Archived news and commentary: December 12 - 18, 2005

2005/12/12 - 2005/12/18
2005/12/05 - 2005/12/11
2005/11/28 - 2005/12/04
2005/11/21 - 2005/11/27
2005/11/14 - 2005/11/20
2005/11/07 - 2005/11/13

› From 2001/09/11 -

Sunday, December 18, 2005

News and commentary:

"President's Address to the Nation" (George W. Bush, The White House, 2005/12/18)
"My conviction comes down to this: We do not create terrorism by fighting the terrorists. We invite terrorism by ignoring them. And we will defeat the terrorists by capturing and killing them abroad, removing their safe havens, and strengthening new allies like Iraq and Afghanistan in the fight we share.":
"Defeatism may have its partisan uses, but it is not justified by the facts. For every scene of destruction in Iraq, there are more scenes of rebuilding and hope. For every life lost, there are countless more lives reclaimed. And for every terrorist working to stop freedom in Iraq, there are many more Iraqis and Americans working to defeat them. My fellow citizens: Not only can we win the war in Iraq, we are winning the war in Iraq.
It is also important for every American to understand the consequences of pulling out of Iraq before our work is done. We would abandon our Iraqi friends and signal to the world that America cannot be trusted to keep its word. We would undermine the morale of our troops by betraying the cause for which they have sacrificed. We would cause the tyrants in the Middle East to laugh at our failed resolve, and tighten their repressive grip. We would hand Iraq over to enemies who have pledged to attack us and the global terrorist movement would be emboldened and more dangerous than ever before. To retreat before victory would be an act of recklessness and dishonor, and I will not allow it. ...
I also want to speak to those of you who did not support my decision to send troops to Iraq: I have heard your disagreement, and I know how deeply it is felt. Yet now there are only two options before our country -- victory or defeat. And the need for victory is larger than any president or political party, because the security of our people is in the balance. I don't expect you to support everything I do, but tonight I have a request: Do not give in to despair, and do not give up on this fight for freedom."

"Some Call it Empire" (Angelo M. Codevilla, The Claremont Review of Books, Fall 2005)
"President Bush's reaction to the events of September 11 further muddied America's understanding of our relationship with the world. He could have addressed the fact that Arabs had struck America on behalf of causes espoused, and embodied, by a number of Arab regimes. He could have declared that in doing so these regimes had put themselves in a state of war with the American people — and he could have proceeded to undo our foes, regime by regime. That war would have left many enemies dead and many potential ones eager to avoid the experience. That, and that alone, is true peace.
Instead, President Bush deferred to parts of what some might call the U.S. government's "imperial infrastructure," the State Department and CIA, which have long-standing stakes in many Arab regimes, e.g., Syria, Saudi Arabia, and the Palestinian Authority. He absolved the regimes of responsibility, and proclaimed war on an abstract noun, "terrorism," to achieve some indeterminate global effect. In pursuit of this so-called war, he has raised America's rhetoric, profile, and presence around the world, harming many who do not count and killing few who do. Occupations are not wars. Criminal investigations are not wars. Democracy-building and nation-building campaigns are not wars. Unlike wars, they do not produce victory, nor its offspring, peace.
The United States is not at peace, and it is not making war. To this extent alone the accusation of empire — the dawdling kind that wastes its core resources — sticks. If we continue to trifle with empire rather than establishing peace, we shall reap stalemate, retreat, and the domestic strife that is empire's bitterest consequence."

"A Palestinian youth celebrates..."
(Suhaib Salem, Reuters, 2005/12/18)
"A Palestinian youth celebrates in Gaza after hearing that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was moved into hospital December 18, 2005."

"Palestinians fire celebration shots at news of Sharon in hospital" (Ynetnews, 2005/12/18)
"Palestinians in the Gaza Strip fired celebration shots upon hearing the news of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon being taken to hospital for feeling unwell.
A member of the Popular Resistance Committees told Ynet that Sharon fell ill because of the stressed [sic] caused by the latest wage of Qassam rockets over the last few days. “God answered our prayers and didn’t disappoint us,” the official said."

"No ham for Christmas: Muslim menu for WA hospital" (Trevor Paddenburg, The Sunday Times, 2005/12/18)
"A WA hospital has scrubbed baked ham from its Christmas menu, fearing Muslim patients could be offended.
It has also overhauled its entire menu so that all meals are now halal – containing only meat and other food prepared according to Muslim customs.
But Port Hedland Regional Hospital staff and many non-Muslim patients are outraged, saying it is a case of political correctness gone mad.
Kitchen staff are so angry that they have organised a petition demanding ham be put back on the Christmas menu. ...
The hospital's nursing director, Judy Davis, said though ham was not on the menu, Christian patients would not miss out on festive cheer.
"We'll still make Christmas special – we've got prawns and all sorts of other special treats," she said.
But one long-time Port Hedland hospital worker told The Sunday Times the menu change was "unAustralian".
"It's going to be a boring old Christmas lunch for the patients," he said.
"After all, what's Christmas without a ham, or Sunday morning without bacon and eggs?
'The management of the hospital are unable to stand up to a minority and keep our Australian way of life intact. They are bowing to the pressure of a select few.'" (Hat tip: Tim Blair.)

"Will It Be Different Now?" (Dexter Filkins, The New York Times, 2005/12/18)
"Less than three years ago, Iraqis lived in a state of near-permanent terror. Today, Iraqis live in a society that is free but anarchic, full of hope and full of death, in the first stages of constructing a democratic polity that every week seems to flower and collapse.
Civil war looms, but tomorrow there's an election. And the frame never freezes: ask anyone who has spent time here what it's like to come back after being away. That person will tell you, no doubt, that the country he knew even a few weeks before no longer seems to exist. Iraq, pulsating with change, must be learned all over again. From Saddam's dungeons to the voting booth in just 33 months: it's hard to imagine any country changing so much and so fast. It's a reason why predicting the future is so perilous. ...
On Thursday in Adhamiya, a predominantly Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad, it was difficult not to believe that a shift of vast and profound proportions was taking place. On Jan. 30, Adhamiya was a grim and spooky place, its streets barren. Few people left their homes for fear of being killed. In case anyone forgot, insurgents dropped leaflets in the streets to remind them.
On Thursday, at Al Muhaj Primary School, the mood was light and breezy; everyone was going to vote. With the roads closed to motor vehicles, parents and children walked the streets together. Adhamiya seemed like a different place.
"It's an indescribable feeling," said Raad Taha, an Adhamiya resident and bank manager who walked from the school after casting his ballot. 'For the first time, we have a real democracy here. Democracy is going to prevail.'"

"Sunnis ready to cooperate with U.S." (Paul Martin, The Washington Times, 2005/12/18)
"Key Sunni Muslim leaders in Iraq's violent Anbar province have concluded that their interests lie in cooperating with the United States, and they are seeking to extend a temporary truce honored by most insurgent groups for last week's elections.
But at the same time, they are demanding specific steps by the U.S. military, including a reduction in military raids and an increase in development projects for their vast desert province that stretches from the edge of Baghdad to the Syrian and Jordanian borders.
Adnan al-Dulaimi, leader of a prominent Sunni bloc, confirmed yesterday that insurgent groups had prevented violence from interfering with Thursday's election for a 275-seat parliament. ...
The truce resulted from weeks of negotiations between U.S. officials and insurgents that have been recently labeled by President Bush as "rejectionists." ...
A prominent Sunni religious leader in Anbar province, Sheik Abed al-Latif Hemaiym, told The Times in an interview in Amman that Sunnis were prepared to work with the Americans.
"We now believe we must get on good terms with the Americans," Sheik Hemaiym said. "As Arab Sunnis, we believe that within this hot area of Iraq, facing challenges from neighboring nations who want to swallow us, especially the Iranians, we feel we have no alternative."
The willingness of U.S. officials to talk directly with many, if not most, insurgents marked a huge change from American thinking at the onset of the war."

Saturday, December 17, 2005

News and commentary:

"Terrorism" (Lee Kuan Yew, Forbes, 2005/12/26)
"President Bush's approval ratings are down. The reasons are standard for American politics: Hurricane Katrina, Iraq, a failed Supreme Court nomination and so on. As a non-American, I hope to be excused for pointing out that if the President is conscribed or hindered from countering the Iraqi insurgency or from tackling Iran's nuclear activities, all Americans -- not just Republicans -- will face greater danger, as indeed will Europeans and Asians.
If the insurgents and jihadists force the U.S. military to withdraw from Iraq, terrorists will be further emboldened. After driving the Russians from Afghanistan, getting the U.S. out of Iraq would be an immense triumph. Exultant Islamists would spread their terror into America, Europe and South and Southeast Asia.
Following this month's elections Iraq's democratically installed government will have the moral authority to govern and restore order, as well as the will to fight to retain its hold on power. After decades -- if not centuries -- of subjugation by the Sunnis, the Shiites and Kurds are not about to yield their power because of Sunni or jihadist terror. With U.S. support Iraq's government will expand the security forces and can prevail. However, if the U.S. leaves prematurely, the jihadists might bring down the government. Then we can expect terror to spread. The aim of the jihadists is global -- a caliphate."

"Live with TAE: Robert Kaplan" (The American Enterprise, January/February 2006)
An interview with Robert Kaplan: "TAE: For all the talk of American imperialism, isn’t the main “foreign influence” in Iraq today — the main outside threat to Iraqi self-determination — the international jihadis who make up the al-Qaeda resistance?
Kaplan: Absolutely. One of the big myths of the Left is that we have troops around the world propping up dictatorships. This reflects a 1970s time-warp mentality. In every case I can name — from the Philippines to Georgia, from sub-Saharan Africa to the Middle East — we’re stationed at the request of newly elected, internationally recognized, democratic governments. And this makes sense: You can’t have a stable democracy without a professional military.
If the United States were to pull out of Iraq you would have a real bloodbath, plus a reversal in a lot of the positive trends towards liberalization we’ve seen in Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Lebanon, Egypt, Yemen, Dubai, and many others. I mention all these places individually because they’re not getting enough coverage in the media. Even Syria — despite all the trouble we’re having — is a much less autocratic place now than it was four years ago. None of this would have been possible if the United States had cut and run Mogadishu-style once things got rough in Iraq."

"A great divide takes some understanding" (Paul Shehan, The Sydney Morning Herald, 2005/12/17)
Australia II: "Though the Lebanese Muslim community is about 40,000 - just 1 per cent of Sydney's 4 million population - [Michael] Kennedy believes the social gulf has drifted to the point of social danger: "The mismanagement of this situation by politicians, lawyers and police has taken us to the point where we could see violent civil disorder on a scale we have not seen before. The minute you talk tough, and these Lebanese guys lose face, they only know one thing to do. Retaliate. You saw it immediately after the Cronulla riot." ...
While Australian provocateurs and racists were circulating mass text messages about taking back the beaches from the Lebs, similarly inflammatory text messages were soon circulating through a sub-group of Lebanese. Just as the Cronulla rally opened an opportunity for the right-wing fringe, the worst text circulating among the Lebanese carried overtones of the Lebanese civil war: "Today in the jungle the lion sleeps. Wake up, wake up oh lions of Lebanon, 'retaliate', take action for we are the king of the jungle. Show them we have awakened this Sunday. We will all meet at Brighton and together exterminate the enemy at Cronulla."
While the violence at Cronulla was racist mob hysteria, it was also alcohol-fuelled, random and spontaneous, and there have been some conspicuous apologies. In contrast, the response from the hard men in Lakemba, Punchbowl and Bankstown, was co-ordinated, armed, premeditated and took the violence to another level.
On Monday night, men in cars assembled at Punchbowl Park, then drove in convoy, with hazard lights on, to Cronulla, where the convoy proceeded in formation down both sides of the Kingsway. A megaphone was brought along to challenge people to come out and fight. It was a message. The police do not control the streets."

"Fighting on the beaches exposes ugly side of life" (Richard Guilliatt, The Times, 2005/12/17)
Australia I: "The beach was once a great equaliser, the place where everyone stripped down to a state that embodied Australia’s egalitarian image of itself, but today it is a place where cultural differences are glaringly magnified. To Anglo-Australians such as Mr Steele, that means the sight of Muslim women swimming fully clothed; to excitable Lebanese teenagers raised strictly under Islam, it is the sight of semi-naked women lounging carelessly on the sand. ...
West Sydney is a transmuted Australian suburbia in which mosques outnumber churches, Arabic inscriptions decorate the shopping strips and many women wear burkas or hijabs.
Even in a city as multiracial as Sydney, absorbing these new arrivals was always going to be a challenge. Their teenage children have borne the brunt of high unemployment and a cultural conflict between the fierce morality of home and the hedonism outside.
To young Muslim males in particular, the openly sexual nature of Australian society causes intense confusion and excitement. As one contributor to a Sydney Islamic internet forum commented this week: “From an early age they are taught by their parents that so-called ‘Australian’ girls are sluts and that the only girls worthy of respect are the Arab Muslim girls.”
From this has emerged the stereotype of the “Leb” — a swarthy, aggressive young male of Middle Eastern extraction, sporting a designer tracksuit, sneakers and haircut borrowed from American hip-hop culture. Like all stereotypes, it is crude but not entirely untrue. A disproportionate number of youths from Lebanese families fill the court system, and some are among the most feared drug criminals in western Sydney. “Leb boys” have acquired a reputation for coming to the beach in packs at weekends and harassing non-Muslim girls with crude sexual remarks." (See also: "Muslim Gang Rapes and the Aussie Riots" (Sharon Lapkin, FrontPageMagazine, 2005/12/15), "Blame race riots on police force neglect" (Tim Priest, The Australian, 2005/12/13), "Armed gangs on rampage" (Malcolm Brown et al., The Sydney Morning Herald, 2005/12/13) and "Mob violence envelops Cronulla" (The Sydney Morning Herald, 2005/12/11))

Friday, December 16, 2005

News and commentary:

"THE CULLING FIELDS"
(The Independent/The Daily Ablution, 2005/12/16)
Scott Burgess: "There's plenty of coverage of the Iraqi elections in the UK press today. Page one of the Telegraph is dominated by a photo of happy voters heading to the polls, beneath a large headline reading "Day the ballot beat the bombers". ... Given the Independent's frequent emphasis on Iraq, one would expect front page coverage there as well - unless another, much bigger story was to usurp it. In the event, that's precisely what happened..."

"Hamas scores election win in West Bank cities" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2005/12/16)
"Hamas scored a resounding victory in local elections in the main
West Bank cities in what was one of the clearest indicators of the Palestinain Islamist movement's strength ahead of January's parliamentary contest.
According to preliminary results provided by a senior election official, Hamas was savouring victory in three of the West Bank's four major cities, while Fatah was left licking its wounds following a week of violence and bitter divisions which nearly split the dominant party.
"In the cities, Hamas won a resounding victory," the official said of Thursday's contest, the fourth and final round of municipal elections widely regarded as a litmus test of the Hamas's popularity at the ballot box ahead of the January 25 parliamentary election.
Hamas agreed to participate in January in what will be its first-ever parliamentary elections after strong performances in previous local elections.
In the latest round, Hamas won in Nablus, Jenin and Al-Bireh, while Fatah and a coalition of independent candidates won a majority in Ramallah, the official said on condition of anonymity."

"Climate Change" (Lawrence F. Kaplan, The New Republic, 2005/12/16)
Iraq III: "Having been assured so many times that a corner has been turned in Iraq, a light glimpsed at the end of the tunnel, the American public today suffers from an understandable case of milestone fatigue. The capture of Saddam Hussein, the June 2004 transfer of sovereignty, the January elections, the October constitutional referendum -- each episode was hailed as a true marker of change in Iraq. And yet, with the exception of ever-worsening violence, nothing ever seemed to change. Not surprisingly, then, a chorus of administration critics has emerged to dismiss Iraq's parliamentary elections as just another calendar date. But yesterday really was a milestone. However torturous the path to Iraqi democracy may have been -- and a series of U.S. errors made it needlessly so -- for America at least, the path ended yesterday. ...
If the election does begin a process whereby Iraqis, like Nicaraguans, Salvadorans, and so many others before them, opt for the political rather than the military arena, the Bush team could claim vindication on more than one count. There have always been two schools about democratizing Iraq. The Bush approach was to hold elections quickly; but the other school, whose adherents include Newsweek editor Fareed Zakaria, former Coalition Provisional Authority advisor Larry Diamond, and this writer, has long argued that the administration was in such a rush to establish electoral democracy in Iraq that it mostly ignored the requisites of liberal democracy in Iraq -- ignoring, for instance, that the advantages of democracy routinely get lost in societies divided along ethnic and religious lines. But if the elections truly jolt Iraq's civic arena, then the rush will have been justified. And not just on grounds of political expediency: Maybe the principle of consent that lies at the heart of liberalism really does mean putting elections first."

"In Iran, Arming for Armageddon" (Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, 2005/12/16)
"To be sure, Holocaust denial and calls for Israel's destruction are commonplace in the Middle East. They can be seen every day on Hezbollah TV, in Syrian media, in Egyptian editorials appearing in semiofficial newspapers. But none of these aspiring mass murderers are on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons that could do in one afternoon what it took Hitler six years to do: destroy an entire Jewish civilization and extinguish 6 million souls.
Everyone knows where Iran's nuclear weapons will be aimed. Everyone knows they will be put on Shahab rockets, which have been modified so that they can reach Israel. And everyone knows that if the button is ever pushed, it will be the end of Israel.
But it gets worse. The president of a country about to go nuclear is a confirmed believer in the coming apocalypse. ...
So a Holocaust-denying, virulently anti-Semitic, aspiring genocidist, on the verge of acquiring weapons of the apocalypse, believes that the end is not only near but nearer than the next American presidential election. (Pity the Democrats. They cannot catch a break.) This kind of man would have, to put it gently, less inhibition about starting Armageddon than a normal person. Indeed, with millennial bliss pending, he would have positive incentive to, as they say in Jewish eschatology, hasten the end. ...
Negotiations to deny this certifiable lunatic genocidal weapons have been going nowhere. Everyone knows they will go nowhere. And no one will do anything about it."

"Freedom From Fear Lifts Sunnis" (John F. Burns, The New York Times, 2005/12/16)
Iraq II: "Ali is only 9 years old. But when he and his buddies broke away from a street soccer game to drop into a polling station in Baghdad's Adhamiya district at noon on Thursday, Ali, a chirpy, tousle-haired youngster, seemed to catch the mood of the district's Sunni Arab population as well as anybody.
"We don't want car bombs, we want security," he said. Yards away, Sunni grown-ups were casting ballots in classrooms where the boys would have been studying Arabic or arithmetic or geography - "Boring, boring!" said Ali - had the school not been drafted for use as one of 6,000 polling stations across Iraq.
On a day when the high voter turnout among Sunni Arabs was the main surprise, Ali and his posse of friends, unguarded as boys can be, acted like a chorus for the scene unfolding about them. A new willingness to distance themselves from the insurgency, an absence of hostility for Americans, a casual contempt for Saddam Hussein, a yearning for Sunnis to find a place for themselves in the post-Hussein Iraq - the boys' themes were their parents', too, only more boldly expressed. ...
Another thing many Sunnis seemed to agree on was the possibility of a reconciliation between the Americans and the Sunnis, and a distancing of the Sunnis from some of the Al Qaeda-linked insurgent groups. Many were critical of American troops, saying, as Mr. Saleh did, that "they came as liberators, but stayed on as occupiers." But pressed on the question of an American troop withdrawal, most seemed cautious, favoring a gradual drawdown.
"Let's have stability, and then the Americans can go home," said Mr. Sattar, the store owner. Told that this sounded similar to President Bush's formula for a troop withdrawal, he replied: 'Then Bush has said it correctly.'"

"Iraqis, Including Sunnis, Vote in Large Numbers on Calm Day" (Dexter Filkins, The New York Times, 2005/12/16)
Iraq I: "In a day remarkable for its calm, millions of Iraqis cast ballots across this war-torn country on Thursday to elect a Parliament to a four-year term, with Sunni Arabs turning out in what appeared to be heavy numbers and guerrillas staging relatively few attacks.
Iraqi officials said that initial indications were that as many as 11 million people cast ballots, which, if the estimate holds, would put the overall turnout at more than 70 percent. With Iraqis still lining up to vote in front of ballot centers as the sun went down, officials ordered the polls to stay open an extra hour. ...
The day was strikingly peaceful, even in areas normally beset by violence. With more than 375,000 American and Iraqi troops and police officers spread out across the country, the American command here reported 52 attacks, fewer than usual, with 18 of those against polling sites. In January, when Iraqis elected a transitional government, insurgents attacked nearly 300 times, a third of the attacks against polling places.
In villages and towns, in the Shiite south and in the Sunni Triangle, Iraqis streamed to the polls, some bringing their children, some pushing wheelchairs, many dressed in their finest clothes. With streets across Iraq closed to vehicular traffic, many Iraqis milled about after they had voted, looking on as their children played soccer. In Kirkuk, one Kurdish couple showed up at a polling center and married.
The day's events seemed a significant triumph for Iraqi officials and for the Bush administration, which has long maintained that the democratic process would begin to draw ordinary Sunnis away from the insurgency and encourage them to support democracy. Iraqi officials said election results would probably not be available for several days, possibly not even until January."

Thursday, December 15, 2005

News and commentary:

"A young Iraqi girl shows her inked finger..."
(Bob Strong, Reuters, 2005/12/15)
"A young Iraqi girl shows her inked finger after her mother and grandmother voted in Baquba, 50 km (30 miles) north of Baghdad December 15, 2005."

"Millions of Iraqis Vote in Relative Peace" (Robert H. Reid, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/12/15)
"Millions of Iraqis, from tribal sheiks to entire families with children in tow, turned out Thursday to choose a parliament in a mostly peaceful election — among the freest ever in the Arab world.
So many Sunni Arabs voted that ballots ran out in some places. The strong participation by Sunnis, the backbone of the insurgency, bolstered U.S. hopes that the election could produce a broad-based government capable of ending the daily suicide attacks and other violence that have ravaged the country since the fall of Saddam Hussein. ...
Violence was light. Insurgent groups, as promised, generally refrained from attacks on polling stations. In the Sunni Arab militant stronghold of Ramadi, masked gunmen provided by local sheiks guarded polling stations, frisking voters as they entered.
Thursday's election appeared on track to record more votes than any other parliamentary election in an Arab country — though more than 17 million people voted in a May referendum in Egypt, and more than 14.6 million in a September referendum in Algeria, according to IFES, a nonprofit organization that supports building democratic societies.
"The number of people participating is very, very high, and we have had very few irregularities," U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told The Associated Press. 'It is a good day so far — good for us, good for Iraq.'"

"Iran: Top Ministers Implicated in Serious Abuses" (Human Rights Watch, 2005/12/15)
"Iran’s new Minister of Interior is implicated in grave human rights violations over the past two decades, possibly including crimes against humanity in connection with the massacre of thousands of political prisoners, Human Rights Watch said in a briefing paper released today.
Human Rights Watch also said that the new Minister of Information should be investigated for his possible involvement in a dissident’s killing.
The briefing paper, Ministers of Murder: Iran’s New Security Cabinet, details credible allegations that Minister of Interior Mustafa Pour-Mohammadi and Minister of Information Gholamhussein Mohseni Ezhei were involved in extremely serious and systematic human rights violations over the past two decades.
“It’s completely unacceptable that men with such records would be serving in Iran’s government,” said Joe Stork deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “They should be removed from their posts and investigated for these terrible crimes.” ...
In 1988, the Iranian government executed thousands of political prisoners held inside Iranian jails. The deliberate and systematic manner in which these extrajudicial executions took place may constitute a crime against humanity under international law, Human Rights Watch said. Mustafa Pour-Mohammadi was a member of the three-person committee that ordered prisoners held in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison to their summary executions." (Hat tip: Jihad Watch. See also: "Ministers of Murder: Iran’s New Security Cabinet" (Human Rights Watch, 2005/12/15))

"Muslim Gang Rapes and the Aussie Riots" (Sharon Lapkin, FrontPageMagazine, 2005/12/15)
Australia II: "In Australia this week amidst anger over an Islamic man’s rape conviction and the bashing of two Aussie life savers, working-class locals erupted in a rampage of anger and brawling in some of the worst racial riots in decades. But there is more to the story than is being repeated in the American mainstream media....
Four days after he set foot in Australia, the rape spree began. And during his sexual assault trial in a New South Wales courtroom, the Pakistani man began to berate one of his tearful 14-year-old victims because she had the temerity to shake her head at his testimony.
But she had every reason to express her disgust. After taking an oath on the Qur’an, the man – known only as MSK – told the court he had committed four attacks on girls as young as 13 because they had no right to say “no.” They were not covering their face or wearing a headscarf, and therefore, the rapist proclaimed: “I’m not doing anything wrong.” ...
And this is where two fundamental tenets of the modern Left clash: the irresistible force of cultural relativism collides with the immovable object of gender equality. But in the 21st century it is the latter that must prevail.
The laissez faire attitudes of cultural relativism are unacceptable in modern society. Female genital mutilation is not some quaint tribal custom that we are bound to respect: it is barbarism, pure and simple.
Yet many Western leftists habitually excuse these crimes against women in order to maintain political solidarity with their allies in the Islamic world. After all, it would be tough to make common cause with Muslim groups in the antiwar movement if Progressives began to criticize the practice of polygamy.
But along with Islamic immigration to the West have come Third World value systems regarding the treatment of women. We must not be seduced by the false tenets of cultural relativism into a toleration of forced marriages, officially sanctioned rape, and honour killings." (See also: "Immigrant Rape Wave in Sweden" (Fjordman, fjordman.blogspot.com, 2005/12/12) and "Gang rapist claims right to assault" (Natasha Wallace, Sydney Morning Herald, 2005/12/10))

"Now churches are targeted" (Nick Leys and Dan Box, The Australian, 2005/12/15)
Australia I: "Four churches in Sydney's southwest have been attacked in 24 hours as the city's riots spread from race to religion.
A community hall linked to a Uniting church was burned to the ground early yesterday, carol-singers were spat on and church buildings peppered with gunfire.
In response, members of the Arab Christian and Arab Muslim communities have called for a curfew for all Lebanese youths over the weekend.
Police believe the attack on the hall, in the suburb of Auburn, was intended to destroy the Uniting church next door, while nearby St Thomas's Anglican Church, which has a primarily Chinese congregation, had all its front windows smashed. Three of the attacks were on churches within minutes of each other. The night before, Molotov cocktails were used in an attack on an Anglican church in Macquarie Fields in the city's far southwest." (Hat tip: Tim Blair.)

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

News and commentary:

"Iraqi women hold up their inked fingers..."
(Morteza Nikoubazl, Reuters, 2005/12/14)
"Iraqi women hold up their inked fingers after voting in the Iraqi parliamentary elections at a polling station in south Tehran December 14, 2005."

"The Great Revolt Continues" (Austin Bay, Strategy Page, 2005/12/14)
Iraq II: "With Iraq's latest trip to the polls, the great revolt continues.
"It's not a revolt led by generals with tanks or by millenarian terrorists, but a democratic revolution led by Iraqi men and women braving terrorist threats and bombs to vote.
Democratic politics, emerging in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine, are providing an alternative to the afflictions of war, terror and tyranny. That evil trio has dominated Central Asia and the Middle East, spilling blood, sapping economic progress and destroying hope.
Afghanistan, with its October 2004 presidential election, can lay claim to the War on Terror's first democratic electoral success. The nation, wracked by three decades of war, a Russian invasion and Taliban theo-fascism, has made astounding progress. ...
The successful, history-shaping, liberating war in Iraq has begun to "free the street." It isn't free yet. Theo-fascist and Saddamite bombs strike Baghdad every day. Syrian assassins, trying to stop Lebanon's democratic movements, are murdering Lebanese democrats. Reformers know these acts of terror are attempts to "turn back the clock" and return control of "the street" to the dictators. ...
Despite the violence, Iraqis and Palestinians are creating democratic alternatives. The world's free people need to encourage the Iraqis and Palestinians, not disparage them with defeatist rhetoric and myopic pessimism."

"Defying terror to vote for future" (Jeff Jacoby, The Boston Globe, 2005/12/14)
Iraq I: "From a story reported last year in the Daily Star of Beirut:
''They called all the prisoners out to the courtyard for what they called a 'celebration.'" The speaker is Ibrahim al-Idrissi, head of the Association for Free Prisoners, an organization that documents the deaths of Iraqi political prisoners under the former regime. He is recalling a day in 1982 at a prison in Baghdad.
''We all knew what they meant by 'celebration.' All the prisoners were chained to a pipe that ran the length of the courtyard wall. One prisoner, Amer al-Tikriti, was called out. They said if he didn't tell them everything they wanted to know, they would show him torture like he had never seen. He merely told them he would show them patience like they had never seen.
''This is when they brought out his wife, who was five months pregnant. One of the guards said that if he refused to talk he would get 12 guards to rape his wife until she lost the baby. Amer said nothing. So they did. We were forced to watch. Whenever one of us cast down his eyes, they would beat us."
''Amer's wife didn't lose the baby. So the guard took a knife, cut her belly open and took the baby out with his hands. The woman and child died minutes later. Then the guard used the same knife to cut Amer's throat."
Iraqis are not about to forget where they have been or to yield easily to those who would drag them back there. Threaten to kill them if they vote, and 8 million turn out on Election Day. Blow up a dozen men applying to join the police force, and the survivors are back in line the next morning.
Yes, there is violent death in Iraq today, as there was in the old Iraq. The difference is that then Iraqis were subjects, defenseless against one of the most brutal dictatorships on the planet. Now they are citizens of a nation that is transforming itself into the freest and most progressive democracy the Arab world has ever known. Then, they lived with daily terror and misery, and faced a future that promised only more of the same. Now, Hussein and his lieutenants are on trial, and the future Iraqis face is one they know will be of their own making."

"Hate torture? Consider boot camp" (Max Boot, Los Angeles Times, 2005/12/14)
"With all the uproar over torture, you would think we handled prisoners the way Saddam Hussein did. The former dictator's trial has featured copious testimony on how his goons raped, mutilated, beat or murdered those who fell under suspicion of disloyalty. This type of treatment — fingernails pulled, electric shocks applied, sharp objects put where they don't belong — is what the word "torture" commonly connotes. That's not what American operatives are up to.
Even the inexcusable (and unauthorized) behavior at Abu Ghraib was not as severe. Many of the abuses that critics cite seem downright trivial by comparison — a Koran splashed with urine, a prisoner smeared with red ink and told it was menstrual fluid. Homicide is suspected in the deaths of about two dozen inmates out of more than 83,000 held at some point in the war on terror. That's a wrongful death rate of 0.02%, not exactly comparable to the gulags.
By and large, prisoners are well-treated and subjected to only the mildest forms of interrogation. Questioning of detainees in Iraq is governed by Army Field Manual 34-52, which "expressly prohibit[s] acts of violence or intimidation." Interrogators must stick with "psychological ploys, verbal trickery or other nonviolent or noncoercive ruses." ...
Beyond Gitmo, the CIA has apparently used rougher methods on a dozen top Al Qaeda captives, including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. According to ABC News, interrogators have been given authority to slap them, strip them, make them stand for prolonged periods and even "waterboard" them, which involves wrapping cellophane over a subject's face and pouring water on it to induce a feeling of drowning. None of these techniques is supposed to cause injury, but they induce so much mental trauma they probably qualify as torture — albeit a much milder and more justified form of torture than what the Baathists practiced." (Note: For a closer look at the number and nature of "homicides", see also: "Truth or Consequences" (David Tell, The Weekly Standard, 2005/12/12): "Innocence is in the eye of the beholder, of course, but try this on for size: Two of the very same "homicides" the ACLU has for two months now been content to cite as evidence of "widespread" human rights abuses involve wounded Iraqi insurgents captured after armed engagements with American troops. Both men were evacuated to U.S. hospitals where surgeons attempted to save their lives. But neither man survived his injuries.")

"The French Surrender in Style" (Julia Gorin, FrontPageMagazine, 2005/12/14)
"If nothing else, the riots that just ended in France, bringing the country back to its 98 car-burnings-a-day average, should teach the French that perhaps they need to take a different approach to winning Islamic good will. They can no longer rely on being able to give their country and culture away peacefully. But amid all the knocks on the French for not being fighters, they should at least be given credit for the innovative and creative ways they come up with to surrender their way of life. The French don’t just surrender; they surrender in style — using stage and cinema.":
"France is also where a comedian like Dieudonné M'Bala M'Bala was able to rise to stardom. With a fan base of mostly Arab and black young people, the French-Cameroonian humorist did a sketch on national TV in 2003, titled “You Can’t Please Everyone,” in which he dressed as an Orthodox Jew and did a Nazi salute, saying "Isra-heil!" He has also called white Catholics “racist slave owners” and Osama bin Laden the "most important personality in contemporary history” because he “has succeeded in changing the balance of power and the method of fighting” and “that inspires respect.” Once the French realized they created a monster and Dieudonnné started seeing performances get cancelled last year, he began performing at his own theatre, to sold-out crowds. ...
What we’re witnessing now in France should serve as a cautionary tale for other Western countries as they bend over backwards to accommodate and even flatter their own restive Muslim populations — whether it’s BBC closing 10 local language radio services in Europe to pay for a new Arabic-language channel, or Nickelodeon sending a 15 year-old all-American girl on an odyssey through Islamic-American life at a private Muslim school and in an Egyptian family's home, fasting and praying toward Mecca and bringing young American audiences back a glowing report.
If France is any indication, it’ll still end in blood, only sooner."

"The Lunatic Fringe Goes Mainstream" (John Perazzo, FrontPageMagazine, 2005/12/14)
Jane Fonda, Martin Sheen, Ward Churchill, Eve Ensler, Cornel West, Cindy Sheehan, Michael Lerner, Michael Ratner, Harold Pinter, Gore Vidal, Ed Asner, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Howard Zinn, Jodie Evans, Michael Eric Dyson, Aris Anagnos, Bill Ayers, Bob Bossie, Carl Dix, Leonard Weinglass, Armando Navarro, Alice Walker...:
"The World Can’t Wait (WCW), an organization that opposes President Bush’s decision to send U.S. troops to Iraq, ran a paid advertisement in The New York Times Monday denouncing the “fascists and religious fanatics” responsible for the ongoing unrest and carnage in the land formerly ruled by the iron fist of Saddam Hussein.
WCW was not talking about bin Laden, Zarqawi, Zawahiri, and al-Sadr, et. al. – the Islamists who have vowed to wage perpetual jihad against the West until the latter is eviscerated and ultimately replaced with an Islamic caliphate. Its condemnation was aimed exclusively at the United States. Members of the Bush administration in Washington are the “fascists and religious fanatics” who are “setting out to radically remake society very quickly, in a fascist way, and for generations to come.” (Did we mention they were fascist?)
Bellowing that the U.S. government “is moving each day closer to a theocracy, where a narrow and hateful brand of Christian fundamentalism will rule,” WCW vows “to send Bush, Cheney and the rest of those fascists packing.” According to WCW, when people examine Bush’s policies, they “think of Hitler – and they are right to do so.” ...
The WCW ad was the handiwork of C. Clark Kissinger, created by the Maoist radical in June 2005. Kissinger is a longtime leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party, a Maoist vanguard dedicated to promoting civil unrest in the U.S., as evidenced by the organization’s key role in initiating the deadly Los Angeles Riots of 1992. RCP is so violent, it is considered extremist even by other Maoists. ...
Given his radical, violent history, it is worth noting the names of those who chose to endorse and sign the WCW ad that was his brainchild." (See also the ad [PDF]: "DRIVE OUT THE BUSH REGIME!" (The World Can't Wait, 2005/12/12))

"The sickness bequeathed by the west to the Muslim world" (Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian, 2005/12/14)
Friedland on Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial: "Suddenly, the usual apologetics won't work. No one can say Iran's president was really complaining about Israel or Zionism, rather than Jews. No one can say he was talking about the west's colonial crimes. He was peddling, instead, one of the defining tropes of the racist hard right: Holocaust denial. It is a stance that seeks to deny Jews their history, their suffering, almost their very being. Like denying that African-Americans were ever slaves, it is a move made by those who wish only harm.
In this light, Ahmadinejad's previous musings look rather different. When, in October, he stood beneath a banner that promised "A world without Zionism" and called for Israel to be "wiped off the map", many Jews felt a chill at what seemed an annihilationist fantasy. Cooler heads said no, this was merely the hyperbolic style of the region, deployed to press a robust anti-Zionist rather than anti-semitic case. What he wanted, they explained patiently, was a world without Zionism, not a world without Jews.
Well, now I'm done with the charitable explanations. A man who refuses to believe the historic truth is capable of anything. This is not an Arabic cable TV station or an obscure Egyptian newspaper. This is a head of government, the leader of a nation of 70 million - a country that aspires to lead the Muslim world. And, lest we forget, Iran has nuclear ambitions. So now it's not paranoid to worry about a president with annihilationist dreams - it's smart."

"Nayla Tueni..."
(Jamal Saidi, Reuters, 2005/12/14)
"Nayla Tueni, the daughter of the slain Gebran Tueni, mourns over her father's coffin inside a church during his funeral in Beirut December 14, 2005. Tens of thousands of Lebanese bid farewell on Wednesday to anti-Syrian publisher and lawmaker Tueni, turning his funeral into an outpouring of anger against Damascus, which they blame for his murder."

"Breaking The Assassins" (David Ignatius, The Washington Post, 2005/12/14)
Gebran Tueni II: "This is the time of the assassins in the Arab world. On Monday they killed a brave Lebanese journalist who dared to tell the truth about Syria. This week in Iraq they will try to kill people who want to vote. They kill wives to intimidate their husbands. They kill children to frighten their parents into silence. Their power is the ability to create raw fear.
The shame for America isn't that we have tried to topple the rule of the assassins but that we have so far been unsuccessful. We thought we were cracking the old web of terror when America invaded Iraq in 2003, but it's still there, in the shadows of the shadows. George W. Bush gets a lot of things wrong, but he knows that he's fighting the assassins. On days like these, I'm glad that he is such a stubborn man.
What is this struggle about? Listen to some Arab voices. Yesterday the front page of the Beirut daily An Nahar carried an open letter from the Syrian-born Lebanese poet known as "Adonis," perhaps the most famous writer in the Arab world. It was written to the paper's celebrated editor, Ghassan Tueni, whose outspoken son Gebran had been murdered the previous day by a car bomb. "We are witnessing the destruction of the soul and the spirit," wrote the poet, whose real name is Ali Ahmed Said. The people who killed Gebran want to create "a temple of fear."
The headline atop the newspaper's front page said this: 'Gebran didn't die and an-Nahar will continue.'"

"Gebran Tueni, R.I.P." (Claudia Rosett, OpinionJournal, 2005/12/14)
Gebran Tueni I: "As a Lebanese patriot, he refused to be cowed by Syrian censorship. In 2000 he had broken his country's long silence by publishing an explicit call for Syria to get its troops out of Lebanon. ...
Asked about the dangers of such a stance, he catalogued quickly that he had been shot twice, in 1976 and 1989; kidnapped briefly, in 1976; and exiled in 1990 for three years. ...
The common goal, he said, was to "restore democracy so we can have elections, and then we can compete with each other." On the broader front, concerning the wisdom of charting a similar course for Iraq, he had no doubts: "George Bush is doing the right job in the Middle East for us, believe me." ...
An-Nahar's new building had armed guards and bulletproof security shields and doors. But sitting in his corner office with its big picture windows, not far from the spot where Hariri was murdered, Tueni seemed both brave and terribly vulnerable. I asked him if his own life was in danger. He said he expected a wave of Syrian-backed "assassinations, booby-trapped cars," but did not think that could stop Lebanon's democratic movement. "They can kill one, two, three of us" he said, but then they are "finished."
He paused and smiled, "Better," he said, if they stop at "one."
They didn't. Gebran Tueni has now become the latest casualty in a series of terrorist bombings that are an assault not only on Lebanese democracy, but on all those in the Middle East -- or anywhere else, for that matter -- who believe government should be a matter of civil compact, not of rule by blood and fear. The urgent question by now is not only who precisely gave the order or laid the bomb, but who will act to put an end to this terror, and how."

"Church hall burned down" (AAP/NEWS.com.au, 2005/12/14)
"A fire that destroyed church hall in Sydney's west may be linked to the race riots in Cronulla, New South Wales Premier Morris Iemma said today.
Four men were seen near the Uniting Church hall, which is next to an Islamic centre, in Auburn before the fire broke out about 1.30am (AEDT) today.
It took about 30 firefighters up to two hours to control the blaze, which was still burning in small pockets this morning.
The fire follows two days of violent assaults and vandalism during ethnic clashes in Sydney.
It also follows an incident last night in nearby St Joseph the Worker Primary School where shots were fired into cars and parents abused during a Christmas carols service.
No one was hurt in the incident and police are investigating." (Hat tip: Dhimmi Watch. See also: "Australia: shots fired at church" (SkyNews/Dhimmi Watch, 2005/12/13))

"Iran President: Holocaust Is a 'Myth'" (AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/12/14)
"TEHRAN, Iran - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday the Holocaust is a "myth" that Europeans have used to create a Jewish state in the heart of the Islamic world.
"Today, they have created a myth in the name of Holocaust and consider it to be above God, religion and the prophets," Ahmadinejad told a crowd of thousands in the southeastern city of Zahedan.
Six million Jews were killed in Europe during the Nazi Holocaust of World War II. ...
"If you (Europeans) committed this big crime, then why should the oppressed Palestinian nation pay the price?" Ahmadinejad asked rhetorically Wednesday. "You (Europeans) have to pay the compensation yourself.
"This is our proposal: give a part of your own land in Europe, the United States, Canada or Alaska to them (Jews) so that the Jews can establish their country," he said.
Ahmadinejad said the West had harmed Muslims, invaded their countries and plundered their wealth.
"If your civilization consists of aggression, making oppressed people homeless, suffocating the voices of justice and bringing poverty to a majority of the world's people, we say loudly that we hate your hollow civilization," he said."

Added in archive:
"The Rise of Middle Eastern Crime in Australia" (Tim Priest, Quadrant, January-February 2004)

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

News and commentary:

"Nayla Tueni..."
(Hussein Malla, AP, 2005/12/13)
"Nayla Tueni, daughter of An-Nahar general manager and anti-Syrian lawmaker, Gibran Tueni, who was killed in a car bombing Monday, mourns while receiving condolences, in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2005."

"Bin Laden's script: ghost-written in the West" (Brendan O'Neill, spiked, 2005/12/13)
"How long before Osama bin Laden gets invited to something like the Edinburgh Book Festival, to rub shoulders with the likes of Julian Barnes, wolf down canapés and win polite applause from the chattering classes for his poetic ramblings?
One of his statements has already been published as a bona fide opinion piece in that liberal bible the Guardian (under the heading 'Resist the new Rome' in January 2004), and now there's this new book from the leftish literary publishing house Verso. It's a collection of bin Laden's statements from 1994 to 2004 with a handsome and serious jacket cover and discoloured, raggedy-edged pages to give it the look and feel of an instant classic. Reviewers have fawned over its 'magnificent, eloquent, at times even poetic Arabic prose', and claim that it shows the 'author' bin Laden (he's not really the author, being stuck in a cave and all and with few means to receive royalties) as a 'charismatic man of action, an eloquent preacher, a teacher of literature and a resilient, cunning, wonderfully briefed politician' ...
I reckon the reason why some commentators in the West seem drawn to bin Laden's prose is because at times - and I'm not going to beat around the bush here - he sounds an awful lot like them. Seriously, it is uncanny. What comes across most clearly in this 10 years' worth of rants is the extent to which bin Laden borrows and steals from Western media coverage to justify his nihilistic actions. ...
In a nutshell, bin Laden steals from and quotes Western commentators in his justifications for al-Qaeda violence, and then Western commentators re-quote bin Laden's rehashing of their own arguments as evidence that al-Qaeda is a rational political organisation. Talk about a vicious cycle. In the process, some commentators get dangerously close to being apologists for al-Qaeda." (Hat tip: Instapundit. See also: "Today's comment" (The Guardian, 2004/01/06) and "Evil yes, mad no" (Peter Preston, The Observer, 2005/11/13))

"What is a crime? It's a matter of opinion" (Mark Steyn, The Daily Telegraph, 2005/12/13)
"As it is, Lynette Burrows has been investigated by police merely for expressing an opinion. Which is the sort of thing we used to associate with police states. Indeed, it's the defining act of a police state: the arbitrary criminalisation of dissent from state orthodoxy. ...
Hollywood stars are forever complaining about the "crushing of dissent" in Bush's America, by which they mean Tim Robbins having a photo-op at the Baseball Hall of Fame cancelled because he's become an anti-war bore. But, thanks to the First Amendment, he can say anything he likes without the forces of the state coming round to grill him. It's in Britain and Europe where dissent is being crushed. Following the murder of Theo van Gogh in the Netherlands, film directors and museum curators and all the other "brave" "transgressive" artists usually so eager to "challenge" society are voting for self-censorship: "I don't want a knife in my chest," explained Albert Ter Heerdt, announcing his decision to "postpone" a sequel to his hit multicultural comedy Shouf Shouf Habibi!
But who needs to knife him when across Europe the authorities are so eager to criminalise him? No society with an eye to long-term survival should make opinion a subversive activity. Here's a thought: we should be able to discuss homosexuality, Islam and pretty much everything else in the same carefree way Guardian columnists damn Bush's America as 'neo-fascist.'"

"Iraqis celebrate outside a voting station..."
(Ali Jarekji, Reuters, 2005/12/13)
"Iraqis celebrate outside a voting station after casting their votes in Amman December 13, 2005."

"Here's my apology on the 'disaster' of the Iraq war. Now, where's yours?" (David Aaronovitch, The Times, 2005/12/13)
"Many mornings begin with the Today snort: an almost indefinable simultaneous use of sinus and larynx, it is the audio equivalent of one of Jeremy Paxman’s eyebrows leaping off his head and making a bid for freedom among the studio lights. The snort says: “What you are arguing is ridiculous and everyone knows it.” So it is a snort on behalf of everyone. And, for a long time now, the snort has been deployed against those who argue that the invasion and occupation of Iraq are anything other than a disaster. ...
In February 2003 Matthew [Parris] wrote that he would be against a war in Iraq even if there was WMD, even if it was authorised by the UN, even if a liberated Iraq was then stable, and concluded: “I’m against war because it will antagonise moderate Arab opinion.” And the Iraqi people? To be massacred, shredded, gassed, beheaded, suppressed, starved, immiserated, terrorised and tortured because all of that would be less bad than antagonising moderate Arab opinion. An Iraqi democrat stands in front of an armchair anti-interventionist, and is invisible.
I do apologise. For Abu Ghraib and Donald Rumsfeld. For not understanding the insurgents. For the looting. For the dire planning. I apologise to the election workers assassinated, the police trainees blown up, the parents of children caught in crossfire and everyone else that the planners and executors of the invasion that I supported, and still support, may have let down by neglect or stupidity. I recognise their bravery and their determination to succeed despite everything.
But a disaster compared with what? Compared with Saddam and sanctions or Saddam and cyanide. And that — the thing that Matthew presumably preferred — was not a disaster? Snort."

"Blame race riots on police force neglect" (Tim Priest, The Australian, 2005/12/13)
Australia III: "Of course, the usual claque of agenda-driven ethnic community leaders were quick to condemn the Cronulla incidents as un-Australian and racist. Never mind the multitude of racist attacks on young Australian men and women during the past decade, which have now manifested into full-blown racial retaliation.
In an article on this page nearly two years ago ("Don't turn a blind eye to terror in our midst," January 12, 2004), I argued that the increasing frequency of racially motivated attacks on young Australian men and women - including murders, gang rapes and serious assaults by young men of Lebanese Muslim descent - would rise dramatically throughout Australia. These problems remain widespread and have been documented in the ensuing two years. ...
Sunday's events are the start of what could become a long, drawn-out war of racial and social division that may be harder to cure than any of us can imagine. If we addressed the problem a decade ago when it first appeared, we may never have seen what we witnessed on Sunday.
Alas, such acts of violence will roll on intermittently for a great deal of time and in a manner few of us could have imagined in our lifetime.
For a future glimpse of Sydney, look back at recent events in Paris. No amount of mealy-mouthed rhetoric from the Government or tough talk from inexperienced police commanders is going to make the slightest bit of difference.
This is a reality, not a prediction." (Hat tip: Tim Blair. See also: "The Rise of Middle Eastern Crime in Australia" (Tim Priest, Quadrant, January-February 2004) and "Don't turn a blind eye to terror in our midst" (Tim Priest, The Australian, 2004/01/12))

"Australia: shots fired at church" (SkyNews/Dhimmi Watch, 2005/12/13)
Australia II: "Police are investigating the firing of shots overnight at a Catholic school and church in Sydney's west.
People attending a Christmas carols event at St Joseph the Worker Primary School in South Auburn heard what sounded like gunshots.
Two of the school's staff members later discovered bullet holes in their cars and more than 20 shells were recovered from the scene.
The Catholic Church says it is especially concerned at the targetting of Christmas celebrations at a school attended by children as young as five.
The carols service at Holy Spirit Primary School in Lakemba, which was scheduled for tonight, has now been cancelled."

"Armed gangs on rampage" (Malcolm Brown et al., The Sydney Morning Herald, 2005/12/13)
Australia I: "Sydney erupted in a second night of racial violence last night as Middle Eastern mobs fired shots into the air, attacked women and smashed shops around Cronulla, while up to 600 young men - armed with guns and crowbars - prepared for a battle.
In a terrifying escalation of the conflict, up to 70 cars from Hurstville and possibly Lakemba invaded Cronulla and Brighton-le-Sands to launch revenge attacks, following the vicious attacks by Cronulla locals on people of Middle Eastern appearance on Sunday.
Twenty carloads of men arrived at Cronulla by about 10.30pm, smashing shops, and cars in Elouera Road, and threatening people who got in their way. They reportedly stabbed a woman at Carringbah, but her condition was unknown.
Gunshots were heard near Northies Hotel at Cronulla and there was an unconfirmed report of a man being shot.
About 11.30pm a group of about 100 Cronulla locals surrounded a car carrying men of Middle Eastern appearance, but police cleared the crowd and let the car escape.
Hours earlier, about 200 men had assembled outside Lakemba Mosque - some armed with Glock pistols - and dozens more gathered at Campsie. ...
In Bay Street, Brighton-le-Sands, a young woman was sitting in a car when men approached and opened the door to her vehicle and put a hand up her dress, saying: "We are going to rape you, you Aussie sluts." A witness, Linda El-Hassan, 19, said a shot was fired at the woman's car but she was unhurt. Miss El-Hassan said she was Lebanese and opposed the violence. 'We all came to this country and we are all one in this country.'" (Hat tip: Tim Blair. See also: "Mob violence envelops Cronulla" (The Sydney Morning Herald, 2005/12/11))

Added in archive:
"Present at the Disintegration" (Kanan Makiya, The New York Times, 2005/12/11)
"In Iraq, Bush Pushed For Deadline Democracy" (Peter Baker and Robin Wright, The Washington Post, 2005/12/11)
"Israel wiped off the map at the UN on UN 'Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People'" (Eye on the UN, 2005/11/29)
"Suicide Bombing on Bus in Iraq Kills 30" (Hamid Ahmed, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/12/08)

Monday, December 12, 2005

News and commentary:

"Linda was brutally hit by the rapists"
(Efterlyst/Expressen, 2005/03/26)
"With blood gushing from her head wounds, Linda, 18, saw how four or five men dragged away her friend Jenny, 18. Both girls were brutally abused - before Jenny was raped." [Note: Linda and Jenny were called Malin and Amanda in the first news accounts.]

"Immigrant Rape Wave in Sweden" (Fjordman, fjordman.blogspot.com, 2005/12/12)
"Swedish girls Malin and Amanda were on their way to a party on New Year's Eve when they were assaulted, raped and beaten half to death by four Somali immigrants. Sweden's largest newspaper has presented the perpetrators as "two men from Sweden, one from Finland and one from Somalia", a testimony as to how bad the informal censorship is in stories related to immigration in Sweden. Similar incidents are reported with shocking frequency, to the point where some observers fear that law and order is completely breaking down in the country. The number of rape charges in Sweden has tripled in just above twenty years. ...
According to a new study from the Crime Prevention Council, Brå, it is four times more likely that a known rapist is born abroad, compared to persons born in Sweden. Resident aliens from Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia dominate the group of rape suspects. According to these statistics, almost half of all perpetrators are immigrants. ... Lawyer Ann Christine Hjelm, who has investigated violent crimes in Svea high court, found that 85 per cent of the convicted rapists were born on foreign soil or by foreign parents. ...
“It is not as wrong raping a Swedish girl as raping an Arab girl,” says Hamid. “The Swedish girl gets a lot of help afterwards, and she had probably fucked before, anyway. But the Arab girl will get problems with her family. For her, being raped is a source of shame. It is important that she retains her virginity until she marries.” It was no coincidence that it was a Swedish girl that was gang raped in Rissne – this becomes obvious from the discussion with Ali, Hamid, Abdallah and Richard. All four have disparaging views on Swedish girls, and think this attitude is common among young men with immigrant background. “It is far too easy to get a Swedish whore…… girl, I mean;” says Hamid, and laughs over his own choice of words." (See also: "Political uproar after mufti's remarks" (The Copenhagen Post, 2004/09/24))

"Some Iraqis Cast Ballots in Early Voting" (Qassim Abdul-Zahra, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/12/12)
Iraq II: "Patients, soldiers and prisoners began voting Monday in parliamentary elections, three days ahead of the general population, while insurgents said the balloting violated God's law, and new violence killed at least 12 people.
Five Islamic militant groups, including al-Qaida in Iraq, denounced Thursday's elections as a "satanic project," vowing to continue their war to establish an Islamic regime, according to an Internet statement. But they made no threats to disrupt the process, unlike earlier balloting when militants warned they would attack polling stations. ...
At the largest election rally of the campaign, thousands of Shiite Muslims filled the streets of Baghdad's sprawling slum of Sadr City, chanting Islamic and anti-insurgent slogans.
"Yes, yes to Islam! Yes, yes to Iraq! Yes, yes to the religious leadership!" the group yelled as they waved Iraqi flags and pictures of the sect's top leaders amid tight security."

"Iraqi soldiers cheer showing ink-stained fingers..."
(Mauricio Lima, AFP, 2005/12/12)
"Iraqi soldiers cheer showing ink-stained fingers after casting their vote, at a polling station held inside the Iraqi army base in Nasser wa Salam, an Arab Sunni area west of Baghdad. Hospital patients, prison detainees and security forces started voting to elect a full-term parliament set to restore full sovereignty to war-torn Iraq nearly three years after the US-led invasion."

"Poll: Broad Optimism in Iraq, But Also Deep Divisions Among Groups" (Gary Langer and Jon Cohen, ABC News, 2005/12/12)
Iraq I. The astonishment conveyed by the reporters reminds me of a passage by Podhoretz in "The Panic Over Iraq" [emphasis added]:

"There has been one great exception to this relentless drumbeat of bad news. It occurred in January 2005, in the coverage of the first election in liberated Iraq. To the astonishment of practically everyone in the world, more than eight million Iraqis came out to vote on election day even though the Islamofascist terrorists had threatened to slaughter them if they did. This very astonishment was a measure of how false an impression had been created of the state of affairs in Iraq. No one fed by the mainstream media could have had the slightest inkling that these eight million people were actually there, so invisible had they been to reporters who spent all their time interviewing the discontented Iraqi man-in-the-street and to cameras seemingly incapable of focusing on anything but carnage and rubble.
But the mainstream media soon recovered from the shock."

"Surprising levels of optimism prevail in Iraq with living conditions improved, security more a national worry than a local one, and expectations for the future high. But views of the country's situation overall are far less positive, and there are vast differences in views among Iraqi groups — a study in contrasts between increasingly disaffected Sunni areas and vastly more positive Shiite and Kurdish provinces.
An ABC News poll in Iraq, conducted with Time magazine and other media partners, includes some remarkable results: Despite the daily violence there, most living conditions are rated positively, seven in 10 Iraqis say their own lives are going well, and nearly two-thirds expect things to improve in the year ahead.
Surprisingly, given the insurgents' attacks on Iraqi civilians, more than six in 10 Iraqis feel very safe in their own neighborhoods, up sharply from just 40 percent in a poll in June 2004. And 61 percent say local security is good — up from 49 percent in the first ABC News poll in Iraq in February 2004. ...
Average household incomes have soared by 60 percent in the last 20 months (to $263 a month), 70 percent of Iraqis rate their own economic situation positively, and consumer goods are sweeping the country. In early 2004, 6 percent of Iraqi households had cell phones; now it's 62 percent. Ownership of satellite dishes has nearly tripled, and many more families now own air conditioners (58 percent, up from 44 percent), cars, washing machines and kitchen appliances.
There are positive political signs as well. Three-quarters of Iraqis express confidence in the national elections being held this week, 70 percent approve of the new constitution, and 70 percent — including most people in Sunni and Shiite areas alike — want Iraq to remain a unified country."

"New evidence implicates Syria in Hariri death: UN" (Evelyn Leopold, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2005/12/12)
"A U.N. inquiry on Monday reported it had fresh evidence to reinforce earlier findings of Syrian involvement in the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri and said Damascus had hindered the probe.
The report presented to the U.N. Security Council by German Prosecutor Detlev Mehlis also said that Syria had burned some papers relating to Lebanon and pressured one witness to recant his testimony. ...
A report by Mehlis in October implicated top Syrian security officials and their Lebanese allies in the death of Hariri and 22 others in a truck bombing on February 14 in Beirut.
"In the interval since the presentation of that report, the investigation has continued to develop multiple lines of inquiry which, if anything, reinforce those conclusions," Mehlis said on Monday.
The new information "points directly at perpetrators, sponsors and organizers of an organized operation aiming at killing Mr. Hariri, including the recruitment of special agents by the Lebanese and Syrian intelligence services, handling of improvised explosive devices, a pattern of threats against targeted individuals and planning of other criminal activities," the report said."

"Anti-Syrian journalist and lawmaker Gibran Tueni holds a pen..."
(Hussein Malla, AP, 2005/06/03)
"Anti-Syrian journalist and lawmaker Gibran Tueni holds a pen, symbol of the freedom of the press, during an hour of silence to mourn the death of slain Lebanese journalist Samir Kassir at a sit-in in Martyrs' Square, in Beirut, Lebanon, in this June 3, 2005 file photo. Tueni was one of three people killed when a car bomb exploded as his motorcade drove through the industrial suburb of Mkalles. Another 30 people were wounded in the bombing."

"Anti-Syrian Journalist Killed in Lebanon" (Zeina Karam, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/12/12)
"BEIRUT, Lebanon - A prominent anti-Syrian journalist and lawmaker was killed by a car bomb Monday, a day after returning from France, where he had been staying periodically for fear of assassination.
A previously unknown group claimed responsibility, saying Gibran Tueni was "spreading poisons and lies despite our repeated warnings to him."
Tueni played a major role in the huge demonstrations that, combined with international pressure, forced Syria to withdraw its troops from Lebanon in April, ending a 29-year presence in the neighboring country. Those demonstrations were triggered by a February car bomb that killed former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Tueni's uncle, Telecommunications Minister Marwan Hamadeh, and the leading Lebanese politician Walid Jumblatt blamed Syria for the bombing — a charge Syria denied.
Police said Tueni was one of three people killed when a car bomb exploded as his motorcade drove through Mkalles, an industrial suburb of Beirut. The others killed were his driver and an unidentified passer-by.
Another 30 people were wounded in the bombing, which started a fire that destroyed at least 10 vehicles. In the aftermath, church bells tolled and men wept in the street.
Jumblatt said the bombing was intended to silence a voice seeking those responsible for Hariri's assassination. Tueni, 48, was a respected columnist and the general manager of An-Nahar, the country's leading newspaper. His writings often raised the ire of Syria."

"On Trial" (Orhan Pamuk, The New Yorker, 2005/12/12)
"In Istanbul this Friday—in Sisli, the district where I have spent my whole life, in the courthouse directly opposite the three-story house where my grandmother lived alone for forty years—I will stand before a judge. My crime is to have “publicly denigrated Turkish identity.” The prosecutor will ask that I be imprisoned for three years. ...
Last February, in an interview published in a Swiss newspaper, I said that “a million Armenians and thirty thousand Kurds had been killed in Turkey”; I went on to complain that it was taboo to discuss these matters in my country. Among the world’s serious historians, it is common knowledge that a large number of Ottoman Armenians were deported, allegedly for siding against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, and many of them were slaughtered along the way. ...
The hardest thing was to explain why a country officially committed to entry in the European Union would wish to imprison an author whose books were well known in Europe, and why it felt compelled to play out this drama (as Conrad might have said) “under Western eyes.” This paradox cannot be explained away as simple ignorance, jealousy, or intolerance, and it is not the only paradox. What am I to make of a country that insists that the Turks, unlike their Western neighbors, are a compassionate people, incapable of genocide, while nationalist political groups are pelting me with death threats? What is the logic behind a state that complains that its enemies spread false reports about the Ottoman legacy all over the globe while it prosecutes and imprisons one writer after another, thus propagating the image of the Terrible Turk worldwide?"

"The Panic Over Iraq" (Norman Podhoretz, OpinionJournal, 2005/12/12)
Podhoretz compares "the American panic of 1776-77 and the American panic of 2005-06":
"To put it in the simplest and starkest terms: In that early stage of the Revolutionary War, there was sound reason to fear that the British would succeed in routing Washington's forces. In Iraq today, however, and in the Middle East as a whole, a successful outcome is staring us in the face. Clearly, then, the panic over Iraq -- which expresses itself in increasingly frenzied calls for the withdrawal of our forces -- cannot have been caused by the prospect of defeat. On the contrary, my twofold guess is that the real fear behind it is not that we are losing but that we are winning, and that what has catalyzed this fear into a genuine panic is the realization that the chances of pulling off the proverbial feat of snatching an American defeat from the jaws of victory are rapidly running out. ...
Take Zbigniew Brzezinski, who left the academy to serve as Jimmy Carter's national security adviser and is now a professor again. In a recently published piece entitled "American Debacle," Mr. Brzezinski began by accusing George W. Bush of "suicidal statecraft," went on to pronounce the intervention in Iraq (along with everything else this president has done) a total disaster, and ended by urging that we withdraw from that country "perhaps even as early as next year." Unlike the late Sen. George Aiken of Vermont, who once proposed that we declare victory in Vietnam and then get out, Mr. Brzezinski wants to declare defeat in Iraq and then get out. This, he mysteriously assures us, will help restore "the legitimacy of America's global role." ...
And how, by the same token, could talk of this kind fail to give new heart to the Islamofascist terrorists -- just when they are on the run? How could they not be delighted to see the elected representatives of the American people carrying on a heated debate in which the only questions at issue are how quickly to bug out of Iraq, and whether to fix a timetable and a deadline? How could they not feel vindicated when, after being surprised by the fierce reaction of the Americans to 9/11, they now behold fresh evidence for believing that Osama bin Laden was right after all when he called us a paper tiger?" (Note: The article will also appear in the January edition of Commentary: "The Panic Over Iraq" (Norman Podhoretz, Commentary, January 2006). See also: "Mr. Stability: The wrongness of Brent Scowcroft's realism" (Christopher Hitchens, Slate, 2005/11/01))

"Immigrants' Dreams Mix With Fury in a Gray Place Near Paris" (Elaine Sciolino, The New York Times, 2005/12/12)
"La Courneuve, a town of 35,000 people of 80 nationalities and ethnic backgrounds, is a world away from Paris, though only a 10-minute ride on the high-speed intercity train.
It has become a symbol of France's failure to integrate millions of Arab and African immigrants - many of them Muslims - and their French-born children and grandchildren. It is also here that events helped start the riots that recently gripped poor neighborhoods throughout France.
The frustration and fury of the rioters is still visible in the two charred carcasses of delivery trucks that flank the main road into La Courneuve. They are even more apparent in conversations with the town's residents, those who, like Djamila, struggle to make do, and those who, like her son Looping, feel that every way out is blocked. ...
The young - including Looping, she fears - easily fall victim to the cheap and plentiful hashish "that destroys their brains," she said. Those who burn cars are not evil, but understandably alienated. Her sons are never considered French, even though they were born in France, but rather "children of immigrants."
"Why do you think the young have revolted?" she asked. "There is no exit, no factories, no jobs for them. They see too much injustice, too, too, too much. Society no longer offers them anything - no values, no morality, no place."
Outside the Balzac, the toughest public-housing apartment block in this tough town outside Paris, a young man rams a Peugeot into a parked car, piercing the afternoon ennui with the sound of crashing metal and tinkling glass. No police officers witness the act, but a band of comrades approve it with a loud whoop."

Added in archive:
"'Do Some Soul Searching': Why aren't the media telling the whole story about Iraq?" (Donald Rumsfeld, OpinionJournal, 2005/12/07)
"Dems in Disarray" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2005/12/06)
"Kerry Supports the Troops" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2005/12/05)
"Our Troops Must Stay" (Joe Lieberman, OpinionJournal, 2005/11/29)

See the archive for earlier news and commentary.

 

 

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"When people accept futility and the absurd as normal, the culture is decadent. The term is not a slur; it is a technical label."

Jacques Barzun

Articles of the week

"Losing the Enlightenment" (Victor Davis Hanson, OpinionJournal, 2006/11/29)

"Allah’s England?" (Daniel Johnson, Commentary. November 2006)

"'Sex in the Park': The latest doings of the Danish imams" (Henrik Bering, The Weekly Standard, 2006/11/18)

"Narcissism on Stilts" (Harold Evans, New York Sun, 2006/11/16)

"Terrorists are recruiting in our schools, says MI5 boss" (Philip Johnston, The Daily Telegraph, 2006/11/10)

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From the archives

Oriana Fallaci, R.I.P.

"The Rage, the Pride and the Doubt" (Oriana Fallaci, The Wall Street Journal, 2003/03/13)

"How the West Was Won and How It Will Be Lost" (Oriana Fallaci, The American Enterprise, from the January/February 2003 issue)

"On Jew-hatred in Europe" (Oriana Fallaci, dennisprager.com, 2002/04/13)

"Anger and Pride" (Oriana Fallaci, dennisprager.com, 2001/12/19)

Weekly archive

2006/12/04 - 2006/12/10
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December 2006