Number 12 With A Bullet?

That's where you can find my Orbis article "NGOs: A'New Class' in International Relations" on ScienceDirect's list of Top 25 Hottest Articles...

A Short History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict

From the David Horowitz Centre (ht Melanie Phillips): http://www.terrorismawareness.org/what-really-happened/.

Ali Allawi on Iraq

I heard an interview with Ali Allawi, former Iraqi defense minister, on NPR, as well as a National Press Club talk on C-Span. His new book, The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace, sounded interesting. You can read a sample chapter here, on the Yale University Press website.

And here's a link to Ali Allawi's blog.

From Hafez Barghouti's Lips, to God's Ears...

Ken Ellingwood reports in today's Los Angeles Times reports that Gaza fighting could mean an end to the idea of an independent Palestinian state :

RAMALLAH, WEST BANK — The deadly factional fighting in the Gaza Strip between the militant Hamas movement and Fatah could doom the long-held Palestinian vision of uniting Gaza and the West Bank into a single independent state.

The latest clashes highlight a growing schism between the two areas, raising the possibility that the power struggle will turn them into ministates, each ruled by its own faction: Hamas in the coastal strip and Fatah in the West Bank.

The violence has dimmed hopes that Palestinians and Israelis might someday reach an agreement for side-by-side nations and raised questions over how Israel responds to having Hamas, which calls for the Jewish state's destruction, indisputably in charge in Gaza.

The severity of the latest internecine fighting is driving a growing number of Palestinians to consider drastic scenarios, including dissolving the Palestinian Authority or allowing Hamas to manage Gaza more or less on its own.

"Hamas is working toward that. They want Gaza," Hafez Barghouti, a newspaper editor in the West Bank city of Ramallah, said bitterly. "They are destroying the Palestinian national project."

Richard Landes' Augean Stables

I received an email from Sliwa public relations plugging medieval historian Richard Landes' website about the Middle East, and took a look. It's interesting, so I thought I'd share the link: http://www.theaugeanstables.com/.

Giuiliani 's 12-Step Program

As published in National Review, Hizzoner's 12-step recovery program for America:

I am making 12 Commitments to the American People. They are intended to lift our vision from the rearview mirror to the road ahead. If I am elected president, I want to be held accountable for the progress we make as a nation.

1) I will keep America on offense in the Terrorists’ War on Us.

Winning the terrorists’ war on us is the greatest responsibility of the 9/11 Generation. We need to continue taking the fight to the Islamic fundamentalist terrorists by increasing the size, strength, and support of our military — beginning with ten new Army combat brigades.

2) I will end illegal immigration, secure our borders and identify every non-citizen in our nation.

We can end illegal immigration with tough but realistic laws that put security first. We need to secure the border with a physical fence and a technological fence. We need to require a tamper-proof I.D. card for all non-citizens coming into the United States and tracking their entry and exit. And we need to encourage Americanization by requiring new citizens to read, write, and speak English.

3) I will restore fiscal discipline and cut wasteful Washington spending.

Over the next two presidential terms, 42 percent of the federal civilian workforce is due to retire. We should only hire back half, replacing non-essential workers with technology. I’ll ask agency heads to identify annual budget cuts of 5 to 20 percent. With entitlement costs scheduled to explode, we need fiscal discipline to avoid passing an unsupportable burden on to the next generation.

4) I will cut taxes and reform the tax code.

Pro-growth policies lead to broader prosperity. The next president needs to simplify the tax code and keep taxes low — including the personal income tax, the capital-gains tax and the corporate tax. And we can eliminate double taxation and protect family businesses by giving the Death Tax the death penalty.

5) I will impose accountability on Washington.

We need to restore Americans’ faith that government can work again. That’s why we’ll implement the first constant measurement of government effectiveness, known as “FedStat,” and put the results online so the public can hold agencies accountable.

6) I will lead America towards energy independence.

We must decrease America’s dangerous dependence on foreign oil. We can meet this challenge through diversification of our energy portfolio, innovation, and conservation. We must increase public and private investment in nuclear power, clean coal, and alternative-energy sources across the board. America must lead the world in energy-efficient, environmentally responsible, commercially viable innovation, including wind, solar, geo-thermal, ethanol, and biofuel technologies.

7) I will give Americans more control over their health care with affordable and portable free-market solutions.

We can improve the quality of health care while decreasing costs through increased competition. Solutions can include reforming the tax treatment of health care, expanding portable health-savings accounts, encouraging state-by-state innovations, and reforming the legal system.

8) I will increase adoptions, decrease abortions, and protect the quality of life for our children.

We need to take advantage of the common ground in America to reduce abortions by increasing adoptions and assuring that individual choice is well informed. We need to measure our progress toward these goals. We need to reduce the high costs of adoption. And we need to protect our children against sexual predators and online pornography.

9) I will reform the legal system and appoint strict constructionist judges.

America must reform its legal system. We need to eliminate nuisance lawsuits through “loser-pays” provisions. Tort reform can help us reduce costs passed on to the consumer, such as higher insurance premiums. Activist judges threaten to expand the power of the courts beyond the bounds established by the Constitution; we must reassert the proper balance.

10) I will ensure that every community in America is prepared for terrorist attacks and natural disasters.

Homeland security and national security are now inseparable. We need to ensure that local first responders are trained to meet natural disasters as well as terrorist attacks. We must improve information-sharing between local, state, and federal authorities. And we need to repair vulnerable infrastructure to minimize the impact of terrorist attacks and natural disasters.

11) I will provide access to a quality education to every child in America by giving real school choice to parents.

Education reform is a civil-rights struggle and the key to improving America’s competitiveness in the global economy. We need to empower parents and children by expanding school choice. We need to promote math and science, while ending the digital divide.

12) I will expand America's involvement in the global economy and strengthen our reputation around the world.

We need to strengthen our country by engaging aggressively the global economy. The mission of the State Department needs to be focused on acting first and foremost as an advocate for America. Fostering trade and educational and cultural exchange will promote the expansion of freedom.

These 12 Commitments offer an action plan to focus America on the future. Over the course of this campaign, I’m going to present each policy in greater detail. And when we get to Washington, we’re going to put these ideas into action. Guided by these 12 Commitments, we will hand our nation over to the next generation far better than it was handed to us.

An Iranian Solidarity Movement?

France gave the Ayatollah to Iran in the 1970s, and now, according to this article by Pooya Dayanim in National Review, may give Iran a movement to end Islamist Theocracy:

This week Paris will host the largest gathering of Iran’s pro-democracy forces ever assembled to overthrow the Islamic Regime through a nonviolent civil disobedience movement.

The Iran Solidarity Assembly (Hambastegi Melli in Persian) of Paris has been an enormous undertaking that has been three years in the making. Over 200 political luminaries will attend the invitation-only event. Millions of Iranians, however, will be following the proceedings with the help of Voice of America, Radio Farda, Radio Israel, BBC, and independent Iranian broadcasters such as Channel One, Pars TV, and Radio Sedaye Iran.

The Iran Solidarity Assembly includes representatives of virtually all of Iran’s various political, ethnic, social, and economic groups who have assembled together for the first time ever to ask the free world to stand in solidarity with them as they begin to coordinate the efforts of pro-democracy forces inside Iran to over throw the Islamic regime.

Robert Spencer on Immigration and Islamism

From JihadWatch:

With President Bush lobbying Congress to revive the defeated and disastrous immigration bill, authorities have a chance to recast the bill in a way that takes adequate measure of the national security implications of the immigration issue. And now, Lebanon, a nation currently under attack from al-Qaeda-linked terrorists, has shown the way with a measure that the President and Congress would do well to consider adapting for the United States. In an attempt to prevent jihadists from entering Lebanon from neighboring countries, the Lebanese Foreign Ministry and the General Security Department may stop giving entrants from Arab countries automatic entry visas; instead, they would have to apply at Lebanese missions in their native countries – allowing Lebanese officials time to scrutinize their applications and try to determine whether they are involved in jihad activity.

Such a proposal has a great deal to recommend it. Lebanon is treating immigration as a national security issue, as it manifestly is not only for Lebanon, but for the U.S. as well. With refreshing directness, Lebanese officials are considering heading off the problem at its source, or one of its sources, by restricting entry into the country from Arab countries from which jihadists come. Likewise the U.S. also could, and should, institute restrictions on immigration from Muslim countries. This issue has been clouded by national traumas about “racism,” but in fact it has nothing to do with racism, as jihadists with blonde hair and blue eyes are just as lethal, and should be just as unwelcome, as jihadists with dark skin, this is about taking prudent steps to protect ourselves and defend our nation. It is only a matter of common sense to recognize where the great majority of jihadists come from, and act accordingly.

Officials should proclaim a moratorium on all visa applications from Muslim countries, since there is no reliable way for American authorities to distinguish jihadists and potential jihadists from peaceful Muslims. Because this is not a racial issue, these restrictions should not apply to Christians and other non-Muslim citizens of those countries, although all should be subjected to reasonable scrutiny. Those who claim that such a measure is “Islamophobic” should be prepared to provide a workable way for immigration officials to distinguish jihadists from peaceful Muslims, or, if they cannot do so, should not impede basic steps the U.S. should take to protect itself. And Muslims entering from anywhere -- Britain, France -- should be questioned as to their adherence to Sharia and Islamic supremacism. This is not because anyone will expect honest answers, but so that answers proven false by the applicant’s subsequent activity can become grounds for deportation.

Meanwhile, this is not just an immigration problem. The Fort Dix and JFK Airport jihad terror plots uncovered in recent weeks not only underscore the need to fix our broken immigration policies, but they show the need also to deal with the fact that jihadists are already in the country. When twenty-six percent of Muslims in the United States who are under the age of thirty approve of suicide attacks in some circumstances, and two such attacks are uncovered in the last month, this is not an abstract problem. Islamic organizations in the U.S. who refuse to renounce and teach against political Islam should be reclassified as political organizations and made subject to all the controls and scrutiny to which political organizations are subject. And here again, words must be backed by deeds, or can justly be regarded with suspicion.

If national security were our priority, these proposals would not even be controversial. Nor would Islamic advocacy groups in the U.S., if national security were their priority, oppose them either. In fact, they might spur those groups to become more energetic in rooting out jihadists from among their ranks, and from among the Muslim community in America in general. Instead of the platitudes and half-measures we have seen up to now, along with active opposition to anti-terror efforts, we might see them take genuine steps to declare the ideology of jihad and Islamic supremacism beyond the pale of American Islam, and renounce political Islam and any intention, now or in the future, to replace the U.S. Constitution with Islamic Sharia law.

Melanie Phillips on Gaza Fighting

From MelaniePhillips.com:

And meanwhile the elephant in the room remains Iran, which is funding and arming Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and Syria, not to mention waging war against the west by proxy in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Israel remains caught in a lethal trap, because it is trying to solve a problem that it cannot solve since it did not create it. The real architects of this impasse are the countries of the free world, which have failed utterly to grasp that the Israel/Palestine conflict is but one theatre of a global struggle; not a conflict over the division of a piece of land but rather one front in a global onslaught against the west. While trying vainly to solve Israel /Palestine in the hope this will calm everything else down, the free world fails to grasp that it is only by dealing with regional and global aggression that Israel/Palestine will ever be resolved. Backing the Big Lie of the justice of Palestinian statehood, which has meant in fact that a country that was victorious at its rebirth against forces that tried to wipe it out has uniquely been expected ever since to make reparations to its attackers who continue to try to destroy it and to provide them with a state from which they can finish the job, has been the biggest single incentive to terror and war in the Middle East. Only when this is acknowledged, and the free world locates the moral compass which has been absent from its dealings for decades, will there be any prospect of justice in the Middle East and peace for the world.

Amil Imani on the Islamist Threat

From AmilImani.com:

Islam with its rule of Sharia presents an imminent threat to subvert and replace the Constitution that governs our lives. Unlike Muslims who practice Taqiyya —lying or dissimulation—I proudly speak the truth. Truth should never be sacrificed at the altar of any goal. I firmly believe that truthfulness is indeed the foundation of all virtues.

Faithful Muslims believe that sovereignty belongs to Allah. They believe the only important “constitution” is the Quran, and before allegiance to a nation comes fidelity to Allah. Islam of all sects demands obedience to Islamic law, not the laws of men or political institutions. A Muslim will never abide by an oath of office when Islamic principles are at stake. When they swear an oath on the Quran, it is to show Islamic supremacy, not to prove they are telling the truth.

Please understand that Islamic principles cover every conceivable action and interaction of people living under Islamic law.
"It is not fitting for a Muslim man or woman to have any choice in their affairs when a matter has been decided for them by Allah and His Messenger. They have no option." Qur'an 33:36

So our Constitution and even State and local laws are essentially meaningless to a Muslim, and the Bill of Rights, once its usefulness as a means to perpetuate Islam in America is no longer necessary, will certainly be disparaged and ignored.
In fact, Islam is incompatible with democracy and subversive of the way of life that blesses this nation. It is fascist and evil by its very definition. Thus, it is imperative that we fight Islamofascisim with the same determination that we fought other enemies of freedom such as Nazism , Fascism, and Communism. And that imperative starts with our lawmakers constitutionally reevaluating the definition of religion. Islam must be curbed or it will curb us.

How are Islamists taking control?

They do it first by establishing Mosques in every town and city. These meeting places are perfect warehouses of not only indoctrination, but future terrorists, who are made to read and understand the principles of Jihad, martyrdom and Dar ul Harb (“land of war”—anyplace not Islamacized.) Mosques cost money, and the money for these warehouses of hate is coming straight from Saudi Arabia . These mosques are being infused with an activist strain of Islam, Wahabism. If you have to ask where the Saudis are getting their money, you are not paying attention...its coming from you. According to a National Portrait, a survey released in April 2001, there are at least 1,209 of mosques in the US and numbers are increasing.

Mosque elders tend to be sent to the US with one clear mission: Make Islamic religion, laws, and life supreme within the United States, using any and all tactics necessary. Next, from within the safety of their local mosques, they begin to use their revolting practices, riotous youth, and wild sermonizing to force the genteel Americans to relocate to safer, less threatening neighborhoods and cities. Of course, not all Americans will move or can afford to do so. And to take control of a town, Muslims will not need to evict everyone. They probably need about 25% in order to make life very unpleasant for those who do not go along with their demands.

They will elect Muslims to all positions of local influence, who will create and enforce policy according to the Quran. Once they have control over a town, they will begin to establish informal Sharia, and there’s nothing the government can (or will want to) do about it. Sharia is the brutal means by which Islam controls its populations by force, intimidation, and punishments for offenses to Allah. Already in many European countries, national governments have out of fear, given Islamic fascists the right to establish their own shadow governments within the borders of countries like Sweden and England, where they can control their own populations without accountability. Proposals for Sharia are being taken seriously by Canada.
This is an admission that Islam is not just a religion. It is a cult. It seeks total control over a person’s mind and body. And, as such, our Constitution is totally incompatible with it. They will push politicians for local control and self-determination of their own laws. In this way, America will become two nations; a weakened traditional one, and a growing, menacing Islamacized one.

At the same time, Muslims will ally with Leftist politicians who will gladly cede some of their power to this group of enforcers, so conservative politicians and Christians who advocate self defense and sane social policies are kept out of office. Money that was once used to build mosques will now be used to buy politicians. On university campuses, Islam will be portrayed as righteous and peaceful, while Christianity will be associated with evil Western and American values. The rebellious American youth will eat it up.

There will be increasing local and regional incidents of crimes and threats against Christians, Jews, and anybody who speaks out against the religion of hate. Terrorism is a completely legitimate tool of Islam, and was widely practiced and advocated by Muhammad. Remember, all words in the Quran are perfect, immutable laws defining an eternal ethic:

“Against them (the unbelievers) make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into (the hearts of) the enemies, of Allah and your enemies, and others besides, whom ye may not know, but whom Allah doth know. Whatever ye shall spend in the cause of Allah, shall be repaid unto you, and ye shall not be treated unjustly.” Quran 8.06.

Leftist politicians will continue to hold the Bill of Rights over anyone who dares to accuse this religion of wrongdoing. While crime and threats skyrocket, Islamacized citizens will ignore the wrongdoing, just like in Iraq. They will look the other way for fear of retribution, honor killings, and punishments from those who uphold the Islamic requirement to seek revenge on anyone who dishonors or disagrees with Islam.

Eventually, America will become weakened and politicians will allow the Muslims to do whatever they want, as long as the infidels are allowed to be free of terrorist threats. As Christianity wanes, people will reject it as an anachronism that is irrelevant to modern trends. Islamic ethics will prevail and Muslim sects will gain members, money, and influence. As government policies lean toward Islamic ideals, the Bill of Rights will be seen as archaic and out of touch with contemporary values and the new direction of the country. It will be just a piece of parchment in a museum, lacking anyone who would so bold and revolutionary as to fight against a religion, even a religion of hate.

The first problem is that we don’t have centuries to wait for reform. But more to the point, Islam does not tolerate revisionism in its beliefs or practices over time. Reform is not at play, because one cannot point to Jihadists or terrorists and say Muhammad did not advocate it. He most certainly did, and he delighted in his evil thoughts.

Islam is a literal religion, taking unabrogated scripture as eternal and absolute. Moreover, there are no compensating scriptures that can be used to substitute for the barbaric avocations. There are no calls in Islam for compassion, forgiveness, non-violence, and brotherly love. Instead there are specific prescriptions for “an eye for an eye”, eternal warfare, religious hegemony, slavery, killing Jews, taxing nonbelievers, stoning, promulgating terror, establishing a caste social system, and the perpetuating discrimination against women. The only way to reform it is to censor vast sections of the Quran and Hadith, which would be absurd.

This is why there is truly no such thing as a “moderate” Muslim. Moderate Muslims or in other words “non-practicing Muslims”, like millions of Iranians, are Muslims by default, who were born into a faith they did not choose, a faith that was “inflicted” upon them by invaders of a foreign culture, a faith that forbids them to leave or revert to their pre-Islamic heritage and religions. Therefore, vast majority of Iranians remain Muslims in name only.

The other type of moderate Muslim is the “ignorant” Muslim who does not understand the Qur’anic “requirement” to wage war and submit to the Sharia, thereby “unknowingly” violating Qur’anic law. This latter type of Muslim is found in the rest of the Muslim countries. Hence, there is no such thing as “radical Islam”, since by its true definition Islam is nothing but radical. Those who espouse a “liberal” view of Islam should be forced to back up their nouveau interpretation with unabrogated scriptural facts. Unless such would-be “reformists” can categorically denounce Islamofascisim based on sound evidence from the Qur’an, they prove to be the true radicals, which is why we never see the Islamic apologists point to scriptural arguments against jihad. They simply cannot, because there is none, and they simply disguise and distort the truth.

The terrorists are not radicals from their interpretation of their doctrine--they are only doing exactly what Muhammad demanded of them, and his demands were not suggestions and they where not ephemeral. They were “perfect”, eternal ultimata. The terrorist are faithful and true to what is written in the holy Qur’an. A Muslim is forbidden to think critically about the Qur'an. He must blindly obey it and accept it passively and should memorize all of it. Being thus filled with the spirit of Islam (literally meaning “submission”), he instinctively walks in accordance with Allah's law in his daily life in a state of disempowered stupor.

It would be wonderful to believe that if only a quiet reform could mend the hearts of Muslims, and that much of their sacred writings could be overlooked and forgotten, or perhaps just re-interpreted, then all of the Islamic world could join the community of modern, civilized humankind. Unfortunately, this plan can never work. It might work for a while, but then some Muslims might take to reading, and the whole jihad, terror, coercion, Sharia trend would start over. You cannot reform that which is central to a religion.

Regretfully, a vast ignorance prevails in this sphere. Academic pundits, leftist journalists, and hired Islamic apologists, better known as “Useful Idiots”, proclaim that Islam is a religion of peace and that the great majority of Muslims are not party to any plans and actions of the radicals.

So how do we stop this sequence of events? How can our government, which has so effectively protected the rights of peaceful religions, protect us from an aggressive one?

America, with a long history of protecting religious freedom, still clings to the “hands off” practice of leaving alone any doctrine or practice billed as a religion. Deciding what constitutes a religion and who is to make that call is a thorny problem. The dictionary supplies a sociologically useless definition of religion: “The expression of man’s belief in and reverence for a superhuman power recognized as the creator and governor of the universe.” Just about anyone or any group under this definition can start a religion, and they indeed do—and some do so at a significant cost to others.

Perhaps it is time to realize that not all religions are the same. If a religion is evil, it must lose its right to exist under First Amendment protections. If it advocates that which is wrong and immoral, and it seeks to control all aspects of your life by force and fraud; if it seeks exemption from national laws protecting constitutional rights, then it must not be considered a religion.

It must be called something else, and it cannot be recognized as a protected ideology under the First Amendment. We have hate-crime laws. How about admitting that there is a hate religion, and its name is Islam, cult of fascism?

"O you who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors: they are but friends and protectors to each other. And he amongst you that turns to them (for friendship) is of them. Verily Allah guides not a people unjust." Quran 5:51

“Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” Bible (Matthew 5:44)

Any religion that seeks to create its own “State” and its own legal system and seeks to mobilize its own militia is itself not interested in separation of church and State, and has no right to use that separation to create hegemony.

In fact, such a doctrine is not even a religion at all. It is a totalitarian regime, and must be considered the enemy of everything Americans believe in.

It’s time to shut down juggernaut Islam. This begins by removing First Amendment protections and revealing Islam’s beliefs to America, including its thoroughly anti-American ideology. It begins by admitting that no matter how many recruits it has acquired by force and fraud, that Islam is a cult, not a religion. I’d welcome an inspection of other religions to determine if they are truly peaceful, and I am confident all other doctrines will remain protected and unaffected, because religions are by definition peaceful. Cults are not. Let’s single out the cause of our problems. Let’s remove the tumor of Islam from our country before it is further metastasized.

Germany Protests Lantos' Schroeder Jibe

From the LA Times:

WASHINGTON -- A leading Democratic lawmaker lashed out at the former leaders of Germany and France, calling former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder a `political prostitute.'

Germany denounced the remarks by Rep. Tom Lantos, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, as an insult to its people.

Lantos' comments about Schroeder and former French President Jacques Chirac, both opponents of the Iraq war, came in a speech Tuesday at the dedication of a monument to victims of communism. President Bush spoke at the same event, but did not arrive until after Lantos spoke.

"I am so glad that the era of Jacques Chirac and Chancellor Schroeder in Germany is now gone," Lantos said to applause.

He said when the United States asked Schroeder to support its decision to go to war in Iraq "he told us where to go."

"I referred to him as a political prostitute, now that he's taking big checks from (Russian President Vladimir) Putin. But the sex workers in my district objected, so I will no longer use that phrase," Lantos said.

After leaving office in 2005 Schroeder became chairman of the North Europe Gas Pipeline, which is 51 percent owned by the Russian state natural gas company Gazprom.

Lantos' remark prompted scattered laughter and applause from the audience.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, once Schroeder's chief of staff, said Lantos' comments overstepped "the limits of political decency."

Christopher Hitchens on Paris Hilton

From Slate:

So now, a young woman knows that, everywhere she goes, this is what people are visualizing, and giggling about. She hasn't a rag of privacy to her name. But this turns out to be only a prelude. Purportedly unaware that her license was still suspended, a result of being found with a whiff of alcohol on her breath, she also discovers that the majesty of the law will not give her a break. Evidently as bewildered and aimless as she ever was, she is arbitrarily condemned to prison, released on an equally slight pretext and—here comes the beautiful bit—subjected to a cat-and-mouse routine that sends her back again. At this point, she cries aloud for her mother and exclaims that it "isn't right." And then the real pelting begins. In Toronto, where I happened to be on the relevant day, the Sun* filled its whole front page with a photograph of her tear-swollen face, under the stern headline "CRYBABY." I didn't at all want to see this, but what choice did I have? It was typical of a universal, inescapable coverage. Not content with seeing her undressed and variously penetrated, it seems to be assumed that we need to watch her being punished and humiliated as well. The supposedly "broad-minded" culture turns out to be as prurient and salacious as the elders in The Scarlet Letter. Hilton is legally an adult but the treatment she is receiving stinks—indeed it reeks—of whatever horrible, buried, vicarious impulse underlies kiddie porn and child abuse.

I cannot imagine what it might be like, while awaiting a prison sentence for a tiny infraction, to see dumb-ass TV-addicted crowds howling with easy, complicit laughter as Sarah Silverman (a culpably unfunny person) describes your cell bars being painted to look like penises and jokes heavily about your teeth being at risk because you might gnaw on them. And this on prime time, and unrebuked. Lynching parties used to be fiestas, as we have no right to forget, and the ugly coincidence of sexual nastiness—obscenity is the right name for it—and vengefulness is what seems to lend the savor to the Saturnalia. There must be more than one "gossip" writer who has already rehearsed for the day that Paris Hilton takes a despairing overdose. And what a glorious day of wall-to-wall coverage that will be!

Christopher Hitchens on Kurdistan

From Slate:

So, I posed the following question to my UNAMI comrade, who had said to me in so many words that things in his Iraqi bailiwick "could not be worse." Are you so sure that they could not be very much worse? In particular, what are you going to do about Kurdistan? In this region of Iraq, the local leadership has done almost everything that could have been asked of it by the United Nations or the United States. It maintains its own security, does not require foreign troops, has put an end to sectarian warfare among Kurds, fights against al-Qaida with some success, maintains a high regional standard for pluralism and democracy, and has enough left over to contribute soldiers to the policing of Baghdad and Fallujah. His response was to say, "The civil war will spread there, too." I didn't know whether to be more struck by his fatalism or his cynicism.

There's no doubt that he has a point. In two front-page stories last week, one read of attempts being made to drive the Kurds out of the northern city of Mosul and of the blowing-up of a major bridge that helps connect Baghdad to the Kurdish-majority city of Kirkuk. And this is only a dress rehearsal for what is to come as the people of Kirkuk get ready to vote on whether to affiliate themselves to the Kurdish autonomous region. Al-Qaida has made the sabotage of this vote a major effort and is sparing no atrocious tactic in its campaign of ethnic cleansing and clerical terror. So, what is all this idle babble about the conflict in Iraq being a "distraction" from the fight against Bin Laden? A very clear and bright line is being drawn in a country of vast strategic and economic importance. On one side of it stand the Iraqis who are willing to fight the common enemy of civilization, and on the other stands—what? Before we think about casting our own votes, we need to hear from every candidate whether he or she includes in their "withdrawal" package the abandonment of Kurdistan. And it would be nice to hear from the Bush administration, as well, a few crisp words on the identical subject. If we are not for ourselves, then who will be for us?

Martin Kramer v George W. Bush on Democracy in the Middle East

From the Jerusalem Post's BlogCentral, Martin Kramer's Prague speech (invited by Natan Scharansky himself):

Now in the Middle East, Saddam-style dictatorship, with mass graves and invasions of neighbors, is the exception, not the rule. So is Taliban-style puritanism, based on terrorism at home and abroad. The same is true of the genocidal regime in the Sudan, and the potentially genocidal regime in Iran. Democracy competes not against them, but against this consensual authoritarianism. And the reason democracy is losing that competition is that consensual authoritarianism produces security for its peoples, and exports security to its neighbors and the world.

We musn't be blind to these facts: these regimes cooperate with the world in combatting terrorism and containing an aggressive Iran, they have peace treaties with Israel or float peace initiatives, they don't threaten or intervene in the internal affairs of other countries, and they don't seek weapons of mass destruction. None of them has gone to war in the last thirty-plus years.

And who are the net exporters of insecurity? These are states that have multi-polar or pluralistic systems: Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and what some call Palestine. These systems aren't democracies, but in terms of formal practices like elections, they've actually gone the longer distance. Yet they don't provide security for their peoples, and they export insecurity, in the form of terrorism, refugees, radical Islam, and nuclear threats. What's discouraging is that this isn't true in only some of the cases, or only half of them. It's true, for now, in all if them.

Now it was also my teacher Bernard Lewis who said this: "Democracy is a strong medicine, which you have to give to the patient in small, gradually increasing doses. If you give too much too quickly, you kill the patient." This doesn't contradict his earlier statement, so much as it complements it. If they're not made free, they'll destroy us; but if they're made free too quickly, they might destroy themselves, and take us with them.

So how do we know whether the democracy dosage is too much, too fast? Security is the test. People around the world will look to this conference and say: solve this conundrum. Don't just cite precedents from other places and times. This is the Middle East, it looks different. Don't just offer lofty rhetoric. People are skeptical of it. Don't say that America will provide the security: it won't. And don't say that we have to think long-term: too much can go wrong in the short-term. The pro-democracy forces need to show how they'll make their peoples not only freer, but more secure--and how they'll make the rest of us safer.

Now unlike some others, I don't think this is an impossible mission. But it has to be acknowledged as the primary mission of dissidents today. It's a fact of life that the world's support for freedom isn't unconditional-- even for this US administration--and security is the condition. Meet that condition, even part way, and good people in the world won't just admire your courage. They might even take a chance and support you.

"For God's Sake, Please Stop the Aid!"

Now this is very interesting, just sent to me by someone I know...An interview with a young Kenyan economics expert, published by Germany's SPIEGEL ONLINE, pleading with the international community to stop funding "development" and "aid" programs, asap:

The Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati, 35, says that aid to Africa does more harm than good. The avid proponent of globalization spoke with SPIEGEL about the disastrous effects of Western development policy in Africa, corrupt rulers, and the tendency to overstate the AIDS problem.

Also worth considering is this companion piece: this analysis by SPIEGEL correspondents Erich Wiedemann and Thilo Thielke:

Ahead of this week's G8 conference in Scotland, the world's richest nations forgave billions in debt to the world's poorest. Great news, right? Not necessarily. Decades of Western aid have done little to ease suffering in Africa -- indeed the situation is worse than ever. Is it time for the West to rethink its aid strategy?

Who's the Biggest Anti-Communist of Them All?

President George W. Bush dedicated the Memorial to the Victims of Communism in Washington today......While Russian President Vladimir Putin celebrated Russian Independence Day by awarding Alexander Solzhenitsyn state honors.

Bush's event commemorates a defeat--Bush I's disastrous Tiananmen Square massacre. Putin's meeting symbolizes a victory--the restoration of non-Communist Russia and blessing from the leading Russophile writer (who refused honors offered by Yeltsin).

So, I'd have to call this a win for Putin. He's the bigger anti-Communist.

Some Background on CNI

What kind of organization is the ""Council for the National Interest"--sponsors of Sunday's full-page anti-semitic New York Times advertisement, published despite the New York Times' so-called advertising standards? A report on CAMERA's website, dated April 26, 2007 provides some background information:

CNI’s grossly distorted portrayal of Israeli policy and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is consistent with its longstanding animus towards Israel and its cozy relationship with Arab terrorists and anti-Semitic groups. In early 2006, for example, CNI leaders met in Damascus with Hamas chieftain Khaled Meshal as well as with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. An earlier CNI advertisement in the New York Times described Hamas as "a typical anti-colonial insurgency responding to an Israeli occupation and what amounts to government terror against Palestinian civilians."

CNI and its sister organization, the Council for the National Interest Foundation (CNIF), have maintained close ties with individuals linked to Islamic terror groups. Former CNIF Board Member Abdurahman Alamoudi, an open supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah, is currently serving a 23-year prison term for illegally accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars from top Libyan officials, plotting to murder Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah (on behalf of Libyan President Muammar Qadhafi), and violating tax and immigration laws (“Council for Islamist Interests” FrontPageMagazine.com, Aug. 5, 2004). In response to the exposure of the Alamoudi case by Stuart Wagner and Elon Granader, two research analysts associated with the Investigative Project (a Washington based counter-terrorism institute), CNI claimed ignorance of Alamoudi's activities, although his support for Hamas and Hezbollah was well known as early as 2000. After his arrest, he remained on the CNI Board for another ten months, finally being removed when he was convicted on July 30, 2004.

A 1999 CNIF press release showed a delegation that included CNI President Eugene Bird meeting with leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah. Also in 1999, CNI co-founder Richard Curtiss was the featured speaker at a Jerusalem Festival organized by the Islamic Association for Palestine, which has distributed Hamas communiqués including a charter calling for jihad against Jews.

Dr. Laura Drake is another extremist with ties to CNI. In 1993 and 1994, Drake served as the organization's Director of Research. By 1998, she was Director of the United Association for Studies and Research, an organization that, according to FBI Special Agent Robert Wright, "served as the command headquarters for the United States-based Hamas enterprise." George Mason University professor Peter Leitner, President of the Higgins Counterterrorism Research Center, similarly referred to the UASR as "a front organization for a terrorist group" and described it as "part of the international terrorist network." In a speech to the Al-Hewar Center in 2000, at a time when Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak was offering far-reaching concessions to resolve Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians, Drake urged Arabs to refuse to normalize relations with Israel.

CNI members espouse fringe conspiracy theories and associate with anti-Semitic extremists. CNI Foundation Chairman Paul McCloskey refered to Israel as "an ugly little nation" and "a potential enemy of the United States." McCloskey stirred up controversy in 2000 when he was a featured speaker at a conference of the Institute for Historical Review, a Holocaust denial group, appearing with several notorious Holocaust deniers, like Arthur Butz, Robert Faurisson, David Irving and Ernst Zündel. And CNI Chairman Paul Findley has accused the Mossad (Israeli intelligence) of playing a role in the JFK assassination and attempting to kill President George Bush.

CNI is an outgrowth of the American Educational Trust (AET) , which publishes The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, a virulently anti-Israel publication with strong anti-Jewish undertones. The Washington Report has crudely branded Israel’s defenders, "fifth columnists," "Israel-firsters," "viruses," "bacteria," "cancer," and an "alien intrusion" operating "against the interests of the United States." The White House, the State Department, Congress, and the media have been termed "Israeli occupied territory."

Former CNI Executive Director David Bowen has joined Washington Report publisher Andrew Killgore and editor Richard Curtiss to speak at meetings of the now-defunct Liberty Lobby, which the Anti-Defamation League called "the most influential and active anti-Semitic propaganda organization in the United States."
AET’s membership includes a number of former Foreign Service "Arabists." Not surprisingly, while the heads of two modern democratic governments, the U.S. and Israel, are denigrated, the antediluvian Saudi monarch is portrayed in glowing terms. The April 22 ad in the Times presents the recent Saudi ultimatum to Israel concerning normalizing relations as "King Abdullah’s extraordinary effort to reopen the moribund Arab-Israeli peace process, so crudely ignored by Israeli Prime Minister Olmert and President Bush."

The Council for the National Interest essentially functions as the American arm of an Arab propaganda campaign to weaken bonds between the US and Israel by promoting the Arab narrative of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This campaign inverts reality, casting Israel, a liberal democracy, as a racist, oppressive regime while ignoring the dictatorial nature of many of the Arab regimes CNI favors.

Lucky CAMERA had some information posted on the web. Abe Foxman appears to be AWOL on this issue, as I cannot find one word about Sunday's ad on the Anti-Defamation League website. ADL seems to be obsessed with the issue of sainthood for Pius XII--not a major threat to American Jews living today. IMHO Foxman is not up to dealing with actual threats faced by American Jewry after 9/11. The publication of full-page defamatory ads in the New York Times is evidence that ADL needs new leadership, asap...

Agustin Blazquez On NBC TODAY in Havana

NBC’S TODAY SHAM FROM HAVANA:
THE SAME BROKEN RECORD © 2007 ABIP
by Agustin Blazquez with the collaboration of Jaums Sutton

Warning to America: The NBC TODAY show knows what is going on behind the scene in Cuba but has decided not to tell the American people.

The reason is that in order to get a visa to report from Havana or to have a news bureau on the island, maybe even get the career-making interview with the tyrant himself, a news entity has to behave like a “good old boy” and deliver positive reports with plenty of references to the joys of touristing in Cuba – if not, it is expelled.

According to the article “Cuba Boots Foreign Reporters” by Humberto Fontova [http://www.amigospais-guaracabuya.org/oaghf077.php ] at the beginning of this year, “Gary Marx of the Chicago Tribune, Stephen Gibbs of the BBC, and Cesar Gonzalez-Calero of the Mexican newspaper El Universal were all served with pink slips, announcing that their services were no longer needed.” Cuba has done this many times and the U.S. media never make a big fuss about it. And so NBC went ahead with Matt Lauer’s trip to Cuba.

NBC executives know all about the system there. They know that “good behavior” in Cuba is a must, especially if they want the utmost grace of an interview with the Maximum Moribund or brother Raul Alcoholic Castro, or any other official of the tyranny. That’s is probably why they sent Andrea Mitchell (Castro fares best with female interviewers) – who, by the way, looks hideous without her usual lighting, makeup and hair.

So, reporting from Castroland requires hypocrisy because journalists must compromise their journalistic integrity and their credibility. As I always say, they are rendering a disservice to the American people as well as to Castro’s victims.

In spite of what a silly and overexcited Ann Curry said to Matt Lauer on the show, there was nothing to learn from the latest NBC TODAY sham from Havana on Tuesday, June 5, 2007. It was another exercise in futility and superficiality, a sorrowful spectacle that has been repeated many times before.

The charade was set in the same spots we have seen used in the past by NBC and other U.S. networks: with backdrops of the Morro Castle, the Paseo del Malecon, Havana’s sea shore boulevard, the Cathedral Square and usual tourist café, in the center of tourist-apartheid Cuba, where only foreigners and Castro’s elite are allowed. Cubans are permitted there only as servants, and they are not allowed to receive tips.

We were also treated to a musical number by Castro’s official group “Van Van,” with a circle of “happy Cubans” dancing and other staged-by-the government displays of tourist attractions. It was Castroland at its best, the face of Castro’s Cuba that most resembles Cuba before the revolution. Even a ballet dancer singing the praises of the revolution.

Included In this spectacular parade was a tired Ricardo Alarcon – some official of the revolution, no one important since Fidel didn’t include his name in his “provisional” abdication of the throne for the toilet. Let’s face it, the main puppeteers are always the Castro brothers: Moribund and Alcoholic. And good old NBC’s TODAY sham gave Alarcon a platform from which to spit his usual vitriolic propaganda.

Required on the agenda are the repetitious famous fallacies of the revolution about the free education and health care. But absent were the visits by the NBC cameras (even their hidden cameras – that’s a thought – NBC has gotten very good with hidden cameras lately) to the real schools and hospitals designated for Cubans, which are very different from the ones foreigners use, which also happens to be the ones NBC was given access to. NBC didn’t show the empty pharmacies and stores designated for the average Cuban. Yes, the tyranny assigns you to a particular pharmacy and store where you are allowed to shop.

How many times did Matt Lauer mention that there is no homelessness in Cuba? How does Mr. Lauer know that to be true? How can that possibly be? For photos of homeless and real Cuban hospitals visit [www.TheRealCuba.com ]. Does Mr. Lauer consider the incredible slums in which the vast majority of Cubans live to be “homes”? NBC didn’t show any of the slums of Havana or the living conditions that many families – especially blacks – have to endure in that country ruled by whites. Another use for NBC’s famous hidden cameras?

NBC didn’t mention the over 200 jails built by Castro. Didn’t show any dissident or political prisoner or even mention Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, a black human rights activist jailed under horrible conditions in Castro’s dungeons. Lauer did mention the human rights issue a couple of times, but his guests chose to ignore the issue and, hard journalist or not, Lauer let it pass. And of course, left out were the infamous “Acts of Repudiation” against people who dislike the tyranny [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3251464116022175058].

The NBC TODAY sham was just the usual pitch for lifting the U.S. embargo and travel restrictions in order to flood the island with unscrupulous U.S. businessmen and ignorant, insensitive tourists unaware of the reality of the Cuban tragedy. Oh, and flood Castro with more money, to keep up his tyranny indefinitely.

How would the obviously anti-Bush liberal U.S. media like Bush as president indefinitely?

No mention of the infamous sexual tourism – including with minors – sanctioned by Cuba. Too tetric for early morning TV?

No foreign businessmen do business with the Cuban people. All business is done with the Cuban military, which is in charge of all businesses in Cuba. There is no such thing as a Cuban businessman. And no foreign businessmen can hire and pay the Cuban workers. All workers are selected and supplied by the Cuban government; therefore, what is earned by the workers goes directly to Castro and his henchmen. They of course keep 95% of the salaries and pay a miserable salary in worthless Cuban pesos to the workers. International labor laws, norms and morals are not respected by the foreign businessmen.

These immoral businessmen are not contributing to the betterment of the Cuban workers. Rather, they are contributing to and becoming accomplices in their exploitation. As if once is not enough, Cubans are being victimized twice!

In relation to the preposterous idea that the flow of tourists will improve living conditions for the average Cuban and expose them to the idea of democracy, you have to consider that Castro’s laws penalize Cubans who make contact with foreigners. I repeat, there are drastic penalties and consequences for the average Cuban who befriends a foreigner in Cuba.

Cuba has an apartheid society (for that alone there should be an international boycott like the one against South Africa). Cubans are less than second-class citizens in their own country – and have been for years!

Tourists from Europe, Canada, Japan, Latin America and, yes, the United States, as well as other areas of the world, have been visiting Cuba for decades and there hasn’t been any change! Hello?!

Americans who want to travel to Cuba with the false hope of fostering a change in Cuba’s political system were pathetically misinformed by the garbage on the NBC TODAY sham.

U.S. citizens have been traveling to and doing business with China for decades. Is China a democracy? Does China respect human rights? China is not our ally, it is our adversary. The same can be said about Vietnam, which was recently accused of giving the Cuban tyranny the highly contagious virus of aviary flu H5N1 that could be distributed to the U.S. via migratory birds (so don’t be surprised by a future outbreak in the U.S.). The same can be said about Russia, which in spite of everything appears to be slinking back to the dark ages of dictatorship. America is surrounded by so many “good friends.”

Because of misinformation and disinformation by the U.S. media – reinforced by the NBC TODAY sham on June 5 – there is ever-growing support from the American people to lift the travel ban and the U.S. embargo against Cuba.

The lack of food, clothing and household goods is a Communist technique to keep populations under control, distracted by concerns about how they are going to survive. That is the rule of thumb in all communist tyrannies. Hunger is a tool, nay, a weapon against the masses.

Conveniently, the U.S. liberal media in general do not emphasize enough that Cuba trades with the rest of the world and that some of the same products available in the U.S. are available in Cuba – but mainly for foreigners and the Castro elite. Cuban people with their meager salaries, equivalent to $4 to $20 a month, cannot afford to pay $8 for a bottle of Johnson’s Baby Shampoo! Fortunately, NBC’s TODAY did mention this fact – good work!

In spite of the (in reality, symbolic) U.S. embargo, America is the biggest supplier of food and other goods to Cuba! The U.S. is also the major provider of humanitarian help to Cuba! And the Cuban exiles have been providing millions every year in cash, medicines and other goods to their families in Cuba for almost half a century!

Yes, the most hated and vilified (by the U.S. liberal media and academia) Cuban American exiles have never forgotten their homeland and their relatives living under the boot of the cruelest, most criminal and longest-lasting tyranny in the history of the Americas! Over 100,000 documented deaths. Yet for fewer than 3,000 deaths Augusto Pinochet was despised all over the Americas. What an outrageous double standard!

No, NBC’s TODAY show definitely was not forthcoming with its recent reporting. I challenge network executives to come clean and explain to America under what conditions they were allowed to work in Cuba. They should demonstrate more honesty and journalistic integrity if they want to be respected.

If NBC doesn’t do it, as far as I am concerned, the kindest word I can say about its silence, omission and collaboration with the enemy is that its conduct in this sham and throughout these 48 years of tyranny in Cuba has been criminal.
© 2007 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 two Tower Theaters in Miami on January 2006 and the 2006 Palm Beach International Film Festival and the 2006 Barcelona International Film Festival for Human Rights and Peace, Dan Rather "60 Minutes," an inside view , RUMBERAS CUBANAS, Vol. 1 MARIA ANTONIETA PONS, COVERING CUBA 5: Act Of Repudiation premiered at the two Tower Theaters in Miami, January 2007 and the 2007 Palm Beach International Film Festival, and the upcoming COVERING CUBA 6.

ALL AVAILABLE AT: www.CubaCollectibles.com
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.

Andrew Kuchins on Putin's Missile Offer

From Newsday (ht Johnson's Russia List):

Maybe it is my sunbaked California upbringing that inclines me to think optimistically that Putin is serious, but let me offer a few reasons to support this view. First, I really don't think Putin wants a trashed U.S.-Russian relationship as part of his political legacy. I know Bush does not, and that is a big reason the two of them unexpectedly agreed to schedule the meeting in Maine this summer. But for that meeting to succeed in really turning the momentum in U.S.-Russian relations in a positive direction after a long downturn, something reasonably dramatic needs to be agreed on. Missile defense cooperation would certainly check that box.

Second, we have been discussing sharing missile launch data with the Russians for nearly 15 years, and we did reach an important agreement in 2000 to establish in Moscow a Joint Data Exchange Center, but implementation has been held up for legal and political reasons. Exploring missile defense cooperation was on the agenda for Bush and Putin going back to 2001, but the shift in our focus after 9/11 and other factors put that on the back burner. So there is considerable pre-history here that makes this proposal not entirely "out of the blue."

The obstacles, of course, are considerable. First, the radar in Azerbaijan is not of the technical specifications of the X-Band radar we had planned for the Czech Republic. There are all kinds of technical and legal complications, but the biggest challenges boil down to trust and politics. There is currently inadequate trust among the Russian and American political and military establishments to virtually overnight engage in a degree of cooperation found only among the closest of allies.

Bush and Putin have been saying for years that the Cold War is over; now they have the opportunity to most decisively prove that conclusion.

If they were to muster the political will against all odds, they would do a great deal for international security and their precarious legacies. You can bet that Putin's friends in Tehran and, to a lesser extent, in Beijing are not so comfortable with this turn of events.

Julia Gorin on President Bush's Kosovo Albanian Fans

From Frontpagemagazine.com (ht JihadWatch):

But no, we preferred, and prefer, to cast our lot with the Balkans’ most primitive elements — sacrificing friends to make friends of our enemies. Men who severed Christian heads, killed federal employees who were Albanian for “collaborating”, and violently purged their own ranks are the “statesmen” whom Condoleezza Rice and Nicholas Burns meet with regularly, the men we’ve set up as the legitimate rulers of an ethnically pure pro-American Kosovo, and who were honored guests at the 2004 Democratic Convention.

Rather than rule of law, religious freedom, ethnic diversity, equal justice and civil rights, Kosovo is governed by lawless, tribalistic, blood-code-following, clan-oriented mob justice. While reports out of Serbia concern debates in public schools over Evolution versus Intelligent Design theory — similar to our own — a typical report out of Kosovo concerned a debate over whether to kill the KFOR (NATO) mascot because the dog was Serbian.

“We’re defending our way of life,” our leaders told us in 1999. Perversely enshrining those ‘common values,’ a crude replica of the Statue of Liberty overlooks our mono-ethnic handiwork from atop the Victory Hotel where the American flag hangs upside-down just a few yards below. Nearby are Bill Clinton Boulevard and Wesley Clark Avenue — tributes cited recently as examples of the area’s pro-Americanism. (There are also streets named for Eliot Engel, Bob Dole and Madeleine Albright.) Meanwhile, the former terrorists whom we installed as the “Kosovo Protection Force” and as the legitimate government of the province attend annual July 4th celebrations at the U.S. Consulate in Pristina. One proposed banner for the competition to design “Kosova’s” new flag mimics the American flag, with the two-headed black Albanian eagle in the corner where the 50 stars would be, plus red and white stripes.

Great. The narco-terrorist gangster state we created is pro-American. Are we so desperate for an endorsement that we must grasp it even if it comes from a terror-friendly horde, our support of whom is already coming home to roost?