War and Sharon by Eliyho Matz

Milchama Ve Sharon
(War & Sharon)

Eliyho Matz

If we had writers like Tolstoy, I am sure we would have one of the finest sagas written on the Israeli leader – General Ariel Sharon. But this is not the vast plains of Russia; it is only the land of the ancient Israelis. It is the land of the twelve tribes, the Judges, the prophets, the Kings and prophets of doom, of revivival and more doom. So much doom that it took two thousand years to revive that doomed land and make it what it is today. What it is today we are not really sure yet, but let us focus here on one of the new heros of this land, who now is in a coma at a Jerusalem hospital: Ariel Sharon.

I was born in 1948, the year Israel was still fighting for its survival as the new modern state of the “new Israelis”. Growing up in the 1950’s was no party. Life was tough; food was in short supply; people struggled to survive, my parents among them. And they did survive and they excelled.

Growing up in the 1950’s meant hearing about the war of Independence, the heros, the dead, the sacrifice. Memorials of Yad L’Banim (a hand to the sons) were erected. From the first time I read the newspaper Maariv, my dad brought home, the name Ariel Sharon entered my consciousness. Every time there was a military action of any sort, his name would pop up. First as commander of the notorious 101^st Commando Unit. I devoured all the articles and books on this. I was particularly impressed by one of the fallen heros named Irmi and by the greatest Israeli platoon leader Meir Har Zion. Then it was Arik in the Mitle Pass, parachuting into Egyptian territory and founding thereby a military history and of the Red Wings awarded those who parachuted into battle.

But here I must hesitate a minute. Arik Sharon, product as he was of a modern Israeli sovereignty, participated (and almost got killed) in the 1948 War of Independence, then sculpted on that sovereignty a new face and imbued it with vision by creating the 101^st Commando Unit. Military analysis is split on the operation of the 101^st. True, it boosted Israeli morale, but provided none of the desperately needed peace of mind and security. And then, in 1956, Israel joined England and France in the Sinai war and Sharon created the military fiasco in the Mitle Pass. An independent assessment of Sharon’s military performance up to 1956 would give him high marks for courage but overall judge him too undisciplined to be a top military leader. This in fact was the assessment in the wake of 1956, but never taken seriously, so Sharon remained in the Army, moving upward and onward to the next crisis.

Sharon got another opportunity to prove himself a hero in the War of 1967. He fought in the center of Sinai when he defeated a huge Egyptian army. But his undisciplined personal behavior undermined his accomplishments once again.

From 1948 to 1967 the charismatic Sharon saturated Israeli Army politics Outsiders, onlookers, equating visibility with astuteness, concluded Sharon to be a great military leader. In fact he was far too dangerous and insubordinate to warrant the esteem and, really, even a position of power in any civilian or military organization, most especially the Israeli Army.

I joined the Israeli Army just half a year before the 1967 war, my head filled with tales of heroism, dedication and . . . “Sharonism”. I joined the Paratroopers Unit 202^nd, a Sharon creation.

And so it was that, at the ripe old age of almost 19, I shifted at warp speed from bucolic civilian life to military service and was catapulted into the 1967 War. Despite the heroic images I carried with me into the military, I proved to be a less than outstanding soldier. My company commander, recognizing my lack of talent, abandoned me and a few other companion losers at base camp while he lead the cream of Israeli soldiery into battle near Gaza.

No sooner had the 202^nd Paratroopers disappeared over the horizon than a commando unit formerly allied with Sharon’s old 101^st marched into base camp and pressed my contingent of slackers into service and Israeli Military History. We were lifted airborne in World War II United States Force cast-offs, and flown into Egyptian air space where we lingered for about an hour with nary a shot fired or a trooper deployed, and after deliberations out of our sight and earshot were concluded, we learned that the cowering enemy had withdrawn and we had conquered Sharem El Shiek, albeit without earning a single coveted Red Wing.

Between 1967 and 1973 Sharon proved that he had no chance to move anywhere in the Israeli military, but he remained there in some capacity, sometimes at great aggravation to other military leaders. He also tried his hand at politics, right wing politics, that was full of empty slogans. The Israeli public, after 1967, entered into a time of Messianic thinking, and Sharon was more than happy to snuggle into that trend, enriching it with more ideologies of the Eretz Israel Hashlema (The Complete Israel). And clearly, G-D was listening and watching, and the Spirit of the Lord was all over the land.

When I completed my military service in 1971, I exited the Israeli Army and began casting about for a direction. I confronted enormous personal and financial hurdles and ultimately foundered my way into the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, registering for coursework in Judaic studies, literature and history.

It was Bashert that within a short time, at the beginning of 1973, I was called back into military service for a ‘special exercise’. Little did I know in the spring of that year, that, in October, 1973, my re-involvement would lead me into a temporary but very close proximity to Arik Sharon during the Yom Kippur War. Of course, one must remember that he was the leading general and the hero king of Israel, and I was just a driver, steering a very important officer (Amos Schoken, later the owner of Haaretz) to the Suez Canal. Our unit was the one protecting the ‘Bridge on Wheels’ that eventually became the symbol of the defeat and humiliation of the entire Egyptian army. For that bridge became the key element in the Israeli victory.

Sharon grew in stature as a national hero. Some called him “the King of Israel”. I went back to the Hebrew University to mull my experiences, and within a year, I found myself at the University of Massachusetts

From 1973 to 1982, Sharon enjoyed a relatively positive comeback into Israeli military, political and social acceptance. It is noteworthy that his deeds in those years were later considered disastrous to Israeli society, its military and its political establishment.

Sharon has acquired the popular nickname of “The Bulldozer”. I feel he would more appropriately have been called “The Tractor”. He has been a farmer, and has surely had the opportunity to plough a field. So he would have known the difficulty involved in ploughing, in keeping the furrows straight and parallel. But if his leadership style is any indication of his farming skills, he must not have been very good at planting time. Sharon was careless in his zig zag policies, which eventually led to his downfall after the war with Lebanon in the 1980’s. He couldn’t hold it together, and wound up ostracized.

Sharon convinced Begin to engage in that war. Begin was an ideologue. He did not realize how faulty Sharon was, and fell into a trap.

While in the United States, I became very friendly with two individuals, Shmuel Merlin and Hillel Kook,both at once friends and comrades of Begin. As a matter of fact, it was Kook who installed Begin as commander of the Irgun in 1944.

Both pleaded with Begin in 1982 not to start a war in Lebanon. I know that because I carried the letters to Begin to the Post Office.

In the last few years since the 1980’s, Isreal found itself in political Limbo, not at peace and not at war. Confused ideological tendencies lead Israel to Oslo, and eventually to another one of Sharon’s shenanigans, and another Intefada, and here Sharon is suddenly winning an election, and becoming the Prime Minister.

With all due respect, Sharon’s arrival at the top prize position in the Israeli political panoply does not necessarily indicate the triumph of the Israeli political system. It rather indicates its fragility and complete weakness. His ascendancy is the proof that after two thousand years of not being in politics, politics is a hard discipline to master and a harder thing to get right. And besides, politics is like the lottery, except that the price one pays for it is blood. And the prize does not always go to the most qualified.

While Sharon was chosen in response to the Intefada, in reality he is the worst choice the Israelis could have made. It is not difficult to prove one thing here. Sharon is consistent in his deeds. He ploughs the land in a zigzag: he thinks he has the answers, but what looks like a straight line to him is an impossible environment for growth. He believed he knew the best way to deal with military, political and social issues. This of course is complete nonsense. Sharon’s military doctrines led Israel into deeper isolation within the mideast. His politics of supporting Israeli ‘settlers’, have had the same effect. His “greatest” achievement, that of leaving Gaza, was accomplished without the active element of politics with the Palestinians, that is, a complete misunderstanding of realpolitik. Just leaving without a politically negotiated agreement was politically infantile.

So while Sharon lays in a coma, the nation of Israelis is trying to wake up from the coma inflicted on her by Sharon and his ideologues.

It doesn’t look like I have described his prior achievements here, does it?

One should mention the great wall Sharon inspired. It will stand there for a while until we get rid of it. It is hardly monumental. But as monuments go, it is about as effective as the Great Wall of China to a satellite. It will stand there until it is knocked down. And of course, don’t forget the corrupted society and other illegal things associated with our sleeping Prime Minister – Quite a legacy!

And as far as an Israeli future is concerned, perhaps we can take a different approach: Let’s start with creating an Israeli Republic. Let’s create a constitution for that Israeli Republic. Let’s propose a Sulcha with the Palestinians and say “We, the Israelis, are an ancient people, but you too have been in Jerusalen for 1500 years. We respect that. Have your Al Aktza, but keep in mind that we do that for the sake of normalcy and good nature. We are here to stay. When our Messiah comes, things will change, but for now, let’s try to respect each other and mend the differences. And from the nations of the world, we ask de facto recognition of Jerusalem as the capitol of Israel so that the embassies of the world may be centered there.”
Of course one can only do things of this sort because he believes in the process of politics, and has inner strength – not because he adheres to an ideology, which is the substance of Sharon’s legacy. And please don’t forget that peace is a condition before war, and war is a condition before peace.

New York City; January, 2006

Hollywood Forever

Recently visited Hollywood Memorial Park cemetery in Los Angeles, with a friend from UCLA film school. These days the place is called Hollywood Forever. It's located right behind Paramount Studios, so the name seems fittingly Hollywood. In addition to a number of newer Russian and Armenian tombstones, there are memorials to Golden Age stars like Rudolph Valentino, and newer acts like JohnnyRamone.

Below are pictures of the main entrance, the door to Valentino's final resting place, Peter Finch's crypt, Hattie McDaniel's memorial, and the tomb of Douglas Fairbanks Senior and Junior.

Bernard Henri-Levy on Zidane

In the Wall Street Journal:

The man's insurrection against the saint. A refusal of the halo that had been put on his head and that he then, quite logically, pulverized with a head-butt, as though saying: I am a living being not a fetish; a man of flesh and blood and passion, not this idiotic empty hologram, this guru, this universal psychoanalyst, natural child of Abbé Pierre and Sister Emanuelle, which soccer-mania was trying to turn me into.
It was as though he were repeating, in parody, the title of one of the very great books of the last century, before the triumph of this liturgy of the body, performance and commodity: Ecce Homo, This is a Man. Yes, a man, a true man, not one of these absurd monsters or synthetic stars who are made by the money of brand names in combination with the sighs of the globalized crowd.

Achilles had his heel. Zidane will have had his--this magnificent and rebellious head that brought him, suddenly, back into the ranks of his human brothers.

Why Zidane Did It

Explained by the Daily Mail:

First defender Marco Materazzi spoke in Italian - a language understood by Zidane who once played for Italian side Juventus - grabbed his opponent and told him 'hold on, wait, that one's not for a n***** like you.'

It is not clear whether the Italian was referring to the ball heading their way or his own groping of Zidane.

The expert, who can lip read foreign languages phonetically and translate with the aid of an Italian interpreter, was unable to see what Zidane said in reply.

But she saw that as the players walked forward Materazzi said: 'We all know you are the son of a terrorist whore.'

Then, just before the headbutt, he was seen saying,: 'So just f*** off.'

The translation tallies with the words of Zidane's agent who said the player had told him the Italian made a 'very serious' comment.

'Zinedine didn't want to talk about it but it will all come out in the next week,' said Alain Miglaccio.

'He is a man who normally lets things wash over him but on Sunday night something exploded inside him.'

To some observers who saw Zidane floor his opponent with nine minutes to go, that description might appear an understatement.

The 34-year-old midfielder was red carded in a move that did his side no favours as they went on to lose the final on penalties.

Someone I know said, after watching the game, "I hate the Italian team, they are cheaters and whiners."

Wimbledon & World Cup

Federer and Italy.

Two great sporting events today on TV...

Chechen Terrorist Leader Killed

RIA Novosti reports:

GROZNY, July 10 (RIA Novosti) - Chechen President Alu Alkhanov said Monday that the killing of Russia's terrorist No.1 Shamil Basayev had turned "one of the blackest pages in the history" of the North Caucasus republic.

Russia's security chief, Nikolai Patrushev, announced Monday that several militants and Basayev, who had claimed responsibility for the deaths of 331 people in the 2004 Beslan school massacre and other atrocities, had been killed in the southern Russian republic of Ingushetia.

"Basayev's actions caused the complete devastation of [Chechnya's] economy, thousands of deaths, and dozens of terrorist acts both in Chechnya and throughout Russia," Alukhanov said.

He praised the security services for carrying out the successful operation.

BTW, Basayev had been interviewed not so long ago by a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reporter for ABC's Nightline. The Russians protested at the time:

...the Russian embassy in Washington said ABC's apparent decision to ignore Moscow's arguments against broadcasting the material was deplorable.

Its statement said the Chechen rebel leader was "responsible for slaughtering innocent victims during many major terrorist attacks that he masterminded and personally perpetrated".

"The most shocking and deadliest of them was the cold blooded killing of hundreds of children" in Beslan.

The interview "runs counter to the spirit of Russian-American partnership in our joint fight against the global threat of terrorism", the embassy said in the statement, which was also broadcast by ABC.

The Disappearing American Working Man

The Washington Post published this chart to illustrate an article today that claims American women are leaving the workforce--but missed the real story: the chart shows that American men have been quitting work for decades.

Kosovo & Israel

Francisco Gil-White sees a parallel:

Kosovo has become a gangster state where ordinary Albanians suffer extreme and widespread oppression; Kosovo’s ethnic Serbs have been murdered or thrown out in a campaign of extermination. Substitute ‘Arabs’ for ‘Albanians’ and ‘Jews’ for ‘Serbs’ and you’ve predicted the future of the Middle East. Those who would defend Israel must understand Kosovo.

Giuliani for President!

Fred Siegel analyzes hizzoner's chances in The Wall Street Journal:

Between now and November 2008, the political world might easily endure any number of shocks affecting Mr. Giuliani's (and everyone else's) candidacy. The shocks could come from a variety of directions, ranging from the Middle East and especially Iran, to a new Supreme Court ruling on abortion, to another terror attack on the United States, to a dip into economic recession. Mr. Giuliani might also be damaged by the airing of more personal laundry, like his messy personal life, his overzealous conduct as a prosecutor, or his ties to his old friend and ex-partner Bernard Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner who in 2004 had to withdraw his acceptance of the post of secretary of homeland security and pleaded guilty recently to corruption charges. It would thus be premature in the extreme for Rudolph Giuliani to start drafting a victory speech. But as the makers of "Giuliani Time" intuited, the day is hardly inconceivable.

Canadian PM Speaks--in French...

Watching Bush and Stephen Harper on C-Span, struck by the Canadian PM speaking in French. The Americans look perplexed. To me is sends a message: Canada is not the USA. Plus, it is a signal to France and "la Francophonie" in Africa, the Carribean, and of course Brussels and Paris. Bush looks like he ate something that didn't agree with him. Now Harper is back in English, but the fact is that he spoke French first.

Tres interesant...

Iran and North Korea

Interestingly, here in Los Angeles we have the largest immigrant Iranian and North Korean communities in the USA. And they have their own television programs, which I watched on cable TV. Although I didn't understand what anyone said, from the graphics it was pretty clear that all the situations are more complicated than they seem. My guess is that there are thousands of people in this part of the country who might know what is going on in their respective homelands better than the pundits or politicians in Washington...here are some weblinks to Iranian and Korean television broadcasters.

The Mexican Election

I'm in Los Angeles right now, and with its large immigrant community, the Mexican election is big news--a lot like the US election of 2000. Days later, still no winner. And it means something, but what, I don't know. Here's the Wikipedia link.

The Death of Ken Lay

Here's the Wikipedia link. All I can say is that Enron was one of the piggy banks for George Bush's Presidential campaign. Ken Lay was a convicted criminal and Republican contributor. Now he is dead, and there will be no appeal. If Marc Rich's pardon left a black mark on the Clinton administration's legacy, the Enron scandal may cast a growing shadow on the Bush administration in years to come.

Christopher Hitchens on Alexander Cockburn and Barbara Epstein

From Christopher Hitchens' Web

A recent issue of Alexander Cockburn's Counterpunch carried a viciously unpleasant account of my supposed conduct at the memorial meeting for the late Barbara Epstein. The item alleged that I had sought an invitation to an event to which I was not invited, had then behaved boorishly, and had claimed to be the man who, with Paul Wolfowitz, had induced President Bush to invade Iraq.

I do not mind the normally cheerful and freehand satires that Cockburn produces about me, but the attempt to make Barbara Epstein's memorial into a theater for his abuse seems to me to cross a line of decency. As it happens, I was notified of her death, and of the arrangements, by an a series of emails from the New York Review of Books. I was also honored by an invitation from her son and daughter. I have since received a kind letter from Jacob Epstein, unsolicited, which I am not at liberty to quote in full. However, he does not object to my citing him as saying: "There is no question you were invited to Barbara's memorial, as Helen and I asked you. The Counterpunch thing about this was incorrect."

That's all that needs to be said about the only hurtful defamation. As to the rest of it, I wouldnt have been able to act the part of a drunken hack even if I had wanted to, since a fellow-guest and close friend of the family was overcome by the heat while I was talking to him downstairs, and I had to spend most of the time in the lobby and on the sidewalk, waiting for the Emergency Services and keeping him company. I do recall being briefly snubbed by Jean Stein as she passed through the lobby, but I found I could bear that.

When people ask me about "my war" in Iraq, I do tend to say that it was indeed I who started it. Cockburn and his mean-minded second-hand and third-rate informants have even got my heavy sarcasm wrong, and don't mind making Barbara Epstein's memorial seem like a vulgar brawl, instead of the dignified and touching occasion that it was, if it will serve their purpose.

The Devil Wears Prada

Really enjoyed seeing The Devil Wears Prada the other day, if only to watch Meryl Streep put on and take off her glasses for a couple of hours. It also served as a nostalgia picture, reminding this viewer of a misspent youth in New York City in the out circles of journalism hangers-on, a penumbra represented in the picture by a group of friends who dine together, a Greek chorus of young wannabes. Although they are supposed to be the "good guys" they are in just another circle of hell, ambitious in the world of celebrity chefs, art galleries, or Wall Street--anyone of them probably has a boss from hell, too, who could be played by Meryl Streep. But that's a quibble.

Details of magazine life seem accurately portrayed--no doubt because director David Frankel is offspring of former New York Times editor Max Frankel. I particularly enjoyed seeing all the subordinates ducking out of the hallway to avoid Meryl Streep as she arrived at work. At least the characters had some personality--it would have been even better if there were more life to the supporting players, more scenes of their private lives, second, third, and fourth level storylines. It's nice to want more scenes with the supporting cast for a change, rather than fewer.

There are lots of fun bits of business and clever lines. Such a pleasure to see a film with dialog instead of exploding fireballs. Meryl Streep's explanation of the history of Anne Hathaway's cerulian sweater. Stanley Tucci's insightful statement that the fashion industry is about "inner beauty." Anne Hathaway called a "glamazon" by her friend. The handsome and creepy New York Magazine reporter who seduces her seems like someone I may have met. Meryl's New York townhouse in what is presumably in the East 60s, looks just right. So does Anne Hathaway's crummy apartment. It's a real New York irony--the squalid living arrangements of high society , slum living plus champagne receptions.

Once upon a time, a million years ago in a galaxy far away, I worked as a gopher at Warner Brothers. I got coffee in individual cups (from Dunkin Donuts in those days, rather than Starbucks) carefully balancing the cardboard tray. I had to pick up my boss, go shopping, pick up and deliver videos, scripts, and the like. Tuesday Weld once kicked me off a set because she didn't like the way I looked (on the other hand, Ellen Burstyn was very nice). I was even asked to finish my boss's NY Times crossword puzzles... so I can vouch for the accuracy of the details in THe Devil Wears Prada.

The only thing that doesn't seem credible is the ending--the kindly old editor at the New York Mirror is hard to swallow. Even Perry White was portrayed as a dyspeptic curmudgeon, and newspaper journalist are no less ambitous than fashionistas--only concerned with things like political fashion, or gossip.

James Na on North Korea's Missile Threat

From Real Clear Politics:

That leaves, as always, Beijing. To say that China is embarrassed by North Korea's latest provocation is an understatement. Thus it is now the time to press Beijing hard, for once. North Korea's ballistic missile and nuclear threat would not be where it is today were it not for Beijing, and the U.S. should finally make China take responsibility -- by agreeing to the quarantine. And the United States should make the continued Sino-American economic relationship contingent on China acting like a mature great power by exercising this responsibility.

Ultimately, China's economic relationship with the U.S. is far more important for China's economic growth and political stability than continuing to protect North Korea's arsenal. The choice ought to be, thus, very clear for China's leaders -- provided, of course, that Washington presents Beijing with the choice.

Will the Bush administration, at last, exercise this potent lever to contain North Korea's nuclear and proliferation threat? Or will the pro-China business lobby again trump national security and constrain the administration into rhetorically magnificent, but utterly ineffectual, symbolic gestures?

UK Readies for 7/7 Anniversary

Beginning with comments from Prime Minister Tony Blair, rejecting extremist "grievances" against the West. Here's a BBC account:

The prime minister told MPs it was down to moderate Muslims to stand up to extremism and tell those with "grievances" against the West they were wrong.

Appearing before the Commons liaison committee of senior MPs, he said he disagreed that ministers were not trying to work with the Muslim community.

Mr Blair told MPs: "If we want to defeat the extremism, we have got to defeat its ideas and we have got to address the completely false sense of grievance against the West.

"In the end, government itself cannot go and root out the extremism in these communities.

"I am probably not the person to go into the Muslim community... It's better that we mobilise the Islamic community itself to do this."

He said there was a "clear and active" threat of further attacks but stressed the "overwhelming majority of Muslims utterly abhor this extremism and are completely on the same side as everybody else in wanting to defeat it".

You're a Grand Old Flag

Mark Steyn on the story behind George M. Cohan's patriotic classic:

So how did George M Cohan spend Independence Day one hundred years ago? Well, the cocky little Irish scrapper bashed out a riposte to Mr Metcalfe and published it in The Spot Light on July 4th 1906:

I write my own songs because I write better songs than anyone else I know of. I publish these songs because they bring greater royalties than any other class of music sold in this country. I write my own plays because I have not yet seen or read plays from the pens of other authors that seem as good as the plays I write. I produce my own plays because I think I’m as good a theatrical manager as any other man in this line. I dance because I know I’m the best dancer in the country. I sing because I can sing my own songs better than any other man on the stage… I play leading parts in most of my plays because I think I’m the best actor available. I pay myself the biggest salary ever paid a song and dance comedian because I know I deserve it.

But believe me, kind reader, when I say, I am not an egotist.

He was having a grand old raggin’ of James Metcalfe, but for the most part he wasn’t wrong. George M Cohan, the Yankee Doodle Boy born on the Fourth of July. “You’re A Grand Old Flag”, a song born for the Fourth of July and first heard a century ago – and at millions of parades from Maine to California in every year since.

My Chevy HHR

A few months ago, the uncle of someone I know rented a Chevy HHR from Pensacola airport. Despite the unusual design, the car seemed appealing. Novelty, yes, but somehow friendlier than the more German-looking PT Cruiser, which may have inspired the design. Uncle said he liked the car, and so when I had a chance to drive one off the Budget rent-a-car lot at Long Beach airport, after arriving on Jet Blue, at the same price as a subcompact--I took it. And, I'm also pleased with the car. It's fun to drive, and unusual enough that you feel like an individual. It handles well, is a little higher off the ground, which made it easier to carry an elderly relation, who could get in and out more easily from his wheelchair. With a starting list price of $16,000 and getting 30 mpg on the highway, it's worth a test drive...

Happy 4th!

I'm in Santa Monica on a family matter, and was surprised to discover that they had their 4th of July fireworks on July 1st... So, here's a link to USA CityLink's 4th of July webpage, where you can find out what may be going on in your neighborhood.

Have a Happy Fourth!

John Dillinger Died Here

On a recent trip to Chicago, I took the gangster walking tour, and found myself in front of the Biograph theatre where the G-men shot Dillinger. It's being restored, there was no inside to the outside. Still, incredible to stand there--its a quiet surburban neighborhood, leafy and calm. Who would have guessed the history, unless one read about it somewhere...

H.L. Mencken Slept Here

One of the most interesting things about Alistair Cooke, I learned in my research on Masterpiece Theatre, was his friendship with H.L. Mencken--the "sage of Baltimore." He stuck by the literary lion well after he became unfashionable due to his pro-German sympathies, a victim of World War II. Indeed, Cooke championed efforts to save Mencken's house from the wrecker's ball when Baltimore suffered the tragedy of "urban renewal" in the 1960s. And so the splendid townhouse on Union Square endures to this day, a monument to Baltimore's literary pedigree (though the square seemed a bit dodgy the day I visited). The museum is currently closed, and I hope they open it again, so that we can see how Mencken's opulence contrasted with Poe's poverty. The Alpha and Omega of literary environs, a few blocks from each other, just off I-95 in "Charm City." Here's a link to the Mencken House website.

Edgar Allan Poe Slept Here

The other day I had a little spare time in downtown Baltimore, and so took a look at the Edgar Allan Poe house and memorial museum. It's next to a housing project--the Poe houses--and the tiny cramped quarters were clearly those of a poor, struggling, and starving artist. Spending a little time inhaling the atmosphere gave some real insight into what may have made Poe, Poe. And you think you have problems... Here's a link to the official site of Baltimore's Edgar Allan Poe Society.

An Open Letter to the Victoria and Albert Museum

by Agustin Blazquez with the collaboration of Jaums Sutton

After my article about the Che exhibit, Zoe Whitley, Curator of Contemporary Programmes of the Victoria and Albert Museum wrote me a thoughtful and caring letter addressing the issues I raised in my article published on June 28 on LaurenceJarvikOnline.

In it Miss Whitley acknowledged that she received many criticisms for this exhibit and that the issues I raised are important and serious. She proceeded to explain, “The content of the exhibition has to do with the legacy of an iconic photograph taken by Alberto Korda in 1960 - not the life of the man in the photograph.

“Again, in no way is the V&A seeking to honour a murderer. We have created a vibrant design exhibition, as is our remit, which in the process raises many issues for visitors to consider. I fully realize this response will not change your valid point of view, but I do hope it might go some way to explaining the Museum's rationale.”

Through the worlds of Miss Whitley I can see that she was aware of Che’s criminal history and that the exhibit focused on the image the late Alberto Korda’s photo – ironically taken while Che was very uncomfortable suffering from asthma - and how it became an icon. There was sincerity in her words and clearly expressed her regret that the exhibit had offended so many Cubans.

I feel compelled to point out the extent of her efforts to respond to the issues I raised. I certainly thank her for the concern and compassion expressed in her response to me. My expectation was that my letter to the museum would not result in a reply, as is the norm when I have written to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting – either silence or an arrogant, snobbish reply.

The problem for Cuban Americans is, why do people and organizations continue to offend us? Why is OK?

As I wrote to Miss Whitley, “The point of your exhibit is certainly an interesting and valid one and the case of the Che photo is a rather unique one, but there are so many, many other examples of the same phenomenon that are not offensive.

“I hope you can understand that every time Cubans see on the streets the careless display of Che paraphernalia we are genuinely offended - it feels like a dagger in the heart as our nemesis is used as a hero.”

After recently returning from Europe a filmmaker colleague told me what she saw there was revolting. “In Lisbon there are complete stores dedicated to Che and Castro merchandising. I entered one of them and complained to the owner and he laughed at me. There is no solution!”

A Cuban intellectual told me in relation to the cult about Che, “Oswald Spengler was correct when referring to the decadence” of the Western Civilization. “Canonizing an assassin, a killer an opportunist only shows once more our profound gullibility and blind search of false prophets.

“Trisha Ziff was absolutely correct arguing that Guevara has become the only symbol and banner of revelry for the oppressed.”

I have watched the sorrowful spectacles of so many Central Americans in my area, both legal and illegal, proudly sporting Che merchandising. I have been deeply offended and felt pity for them because if they knew of Che’s human and social crimes, they would be spiting on his image rather than wearing it.

This intellectual said, “The dreadful thing is, why Guevara? Why has such a nefarious figure become an ‘alter Christus’ in our era? In part it is due to the systematic misinformation and in part to the stupid stubbornness of the left academic-bohemians in relation to the Cuban Revolution. Their brains are profoundly clogged - I don’t want to say cretins.”

A former actor said about my Victoria & Albert Museum’s article, “Magnificent piece, very real (as Cubans know). But sadly we are fighting against something evil hidden under a great lie that to date we haven’t been able to unravel, because these people have a pact with the devil and it is a very hard fight.

“Thanks for your efforts to try to make the world understand our sad situation, but unfortunately it is a lost cause. I hope one day we can prove what we have been trying to convey for so long is true.”

As I replied to Miss Whitley’s nice letter, “As a filmmaker, writer and artist, I certainly appreciate what you are trying to convey in this exhibit. However, as a byproduct of the exhibit, the image of Che Guevara will become even more popular and generate more interest in the generally misinformed public about what he really was.

“Unfortunately, the exhibit will contribute to the Che fashion and interest in Che paraphernalia will increase generating sales, that because of Castro's policy of manipulating royalties will end up in his own pocket, which means more repression for the Cubans on the island.”

Would a respectable institution or a human being want to carry that on their conscience?

© 2006 ABIP
Agustin Blazquez, Producer/director of the documentaries
COVERING CUBA, premiered at the American Film Institute in 1995, CUBA: The Pearl of the Antilles, COVERING CUBA 2: The Next Generation, premiered in 2001 at the U.S. Capitol in and at the 2001 Miami International Book Fair COVERING CUBA 3: Elian presented at the 2003 Miami Latin Film Festival, the 2004 American Film Renaissance Film Festival in Dallas, Texas and the 2006 Palm Beach International Film Festival, COVERING CUBA 4: The Rats Below, premiered at the Tower Theaters in Miami on January 2006 and the 2006 Palm Beach International Film Festival, Dan Rather "60 Minutes," an inside view and RUMBERAS CUBANAS, Vol. 1 MARIA ANTONIETA PONS

ALL AVAILABLE AT: http://www.cubacollectibles.com/cuba_C.mvc?p=108-CC4
For previews visit: http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=Agustin+Blazquez

Author of more that 300 published articles and author with Carlos Wotzkow of the book COVERING AND DISCOVERING and translator with Jaums Sutton of the book by Luis Grave de Peralta Morell THE MAFIA OF HAVANA: The Cuban Cosa Nostra.

Bush on Guantanamo

From the White House press conference transcript:

Q Thank you, Mr. President. You've said that you wanted to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, but you were waiting for the Supreme Court decision that came out today. Do you intend now to close the Guantanamo Bay quickly? And how do you deal with the suspects that you've said were too dangerous to be released or sent home?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Thank you for the question on a court ruling that literally came out in the midst of my meeting with the Prime Minister -- and so I haven't had a chance to fully review the findings of the Supreme Court. I, one, assure you that we take them very seriously. Two, that to the extent that there is latitude to work with the Congress to determine whether or not the military tribunals will be an avenue in which to give people their day in court, we will do so.

The American people need to know that this ruling, as I understand it, won't cause killers to be put out on the street. In other words, there's not a -- it was a drive-by briefing on the way here, I was told that this was not going to be the case. At any rate, we will seriously look at the findings, obviously. And one thing I'm not going to do, though, is I'm not going to jeopardize the safety of the American people. People have got to understand that. I understand we're in a war on terror; that these people were picked up off of a battlefield; and I will protect the people and, at the same time, conform with the findings of the Supreme Court.

Q Do you think the prison will close?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, I haven't had a chance to fully review what the court said, Terry. I wish I had, and I could have given you a better answer. As I say, we take the findings seriously. And, again, as I understand it -- now please don't hold me to this -- that there is a way forward with military tribunals in working with the United States Congress; as I understand certain senators have already been out expressing their desire to what the Supreme Court found, and we will work with the Congress. I want to find a way forward.

In other words, I have told the people that I would like for there to be a way to return people from Guantanamo to their home countries, but some of them -- people need to be tried in our courts. And that's -- the Hamdan decision was the way forward for that part of my statement, and, again, I would like to review the case. And we are, we've got people looking at it right now to determine how we can work with Congress if that's available to solve the problem.

Francisco Gil-White Talks to Rabbi Tovia Singer

About Iranian-American relations, among other things, on Arutz Sheva-Israel National Radio:

Immediately after the Ayatollah [Khomeini] came to power, one of the first things he did was to absorb SAVAK. Now SAVAK was the late Shah’s security service. It was a mammoth security service -- the biggest in the world after the Soviet Union’s. Now, that’s saying a lot because the Soviet Union was an enormous totalitarian state, and Iran was this tiny little fifth rate power. So to say that SAVAK was the second biggest security service in the world gives you a taste for just how repressive the Shah of Iran -- the great US ally -- was. And SAVAK was created by the CIA. And it was essentially run by the CIA -- SAVAK had very close ties to the CIA throughout the Shah’s reign. And Iran behaved as a feudal property of the US throughout the Shah’s reign. So the fact that the Ayatollah Khomeini, who had been complaining about SAVAK when he was in the opposition, and railing against SAVAK, and promising to disband it and so on and so forth... Well, when he took power he absorbed it wholesale. SAVAK became SAVAMA, the new Iranian security service. That’s point one.

Point two is that the Ayatollah Khomeini, immediately after consolidating his power, provoked a war with Iraq. Now, the Ayatollah Khomeini could not afford to provoke a war with Iraq unless he knew that the US was gonna provide him with weapons. Why? Because the Iranian Revolution depleted the Iranian arsenal -- so he was without guns, in other words. And the Iranian arsenal was entirely, or almost entirely US-made. So unless the Ayatollah Khomeini knew in advance that, if he went to war with Iraq, then the US would provide him with weapons and spare parts, he couldn’t afford to provoke a war with Iraq. And yet that is immediately what he did!

Well, what happened? The US sent billions of dollars in US armament every year of the Iran-Iraq War to Iran. When this was discovered, in the mid 80’s, it was called the Iran-gate scandal, or the Iran-Contra scandal -- and despite the scandal, the arms shipments went on! Now, when caught red-handed, the Reagan administration said the reason for those arms shipments was that -- this is so funny -- that the reason for the arms shipments was that Hezbollah, a tiny terrorist group in Lebanon, a third country, had taken a handful of American citizens hostage, and because the Iranians had some influence on Hezbollah, they wanted the Iranians to beg the Hezbollah to release that handful of US citizens. And that was the supposed reason that billions of US dollars in armaments went to the Iranians every year for the duration of the Iran-Iraq War. Now, this absurd explanation could not be true even in principle because the arms shipments to Iran -- as we now know, thanks to a congressional investigation that was done years later -- that the arms shipments began in 1981. The first hostage in Lebanon was taken in 1982. So obviously the policy of sending billions of dollars in armament to Iran every year couldn’t have anything to do with those hostages. And in fact the arms shipments continued after the last hostage was released.

In addition to this there’s also the fact that the Iran-Iraq war, towards the end, went badly for Iran. So Iran asked for a cease-fire in 1988. Now, immediately after that cease fire, Zalmay Khalilzad, a protégé of Zbigniew Brzezinski who was Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor and the man who invented the policy of creating Islamist terrorism in Afghanistan by sponsoring the mujahideen (whom Osama bin-Laden, by the way, was training for the CIA)... This Zalmay Khalizad, a direct ideological descendant of Zbigniew Brzezinski, complained out loud (I believe it was in the Washington Post... I forget which newspaper now...) but he complained out loud that the outcome of the Iran-Iraq War was very bad because Iran was very weak, and that the US should have a policy to strengthen Iran and contain Iraq. What happened immediately afterwards? The Gulf War of 1991 that destroyed Iraq and left Iran as the big regional power. This war was launched while Zalmay Khalilzad was a policy planner at the Pentagon. Now Zalmay Khalizad, obviously, is the viceroy of the United States in Iraq. He has been responsible for crafting US policy in that area ever since.

In addition... The last point I would mention is -- as Jared Israel of Emperor’s Clothes has documented -- that the Iranians helped the US in the latest US invasion of Iraq. So, ...

Oh, and I forgot one point. During the civil wars in Yugoslavia, the Pentagon teamed up with the Iranians -- this is also documented on Emperor’s Clothes -- to send tens of thousands of mujahideen soldiers (these are the same soldiers that Brzezinski had created staring in 1979, and then throughout the 80’s)... to send tens of thousands of mujahideen to Bosnia to fight for Alija Izetbegovic, and to go on killing rampages against Serbs. That importation of mujahideen soldiers was coordinated between the Iranian government and the Pentagon.

So, if you look at the entire history of US-Iranian relations, yes, on the surface they exchange lots of insults, but the facts of US foreign policy do not reveal an anti-Iranian policy. On the contrary. And in fact, I have an article on www.hirhome.com where I predict that the US will not attack Iran, as a lot of people think it will. And I explain why: I give the whole history of the US/Iran relationship to support my case.

The Bookseller of Kabul

Over vacation, I read Asne Seierstad's memoir of living in Afghanistan, post-9/11. Someone I know used to work for a Bookseller of New York and a Bookseller of Los Angeles, and told me that they are the same sort of people as the Bookseller of Kabul. So the businessman's character was depicted with 100 percent accuracy. Most interesting to me was the skillful manner in which Seirstad described events with such restraint that the reader didn't fully realize how horrified and repelled the Norwegian journalist had been by her exposure to Islamic fundamentalism -- until the end of the story. It is completely damning, and an indictment of the United States's failures in Kabul, frankly. Poor Afghanistan! 75 percent illiteracy, fear everywhere, the mullahs are back. No wonder people living in Uzbekistan would tell me, again and again, they were so happy not to live in Afghanistan...

Leon Aron: No New Cold War

From AEI's Russian Outlook:

As a result of the growing divergence in values, the ships of U.S. and Russian foreign policies began to drift away from each other. That they have not yet moved as far apart as to lose visual contact is due to the anchors of each side’s strategic assets that are central to the other’s national interests.

For the United States, Russia is crucial in the global war on terrorism; nuclear nonproliferation; the world’s energy security; and the containment of a resurgent authoritarian China, which increasingly threatens the interests of the United States and its allies in Southeast Asia.

In Russia’s strategic calculations, America is featured as an ally in the struggle against domestic terrorism emanating from north Caucasus. Second, Washington is expected to show an “understanding” of Russia’s “special role” (and, therefore, “special interests”) on the post-Soviet territory, where 25 million ethnic Russians live outside Russia and where most of the people and industry are kept warm, lit, and working by Russian oil, gas, and electricity, until recently provided essentially on credit. Third, Moscow hoped for the U.S. decisive assistance in Russia’s integration into the world economy.

But perhaps the key American resource, the most desirable thing the United States can give Russia is esteem and equality. No matter how much America is castigated in the pro-Kremlin or Kremlin-owned newspapers or television channels; no matter what is being said about “Asia” or “Eurasia” as new national destinations, today, as under Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Gorbachev and Yeltsin, for people as well as the elite, a parity with America--be it in strategic nuclear missiles or corn, meat or steel, democracy or coal, outer space or Olympic medals--and its appreciation of Russia have always been a key legitimizing domestic political factor. When it comes to Russia’s national self-respect, no one else--neither Europe, nor Asia, nor yet Germany, China, France, or Japan--even comes close.

Daniel Pipes: It's One War...

Daniel Pipes, in National Review, on the Israeli military operations in Gaza:

The Bush administration sees the United States at war with Islamic radicalism; has not the time come for it to see other theaters of this same war – Russia's with the Chechen rebels, India's with the Kashmiri insurgents, Israel's with Hamas – as we see our own, and work for the defeat of the Islamists?

Instead, in the Israeli case at least, Washington urges understanding, restraint, compromise, management of the problem, and other half-hearted and doomed remedies. The result is an ever more exhilarated and aggressive Palestinian population that believes victory within reach.

Washington's mistaken approach goes back to the Oslo accords of 1993, when Yasir Arafat seemingly closed the existential conflict in writing to Bill Clinton that "The PLO recognizes the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security." But Arafat's assurances were fraudulent and the Arab effort to eliminate Israel remains very much in place.

Israel, with U.S. support, must defeat this foul ambition. That implies inflicting a sense of defeat on the Palestinians, and winning their resignation to the permanent existence of a Jewish state in the Holy Land. Only then will the violence end.

Very Like a Whale

A friend sent me a link to her poetry blog, Very Like a Whale. Here's a sample:

Star Wagon

The black-eyed boy lies in the Radio Flyer,
(Sirius, Canopus)
hands behind his head, eyes fixed on the sky
(Rigil Kentaurus)
weighing his options. His bare foot swishes back
(Arcturus, Vega)
and forth over the meadow’s sleeping dandelions,
(Capella, Rigel)
his musical boy’s voice sounds out the names
(Procyon, Achernar)
of the brightest stars. Suddenly, a whoosh
(Betelgeuse, Hadar)
and when his mother comes out to fetch him
(Spica, Altair)
for dinner, he and the wagon are gone.
Castor

Of course, I'm adding it to the blogroll...

James Na to Kim Jong Il: "Make My Day..."

Writing in The Seattle Times, James Na says it is time to call North Korea's bluff:

Given these conditions, the American message to North Korea should be a diplomatic equivalent of, "Go ahead, launch it and see what happens."

What is vital, however, is that should North Korea launch the missile, the U.S. must not overplay the advantages thusly derived from the situation. The recommendations to launch a preemptive strike against North Korea or destroy the missile on the ground in North Korean territory would be psychologically gratifying, no doubt, but is not advisable. Such a move would forfeit all the diplomatic leverages; the U.S., not North Korea, would now be seen as overreacting and being belligerent, while North Korea would play the victim card of having been attacked by the U.S.

Instead, what the U.S. ought to do is declare a North Korean missile test a grave provocation and an unacceptable threat to both the U.S. and East Asian regional security, and establish a quarantine of all transport in and out of North Korea. Tokyo will likely join the U.S. and even contribute naval and air elements for the effort. Seoul may not participate actively, but will acquiesce in the end.

Crucially, the U.S. should use the occasion to present Beijing with an ultimatum — as "Nuclear Showdown" author Gordon Chang has suggested — to make the continued Sino-American economic and trade relationship contingent upon China's cooperation to disarm North Korea.

Once a quarantine is in place, the U.S. should convey a simple message to Pyongyang that the quarantine will not end until North Korea backs down first. For once, it will be North Korea's turn to give something in return for reverting to the status quo.

But won't the North Koreans escalate? They previously declared that a quarantine would be an act of war. Would they not initiate a military conflict?

They will not, because such a conflict would be the death of Kim's regime and the end of North Korea as a state. Pyongyang has far more to lose.

For too long, North Korea has played chicken with the U.S. and has won. A North Korean missile launch would be, finally, the right moment for the U.S. to play chicken with North Korea — and win.

It's Been WET in Washington, DC

From today's Washington Post:

The rainfall drenching the Washington region has been a once-in-200-years event, and numerous and destructive flash floods have raced down area creeks and streams. But flooding on the Potomac River is not expected to even approach that of major deluges of the past, forecasters said yesterday.

J. Peter Mulhern on George Bush's Problem

From The American Thinker:

Nearly five years into the Global War on Terror we have destroyed one terrorist hideout in Afghanistan and conquered one major terror sponsoring country. George W. Bush seems content to stop there. Not even the imminent prospect of mad Mullahs with nukes seems capable of shaking him out of his strategic torpor. He has lost the initiative both at home and abroad.

We are stalled, our enemies are gearing up and the American people have noticed. This is the most important reason President Bush has been caught in the political doldrums lately.

Even the dramatic success of eliminating Abu Musab al Zarqawi and rolling up his network won’t address the President’s problem. In fact, as our success in Iraq gets more obvious, our paralysis on every other front will get more embarrassing. Hard slogging in Iraq is a convenient excuse for our lack of ambition elsewhere. That excuse won’t work for the President much longer.

George W. Bush tried to fight a war that even the conventional left could love. Predictably, he satisfied almost nobody. The next time Republicans go to the well to select a leader for the nation they need to find somebody with the independence of mind, and the courage, to give the editorial page of the New York Times precisely the attention it deserves. This is the essential prerequisite for both political success and successful policy.

The next Republican presidential nominee will probably have to craft our response to the next major Muslim strike on our homeland. For better or worse, Republicans are stuck with the burdens of power because the Democrats are stuck on stupid trying to win American elections as the anti-American party. This leaves Republican primary voters with a grave responsibility.

Which reminds me of the question, where is R-U-D-Y G-I-U-L-I-A-N-I when we need him?

Agustin Blazquez v. London's Victoria and Albert Museum

VICTORIA & ALBERT ARE SPINNING IN THEIR GRAVES © 2006 ABIP
by Agustin Blazquez with the collaboration of Jaums Sutton

Apparently the need for hard currency by the Castro regime – since the greedy tyrant doesn’t want to use the millions he has in Swiss banks – is such that Che merchandising worldwide is among his best bets. Unfortunately there are so many uninformed fools in the world.

A recent victim of the avalanche of Castro propaganda is nothing less than the reputable London Museum of Victoria & Albert.

The museum administration is proudly advertising the exhibit “Che Guevara: Revolutionary and Icon.” You can get the gist of the worldwide Che propaganda and misinformation by checking out this link.

It is funny and pathetic for a reputable British museum to exhibit that junk and to contribute to Castro’s efforts to keep the public misinformed by providing that masquerade of an icon concocted by the longest reigning tyrant in the world.

I wonder how Jews of the world would react to the image of Hitler being made into a “pop celebrity and symbol of fashion’s fascination with the radical chic.” And would Hitler’s “iconic image” have “inspired art, fashion and culture for the past 45 years and is recognizable even in its most simplified form,” as the Victoria & Albert Museum refer to Che in their announcement.

Walking the streets with a Che t-shirt, or a pair of pants, or a jacket or whatever trashy merchandise is put out in the shops of the world is as insulting to Cubans as the likeness of Hitler is to Holocaust victims and their families.

Che was Castro’s executioner.

Che wrote in his diary how much he enjoyed seeing the blood and brain parts of his victims scattered on Cuban soil.

This is conveniently ignored by the Hollywood bozos like Robert Redford in his film “The Motorcycle Diaries,” thus contributing further to idealize this criminal who is nothing less than a disgusting Nazi mass murderer and a subhuman like Charles Manson, David “Son of Sam” Berkowitz, John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer, though on a much larger scale.

Why would anyone want to make scum like Che into a fashion symbol? What reputable museum would proudly advertise and contribute to an “icon” like this?

I wrote to the Victoria & Albert Press Office, “I learned that the Victoria & Albert Museum is going to have an exhibit about Ernesto "Che" Guevara. For your information - below my note - is my article about the real "Che"-- http://www.amigospais-guaracabuya.org/oagaq119.php or http://www.lanuevacuba.com/nuevacuba/agustin-blazquez-22.htm . Before a museum as reputable as yours presents an exhibit, you should know your subject well. Apparently you do not. What credibility will your exhibit have?”

Promptly, I received the following reply, “Thank you for your email about the Che Guevara exhibition. Your comments have been noted and passed to the Director of Public Affairs.”

However, I have learned in the U.S. not to expect anything but insensitivity for Che’s and Castro’s victims because most Americans are highly misinformed by the U.S. media and Marxist professors at their learning centers. Apparently the British suffers from the same misinformation problems. So probably this is one more lost cause for people on earth who value truth over propaganda. Of all the pop icons of the world to choose from, they pick a vulgar, mass murderer.

Meanwhile, Victoria & Albert, from heaven, where they have access to the truth, know that this exhibit does not belong in a museum.

© 2006 ABIP
Agustin Blazquez, Producer/director of the documentaries
COVERING CUBA, premiered at the American Film Institute in 1995, CUBA: The Pearl of the Antilles, COVERING CUBA 2: The Next Generation, premiered in 2001 at the U.S. Capitol in and at the 2001 Miami International Book Fair COVERING CUBA 3: Elian presented at the 2003 Miami Latin Film Festival, the 2004 American Film Renaissance Film Festival in Dallas, Texas and the 2006 Palm Beach International Film Festival, COVERING CUBA 4: The Rats Below, premiered at the Tower Theaters in Miami on January 2006 and the 2006 Palm Beach International Film Festival, Dan Rather "60 Minutes," an inside view and RUMBERAS CUBANAS, Vol. 1 MARIA ANTONIETA PONS

ALL AVAILABLE AT: http://www.cubacollectibles.com/cuba_C.mvc?p=108-CC4
For previews visit: http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=Agustin+Blazquez

Author of more that 300 published articles and author with Carlos Wotzkow of the book COVERING AND DISCOVERING and translator with Jaums Sutton of the book by Luis Grave de Peralta Morell THE MAFIA OF HAVANA: The Cuban Cosa Nostra.

Daniel Pipes on Pew's Muslim Opinion Poll

Daniel Pipes says he's not surpised by findings of a recent Pew poll. An excerpt:

Support for terrorism: All the Muslim populations polled display a solid majority [editor's note: actually minority] of support for Osama bin Laden. Asked whether they have confidence in him, Muslims replied positively, ranging between 8% (in Turkey) and 72% (in Nigeria). Likewise, suicide bombing is popular. Muslims who call it justified range from 13% (in Germany) to 69% (in Nigeria). These appalling numbers suggest that terrorism by Muslims has deep roots and will remain a danger for years to come.

British and Nigerian Muslims are most alienated: Britain stands out as a paradoxical country. Non-Muslims there have strikingly more favorable views of Islam and Muslims than elsewhere in the West; for example, only 32% of the British sample view Muslims as violent, significantly less than their counterparts in France (41%), Germany (52%), or Spain (60%). In the Muhammad cartoon dispute, Britons showed more sympathy for the Muslim outlook than did other Europeans. More broadly, Britons blame Muslims less for the poor state of Western-Muslim relations.

But British Muslims return the favor with the most malign anti-Western attitudes found in Europe. Many more of them regard Westerners as violent, greedy, immoral, and arogant than do their counterparts in France, Germany, and Spain. In addition, whether asked about their attitudes toward Jews, responsibility for September 11, or the place of women in Western societies, their views are notably more extreme.

The situation in Britain reflects the "Londonistan" phenomenon, whereby Britons preemptively cringe and Muslims respond to this weakness with aggression.

Nigerian Muslims generally have the most belligerent views on such issues as the state of Western-Muslim relations, the supposed immorality and arrogance of Westerners, and support for Mr. bin Laden and suicide terrorism. This extremism results, no doubt, from the violent state of Christian-Muslim relations in Nigeria.

Ironically, most Muslim alienation is found in those countries where Muslims are either the most or the least accommodated, suggesting that a middle path is best - where Muslims do not win special privileges, as in Britain, nor are they in an advanced state of hostility, as in Nigeria.

Overall, the Pew survey sends an undeniable message of crisis from one end to the other of the Muslim world.

Moonlight Hotel by Scott Anderson

Having just spent 10 days on vacation, I recommendScott Anderson's novel, Moonlight Hotel, as good beach reading for those interested in international affairs. It seems to be based on his real-life work as a war correspondent, and while it has a Hollywood ending, the rest is very realistic, especially the State Department correspondence...

Israel's French Connection

It would be nice if terrible events such as this might lead to reconstituting the alliance that won World War II-- a real allliance, made up of UN Security Council permanent members, instead of the present pathetic "coalition of the willing" led by an unresponsive "unipolar" USA. IMHO, an equal partnership with Russia and China could defeat the Islamists quickly and decisively. Right now, Islamists appear to be cleverly playing "divide and conquer", using the Euro-Atlantic alliance as both a wedge against Russia and China, and a tail to wag the American dog. From Haaretz:

Kidnapped Israel Defense Forces soldier Corporal Gilad Shalit has dual French-Israeli citizenship and officials in Paris have been working since his abduction on Sunday to secure his release from Gaza gunmen.

Corporal Gilad Shalit was a member of the crew of a tank stationed just outside the border of Gaza, when gunmen from Hamas and other armed groups attacked their IDF position early Sunday morning.

Two members of the tank crew were killed, a third seriously wounded, and Gilad, also wounded, was taken captive and brought across the border into the Gaza Strip.

Shalit's father was born in France and he therefore holds French citizenship.

Yael Avran, spokeswoman for the French Embassy in Tel Aviv, said diplomats are "fully active in order to liberate the soldier." She said French officials in Paris were in touch with Palestinian officials, and the French ambassador planned to meet with the Shalit family, later in the day.

Al Qaeda Kills Russians in Iraq

This recent beheading snuff film is evidence that for the Al Qaeda types, the US and Russia present two faces of the same enemy. From an AP account on Yahoo! News:

CAIRO, Egypt - An al-Qaida-linked group posted a Web video Sunday showing the killings of three Russian embassy workers abducted earlier this month in Iraq. A fourth also was said to have been killed.

An accompanying statement by the Mujahedeen Shura Council, an umbrella organization linking seven insurgent groups including al-Qaida in Iraq, said all four Russians had been killed. Russia's Foreign Ministry said it had not yet confirmed the hostages' deaths.

The 90-second video, posted on an Islamic Web site that frequently airs militant messages, showed the beheading of two blindfolded men and the shooting of a third.

In the footage, two men clad in black and wearing black ski masks shout "God is great!" before beheading the first man. Then one militant appears standing over the decapitated body of a second victim lying in a pool of blood, with the head placed on top of the body.

Why the US government is so hostile towards Russia at this moment, when we need all the allies we can get in the Global War on Terror, is beyond me...

NGOs v Israel

Here's an interesting powerpoint presentation from an Israeli conference entitled Ethical Norms in a Political World:
NGOs, Human Rights and the Arab-Israeli Conflicts, entitledInternational legal terminology, politics and human rights.Dr. Avi Bell, who teaches law at Bar Ilan University, argues that many NGO reports critical of Israel actually misrepresent international law in order to attack the Jewish state. Readers of the reports, especially journalists, may be unaware that the report contain lies and misrepresentations--and that authors of such reports by groups like Amnesty International actually state that they do not believe that the term "terrorism" should be used, refusing to use it themselves...

Mark Steyn on Ann Coulter

He reviewed her latest book for Canada's McLean's Magazine:

There are any number of 9/11 widows. A few are big George W. Bush supporters, many are apolitical. I was honoured to receive an email the other day from Deena Gilbey, a British subject whose late husband worked on the 84th floor of the World Trade Center and remained in the building to help evacuate his colleagues. A few days later, U.S. Immigration sent Mrs. Gilbey a letter informing her that, as she was now a widow, her residence status had changed and they were enclosing a deportation order. Having legally admitted to the country the men who killed her husband, the U.S. government's first act after having enabled his murder is to further traumatize the bereaved.

The heartless brain-dead bonehead penpusher who sent out that letter is far more "mean-spirited" than Miss Coulter at full throttle. Yet Mrs. Gilbey isn't courted by the TV bookers the way the Jersey Girls are. Hundreds of soldiers' moms believe their sons died in a noble and just cause in Iraq, but it's Cindy Sheehan, who calls Bush "the biggest terrorist in the world," who gets speaking engagements across America, Canada, Britain, Europe and Australia. When Abu Musab al-Zarqawi winds up pushing up daisy cutters, the media don't go to Paul Bigley, who rejoiced that the man who decapitated his brother would now "rot in hell," nor the splendid Aussie Douglas Wood, who called his kidnappers "arseholes," nor his fellow hostage Ulf Hjertstrom, a Swede who's invested 50,000 bucks or so in trying to track down the men who kidnapped him and visit a little reciprocal justice on them. No, instead, the media rush to get the reaction of Michael Berg, who thinks Bush is "the real terrorist" rather than the man who beheaded his son....

...After the Zacarias Moussaoui trial, I wrote:

"The first reaction of the news shows to the verdict was to book some relative of the 9/11 families and ask whether they were satisfied with the result, as if the prosecution of the war on terror is some kind of national-security Megan's Law on which they have inviolable proprietorial rights. Sorry, but that's not what happened that Tuesday morning. The thousands who died were not targeted as individuals: they were killed because they were American, not because somebody in a cave far away decided to murder Mrs. Smith. . . It's not about 'closure' for the victims; it's about victory for the nation."

But nobody paid the slightest heed to this line. For all the impact my column had, I might as well have done house calls. Then Coulter comes in and yuks it up with the Playboy-spread gags, and suddenly the Jersey Girls only want to do the super-extra-fluffy puffball interviews. So two paragraphs in Ann Coulter's book have succeeded in repositioning these ladies: they may still be effective Democrat hackettes, but I think TV shows will have a harder time passing them off as non-partisan representatives of the 9/11 dead.

So, on balance, hooray for Miss Coulter. If I were to go all sanctimonious and priggish, I might add that, in rendering their "human shield" strategy more problematic, she may be doing Democrats a favour. There's no evidence the American people fall for this shtick: in 2002, the party's star Senate candidates all ran on biography -- Max Cleland, Jean Carnahan (the widow of a deceased governor), and Walter Mondale (the old lion pressed into service after Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash). All lost. Using "messengers whom we're not allowed to reply to" doesn't solve the Democrats' biggest problem: their message. The Dems, says the author, have "become the 'Lifetime' TV network of political parties." But, except within the Democrat-media self-reinforcing cocoon, it's not that popular. A political party with a statistically improbable reliance on the bereaved shouldn't be surprised that it spends a lot of time in mourning -- especially on Wednesday mornings every other November.

Taras Bulba

Last night, watched this 1960s Cinemascope extravaganza starring Yul Brynner and Tony Curtis as Ukrainian Cossacks fighting the Poles during the 18th Century. Not the best picture ever made--but interesting, especially the father-son story, which ends tragically...and in the aftermath of the "Orange Revolution"...and how many Hollywood screenplays are based on a story by Nikolai Gogol, anyhow? Here's an excerpt from the online text:

"Turn round, my boy! How ridiculous you look! What sort of a priest's cassock have you got on? Does everybody at the academy dress like that?"

With such words did old Bulba greet his two sons, who had been absent for their education at the Royal Seminary of Kief, and had now returned home to their father.

His sons had but just dismounted from their horses. They were a couple of stout lads who still looked bashful, as became youths recently released from the seminary. Their firm healthy faces were covered with the first down of manhood, down which had, as yet, never known a razor. They were greatly discomfited by such a reception from their father, and stood motionless with eyes fixed upon the ground.

"Stand still, stand still! let me have a good look at you," he continued, turning them around. "How long your gaberdines are! What gaberdines! There never were such gaberdines in the world before. Just run, one of you! I want to see whether you will not get entangled in the skirts, and fall down."

"Don't laugh, don't laugh, father!" said the eldest lad at length.

"How touchy we are! Why shouldn't I laugh?"

"Because, although you are my father, if you laugh, by heavens, I will strike you!"

"What kind of son are you? what, strike your father!" exclaimed Taras Bulba, retreating several paces in amazement.

"Yes, even my father. I don't stop to consider persons when an insult is in question."

"So you want to fight me? with your fist, eh?"

"Any way."

"Well, let it be fisticuffs," said Taras Bulba, turning up his sleeves. "I'll see what sort of a man you are with your fists."

And father and son, in lieu of a pleasant greeting after long separation, began to deal each other heavy blows on ribs, back, and chest, now retreating and looking at each other, now attacking afresh.

"Look, good people! the old man has gone man! he has lost his senses completely!" screamed their pale, ugly, kindly mother, who was standing on the threshold, and had not yet succeeded in embracing her darling children. "The children have come home, we have not seen them for over a year; and now he has taken some strange freak--he's pommelling them."

"Yes, he fights well," said Bulba, pausing; "well, by heavens!" he continued, rather as if excusing himself, "although he has never tried his hand at it before, he will make a good Cossack! Now, welcome, son! embrace me," and father and son began to kiss each other. "Good lad! see that you hit every one as you pommelled me; don't let any one escape. Nevertheless your clothes are ridiculous all the same. What rope is this hanging there?--And you, you lout, why are you standing there with your hands hanging beside you?" he added, turning to the youngest. "Why don't you fight me? you son of a dog!"

"What an idea!" said the mother, who had managed in the meantime to embrace her youngest. "Who ever heard of children fighting their own father? That's enough for the present; the child is young, he has had a long journey, he is tired." The child was over twenty, and about six feet high. "He ought to rest, and eat something; and you set him to fighting!"

"You are a gabbler!" said Bulba. "Don't listen to your mother, my lad; she is a woman, and knows nothing. What sort of petting do you need? A clear field and a good horse, that's the kind of petting for you! And do you see this sword? that's your mother! All the rest people stuff your heads with is rubbish; the academy, books, primers, philosophy, and all that, I spit upon it all!" Here Bulba added a word which is not used in print. "But I'll tell you what is best: I'll take you to Zaporozhe[1] this very week. That's where there's science for you! There's your school; there alone will you gain sense."

Consider adding Taras Bulba to your Netflix list, or you can buy it from Amazon.com, here:

Hoekstra and Santorum's Declassified Iraq WMD Memo

Via Powerline (ht Roger L. Simon):

On Vacation

Posting will be erratic for the next couple of weeks.

The Official 2006 World Cup Website

Todays' score: Germany 4, Costa Rica 2

Tomorrow: Paraguay v. England

You can watch match highlights here.

A Russian View of American Foreign Policy

Sergei Karaganov has a long article that analyzes Bush administration moves, in Russia in Global Affairs.A sample:

American democratic idealism should not be underestimated, nor should we judge American leadership by those who have lost faith. Such a temptation is fraught with costly mistakes.

Another important subject of the president’s message is the declaration of war – I believe, for the first time ever – on Islamic radicalism. All the right words about respect for the great and proud Islamic civilization were spoken. But it was also said that the fight against most militant and billigerent form of Islamic radicalism is the greatest ideological conflict at the beginning of the 21st century; that all great powers have joined forces on counterterrorism; and that this situation drastically differs from the 20th century, when the great powers were divided by ideology and national interests.

Bush stated what many were thinking about but did not dare say aloud. Now it will be more difficult for Russia to ignore this reality, especially since we were the first to take up arms and, having paid a terrible price, won the battle – not yet the war – in Chechnya against this most militant and belligerent form of Islamic radicalism and terrorism.

Yet, by their ill-judged intervention in Iraq the Americans have made this struggle far more difficult for everyone.

Russia’s unique history and geography, as well as many of its partners, are responsible for pushing it onto the battlefield of this new confrontation. Now we are faced with the extremely difficult task of avoiding this fate to the maximum degree possible.

Predictably, Iran – said to be the evil of all evils, overflowing with tyranny, Muslim radicalism, terrorism, and the proliferation of WMD – was declared America’s number one enemy. It looks like the United States has abandoned its attempts (at least for the next two years) to convince Tehran to mend its ways, and will now rely on mostly coercion to achieve its goals. This will not frighten Iranian radicals, but it will certainly drive Iranian reformers into a corner. It would be wiser to fight Tehran’s attempts to acquire nuclear weapons rather than fight the Iranian leadership.

Polish Radio: Zarkawi Death Won't End Iraq War

Polskie Radio says to hold off on victory celebrations:

‘The killing of Al Qaeda leader in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi will not speed up the normalisation of the situation In Iraq’, claims Marcin Grodzki, Polish expert in Arabic studies. Zarkawi, blamed for the death of hundreds in suicide bombings, was killed in a raid north of Baghdad earlier today.

‘Al Qaeda was prepared for such a course of events and their leader’s death may lead to more violence’, Grodzki says. Profesor Janusz Danecki of the Warsaw University agrees that Al Qaeda may now undertake revenge actions on Americans.

Michelle Malkin Vents About the Jihadis Among Us

You can watch the video here.

End of an Era at Oxford

St. Hilda's College, Oxford University's last remaining women's college, has finally decided to admit men... (ht Inside Higher Ed's Quick Takes)

NY Times: US Policies Lost Somalia

A very interesting story in the New York Times today containted this complaint against the US, from Somalia's interim president:

The United Nations report also cited what it called clandestine support for a so-called antiterrorist coalition, in what appeared to be a reference to the American policy. Somalia's interim president, Abdullahi Yusuf, first criticized American support for Mogadishu's warlords in early May during a trip to Sweden.

"We really oppose American aid that goes outside the government," he said, arguing that the best way to hunt members of Al Qaeda in Somalia was to strengthen the country's government.