Russia Blog

Just discovered Yuri Mamchur's Russian-themed website sponsored by the Discovery Institute, thanks to a link on Intelligent.ru.

Jihad Videos on You Tube

Want to know what Islamic fascists are watching on TV? It is easy to find out. A search for "jihad" on the YouTube website turned up this long list of video clips. Number one was Kavkaz Jihad, which you can view below:

Personally, I couldn't watch. But it is obvious the people who make and watch these sort of videos are not Quakers...

Did This Film Crack the Jon Benet Ramsey Case Wide Open?

A google search turned up the University of Colorado press release for Michael Tracey's 2004 film about the death of Jon Benet Ramsey

New Documentary On Ramsey Case Produced By CU-Boulder Professor Michael Tracey To Air On National TV
Dec. 7, 2004

New evidence in the 1996 JonBenet Ramsey murder case is examined in "Who Killed the Pageant Queen? Suspects" a documentary by Professor Michael Tracey of the University of Colorado at Boulder School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

The documentary will air on the CBS show "48 Hours Mystery" on Dec. 18 and on Court Television in January.

According to Tracey, a new team of investigators has uncovered dramatic new evidence about the murder, resulting in the identification of a key suspect.

"This compelling evidence points to a new way of thinking about who it was that actually killed JonBenet," Tracey said. "Previously, media leaks about the evidence and absurd theories as to how JonBenet died helped to convince the public that the parents did it. A whole new theory of who should have been investigated - but was not - is at the forefront of the investigation reported in the documentary."

More than 300 journalists descended on Boulder in January 1997 to cover the story, turning "a private tragedy into a public spectacle" and denying the Ramsey's right to be presumed innocent, all based on a cruel and distorted interaction between the media, the judicial system and American culture, Tracey said.

The documentary is the third in a series and was commissioned by ITV, the biggest commercial television network in the United Kingdom, and is co-produced with David Mills, a British independent television producer. It features interviews with investigators and John and Patsy Ramsey.

The documentary also investigates an assault on another young girl who attended the same dance studio as JonBenet and which Tracey believes is remarkably similar to the events on the night that JonBenet died.

Contact: Michael Tracey, (303) 492-0445
Michael.Tracey@Colorado.Edu
Monteith Mitchell, (303) 492-5526

Office of News Services
584 UCB • Boulder, CO 80309-0584 • 303-492-6431 • FAX: 303-492-3126 • cunews@colorado.edu

An Open Letter to the G8 About Raoul Wallenberg

I guess Vladimir Putin and the G8 summit were busy with the Israel-Hezbollah war at the time, which could explain why I haven't seen any response to this request, or read any press coverage. Now I see that this Open Letter asking for information about the case of Raoul Wallenberg has been published on the website of the Raoul Wallenberg Foundation... Since I'm one of the signatories, I'm taking the liberty of reprinting the text here, in hopes that maybe it will help lead to some answers:

OPEN LETTER TO THE G8 SUMMIT

Fifty years after Nikita Khrushchev's famous speech condemning Stalin's crimes, full access to all documentation in Russian archives could finally solve the question of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg's fate.

St. Petersburg, historic residence of the Russian czars and President Vladimir Putin's political home base, has known ruthless power as well as enlightenment. Meticulously refurbished over the past decade, the city is ready at last to present itself to the world for the upcoming G8 meeting on July 15-17, a powerful symbol of the new Russia.

But a two weeks before the eight strongest industrial nations gather against this magnificent backdrop, the new Russia knows it has work to do. Despite President Putin's defiant stand at the "State-of-the-Nation" address last month, the mounting international criticism of the country's record on democracy and human rights is taking a toll. U.S. Senator John McCain has called for an outright boycott of the meeting and the Financial Times recently reported that if U.S. President George W. Bush attends the gathering, he may choose to publicly "snub" Putin.

Russia, for its part, is not sitting idly by. On May 1, the Financial Times reported in a front page article, that the Kremlin has hired one of the world's leading public relations firms, Ketchum, to polish its public image.

We suggest instead a simple thing President Putin can do that would secure Russia the admiration of the world.

Russia could make a historic gesture by finally presenting what it really knows about the fate of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who saved thousands of Hungarian Jews in World War II. Wallenberg was arrested in January 1945 by Soviet forces - in flagrant violation of the rules of diplomatic immunity and neutrality - and taken to Moscow where he disappeared. His fate and that of his Hungarian assistant, Vilmos Langfelder, remain unknown.

The Russian government claims Raoul Wallenberg died in Soviet captivity in 1947 but it has never provided conclusive proof for this assertion. President Putin has expressed his respect for Wallenberg's achievements while arguing that all direct evidence concerning Wallenberg's fate has been destroyed long ago. That claim is firmly rejected by almost all Wallenberg experts due to overwhelming evidence that Russia has withheld critical documentation.

A decision by President Putin to reveal the true circumstances around Raoul Wallenberg's disappearance would be a courageous act and would send a strong signal for greater openness, public accountability and respect for international law, including minority and individual rights. Sixty-one years after the event, no state secrets can possibly stand in the way of telling Wallenberg's family and the world what really happened to a compassionate and heroic man who is an honorary citizen of the United States, Canada, Israel and Australia.

Sweden, too, could use this opportunity for a bold move of its own. As a representative of the European Union, Sweden should invite to Russia Raoul Wallenberg's sister Nina Lagergren and his brother, Dr. Guy von Dardel, as special guests of the Swedish Prime Minister and the Swedish Embassy during the G8 meeting. Rather than constituting a provocation, such an invitation would underline the importance Sweden insists it attaches to solving the case.

The presence of Raoul Wallenberg's next of kin in St Petersburg or Moscow would offer them the opportunity to conduct meetings with Russian officials and to seek support from the international community. Russia could finally answer the seventeen still pending questions that were posed by the Swedish Working Group at the end of its official report from 2001 and that Sweden has made clear Russia needs to answer in full before any binding conclusions about Raoul Wallenberg's fate can be drawn. [All questions can be found at http://www.raoul-wallenberg.asso.fr]

Russia can then present the important documentation related to the Raoul Wallenberg case which is known to exist in Russian archives and which the family has repeatedly requested. Until now, Russia has refused access to what it broadly terms "operational material," but it simply has to allow a full review by Wallenberg experts and qualified historians, if a credible investigation is to take place.

There are three compelling reasons for requesting such a review:

1. The discovery of Raoul Wallenberg's personal belongings in Russian archives seventeen years ago raised fundamental questions. The material is the strongest indication to date that Wallenberg's personal and investigative file/s still exist today. More importantly, it may well be evidence that he lived longer: If Raoul Wallenberg died in 1947, his possessions and valuables should have been confiscated by the Soviet state within six months of his death. Instead, they were available in 1989 and, in a generous gesture, were returned to his family by Soviet authorities.

2. Just as critical are numerous witness testimonies, including that of a former female employee at Vladimir prison, where Wallenberg is reported to have been incarcerated at various times after 1947. From a series of different photographs, she repeatedly and consistently identified a picture of Raoul Wallenberg not previously published in the international press, directly associating his captivity in solitary confinement with the death of a Ukrainian prisoner in a nearby cell. The verification process for this and other testimonies was cut short in 2001 before it could be completed.

3. There is also important new information, outlined by the Deputy Director of Russia's 'Memorial' Society, Nikita Petrov, in his recent book, "The First Chairman of the KGB Ivan Serov," (Moscow/Materik, 2005). Petrov shows that after years of insistent denials by the Russian government, highly relevant information about Raoul Wallenberg's cellmate in Lefortovo prison in 1946/47, Willi Rödel, a German diplomat, survives today in Russian archival collections, as do important investigative files of other prisoners linked with the Wallenberg case. Despite repeated requests, these files were never made available to the Swedish-Russian Working Group during its ten year investigation (1991-2001).

It is now clear that Rödel was killed in October 1947, that his case was discussed at the highest levels of the Soviet government and that the Russians have known about this for decades. Yet, only a few documents were previously released, which stated that Rödel had died of natural causes.

If Russian officials as late as the 1990's chose to actively mislead investigators, how can we believe that they have told all they know and have on file about Raoul Wallenberg?

Petrov's and the previous findings all reinforce one central question: Is the flimsy documentation of Wallenberg's alleged death in July 1947 really due to destroyed or removed papers, and the wish to protect Soviet leaders who not only knew of but who had ordered Wallenberg's arrest? Or - since key documentation is preserved about the death of Wallenberg's cellmate and other foreign diplomats, - do we not have a formal death certificate or autopsy report for Raoul Wallenberg because he did not die at that time?

Sweden and other concerned countries, in particular the United States, have not effectively challenged Russia on these issues and there are no signs that they are vigorously demanding access to the withheld material. Sweden claims that the Raoul Wallenberg case remains very much an official item on the current Swedish-Russian agenda. Russia, however, clearly can do far more than it has done until now to solve the Wallenberg mystery. The current stalemate is therefore unacceptable.

For Russia it is time to lay the cards on the table: Did Raoul Wallenberg die in July 1947, and if so, how? Or did he live longer and if so, what happened to him?

President Putin rightfully points with pride to a 70 percent approval rating and other accomplishments, such as a steep drop in Russia's overall poverty rate. Democracy, he says, takes time. Mr. Putin certainly has the right to highlight the glaring contradictions and downright hypocrisy of other foreign leaders when it comes to telling the truth and maintaining respect for the rule of law. But this does not change the fact that without real information, accountability and law, no democracy can grow.

By finally presenting the truth about Raoul Wallenberg, who has become a symbol of humanitarian action, President Putin would let the world know where he stands. The PR experts at Ketchum will have a hard time matching that.

Argentina

Prof. Elena Cohen Imach [Psychologist and poet]
Ricardo A. Faerman [President, Confederación General Economica]
Dr. Benjamín Horacio Koltan [Psychologist]
The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation
Ricardo Monner Sans - [Human Rights Lawyer]

Australia

Frank Vajda [Raoul Wallenberg Committee]
Jan Anger (son of collaborating Swedish diplomat Per Anger)
J. S. Dammery
Dr Daniel Talmont, Sydney Australia

Canada

Marcel Collet [Director]
Prof. Irwin Cotler [former Canadian Minister of Justice]
Jacques Coutour [Producer]
David Matas [Human Rights lawyer]
The Raoul Wallenberg International Movement for Humanity

Estonia

Mart Laar [Former Prime Minister of Estonia]

Finland

Pentti Peltoniemi [Journalist]

France

Louise von Dardel [Raoul Wallenberg's niece]
Marie Dupuy [Raoul Wallenberg's niece]

Germany

Susanne Berger [Independent expert to the Swedish-Russian Working Group
Christoph Gann [Author]
Wolfgang Kaleck [Human Rights Lawyer]
Dr. Andras Kain [President, Raoul Wallenberg Loge]
Eleonore Kius [Wallenberg expert and Human Rights activist]
Petra Isabel Schlagenhauf [Human Rights Lawyer]
Pastor Annemarie Werner [Vaterunser Kirche, Berlin]

Great Britain

John Le Carré
Gitta Sereny

Holland

Dr. Gerard Aalders [historian]

Hungary

Dr. Ferenc Orosz [Presidium member, The Raoul Wallenberg Association]

Israel

Casa Argentina en la Tierra Santa
Max Grunberg [Raoul Wallenberg Honorary Citizen Comittee]
Larry Pfeffer [Jerusalem Wallenberg Committee]
Malkiel Tenembaum [Casa Argentina en Jerusalem]
Yoav Tenembaum [Historian]
Solly Ganor, Holocaust survivor

Japan

Dr. Pamela Rotner Sakamoto, author and historian

Mexico

Dr. Renata von Hanffstengel, Director of the Institute for Intercultural
Research Mexico-Germany

South Africa

Tracey Petersen, Education Officer, Cape Town Holocaust Centre, 88 Hatfield Street, Cape Town, 8001, SOUTH AFRICA
Dr Ivor Shaskolsky, Cape Town, South Africa.

Sweden

Roger Älmeberg [Editor]
Maria Pia Boëthius [Historian]
Lena Einhorn [Holocaust researcher and author]
Prof. Stig Ekman [Historian]
Ingemar Karlsson [Editor and historian]
Prof. Georg Klein - [Scientist and author]
Gerald Nagler [Chairman of the Swedish Helsinki Committee for Human Rights]
Anders Pers [Former Editor-In-Chief of Vestmanlands Läns Tidning]
Arne Ruth [Former Editor-In-Chief of Dagens Nyheter]
Tuve Skånberg - [Member of Parliament]
Per Tistad [NIR]
Prof. Dennis Töllborg [University of Gothenburg]
Claire Wikholm - [Actress]

United States

The Angelo Roncalli International Committee
Charles Fenyvesi [Journalist]
Ari Kaplan [Independent expert to the Swedish-Russian Working Group]
Dr. Amy Knight [Historian]
Dr. William Korey [American Jewish Committee]
Prof. Mark Kramer [Harvard University, The Cold War History Project]
Prof. Marvin W. Makinen [Independent expert to the Swedish-Russian Working Group]
Susan Ellen Mesinai, Founder, ARK Project; Independent expert to the Swedish-Russian Working Group]
The Raoul Wallenberg Committee of the United States, Ltd.
Eric Saul, [Director, Visas for Life: The Righteous and Honorable Diplomats Project
Institute for the Study of Rescue and Altruism in the Holocaust]
Prof. Christopher Simpson [The American University]
Prof. Hugh J. Schwartzberg [Raoul Wallenberg Committee of Chicago]
Kate Wacz born Kadelburger, Budapest, Hungary, rescued by Raoul Wallenberg
Marissa Roth, family saved by Raoul Wallenberg
Knud Dyby, Danish Rescuer of Jews and others
William T. and Abigail Bingham Endicott (son-in-law and daughter of Diplomat Hiram Bingham IV)
GILBERTO BOSQUES TISTLER (Grandson of Mexican Ambassador Gilberto Bosques)
Rositta E. Kenigsberg, Daughter of a Holocaust Survivor, Executive Vice President, Holocaust Documentation & Education Center, Inc.
David Rubinson, Executive Producer: SUGIHARA Conspiracy of Kindness
Lawrence Baron, Nasatir Professor of Modern Jewish History, San Diego State University
Represenative Joel Judd, Colorado House District 5
Ferne Hassan, American Jewish Committee
Laurence Jarvik, Producer-Director, Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die?
Peter R. Rosenblatt (lawyer and former U.S. ambassador)
Alan and Sheila Granwell
Aaron and Courtney Cohen
Alexis Granwell
Marilyn Gilbert, Attorney At Law, Civil Rights Litigation
Steven T Geiger, of Palo Alto, CA, USA, Retired Engineer, saved by Carl Lutz in 1944
Dr. Wayne Grossman
Zoe Grossman
Klara Firestone - Founder and President of Second Generation of Los Angeles (Children of Holocaust Survivors) and community leader and activist
Renee Firestone - Holocaust Survivor, world famous Holocaust Lecturer, fashion designer, community leader and activist
Rabbi Irving Greenberg
Liebe Geft, Director of the Museum of Tolerance, Simon Wiesenthal Center, Los Angeles, California

The National Review is Right...

About Indian food in Connecticut, at least. We got the curry at Chez Indus in Glenbrook, for my aunt. Mr. Gupta had John Derbyshire's review posted in the restaurant. Derbyshire is right. The food is very good, indeed (as the British used to say...):

STAMFORD -- THE GOOD NEWS [John Derbyshire]
Lest Corner readers should think I have embarked on a jihad (K: Am I allowed to say that? OK, thanks) against the fair city of Stamford, Connecticut, let me give you some good news about the place. There is an Indian takeout shop/restaurant named "Chez Indus" (no, that wouldn't be my first choice if I were naming an Indian restaurant, either -- but please read on) right opposite Glenbrook railroad station. It's just a Mom & Pop operation run by two Punjabis (surname Gupta), serving really good home-style North Indian food. WARNING: If you go for a sit-down meal -- the place seats about ten -- you may wait AGES for your food. For takeout meals though -- I mean, phone in your order then go pick it up -- I don't see how the place could be beat. Really, really good Indian food. I speak as a person raised in England, of whose first 1,000 restaurant experiences, approx. 800 were Indian.

Counting Castro's Victims

Our favorite Cuban-American filmmaker, Agustin Blazquez, sent us this item from the Newark (NJ) Star-Ledger:

The goal of the Cuba Archive project, now 8 years old, is to build a database of all the people killed trying to escape the revolution or fighting against it -- alleged executions, battlefield deaths, prison sui cides and refugee boat sinkings. Two independent sources are needed to back each case.

It is believed to be the only comprehensive effort of its kind.

So far Werlau, a former banker, and co-founder Armando Lago, 66, a half-paralyzed Florida economist, have found more than 9,000 reports -- many confirmed, others still sketchy -- of people killed by the Castro regime.

They include more than 5,000 people killed by firing squad, many in the years immediately after Cas tro took power in 1959. Two thou sand others are said to have died in prison -- some executed, others in accidents, some never explained.

An estimated 77,000 people have died trying to flee the island, some by drowning and others in boats that, Castro critics charge, were sunk by the Cuban military.

Researchers also hope to include roughly 3,000 people killed in the violence leading up to the 1959 revolution, including those killed by the forces of dictator Fulgencio Ba tista.

Dealing with the Media 561

Every once in a while, I do a google search to see what I've been up to lately. Someone I know thinks it is a waste of time, and it probably is. Still, I sometimes find out something new. For example, an article I wrote a decade ago is now on the reading list for a course taught at the University of Pennsylvania, entitled "Dealing with the Media, GAFL 561" at the Fels Institute of Government. It is taught by The Honorable Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky, Chair, Women’s Campaign International, Lecturer, Fels Institute of Government. Her co-instructor for the course is Brian Selander, Managing Director, Silver Oak Solutions.

Wow.

Here's my week's course listing:

Week 10: Scandal/Dealing with crises/Dirty tricks
Tuesday, March 14
Readings:
- Laurence Jarvik. Sex and the President (*)
- Sean Wilentz. Will Pseudo-Scandals Decide the Election? (*)
- Lori Cox Han. Governing from Center Stage Chapter 6 (*)

Lori Cox Han is Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Chapman University. Sean Wilentz is Dayton-Stockon Professor of History and Director of the Program in American Studies at Princeton University. You can find the complete course syllabus here.

Haim Harari on the War on Terror

My father emailed this analysis by an Israeli physicist, and it seemed interesting enough to share:

In my humble opinion, the number one danger to the world today is Iran and its regime. It definitely has ambitions to rule vast areas and to expand in all directions. It has an ideology, which claims supremacy over Western culture. It is ruthless. It has proven that it can execute elaborate terrorist acts without leaving too many traces, using Iranian Embassies. It is clearly trying to develop Nuclear Weapons. Its so-called moderates and conservatives play their own virtuoso version of the "good-cop versus bad-cop" game. Iran sponsors Syrian terrorism, it is certainly behind much of the action in Iraq, it is fully funding the Hizbullah and, through it, the Palestinian Hamas and Islamic Jihad, it performed acts of terror at least in Europe and in South America and probably also in Uzbekistan and Saudi Arabia and it truly leads a multi-national terror consortium, which includes, as minor players, Syria, Lebanon and certain Shiite elements in Iraq. Nevertheless, most European countries still trade with Iran, try to appease it and refuse to read the clear signals.

In order to win the war it is also necessary to dry the financial resources of the terror conglomerate. It is pointless to try to understand the subtle differences between the Sunni terror of Al Qaida and Hamas and the Shiite terror of Hizbullah, Sadr and other Iranian inspired enterprises. When it serves their business needs, all of them collaborate beautifully.

It is crucial to stop Saudi and other financial support of the outer circle, which is the fertile breeding ground of terror. It is important to monitor all donations from the Western World to Islamic organizations, to monitor the finances of international relief organizations and to react with forceful economic measures to any small sign of financial aid to any of the three circles of terrorism. It is also important to act decisively against the campaign of lies and fabrications and to monitor those Western media who collaborate with it out of naivety, financial interests or ignorance.

Above all, never surrender to terror. No one will ever know whether the recent elections in Spain would have yielded a different result, if not for the train bombings a few days earlier. But it really does not matter. What matters is that the terrorists believe that they caused the result and that they won by driving Spain out of Iraq. The Spanish story will surely end up being extremely costly to other European countries, including France, who is now expelling inciting preachers and forbidding veils and including others who sent troops to Iraq. In the long run, Spain itself will pay even more.

Is the solution a democratic Arab world? If by democracy we mean free elections but also free press, free speech, a functioning judicial system, civil liberties, equality to women, free international travel, exposure to international media and ideas, laws against racial incitement and against defamation, and avoidance of lawless behavior regarding hospitals, places of worship and children, then yes, democracy is the solution. If democracy is just free elections, it is likely that the most fanatic regime will be elected, the one whose incitement and fabrications are the most inflammatory. We have seen it already in Algeria and, to a certain extent, in Turkey. It will happen again, if the ground is not prepared very carefully. On the other hand, a certain transition democracy, as in Jordan, may be a better temporary solution, paving the way for the real thing, perhaps in the same way that an immediate sudden democracy did not work in Russia and would not have worked in China.

I have no doubt that the civilized world will prevail. But the longer it takes us to understand the new landscape of this war, the more costly and painful the victory will be. Europe, more than any other region, is the key. Its understandable recoil from wars, following the horrors of World War II, may cost thousands of additional innocent lives, before the tide will turn.

Remember the Bush Doctrine?

Does President Bush? It seems to mean that in the case of Lebanon, it says that the US should be fighting the Lebanese government for harboring Hezbollah--listed as a terrorist organization by the US government--rather than helping to prop it up. From Wikipedia:

Initial formulation: No distinction between terrorists and those who harbor them

The term "Bush Doctrine" initially referred to the policy formulation stated by President Bush immediately after the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center attack that the U.S. would "make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them". The immediate application of this policy was the invasion of Afghanistan in early October 2001. Although the Taliban-controlled government of Afghanistan offered to hand over al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden if they were shown proof that he was responsible for September 11 attacks and also offered to extradite bin Laden to Pakistan where he would be tried under Islamic law, their refusal to extradite him to the U.S. with no preconditions was considered justification for invasion. This policy implies that any nation that does not take a pro-active stance against terrorism would be seen as supporting it. On September 20, 2001, in a televised address to a joint session of Congress, Bush summed up this policy with the words, "Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."

Avi Bell on Human Rights Watch's Pro-Hezbollah Kenneth Roth

From a letter to the editor published July 31, 2006 in the New York Sun:

Sadly, Mr. Roth engages in ad hominem attacks, distorts my positions and drags in red herrings, rather than address directly my observations of Human Rights Watch's bias.

In his letter, Mr. Roth demonstrates a lack of the very qualities of objectivity, nonpartisanship and careful investigation that he claims characterize HRW. He further misleads readers about legal standards and he makes a slew of new political anti-Israel charges even as his organization's website acknowledges that HRW has not yet investigated the facts.

For example, Mr. Roth charges Israel with illegality in an "attack on Srifa village (10 houses destroyed, as many as 42 civilians killed)." Yet, Mr. Roth provides us with no additional detail about the target beyond this damage. I found an AP report filed by Nasser Nasser that acknowledged that "[a]fter the first [Israeli] strikes, Hezbollah fighters carrying walkie-talkies rushed for cover whenever Israeli warplanes or pilotless aircraft appeared." How many Hezbollah fighters were there? How many arms depots? Where were the targets located? In some of the houses? Mr. Roth doesn't deign to tell us; perhaps he doesn't even know. Similarly, Mr. Roth charges that Israel "attack[ed] a vehicle of villagers fleeing Marwaheen (16 civilians killed, including many children)." Yet, HRW's own press release on the subject acknowledged Israel's claim that the target of the attacks was "an area near the city of Tyre, in southern Lebanon, used as launching grounds for missiles fired by Hezbollah terror organization at Israel" and that "further investigation" was needed. Is there new information that permits Mr. Roth to charge that Israel illegally targeted civilians? If yes, where is it? The inescapable conclusion is that Mr. Roth has simply dramatized HRW's original statement to fit his extra-legal faith in Israeli guilt.

Notwithstanding Mr. Roth's protestations, the laws of war clearly permit attacking targets for their predicted contribution to the military effort, even in the face of certain civilian harm. The laws of war permit Israeli attacks on military targets located in residential areas unless the collateral damage to civilians is expected to be excessive in comparison to the military advantage. Every innocent death in war is a tragedy, but not every tragedy is a war crime by the attacker. Calling me ignorant does not change this law, even when the name-caller is Mr. Roth.

By contrast, there is no legal defense for Hezbollah hiding its fighters and weaponry in residential areas, mosques and near U.N. positions — just as there is no defense for Lebanon providing Hezbollah with safe harbor, Syria and Iran for arming Hezbollah, or Hezbollah for targeting civilian areas throughout the Israeli north, destroying Israeli property without military justification, holding hostages, engaging in collective punishment, carrying out ethnically motivated murders, and holding POW's incommunicado.

Even as Mr. Roth clutches at the lone HRW document that focuses on Hezbollah crimes, nearly all HRW documents released since the onset of fighting on July 12 — like the HRW Q&A guide I criticized — focus their very partisan criticisms on Israel. HRW's and Mr. Roth's near-silence on Hezbollah's, Lebanon's, Syria's and Iran's crimes and obsessive accusations about Israel even in the absence of evidence of crimes speak volumes about Mr. Roth's and his organization's patently political, non-legal and nonobjective agenda.

Juan Williams on Bill Cosby

From the Washington Post:

Recently Bill Cosby has once again run up against these critics. In 2004, on the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision, Cosby took on that culture of failure in a speech that was a true successor to W.E.B. DuBois's 1903 declaration that breaking the color line of segregation would be the main historical challenge for 20th-century America. In a nation where it is getting tougher and tougher to afford a house, health insurance and a college education -- in other words, to attain solid middle-class status -- Cosby decried the excuses for opting out of the competition altogether.

Cosby said that the quarter of black Americans still living in poverty are failing to hold up their end of a deal with history when they don't take advantage of the opportunities created by the Supreme Court's Brown decision and the sacrifices of civil rights leaders from Martin Luther King Jr. to Thurgood Marshall and Malcolm X. Those leaders in the 1950s and '60s opened doors by winning passage of the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act and fair housing laws. Their triumphs led to the nationwide rise in black political power on school boards and in city halls and Congress.

Taken as a whole, that era of stunning breakthroughs set the stage for black people, disproportionately poor and ill-educated because of a history of slavery and segregation, to reach new heights -- freed from the weight of government-sanctioned segregation. It also created a national model of social activism to advance the rights of women, Hispanics, gays and others.

Cosby asked the chilling question: "What good is Brown " and all the victories of the civil rights era if nobody wants them? A generation after those major civil rights victories, black America is experiencing alarming dropout rates, shocking numbers of children born to single mothers and a frightening acceptance of criminal behavior that has too many black people filling up the jails. Where is the focus on taking advantage of new opportunities to advance and to close the racial gap in educational and economic achievement?

Incredibly, Cosby's critics don't see the desperate need to pull a generational fire alarm to warn people about a culture of failure that is sabotaging any chance for black people in poverty to move up and help their children reach the security of economic and educational achievement. Not one mainstream civil rights group picked up on his call for marches and protests against bad parenting, drug dealers, hate-filled rap music and failing schools.

Human Rights Watch is "Irrelevant or Immoral"

Says Abraham Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League, writing in The New York Sun:

It is no accident that Human Rights Watch gets it wrong or has a habit of rushing to judgment as it did in Jenin and as it did in Qana. If one sees military activity by Israel in a vacuum, ignoring the threats to its security and existence, ignoring the intentions and growing capabilities of its enemies, ignoring the cynical actions of its foes which seek either to hurt Israel and its citizens on the ground or to make Israel look bad in the eyes of the world, then, of course, Israel will look like the neighborhood bully and will be accused of all kinds of things.

I would therefore recommend that Human Rights Watch be viewed for what it is, at least when it comes to the great struggle in the Middle East that may determine not only the future of the State of Israel but of mankind itself: as irrelevant or immoral.

(ht ngo-monitor.org)

Thinking the Unthinkable: Is Nuclear War with Iran Inevitable?

This is the question on many minds, after the Israel-Hezbollah warmup excercise that some see as a parallel to the Spanish Civil War run-through prior to World War II. Given the difficulties Israel faced with a dug-in enemy as stubborn as the Japanese, and the fact that Iran was willing to lose millions in trench warfare with Iraq, the West may in the end resort to precisely the same technology used to defeat Tojo's Kamikazes in the Second World War--the Atom Bomb...

Let's hope not.

Victor Davis Hanson on Pro-Hezbollah Journalists

From VDH's Private Papers:

The globalized media is absolutely discredited after the coverage of Lebanon . Reuters has destroyed its reputation, gained from 150 years of world reporting, by releasing doctored pictures and tolerating staged photo-ops. Almost all the Western media outlets failed to distinguish Lebanese civilian from military casualties — as if the Hezbollah terrorists they never filmed and never interviewed never died.

Indeed, thanks to the unprofessional reporters abroad, and their disingenuous chiefs back home, the world never saw the killers who sent the rockets nor many of their civilian victims on the ground in Israel . Nor did the reporters apprise their audience of the different landscapes in which they worked: candor in Israel might win loud disagreement; truth in Lebanon meant death. It would be as if Reuters, AP, or the New York Times embedded its reporters within the Waffen SS, beaming daily reports back home about the great morale and noble suffering of the Wehrmacht as it advanced into the snowy Ardennes.

Amir Taheri: Arabs Rejecting Hezbollah

Apparently, Arabs are more anti-Hezbollah than the New York Times or CNN, according to the Jerusalem Post:

Finally, there is good news thanks to a fourth trend that can be spotted in the writings of a dozen or so Arab journalists and, more convincingly, in letters written to the editor in Arab, and in some cases, Iranian newspapers. Here, there is little sympathy for Hizbullah, which is regarded as a band of adventurers controlled by Iran. One Iraqi writer described Hizbullah as "a virus that is threatening the life of the Lebanese nation." A Saudi columnist sees the war triggered by Hizbullah as "a catastrophe" for Lebanon and Arabs in general.

A letter-to-the editor published in the Iranian daily Aftab-Yazd criticizes Teheran's support for Hizbullah as "a misguided endorsement of a group that prevents Lebanon from building a modern society."

There is no doubt that, with help from the Western media, Hizbullah has won the information battle in Europe and North America. In the Arab world, however, the Party of God is not enjoying the same free ride as it has in the West. Many Arabs appear to have decided to break with the herd mentality. And that may well be the only good news to come out of the latest war.

A Cultural Pilgrimmage to Upstate New York

Someone I know and I just got back from a cultural pilgrimmage to upstate New York. It began on the shores of beautiful Lake Otsego, called "Glimmerglass" by James Fenimore Cooper, at the Glimmerglass Opera Festival, where we attended a wonderful production of Leos Janacek's Jenufa, title role sung by Maria Kanyova, conducted by Stewart Robertson, directed by Jonathan Miller. It was just terrific. Singing, production, orchestra, staging were all just right. Rural Moravia became rural America, the sets and costumes were something out of Thomas Hart Benton (or Grove City, PA). Incredibly, even with tickets at $41 (a bargain), there were lots of empty seats, possibly because the New York Times didn't review this production--maybe because it is heading to the New York City Opera. A "Must-See". I think it has a few more performances to go before the season ends. You can check for tickets here.

Then, it was a short drive to Catskill, New York, to see the home and studio of Hudson River School painter Thomas Cole, known as Cedar Grove. Run by the Greene County Historical Society, with hourly tours costing only $7, it was a fascinating glimpse into 19th Century American arts and life. Thomas Cole painted some his most famous canvases right in the house, before his in-laws (he lived with his wife's family) built him a studio. He died young, at 47. The home stayed in the Cole family until the 1980s, and only opened as a museum in 2001. Our expert guide, named David Herman, explained the irony that Cole's newest studio, built two years before he died, as an outbuilding on the property, was torn down at a time when you could buy a Thomas Cole masterpiece for $5,000. Well, he's famous again, and there are plans to rebuild on the original foundations.

The place was packed with tourists, including some from as far away as Japan, though when our tour guide asked, there were no representatives from New York City, where Cole made his name. Another "Must-See."

Across the Rip Van Winkle Bridge, spanning the Hudson River, sits Olana, home of Frederick Church, another Hudson River School master. Perched on a hilltop, with a fantastic view of the Catskills and Hudson River Valley, this castle-like pile, in a Victorian Persian-Turkish fantasy style--was closed to the public, for a year. The folks at Cedar Grove said it was either for fire protection or air conditioning (or both). Unlike Thomas Cole's home, this pretentious castle is owned by the State of New York, and had signs announcing massive funding from places like the National Endowment for the Humanities. We were there on a weekday--and saw no evidence of any work actually being done, no construction noise, no trucks moving. Nothing. Your tax dollars at work. Still, the grounds are impressive, with landscaping by New York Central Park designer Calvert Vaux. And the view is worth the trip up the hill. Ovwerall, I prefer Cedar Grove for its air of personal charm, and the terrific guides.

Call Northside 777

Michael Tracey's role in the Jon Benet Ramsey case reminds one of Henry Hathaway's classic 1948 noir journalistic procedural Call Northside 777, starring Jimmy Stewart. One crusading reporter frees a man wrongly convicted of murder. Well, I guess newspapers don't seem to have crusading reporters anymore. But there do seem to be crusading journalism professors like Tracey. Heck of a story...

A Nicer Place to Stay in Grove City, PA

In all fairness to Grove City, there was a nice B&B, where we moved after one night at the Super 8 Motel. It's called Terra Nova House.

Harold Evans v. the Islamists

Mr. Tina Brown and former Times of London editor Harold Evans takes on Islamists--as well their enablers in the media and "civil rights" organizations--in the Guardian's opinion pages (ht Instapundit):

There can be no security without freedom - but no freedom without security.

Of course, it is true that as well as the accident of the De Menezes tragedy, anti-terrorism measures have resulted in a number of notorious affronts to human rights. There is absolutely no justification for Abu Ghraib, nor for long-term detention without due process; but these shocking events, all properly exposed by a vigilant press, have led to prosecutions of the perpetrators. That is the way a free society works.

An editor at an international conference I attended recently said blame for the murders of journalists in Iraq - most of them Iraqi - is all because President Bush won't accept the Geneva conventions. I am not going to defend Bush's stubborn and stupid unilateralism on a whole range of issues, but it totally misunderstands the nature of terrorism today to think the Geneva convention, courts of law, or the "foreign policy" the Islamic organisations dislike, even remotely enter the thinking of Osama and his motley bombers.

The civil rights lobbies are working from a passé play book. They are blind to the lethal nature of the new Salafist totalitarianism. They won't recognize that we are facing an irrationalist movement immune to compromise and dedicated to achieve its ends of controlling every aspect of daily life, every process of the mind, through indiscriminate mass slaughter. It is a culture obsessed with death, a culture that despises women, a culture devoted to mad hatreds not just of Americans and Jews everywhere, but of Muslims anywhere who embrace a less totalitarian, less radical, more humane view of Islam. These Muslims are to be murdered, and have been in their thousands, along with "the pigs of Jews, the monkeys of Christians" and all the "dirty infidels".

Nor is the repellent language of hate limited to recognized terrorist groups like al-Qaida, Hizbullah and Hamas. It is in the school textbooks in Palestine and in the schools of our "ally", Saudi Arabia. They promised to clean them up but a recent Washington Post investigation showed the books still tell the young they have a religious obligation to wage jihad against not only Christians and Jews but also Muslims who do not follow the xenophobic Wahabi doctrine.

The Salafist movement was under-rated and misunderstood and the reaction to it has been confused. As always, the right is triggerhappy and hostile to free expression; as always, the left never wants to do anything that would hazard its self-righteous sense of moral purity.

These are historic fault lines. The right tolerated fascism in the thirties, the left Soviet Communism in the fifties. Of course these two earlier totalitarian movements were different in nature and our response when it came was not always well judged - the tendency is to think first of the excesses of the right typified by the witch hunts of the odious McCarthy, but we should remember, too, that the Democratic party in the immediate postwar years of Henry Wallace would have abandoned Europe just as the left in the eighties would have left Europe at the mercy of the new Soviet missiles.

The apologists for the Islamo-fascists - an accurate term - leave millions around the world exposed to a less obvious but more insidious barbarism.

Michael Tracey & the Joan Benet Ramsey Case

The Rocky Mountain News reports that the latest twist in the Ramsey case came about due to an email exchange between University of Colorado Journalism professor Michael Tracey and John Mark Karr, who was arrested in Thailand as a suspect in the case. Tracey had produced a documentary about the murder, and became convinced of the Ramsey family's innocence.

Strange thing is that I met Tracey when he was working on his 1998 book, THE DECLINE AND FALL OF PUBLIC BROADCASTING--all about PBS. It seems just a little ironic that a British professor expert in educational television should be at the center of the biggest tabloid murder story covered by world media. Still, it's a heck of a story...

You can buy his PBS book from Amazon.com, here: