have about 2-3 hours of silence and relaxation per day while women love to speak about daily events when their husbands come home. It is estimated that this difference in taste causes about 90% of marital disagreements, IWNA quoted Dr. Seyed Mahmoud Anousheh in a congress of pathology here last week.

According to six year’s of research, girls crave attention and it can prove to be a destructive attribute, Anousheh expressed.

“I myself, as a representative of the male gender, assert that the thing that disturbs our minds and destroys our mental files is the voice, tone and the tactics which you girls use unwittingly in our presence.” Dr Anousheh said in his speech to 1000 boy and girl students.

“What do you think? How does a society deviate? Does it need any theory? Does it need any philosophy? No. deviations are created by simple things,” he noted while many of the boy and girl students listening to him were standing due to a shortage of seats.

The curiosity factor in girls is 1/7 times more than in boys and they enjoy daydreams 1/3 times more than do boys. Girls, due to their greater curiosity and pleasure in daydreaming face far more problems in our society, he maintained.

Girls, from the age of 14, like to know who they are and what abilities they possess. Generally from this age they should not be prevented from vice as this will actually cause its promotion, he emphasized…

The man is obviously a complete mental case—which no doubt means he was in his element at the “congress of pathology.” (Come to think of it, wouldn’t that be a perfect nickname for the mullahs’ regime?)

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

Claudia Rosett on Durban II: As if Durban I, which played out in the days leading up to 9/11, wasn’t bad enough, another Fiesta of Antisemitsm (with Israel as the international community’s designated piñata) is looming. Claudia Rosett expresses the appropriate contempt, disgust and disdain for the UN’s upcoming Jew-bash:

About three layers deep inside its vast bureaucracy, the UN is now gestating a repeat performance of its notorious 2001 conference in Durban, South Africa. That was billed as a meeting to fight racism, but — thanks to careful planning sessions in places such as Tehran and under the care of the UN’s former “Human Rights” Commission — it was actually all about vilifying Israel and America. Things got so bad that midway through the conference, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell yanked the U.S. delegation.

 

All the portents are that the next round, Durban II, will be just as bad, or worse. Libya is chairing the preparatory committee, with Iran, Cuba, Russia, and Pakistan (fronting for the Organization of the Islamic Conference) gathered round the table. The whole thing is being shepherded by the new UN “Human Rights” Council — which really deserves to be called “The UN Chronically-Condemning-Israel Council.” This thing has one outrage slathered on top of the next, more details in my column today on NRO, and more on EYEONTHEUN and more on the entire twisted scene on UNWATCH.

 

Among the array of perversions involved in the preparations for Durban II, the planners listed above want the UN to pay for it out of core budget funds, for which the U.S. picks up 22% of the tab. And in looking at plans for some of the money (the sum now being discussed is almost $7 million — what would YOU do with that much money?), I have been amazed by the amount of conferencing which the UN now deems normal in order to produce… a conference. They haven’t even picked the actual venue yet for Durban II. But already they have spent days meeting in Geneva this past August. There have been discussions in committees in New York. There is supposed to be a ten-day “preparatory” session in Geneva (10 days! What do they do for 10 days? That needs 10 days of meals and hotels and … maybe some shopping… and… well, whatever, with all those cafes and private banking facilities, Geneva can be nice in the spring). And then there are supposed to be a series of three days of preparatory meetings in each of five different locations around the world… leading to 800 pages of “pre-session” documentation. And that’s just a sample of the plans envisioned for 2008. The conference itself isn’t supposed to take place until 2009.

 

If America is going to help bankroll this stuff, seems like it would be simpler and much better for the world to just give these delegates from Libya and Russia and Cuba and Pakistan (and Norway… somehow, Norway always seems to be in on these things) a handful of shopping and air travel vouchers, and tell them to take a vacation and let the rest of us worry about fighting racism…and anti-Semitism, and anti-Americanism, and you name it. And for that, do we need the UN at all?

In a word, “nope.”

A preview of what's in store for "Sponge Bob Jew Pants" (Israel) at Durban II

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:42 | link | comments

Power player: The San Francisco Chronicle has a profile of Yusuf Bey, the charismatic (but now deceased) Black Muslim bakery owner who got away with raping and impregnating young girls—many of whom became his “wife”--and preaching a message of violence because he did so in the name of empowering “victims.” And in American society, no one has higher moral authority than someone who can to be empowering victims—even if he is a violent, racist, male chauvinist swine.

Yusuf Bey stood before his followers at the headquarters of Your Black Muslim Bakery in Oakland one Sunday in 2002. In his familiar double-breasted suit, bow tie and fez, he delivered an emphatic sermon.

His message that afternoon was a vow of defiance in the face of his arrest on charges of raping young girls entrusted to his care - defiance, and a refusal to submit to any authority other than himself.

The message was at the core of Bey's gospel of black empowerment and self-determination, a creed to live by.

"You do me wrong, I'm going to fix you up," he told the dozens of men and women attending the speech at the bakery, the business and religious seat of the multimillion-dollar empire Bey had founded. "I'll send some fearless soldiers out here.

"You lock me up if you want to, but I'm not going in with my head down," he declared in a videotape of the sermon obtained by The Chronicle.

"I'll be fighting all the way. I'll be scratching and fighting and putting anything in my hand for a weapon to defend myself. I want you to understand that. You ain't playing with no Uncle Tom and no house Negro. ... I don't turn no damn cheek."

Less than a year later, Bey was dead at 67, succumbing to cancer before his trial on sexual assault charges. But during his last year, while free on bail, he preached a new vision for his community, while seeking to reassure his worried followers in the face of unprecedented pressure from prosecutors and the press.

In his final sermons, Bey told his followers that God had specially sanctioned his actions and ideas. He said he was not answerable to anyone for his conduct - certainly not the police, whom he said no black person should ever trust. He railed at the media - "the powers at hand that destroy you," he called them. He said he was entitled to retaliate with violence if he was threatened with prison. And he expected his followers to help him fight.

"See, I can teach peace, or I can teach war," Bey declared. "I got young men behind me. If I say something, they will do it."

The final sermons of Yusuf Bey were followed by a bitter power struggle within the family. Bey's handpicked successor was mysteriously killed, and the successor's second-in-command was nearly assassinated.

A 19-year-old son ultimately rose to the top. He and his young followers, prosecutors say, would commit a series of violent crimes that culminated in the Aug. 2 assassination of Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey, who was working with another Bey family member on stories about the power struggle.

Bailey's brazen, execution-style slaying in downtown Oakland prompted extraordinary new scrutiny of the bakery, revealing the degree to which it had insinuated itself into the fabric of the city, gaining the blessing of politicians at every level - including the City Council, the mayor's office, county Board of Supervisors, state representatives and a member of Congress - even as some bakery members allegedly engaged in massive welfare fraud and, police say, the business operated as a front for organized crime.

A POWERFUL IMAGE

For more than three decades, Bey attracted followers, especially the poor and disenfranchised, with a message of black self-empowerment. He offered them a society unto its own, where black people could live free from what he saw as the crushing oppression of whites. At the bakery, he fed, housed and put dozens to work to help create this world, a realm he ruled with unquestioned authority.

But the bakery allegedly had a darker side. Bey beat, raped and impregnated girls at the bakery and forced them to become his "wives," prosecutors charged. He was suspected of ordering his followers to commit acts of violence, including homicides; and the bakery sustained itself financially by systematically defrauding county welfare and federal housing-subsidy programs set up to help poor people, three of those former wives testified in a lawsuit.

To the outside world, Bey projected an image of the bakery as a haven of black self-respect and self sufficiency. That powerful image resonated, even after his death, with both his followers and some of Oakland's most powerful political leaders.

Born Joseph Stephens in 1935 in Greenville, Texas, in the midst of the Depression, Bey moved with his family to Oakland when he was 5 years old, attended local schools and then served four years in the Air Force. He became attracted to the Nation of Islam, a black separatist religion founded in Detroit in the 1930s by the preacher W.D. Fard and popularized by Elijah Muhammad.

By 1968, Joseph Stephens had taken the name Joseph X and was second-in-command of the first Nation of Islam mosque in Oakland. His brother, Billy X., was minister. From the beginning, the brothers had a flashy style, according to former members of their mosque and other Nation of Islam members at the time.

Smooth-talking and slick, the brothers wore sharp suits, drove fancy cars and seemed to embody the "Superfly" image popularized by the 1972 movie about a flamboyant drug dealer with "a plan to stick it to the man," said Askia Muhammad, who at the time was a student minister at the Nation of Islam mosque in San Francisco.

The former Stephens brothers urged their followers to read the Mafia novel "The Godfather" to help explain their leadership style, said Muhammad, who later became editor in chief of Muhammad Speaks, the official Nation of Islam newspaper.

Eventually, Yusuf Bey, as he came to be known, broke both with his brother and with the Nation of Islam, and founded Your Black Muslim Bakery as an independent movement.

But his religious views were still strongly rooted in the Nation of Islam, as his sermons showed. To his last days, Bey was reciting the writings of Elijah Muhammad. And behind his lectern were large photographs of Elijah Muhammad and W.D. Fard, who Nation of Islam believers say was the messiah.

The sermons themselves were delivered at the bakery at 3 p.m. on Sundays, then rebroadcast as "True Solutions," paid programming on various cable channels, particularly the now-defunct Soul Beat channel in Oakland. Few video copies exist. According to a former Soul Beat producer, bakery members always picked up the master tapes, not letting copies be made. The Chronicle obtained videos of several sermons from a confidential source.

A VIEW OF SLAVERY

Bey preached that black people were divine and white people were "devils." The core of his sermons revolved around slavery.

He told his followers that the ravages of centuries of brutal mistreatment at the hands of whites - through slavery, Jim Crow segregation and lynch mobs - still had a powerful psychological effect on black people. These effects were worst in the community's most wayward - drug addicts, felons and the downtrodden. Bey said society had "designed" them to go astray...

 

Sounds eerily similar to the words of the black community activist—the one who twice quoted Amiri Baraka—at the 2007 Combating Hatred whinge-fest.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:33 | link | comments

Power player: The San Francisco Chronicle has a profile of Yusuf Bey, the charismatic (but now dead) Black Muslim bakery owner who got away with raping and impregnating young girls—many of whom became his “wife”--and preaching a message of violence racism because he did so in the name of empowering “victims.” And in American society, no one has higher moral authority than someone who can claim to be empowering victims—even if he is a violent, racist, male chauvinist swine.

Yusuf Bey stood before his followers at the headquarters of Your Black Muslim Bakery in Oakland one Sunday in 2002. In his familiar double-breasted suit, bow tie and fez, he delivered an emphatic sermon.

His message that afternoon was a vow of defiance in the face of his arrest on charges of raping young girls entrusted to his care - defiance, and a refusal to submit to any authority other than himself.

The message was at the core of Bey's gospel of black empowerment and self-determination, a creed to live by.

"You do me wrong, I'm going to fix you up," he told the dozens of men and women attending the speech at the bakery, the business and religious seat of the multimillion-dollar empire Bey had founded. "I'll send some fearless soldiers out here.

"You lock me up if you want to, but I'm not going in with my head down," he declared in a videotape of the sermon obtained by The Chronicle.

"I'll be fighting all the way. I'll be scratching and fighting and putting anything in my hand for a weapon to defend myself. I want you to understand that. You ain't playing with no Uncle Tom and no house Negro. ... I don't turn no damn cheek."

Less than a year later, Bey was dead at 67, succumbing to cancer before his trial on sexual assault charges. But during his last year, while free on bail, he preached a new vision for his community, while seeking to reassure his worried followers in the face of unprecedented pressure from prosecutors and the press.

In his final sermons, Bey told his followers that God had specially sanctioned his actions and ideas. He said he was not answerable to anyone for his conduct - certainly not the police, whom he said no black person should ever trust. He railed at the media - "the powers at hand that destroy you," he called them. He said he was entitled to retaliate with violence if he was threatened with prison. And he expected his followers to help him fight.

"See, I can teach peace, or I can teach war," Bey declared. "I got young men behind me. If I say something, they will do it."

The final sermons of Yusuf Bey were followed by a bitter power struggle within the family. Bey's handpicked successor was mysteriously killed, and the successor's second-in-command was nearly assassinated.

A 19-year-old son ultimately rose to the top. He and his young followers, prosecutors say, would commit a series of violent crimes that culminated in the Aug. 2 assassination of Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey, who was working with another Bey family member on stories about the power struggle.

Bailey's brazen, execution-style slaying in downtown Oakland prompted extraordinary new scrutiny of the bakery, revealing the degree to which it had insinuated itself into the fabric of the city, gaining the blessing of politicians at every level - including the City Council, the mayor's office, county Board of Supervisors, state representatives and a member of Congress - even as some bakery members allegedly engaged in massive welfare fraud and, police say, the business operated as a front for organized crime.

A POWERFUL IMAGE

For more than three decades, Bey attracted followers, especially the poor and disenfranchised, with a message of black self-empowerment. He offered them a society unto its own, where black people could live free from what he saw as the crushing oppression of whites. At the bakery, he fed, housed and put dozens to work to help create this world, a realm he ruled with unquestioned authority.

But the bakery allegedly had a darker side. Bey beat, raped and impregnated girls at the bakery and forced them to become his "wives," prosecutors charged. He was suspected of ordering his followers to commit acts of violence, including homicides; and the bakery sustained itself financially by systematically defrauding county welfare and federal housing-subsidy programs set up to help poor people, three of those former wives testified in a lawsuit.

To the outside world, Bey projected an image of the bakery as a haven of black self-respect and self sufficiency. That powerful image resonated, even after his death, with both his followers and some of Oakland's most powerful political leaders.

Born Joseph Stephens in 1935 in Greenville, Texas, in the midst of the Depression, Bey moved with his family to Oakland when he was 5 years old, attended local schools and then served four years in the Air Force. He became attracted to the Nation of Islam, a black separatist religion founded in Detroit in the 1930s by the preacher W.D. Fard and popularized by Elijah Muhammad.

By 1968, Joseph Stephens had taken the name Joseph X and was second-in-command of the first Nation of Islam mosque in Oakland. His brother, Billy X., was minister. From the beginning, the brothers had a flashy style, according to former members of their mosque and other Nation of Islam members at the time.

Smooth-talking and slick, the brothers wore sharp suits, drove fancy cars and seemed to embody the "Superfly" image popularized by the 1972 movie about a flamboyant drug dealer with "a plan to stick it to the man," said Askia Muhammad, who at the time was a student minister at the Nation of Islam mosque in San Francisco.

The former Stephens brothers urged their followers to read the Mafia novel "The Godfather" to help explain their leadership style, said Muhammad, who later became editor in chief of Muhammad Speaks, the official Nation of Islam newspaper.

Eventually, Yusuf Bey, as he came to be known, broke both with his brother and with the Nation of Islam, and founded Your Black Muslim Bakery as an independent movement.

But his religious views were still strongly rooted in the Nation of Islam, as his sermons showed. To his last days, Bey was reciting the writings of Elijah Muhammad. And behind his lectern were large photographs of Elijah Muhammad and W.D. Fard, who Nation of Islam believers say was the messiah.

The sermons themselves were delivered at the bakery at 3 p.m. on Sundays, then rebroadcast as "True Solutions," paid programming on various cable channels, particularly the now-defunct Soul Beat channel in Oakland. Few video copies exist. According to a former Soul Beat producer, bakery members always picked up the master tapes, not letting copies be made. The Chronicle obtained videos of several sermons from a confidential source.

A VIEW OF SLAVERY

Bey preached that black people were divine and white people were "devils." The core of his sermons revolved around slavery.

He told his followers that the ravages of centuries of brutal mistreatment at the hands of whites - through slavery, Jim Crow segregation and lynch mobs - still had a powerful psychological effect on black people. These effects were worst in the community's most wayward - drug addicts, felons and the downtrodden. Bey said society had "designed" them to go astray...

 

Sounds eerily similar to the words of the black community activist—the one who twice quoted Amiri Baraka—at the 2007 Combating Hatred whinge-fest.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:30 | link | comments

Songs of the season: Some of my favorites:

·         Coolest “Frosty” ever, courtesy Leon Redbone and Dr. John;

·         Louis Armstrong celebrates “Christmas in New Orleans”;

·         Meanwhile, Bing is in Kilarney...;

·         ...as Eartha purrs her gift requests to her X-mas sugar daddy;

·         And, of course, Judy in St. Louie tries to cheer up that morbid little Tootie--a song that gets me every time.

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:03 | link | comments

Islam’s Qatif Girls: As an act of “mercy” prompted by merciless bad press, King Abdullah “pardoned” the woman who has come to be known as “Qatif girl.” But, as Jeff Jacoby writes, there are untold numbers of Qatif girls out there—one of them being Toronto’s own Aqsa Parvez—who find themselves on the receiving end of the Islamic partriarchy’s savage “mercies.” From the Boston Globe:

THE "QATIF GIRL" won a reprieve last week. On Dec. 17, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah pardoned the young woman, who was sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in prison after she pressed charges against seven men who had raped her and a male acquaintance in 2006. Two weeks earlier, Sudan's president extended a similar reprieve to Gillian Gibbons, the British teacher convicted of insulting Islam because her 7-year-old students named a teddy bear Muhammad. Gibbons had been sentenced to prison, but government-organized street demonstrators were loudly demanding her execution.

In January, Nazanin Fatehi was released from an Iranian jail after a death sentence against her was revoked. She had originally been convicted of murder for fatally stabbing a man when he and two others attempted to rape her and her niece in a park. (Had she yielded to the rapists, she could have been flogged or stoned for engaging in nonmarital sex.)

The sparing of these women was very welcome news, of course, and it was not coincidental that each case had triggered an international furor. But for every "Qatif girl" or Nazanin who is saved, there are far too many other Muslim girls and women for whom deliverance never comes.

No international furor saved Aqsa Parvez, a Toronto teenager, whose father was charged on Dec. 11 with strangling her to death because she refused to wear a hijab. "She just wanted to look like everyone else," one of Aqsa's friends told the National Post, "and I guess her dad had a problem with that."

No reprieve came for Banaz Mahmod, either. She was 20, a Kurdish immigrant to Britain, whose father and uncle had her killed last year after she left an abusive arranged marriage and fell in love with a man not from the family's village in Kurdistan. Banaz was choked to death with a bootlace, stuffed into a suitcase, and buried in a garden 70 miles away.

More than 25 such "honor killings" have been confirmed in Britain's Muslim community in recent years. Many more are suspected.

There has been no storm of outrage about the intimidation and murder in Basra, Iraq, of women who wear Western-style clothing. Iraqi police say that more than 40 women have been killed so far this year by Islamists; the bodies are often left in garbage dumps with notes accusing the victims of "un-Islamic behavior."

By Western standards, the subjugation of women by Muslim fanatics, and the sometimes pathological Islamist obsession with female sexuality, are unthinkable. Time and again they lead to shocking acts of violence and depravity:

In Pakistan, a tribal council ordered a woman to be gang-raped as punishment for her brother's supposed liaison with a woman from another tribe.

In San Francisco, a young Muslim woman was shot dead after she uncovered her hair and put on makeup in order to be a maid of honor at a friend's wedding.

In Tehran, a father beheaded his 7-year-old daughter because he suspected that she had been raped; he said he acted "to defend my honor, fame, and dignity."

In Saudi Arabia, the Islamic police prevented schoolgirls from leaving a burning building because they were not wearing headscarves and abayas; 15 of the girls died in the inferno.

The president of Cairo's Al-Azhar University, a renowned center of Islamic learning, described the proper method of wife-beating in a television interview: "It's not really beating," Sheikh Ahmad Al-Tayyeb explained on Egyptian television. "It's more like punching."

When the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan in 1996, the repression of women was among their first priorities. They issued a decree forbidding women to leave their homes, with the result that work and schooling for women came to a halt, destroying the country's healthcare system, civil service, and elementary education.

"Forty percent of the doctors, half of the government workers, and seven out of 10 teachers were women," Lawrence Wright observed in "The Looming Tower," his Pulitzer Prize-winning history of Al Qaeda. "Under the Taliban, many of them would become beggars."

Women are not the only victims of this rampant misogyny. Mohammed Halim, a 46-year-old Afghan schoolteacher, was dragged from his family and horribly murdered last year - disemboweled and then dismembered - for defying orders to stop educating girls.

All these are only examples - the tip of a dreadful iceberg that will never be demolished until Muslims by the millions rise up against it. As for the rest of us, we too have an obligation to raise our voices. It took a worldwide outcry to spare "Qatif girl" and Nazanin. But there are countless others like them, and our silence may seal their fate.

Not “may.” “Will.”

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:29 | link | comments

Economic jihad: Some decades ago, a quirk of geology made a bunch of backward desert dwellers outrageously, unimaginably wealthy—and don’t think they aren’t going to continue to capitalize on it. Why, that quirk is what’s allowing them to buy up a good portion of Dar al Harb at bargain rates. From the Financial Times:

Saudi Arabia plans to establish a sovereign wealth fund that is expected to dwarf Abu Dhabi’s $900bn and become the largest in the world.

The new fund will be a formidable rival for other government-owned investment funds in the Middle East and Asia, which are playing an increasingly active role in channelling capital to western companies, particularly financial companies hard hit by the US mortgage meltdown.

News of the Saudi plan comes as Temasek of Singapore is in “preliminary” talks with Merrill Lynch concerning a multibillion-dollar stake in the ailing investment bank, according to a person familiar with the matter.

“Merrill and Temasek have been talking for a while about this, although there are no indications that a deal is imminent,” the person said. Temasek was also approached as a possible investor in UBS and Morgan Stanley, although the investment banks later struck deals with Government of Singapore Investment Corp and China Investment Corp respectively, the person said.

These stakes have avoided a serious political backlash but potential investments from the Saudis are likely to be subject to greater scrutiny.

The effort is likely to be spearheaded by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which has a mandate to invest only internally. Previously, the Saudis’ oil wealth had gone partly to the kingdom’s central bank, the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority, and partly into the coffers of the ruling family.

While the balance sheet of SAMA is public information, bankers say the figures capture only a small percentage of the total wealth of the country. The myriad investment vehicles of the various members of the royal family have never been transparent…

Now there’s an understatement and a half. Not only are the myriad vehicles not transparent, they are opaque, murky, and about as clear as mud. Of course, when you have that much money, a little opacity never seems all that problematic.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:38 | link | comments

Nunsense: Glossy Islamic rag, Islamica Magazine, has an interview with an infidel who’s one of the most effective shills for Islam this side of John Esposito (who’s also featured in the current issue). I speak, of course, of none other than ex-nun and the completely nonsensical Karen Armstrong. The author of a hagiography of Islam’s founder, Karen is of the opinion that Islam has gotten a bad rap, and that, all “fundamentalism” being more or less the same, any misunderstanding between believers and non-believers is entirely attributable to “politics” and what you might call “bad faith” on the part of the kaffirs:

ANDREA BISTRICH: 9/11 has become the symbol of major, insurmountable hostilities between Islam and the West. After the attacks many Americans asked: "Why do they hate us?" And experts in numerous round-table talks debated if Islam is an inherently violent religion. Is this so?

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Certainly not. There is far more violence in the Bible than in the Qur'an; the idea that Islam imposed itself by the sword is a Western fiction, fabricated during the time of the Crusades when, in fact, it was Western Christians who were fighting brutal holy wars against Islam. The Qur'an forbids aggressive warfare and permits war only in self-defence; the moment the enemy sues for peace, the Qur'an insists that Muslims must lay down their arms and accept whatever terms are offered, even if they are disadvantageous. Later, Muslim law forbade Muslims to attack a country where Muslims were permitted to practice their faith freely; the killing of civilians was prohibited, as were the destruction of property and the use of fire in warfare.

The sense of polarization has been sharpened by recent controversies — the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, over the Pope's remarks about Islam, over whether face-veils hinder integration. All these things have set relations between Islam and the West on edge. Harvard-Professor Samuel Huntington introduced the theory of a "clash of civilizations" we are witnessing today. Does such a fundamental incompatibility between the "Christian West" and the "Muslim World" indeed exist?

The divisions in our world are not the result of religion or of culture, but are politically based. There is an imbalance of power in the world, and the powerless are beginning to challenge the hegemony of the Great Powers, declaring their independence of them-often using religious language to do so. A lot of what we call "fundamentalism" can often be seen as a religious form of nationalism, an assertion of identity. The old 19th-century European nationalist ideal has become tarnished and has always been foreign to the Middle East. In the Muslim world people are redefining themselves according to their religion in an attempt to return to their roots after the great colonialist disruption.

What has made Fundamentalism, seemingly, so predominant today?

The militant piety that we call "fundamentalism" erupted in every single major world faith in the course of the twentieth century. There is fundamentalist Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Sikhism, Hinduism and Confucianism, as well as fundamentalist Islam. Of the three monotheistic religions-Judaism, Christianity and Islam-Islam was the last to develop a fundamentalist strain during the 1960s.

Fundamentalism represents a revolt against secular modern society, which separates religion and politics. Wherever a Western secularist government is established, a religious counterculturalist protest movement rises up alongside it in conscious rejection. Fundamentalists want to bring God/religion from the sidelines to which they have been relegated in modern culture and back to centre stage. All fundamentalism is rooted in a profound fear of annihilation: whether Jewish, Christian or Muslim, fundamentalists are convinced that secular or liberal society wants to wipe them out. This is not paranoia: Jewish fundamentalism took two major strides forward, one after the Nazi Holocaust, the second after the Yom Kippur War of 1973. In some parts of the Middle East, secularism was established so rapidly and aggressively that it was experienced as a lethal assault.

The fact that fundamentalism is also a phenomenon in politics was stressed only recently by former US president Jimmy Carter when he voiced his concerns over the increasing merging of religion and state in the Bush administration, and the element of fundamentalism in the White House. Carter sees that traits of religious fundamentalists are also applicable to neo-conservatives. There seems to be a major controversy between, on the one hand, so called hard-liners or conservatives and, on the other, the progressives. Is this a typical phenomenon of today's world?

The United States is not alone in this. Yes, there is a new intolerance and aggression in Europe too as well as in Muslim countries and the Middle East. Culture is always-and has always been-contested. There are always people who have a different view of their country and are ready to fight for it. American Christian fundamentalists are not in favour of democracy; and it is true that many of the Neo-Cons, many of whom incline towards this fundamentalism, have very hard-line, limited views. These are dangerous and difficult times and when people are frightened they tend to retreat into ideological ghettos and build new barriers against the "other". Democracy is really what religious people call "a state of grace." It is an ideal that is rarely achieved, that has constantly to be reaffirmed, lest it be lost. And it is very difficult to fulfil. We are all-Americans and Europeans-falling short of the democratic ideal during the so called "war against terror."...

Yeah, ain’t we awful? We lowly infidels (who, you'd never know from Armstrong's words, are trying to fend off a holy war) can never hope to measure up to the perfection of the one and only true faith—not unless we’re prepared to embrace it ourselves. Or, at the very least, become its apologist/champion, like the clueless Karen.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:15 | link | comments

Jihadi heavyweight title fight: The decadent Saudi royals had hoped that exporting all their lovely Wahhabism to mosques and madrassahs around the globe would inoculate their Magic Kingdom against the wrath of the holy warriors. However, since when you sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind, it hasn’t quite worked out that way. From the Jerusalem Post:

Saudi Arabian police have arrested 28 men for allegedly planning to attack holy sites around Mecca and Medina during the recently finished Muslim haj pilgrimage, the kingdom's Interior Ministry said Sunday.

The ministry said 27 of the men were Saudi nationals and one was a foreign resident.

"Thanks to God, the security forces managed to detain members of the deviated group who have links with elements outside (the kingdom) while planning to carry out criminal acts inside," a statement by the Interior Ministry said.

Saudi authorities often use the term deviated group to describe terror suspects linked to al-Qaida.

It’s the “deviates” vs. the decadents—and it’s a toss-up at this point as to who’s going to win the title (although at the moment the decadents appear to have an edge).

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:39 | link | comments

Don't miss: A round up in the Sunday Times of the year's most amusing/cringe-inducing quotes by and/or about the literary set. Of special note: a really bad sex scene as penned by Norman Mailer (who died a few weeks ago); the exchange between Mailer and that other phallus-obsessed Jewish American writer, Philip Roth, about the dire effects of aging on male bathroom habits; and the rejection letter sent to a writer who had submitted a few sample chapters from Pride and Prejudice (apparently, the publisher didn't recognize their provenance).

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

Shipwrecked!: That's what freedom of speech—and the freedom to speak unpleasant truths—in Canada is going to be if the HRCs are allowed to have their way with Maclean's Magazine and Mark Steyn. (To the tune of The Ballad of Gilligan's Island; hat tip—Stu):

Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale,

A tale of Maclean’s and Steyn,

And how they got in trouble when

They wouldn't toe the line.

 

The skipper was a lobby group,

The famous CIC.

Four law students signed on to board

The "good" ship HRC.

(That leaky HRC.)

 

The mag, they said, had done 'em wrong,

Had made them hopping mad

By claiming that some “radicals”

Were “hot for the jihad.”

 

The words (though true)

Abridged their “rights,”

Engendered fear and hate.

A thought “crime” that the HRC

Would now "adjudicate."

 

So tune in as the Thought Police

Pursue their fav’rite sport—

Compelling folks to toe the line

There in kangaroo court.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:34 | link | comments

Haj conundrum: Decisions, decisions. Whether ‘tis nobler to “stone the devil” from the ground level—and risk being crushed in a melee of pilgrims—or to “stone the devil” from higher up.  From Arab News:

MINA, 22 December 2007 — Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Mansour Al-Turki yesterday admitted that pilgrims of certain nationalities had put in a request with the Saudi authorities for them to be allowed to carry out the stoning-of-the-devil ritual from the ground floor of the massive Jamrat plaza.

“Yes, that is true,” said Al-Turki. “But we explained to them that we don’t decide who performs this particular ritual from which floor of the complex. All floors are open to pilgrims of all nationalities. They decide, not us.”

According to Al-Turki, the new Jamrat complex is designed in such a way that only certain roads lead to certain floors or ramps. “For example, three central roads in Mina, namely Jawhara Street, Souq Al-Arab Street and New Street, lead to the ground floor of the Jamrat complex. If any pilgrim intends to perform stoning from the ground floor he or she will have to be on one of these three streets,” he explained.

The three streets mentioned above run through the center of the tent city. And these are the ones widely used by pilgrims. “On all three days of the stoning, there is a huge density of people on these streets,” he pointed out.

Al-Turki said in the event of the pilgrim being on any other street, the flow of pilgrims will automatically take him or her straight to other ramps of the complex. “During our preparatory meetings we explained this all to representatives of the various pilgrim establishments and also to members of the international Haj missions,” he said.

According to sources, it was suggested during these meetings that pilgrims who prefer to stone the devil from the ground floor and who do not find themselves in one of those streets should be given access to them through the interconnected lanes. All these interconnected lanes are tightly sealed by security forces because they fear, and rightly so, such a cross movement of pilgrims would lead to chaos…

The logistics of haj are indeed confounding, requiring an understanding of crowd control and traffic flow that would put even lesser mortals (i.e. kafirs) to the test. Luckily, we don’t have to worry about such matters, us being lowly infidels and all.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:41 | link | comments

A preview of coming attractions?: A clueless freshman Democratic Congressman from—what are the odds?—Vermont, who clearly doesn’t know the first thing about the mullahs or the jihad, is calling upon the U.S. to “engage” (hmmm, where have I heard that before?) Iran. And, quel surprise, one of  the mullahs’ media mouthpieces approves. From the Tehran Times:

WASHINGTON (Reformer) – Representative Peter Welch is urging President Bush to engage in “direct, unconditional and comprehensive” diplomacy with Iran.

The freshman Vermont Democrat cites a recent National Intelligence Estimate, which determined that Iran has no nuclear weapons program. He also says Iran had no weapons shipments to Iraq.

“The release of the National Intelligence Estimate… clearly demonstrates that our nation’s differences with Iran can and must be resolved diplomatically,” Welch wrote in a letter to the president this week.

A report issued by UN nuclear watchdog Mohamed ElBaradei on November 8 confirmed the transparency of Iran’s nuclear program and said it found Tehran to be generally truthful about key aspects of its nuclear history.

He was joined by Representative Peter DeFazio. So far, 13 House members have signed onto the letter.

“We urge you to build upon the progress made by our own intelligence agencies’ positive assessment of Iran’s responsiveness to diplomacy,” he adds. “It is time to begin direct, unconditional, and comprehensive negotiations with Iran.”

Welch spokesman Andrew Savage said the letter stems from the congressman’s “profound distrust with the president, in particular on the issue of Iran and foreign diplomacy.”

A preview of what’s likely to occur should Barack Obama, a similarly clueless foreign policy neophyte, be elected President.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:29 | link | comments

Shilling for Islam: In an article about the horrific massacre of worshippers at prayer in a Pakistan mosque, the New York Times manages to slip in a promo for the one and only true faith:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A suicide attacker detonated a powerful bomb inside a crowded mosque in northwestern Pakistan on Friday, killing 48 people and wounding 100 as they celebrated one of Islam’s major holidays with the country’s former interior minister, state-run media reported.

Skip to next paragraph The bombing was the second assassination attempt in eight months on the official, Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, who was the country’s top law enforcement official until last month and who is running for Parliament in elections planned for January.

 

He was unhurt, but his son and two grandnephews were among the wounded. The local police estimated that hundreds of people had been inside the mosque, a modest white building constructed by the former minister’s family in his ancestral village, Sherpao.

 

In a telephone interview, Mr. Sherpao said he believed that Islamic militants linked to Al Qaeda were responsible. He said that the bomb exploded as he and his relatives prayed in the front row of worshipers.

“It was a massacre,” Mr. Sherpao said, his voice shaking with anger. “I can tell you that.”

After the bombing, police and intelligence agents raided an Islamic school in the nearby village of Turangzai and arrested seven students, some of them Afghans, The Associated Press reported, citing two police officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly. The police officials declined to say whether the raid was connected to the suicide bombing.

The blast was the latest in a series of attacks that suggests that a state of emergency declared by President Pervez Musharraf last month has largely failed to halt terrorist attacks. From Nov. 3 to Dec. 15, Mr. Musharraf suspended the Constitution and ruled by decree in what he said was an effort to curb terrorism.

Mr. Musharraf’s opponents said he used his emergency powers to suppress his political opponents and remove the country’s Supreme Court before it could rule him ineligible for a third term in office.

Mr. Musharraf has cited an ongoing offensive by 20,000 Pakistani soldiers in the Swat Valley, a famed tourist area in northwestern Pakistan, as a sign of progress. Military officials say they have routed militants who have seized control of the area, killing 300 and driving the remainder into surrounding hills.

But suicide bombings have continued in northwestern Pakistan, possibly in response to the offensive. On Dec. 9, a suicide bombing in the Swat Valley killed six civilians and a police officer. On Dec. 10, a suicide bomb attack on a military truck carrying schoolchildren outside a Pakistani Air Force base in Kamra wounded five children and two adults.

On Dec. 15, a suicide bomber riding a bicycle killed two soldiers and three civilians outside an army camp in Nowshera. On Dec. 18, 12 soldiers were killed when a suicide bomber detonated explosives near a sports field used by the Pakistani Army in Kohat.

The mosque attack, with its high toll and its timing on a major holiday, represented a stepping-up of the violence. The holiday, Id al-Adha, the Islamic Feast of Sacrifice, marks the end of the annual hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca, and celebrates the willingness of Ibrahim, or Abraham, to sacrifice his son when ordered to do so by God. Islam honors Abraham, like Jesus and many other biblical figures, as prophets…

It “honors” them by declaring them and other figures from the Jewish and Christian scriptures retroactively Muslim (because if you’re doing religion correctly, you are ipso facto a true blue submissive). No mention of the fact (Allah forefend) that the Koran doesn’t even get Jesus’s name right—it calls him “Issa,” the equivalent of “Esau”—or that it has rewritten Christian doctrine such that as there is neither a crucifixion nor a rapture

Some “honor.”

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:06 | link | comments

Immigrants amuck: Oh, those violent refugees. Can’t live with ‘em. Can’t deport ‘em.  Here’s an editorial on the subject in the Globe and Mail:

Even after federal Auditor-General Sheila Fraser raised the alarm about potentially dangerous and deportable immigrants roaming Canadian streets, Mohamed Hagi Mohamud lived in freedom – and a young woman who missed her Skytrain in Surrey, B.C., was made to pay for that freedom. The Canadian government bears a share of responsibility for what happened to Erika Martyn.

Mr. Mohamud, a refugee from Somalia, is a violent predator who committed a series of crimes of increasing severity. That string of crimes could have been interrupted. In 1997 he pulled a knife on a Toronto-area taxi driver and was convicted of assault with a weapon. In 2002, he attacked a woman in her apartment, punching her in the face repeatedly and kicking her. He was convicted of assault causing bodily harm, and spent 30 months in custody before sentencing, and six months after. He certainly should have been deported after that second offence, as the law calls for. But immigration authorities were slow to set a date for an immigration hearing.

His case was far from exceptional. As Ms. Fraser reported in April, 2003, Canada had a mountainous backlog of deportation orders. In just six years, it had grown by 36,000 cases, and Ms. Fraser questioned the “priority accorded to control activities.” If Mr. Mohamud's case is an indication, the priority remained low. Even after he was charged in 2003 with allegedly stabbing a woman in the neck with a knife (a charge dropped because of trouble identifying the assailant), immigration authorities did not schedule a deportation hearing until May of 2004. He didn't show up, but no warrant was issued for him until December of that year.

On March 14, 2005, when Ms. Martyn missed her Surrey train and decided to walk home, Mr. Mohamud held a knife to her throat, dragged her home and raped and beat her for 21/2 hours. She later asked a judge to remove the publication ban on her name so she could speak out. “Why did this extreme incident have to happen before they started doing anything?”

The question today is how much of a priority are other dangerous and deportable criminals. The 2006-07 annual report of the Canada Border Services Agency provides little useful information – not even mentioning the size of the backlog or whether it has shrunk or grown. Not good enough, especially considering that the Conservative government campaigned in last year's election on rapidly reducing the backlog. Ms. Martyn's question is as pertinent as ever.

It’s indeed a small world, after all, here in multiculti Canada. Especially when we get to import--but can't seem to get rid of--all sorts of colourful chaps, like Mr. Mohamud, the Somali slasher.

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

The P.A.’s Xmas booty, er, bounty: You’ve got to hand it that old Silver Fox, Mahmoud Abbas. A two-time loser and the world is still beating a path to his compound, trying to see who can pony up the most shekels for his benighted Palestinian Authority (a misnomer if there ever was one, since “authority” over Palestinians is something Abbas clearly lacks). Washington Times columnist Diana West makes note of this bizarre phenomenon, and comments as follows:

Christmas came early to the Palestinian Authority when the "international community" decided not only to meet PA President Mahmoud Abbas' request for $5.6 billion in aid, but to throw in almost $2 billion more. Why? Did the PA end its terrorist ways? Stop state-sanctioned incitement against Israel and the West? Change Fatah's charter (forget about Hamas) calling for Israel's destruction?

 

Alas, no, no and no. We are heaping riches on the PA for other reasons, one of which I discuss below.

 

But first, a digression: Christmas, obviously, doesn't come to the PA, even if Western billions do. Despite a tiny (and decreasing) number of Christians, the PA is a land of Islam-Dar al-Islam. That makes Israel, the object of the PA's destructive animus, Dar al-Harb, land of war, right?

 

Right. But not according to the PC script of the "international community." We never, ever discuss the Islamic context of "Arab-Israeli" conflicts. But how else can we hope to understand them? Jihad ideology inspires the Arab struggle against Israel. It also explains it. As the only non-Muslim country amid Middle Eastern Dar-al Islam, as the only "dhimmi" nation to reclaim its land once conquered by Islam, Israel's very existence is a religious offense to the "umma," or Islamic community. In this same context, what we call "foreign aid" to the PA may be understood as a form of "jizya," the protection money paid to Muslims by non-Muslims.

 

But the non-Muslim world prefers not to think like that. We avert our collective eye from the goals of jihad, from the history and teachings of Islam. Instead, we see ourselves as villains — Israel for its existence, and Israel's supporters for, well, their support for Israel's existence.