Archived news and commentary: November 1 - 7, 2004

2004/11/01 - 2004/11/07
2004/10/25 - 2004/10/31
2004/10/18 - 2004/10/24
2004/10/11 - 2004/10/17
2004/10/04 - 2004/10/10
2004/09/27 - 2004/10/03

› From 2001/09/11 -

Sunday, November 7, 2004

News and commentary:

"A rosary hangs off the barrel of a machinegun..."
(Patrick Baz, AFP, 2004/11/07)
"A rosary hangs off the barrel of a machinegun mounted on a Bradley belonging to the 1st Cavalry Regiment 5th Battalion positioned on the outskirts of Fallujah."

"The roots of prejudice" (Mary Riddell, The Observer, 2004/11/07)
Theo van Gogh XXIX. Was Theo van Gogh "anti-Islamic", as Mary Riddell claims in this article? Not that there's anything wrong with that — one should of course be allowed to be anti-Islamic or anti-Christian or anti-religious or anti-Scientology or whatever. But, anyway, she doesn't provide any explanation or examples at all for her allegation, so let's try another route. Did Van Gogh call Muslims "goat fuckers"? This allegation is made by the quoted Muslim in Amsterdam below and it is also found in an article in Expatica on "Submission":

"His remarks can sometimes be very offensive and totally unfounded. Van Gogh once said "Muslims are goatf***ers", accuses Dutch-Moroocan website Maghreb.nl."

Now, perhaps he did say it and that would certainly be a bad case of bigotry and even anti-Muslim. But in the only quote by van Gogh (in English) I've seen on this subject, he is careful to exclude Muslims in general from his vitriolic descriptions of radical Islamists:

"Yet Van Gogh is nuanced when he talks about Islam. “Let’s be honest. There is a significant number of very reasonable Muslims that are not prepared to pull the trigger” Van Gogh wouldn’t be Van Gogh if he didn't add that 'Well, if everyone is starting to get scared over a fifth column of goat-fuckers, as I call them, then the debate in this country will pretty soon be over.'"

So until I find a quote proving the allegation, my working hypothesis is that Van Gogh attacked fundamentalistic Islam, in his trademark provocative style. This is, of course, seen as an attack on Islam by fundamentalistic Muslims. More surprising, perhaps, is that this line of reasoning, fusing criticism of Islamofascism with criticism of Islam, then is parroted in mainstream media accounts. Thus someone who is attacking a fanatical fringe of Islam is turned into being "anti-Islamic" or a "racist" who is attacking Islam and Muslims in general.
Here's just one example of this logic in motion, from Mary Riddell in today's The Observer. For her the allegation is apparently so self-evident that it doesn't need any explanation. The roots of prejudice, indeed [emphasis added]:

"Last Tuesday morning, Theo van Gogh, an anti-Islamic Dutch film-maker, was shot six times..."

"'Murder is normal'" (Zacht Ei, 2004/11/07)
Theo van Gogh XXVIII: "A Muslim from Amsterdam explains his position on the murder of Van Gogh. Footage courtesy of local tv station AT5. If anyone feels the need to prepare a Dutch translation, it would be appreciated. To summarize: he agrees with the murderer. The guy is married to a Dutch woman and has five children.
Update 23.48: Reader Iwan was kind enough to provide a translation. ...

Anchor: Today in several mosques one paid attention to the murder of Theo van Gogh during the Friday prayer. Imams told their flock that the murder was a violation of all principles of Islam. But not everone agrees. ...
Third man: This man (the imam) has given his personal response. He's not expressing everyone's point of view. I say, if he (Mohamed B., the murderer) wouldn't have done it, I could have done it, or somebody else would have done it. Because, that man (Van Gogh) went too far. He had all the possibilities.
Interviewer: You mean, it's self-evident that it has happened?
Third man: It's very self-evident. He had his freedom of speech, but he has never tried to start a discussion or debate. He called Muslims goat fuckers. He received all attention to express that Muslims...
Interviewer: So the murder was in fact a just act?
Third man: That's my opinion. Not everybody's opinion, but that's my opinion. It is just. ...
Interviewer: But don't you think that murder can't ever be considered normal?
Third man: Murder is normal. Why wouldn't murder be normal? What happens in Iraq? What do the Americans do to the Iraqi's? Did the Iraqi's ask for that? That's murder as well, and everone has accepted that. Everyone thinks that that's 'deadly normal.'"

"Jihad wrecks Dutch race harmony" (Matthew Campbell, The Sunday Times, 2004/11/07)
Theo van Gogh XXVII: "When Geert Wilders, a Dutch politician, collected his post from the letterbox on Wednesday he got an unpleasant surprise. Among the bills and junk mail was a letter addressing him as “ugly dog”. It told him he would soon be beheaded. ...
Now other people were being targeted, too, as evidence emerged of a “brigade” of Dutch jihadists preparing to murder “the enemies of Islam” in a terror campaign that would be easier to carry out than the bombing of trains or heavily guarded government buildings.
The carefully planned killing of van Gogh plunged into ferment the formerly peaceful “bicycling monarchy” where, in the good old days, a relaxed Queen Beatrix used to ride about without attracting any attention. It prompted some to rethink their faith in a multiracial society. Others predicted a bloodbath. ...
“Do not think you are safe,” said the letter to Wilders, who had been planning to set up a party to help to tackle the “Islamic problem” in Holland, “because we will catch you and cut off your ugly head.”
He was not the only one to be threatened. “There will be no mercy” said a document that the killer had held over van Gogh’s chest before skewering it there with a final knife blow to his heart.
By then van Gogh, 47, had been shot several times and was seen by one witness on his knees, pleading with his assailant, “Don’t do it . . . we can still talk about it.”
The response was a knife to the throat. The killer sawed through the neck and spinal column, almost to the point of decapitating him."

"Van Gogh murder backlash begins" (Murdo MacLeod, Scotland on Sunday, 2004/11/07)
Theo van Gogh XXVI: "Prior to his death, Fortuyn’s views had been condemned by the liberal media. But the slaying of Van Gogh has had a cathartic effect in a country where racial tension and hostility towards foreigners is on the rise.
The leading liberal Amsterdam broadsheet, The Telegraaf, has led the charge with a hard-hitting editorial that would never previously have been published.
"There needs to be a very public crackdown on extremist Muslim fanatics in order to assuage the fear of citizens and to warn the fanatics that they must not cross over the boundaries," the newspaper said. ...
Barry Madlener, a councillor in Rotterdam, where half the population is foreign-born - many from Muslim countries - said: "If you say: ‘I reject the Western lifestyle and I don’t want to fit in your way,’ then I say: ‘Keep away.’"

"Iraq Declares Martial Law, 23 Police Killed" (Fadel al-Badrani, Reuters, 2004/11/07)
"Iraq's interim government declared martial law on Sunday after insurgents killed 23 Iraqi policemen and set off blasts in Baghdad in a fresh show of force before a planned U.S. offensive on Falluja and Ramadi.
"We have decided to declare a state of emergency in all areas of Iraq, with the exception of the region of Kurdistan for a period of 60 days," Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's spokesman Thaer al-Naqib told a news conference. ...
Police said gunmen killed 23 policemen in three attacks in Iraq. The bloodiest assault was in Haditha, 200 km (125 miles) northwest of Baghdad, where insurgents with rocket-propelled grenades and mortars attacked a police station at dawn.
After a 90-minute battle in which six policemen were wounded, the attackers took 21 captured policemen to the K-3 oil pumping station area and shot them dead execution-style."

"No, it wasn't God" (David Aaronovitch, The Observer, 2004/11/07)
The Values-Vote Myth III: "I much prefer secularism to theocracy. But the thing is, so do the Americans and nothing about this last election indicates otherwise, as I hope to prove. Yet a new conventional wisdom has sprung up almost instantaneously (a wisdom which describes two Americas - one irrational and priest-bound, the other open and rational) locked in a Pullmanesque contest that has just been won by the 'battalions of Christian soldiers' (as one of our most eminent historians put it).
'We ran a jihad in America,' wrote one celebrated American columnist. 'The faithful were shepherded to the polls as though to the rapture,' said another, conjuring an image entirely absent from any coverage that I saw at the time. ...
So what about the religious? The populist 'uprising' from the red states noted by Thomas Frank turns out, on inspection, to be more or a less a mirage, a self-inflicted liberal nightmare. ...
Above all, however, we must first avoid the one fatal error that so many have fallen into. George W Bush and his voters are not dumb. Those who think so are the really dumb ones."

"Believe it or not, it wasn't just rednecks who voted for Bush" (Mark Steyn, The Sunday Telegraph, 2004/11/07)
The Values-Vote Myth II: "The big question after Tuesday was: will it just be more of the same in George W Bush's second term, or will there be a change of tone? And apparently it's the latter. The great European thinkers have decided that instead of doing another four years of lame Bush-is-a-moron cracks they're going to do four years of lame Americans-are-morons cracks. ...
Who exactly is being self-righteous here? In Britain and Europe, there seem to be two principal strains of Bush-loathing. First, the guys who say, if you disagree with me, you must be an idiot - as in the Mirror headline "How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?" Second, the guys who say, if you disagree with me, you must be a Nazi - as in Oliver James, who told The Guardian: "I was too depressed to even speak this morning. I thought of my late mother, who read Mein Kampf when it came out in the 1930s [sic] and thought, 'Why doesn't anyone see where this is leading?'"
Mr James is a clinical psychologist."

"Condescending Dems still don't get it" (Mark Steyn, Chicago Sun-Times, 2004/11/07)
"I had a bet with myself this week: How soon after election night would it be before the Bush-the-chimp-faced-moron stuff started up again? 48 hours? A week? I was wrong. Bush Derangement Syndrome is moving to a whole new level. On the morning of Nov. 2, the condescending left were convinced that Bush was an idiot. By the evening of Nov. 2, they were convinced that the electorate was. Or as London's Daily Mirror put it in its front page: "How Can 59,054,087 People Be So DUMB?"
Well, they're British lefties: They can do without Americans. Whether an American political party can do without Americans is more doubtful. Nonetheless, MSNBC.com's Eric Alterman was mirroring the Mirror's sentiments: "Slightly more than half of the citizens of this country simply do not care about what those of us in the 'reality-based community' say or believe about anything." Over at Slate, Jane Smiley's analysis was headlined, 'The Unteachable Ignorance Of The Red States.'"

Saturday, November 6, 2004

News and commentary:

"US Marines of the 1st Division..."
(Anja Niedringhaus, AP, 2004/11/06)
"US Marines of the 1st Division bow their heads during a prayer at their base outside Fallujah, Iraq, Saturday, Nov. 6 , 2004."
[More Anja Niedringhaus at Yahoo! News Photos.]

"The Truth about the Saddam - al Qaeda Connection" (Robert S. Leiken, In the National Interest, from the November 2004 issue)
"The stubborn aggrandizement of a few scattered, inevitable feelers between Saddam’s intelligence services and al Qaeda is the richest of the exaggerations that surrounded the war on both sides (that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, that the Arab street would rise on behalf of Saddam, et al). It is especially disturbing because conflating Saddam and bin Laden reflects both a failure to understand that terrorism is a method adopted by often utterly opposed political ideologies or to comprehend that al Qaeda operates without state sponsorship.
To follow the attenuation of the claim -- from Iraqi complicity in 9-11 to a quibble over the meaning of the word “connection” -- is to witness the unraveling of a myth. ...
Now this administration has awarded Islamist terrorism a new Afghanistan where indeed the alliance with the Saddamists and other nationalists is now a self-fulfilled prophecy – with Islamists leading and Saddamists supplying the funding for the insurgency. Should he win election, it will fall to John Kerry to defuse this ticking bomb in Iraq. Should Bush emerge victorious, his first order of business should be to rid himself of those whose analysis of international terrorism has proved so defective; for how can we fight a war against terrorism with such counselors?"

"Man commits suicide at Ground Zero" (Rocco Parascandola et al., Newsday.com, 2004/11/06)
"Distraught over the re-election of President George W. Bush, a Georgia man traveled to New York City, went to Ground Zero and killed himself with a shotgun blast, police said yesterday.
The suicide victim, Andrew Veal, 25, was discovered just before 8 a.m. yesterday when a worker for the Millennium Hotel looking at Ground Zero from an upper floor saw a man lying atop the concrete structure through which the 1 and 9 subway lines run. ...
No suicide note was found, but according to a Port Authority police source, family members said Veal, a registered Democrat, was despondent over Bush's defeat of Sen. John Kerry. A second source said Veal, who lived in Athens, Ga., and worked for the University of Georgia, was also adamantly opposed to the war in Iraq. ...
But Frank Franca, an East Village artist and registered Democrat, suggested the suicide was symbolic.
"I'm very moved by it," he said. 'Obviously, this person was devastated. I can see why he would come here.'"

"Hospital concealment strengthens suspicion: Arafat died of AIDS" (israelinsider, 2004/11/06)
"Earlier, John Loftus told John Batchelor on ABC radio on October 26 that Arafat is dying from AIDS. Loftus said the CIA has known this about Arafat for quite awhile and that as a result the US has encouraged Sharon not to take Arafat out because the US has known Arafat was about done. It was deemed better to have Arafat discredited as a homosexual. ...
In his memoirs "Red Horizons," Pacepa relates a conversation in 1978 with Constantin Munteaunu, a general assigned to teach Arafat and the PLO techniques to deceive the West into granting the organization recognition.
"I just called the microphone monitoring center to ask about the 'Fedayee,'" Arafat's code name, explained Munteaunu. 'After the meeting with the Comrade, he went directly to the guest house and had dinner. At this very moment, the 'Fedayee' is in his bedroom making love to his bodyguard. The one I knew was his latest lover. He's playing tiger again. The officer monitoring his microphones connected me live with the bedroom, and the squawling almost broke my eardrums. Arafat was roaring like a tiger, and his lover yelping like a hyena.'" (See also: "Does Arafat Have AIDS?" (Malcolm Thornberry, 365Gay.com, 2004/11/01))

"Arafat poisoned?" (Corky Siemaszko, New York Daily News, 2004/11/06)
Blaming Israel Part 23,469: "A Palestinian diplomat accused the Israelis yesterday of poisoning Yasser Arafat.
"The doctors until now could not diagnose precisely what is wrong with him, but it is believed there is a poison," Ali Kazak, who heads the Palestinian delegation to Australia, told the Herald Sun newspaper in Melbourne.
"It could be poison because they have checked everything, and his body is in good health, there is no cancer, it is not leukemia."
Arafat's doctor, Ashraf Kurdi, told the Al Jazeera satellite TV network that, 'Arafat's health condition makes poisoning a strong possibility.' ...
But other Arafat aides insisted their 75-year-old leader was brain dead and on life support. They said his wife, Suha, is weighing whether to pull the plug.
"He is being aided by respiratory machines and his condition appears irreversible," a high-ranking Palestinian official told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz." (See also: "Palestinian Friday Sermon: The Apes and Pigs Poisoned Arafat" (MEMRI TV, 2004/11/05))

"Arafat, Still in Coma, Clings to Life" (Lara Sukhtian, AP/My Way, 2004/11/06)
"Having lapsed into a coma, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was clinging to life Saturday at a French military hospital as aides voiced increasing concern about the lack of improvement in his condition.
Doctors said late Friday there had been no change - for better or worse - in the 75-year-old patient's health. They have yet to offer any official public diagnosis.
"The state of President Yasser Arafat's health has not worsened," Gen. Christian Estripeau told reporters camped outside the hospital. "It is considered stable since the previous health bulletin."
In an equally terse statement Thursday, the hospital spokesman denied rumors that Arafat was dead."

"I TRIED! SORRY! (DON'T BLOW UP TRAVIS COUNTY IN TEXAS PLEAAAAAAAAASE!)"
(Sorry Everybody, November 2004)
From Tim Blair's International Sorry Day gallery: "Bush the Hitler-powered chimpoid oil bunny is back in power, and soon he will send everyone to meet his beloved Jesus. So say sorry now, like these enlightened folks." See also: Sorry Everybody.

"The Values-Vote Myth" (David Brooks, The New York Times, 2004/11/06)
The Values-Vote Myth I: "Every election year, we in the commentariat come up with a story line to explain the result, and the story line has to have two features. First, it has to be completely wrong. Second, it has to reassure liberals that they are morally superior to the people who just defeated them.
In past years, the story line has involved Angry White Males, or Willie Horton-bashing racists. This year, the official story is that throngs of homophobic, Red America values-voters surged to the polls to put George Bush over the top.
This theory certainly flatters liberals, and it is certainly wrong. ...
But the same insularity that caused many liberals to lose touch with the rest of the country now causes them to simplify, misunderstand and condescend to the people who voted for Bush. If you want to understand why Democrats keep losing elections, just listen to some coastal and university town liberals talk about how conformist and intolerant people in Red America are. It makes you wonder: why is it that people who are completely closed-minded talk endlessly about how open-minded they are?" (See also, for example: "The Unteachable Ignorance of the Red States" (Jane Smiley, Slate, 2004/11/04))

"Attacks kill 37 in Iraq's Samarra" (Reuters, 2004/11/06)
"Insurgents have detonated four car bombs and attacked police stations in the Iraqi city of Samarra, killing at least 37 people and wounding 62, police and health officials say.
The fourth blast occurred at 12:30 (9:30 a.m. British time) on Saturday when a suicide bomber rammed a car into a police station, killing 10 Iraqi police officers and wounding five, police said.
A health official said 23 people, including nine policemen, were killed and 40 wounded, among them 17 policemen, in the first three bomb explosions in the Sunni Muslim city. ...
Police said insurgents also carried out simultaneous attacks on three police stations in Samarra, 100 km (62 miles) north of Baghdad, killing four policemen, wounding 17 and capturing 10."

"Battle Near, Iraqi Sunnis Make Offer" (Karl Vick, The Washington Post, 2004/11/06)
Via Andrew Sullivan: "I must say this is by far the best news in a very long time — and I wonder whether it emerged because of Bush's decisive re-election."
"As Marines step up preparations for military offensives on two major Iraqi cities, a number of Sunni Muslim leaders are forwarding a plan to establish the rule of law in those areas through peaceful means, with the promise of reducing the insurgency across a large swath of the country.
Some of the groups leading the bid have encouraged violent resistance in central, western and northern Iraq. The groups say they will withdraw their support for violence if Iraq's interim government can reassure Sunni leaders wary of national elections, which are scheduled for the end of January.
The Sunnis have proposed six measures, including a demand that U.S. forces remain confined to bases in the month before balloting. Such an ambitious demand, which some advocates acknowledge is not likely to be met and may be open to negotiation, represents a dramatic shift by Sunni groups opposed to the U.S. operation in Iraq."

Note: Watch won't be updated during the weekend as my host, Winds of Change.NET, is changing its queen host. You can read more about the move here. By the way, many thanks to Joe Katzman for hosting Watch since last spring. The current problems has reminded me how hasslefree it has functioned 24/7 all this time. Until then.

Friday, November 5, 2004

News and commentary:

"OBEY"
(LA Weekly, 2004/11/05)
Via: "Election News Brieflets"
(Tim Blair, timblair.spleenville.com, 2004/11/05)

"Meanwhile at "reality-based" blog The Daily Kos..." (Glenn Reynolds, InstaPundit, 2004/11/05)
"Meanwhile at "reality-based" blog The Daily Kos, reality seems less important than, well, lying:

And thus, the biggest silver lining of this election is how the GOP's victory is thus far being claimed, framed and explained. To that I say, "Let us join that chorus." And we should do so now, because there is immediacy in the post-election window of opportunity.
Marching order #1, therefore, is this: No matter whom you talk to outside our circles, begin to perpetuate the (false, exaggerated) notion that George Bush's victory was built not merely on values issues, but gay marriage specifically. If you feel a need to broaden it slightly, try depicting the GOP as a majority party synonymous with gay-haters, warmongers and country-clubbers. ...

This doesn't strike me as a very productive approach, but the post is certainly revealing." (See also: "Ralph's Gift" (Tom Schaller, The Daily Kos, 2004/11/05))

"GIJ ZULT NIET DODEN!"
(Cineac Noord, 2004/11/05)
"Thou Shalt Not Kill" erased by Dutch police. From the video of the destruction of Chris Ripke's mural in Rotterdam [RealMedia]: "'Gij zult niet doden': Opruiende tekst??" (Cineac Noord, 2004/11/05))

"Clueless in Rotterdam" (Pieter Dorsman, Peaktalk, 2004/11/05)
Theo van Gogh XXV. This is beyond unbelievable. But at the same time it is a completely logical outcome in the current bizarro world.
A translation of a post from Francisco van Jole's Dutch blog 2525 (who also has a picture of the mural):
"A Rotterdam artist, Chris Ripke, made a mural to express his disgust over Van Gogh’s killing. A beautiful artwork with an angel in it and the words Thou Shalt Not Kill.
Chris is an artist with a lot of integrity, he made some good stuff near Angelo Betti’s pizzeria. His workshop is right next to the mosque on Insulinde Street. The mosque considered the text “Thou Shalt Not Kill” inflammatory. So he called Ivo Opstelten (editor’s note: mayor of Rotterdam, same political party as Hirsi Ali, right-of-center liberal). As a local TV journalist I went over to film what was going on.
I was immediately asked not to film because it would give too much tension in the neighborhood. I was in the middle of a discussion when a car arrived to spray the artwork. I could not bear that and decided to stand in front of it (I am a bit Rushdie like).
After a scuffle with the police I got arrested. I am free again but the artwork is gone and I really fail to see what Opstelten is thinking. My colleague Mireille was forced by police to wipe part of her video tape.
What a country, it’s unbelievable.
Both Chris and I have spent decades working with Turkish and Moroccan children/adults to try to involve them in our activities. What a rigid government. What a beautiful statement: Thou Shalt Not Kill. Something more universal doesn’t exist. But you can’t put that on wall!
I am furious." (Note: Live from Brussels has a video of the event.)

"Islamist hit list made public" (Zacht Ei, 2004/11/05)
Theo van Gogh XXIV: "According to populist broadsheet De Telegraaf, there's a radical Islamist hit list which contains the names of other prominent Dutch that should fear for their lives.
They are:

• Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Dutch M.P., a former Muslim and a vocal critic of radical Islam
• Geert Wilders, Dutch M.P., also critical of radical Islam
• Rita Verdonk, secretary of Immigration
• Job Cohen, the Jewish mayor of Amsterdam
• Ahmed Aboutaleb, the Moroccan vice mayor of Amsterdam
• Frits Barend, left-wing talk show host ...

Hirsi Ali and Wilders spent the night in heavily guarded 'safe houses', according to De Telegraaf."

"Excerpts From Letter on Dead Filmmaker" (AP/Newsday.com, 2004/11/05)
Theo van Gogh XXIII. "Excerpts from the letter ["Open Letter to Hirsi Ali"] found pinned with a knife to the body of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh.":
"Death, Ms. Hirsi Ali, is the common theme of all that exists. You and the rest of the cosmos cannot escape this truth.
There will come a day when one soul cannot help another soul. A day that goes paired with terrible tortures ... when the unjust will press horrible screams from their lungs. Screams, Ms. Hirsi Ali, that will cause chills to run down a person's back, and make the hairs on their heads stand straight up. People will be drunk with fear, while they are not drunken. Fear will fill the air on the Great Day. ...
Islam will celebrate victory by the blood of the martyrs. There will be no mercy for the wicked, only the sword will be raised against them. No discussion, no demonstrations, no parades, no petitions, only death will separate truth from lies.
I know definitely that you, Oh America, will go down. I know definitely that you, Oh Europe, will go down. I know definitely that you, Oh Netherlands, will go down. I know definitely that you, Oh Hirsi Ali, will go down." (See also full translation: "Open letter by a terrorist" (faithfreedom.org, 2004/11/05). Also: "Letter at Murder Threatens Dutch Official" (Anthony Deutsch, AP/The Guardian, 2004/11/05): "Donner said the way the five-page letter "was presented indicates that it is not from one person, but a movement." It was neatly typed and written in Dutch and Arabic. A testament found in the suspect's pocket was titled "Drenched in blood" and "these are my last words."
The letter is titled "Open Letter to Hirsi Ali" and threatens a holy war against infidels, America, Europe, the Netherlands and Hirsi Ali.")

"Al-Zarqawi on clogs" (Pieter Dorsman, Peaktalk, 2004/11/05)
Theo van Gogh XXII: "The Van Gogh murder has gripped Holland and the world at large as it is one more piece of evidence that the jihad has now arrived in Europe’s cities where it is probably going to stay for quite a while. If anyone has any doubts over that let me translate some excerpts of the letter that the jihadist pinned on Van Gogh’s body after he had killed him. It’s addressed to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Dutch parliamentarian who abandoned Islam largely as a result of the abuse that she as a woman encountered. ... Here are the most relevant excerpts:

'Since your entry into Dutch politics you have been constantly engaged to terrorize Muslims and Islam with your statements. You’re not the first, nor the last to have joined the crusade against Islam. ...
It’s a fact that Dutch politics is dominated by many Jews, themselves a product of Talmud institutions, the same applies to your party members. ...
With all these hostilities you have unleashed a boomerang and it will only be a matter of time before that boomerang will seal your faith. ...
I know for sure that you, Oh America will go under;
I know for sure that you, Oh Europe will go under;
I know for sure that you, Oh Holland, will go under;
I know for sure that you, Oh Hirsi Ali, will go under;
I know for sure that you, Oh unbelieving fundamentalist, will go under.'"

"Dhimmitude at the New York Times" (Hugh Fitzgerald, Dhimmi Watch, 2004/11/05)
Theo van Gogh XXI: "One must read the editorial apropos the situation in Holland in today's New York Times. It is a masterpiece of willful miscomprehension and sly mistatement. ...
Finally, the Times assures its readers:

"The problem is not Muslim immigration [millions of intelligent Dutch people beg to differ] but a failure to plan for a smoother transition to a more diverse society."

Look, and look again, and think, and think again, about that last phrase:

"a failure to plan for a smoother transition to a more diverse society."

What does this mean? Does it mean that the Dutch should reconcile themselves to surrendering, in the first place, the right of free speech, including the right to make a movie called "Submission"? Is that part of the "smoother transition" to a more "diverse" society that of course we all want so much to achieve?" (See also: "Deadly Hatreds in the Netherlands" (The New York Times/FDD, 2004/11/05))

"This would explain a lot" (Zacht Ei, 2004/11/05)
Theo van Gogh XX: "It's been noted that Mohamed B. appeared to be such a well-adjusted young man before he radicalized. Newspaper De Telegraaf suggests that B. was a member of terrorist sect Al Takfir Wal Hijra. This is the same radical Islamic cult that Al Qaeda second in command Ayman al-Zawahiri apparently belongs to. Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, currently frustrating democracy in Iraq, is also said to be part of this fine organization. TIME wrote about Takfir Wal Hijra: 'Takfir wal Hijra is a sort of Islamic fascism.' However, even more interesting is the assertion that Takfir Wal Hijra apparently allows its members to appear non-radical, and even non-Islamic, if the mission requires it: 'The threat of Takfir is that its cold, heartless killers could easily be the boy or girl next door. Takfir Wal Hijra members are permitted to disregard the injunctions of Islamic law in order to blend into infidel societies. In other words, Takfirs can have sex with loose women, drink alcohol, eat pork and do whatever else they feel is appropriate to advance their mission.'" (See also: "Al Takfir Wal Hijra" (rotten.com))

"Van Gogh suspect 'the perfect Jihad recruit'" (Expatica, 2004/11/05)
Theo van Gogh XIX: "There was nothing out of the ordinary with Mohammed B. until he allegedly fell into the hands of extremists.
B. reportedly became strongly religious in 2003, and as a fundamentalist Muslim he was a target for jihad recruiters. ...
Born and bred in the Netherlands, B. was known as a relaxed, friendly and intelligent young man. ...
He obtained a diploma at the Mondriaan Lyceum in 1995 and started studying business IT at the Hogeschool Holland in Diemen. It was there that he also regularly visited a Friday night disco in an adjoining student café. He moved out of home in 1998.
B. had also carried out volunteer work for some time for the Stichting Eigenwijks, an organisation of co-operative residents in Amsterdam Slotervaart. ... He was also part of the editorial team of the neighbourhood newspaper Over 't Veld.
Eigenwijks — which said it would be closely involved in repairing community damage inflicted by Van Gogh's murder — said it had regretted the fact that B. stopped working with the workgroup as he applied himself further to his faith. He 'slowly ended all other social activities.'"

"Dutch Vow Tough Measures After Threat" (Anthony Deutsch, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/11/05)
Theo van Gogh XVIII: "The government vowed tough measures Friday against what a leading politician called "the arrival of jihad in the Netherlands" after a death threat to a Dutch lawmaker was found pinned with a knife to the body of a slain filmmaker by his radical Islamic attacker. ...
Deputy Prime Minister Gerrit Zalm agreed with comments by other politicians who called Van Gogh's murder a declaration of Islamic holy war.
"We are not going to tolerate this. We are going to ratchet up the fight against this sort of terrorism," he said. "The increase in radicalization is worse than we had thought." ...
Jozias van Aartsen, parliamentary speaker for the right-wing free market VVD party, the second-largest party in the government of Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, issued a statement that called Van Gogh's slaying tantamount to a declaration of war.
"The jihad has come to the Netherlands and a small group of jihadist terrorists is attacking the principles of our country," he said. "I hope the Netherlands will now move beyond denial and do what is fitting in a democracy; take action.
"These people don't want to change our society, they want to destroy it," he said."

"Palestinian Friday Sermon: The Apes and Pigs Poisoned Arafat" (MEMRI TV, 2004/11/05)
Blaming Israel Part 23,468. Clip and transcript from the Friday Sermon on Palestinian Authority TV: "An excerpt: 'We are absolutely certain that the party responsible for the assassination attempt against the president is the Zionist government. We have no doubt that this government poisoned him, one way or another, in order to put him to death slowly. None of the doctors of the world - the modern and the undeveloped worlds - could treat the president and don't know his condition. Those accursed, those apes and pigs - when they heard that the president had died they began to sing and dance. Do we not have the right to pray to Allah for his recovery, so he would be like poison in these pigs' hearts? Did you not see them on TV, embracing each other, singing, and dancing? These apes!'"

"Insurgents target children of Ramadi" (United States Central Command, 2004/11/05)
"An Army unit assigned to I Marine Expeditionary Force, discovered and defused an explosive-laden youth center in Ramadi Nov. 4, which was rigged by insurgents to detonate and potentially kill dozens of Iraqi children. They also discovered more than two tons of explosives hidden in a mosque.
The discoveries were made during a sweep of the city looking for improvised explosive devices.
After a thorough investigation of the youth center, the Soldiers discovered that the explosives were rigged to detonate three ways: through a light switch, a remote control and by wiring that ran from the youth center to the nearby Al-Haq Mosque, where the unit discovered the firing mechanism." (Hat tip: chester.)

"Americans Pound Fallujah as Showdown with Rebels Looms" (The Scotsman, 2004/11/05)
"US warplanes pounded Fallujah tonight in what residents said was the strongest attacks in months as more than 10,000 American soldiers and Marines massed for an expected assault.
Meanwhile, Iraq’s prime minister warned the “window is closing” to avert an offensive. ...
Earlier today, US planes dropped leaflets urging women and children to leave the city, residents said. ..
“We intend to liberate the people and to bring the rule of law to Fallujah,” Allawi said in Brussels after meeting European Union leaders. 'The window really is closing for a peaceful settlement.'"

"Arafat Wants to Be Buried in Jerusalem" (Arthur Max, AP/Newsday.com, 2004/11/05)
"The top Muslim cleric in Jerusalem said Friday it was Yasser Arafat's wish to be buried near a holy site there, increasing pressure on Israel, which has refused to allow the Palestinian leader to be laid to rest in the city he sought as the capital of an independent state.
The Mufti of Jerusalem, Ikrema Sabri, said that during a meeting four months ago, Arafat asked to be buried near the city's Al Aqsa Mosque, Islam's third holiest shrine. Jews revere the site, built on the ruins of the biblical Jewish temples, as the Temple Mount.
"The president has shown a desire to be buried in Jerusalem, and in a place that is close to the Al Aqsa Mosque," Sabri told The Associated Press. Sabri, the top Muslim official in Jerusalem, said he did not know whether the 75-year-old Arafat has a written will.
Israel's justice minister, Yosef Lapid, however, said Israel would not permita Jerusalem funeral, saying the city is 'where Jewish kings are buried and not Arab terrorists.'"

"Americans flock to Canada's immigration Web site" (David Ljunggren, Reuters, 2004/11/05)
"The number of U.S. citizens visiting Canada's main immigration Web site has shot up six-fold as Americans flirt with the idea of abandoning their homeland after President George W. Bush's election win this week.
"When we looked at the first day after the election, November 3, our Web site hit a new high, almost double the previous record high," immigration ministry spokeswoman Maria Iadinardi said on Friday.
On an average day some 20,000 people in the United States log onto the Web site, www.cic.gc.ca — a figure which rocketed to 115,016 on Wednesday. The number of U.S. visits settled down to 65,803 on Thursday, still well above the norm. ...
The idea of increased immigration by unhappy Americans is triggering some amusement in Canada. Commentator Thane Burnett of the Ottawa Sun newspaper wrote a tongue-in-cheek guide to would-be new citizens on Friday.
"As Canadians, you'll have to learn to embrace and use all the products and culture of Americans, while bad-mouthing their way of life," he said."

"Of courage and cowardice" (Caroline Glick, The Jerusalem Post, 2004/11/05)
Theo van Gogh XVII: "He was a filmmaker who recently produced a documentary showing how Islam oppresses women. One might think that given the totalitarian subjugation of women throughout the Muslim world, such a film would not spark a controversy. But in Europe these days, anything that points out the primitive and barbaric treatment that hundreds of millions of women suffer in the Islamic world, as well as in Islamic enclaves in the West, is considered verboten.
Muslim extremists can gang rape women — Muslim and non-Muslim — and mutilate their daughters' genitalia as a matter of course. They can indoctrinate their daughters into believing that covering themselves from head to toe with potato sacks and draperies will somehow set them free. They can do all of this — and burn down synagogues — and reasonably assume that the European press won't mention their ethnic identity or ask what is wrong with them as a group for carrying out barbaric, evil, and primitive acts against others.
So, in stating the obvious, Theo van Gogh was picking a fight with a violent yet protected minority. Suddenly, in our topsy-turvy world, it was van Gogh, not the evil, racist, fascist misogynists about whom he produced a film, who was controversial. And now he is dead."

"'It's the culture, stupid'" (Spengler, Asia Times, 2004/11/05)
"On September 11, the US came under attack for what it was. ... America's culture is in the judgment seat. Do they deserve the contempt, and even the violence, that the Islamists inflict on them? As they seethe with self-righteous anger against their attackers, do Americans take stock of themselves? The answer evident on November 2 is that many of them did. After September 11, a number of evangelical leaders, including the Reverend Jerry Falwell, claimed that the attacks constituted a divine punishment for America's sins. Silly as it sounded, Falwell's statement concealed an underlying truth. The US provokes the hatred of the Islamic world because the "freedoms" associated with the nether reaches of its entertainment industry are its most visible face to the rest of the world. The US, to most of the world, represents global mobility, but also the breakdown of the family, the collapse of hoary conventions of respect, the trampling of tradition.
First of all, America's tragic encounter with Islam is a confrontation between a modern and a traditional society, in which the traditional society only can lose. That it also is a confrontation between Christianity and Islam, two religions that respond in radically different ways to the fragility of traditional society, makes the confrontation all the more ferocious. Islam looks outward to defend the community, the ummah, against its enemies by conquering and transforming them in its own image. By its nature it is militant rather than self-critical. Christianity demands that the believer look inward to his own sin. Soul-searching after September 11 is what made the personal so political in the US."

"American Exceptionalism" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2004/11/05)
"Despite losing the majority of state legislatures and governorships, the U.S. Congress, the presidency, and soon the Supreme Court, our anointed elite still doesn't quite get it. Middle America can be amused by, but still despise, Michael Moore. It can be uneasy with the pessimistic reporting from Iraq, but still be very much willing to finish the war and win at all costs. It may enjoy a trip to Europe, but does not wish to emulate the French, Germans, or Greeks. ...
The Democrats now lament that America would prefer to be "wrong" with George Bush than "right" with them. They will no doubt adduce a number of other paradoxes, excuses, and sorrows. But the fact is that the Left was united, well-funded, and ran the most vitriolic campaign in the Democratic party's history — and still lost, taking all branches of power with it. The New York Times and the major networks have undone their legacy of a half-century, and in the desire for cheap partisan advantage have ruined the reputations of anchor men, the very notion of fair front-page reporting, and, indeed, the useful concept itself of an exit poll. 60 Minutes, Nightline, ABC News — these are now seen by millions as mere highbrow versions of Fahrenheit 9/11."

"The Hate-Red Blues" (Denis Boyles, National Review, 2004/11/05)
"Obviously, it's easier to hate than to think, but the payoff, politically, is nil. That lesson is completely lost on our British friends. Lacking a better idea, the strategy of the liberal London dailies, as this front page of the Independent makes clear, is to hate Bush even more than they hated him before. ...
In fact, ever notice how, when hate-mongers try to appear affable, they can't resist the rush of a bile-shooter? In the International Herald Tribune, an editorial (via the New York Times) asks for a "new start" — but only after comparing Bush voters with Muslims who vote for all those goofy imams. The Guardian calls those who voted for Bush racists, then asks for a "handshake." Hell if I'd shake hands with anyone who wants to shake hands with a racist."

"Now it's payback time for Bush's staunch allies" (John Vinocur, International Herald Tribune, 2004/11/05)
"Just days before Tuesday's vote, Felix Rohatyn, the distinguished banker and former U.S. ambassador to France, defined the election stakes for European consumption.
A Democrat who valiantly served the Clinton administration in 1999-2000 at the time the French first went off on America-the-hyperpower cum unilateralist and world's-greatest-problem, Rohatyn was aggrieved then at what he regarded as a false, even mean-spirited accusation. So he is personally familiar with political excess.
All the same, talking to the French newsmagazine l'Express, Rohatyn described this week's choice of a president as probably the most important in America since 1900 "and even since the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860."
Were Europeans supposed to read into this that the election was tantamount to choosing between Kerry or slavery and civil war? The interview didn't say.
But it well reflected the sense of rage and disenfranchisement that the internationalist wing of the American liberal establishment was experiencing at the prospect of Kerry's defeat. Over the months leading up to the vote, its tactics seemed to be a kind of media carom shot. It involved branding Bush as a horror in discussing him with Europe, legitimizing and reinforcing in the process a slew of more anti-American than anti-Bush commentators, and then watching as this was replayed back into the Democratic campaign mix as evidence from Europe that Bush's America had lost the world's love and respect.
Like America listened or cared."

"Life did not end on Tuesday" (Gerard Baker, The Times, 2004/11/05)
"This “Hail to the Thief” line won’t work now that he is back with the largest number of votes ever cast for a presidential candidate. So the critics have to find something else to explain away the Bush phenomenon.
They have come up with this: Mr Bush did not win because he convinced the majority of mainstream, sensible Americans that his policies were the right ones and that his values were their values. He won because his campaign orchestrated a massive turnout by evangelical Christians (read: fundamentalist bigots) who were motivated by their myopic moral outlook, especially opposition to gay marriage, to return one of their own to the White House. Mr Bush’s election, therefore, is discredited, not because of its reliance on the Supreme Court, but because of its dependence on religious freaks. ...
Mr Bush’s re-election was no narrow victory for religious zealots. It confirms that America is a decidedly conservative country, but not an alien one.
And its implications for the rest of the world are not baleful. All the world has to fear now is four more years of an America doing its damnedest to export the value that is at the heart of all of its people’s beliefs: that people should be as free to choose their own direction as the American people so joyously were this week."

"Bush hatred flops big" (Mark Steyn, The Australian, 2004/11/05)
"The Michael Mooronification of the Democratic Party proved a fatal error. Moore is the chief promoter of what's now the received opinion of Bush among the condescending Left -- Chimpy Bushitler the World's Dumbest Fascist. There are some takers for this view, but not enough. By running a campaign fuelled by Moore's caricature of Bush, the Democrats were doomed to defeat. ...
Bush hatred flopped big on Tuesday. That's not a problem for The Guardian's editors, who have to sell papers in Britain, but it is for a Democratic Party that has to sell itself in the US. Michael Mooronification damages everyone who gets it.
Look at the recently resurrected Osama bin Laden. Three years ago he was Mr Jihad, demanding the restoration of the caliphate, the return of Andalucia, the conversion of every infidel to Islam, the imposition of sharia and an end to fornication, homosexuality and alcoholic beverages. In his latest video he sounds like some elderly Berkeley sociology student making lame jokes about Halliburton and Bush reading My Pet Goat."

"Chirac KO's Bush offer" (Brian Flynn and Nic Cecil, The Sun, 2004/11/05)
"But French President Jacques Chirac — dubbed Le Worm — was doing his best to scupper bridge-building.
He will snub a meeting with Iraqi PM Iyad Allawi in Brussels today. It is a sleight aimed at Mr Bush and Tony Blair, who back Mr Allawi.
Chirac — who tried to stop the war to topple Saddam Hussein — will leave Brussels before the new Iraqi leader arrives.
However Chirac DID find time to visit Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in hospital yesterday."

"Arafat's Condition Is Deteriorating, Reports Indicate" (Elaine Sciolino, The New York Times, 2004/11/05)
"In Israel, some media reported that Mr. Arafat had suffered organ failure and lost consciousness several times. Israel's Channel 2 television quoted unnamed sources in Paris saying that Mr. Arafat was brain dead. But in an interview with the Arabic television channel Al Arabiya, Mr. Arafat's personal physician, Dr. Ashraf Kurdi, denied the claim, saying Mr. Arafat had undergone a brain scan that showed "no type of brain death."
The strangest claim came from Luxembourg's prime minister, Jean-Claude Juncker, who announced as he arrived in Brussels for a European Union summit meeting that Mr. Arafat had died. The Union's 25 leaders were to begin a two-day meeting on Thursday afternoon.
"Mr. Arafat passed away a quarter of an hour ago," Mr. Juncker told reporters.
His office said later that Mr. Juncker, who will take over the Union's rotating presidency in January, spoke after an erroneous Israeli media report was relayed to him by a journalist. He quickly retracted his comment."

"Confident Bush Outlines Ambitious Plan for 2nd Term" (Richard W. Stevenson, The New York Times, 2004/11/05)
"A confident President Bush vowed on Thursday to move quickly and vigorously to enact the ambitious agenda he set out during the campaign, saying, "The people made it clear what they wanted." ...
"Let me put it to you this way: I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it," Mr. Bush said, asserting the power he held after a decisive win and reclaiming the national stage as his own after sharing it for months with Mr. Kerry. ...
Mr. Bush restated a central campaign theme, that spreading freedom and democracy was the best long-term solution to fighting terrorism and its causes. He said he still had faith in his plan to bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and when told erroneously by a reporter that Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, had died, he said, 'God bless his soul.'"

Thursday, November 4, 2004

News and commentary:

"Free States and Slave States, before the Civil War"
(Learner.org)
Ken Layne says the map above showing Free States and Slave States in 1860 is "close enough" to the 2004 Electoral Vote Map.
(UPDATE: Kevin Drum says the two maps "rather eerily matches".)

"The Blue Cocoon" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2004/11/04)
"'I don't know how Richard Nixon could have won,' the late film critic Pauline Kael is said to have observed after the 1972 election. "I don't know anybody who voted for him." Pick up the New York Times 32 years later, and it's obvious that big-city liberals are as out of touch as ever. "Some New Yorkers, like Meredith Hackett, a 25-year-old barmaid in Brooklyn, said they didn't even know any people who had voted for President Bush," reports the paper's Joseph Berger in a Metro section story on New Yorkers who are "disconsolate" over President Bush's re-election:

... "I'm saddened by what I feel is the obtuseness and shortsightedness of a good part of the country--the heartland," Dr. Joseph said. "This kind of redneck, shoot-from-the-hip mentality and a very concrete interpretation of religion is prevalent in Bush country--in the heartland."
"New Yorkers are more sophisticated and at a level of consciousness where we realize we have to think of globalization, of one mankind, that what's going to injure masses of people is not good for us," he said. ...

Angry Left blogger Eric Alterman sums up the attitude:

Let's face it. It's not Kerry's fault. It's not Nader's fault (this time). It's not the media's fault (though they do bear a heavy responsibility for much of what ails our political system). It's not "our" fault either. The problem is just this: Slightly more than half of the citizens of this country simply do not care about what those of us in the "reality-based community" say or believe about anything.

Who exactly is parochial here? ... Bush voters tend to see big-city liberals as arrogant elitists, and the above quotes make clear that they are substantially correct. If those liberals were as sophisticated and open-minded as they fancy themselves to be, they would make an effort to understand why most Americans disagree with them rather than simply dismissing them as idiots." (See also: "A Blue City (Disconsolate, Even) Bewildered by a Red America" (Joseph Berger, The New York Times, 2004/11/04) and "(Still) A Land of Hopes and Dreams" (Eric Alterman, Altercation, 2004/11/03))

"'Bush Derangement Syndrome' at Full Display Among Left-Wing German Media" (Davids Medienkritik, 2004/11/04)
"Left-wing German media go bonkers over Bush's win.
TAZ, 11/4/04 (Left-wing German daily):

BUSH BELONGS IN FRONT OF A WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL - NOT IN THE WHITE HOUSE

New wars of aggression cannot be ruled out

In his first term, US President George W. Bush already threw away more sympathy and earned more hostility and hate than any of his predecessors since 1776*. Bush achieved this catastrophic result with his contraproductive "war against terror", which he carried out with a crusade mentality. He constantly violates and scorns international law, and wages an illegal war against Iraq against the declared will of 95% of all countries with up to 180,000 civilians killed.
... lies and manipulation .... conditions fufilled for a an impeachment trial against Bush ... mandate for the continuation of his devestating policies ... neo-conservative baiters and religious warriors ... etc.,
etc., etc..

(*Translator's note: the first American president took office in 1789, not 1776.)" (See also: "Bush gehört vors Kriegsverbrechertribunal - nicht ins Weisse Haus" (Andreas Zumach, TAZ, 2004/11/04))

"More Arafat" (Cliff May, The Corner, 2004/11/04)
"Claudia Rosett sent me a note saying: “If he's dead, how fitting that he died in France.”
To which I responded: Yes, but how ironic that he dies in bed.
She rejoined: 'Or maybe how perfectly hypocritical and corrupt, to the very end.
Symbolically, it's sort of hideously beautiful. It would have delighted Balzac. A killer billionaire dies in a Paris bed ...having abandoned in his final hours the nest he fouled so thoroughly that he himself, in his final hours, instead of choosing to die in the place he said he'd give his life for, went off to France to croak in comfort.'"

"Arafat Reported Clinically Dead; PM Denies" (Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2004/11/04)
"Palestinian President Yasser Arafat was declared clinically dead on Thursday in a French hospital, Israeli television said citing French sources.
But Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie denied the report, saying: "I have just spoken to the officials in Paris and they say the situation is still as it was. He is still in the intensive care unit."
Israel's Channel Two television cited unnamed sources in Paris saying that Arafat underwent a brain scan and was found to be "no longer alive."
Palestinian sources earlier told Reuters that the Palestinian president, who was admitted to hospital last week with a mysterious stomach illness, had slipped into a coma."

"Amsterdam tightens security to prevent unrest after killing" (Expatica, 2004/11/04)
Theo van Gogh XVI: "Meanwhile, reports that the intelligence services were aware prior to Van Gogh's murder that an attack was imminent against an Islamic critic have prompted a demand from MP Wilders for an explanation from the cabinet, newspaper Het Parool reported.
A Mid-East expert with Dutch Foreign Affairs Ministry, Roland Mollinger, said the intelligence services knew that "something" would occur in northern Europe. The target was to be someone who was outspokenly critical against the Islamic faith."

"Moroccan teens 'spit' on Van Gogh portrait" (Expatica, 2004/11/04)
Theo van Gogh XV: "Moroccan teenagers have allegedly spat on a large portrait of murdered Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam, it was reported Thursday.
Shortly after Van Gogh's murder on Tuesday, spray can and graffiti artist Donovan Spaanstra, 33, painted a portrait of the Dutch television celebrity and columnist on the façade of a building in the Warmoesstraat.
"For an artist, from an artist. Van Gogh has walked past here thousands of times," Spaanstra told newspaper De Telegraaf.
Initially greeted by applause for painting the portrait, Spaanstra claimed some Moroccan teens then hassled him, screaming "Hamas, Hamas". He claimed they even spat on the portrait and did not want to discuss the killing. ...
There was also applause, approval and expressions of sadness witnessed in Warmoesstraat in reaction to the Van Gogh portrait. A swathe of flowers has since been placed before the painting."

"Dutch probe Casablanca link to filmmaker death" (Marcel Michelson, Reuters, 2004/11/04)
Theo van Gogh XIV: "Dutch authorities are investigating a possible indirect link between the suspected killer of a filmmaker critical of Islam and last year's Casablanca bombings, a security source says.
The source confirmed a report in the Algemeen Dagblad daily that the suspect, identified by Dutch media as Mohammed B., had connections with people who were questioned after the May 2003 suicide bombings in the Moroccan city which killed 45.
Filmmaker Theo van Gogh was repeatedly stabbed after he was shot as he cycled to work in Amsterdam. His throat was slit and a five-page letter suggesting a "radical Islamic" motive was pinned to his body with a knife.
Police said in a statement on Thursday that a 26-year-old with dual Moroccan and Dutch nationality arrested after the killing had already come to their attention in a probe in October 2003." (See also: "Death threats on film-maker's body" (AP/news.com.au, 2004/11/05): "Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner said a letter the killer pinned to Van Gogh's body with a knife was "a direct warning" to Dutch member of Parliament Ayaan Hirsi Ali.")

"A catastrophic night for the Democrats" (Mark Steyn, The Spectator, from the 2004/11/06 issue)
"One constituency that’s more or less dead after this election is the liberal warmongers — the fellows like Andrew Sullivan (of Britain’s Sunday Times) and Thomas Friedman (of the New York Times) and my compatriot Michael Ignatieff. Before the Iraq war, they were some of its biggest boosters. In recent months, they all turned, and most of them persuaded themselves that Kerry was the man to fix the mess in Iraq and see things through. I found this extraordinary. The defeat of Bush would have been seen around the world as a repudiation of his view of the war, and especially the aspect that the moulting hawks were once so keen on: his commitment to bringing liberty to the Middle East. John Kerry couldn’t have been more explicit that that was not his aim. The moulters’ willingness to abandon the long-term goal because of a nickel’n’dime jailhouse scandal and a rate of combat fatalities that any earlier generation of Americans would have regarded as the blessings of a merciful God speaks very poorly for them. Even as an armchair warrior, I wouldn’t want to be in a foxhole with these guys."

"Educating children for hatred and terrorism" (Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, October 2004)
A study of Hamas’ online children’s magazine Al-Fateh, which for example contains a picture of the suicide bomber Zaynab Abu Salem's decapitated head with the caption: "Her head was severed from her pure body and her headscarf remained to decorate [her face]. Your place is in heaven in the upper sky...":
"As part of its indoctrination effort, Hamas makes extensive use of its well-developed Internet capabilities. Among its sites is one for an online children’s magazine called Al-Fateh (“The Conqueror”), whose address is www.al-fateh.net. ...
The magazine has attractive graphics and contains comics-like drawings and photographs to make it “friendly” and attractive to its target audience of young children. There are poems and stories (“The Thrush,” “The Troubles of Fahman the Donkey,” texts written by children themselves, etc.). There are also articles about religious subjects and stories about battles and tales of heroism from Arabic and Islamic history. Side by side with these “innocent” items are articles preaching the perpetration of terrorist attacks, extolling the suicide bombers and presenting them as role models, and encouraging hatred for Israel and the Jewish people."

"Azzam Tamimi on a Timer" (Martin Kramer, Sandstorm, 2004/11/04)
"Almost two years ago, I identified Azzam Tamimi, a Palestinian who heads the Institute of Islamic Political Thought in London, as a Hamas extremist. ... On Tuesday Tamimi gave a television interview to Tim Sebastian (BBC HardTalk), and this dialogue took place:

Sebastian: You advocate the suicide bombing. You said on an internet chat forum early in 2003: "For us Moslems martyrdom is not the end of things but the beginning of the most wonderful of things." If it's so wonderful to go and blow yourself up in a public place in Israel why don't you do it?
Tamimi: Martyrdom is not necessarily suicide bombings as you call them. Martyrdom is...
Sebastian: No, please answer my question. It was a serious question. ...
Tamimi: I am prepared, of course.
Sebastian: You would [go] and blow yourself up?
Tamimi: No. I'm trying to explain to you... ...
Sebastian: No – please come back to my question. Please come back to my question. Why if it is so glorious and honourable to do this, why don't you do it?
Tamimi: I would do it...
Sebastian: When?
Tamimi: If I have the opportunity I would do it...
Sebastian: When are you going to do it?
Tamimi: When? If I can go to Palestine and sacrifice myself I would do it. Why not?"

(See also: "Ask Professor Esposito" (Martin Kramer, Sandstorm, 2002/09/26))

"So Much to Savor" (Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal, 2004/11/04)
"Who was the biggest loser of the 2004 election? It is easy to say Mr. Kerry: he was a poor candidate with a poor campaign. But I do think the biggest loser was the mainstream media, the famous MSM, the initials that became popular in this election cycle. Every time the big networks and big broadsheet national newspapers tried to pull off a bit of pro-liberal mischief — CBS and the fabricated Bush National Guard documents, the New York Times and bombgate, CBS's "60 Minutes" attempting to coordinate the breaking of bombgate on the Sunday before the election — the yeomen of the blogosphere and AM radio and the Internet took them down. It was to me a great historical development in the history of politics in America. It was Agincourt. It was the yeomen of King Harry taking down the French aristocracy with new technology and rough guts. God bless the pajama-clad yeomen of America. Some day, when America is hit again, and lines go down, and media are hard to get, these bloggers and site runners and independent Internetters of all sorts will find a way to file, and get their word out, and it will be part of the saving of our country."

"The Unteachable Ignorance of the Red States" (Jane Smiley, Slate, 2004/11/04)
Apparently, Smiley doesn't notice the irony of accusing all your 58 million opponents of being "unteachable ignorant" at the same time as you are attacking them for their "feelings of superiority."
Or, for that matter, the chutzpah of calling your opponents "ignorant", filled with "greed" and "bloodlust", "predatory and resentful, amoral, avaricious, and arrogant" and then portray yourself as someone who is thinking that "humans are essentially good":
"I say forget introspection. It's time to be honest about our antagonists. ... I grew up in Missouri and most of my family voted for Bush, so I am going to be the one to say it: The election results reflect the decision of the right wing to cultivate and exploit ignorance in the citizenry. I suppose the good news is that 55 million Americans have evaded the ignorance-inducing machine. But 58 million have not. (Well, almost 58 million — my relatives are not ignorant, they are just greedy and full of classic Republican feelings of superiority.) ...
Ignorance and bloodlust have a long tradition in the United States, especially in the red states. ... The error that progressives have consistently committed over the years is to underestimate the vitality of ignorance in America. Listen to what the red state citizens say about themselves, the songs they write, and the sermons they flock to. They know who they are—they are full of original sin and they have a taste for violence. The blue state citizens make the Rousseauvian mistake of thinking humans are essentially good, and so they never realize when they are about to be slugged from behind." ...
The architects of this strategy knew perfectly well that they were exploiting, among other unsavory qualities, a long American habit of virulent racism, but they did it anyway, and we see the outcome now — Cheney is the capitalist arm and Bush is the religious arm. They know no boundaries or rules. They are predatory and resentful, amoral, avaricious, and arrogant."

"A Rude Awakening" (Amir Taheri, New York Post, 2004/11/04)
"The European elites had spent much of Tuesday evening dreaming about how a President Kerry would ratify the Kyoto accords, sign on to the International Criminal Court, cut and run in Iraq, send flowers to Yasser Arafat and, perhaps, open a dialogue with Osama bin Laden. When it became clear that the American voters wanted none of that, the chattering classes in Europe were left speechless. One Paris TV anchor was literally struck dumb momentarily when, after hours of crowing over Kerry's victory and the American people's supposed liberation from Bushist tyranny, he had to admit that things had gone differently.
The shock felt in Europe was even greater because of the size of Bush's victory. The president won more votes than any candidate in the entire history of America. Dubya also became the first to win the presidency with a majority of the popular vote, since his father in 1988. ...
Until Tuesday, the standard excuse by many Europeans who opposed key aspects of Bush's policies was that they were only anti-Bush, not anti-American. They tried to justify that bit of sophistry with Michael Moore-esque lies about how Bush, having "stolen" the 2000 election, did not really represent the American people.
With Dubya's victory, it will no longer be possible for the Hate-America international to pose as merely anti-Bush. Their claim that Bush and his gang of Likudniks had somehow hijacked the United States has been swept away by American voters."

"Big loss for the Bush haters" (Jeff Jacoby, The Boston Globe, 2004/11/04)
"HATRED LOST.
For four years, Americans watched and listened as President Bush was demonized with a savagery unprecedented in modern American politics. For four years they saw him likened to Hitler and Goebbels, heard his supporters called brownshirts and racists, his administration dubbed "the 43d Reich." For four years they took it all in: "Bush" spelled with a swastika instead of an 's,' the depictions of the president as a drooling moron or a homicidal liar, the poisonous insults aimed at anyone who might consider voting for him. And then on Tuesday they turned out to vote and handed the haters a crushing repudiation.
Bush was reelected with the highest vote total in American history. He is the first president since 1988 to win a majority of the popular vote. He increased his 2000 tally by 8 million votes and saw his party not only keep its majorities in the House and Senate but enlarge them. And he did it all in the face of an orgy of hatred. ...
Bush-bashers reveled in their animosity — many openly and proudly embraced the word "hatred" — but I wondered all along whether they weren't driving away far more voters than they were attracting. "Their unabashed loathing may energize and excite them, but they are doing their candidate and their country no favors," I wrote in this space in July. "For most Americans, hatred is a political turn-off." Now that the object of their malevolence has won more votes than any previous president, will they consider giving up the politics of hatred in favor of something healthier and more constructive?"

"How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?"
(The Daily Mirror, 2004/11/04)

"God Help America" (Brian Reade, The Daily Mirror, 2004/11/04)
As Taheri points out above: "With Dubya's victory, it will no longer be possible for the Hate-America international to pose as merely anti-Bush." Brian Reade proves him right:
"They say that in life you get what you deserve. Well, today America has deservedly got a lawless cowboy to lead them further into carnage and isolation and the unreserved contempt of most of the rest of the world. ...
They had somehow managed to re-elect the most devious, blinkered and reckless leader ever put before them. The Yellow Rogue of Texas.
A self-serving, dim-witted, draft-dodging, gung-ho little rich boy, whose idea of courage is to yell: "I feel good," as he unleashes an awesome fury which slaughters 100,000 innocents for no other reason than greed and vanity. ...
A radical Christian fanatic who decided the world was made up of the forces of good and evil, who invented a war on terror, and thus as author of it, believed he had the right to set the rules of engagement. ...
As for the ones who put him in, across the Bible Belt and the South, us outsiders can only feel pity.
Were I a Kerry voter, though, I'd feel deep anger, not only at them returning Bush to power, but for allowing the outside world to lump us all into the same category of moronic muppets.
The self-righteous, gun-totin', military lovin', sister marryin', abortion-hatin', gay-loathin', foreigner-despisin', non-passport ownin' red-necks, who believe God gave America the biggest dick in the world so it could urinate on the rest of us and make their land 'free and strong.'" (See also: "British press as divided as US electorate over Bush win" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2004/11/04): "In stark contrast, the left-leaning Independent had the headline "Four More Years", around which was placed a montage showing images such as shackled prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, the abuse of Iraqi detainees by US guards and an oil pipeline. ... The Daily Mirror took an even blunter approach, plastering a picture of Bush over its entire front page with a message to those who voted for him: 'How can 59,017,382 people be so DUMB?'")

"FOUR MORE YEARS"
(The Independent, 2004/11/04)

"Film-maker Moore silenced as credits roll on a fair fight" (Fraser Nelson, The Scotsman, 2004/11/04)
"For the first time in years, Michael Moore was speechless.
The film-maker and author was keeping quiet yesterday as he digested the inconceivable: his books, films and campaigns had not even dented Mr Bush’s political lead.
His book, Stupid White Men, and film Fahrenheit 9/11 have sold well in the United States as they have across the world - radicalising a young audience which had never before voted.
But yesterday the self-styled "capped crusader" was searching in vain for any evidence that the shadow he has cast over American politics for the last three years had touched the polling station.
He had deployed 1,300 cameras to polling stations in Florida and Ohio, determined to catch on film the dirty tricks which he argues stopped thousands of black voters from casting their ballot four years ago.
"I’m putting those who intend to suppress the vote on notice: voter intimidation and suppression will not be tolerated," Mr Moore said in a statement.
But he gave up on Florida by 3pm on polling day, and headed to Ohio instead.
By yesterday lunchtime, it became clear that George Bush, his nemesis, had won a fair and unanswerable victory."

"'I feel terribly guilty'" (Jon Henley, The Guardian, 2004/11/04)
Theo van Gogh XIII: "Fraught Dutch commentators had no hesitation yesterday in saying that Holland had become a "front-line state" in a brutal collision between two cultures. "In France or Belgium, you don't have this same kind of very Dutch cabaret-like figure who rages about goat-fuckers," one commentator, Rene Cuperus, told De Volkskrant.
"They must know that they've landed up in the most liberal country in the world, the land of abortions and gays and all that - but Muslims don't see it. There's just no way to bridge that gulf in a politically correct way." Sociologist, Herman Vuisje, described Van Gogh's murder as "not a turning point, but the after-effect of a historical failure". And an academic, Norbert Both, posed the question that, one imagines, is now troubling Ayaan Hirsi Ali - as well as a great many less outspoken Dutch people.
"The great dilemma, in confronting intolerance, is that you cannot reply with tolerance," he said. 'If you do ... you lose your own identity. Can we, despite the emotion, remain ourselves? That's the question.'" (Also: "On his knees, the eyewitnesses said, Van Gogh twice begged for mercy. But the suspect, described as having a beard and wearing a long jellaba, fired again and then drew two butcher's knives, slitting his victim's throat before driving the blades into his chest.")

"Soldiers Describe Looting of Explosives" (Mark Mazzetti, Los Angeles Times Times, 2004/11/04)
"In the weeks after the fall of Baghdad, Iraqi looters loaded powerful explosives into pickup trucks and drove the material away from the Al Qaqaa ammunition site, according to a group of U.S. Army reservists and National Guardsmen who said they witnessed the looting.
The soldiers said about a dozen U.S. troops guarding the sprawling facility could not prevent the theft because they were outnumbered by looters. Soldiers with one unit — the 317th Support Center based in Wiesbaden, Germany — said they sent a message to commanders in Baghdad requesting help to secure the site but received no reply. ...
The U.S. troops said there was little they could do to prevent looting of the ammunition site, 30 miles south of Baghdad.
"We were running from one side of the compound to the other side, trying to kick people out," said one senior noncommissioned officer who was at the site in late April 2003.
"On our last day there, there were at least 100 vehicles waiting at the site for us to leave" so looters could come in and take munitions.
"It was complete chaos. It was looting like L.A. during the Rodney King riots," another officer said." (See also: "Huge Cache of Explosives Vanished From Site in Iraq" - News and commentary on the missing explosives in Iraq.)

"Arafat's Condition Is Reported to Worsen" (AP/The New York Times, 2004/11/04)
"Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, was rushed to intensive care, Palestinian officials said early on Thursday, and was undergoing a new round of tests in a French military hospital, where he is being treated for a mysterious ailment.
The two officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Mr. Arafat's condition had seriously deteriorated over the past day. But Mr. Arafat's top aides denied that, accusing Israel of spreading rumors. The report was first broadcast on Israel's Channel Two television."

"After Kerry Concedes, Bush Cites 'A Duty to Serve All Americans'" (Adam Nagourney, The New York Times, 2004/11/04)
"George W. Bush declared victory yesterday in the race for president after a decisive national election that bolstered Republican strength in Congress and led the White House to proclaim that Mr. Bush had won a mandate from the American public for a second term. ...
"America has spoken, and I'm humbled by the trust and the confidence of my fellow citizens," he said. "With that trust comes a duty to serve all Americans, and I will do my best to fulfill that duty every day as your president." ...
The victory by Mr. Bush amounted to a striking turn in fortunes for the nation's 43rd president, who had at times this year seemed destined to repeat his father's fate of losing a second term because of a weak economy. Instead, he won about 8.7 million more popular votes than he did in 2000 and positioned himself and his party to push through a conservative agenda in Washington over the next four years." (See also: "Transcript of President Bush's Speech" (The New York Times, 2004/11/04))

Wednesday, November 3, 2004

News and commentary:

"Jesusland"
(Unknown/Matthew Yglesias, 2004/11/03)

"The Morning After" (Michele Catalano, A Small Victory, 2004/11/03)
"If you don't mind, I'd like to address the throngs of Chicken Littles who seem to be out in full force on the net today. I just want to clear up a few things, as you all seem to be pretty misguided in more than one area today.
I voted for George Bush.
I am not a redneck.
I do not spend my days watching cars race around a track, drinking cheap beer and slapping my woman on the ass.
I am not a bible thumper. In fact, I am an atheist.
I am not a homophobe.
I am educated beyond the fifth grade. In fact, I am college educated.
I am not stupid. Not by any stretch of facts.
I do not bomb abortion clinics. ...