Archived news and commentary: December 26 - January 1, 2005 - 2006

2005/12/26 - 2006/01/01
2005/12/19 - 2005/12/25
2005/12/12 - 2005/12/18
2005/12/05 - 2005/12/11
2005/11/28 - 2005/12/04
2005/11/21 - 2005/11/27

› From 2001/09/11 -

Sunday, January 1, 2006

News and commentary:

"Iran President: Israel Completed Holocaust" (Nasser Karimi, AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/01/01)
"Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's hard-line president who has said the Holocaust was a myth, now has charged that European countries sought to complete the genocide by establishing a Jewish state in the midst of Muslim countries.
"Don't you think that continuation of genocide by expelling Jews from Europe was one of their aims in creating a regime of occupiers of Al-Quds (Jerusalem)?" the official Islamic Republic News agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying Sunday. "Isn't that an important question?"
Ahmadinejad said Europeans had decided to create a "Jewish camp" as the best means for ridding the continent of Jews. He said the camp,
Israel, now enjoyed support from the United States and Europe in the slaughter of Muslims.
In October, Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be "wiped off the map."
Last month, Ahmadinejad said the Holocaust, in which Nazi Germany killed six million Jews, was a myth. After global outrage over the comments, he said that Europeans, if they insist the Holocaust occurred, should cede some of their territory for a Jewish state."

"Mushrooming Crisis" (Steven Forbes, Forbes, 2006/01/01)
"For Iran's black-robed fascists to develop nuclear weapons would be an immense setback in the war against Islamic fanaticism. It would embolden terrorists. Tehran would see itself in a position to encourage the overthrow of the Saudi monarchy — or, at the least, bend it to its will. Is military action the only alternative? Yes, unless somehow internal Iranian pressures (the mullahs are despised by most Iranians), as well as international pressures, force either a fundamental change in this fascist theocracy or its actual overthrow. Iraq's impressive progress since mid-2004 in building an economy in which new businesses are proliferating, property prices are rapidly rising, new schools and hospitals are opening, and a new democratic political order is under way can only undermine the mullahs, who preside over a sick economy kept alive solely by the oil windfall. But time is running short.
Could the Bush Administration summon the internal fortitude to undertake the necessary air strikes and possible ground action to set back Iran's nuclear ambitions for five to ten years? Alternatively, could one imagine the White House giving Israel the green light to launch air strikes?
Alas, the White House has done next to nothing to prepare and persuade the U.S. public of the possible need for stern measures here. Thankfully President Ahmadinejad's consistent public statements on the "myth" of the Holocaust will make clear to not only us but also the European masses and elites that this regime poses an increasingly mortal threat to our safety, that European-style diplomacy (a mechanism for doing nothing) is no longer viable."

"The Truth About Iraq" (Ralph Peters, New York Post, 2006/01/01)
"Our critics, foreign and domestic, will continue to ignore the human rights of millions while shrieking over the "mistreatment" of imprisoned terrorists and demanding a "fair" trial for Saddam (in Europe, with no death penalty). But the left's self-righteous bluster sounds more like sour-grape nagging every day. ...
After failing to convince America's citizens or our troops that Iraq was doomed, our get-Bush-at-all-costs media shifted to exaggerating the domestic threat from intelligence surveillance. To hear the pundits howl, you'd think the National Security Agency had microphones in our showers and the CIA kept agents under our beds. But the dictatorship-of-the-intellectuals bunch failed again — instead of being outraged, a large majority of Americans support using any intelligence means necessary to get the terrorists before they get us. Made-in-Missouri common sense wins again.
We should be encouraged by the progress in Iraq and heartened by the American people's distrust of elitist propaganda. From Hollywood's latest anti-American rant to the decaying New York Times, the stars of the America's Most Arrogant Show have had to learn yet again that we don't take orders from trust-fund snots, campus cowards or actors (when Alfred Hitchcock said, "Actors are cattle," he was being far too kind)."

"Palestinian gunmen blow up U.N. club in Gaza City" (Nidal al-Mughrabi, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2006/01/01)
"Masked gunmen stormed into a club for United Nations workers in Gaza City on Sunday and blew up the drinking hall in a new sign of spiralling unrest ahead of a Palestinian election.
It was the first such attack in Gaza on a U.N. target and came against a backdrop of growing unease among foreigners. Just over one day earlier, a group freed three British hostages that had been seized to demand foreign pressure on Israel. ...
Gunmen burst into the U.N. club, one of the few places that alcohol is served in conservative Muslim Gaza. It had been closed for the day. The attackers tied up the security guard and struck him with gun butts.
Then they set explosives in front of the bar, unrolled a detonator cable and blew up the charges, ripping up the roof and shattering the windows.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
The United Nations is generally viewed with sympathy Gaza. Its agency supporting Palestinian refugees and their descendants, more than half of Gaza's 1.4 million population, is the second biggest employer after the
Palestinian Authority.
"The club has been there for 50 years," said one U.N. security worker. 'This is the first time anything like this has happened.'"

"Senior PA official: We're no longer in control" (Khaled Abu Toameh, The Jerusalem Post, 2006/01/01)
"Palestinian Authority officials on Saturday expressed deep concern over the growing state of anarchy and lawlessness in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, warning that the PA was rapidly losing control.
Some Palestinians compared the situation to what's happening in Somalia, which is divided by fiefdoms run by clan leaders and warlords.
"The situation in the Palestinian territories is very dangerous because we are no longer in control," a senior PA official here admitted.
He said the latest cycle of internal violence, including the kidnapping of foreigners, attacks on public buildings and installations, and gun battles between rival gangs and clans, raise serious doubts as to whether next month's parliamentary elections could be held on time.
Gunmen belonging to the ruling Fatah Party over the weekend issued several warnings to international monitors against arriving in the Palestinian territories to observe the elections.
On Saturday, a group of gunmen stormed a hotel in Nablus and kicked out a number of foreign monitors who had arrived in the city to prepare for the vote. More than 120 monitors from different countries are expected to oversee the vote. ...
Dr. Jamal Majaideh, a prominent political analyst from the Gaza Strip, said the situation in the Palestinian territories was 'similar to Taliban-controlled areas in Afghanistan and farms controlled by Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi in Iraq.'" (See also: "Raid at Crossing Is Latest Mayhem in Gaza" (Sarah El Deeb, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/12/30))

Saturday, December 31, 2005

News and commentary:

"Bombing Kills Eight at Indonesian Market" (Abdi Mari, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/12/31)
"PALU, Indonesia - Suspected Islamic militants set off a powerful bomb packed with nails Saturday at a busy market frequented by Christians, killing eight people and wounding 45 as they bought pork for New Year's Eve celebrations.
The blast occurred in Palu on Sulawesi Island, which has been plagued in recent years by religious violence and terrorism by Islamic extremists.
The early morning explosion sent ball bearings and nails tearing into vendors and shoppers, leaving the market scattered with dismembered bodies. Police and passers-by carried bloodied bodies to cars. One man, apparently unhurt, held his head in his hands as he screamed.
"There was a billow of smoke and then a massive bang and my ears were deafened," said Kartini, a 32-year-old Christian woman who was hospitalized with shrapnel wounds to her chest and feet.
"I was in shock and had to tell myself to move away. I screamed for help," said Kartini, who like many Indonesians uses a single name.
Police said eight people died in the attack. Hospital officials said at least 45 were wounded, with more than 20 suffering serious injuries.
The religious affiliations of the dead were not immediately released. However, the market sold only pig and dog meat, both of which are forbidden under Islam. Few, if any, Muslims would have been in the covered market."

"Germans to put Muslims through loyalty test" (Kate Connolly, The Daily Telegraph, 2005/12/31)
"Muslims intent on becoming German citizens will have to undergo a rigorous cultural test to gauge their views on subjects ranging from bigamy to homosexuality.
Believed to be the first test of its kind in Europe, the southern state of Baden-Württemberg has created the two-hour oral exam to test the loyalty of Muslims towards Germany.
It is to be taken on top of the standard test for foreigners wishing to become German citizens, which includes language proficiency skills and general knowledge.
It also requires applicants to prove that they can provide for themselves and their families.
Those applying must also have resided in Germany for the previous eight years and have no criminal record. ...
Until now, all applicants have simply had to tick a Yes or No box to answer whether they felt loyalty to Germany.
But now they will be quizzed on their attitudes to homosexuality and western clothing for young women, and whether husbands should be allowed to beat their wives.
Other questions covering topics such as bigamy and whether parents should allow their children to participate in school sports have been called "trick questions", meant to catch people off guard."

"Syrian Ex-Official Says Assad Threatened Hariri" (Scott Wilson, The Washington Post, 2005/12/31)
"Syria's former vice president said in a television interview Friday that President Bashar Assad threatened former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri in the months before Hariri's assassination and that the sophisticated operation to kill him could not have been carried out on the authority of only one agency.
"Hariri was subjected to many threats from Syria," Abdul Halim Khaddam, who resigned the vice presidency in June after two decades as a confidant of the Assad family, told al-Arabiya television in an interview from Paris. "Dangerous things were said."
Khaddam stopped short of accusing Assad of personal involvement in the decision to kill Hariri on Feb. 14 in Beirut. But he said that "in principle, no government body in Syria, be it a security apparatus or otherwise, can single-handedly make this decision."
He added: 'This is a big operation with an apparatus behind it, not individuals. What apparatus? That is what the probe will reveal.'"

Friday, December 30, 2005

News and commentary:

"Bahraini Women's Rights Activist Ghada Jamshir Attacks Islamic Clerics for Issuing Fatwas Authorizing Sexual Abuse of Infants" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 1060, 2005/12/30)
"The following are excerpts from an interview with Bahraini women's rights activist Ghada Jamshir, which aired on Al-Arabiya TV on December 21, 2005.":
"Interviewer: "What do you have against the Shari'a courts?"
Ghada Jamshir: "I have a lot against them. What they have done to Bahraini women is not a trivial matter. For years women have been going into these courts, only to be oppressed and treated unjustly. We have reached the point that we say: Enough. We have reached the breaking point. ...
We have a problem with family planning. We have no family planning in Bahrain. The Shiites in Bahrain have marriages for the purpose of mut'ah [pleasure]. They bring multitudes of children into the world, without thinking, who grow up in the streets." ...
Interviewer: "Some people say that Ghada Jamshir is a Sunni, and that this is why she is leading the battle against [mut'ah] marriages, which are authorized by religious law among the Shi'ites."
Ghada Jamshir: "Authorized by religious law?!"
Interviewer: "Among the Shiites, yes."
Ghada Jamshir: "Does the Islamic Shari'a authorize mut'ah marriages? Does the Islamic Shari'a authorize mut'ah according to the following classification: 'Pleasure from sexual contact with her thighs.' They have: 'Pleasure from sexual touching,' 'pleasure from sexual contact with her breasts.' 'Pleasure from a little girl.' Do you know what 'pleasure from a little girl' means? It means that they derive sexual pleasure from a girl aged two, three, or four."
Interviewer: "Let's not go into details..."
Ghada Jamshir: "Let me tell you what 'pleasure from sexual contact with her thighs' means..."
Interviewer: "Don't give me the details..."
Ghada Jamshir: 'This is a violation of children's rights! This constitutes sexual assault of the girl. What does 'pleasure from sexual contact with her thighs' mean? It means deriving sexual pleasure from an infant. How old is an infant? One year, a year and a half, a few months?
Is it conceivable for a grown man to have sex with an infant girl? And you people tell me that the Islamic Shari'a authorizes this?'"

"The Plague of Success" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2005/12/30)
"Afghanistan in October, 2001, conjured up almost immediately warnings of quagmire, expanding Holy War at Ramadan, unreliable allies, a trigger-happy nuclear Pakistan on the border, American corpses to join British and Russian bones in the high desert — not a seven-week victory and a subsequent democracy in Kabul of all places.
Nothing in our era would have seemed more unlikely than democrats dethroning the Taliban and al Qaeda — hitherto missile-proof in their much ballyhooed cave complexes that maps in Newsweek assured us rivaled Norad's subterranean fortress. The prior, now-sanctified Clinton doctrine of standoff bombing ensured that there would be no American fatalities and almost nothing ever accomplished — the perfect strategy for the focus-group/straw-poll era of the 1990s.
Are we then basking in the unbelievable notion that the most diabolical government of the late 20th century is gone from Afghanistan, and in its place are schools, roads, and voting machines? Hardly, since the bar has been astronomically raised since Tora Bora. After all, the Afghan parliament is still squabbling and a long way from the city councils of Cambridge, La Jolla, or Nantucket — or maybe not.
The same paradox of success is true of Iraq. Before we went in, analysts and opponents forecasted burning oil wells, millions of refugees streaming into Jordan and the Gulf kingdoms, with thousands of Americans killed just taking Baghdad alone. Middle Eastern potentates warned us of chemical rockets that would shower our troops in Kuwait. On the eve of the war, had anyone predicted that Saddam would be toppled in three weeks, and two-and-a-half-years later, 11 million Iraqis would turn out to vote in their third election — at a cost of some 2100 war dead — he would have been dismissed as unhinged.
But that is exactly what has happened. And the reaction? Democratic firebrands are now talking of impeachment."

"12 Sudanese Killed in Egypt Squatter Camp" (Ben Curtis, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/12/30)
"Egyptian police turned water cannons on Sudanese war refugees and beat them with sticks Friday, seeking to end a three-month protest at the ramshackle squatters camp in a small city park. At least a dozen people were killed, according to government figures, and one of the protest leaders estimated the deaths at more than double that.
Hundreds of Sudanese have been living in the park since September to protest the U.N. refugee agency's refusal to consider them for refugee status. ...
Shortly before dawn, thousands of riot police encircled the camp, set up near the refugee agency to draw attention to the refugees' demands. Police fired water cannons at the protesters, then invaded the park when the Sudanese refused to leave.
Protesters could be seen fighting back with long sticks that appeared to be supports for makeshift tents.
Police beat the unarmed migrants with batons, continuing to hit them even as they were being dragged to the buses. One officer carried a girl of about 3 or 4 years old who was unconscious. An ambulance worker said the girl was dead.
A policeman clubbed a Sudanese man with a tree branch as two officers hauled the refugee away.
An official Interior Ministry statement said 12 protesters died and 74 police were wounded, but other ministry officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press, put the number of dead at 20."

"Raid at Crossing Is Latest Mayhem in Gaza" (Sarah El Deeb, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/12/30)
"Rampaging Palestinian policemen, furious over the killing of a colleague, took over the Gaza-Egypt border crossing for several hours Friday, forcing European monitors to flee, in the latest sign of growing mayhem in the coastal strip.
Gaza has experienced a wave of shootouts, kidnappings and armed takeovers of government buildings in recent months, undermining Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' efforts to impose law and order in the wake of Israel's withdrawal from the area in September. In new violence, a 14-year-old boy was killed Friday when a powerful Palestinian family attacked a local police station for a second straight day.
With Friday's border takeover, along with this week's kidnapping of a British aid worker and her parents, the chaos appears to be spreading to outsiders brought in to help develop the area following Israel's pullout. ...
About 100 policemen stormed the Rafah border terminal Friday morning, firing in the air and taking up positions at the crossing, security officials and witnesses said.
The unarmed European observers — responsible for enforcing terms of the Israeli-Palestinian agreement that opened the border last month — then took refuge in a nearby Israeli military base, forcing the terminal to halt operations."

"Islamic Jihad claims Thursday's West Bank suicide bombing" (Amos Harel, Haaretz, 2005/12/30)
"The Islamic Jihad militant group claimed responsibility Friday for a suicide bombing in the West Bank that killed one soldier and two other Palestinians.
Islamic Jihad activists in the West Bank village of Atil, near Tul Karm, announced on loudspeakers that their bomber, Sohieb Ibrahim Yassin, 19, carried out Thursday's attack.
Army sources said the suicide bomber who killed an Israel Defense Forces officer and two Palestinians at an army checkpoint near Tul Karm Thursday was apparently planning to blow himself up at one of the many children's events taking place in Tel Aviv during this week's Hanukkah holiday.
Had the bomber not been stopped at the checkpoint, the attack would have been far more deadly, said the sources."

Thursday, December 29, 2005

News and commentary:

"Arab FMs Blast Denmark Over Anti-Prophet Cartoons" (Islam Online, 2005/12/29)
"Arab foreign ministers on Thursday, December 29, lambasted the Danish government's reaction to the controversial anti-Prophet cartoons published by the country's mass-circulation daily.
"The ministers have expressed their surprise and indignation at the reaction of the Danish government, which was disappointing despite its political, economic and cultural ties with the Muslim world," they said in a statement cited by Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Gathered at the Arab League, the ministers decided that Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa would pursue the matter with the Danish authorities. ...
The Arab foreign ministers also criticized "European human rights organizations who did not adopt a clear-cut stance on the issue."
Al-Azhar, the highest seat of religious learning in the Sunni world, has vowed to raise the issue of the provocative caricatures with the UN and international human rights organizations.
A five-member delegation representing 21 Islamic centers and organizations in Denmark has recently met Moussa, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Sheikh Mohammad Sayyed Tantawi and Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit." (Hat tip: Dhimmi Watch. See also: "EU commissioner lashes out at Mohammed drawings" (The Copenhagen Post, 2005/12/23))

"Behind the smiles, trans-Atlantic bile" (Reginald Dale, International Herald Tribune, 2005/12/29)
Some readers might have noticed that I barely have covered some recent "scandals" at all. One example is the question of secret CIA flights in Europe, connected to secret prisons in Eastern Europe for terror suspects. One reason is that my immediate reaction to some of these "scandals" is that it rather would be a scandal if they hadn't. I surely hope that European secret services are cooperating with CIA when it comes to anti-terrorism. And I would be quite a bit more upset if CIA flights hadn't been allowed to land in Western Europe.
But make no mistake, the CIA flight "scandal" was HUGE in Swedish and European media, with daily coverage going on for weeks, at times bordering on UFO-logy. The translated headlines below are just a handful of almost thousand articles in Swedish media on the subject.
As it often does, the hysteria says a lot more about the hysteric than about the subject at hand:

"No evidence of CIA landings" (TT/Sydsvenskan, 2005/12/08)
"Experts: Crime to allow CIA aircraft" (TT/Sydsvenskan, 2005/12/08)
"Accusations hail against CIA before Rice's voyage" (TT/Hufvudstadsbladet, 2005/12/04)
"CIA was allowed to land in Great Britain" (TT/Vestmanlands Läns Tidning, 2005/12/04)
"'Ghost Prisoner' sues CIA" (TT/tv4, 2005/12/02)
"Paper: Hundreds of CIA landings in Europe" (Jakobstads Tidning, 2005/12/01)
"Suspected CIA aircraft on Swedish photo" (TT/Svenska Dagbladet, 2005/11/21)
"EU asks US to explain CIA flights" (Jakobstads Tidning, 2005/11/21)
"CIA flight was wedding plane" (tv4, 2005/11/17)
"Europe increasingly worried by CIA planes" (Västerbottens-Kuriren, 2005/11/16)
"Persson: CIA has landed in Sweden" (Aftonbladet, 2005/11/16)
"The Government will investigate CIA flights" (TT/Örnsköldsviks Allehanda, 2005/11/15)
"CIA plane said to have landed in Sweden" (svt.se, 2005/11/14)

"And a still highly anti-American European public is further away from accepting U.S. leadership, or even partnership, than it has been for many years.
The fundamental difficulty is that despite Washington's recent blandishments, the majority of the European intelligentsia, the news media and the political classes believe that the United States, particularly under Bush, is domineering and dangerous. They pounce on every alleged misdeed, from so-called "torture flights" carrying terrorist suspects to secret prisons to purported infringements of American civil liberties, as avidly as Bush's most virulent opponents in the United States.
This distorted view of America is fed by widespread envy of U.S. power. As long as it persists, many Europeans will be reluctant to commit themselves to a stronger Atlantic partnership. Political leaders who want to work with the United States, especially against terrorism, are frightened of saying so too openly. Although Atlanticism is far from dead in Europe, discussions of trans-Atlantic relations too often focus on the alleged shortcomings of the United States, rather than on constructive new ideas for collaboration. ...
Despite the undeniable improvements at surface level, these deep, underlying trans-Atlantic tensions are unlikely to disappear for years, at best."

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

News and commentary:

"MULTI-KULTUR-HAUS"
(Jan Pitman, AP, 2005/01/12)
"The Multi-Cultural Center MKH in Neu-Ulm, southern Germany, in a Jan. 12, 2005 file photo. Authorities in Germany on Wednesday, Dec. 28, 2005 banned an Islamic group running the MKH after seizing material allegedly inciting Muslims to kill Jews and Christians and carry out suicide attacks in Iraq. The state of Bavaria said the activities of the Multi-Kultur-Haus association threatened the coexistence of Germans and foreigners as well as security in the country."

"German Authorities Close Islamic Center" (Stephen Graham, AP/ABC News, 2005/12/28)
Shutting down the Multi-Kultur-Haus: "Authorities on Wednesday shut down an Islamic center once attended by a man who accuses the CIA of kidnapping him and sending him to a secret Afghan prison to be abused and interrogated.
The man's lawyer has linked the alleged kidnapping to the investigation of extremist activity at the center.
The state government of Bavaria said Wednesday it was shutting down the Multi-Kultur-Haus association in the southern town of Neu-Ulm after it seized material urging Muslims to carry out suicide attacks in Iraq.
Khaled al-Masri, a Kuwait-born German citizen who is suing the CIA for allegedly spiriting him to Afghanistan for interrogation, has said he visited the center several times before he was snatched. ...
Al-Masri's case has stoked debate in Germany about how to prevent terrorist attacks while safeguarding civil liberties. Federal Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, for instance, is calling for tougher laws so that anyone who has trained in camps in Afghanistan can be prosecuted.
In remarks published Wednesday, Uwe Schuenemann, the interior minister of Lower Saxony state, floated a new idea: placing electronic tags on foreign extremists who cannot be deported to their countries of origin because they might be tortured." (Hat tip: Jihad Watch.)

"Muslim organisation calls for boycott of Denmark" (The Copenhagen Post, 2005/12/28)
The Danish cartoon "scandal" is certainly one of the most revealing of the year. The outcome of it will give an indication of the level of dhimmitude in Western Europe:
"An Islamic cultural organisation warns that 51 Muslim states will boycott Denmark unless an official apology is offered for the cartoons of the prophet Mohammed printed in national newspaper Jyllands-Posten":
"An Islamic cultural organisation has called upon its 51 member states to boycott Denmark in response to cartoons of the prophet Mohammed printed three months ago in national daily Jyllands-Posten.
The Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO) stated on its webpage that it sought a condemnation of 'the aggressive campaign waged against Islam and its Prophet' by Jyllands-Posten.
Abdulaziz Othman al-Twaijri, the organisation's secretary general, reportedly told Arabic TV station Al-Arabiya that member states would impose a boycott until an apology was offered for the drawings.
'We encourage the organisation's members to boycott Denmark both economically and politically until Denmark presents an official apology for the drawings that have offended the world's Muslims,' al-Twaijri said.
Egypt's ambassador to Denmark, Mona Omar Attiah, warned against not taking the boycott seriously.
'The organisation has a broad appeal among the world's Muslims, and if the government doesn't make new efforts, Muslims around the world will follow the boycott and international pressure against Denmark will increase,' she told daily newspaper Information." (Hat tip: Dhimmi Watch.)

More on the Danish cartoon "scandal":
"EU commissioner lashes out at Mohammed drawings" (The Copenhagen Post, 2005/12/23)
"Demonstrations in Pakistan have escalated into death threats against Danish illustrators who drew pictures of the prophet Mohammed" (The Copenhagen Post, 2005/12/02)
"Muslims march over cartoons of the Prophet" (Kate Connolly, The Daily Telegraph, 2005/11/04)
"Prophet cartoons prompt Egypt to cut off Danish dialogue" (The Copenhagen Post, 2005/11/03)
"War in France, War in Denmark" (Henrik, Viking Observer, 2005/10/31)
"Selective Muslim Silence" (Judith Apter Klinghoffer, HNN, 2005/10/31)
"Denmark arrests 4 terror suspects" (AP/CNN.com, 2005/10/27)
"death will visit Denmark" (infovlad.net, 2005/10/15)
"Holy war against newspaper" (The Copenhagen Post, 2005/10/20)
"Muslim anger at Danish cartoons" (BBC News, 2005/10/20)
"Youth reported held in Denmark for death threats over Mohammed cartoons" (Middle East Times, 2005/10/17)
"Imam demands apology for Mohammed cartoons" (The Copenhagen Post, 2005/10/06)
"Image of Muhammad" (Kurt Westergaard, Fjordman, 2005/10/05)
"Fear Pervades Danish Art Community" (Patrick, Dhimmi Watch, 2005/09/18)

"Pakistani Describes Killing of Daughters" (Khalid Tanveer, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/12/28)
"Nazir Ahmed appears calm and unrepentant as he recounts how he slit the throats of his three young daughters and their 25-year old stepsister to salvage his family's "honor" — a crime that shocked Pakistan.":
"Ahmed's killing spree — witnessed by his wife Rehmat Bibi as she cradled their 3 month-old baby son — happened Friday night at their home in the cotton-growing village of Gago Mandi in eastern Punjab province. ...
Bibi recounted how she was woken by a shriek as Ahmed put his hand to the mouth of his stepdaughter Muqadas and cut her throat with a machete. Bibi looked helplessly on from the corner of the room as he then killed the three girls — Bano, 8, Sumaira, 7, and Humaira, 4 — pausing between the slayings to brandish the bloodstained knife at his wife, warning her not to intervene or raise alarm.
"I was shivering with fear. I did not know how to save my daughters," Bibi, sobbing, told AP by phone from the village. "I begged my husband to spare my daughters but he said, 'If you make a noise, I will kill you.'"
"The whole night the bodies of my daughters lay in front of me," she said.
The next morning, Ahmed was arrested.
Speaking to AP in the back of police pickup truck late Tuesday as he was shifted to a prison in the city of Multan, Ahmed showed no contrition. Appearing disheveled but composed, he said he killed Muqadas because she had committed adultery, and his daughters because he didn't want them to do the same when they grew up.
He said he bought a butcher's knife and a machete after midday prayers on Friday and hid them in the house where he carried out the killings.
"I thought the younger girls would do what their eldest sister had done, so they should be eliminated," he said, his hands cuffed, his face unshaven. 'We are poor people and we have nothing else to protect but our honor.'" (See also: "Father in Pakistan Kills His 4 Daughters" (AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/12/25))

"Judging the case for war" (Chicago Tribune, 2005/12/28)
"On Nov. 20, the Tribune began an inquest: We set out to assess the Bush administration's arguments for war in Iraq. We have weighed each of those nine arguments against the findings of subsequent official investigations by the 9/11 Commission, the Senate Intelligence Committee and others. ...
After reassessing the administration's nine arguments for war, we do not see the conspiracy to mislead that many critics allege. Example: The accusation that Bush lied about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs overlooks years of global intelligence warnings that, by February 2003, had convinced even French President Jacques Chirac of "the probable possession of weapons of mass destruction by an uncontrollable country, Iraq." We also know that, as early as 1997, U.S. intel agencies began repeatedly warning the Clinton White House that Iraq, with fissile material from a foreign source, could have a crude nuclear bomb within a year.
Seventeen days before the war, this page reluctantly urged the president to launch it. We said that every earnest tool of diplomacy with Iraq had failed to improve the world's security, stop the butchery -- or rationalize years of UN inaction. We contended that Saddam Hussein, not George W. Bush, had demanded this conflict.
Many people of patriotism and integrity disagreed with us and still do. But the totality of what we know now -- what this matrix chronicles -- affirms for us our verdict of March 2, 2003." (Hat tip: EconoPundit. See also the whole series: "The Road to War" (Chicago Tribune))

"The Big Story of 2005 (Someone Tell The New York Times)" (Austin Bay, RealClearPolitics, 2005/12/28)
"In December 2004, I wrote a column that led with this line: "Mark it on your calendar: Next month, the Arab Middle East will revolt."
The column placed the January 2005 Palestinian and Iraqi elections in historical context. These were not the revolutions of generals with tanks and terrorists with fatwas, but the slow revolutions of the ballot box, with political moderates and liberal reformers the genuinely revolutionary vanguard. To massage Churchill's phrase, these revolts were the beginning of democratic politics, where "jaw jaw" begins to replace "war war" and "terror terror."
These slow revolts against tyranny and terror continue, and are the "big story" of 2005 and the truly "big history" of our time. ...
Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said that the constitution is "a sign of civilization. ... This constitution has come after heavy sacrifices. It is a new birth."
Jaafari echoed a sentiment I heard last year while serving on active duty in Iraq. Several Iraqis told me they knew democracy was "our big chance." One man said it was Iraq's chance to "escape bad history." To paraphrase a couple of other Iraqis, toppling Saddam and building a more open society was a chance "to enter the modern world."
The great democratic revolts are profoundly promising history. They are the big story of 2005 -- and, for that matter, the next three or four decades."

"The New York Times vs. America" (Michelle Malkin, Creators/RealClearPolitics, 2005/12/28)
"In June, Debra Burlingame, sister of Charles F. "Chic" Burlingame III, pilot of downed American Airlines Flight 77, blew the whistle on plans by civil liberties zealots to turn Ground Zero in New York into a Blame America monument. On July 29, the Times editorial page, stocked with liberals who snort and stamp whenever their patriotism is questioned, slammed Burlingame and her supporters at Take Back the Memorial as "un-American" -- for exercising their free speech rights.
Yes, "un-American." This from a newspaper that smeared female interrogators at Guantanamo Bay as "sex workers," sympathetically portrayed military deserters as "un-volunteers," apologized for terror suspects and illegal aliens at every turn, enabled the Bush Derangement Syndrome-driven crusade of the lying Joe Wilson, and recklessly endangered national security by publishing illegally obtained information about classified counterterrorism programs.
So, which side is The New York Times on? Let 2005 go down as the year the Gray Lady wrapped herself permanently in a White Flag."

"No one seems to have noticed this is our fifth Christmas at war" (Matthew d'Ancona, The Daily Telegraph, 2005/12/28)
"On Boxing Day, Ken Livingstone told the BBC that there had been 10 attempted attacks on London since 9/11, two of them since the July 7 bombings. But the mayor insisted that these foiled atrocities were not the work of a "great organised international conspiracy with orders flowing down the chain", but of "fairly disorganised and small groups of disaffected people".
This is a serious misrepresentation of modern Islamist terror. What binds and inspires the cells that have plotted and continue to plot attacks on cities such as London is precisely the interconnectedness of the war: the thread that links the jihadi in the West Bank, or in Iraq, or in Afghanistan, with his brother in Leeds, or Lahore, or Los Angeles. ...
In 2005, the Islamists made brutally clear, yet again, that they are determined to destroy life, economic success and optimism wherever they encounter it. ...
For the terrorists, however, the greatest successes were psychological.
In this country, the resolve that followed the London bombings quickly yielded to political point-scoring and bickering. Judges lectured the Government on civil liberties. The Commons gleefully threw out Mr Blair's 90-day detention plan, putting the humiliation of the Prime Minister before public safety. ...
Next year, as in every year since 9/11, Mr Blair should keep his mind firmly fixed on the long game. Nothing would please the jihadis more than for the coalition to pull its troops out of Iraq too quickly, plunge the country into civil war and ensure that history damns the liberation campaign as a failure.
The terrorists, as the Prime Minister himself warned, think strategically. Now, more than ever, he dare not forget his own maxim."

"Where have we got to in the fight against terrorism? We're lost in a fog" (Alice Miles, The Times, 2005/12/28)
"Officers admit that they do not know whether there was a mastermind behind the July 7 Tube and bus bombings, unless it was one of the bombers, the eldest, Mohammad Sidique Khan. Nor do the police know whether a rumoured “third cell” exists, and if it does, they have no faith in the intelligence services to uncover it.
If young British terrorists are operating on their own initiative, without being “run” by outsiders then, as one senior officer put it, “We really are in the shit.” For if there is nothing linking them, there is no pattern, and the police work on patterns. ...
The current confusion, combined with unspecific, but dire, warnings from the police of an imminent terror “spectacular”, leaves politicians in a panic. The demand for a 90-day detention that was blocked, the control orders that were watered down, the summary expulsions that didn’t happen, the Britishness test for imams that was dropped, the mosques that weren’t closed . . . this is politics operating in a fog. Just so that they can say: we tried to do everything we could. When Tony Blair refused this month to hold a public inquiry into July 7, critics claimed that he had something to hide. Would that that were true."

"Ex-hostage's Iraq return angers her rescue team" (Roger Boyes, The Times, 2005/12/28)
"The German Government angrily rebuked a former hostage yesterday who is determined to return to Iraq despite being held captive for three weeks by a Sunni gang.
Susanne Osthoff, a 43-year-old archaeologist, announced this week on al-Jazeera television that she would go back to her work in northern Iraq, trying to set up a German cultural centre in Arbil.
Angela Merkel’s new Government, which regards the freeing of Frau Osthoff this month as its first foreign policy triumph, is furious. It made huge efforts to secure her release and is widely believed to have paid a ransom. ...
Frau Osthoff, however, seems likely to go ahead with her plans. Despite the national relief at her release, she refused to return to Germany for Christmas. Although she was released on December 18, she has yet to telephone her mother.
Frau Osthoff converted to Islam, speaks Arabic and was married to a nomadic tribesman from the region near the Iraqi-Syrian border; she plainly considers Iraq to be her home.
The circumstances of her abduction are only now beginning to leak out. ... Frau Osthoff was unharmed and, according to security sources quoted in Der Spiegel, the sharp-tongued archaeologist made full use of her Arabic fluency to reprimand the kidnappers. It appears they were relieved to see her go."

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

News and commentary:

"Western Muslims' Racist Rape Spree" (Sharon Lapkin, FrontPageMagazine, 2005/12/27)
"In Australia, Norway, Sweden and other Western nations, there is a distinct race-based crime in motion being ignored by the diversity police: Islamic men are raping Western women for ethnic reasons. We know this because the rapists have openly declared their sectarian motivations.
When a number of teenage Australian girls were subjected to hours of sexual degradation during a spate of gang rapes in Sydney that occurred between 1998 and 2002, the perpetrators of these assaults framed their rationale in ethnic terms. The young victims were informed that they were “sluts” and “Aussie pigs” while they were being hunted down and abused.
In Australia's New South Wales Supreme Court in December 2005, a visiting Pakistani rapist testified that his victims had no right to say no, because they were not wearing a headscarf. ...
This phenomenon of Islamic sexual violence against women should be treated as the urgent, violent, repressive epidemic it is. Instead, journalists, academics, and politicians ignore it, rationalize it, or ostracize those who dare discuss it.
In Australia, when journalist Paul Sheehan reported honestly on the Sydney gang rapes, he was called a racist and accused of stirring up anti-Muslim hatred. And when he reported in his Sydney Morning Herald column that there was a high incidence of crime amongst Sydney’s Lebanese community, fellow journalist, David Marr sent him an e-mail stating, 'That is a disgraceful column that reflects poorly on us all at the Herald.'" (See also: "Immigrant Rape Wave in Sweden" (Fjordman, fjordman.blogspot.com, 2005/12/12))

"Neighborhood Watch" (Christopher Hitchens, Slate, 2005/12/27)
"Nonetheless, everything I can glean from friends and contacts in Iraq makes it ever-clearer that the Iranian state and its clerical proxies made a huge intervention in the Iraqi voting earlier this month, most especially in the southern provinces and in the capital city of Baghdad. It was probable that the Shiite parties would have won anyway, but they made assurance doubly sure by extensive fraud and by using both militias and uniformed policemen to exclude, coerce, or intimidate voters. So, the regional dilemma is now as follows: Will the Iraqi model be one day followed in Iran, or will Iran succeed in imposing its own "model" on Iraq? ...
Americans have the right to be concerned about this, both morally and politically. After many years of being on the wrong side in both Iran and Iraq, the United States has finally managed to get itself into a position where it can decently speak of favoring constitutional democracy in both countries. Having also shed much blood and spent a fortune, as with the comparable effort in Afghanistan, it is entitled to a hearing from those who live in countries that have been run into the ground. The age of "internal affairs" is over: When nations misruled by religious dictatorship fail and become stagnant, they do not seek the blame for their failure in themselves. Instead, they project the anguish outward and begin yelling about Jewish and crusader conspiracies. This can, to put it mildly, lead to the export of violence."

"Iraq and the fortunes of war" (Richard N. Haass, Los Angeles Times, 2005/12/27)
"'I lyom asal, ilyom basal' is a traditional Arab proverb. Translated literally, it means "a day of honey, a day of onions." The idea behind it is that life is filled with contradictions. Anyone doubting this truth need only consider the last year, and especially the last few weeks, in Iraq. News of millions of Iraqis voting freely for a new government shared the front page with stories describing the near-daily loss of American and Iraqi lives. There is evidence of stability and unrest, economic recovery and ruin, political progress and alienation. Almost everything said and written about Iraq is true. ...
It is, in principle, possible that Iraq one day will come to resemble what the president seeks: a successful democracy at peace with itself and its neighbors, providing a model for other states in the region to emulate. You would have to be an optimist and then some, though, to be confident in this outcome.
Far more likely is something less and different: a barely functional Iraq, with a weak central government and highly autonomous regions, including a relatively secular, Kurdish-dominated north; a far more religious, Shiite-dominated south; a similarly religious, Sunni-dominated west; and a demographically mixed and unsettled center that includes the capital of Baghdad. Think of it as a version of today's Afghanistan minus the poppy fields.
Such an outcome would constitute a mixed bag for those who hope that change in Iraq will stimulate change elsewhere in the region. A working Iraqi democracy would encourage other reformers in the region; that said, nearly three years of violence, the loss of Sunni primacy and the rise of religious fervor have soured many Arabs on following Iraq's lead.
Still, a barely functional Iraq would be good, and at this point good enough. Sometimes in foreign policy, it is more important to avoid catastrophe than it is to reach for perfection. This is one of those times."

"Munich mastermind spurns Spielberg's peace appeal" (Nidal al-Mughrabi, Reuters, 2005/12/27)
"The Palestinian mastermind of the Munich Olympics attack in which 11 Israeli athletes died said on Tuesday he had no regrets and that Steven Spielberg's new film about the incident would not deliver reconciliation.
The Hollywood director has called "Munich", which dramatizes the 1972 raid and Israel's reprisals against members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), his "prayer for peace".
Mohammed Daoud planned the Munich attack on behalf of PLO splinter group Black September, but did not take part and does not feature in the film.
He voiced outrage at not being consulted for the thriller and accused Spielberg of pandering to the Jewish state.
"If he really wanted to make it a prayer for peace he should have listened to both sides of the story and reflected reality, rather than serving the Zionist side alone," Daoud told Reuters by telephone from the Syrian capital, Damascus. ...
The Munich attack was "one of the pivotal moments of modern terrorism" he told Los Angeles Times in rare interview last week.
Daoud used different terms.
"We did not target Israeli civilians," he said.
'Some of them (the athletes) had taken part in wars and killed many Palestinians. Whether a pianist or an athlete, any Israeli is a soldier.'" (See also: "'Munich' stands for 'appeasement'" (Kate Wright, The American Thinker, 2005/12/19))

Monday, December 26, 2005

News and commentary:

"In French suburbs, rage 'is only asleep'" (Katrin Bennhold, International Herald Tribune, 2005/12/26)
"BONDY, France - "Burn!" A knot of young men join their voices in a battle cry as they edge closer to the silhouette of a parked Mercedes, some of them aiming what look like handguns, others reaching for lighters.
In the harsh light of an underground parking lot in this grim suburb northwest of Paris, the guns and lighters are imaginary - but the sense of aggression is real. As one of the young men films with a digital camera, the others move to the angry beat of music blasting out of an open car door, echoing into the dark December night.
They sing about the riots that erupted two months ago, about being Muslim and about not feeling French in France. For them the unrest is not over, it is waiting to break loose again.
"The quiet is deceptive," said Bala "Balastik" Coulibaly, 24, of nearby Clichy-sous-Bois, his eyes scanning the deserted parking lot from deep inside his sweatshirt as he took a break between two songs. It was in Clichy that the accidental death of two teenagers on Oct. 27 set off three weeks of rioting in immigrant neighborhoods across France.
"The rage in the suburbs is only asleep," said Balastik, a French youth of Mauritanian origin who has been jobless since dropping out of school seven years ago and is dreaming of a career as a rapper with his band, Styladone. 'It wouldn't take much to wake it up again.'"

"Nowhere, fast" (Barry Rubin, The Jerusalem Post, 2005/12/26)
"Palestinian politics is just starting to get interesting. Yet much of the world seems to be oblivious - at least in terms of actual policy - to the monumental changes taking place.":
"The more one examines the results of local elections the more amazing the Hamas landslide appears. It will not do so well in parliamentary voting but 30% to 35% of the vote seems attainable. Even this is an understatement because with Fatah split such an outcome could put an even larger percentage of Hamas candidates into parliament.
Such a result could lead to a cut-off of all foreign aid. But even if the European donors avoid such a decision (they could cite, for example, the fact that Fatah still has a majority or forms the government), surely the incoming money will slow to a trickle.
After the election, Hamas, rather than be moderated, will engage in an orgy of triumph, stepping up terrorist attacks and flaunting its electoral success. ...
Meanwhile, the new arrangement on the Gaza-Egypt border has proven to be a joke. To my knowledge, not one person has been turned back and not one load of "freight" (possibly weapons) has been stopped at the border. Israeli complaints are ignored with the complicity of hapless European observers. Wanted terrorists cross with no problem and are feted with public celebrations in their home towns. ...
Their movement is crumbling, the basis for any real international support (whatever words of sympathy come out of Washington and Europe) is eroding, and the new regime will probably make their daily lives worse. Hamas and Barghouti, supposedly the people's saviors from a corrupt, inept Abu Mazen, are going to damage the movement even further."

"Iraqi worshippers risk their lives to celebrate Christmas in church" (Stephen Farrell, The Times, 2005/12/26)
"Iraqis gathered for Christmas behind Kalashnikovs yesterday. Midnight Mass was cancelled because of bombing fears and curfews, but the country’s rapidly dwindling Christian minority turned out in their thousands for early morning services.
Protected under Saddam, Christians once numbered between 600,000 and 700,000 in Iraq, but church officials say that about half have now fled, especially from the south, where militias linked to Iraq’s ruling parties have waged a three-year campaign to Islamise the country at gunpoint.
The worst attacks were by insurgents in central and northern Iraq in August last year, when bomb attacks on four churches in Baghdad and one in Mosul killed a dozen Christians during Sunday services.
Priests have been threatened and killed, women abused in the street for not wearing veils and three months ago the entire lay leadership of Iraq’s main Anglican church were ambushed and killed.
Despite the fears of insurgent bombings and Islamist intolerance, congregations turned out in greater numbers yesterday than last year. “We are now back to the numbers of three years ago. People now want to go to church to keep challenging these people, we are defiant,” said Faadi Victor, a lay official at Our Lady of Salvation, a Catholic church that was hit by one of the August 2004 bombs.
The building has now been repaired and the shrine to the Virgin Mary restored, its silver halo gleaming in the bright sunlight as 600 celebrants crammed through the doors."

Added in archive:
"The Paranoid Style In American Liberalism" (William Kristol, The Weekly Standard, 2006/01/02)
"On Trial" (Orhan Pamuk, The New Yorker, 2005/12/12)

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)

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