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Condoleezza Rice's Fitness Video

Watch it here.

Bush Will Go To Pakistan

Despite the recent bomb blasts that killed an American diplomat:

"Terrorists and killers are not going to prevent me from going to Pakistan," Bush told reporters. His national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, said there was evidence the U.S. diplomat had been targeted.

Pakistani officials said the bombing could have been timed for Bush's two-day visit.

Was Iran Behind Tashkent Rabbi's Murder?

Judith Apter Klinghoffer says, on History News Network, that there may be an Iranian connection to the recent murder of a rabbi in Tashkent, Uzbekistan:

The International Sephardic Leadership Council's official response blames IRAN:

The destruction of the Tajikistan synagogue last week was the most disgraceful act committed by a sovereign state toward its Jewish population since the end of WWII. Now, a suspicious murder of the leader of the sister Jewish community, only 4 hours away, raises concern that the Jews may be being targeted. We have heard, through official channels, that Iran may be involved with stirring up trouble in the region, and to that extent, we hope a full and fair investigation will be opened.

That is, indeed, the very least we should insist on.

Russia Demands Berezovsky From UK

Bloomberg News says he's charged with plotting an armed coup against Putin, based on statements he made in an Echo Moskvy radio interview. On the eve of the G-8 summit, it looks like Russia is playing "hardball" with the industrialized nations. It is doubtful that Her Majesty will turn over the former Oligarch:

Berezovsky celebrated his 60th birthday in January with a party at Blenheim Palace, Winston Churchill's birthplace, outside London, Kommersant reported. The extravaganza featured an ice sculpture representing St. Basil's Cathedral on Red Square, coated with black caviar.

The guests included fellow Russian millionaire exile Vladimir Gusinsky, the newspaper reported.

The Railway, A Novel From Uzbekistan

NewEurasia.net reports on Hamid Ismailov's new novel, The Railway, written in the tradition of Chingiz Aitmatov's The Day Lasts More Than a Thousand Years

Set in Uzbekistan between 1900 and 1980, The Railway introduces to us the inhabitants of the small town of Gilas on the ancient Silk Route.

Their colourful lives offer a unique and comic picture of a little-known land populated by outgoing Mullahs, incoming Bolsheviks, and a plethora of Uzbeks, Russians, Persians, Jews, Koreans, Tartars and Gypsies.

Rich and picaresque, The Railway is full of colour. Fusing literary sophistication with a naive delight in storytelling, it chronicles the dramatic changes felt throughout Central Asia in the twentieth century.

AEI Discusses Russian NGO Law

Yesterday, Leon Aron moderated an all-star panel at the American Enterprise Institute on the implications of Russia's new NGO law. No one actually defended the law. Ntalia Bourjaily and Andrew Kuchins (below) detailed problems the new law posed for American-supported NGOs working in the former USSR. On the other hand, Nikolas Gvosdev (below) said the letter of the law was not as significant as how the Russian government would interpret the law, and that NGO concerns were not pressing at this time for a rising Russian middle-class just beginning to enjoy personal freedoms of travel, consumption, and lifestyle. He predicted that many non-political NGOs would not be affected, so that the impact of the law would be mostly felt by political activists, and attention must be paid to how they are affected. Maureen Greenwood (below) presented dramatic examples of NGOs targeted by the Russian government today.Unfortunately for Amnesty International, Greenwood's chosen example of a victim of the Russian NGO crackdown seems to be the case of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, now hbeing arrassed for publishing articles by the late Chechen terrorist leader Aslan Maskhadov in its magazine. Although Greenwood described his articles as "non-violent," Maskhadov is to Russia what Osama Bin Laden is to the USA. It is doubtful that an "American-Al Qaeda Friendship Society" would be permitted to operate in the context of the War on Terror (any more than the German-American Bund was permitted to operate during World War II). If Amnesty International, once known for a commitment to non-violent prisoners of conscience, has now decided to champion violent Islamist terrorists like Maskhadov, one would have to question why anyone in America--let alone Russia--would want to to support its efforts. And led this observer to question why Maureen Greenwood, who edited the 250-page report Anti-Semitism in the Former Soviet Union, 1995-1997, didn't discuss the existence of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism among Islamist Chechens--examples such as this 2002 report by Lev Gorodetsky of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency:

A leaflet distributed recently in Chechnya stoked Jewish concern with the comment: "The Chechen people are continuing their great jihad by clearing the fatherland from Russian occupiers, servants of the world's Jews."

You can watch a video of the event, here.

Roger L. Simon's Oscar Picks

Picture - Brokeback Mountain
Actor - Phillip Seymour Hoffman - Capote
Actress - Reese Witherspoon - Walk the Line
Director - Ang Lee - Brokeback Mountain
Original screenplay - Paul Haggis - Crash
Adapted screenplay - Larry McMurty & Diana Ossana - Brokeback Mountain

More picks here...

Vladimir Bukovsky: EU May Become New USSR

The Soviet dissident told Brussels Journal that the EU project is dangerous and should now be stopped:

It is no accident that the European Parliament, for example, reminds me of the Supreme Soviet. It looks like the Supreme Soviet because it was designed like it. Similary, when you look at the European Commission it looks like the Politburo. I mean it does so exactly, except for the fact that the Commission now has 25 members and the Politburo usually had 13 or 15 members. Apart from that they are exactly the same, unaccountable to anyone, not directly elected by anyone at all. When you look into all this bizarre activity of the European Union with its 80,000 pages of regulations it looks like Gosplan. We used to have an organisation which was planning everything in the economy, to the last nut and bolt, five years in advance. Exactly the same thing is happening in the EU. When you look at the type of EU corruption, it is exactly the Soviet type of corruption, going from top to bottom rather than going from bottom to top.

If you go through all the structures and features of this emerging European monster you will notice that it more and more resembles the Soviet Union. Of course, it is a milder version of the Soviet Union. Please, do not misunderstand me. I am not saying that it has a Gulag. It has no KGB – not yet – but I am very carefully watching such structures as Europol for example. That really worries me a lot because this organisation will probably have powers bigger than those of the KGB. They will have diplomatic immunity. Can you imagine a KGB with diplomatic immunity? They will have to police us on 32 kinds of crimes – two of which are particularly worrying, one is called racism, another is called xenophobia. No criminal court on earth defines anything like this as a crime [this is not entirely true, as Belgium already does so – pb]. So it is a new crime, and we have already been warned. Someone from the British government told us that those who object to uncontrolled immigration from the Third World will be regarded as racist and those who oppose further European integration will be regarded as xenophobes. I think Patricia Hewitt said this publicly.

Hence, we have now been warned. Meanwhile they are introducing more and more ideology. The Soviet Union used to be a state run by ideology. Today’s ideology of the European Union is social-democratic, statist, and a big part of it is also political correctness. I watch very carefully how political correctness spreads and becomes an oppressive ideology, not to mention the fact that they forbid smoking almost everywhere now. Look at this persecution of people like the Swedish pastor who was persecuted for several months because he said that the Bible does not approve homosexuality. France passed the same law of hate speech concerning gays. Britain is passing hate speech laws concerning race relations and now religious speech, and so on and so forth. What you observe, taken into perspective, is a systematic introduction of ideology which could later be enforced with oppressive measures. Apparently that is the whole purpose of Europol. Otherwise why do we need it? To me Europol looks very suspicious. I watch very carefully who is persecuted for what and what is happening, because that is one field in which I am an expert. I know how Gulags spring up.

It looks like we are living in a period of rapid, systematic and very consistent dismantlement of democracy. Look at this Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill. It makes ministers into legislators who can introduce new laws without bothering to tell Parliament or anyone. My immediate reaction is why do we need it? Britain survived two world wars, the war with Napoleon, the Spanish Armada, not to mention the Cold War, when we were told at any moment we might have a nuclear world war, without any need for introducing this kind legislation, without the need for suspending our civil liberaties and introducing emergency powers. Why do we need it right now? This can make a dictatorship out of your country in no time.

Patrick Ross: Empower Artists to Aid Culture

Patrick Ross of the Progress and Freedom Foundation takes Lawrence Lessig, author of Free Culture. to task for his campaign against author's rights, such as copyright:

Now it may be in the self-interest of the Type C downloader to obtain "niche" content at no cost. But the vast majority of artists on Anderson's curve are on the "long tail" not at the head of the demand curve. Free Culture defenders like to cite how the Internet has changed things. Here is an example of true change resulting from the Internet; the ability of niche artists to profit from their work, even when it isn't mainstream. For respected scholars to argue that depriving a creator of potential revenue for her work is "harmless to the artist" shows a true disrespect to all artists, and a dangerous compulsion to put the desires of the masses ahead of the rights of individuals.

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USSR Plotted Pope's Murder

Drudge headlines this Reuters story on Italy's finding that the USSR was behind the attempt on Pope John Paul II.

They might have added that Pope John Paul II--more successfully--plotted and executed the end of the USSR.

In the end, the Pope won (with a little help from Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher), and the USSR lost.

Something we can celebrate today.

Ann Coulter's Oscar Predictions

Ann says Brokeback Mountain's a favorite for almost everything, then adds:

As a final prediction, for the second year, there will be no mention of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who was brutally murdered by an angry Muslim a little over a year ago on the streets of Amsterdam. (Now that's blacklisted!)

Cat Curfews in Europe

To fight the bird flu epidemic, European countries have passed restrictions on the freedom of cats, reports the London Times.

New Sisyphus: Bush's PC War

The retired US State Department official who blogs as New Sisyphus explains the failure of the Bush Doctrine:

Bush lied. Not enough people died.
When President Bush made the case for the War on Terror, it was made in the context of the two main speeches quoted at length above, which constituted the beginning of what has become to be known as the Bush Doctrine. Conservatives signed on to that war effort because conservatives were persuaded that Bush's diagnosis of the problem and intended solution was correct.

From the beginning, I've had reservations about Bush's commitment to the so-called Bush Doctrine. While the initial job--dismantling the Taliban regime in Afghanistan--was approached properly, it also seemed to me that the Administration wanted to win that war on the cheap, expending other people's blood. Conservatives may shake with anger when Senator Kerry charges that Bin Laden got away because we sub-contracted out the fighting at Tora Bora, and I understand that. Kerry is not the man to carry such a charge. However, I think the real reason it resonates so badly is because it is true.

Afghanistan should have been invaded and occupied by a very large all-American army. Unlawful combatants, including Taliban spokesmen, should have been summarily shot, as is proper under both international law and the law of warfare as it has evolved. The war should have gone through Pakistan, laying to waste a government and a country that was the Taliban's main enablers. The entire area should have been laid to waste, destroyed completely and utterly; and then, having delivered the short, sharp punic lesson, we should have withdrawn en masse.

I thought so then, I think so now. Instead, what we got was PC cant about how we were "liberating" the Afghans. What was sold as an unrelenting war instead became a long-term occupation, with us playing at teaching a traditional, hide-bound Muslim society about multi-culturalism, tolerance, love, peace and harmony. We installed a government and backed it with power so weak its writ barely carried into outer Kabul, let alone the badlands. We issued press releases patting ourselves on the back about how many women attended the constitutional convention, as if such a thing would be happening were we not there with guns. Worse still, we then sub-sub-contracted the security work out to NATO, thereby exposing ourselves to every left-wing political party in Europe, who now hold our policy hostage by withholding their consent to new military deployments.

Still, I held my tongue. Look on the bright side: the Taliban are gone, Al-Qaeda is scattered and if the Afghans can salvage something out of the peace that follows, well, that's a good thing isn't it? It's not a perfect world, and the U.S. is acting under great constraint, so maybe this is the best we can hope for. Basically, at its root, the Bush Doctrine still appeared solid to me, though I disputed the tactics employed.

Iraq followed. Unlike the paleo-conservatives, I thought this was generally in line with the Bush Doctrine. For all the reasons Bush set forth (ignore the leftists and their "where is the WMD?" talk-they've lied so much that they themselves now believe their own lies), Iraq was a logical next step in the War on Terror.

While the planning was on-going, we made the politically fatal and totally self-made error of taking the issue to the United Nations, at the behest of the Hamiltonians/Wilsonians of our own foreign policy institutions and, largely, the British, whose support and whose military we did not and do not need. This decision was fatal because it focused the War on Terror on unimportant, minor concerns. (Did the inspectors receive full and complete access on March 19 or limited access or should they be there at all...blahblahblahblahblah). It also handed the keys of victory to our enemies. Not surprisingly, they promptly hid those keys, where they remain today in between award ceremonies to Michael Moore and shouts of "Abu Ghraib" on the hour.

What political correctness and a squeamishness about all matters religious did to Islamism, the approach to the United Nations did for European and international leftism. Now, thanks to the Bush Administration, all of our actions were to be judged by a Islamist and a Leftist. Every day we ask them if we are winning and every day they say "no;" the news headlines gleefully report our continued failure.

By turning what was an American war against an American enemy into a popularity contest, the Administration surrendered control over the victory conditions, ensuring our failure, which would then further erode popularity, etc. etc. until you just want to throw up.

The American Thinker: Islamism Not Democratic

Andrew J. Bostom says it is delusional to imagine that states governed by Shari'a law can be anything other than totalitarian:

The great 20th century scholar of Islamic Law, G. H. Bousquet, wrote in 1950,

“Islam first came before the world as a doubly totalitarian system. It claimed to impose itself on the whole world and it claimed also, by the divinely appointed Muhammadan law, by the principles of the fiqh, to regulate down to the smallest details the whole life of the Islamic community and of every individual believer….the study of Muhammadan law (dry and forbidding though it may appear to those who confine themselves to the indispensable study of the fiqh) is of great importance to the world today.”

Bousquet’s admonition to study Islamic Law (Shari’a), or at least recognize the profound importance of its influence on basic Muslim conceptions, has perhaps even greater urgency more than a half-century later, in 2006. While electoral processes in the Islamic Middle East may have further enfranchised the Shari’a-based understanding of hurriyya, it is delusional to equate this conception with the freedom espoused by John Stuart Mill in “On Liberty.”

Andrew McCarthy: Investigate Dubai's Links to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad

I have so many links to Michelle Malkin that I am going to link straight to the Andrew McCarthy piece in National Review she quotes in her rebuttal to Bush administration mouthpieces on the Dubai Port Deal:

It cannot be gainsaid that the UAE was an al Qaeda booster before 9/11. Nor should it be minimized that, ever since, the country has vastly improved, giving valuable assistance to our military overseas. Of course, on the latter score, it is worth noting that — the port deal aside — a good relationship with the U.S. is where the UAE's interests lie. Its hospitality to American forces and its billions in purchases of American arms are precious insurance for a tiny autocracy that has sometimes tense relations with menacing Iran. Still, proponents of the ports deal understandably emphasize that the UAE's strides are a welcome development. It is one we should cultivate to the extent we can do so without compromising core principles.

But that means not at the expense of making a mockery of our laws — particularly the laws essential to our security. The ports transaction will be under review for the next 45 days. That probe must include an assessment of the UAE's ties to Hamas and PIJ.

If there is to be anything left of the Bush Doctrine, the United States cannot allow a country in violation of our counterterrorism laws to play a critical role in admitting, storing and transferring shipments into our country. Nor can we abide a lucrative financial arrangement for a country that uses its wealth to underwrite organizations our law designates as terrorists.

If the Bush administration showed "wilfull blindness" to terror links in this case, it might be worse than negligence, at a time of war it just might constitute an impeachable offense...

It's Official: No US Plan For Iraq

So says this article from the Republican-friendly Washington Times(ht War and Piece):

The Bush administration never drew up a comprehensive plan for rebuilding Iraq after the March 2003 invasion, which contributed to a severe shortage of skilled federal workers in Baghdad and to the mismanagement of the country's oil money, according to a new government report.
"There was insufficient systematic planning for human capital management in Iraq before and during the U.S.-directed stabilization and reconstruction operations," said Stuart W. Bowen Jr., the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, in a new "lessons learned" report released yesterday. "The practical limitations ensuing from this shortfall adversely affected reconstruction in post-war Iraq."
The Pentagon's initial plans for reconstruction crumbled when it encountered an unexpected foreign and domestic insurgency that looted the country, sabotaged electric and water service, and killed hundreds of Americans and Iraqis in 2003 after the ouster of dictator Saddam Hussein.
The administration reacted by quickly establishing the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), directed by L. Paul Bremer, and pumped billions of dollars of United Nations-held oil cash into Baghdad.
But, Mr. Bowen concluded in a report focusing on the CPA's staffing, "[t]he unanticipated post-war collapse of virtually all Iraqi governing structures, substantially hindered coalition efforts to develop and rapidly execute an effective reconstruction program."

NYC Stand Up For Denmark! Rally on Friday March 3rd

Michelle Malkin has posted this announcement from Snarksmith:

There is no way that a city like New York should neglect to stand up for free speech, democracy and secular cosmopolitan values. So I am pleased to inform you that the rally for Solidarity With Denmark is indeed on for this week.

It will be held outside the Danish consulate at One Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, 885 Second Avenue, on FRIDAY, MARCH 3RD, FROM 12:00 PM TO 1:00 PM. (A fitting an emulation of the hugely successful D.C. version.)

I've been in touch with the consul-general himself, and he has graciously welcomed us. I promised the event would be as civilized and dignified as this noble cause demands, and in order to obviate a city permit, please note that NO electronically amplified sound equipment or bullhorns may be used. But signs and placards -- the cleverer the better -- are of course highly encouraged. Relevant cheeses, plastic toy building blocks and Shakespeare allusions also kosher...

Spread the word.

Manifesto: Islamism's Totalitarian Global Threat

From Denmark's Jyllands-Posten(ht lgf):

After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new totalitarian global threat: Islamism.

We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.

The recent events, which occurred after the publication of drawings of Muhammed in European newspapers, have revealed the necessity of the struggle for these universal values. This struggle will not be won by arms, but in the ideological field. It is not a clash of civilisations nor an antagonism of West and East that we are witnessing, but a global struggle that confronts democrats and theocrats.

Like all totalitarianisms, Islamism is nurtured by fears and frustrations. The hate preachers bet on these feelings in order to form battalions destined to impose a liberticidal and unegalitarian world. But we clearly and firmly state: nothing, not even despair, justifies the choice of obscurantism, totalitarianism and hatred. Islamism is a reactionary ideology which kills equality, freedom and secularism wherever it is present. Its success can only lead to a world of domination: man's domination of woman, the Islamists' domination of all the others. To counter this, we must assure universal rights to oppressed or discriminated people.

We reject « cultural relativism », which consists in accepting that men and women of Muslim culture should be deprived of the right to equality, freedom and secular values in the name of respect for cultures and traditions. We refuse to renounce our critical spirit out of fear of being accused of "Islamophobia", an unfortunate concept which confuses criticism of Islam as a religion with stigmatisation of its believers.

We plead for the universality of freedom of expression, so that a critical spirit may be exercised on all continents, against all abuses and all dogmas.

We appeal to democrats and free spirits of all countries that our century should be one of Enlightenment, not of obscurantism.

12 signatures

Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Chahla Chafiq
Caroline Fourest
Bernard-Henri Lévy
Irshad Manji
Mehdi Mozaffari
Maryam Namazie
Taslima Nasreen
Salman Rushdie
Antoine Sfeir
Philippe Val
Ibn Warraq

How come I didn't see this manifesto in today's Washington Post? Censorship or self-censorship?

More on this topic at MichelleMalkin.com