Archived news and commentary: March 13 -19, 2006

2006/03/13 - 2006/03/19
2006/03/06 - 2006/03/12
2006/02/27 - 2006/03/05
2006/02/20 - 2006/02/26
2006/02/13 - 2006/02/19
2006/02/06 - 2006/02/12

› From 2001/09/11 -

Sunday, March 19, 2006

News and commentary:

"Tank crews from the Alpha Company..."
(AP Photo/John Moore, 2003/03/19)
From the archive: "Tank crews from the Alpha Company 4th Battalion 64 Armor Regiment pray during a heavy sand storm before convoying to a position near the Iraqi border Wednesday, March 19, 2003. The commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, Maj. Gen. Buford Blount III, ordered his troops to reposition to locations near the border as President Bush's deadline for Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq approached."

"Afghan Man Faces Death for Allegedly Converting to Christianity" (AP/FOX News, 2006/03/19)
"KABUL, Afghanistan — An Afghan man who allegedly converted from Islam to Christianity is being prosecuted in a Kabul court and could be sentenced to death, a judge said Sunday.
The defendant, Abdul Rahman, was arrested last month after his family went to the police and accused him of becoming a Christian, Judge Ansarullah Mawlavezada told the Associated Press in an interview. Such a conversion would violate the country's Islamic laws.
Rahman, who is believed to be 41, was charged with rejecting Islam when his trial started last week, the judge said.
During the hearing, the defendant allegedly confessed that he converted from Islam to Christianity 16 years ago when he was 25 and working as a medical aid worker for Afghan refugees in neighboring Pakistan, Mawlavezada said.
Afghanistan's constitution is based on Shariah law, which states that any Muslim who rejects their religion should be sentenced to death.
"We are not against any particular religion in the world. But in Afghanistan, this sort of thing is against the law," the judge said. 'It is an attack on Islam. ... The prosecutor is asking for the death penalty.'"

"Dutch Socialist Leader in Fear of Muslim Party Members" (Paul Belien, The Brussels Journal, 2006/03/19)
"Wouter Bos, the leader of the Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA), the Dutch Labour Party, is worried about the high number of immigrants in the ranks of his own party. Bos won the Dutch municipal elections on 7 March by catering for the immigrants, who consequently tipped the balance in favour of the PvdA. Almost half the elected PvdA politicians in major Dutch cities where the PvdA is the largest party, such as Amsterdam and Rotterdam, are now Muslims.
In an interview last Friday Wouter Bos said that he is worried about this situation. “We are bound to run into trouble with our new immigrant councillors,” he predicted. The PvdA leader said their “political culture” is often incompatible with Dutch politics, because the immigrants “conduct politics according to the culture of their home countries, where clientelism is the norm.” ...
Bos’s warning concerning immigrant politicians has led to angry reactions from indigenous Dutch and immigrants alike. Yesterday a native Dutch citizen wrote in a website comment:

'Wouter Bos has an image problem now that the PvdA has visibly become the Party of the Immigrants. [...] The party is bound to be the hostage of the Muslims [...] and will ultimately perish as a result of it. By then, however, Wouter Bos will have been Prime Minister of the Netherlands for eight years and will receive an advance payment to write his memoirs before emigrating to the United States, Australia or Canada...'"

(See also: "Muslim Vote Tips the Balance in Netherlands" (Paul Belien, The Brussels Journal, 2006/03/08))

"Increasing Muslim Violence in Europe Is Not Being Reported" (John Leo, RealClearPolitics, 2006/03/19)
"A much bigger example is the misleadingly low-key reporting of the Ilan Halimi murder in Paris. We now know that Halimi was killed as a classic expression of Jew hatred. But with so much evasiveness and misdirection by police, government and press, it took a month to get that fact clearly on the table. ...
Tony Blankley wrote a Washington Times column, March 8, on the underreporting of Muslim violence. He said British politicians tell him there is increasing radical Muslim street violence, explicitly motivated by radical Islam, but not reported or characterized as such. Blankley said rioting Moroccan youths in Antwerp went on a rampage, beating up reporters and destroying cars, but police were instructed not to arrest or stop them. A database search shows little reporting on Antwerp riots.
The scary riots in Australia last December, pitting Lebanese immigrants against native whites, were well-covered. But nobody seems quite sure that we are getting the full story about other serious disturbances. From time to time the Internet carries reports of riots that don't make the newspapers, but they are mostly uncheckable.
Suppressing news, whether out of multicultural deference or fear, is a perilous business. We can't know how to react to upheavals if we aren't told about them." (See also: "Anti-Semitism seen rising among France's Muslims" (Colin Nickerson, The Boston Globe, 2006/03/13) and "Media Won't Report Radical Islamic Events" (Tony Blankley, RealClearPolitics, 2006/03/08))

"Former prime minister: Iraq is in a 'civil war'" (Reuters/MSNBC, 2006/03/19)
Iraq II: "LONDON - Iraq is in a state of civil war and is nearing the point of no return when the country’s sectarian violence will spill over throughout the Middle East, former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said on Sunday.
Three years after the U.S.-led invasion to oust Saddam Hussein, Iraq is in turmoil with a raging insurgency and a surge in sectarian bloodletting between Sunni Arabs and majority Shiite Muslims.
“It is unfortunate that we are in civil war. We are losing each day as an average 50 to 60 people throughout the country, if not more. If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is,” he told the British Broadcasting Corp. ...
“Iraq is in the middle of a crisis. Maybe we have not reached the point of no return yet. But we are moving towards this point. We are in a terrible civil conflict now,” Allawi said.
He said that if Iraq were to crumble, sectarian violence would spread throughout the Middle East with Europe and the United States also feeling the impact."

"What We've Gained In 3 Years in Iraq" (Donald H. Rumsfeld, The Washington Post, 2006/03/19)
Iraq I: "Consider that if we retreat now, there is every reason to believe Saddamists and terrorists will fill the vacuum -- and the free world might not have the will to face them again. Turning our backs on postwar Iraq today would be the modern equivalent of handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis. It would be as great a disgrace as if we had asked the liberated nations of Eastern Europe to return to Soviet domination because it was too hard or too tough or we didn't have the patience to work with them as they built free countries.
What we need to understand is that the vast majority of the Iraqi people want the coalition to succeed. They want better futures for themselves and their families. They do not want the extremists to win. And they are risking their lives every day to secure their country.
That is well worth remembering on this anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom."

"Women at war with the mullahs" (Christopher Goodwin, The Sunday Times, 2006/03/19)
An interview with Wafa Sultan: "Sitting in the airy living room of the spacious modern home where Sultan and her husband live, it is hard to believe this small, neatly dressed woman could be at the centre of an international firestorm. Just as improbable is that the most important and controversial critics of Islamic fundamentalism, violence and intolerance are, like Sultan, women, mostly from Islamic countries. ...
Death threats against these women are commonplace. Irshad Manji has had to install bullet-proof windows in her home. Ayaan Hirsi Ali has to travel everywhere with bodyguards after the threats against her and the death the film maker Theo van Gogh, her friend and collaborator. ...
Sultan has no intention of stopping her attacks on Islam even though she and her family in Syria have been threatened. Two of her brothers have been interrogated by the Syrian secret police, she says, since the Al-Jazeera broadcasts. In fact, Sultan’s long intellectual journey has brought her to a radical conclusion: that reform of Islam is impossible.
“Muslims have been hostages of their beliefs and their teachings for 14 centuries,” she says. 'I believe the time has come and the truth should be spoken. I know that I am waging a very difficult war. It is going to take years. I might not be able to see it in my life, but I am strongly sure that the next generation will see the fruits of my writing and my message.'" (See also: "For Muslim Who Says Violence Destroys Islam, Violent Threats" (John M. Broder, The New York Times, 2006/03/11) and "Arab-American Psychologist Wafa Sultan: There Is No Clash of Civilizations but a Clash between the Mentality of the Middle Ages and That of the 21st Century" (MEMRI TV, 2006/02/21))

Added in archive:
"Media Won't Report Radical Islamic Events" (Tony Blankley, RealClearPolitics, 2006/03/08)
"40% Dutch gays confronted with aggression" (Radio Netherlands/ayaanhirsiali.web-log.nl, 2006/03/17)

Saturday, March 18, 2006

News and commentary:

"Iranian dissident freed from jail" (BBC News, 2006/03/18)
"Iran's most prominent dissident journalist Akbar Ganji has been freed from jail after five years.
Ganji was jailed in 2001 for writing articles in which he linked senior officials to the murder of dissidents.
Correspondents say he is a hero to Iran's reformists for standing up to hardliners, and many world leaders have called for his release.
He has spent much of his jail term in solitary confinement and went on hunger strike for several months last year.
When brought to court to stand trial, Ganji complained he had been beaten but he says he was then threatened for revealing it.
The BBC's Frances Harrison in Tehran says many Iranians thought Ganji, 46, would never be freed from jail, even though his sentence was due to end.
The release comes days before the United Nations Security Council is due to discuss Iran's stand-off with Western nations over the country's nuclear programme."

Friday, March 17, 2006

News and commentary:

"When Danes Pay Danegeld – Dealing with Islam in Scandinavia" (Fjordman, The Brussels Journal, 2006/03/17)
"One thousand years ago Scandinavians were the barbarians of Europe, spreading fear and extracting “Danegeld” from their more civilized neighbors. In the 21st century Scandinavians are peaceful and soft-spoken, and the roles seem to have been reversed with certain newly arrived immigrants. There are claims that immigration costs Sweden 40 to 50 billion Swedish kroner every year, perhaps even several hundred billions, and has greatly contributed to bringing the Swedish welfare state to the brink of bankruptcy.
In Denmark right-wing politicians are already debating the threat of immigrant “welfare tourists,” should the Swedish system collapse. In Norway almost half of all children with a non-Western background claim social security benefits. This is ten times the rate of the native population.
Probably no other Western nation has more problems with, yet less debate about Muslim immigration than Sweden, and the only thing the elites are doing about this is demonizing neighboring Denmark for “xenophobia.”
Jonathan Friedman is a New York Jew, now living with his Swedish wife in the southern Swedish city of Malmö where he teaches socio-anthropology. According to him, “no debate about immigration policies is possible, the subject is simply avoided. Sweden has such a close connection between the various powerful groups, politicians, journalists, etc. The political class is closed, isolated.” Friedman thinks circumstances in Sweden are special also because Sweden has a long tradition of maintaining a correct surface. Two Swedish girls were sent home from school for wearing sweaters showing a tiny Swedish flag. The headmaster was concerned that this might be deemed offensive by some immigrants. Helle Klein, political editor of the newspaper Aftonbladet, boasts: 'If the debate is going to be about whether there are problems with immigrants, we don’t want it.'"

"40% Dutch gays confronted with aggression" (Radio Netherlands/ayaanhirsiali.web-log.nl, 2006/03/17)
"Research sponsored by the interior ministry and the city of Amsterdam shows that 40 percent of Dutch homosexuals have been confronted with violence or aggression in the past year. Most of them say they don't feel unsafe because of their sexual orientation, but nevertheless try to avoid attracting attention.
One in ten homosexuals has recently been threatened or physically abused. In most of the incidents the perpetrators operated in groups, which in 50 percent of cases were comprised of immigrants. Harassment at work is also fairly common; gay teachers in particular are often the victims."

"Danish Muslims sue over Muhammad cartoons" (Jenny Booth, The Times, 2006/03/17)
The Danish cartoon affair II: "Danish Muslim groups are to report Denmark to the UN Commissioner on Human Rights for failing to prosecute the newspaper that first published controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
The 27 Muslim groups also plan to sue the newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, for defamation in a Danish court, according to their lawyer, Michael Christiani Havemann.
"Denmark is obliged through the UN to secure the civil rights of its citizens," Havemann said by telephone. "The national prosecutor won’t pursue the case and, therefore, acts as a barrier to justice to the complainants."
Henning Fode, Denmark’s director of public prosecutions, announced on Wednesday that he would not charge Jyllands-Posten, ruling that the drawings it published last September did not violate Denmark’s laws against blasphemy and racist speech." (See also: "Danish Prosecutor Won't Charge Newspaper" (AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/03/15))

"Manifesto head" (Diana West, The Washington Times, 2006/03/17)
The Danish cartoon affair I. West on the "Manifesto: Together facing the new totalitarianism" (Jyllands-Posten, 2006/02/28):
"What is striking is that none of them [the signatories] come from that "world" they hailed, the one that overcame fascism, Nazism and communism not merely "Stalinism." (One signatory is billed as an Iranian communist, which may account for the jarring distinction.) Not only that, but, as the blogger Belmont Club pointed out, the manifestowas printed, "not in the New York Times, Le Monde or the Times of London, but of all places, in a provincial Danish newspaper of no particular fame."
All of which should shove a big, fat question mark onto the "world" stage to ask where these brave signatories' writerly, journalistic and intellectual brethren are on this one, not to mention Big Media coverage. After all, the world didn't overcome fascism, Nazism and communism with the silent treatment, restrained rhetoric, or exquisite editorial discretion. But beyond the blogosphere, coverage of the manifesto -- not the last word on the subject, but certainly a start -- has been sparse, just as though freedom of speech weren't in peril. And just as though the signatories, for affirming freedom of speech, weren't either.
But they are. A crude death threat has been posted at the British Muslim Web site, ummah.com... ...
So here we are, living in a world where a manifesto for free speech constitutes "[sticking] their necks out," draws death threats on the one hand, and silence on the other. Why did they sign it, then? Mr. Warraq offered the words of John Stuart Mill: 'A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight; nothing he cares about more than his own personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by exertions of better men than himself.'"

"Israel's policy quacks" (Caroline Glick, The Jerusalem Post, 2006/03/17)
"On Wednesday the US suffered a predictable diplomatic defeat. The UN General Assembly approved the establishment of a new human rights council to replace the existing human rights commission. The lopsided vote was similarly preordained: 170 supported the move and four - the US, Palau, Israel and the Marshall Islands - opposed it. The irony is that forming a new human rights body to replace the current one was the US's idea.
Over the past several years, the UN Human Rights Commission has distinguished itself for its subversion of human rights. With members like Cuba, Sudan, Libya and China, the UNHRC acted as a shield for human rights abusers while - in the finest UN tradition - its members named Israel the single worst human rights abuser on the planet.
This corruption of the notion of human rights caused the Bush Administration to seek the UNHRC's replacement by a new body that would make a clear distinction between democracies that respect human rights and dictatorships that abused them. This initiative was one of the central planks of the US's UN reform agenda.
Unfortunately, the Americans' noble plan had no chance of ever being implemented. The same forces that caused the UNHRC to become a refuge for tyrants were the ones responsible for establishing the new organization. Not surprisingly, the new human rights body will enhance, rather than detract from the ability of human rights abusers like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, China and Iran to exploit the "human rights" label as a means of condemning the US and Israel.
So by pushing its reform agenda, the US not only did not solve its problem with the UN, it compounded it." (See also: "U.S. Dissents as U.N. Approves New Human Rights Council" (Warren Hoge, The New York Times, 2006/03/17))

"Raped by two men for more than a day" (Johan Båvman, Aftonbladet, 2006/03/17)
Akalla is a suburb north of the Swedish capital Stockholm with a large amount of immigrants. It's included in the parish of Kista, where 63,7% of the population are first or second generation immigrants [according to statistics from 2004/12/31. PDF here.].:
"Mentally handicapped woman held as sexslave

The two men duped the mentally handicapped woman to follow them.
They locked her inside an apartment and took turns raping her — for more than a day.
The police received the call 13.09 yesterday. A person had heard the young woman scream for help and called 112.
When the police arrived to the apartment they found only the severely exhausted woman there.

Abducted

The 26-year old woman is mentally handicapped and met the three men in central Stockholm at midday on Wednesday, according to information received. They duped her into their car and drove her to an apartment in Akalla in northwestern Stockholm.
"They held her there against her will," says Henrik Göransson at the police.
According to the police, the woman has been raped several times, likely by all three men. She had not any severe physical injuries, but was in severe shock and was transported by ambulance to a hospital.

Two men hunted

The police began an investigation of the crime scene immediately and one of the three suspected men came home while they were in the apartment.
"He was apprehended at once."
The captured man is 51 years old and is living in the house. ...
Last week a man was kidnapped and tortured by three men for nine hours in an apartment less than hundred meters from the one in which the 26-year-old woman was held. Those perpetrators are still on the loose." (UPDATE 2006/03/18: According to todays Metro, the woman, who has the "mental age of a child", was held in an apartment i Husby, rather than Akalla. The two suburbs are next to each other. See also: "16-year-old girl raped — at the public bath" (Anders Heraldsson, Aftonbladet, 2006/03/06))

Thursday, March 16, 2006

News and commentary:

"'Operation Swarmer' Expected to Last Days" (Alexandra Zavis, AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/03/16)
"BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. forces and Iraqi troops launched what the military described as the largest air assault since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion Thursday, targeting insurgent strongholds north of the capital.
The U.S. military said the raid, dubbed Operation Swarmer, was aimed at clearing "a suspected insurgent operating area" northeast of Samarra and was expected to last several days. The Pentagon said 41 people were arrested but it was not clear if suspected insurgents put up any resistance.
Residents in the targeted area said there was a heavy U.S. and Iraqi troop presence and large explosions could be heard in the distance. The U.S. military said there was no firing or bombing from the air and the source of the blasts was not known.
"More than 1,500 Iraqi and coalition troops, over 200 tactical vehicles, and more than 50 aircraft participated in the operation," the military statement said.
The U.S. command in Baghdad said it was the largest number of aircraft used to insert troops and the largest number of troops inserted by air, although larger numbers of troops overall have been involved in previous operations."

"Saddam's Delusions: The View from the Inside" (Kevin Woods et al., Foreign Affairs, May/June 2006)
An article on the U.S. Joint Forces Command's "comprehensive study of the inner workings and behavior of Saddam Hussein's regime based on previously inaccessible primary sources. Drawing on interviews with dozens of captured senior Iraqi military and political leaders and hundreds of thousands of official Iraqi documents (hundreds of them fully translated), this two-year project has changed our understanding of the war from the ground up. The study was partially declassified in late February; its key findings are presented here.":
"As late as the end of March 2003, Saddam apparently still believed that the war was going the way he had expected. If Iraq was not actually winning it, neither was it losing -- or at least so it seemed to the dictator. Americans may have listened with amusement to the seemingly obvious fabrications of Muhammad Said al-Sahaf, Iraq's information minister (nicknamed "Baghdad Bob" by the media). But the evidence now clearly shows that Saddam and those around him believed virtually every word issued by their own propaganda machine.
For example, during the first ten days of the war, Iraq asked Russia, France, and China not to support cease-fire initiatives because Saddam believed such moves would legitimize the coalition's presence in Iraq. As late as March 30, Saddam thought that his strategy was working and that the coalition offensive was grinding to a halt. On that day, Lieutenant General Abed Hamid Mahmoud, Saddam's principal secretary, directed the Iraqi foreign minister to tell the French and Russian governments that Baghdad would accept only an "unconditional withdrawal" of U.S. forces because "Iraq is now winning and . . . the United States has sunk in the mud of defeat." At that moment, U.S. tanks were a hundred miles south of Baghdad, refueling and rearming for the final push."

"Cigars, birds, flowers and servants — life inside Jericho jail" (Stephen Farrell, The Times, 2006/03/16)
"Britain made a robust defence yesterday of its decision to pull out of Jericho prison before an Israeli raid, citing fears that its monitors would be kidnapped, and painting a portrait of a jail controlled by inmates living in luxury.
Palestinian guards confirmed yesterday that Ahmed Saadat, a leading militant captured by Israeli troops in the raid, kept birds and flowers in his quarters. Western officials said that Saadat in effect used other prisoners as “domestic staff”.
An official told The Times that Fuad Shobaki, the alleged moneyman behind a 2002 weapons shipment intercepted by Israel, smoked up to five Cuban cigars a day and was known as “The Brigadier” to inmates and staff. He was also seized.
“Saadat and Shobaki were very much in charge,” one prison source said. 'These guys were running the prison. They did what they wanted, when they wanted.'"

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

News and commentary:

Oriana Fallaci
(Francesco Scavullo, LA Weekly, 2006/03/15)

"The Fallaci Code" (Brendan Bernhard, LA Weekly, 2006/03/15)
"In The Force of Reason, the controversial Italian journalist and novelist Oriana Fallaci illuminates one of the central enigmas of our time. How did Europe become home to an estimated 20 million Muslims in a mere three decades?":
"In 1995, the late American novelist Paul Bowles, a longtime resident of Tangier, told me that he could not understand why the French had allowed millions of North African Muslims into their country. Bowles had chosen to live among Muslims for most of his life, yet he obviously considered it highly unlikely that so many of them could be successfully integrated into a modern, secular European state.
Perhaps Bowles would have been interested in this passage from Fallaci’s book: “In 1974 [Algerian President] Boumedienne, the man who ousted Ben Bella three years after Algerian independence, spoke before the General Assembly of the United Nations. And without circumlocutions he said: ‘One day millions of men will leave the southern hemisphere of this planet to burst into the northern one. But not as friends. Because they will burst in to conquer, and they will conquer by populating it with their children. Victory will come to us from the wombs of our women.’ ”
Such a bald statement of purpose by a nation’s president before an international forum seems incredible. ...
As that Norwegian Mullah told Aftenposten [Dagbladet actually], “Our way of thinking … will prove more powerful than yours.” One hopes he’s wrong, but if he is, it will be ordinary Americans and Europeans, including courageous Arab-Americans like L.A. resident Wafa Sultan and the Somali-born Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali (two women openly challenging Islamist supremacism), who prove him so, and not our intellectual classes (artists, pundits, filmmakers, actors, writers …). Many of the latter, consumed by Bush-hatred and cultural self-loathing, are perilously close to becoming today’s equivalent of the great Norwegian novelist Knut Hamsun, who so hated the British Empire that he sided with the Nazis in World War II, to his everlasting shame. The Force of Reason, at the very least, is a welcome and necessary antidote to the prevailing intellectual atmosphere." (See also an excerpt from the book: "New Fallaci" (TigerHawk, 2006/03/08). Also: "Islam will be Victorious against the West" (Carsten Thomassen, Dagbladet.no/Agora, 2006/03/13))

"Iraq: Ayatollah Sistani says death to gays" (petertatchell.net, 2006/03/15)
A report from an Iraqi LGBT group, UK Abu Nawas, found via Harry's Place. It says quite a lot about our strange times that a liberal such as Thomas Friedman has nominated Sistani for the Nobel Peace Prize:
"Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani of Iraq has issued a death fatwa against lesbian and gay people. On his website, he calls for the killing of homosexuals in the "worst, most severe way" (see his text below).
“Sistani's murderous homophobic incitement has given a green light to Shia Muslims to hunt and kill lesbians and gay men,” says exiled gay Iraqi, Ali Hili, of the London-based gay human rights group OutRage. ...
Evidence we have received from our underground gay contacts inside Iraq suggests intensified homophobic abuse, threats, intimidation and violence by fundamentalist supporters of Sistani.
"In particular, the Badr Corps, which is the armed wing of SCIRI, has instituted a witch-hunt of lesbian and gay Iraqis – including violent beatings, kidnappings and assassinations.
Badr agents have a network of informers who, among other things, target alleged 'immoral behaviour'. They kill gays, unveiled women, prostitutes, people who sell or drink alcohol, and those who listen to western music and wear western fashions.
Badr militants are entrapping gay men via internet chat rooms. They arrange a date, and then beat and kill the victim." ...
The text of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani's fatwa for the killing of sodomites:

Q5: What is the judgment for sodomy and lesbianism?
A5: Forbidden. Punished, in fact, killed. The people involved should be killed in the worst, most severe way of killing."

"Umar Abdul-Jalil Transcripts" (Little Green Footballs, 2006/03/15)
Recordings and full transcript of the speech to a Muslim Students Association held by Umar Abdul-Jalil, head of Islamic chaplains in the New York City Department of Corrections:
"We have, you would be astonished and amazed, dismayed, at the amount of Muslims, particular Muslims from abroad, who are incarcerated either in immigration or federal prison, federal facilities held incommunicado, not charged for anything other than the fact that they have eastern, they come from eastern descent. They are not charged with anything, they are not entitled to any rights, they are interrogated. Some of them are literally tortured and we found this in our facility in the metropolitan correctional facility which is the federal facility in Manhattan. But they literally are torturing people. So to say that this is someone else's problem is not truly the case. It's our problem. Why? Because we have been criminalized, we know it's different, we know what the facts really our. We have terrorists defining who the terrorist is, but because they have the weight of legitimacy they get away with it. We know that and I don't want to become too political on this, I want to be focused. We know that the greatest terrorists in the world occupy the White House, without a doubt. That is a fact, it depends upon how you define it or who is defining or controlling the dialogue. During Hitler's time, (UI 3 words it was mainly?) Jews (UI 2 words without friends?), even though we know for a fact that Hitler was diabolically bad. So it depends who is controlling the dialogue as to who is designated as a criminal, who is designated as a terrorist. So these are the things that impact incarceration here right in America." (See also: "Imam Dishes Out Some Holy Baloney" (Niles Lathem and John Mazor, New York Post, 2006/03/11) and "Top Jail Imam In Hate Tirade" (Niles Lathem, New York Post, 2006/03/09))

"Falling"
(Richard Drew, AP, 2001/09/11)

"Revealed: The Falling Man of 9/11" (David Edwards, The Daily Mirror, 2006/03/15)
"It is one of the most chilling images to emerge from the horror that has become, simply, 9/11. Against the steel-and-glass background of the World Trade Center, a man falls headlong 1,300ft to the street below. ...
And yet, as famous as the image is, the man's identity has remained a mystery. Until now.":
"Five years after the horror of September 9, 2001, the falling man has finally been identified as Jonathan Briley, a 43-year-old who worked in a restaurant at the top of the north tower.
Over the years, his family has always assumed he perished in the building. Now, learning he had jumped is almost too much to bear.
His father, Alexander, a Baptist minister, has still not come to terms with the manner of his son's dying. "I can't talk about it," he says. "My life's work is telling people that they have to go on after tragedy, but I can't do it for myself." ...
On the day he died, Jonathan had kissed his wife Hillary goodbye before making the 20-mile journey from his home in Mount Vernon to Manhattan where he worked in the Windows On The World restaurant as a sound engineer.
That morning, the I restaurant was holding a breakfast for 16 members of the Waters Financial Technology Congress, and 71 other guests.
At 8.45am, less than an hour after Jonathan arrived for work, American Airlines Flight 11 slammed into the north tower.
The impact sliced through floors 93 to 99, killing hundreds, immediately creating a 1,000C inferno as the plane's fuel ignited.
The fireball was so intense that people in the building's lobby were burned as the flames shot down the lift shafts.
But it was the 1,000 people trapped on floors 100 to 107 who were unluckiest. With the lift shafts severed and staircases blocked by rubble, fire and choking smoke, there was no escape.
With the air becoming unbreath-able, desperate staff and diners began smashing windows. And it was in those final moments that Jonathan, an asthmatic, must have made his dreadful decision..." (See also: "The Falling Man" (Tom Junod, Esquire, from the September 2003 issue))

"Saddam Urges Iraqis to Unite Against GIs" (Bassem Mroue, AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/03/15)
"BAGHDAD, Iraq - Saddam Hussein, testifying Wednesday for the first time in his trial, called on Iraqis to stop killing each other and instead fight U.S. troops. The judge reprimanded him for making a rambling, political speech and ordered the TV cameras switched off.
Saddam began his speech by declaring he was the elected president, touching off a shouting match with chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman.
"You used to be a head of state. You are a defendant now," Abdel-Rahman told him.
Saddam, dressed in a black suit and wearing large reading glasses, repeatedly brushed off the judge's demands that he address the charges against him — the killing of 148 Shiites and the imprisonment and torture of others during a crackdown in the 1980s.
Instead, he read from a prepared text, addressing the "great Iraqi people" — a phrase he often used in his presidential speeches — and said he was "pained" by the recent wave of Sunni-Shiite violence.
"Let the people unite and resist the invaders and their backers. Don't fight among yourselves," he said, praising the insurgency.
"In your resistance to the invasion by the Americans and Zionists and their allies, you were great. You were great in my eyes and you remain so. ... It's only a matter of time until the sun rises and you'll be victorious," he said.
Abdel-Rahman shouted at him again and closed the session for 90 minutes, ordering journalists out of the room and the delayed broadcast cut while Saddam finished reading his speech."

"Danish Prosecutor Won't Charge Newspaper" (AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/03/15)
The Danish cartoon affair III: "COPENHAGEN, Denmark - Denmark's top prosecutor said Wednesday he will not press charges against the newspaper that first published the Prophet Muhammad drawings that triggered deadly protests by Muslims worldwide.
The Foreign Ministry said the decision could cause "negative reactions" against Danes and warned citizens to be cautious when traveling in Muslim countries.
Director of Public Prosecutions Henning Fode upheld the decision of a regional prosecutor, who said the drawings published in Jyllands-Posten Sept. 30 did not violate Danish law. Fode's decision cannot be appealed.
His ruling said the 12 cartoons, one of which shows the prophet wearing a turban shaped like a bomb, did not violate bans on racist and blasphemous speech.
"My decision is that there is no violation of the said rules of the Danish Criminal Code," Fode said in a statement.
A regional prosecutor said Jan. 7 that the drawings were protected by freedom of speech laws and did not violate bans on racism and blasphemy. A group of Danish Muslims said at the time they would appeal the ruling to the top prosecutor."

"Muhammed has been depicted on the Supreme Court building..."
(Jyllands-Posten/Agora, 2006/03/15)
From Poul Højlund's article: "Muhammed has been depicted on the Supreme Court building in the US with a sword in one hand and the Koran in the other since the 1930'a as part of a friese about historic lawgivers. Within the last 10 years, big Islamic organisations in the US have demanded that the relief be removed several times, with no success so far. They see it as offending and it is likely to be removed if the OIC is successful with their resolution against defamation of religions."

"Democracy before Religion" (Poul Højlund, Jyllands-Posten/Agora, 2006/03/15)
The Danish cartoon affair II. Translation of an article from today's edition of Jyllands-Posten: "Please notice, by the way, that Muhammed is depicted once again in this infidel newspaper from the North.":
"In the Moslem world, religion is always unconditionally above democracy. In spite of all Moslem countries, Saudi-Arabia excepted, having signed the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, that declaration is simply not valid within the framework of Islam. Instead special Islamic Human Rights have been drafted, which there is pressure on the UN to recognise. They’ve been compiled in the Cairo-declaration of 1990 and they emphasise Sharia as the framework of all Human endeavors.
Freedom of Religion is completely absent from the declaration, on the contrary it starts with these words: “All human beings form one family whose members are united by submission to God and descent from Adam”. In the 25 Articles of the declaration, Shari’ah is mentioned no less than 15 times, God is mentioned 9 times and to be on the safe side, the following two closing Articles have been added:

Article 24: “All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic Shari’ah.”
Article 25: “The Islamic Shari’ah is the only source of reference for the explanation or clarification to any of the articles of this Declaration.”

It can hardly be said clearer than that: Religion is above all else, Human Rights and Democracy included. ...
It’s with this in mind that the demand for international legislation against defamation of religions must be viewed. It should be noted that both Nyrup, Elleman, Clinton and Annan support this demand and that the demand is being reviewed by the UN bureaucracy in the form of a resolution proposed by the OIC - the most significant organisation of Islamic countries - who aim to have it included in the Human Rights Declaration. It was OIC who created the special Sharia-based Islamic Human Rights."

"College paper's editor fired over Mohammed cartoons" (AP/CNN.com, 2006/03/15)
The Danish cartoon affair I. Andrew Sullivan: "The most important thing for today's establishment journalists is not relaying the truth but avoiding offense. The student editor didn't realize that. Now he does. And so Sharia-journalism inches forward.":
"CHAMPAIGN, Illinois (AP) -- An editor who chose to publish caricatures of Prophet Mohammed in the University of Illinois' student-run newspaper last month has been fired, the paper's publisher announced Tuesday.
Acton H. Gorton was suspended, with pay, from The Daily Illini days after the Feb. 9 publication of the cartoons, which sparked Muslim protests around the world after they first appeared in a Danish newspaper.
At the time, Daily Illini publishers said the action was taken against Gorton not for publishing the cartoons, but for failing to discuss it with others in the newsroom first.
The Illini Media Co. board of directors, which comprises students and faculty, voted unanimously to fire the editor after a review "found that Gorton violated Daily Illini policies about thoughtful discussion of and preparation for the publication of inflammatory material," according to a statement.
Gorton has said he sought out advice from The Daily Illini's former editor-in-chief and others before deciding to run the cartoons. He has said that accusations he tried to hide his decision were wrong.
On Tuesday, he called his firing a blow against free speech on college campuses.
"If I can be fired, what will other students think who maybe want to challenge the status quo?" said Gorton, who had briefly addressed a board meeting the previous night. 'This is a bad precedent.'"

Added in archive:
"Imam Dishes Out Some Holy Baloney" (Niles Lathem and John Mazor, New York Post, 2006/03/11)
"Top Jail Imam In Hate Tirade" (Niles Lathem, New York Post, 2006/03/09)

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

News and commentary:

"A Palestinian militant passes the burning British council office..."
(Suhaib Salem, Reuters, 2006/03/14)
"A Palestinian militant passes the burning British council office in Gaza March 14, 2006. Palestinian militants set fire to the British council office in Gaza on Tuesday as part of protests over an Israeli siege of a West Bank jail where a leading militant is being held, a Reuters witness said."

"PFLP military wing says Israel will pay dearly for Sa'adat arrest" (Amos Harel, Haaretz, 2006/03/14)
"Ahmed Sa'adat and five other militants, jailed for the 2001 murder of Israeli minister Rehavam Ze'evi, surrendered Tuesday evening after a nine-hour Israel Defense Forces siege of the prison complex. ...
Britain repeatedly warned Abbas that it would withdraw its monitors from the Jericho prison, the British Foreign Office said.
"It's quite clear that the security of that prison and the security of the monitors was the responsibility of the Palestinian Authority, we made clear to them what we expected them to do, we gave them a warning" that British observers would leave if security did not improve, a Foreign Office spokesman said.
The British comments came after Abbas said earlier Tuesday that Britain and the United States bore "full responsibility" for the IDF raid in Jericho."

"Israeli Soldiers Raid Palestinian Prison" (Sarah El Deeb, AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/03/14)
"JERICHO, West Bank - Israeli soldiers using helicopters, tanks and bulldozers burst into a Palestinian prison Tuesday, removing dozens of inmates in a raid targeting militants convicted of killing an Israeli Cabinet minister.
Palestinians, furious about the raid that also left two Palestinians dead, attacked offices linked to America and Europe, torching the British Council building in Gaza City and kidnapping foreigners, including an American professor, a Red Cross worker, two South Korean journalists and two Australian teachers at an American school. ...
It was the most violent outburst against foreigners in Gaza, surpassing the recent demonstrations against the derogatory Danish cartoons about the Prophet Muhammad. ...
Hundreds of Israeli troops entered the town Tuesday morning and surrounded the prison, calling over loudspeakers for prisoners to give themselves up. The troops then burst through the front gate of the jail with a bulldozer, drove inside in armored personnel carriers and engaged in a shootout with Palestinian police, local security commander Akram Rajoub said. ...
Israel forced 170 prisoners out of the jail wearing only their underwear. But one of the main targets of the raid, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine leader Ahmed Saadat, held out inside.
"We are not going to surrender. We are going to face our destiny with courage," he told Al-Jazeera television from the jail.
American and British observers who had monitored the jail for the past four years withdrew just before the raid, citing security concerns. The Israeli government ordered the raid as a result, the army said. Israel said the Palestinians were to blame for violating an agreement on detaining the Palestinians accused of killing the Israeli minister in 2001." (Note that Hamas has vowed the release of former tourism minister Rehavam Ze'evi's killers: "Mashaal vows release of Ze'evi's killers" (The Jerusalem Post, 2006/02/24): "Hamas Leader Khaled Mashaal said on Friday that the new Hamas-led Palestinian parliament would release the assassins of former tourism minister Rehavam Ze'evi from the Jerico jail where they have been incarcerated for the past four years.")

"Man jailed for beating daughter" (Aftenposten.no, 2006/03/14)
"A court in Kristiansand, southern Norway, has sentenced a man to 120 days in jail for beating his teenage daughter with straps and a metal rod. The beatings were sparked by her admission that she no longer was a virgin.
The 49-year-old man, who emigrated to Norway from Iraq, claimed he'd done nothing wrong. He told the court that he was "much kinder" than many other fathers from his culture would have been.
He claimed most other men would have killed the girl, instead of "just beating her."
He also complained that his daughter had put his family in a difficult situation by reporting the beatings to police. Kristiansand newspaper Fædrelandsvennen reported that he now fears he'll be deported.
The court decision marks the second time he's been convicted of assaulting his daughter. He was sentenced to 45 days in prison last June after he beat his daughter for coming home late and having a boyfriend.
The beatings continued after the daughter admitted she'd had sexual relations with two boyfriends. The father also allegedly threatened to decapitate her.
He told the court that he regrets bringing his family to Norway, because he believes the country is much less conservative than he had thought it was." (Hat tip: Dhimmi Watch.)

"The Correspondent’s New Clothes" (Samuel Rachlin, Børsen/Pundikraterna, 2006/03/14)
The Danish cartoon affair. Translation of a "harsh, but well-argued criticism of the recent CBS “60 Minutes” program about Denmark and the 'cartoon crisis'":
"What we got was a presentation so biased, distorted and corrupted by so many inaccuracies and innuendos that it was impossible to recognize Denmark. I am sorry to say it, but it is shameful for the profession that both Bob Simon and I belong to.
Contrary to what we were told, Jyllandsposten, the Danish paper that published the cartoons, has actually printed cartoons of Jesus Christ too, and yes, they have also rejected some. Contrary to what was said, Danish Muslims have graveyards all over the country. They have been offered a plot for a cemetery, but have not been able to agree among themselves or to raise the funds to operate it.
Contrary to Simon’s story, there are many mosques, but the 19 Muslim communities in the country have not been able to agree on building a new mosque or raise the necessary capital. Many in these communities operate their own schools with 75 percent of their budgets covered by public funds. ...
Too bad that Bob Simon’s own view of reality was so blurry that he lost sight not only of the freedom of speech at the core of this entire problem, but also of what Denmark is about. He set out with a preconceived view to tell a story about the weak and the strong, the good and the bad and he painted a picture of a divided society with fearful, victimized immigrants among paranoid Danes in fairy tale land."

"Swedish anti-Semitism revealed" (The Local, 2006/03/14)
"Five percent of Swedes are anti-Semitic, according to a report published on Tuesday.
'Anti-Semitic attitudes and perceptions', a joint project between the National Council for Crime Prevention and the Forum for Living History, was based on the responses of around 3,000 Swedes aged 16 to 75.
The results, which appeared in Dagens Nyheter, showed that 26% believe that there is a 'Jewish influence' over the world's economy, and 15% consider that influence to be 'too great'. It also emerged that 14% believe that Jews use the Holocaust for political or economic ends.
One out of four of those questioned said they were negative towards the idea of a Jewish prime minister.
"What has long been a problem is the fact that antisemitism has in many ways been denied or trivialised, or that the problem has been seen as peculiar to marginal right wing groups," said historian Henrik Bachner, one of the report's authors, to Swedish Radio.
"What we now see, clearer than ever, is that that is absolutely not the case - rather it's partly general prejudice."
Heléne Lööw at the Forum for Living History said she was surprised by the survey's results.
"Yes, I am - to see that these notions of Jewish power and Jewish conspiracy theories are so widespread." ...
The research was based on a postal survey carried out between March and May last year. It did not indicate whether antisemitism is increasing or decreasing in Sweden." (See also an English summary of the report [emphasis added] [PDF]: "Antisemitic images and attitudes in Sweden" (Henrik Bachner and Jonas Ring, intolerans.levandehistoria.se, 2006/03/14): "The results suggest that antisemitic images and ambivalent attitudes towards Jews are comparatively more prevalent amongst Muslims than amongst Christians and non-religious groups. Amongst adults, 39 per cent of those who say they are Muslims harbour systematic antisemitic views compared to 5 per cent in total."
Also: "Silence surrounds Muslim Jew-hatred" (Sverker Oredsson and Mikael Tossavainen, Dagens Nyheter/Watch, 2003/10/20))

"This undated photo provided Friday, March 3, 2006..."
(University of North Carolina, 2006/03/03)
"This undated photo provided Friday, March 3, 2006, by the University of North Carolina shows Mohammed Reza Taheriazar, a December 2006 UNC-Chapel Hill graduate. Taheriazar was taken into custody as the suspected driver of a sport utility vehicle that plowed into a group of people outside a University of North Carolina classroom building Friday, injuring six before speeding away."

"Sudden Jihad Syndrome" (Daniel Pipes, Human Events Online, 2006/03/14)
"'Individual Islamists may appear law-abiding and reasonable, but they are part of a totalitarian movement, and as such, all must be considered potential killers.' I wrote those words days after 9/11 and have been criticized for them ever since. But an incident on March 3 at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill suggests I did not go far enough.
That was when a just-graduated student named Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, 22, and an Iranian immigrant, drove a sport utility vehicle into a crowded pedestrian zone. He struck nine people but, fortunately, none were severely injured.
Until his would-be murderous rampage, Taheri-azar, a philosophy and psychology major, had an apparently normal existence and promising future. ...
Which raises the obvious question: why would a regular person try to kill a random assortment of students? Taheri-azar’s post-arrest remarks offer some clues.

• He told the 911 dispatcher that he wanted to “punish the government of the United States for their actions around the world.”
• He explained to a detective that “people all over the world are being killed in war and now it is the people in the United States[’] turn to be killed.”
• He said he acted to “avenge the deaths of Muslims around the world.”
• He portrayed his actions as “an eye for an eye.”
• A police affidavit notes that “Taheri-azar repeatedly said that the United States Government had been killing his people across the sea and that he decided to attack.”
• He told a judge, “I’m thankful you’re here to give me this trial and to learn more about the will of Allah.”

In brief, Taheri-azar represents the ultimate Islamist nightmare: a seemingly well-adjusted Muslim whose religion inspires him, out of the blue, to murder non-Muslims. Taheri-azar acknowledged planning his jihad for over two years, or during his university sojourn." (See also: "Attempted Murder Charges in UNC Hit-and-Run" (abc11tv.com, 2006/03/03))

Note: I've updated the excerpt from "'The day is coming when British Muslims form a state within a state'" (Alasdair Palmer, The Sunday Telegraph, 2006/02/19), with comments on its removal from the Telegraph's website and new links to the article.

Added in archive:
"Media shockingly ignorant of Muslims among us" (Mark Steyn, Chicago Sun-Times, 2006/03/12)
"'Weed out textbooks offensive to Muslims'" (David Renni, The Daily Telegraph, 2006/02/16)

Monday, March 13, 2006

News and commentary:

"Islam will be Victorious against the West" (Carsten Thomassen, Dagbladet.no/Agora, 2006/03/13)
A translated interview with Mullah Krekar: "Krekar doesn’t represent the Moslem majority in Norway, Europe or in the Moslem world. But he is the representative of an ideologi, a world view and a historical interpretation which is central to the militant Islamist movement from which Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda and other groups have sprung. ...
“What do you mean when you say the mindset of Islam is stronger than the mindset of the West?”
“We have no fear of the Western mindset. It can never be victorious. In Iraq the two sides are facing each other. On the side of Islam are men who love death and are willing to become martyrs for their beliefs. On the other side are soldiers who fight for a 1000 dollars a day. ... In Denmark they printed those cartoons, but the result is that the backing for Islam increases. I and all Moslems are proof of this. You haven’t managed to change us. We are the ones who will change you.”
“How?”
“Look at the development of the populations in Europe where Moslems are breeding like Mosquitoes. Every western woman produces on average 1.4 children. Every Moslem woman in the same countries produce 3.5 children. In the year 2050, 30 percent of the population of Europe will be Moslems.” ...
“Who should lead the new Caliphate?”
“It needn’t be a scholar. A good man will do.”
“Is bin Laden a such a man?”
“Osama bin Laden, Ayman Zawahiri (the number two of al-Qaeda) are among many good men. Weren’t Jewish leaders terrorists too before they got their own state?”
“The majority of Moslems in the West have made their adopted countries their home. What is your message to them?”
'Moslems in the West and in Norway understand that this is not their country. It’s the Moslem state that will be their home, no matter where it may be. Moslems of the West are like the Jews before them. We are homeless and weak and will be so till we create our own country. Life here has no value for Moslems.'"

More on Mullah Krekar:
"Ansar leader arrested in Norway" (Gunnar Nyquist, document.no, 2004/01/02)
"'I Met Bin Laden'" (Mark Hosenball, Newsweek, from the 2003/10/13 issue)
"Norway's Terrorist Haven" (Michael Radu, FrontPageMagazine, 2003/09/18)
"Terror victim to publish suspected terrorist's memoirs" (Gunnar Nyquist, WEBLOGG. DOCUMENT.NO, 2003/08/19)

"One in every ten Danish Moslems: Burning Danish flags is OK" (Jyllands-Posten/Agora, 2006/03/13)
The Danish cartoon affair. Translation of a Danish article, with additional survey results in the original post:
"Less than half of all Danish Moslems clearly reject the violent reactions in the Middle East to the Muhammed cartoons. And 11 Percent have “full understanding” for flag-burnings, embassy-demolitions and boycott of Danish goods, a survey done by Catinét for Ugebrevet A4 shows.
The survey was done in February among a representative section of Moslem refugees and immigrants in Denmark. Only two percent say that they identify more with Danes in the present situation, while 53 percent feel mostly Moslems and 36 percent identify themselves as both Moslems and Danes.
Minister for Integration Rikke Hvilshøj (Liberals) and the party leaders of the Social Democrats, the People’s Soicialists and the Danish People’s Party are all shocked at the weak backing and solidarity shown by Moslems in Denmark during the present crisis. They also say that they don’t understand the lack of support for Freedom of Speech."

"Terrorist-murderer Quntar awarded honorary Palestinian citizenship" (Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook, PMW, 2006/03/13)
"The Palestinian Authority has announced that it was granting honorary citizenship to two Arab terrorists who killed Israelis – a Lebanese terrorist, Samir Quntar, and Jordanian terrorist, Sultan Al-Ajaluni. Both are serving life sentences in Israeli jails.
In 1979 Lebanese terrorist Samir Quntar murdered Danny Haran and his four-year-old daughter, Einat. Danny's daughter Yael, aged two, suffocated while hiding in a crawl space with her mother. Quntar is serving multiple life sentences totaling 542 years in prison.
Smadar Haran, wife and mother of the murder victims, described the murder in the Washington Post in 2003:

"It was a murder of unimaginable cruelty… It had been a peaceful Sabbath day. My husband, Danny, and I had picnicked with our little girls, Einat, 4, and Yael, 2, on the beach. Around midnight … the terrorists burst into our building. Danny helped our neighbor climb into a crawl space above our bedroom; I went in behind her with Yael in my arms. Danny grabbed Einat and was dashing out the front door when the terrorists came crashing into our flat. They held Danny and Einat … I will never forget the joy and the hatred in the terrorists voices as they swaggered about hunting for us, firing their guns and throwing grenades. … As I lay there, I remembered my mother telling me how she had hidden from the Nazis during the Holocaust. "This is just like what happened to my mother," I thought. .. The terrorists took Danny and Einat down to the beach. There, according to eyewitnesses, one of them shot Danny in front of Einat so that his death would be the last sight she would ever see. Then he smashed my little girl's skull in against a rock with his rifle butt. That terrorist was Samir Quntar."
[Smadar Haran Kaiser, Washington Post, May 18, 2003]

This is the Samir Quntar who last week was granted honorary Palestinian citizenship. Palestinian organizations responded with applause to this announcement..." (See also: "The World Should Know What He Did to My Family" (Smadar Haran Kaiser, The Washington Post, 2003/05/18))

"Amsterdam: The War Over a Cross. Who Wins?" (Paul Belien, The Brussels Journal, 2006/03/13)
"Last week we reported on the decision of the Amsterdam borough of De Baarsjes to permanently remove the white cross which served as a memorial to the Second World War. The cross, with the inscription “Aan hen die vielen” (To those who fell), was situated in front of a place where a huge mosque – the Westermoskee – is currently being built. The cross was removed for the building works, but the authorities decided they would not put it back afterwards and would replace it by a “neutral” memorial, at the price of 50,000 euro.
According to the authorities the cross was offensive to the Muslim and Jewish communities, who had objected to the cross as a war memorial. “The cross is seen as a reference to Christianity. I can understand this,” the local (Christian-Democrat) councillor, Jan Voetberg, said.
However, news of the decision led to an outcry, which prompted the local council to renege on its decision. The local council was swamped with protests from all across the country. While the Pakistani, Moroccan and Turkish communities had, indeed, asked for the removal of the memorial, the Jewish community said it had never objected to the cross. On the contrary. Bloeme Evers, an Auschwitz survivor, said he was shocked by the demand. Three years ago a war remembrance ceremony at the memorial was disrupted by Moroccan youths shouting anti-Jewish slogans.
“We have made an error of judgement and apparently touched an open nerve,” Jan Voetberg said about the decision of the council’s change of mind." (See also: "Muslim Vote Tips the Balance in Netherlands" (Paul Belien, The Brussels Journal, 2006/03/08))

"Eurabian Nightmares" (Andrew G. Bostom, FrontPageMagazine, 2006/03/13)
A review of Bruce Bawer's "While Europe Slept": "Although Muslims comprise (officially) between 2 and 10% of the population in most West European nations, France is already 12% Muslim and Switzerland 20%. But as Bawer notes, these statistics are merely the tip of the steadily emerging demographic iceberg:

Already, in most of Western Europe, 16 to 20 percent of children are Muslims…within a couple of generations many [Western European] countries will have Muslim majorities.

Cognizant of this phenomenon, a Danish Muslim leader, typical of many European imams, declared triumphally in 2000, “Muslims have a dream of living in an Islamic society…This dream will surely be fulfilled in Denmark…We will eventually be a majority”. And such demography is already destiny in Islamic satellite colonies interspersed throughout Western Europe where demands for sovereignty began well before the recent Muslim intifada in France this past fall, 2005. Bawer provides these alarming examples from across Western Europe:

In France, a public official met with an imam at the edge of Roubaix’s Muslim district out of respect for his declaration of the neighborhood as Islamic territory to which she had no right of access. In Britain, imams have pressed the government to officially designate certain areas of Bradford as being under Muslim, not British, law. In Denmark, Muslim leaders have sought the same kind of control over parts of Copenhagen. And in Belgium, Muslims living in the Brussels neighborhood of Sint-Jans-Molenbeek already view it not as part of Belgium but as an area under Islamic jurisdiction in which Belgians are not welcome.

These burgeoning Muslim communities are also consuming disproportionate amounts of state sponsored welfare benefits. For example, Danish Muslims comprise 5% of the population, yet they receive 40% of the governmental outlays. ...
Bawer further documents how Norwegian (Oslo) imams preach brazenly that Muslims should expect such welfare benefits — and feel justified in supplementing them by stealing from stores — as a form of jizya extracted from their infidel “host” societies — societies that have not yet accepted their requisite subservience to Islamic Law!"

"Anti-Semitism seen rising among France's Muslims" (Colin Nickerson, The Boston Globe, 2006/03/13)
The torture and murder of Ilan Halimi: "In the bleak housing project where a young Jew named Ilan Halimi was held captive and tortured before being dumped in a vacant lot to die, there's scant sympathy for the victim.
''It's too bad this happened, because we immigrants are always blamed," said Ibrahim Ag Ahmalou, a lanky man of West African heritage who shares his girlfriend's apartment in the project. ''But Jews have all the money and power. Everyone knows this and resents them. That's why they have these problems."
Last week there were three more attacks on Jews by Arab and African immigrants in suburban Paris, according to police. None of the latest victims was seriously injured, but the attacks heightened the nervousness of French Jews. There is alarm that the antipathy of French Muslims toward Jews, long based on opposition to Israel, is reverting to the even more sinister prejudices that once pervaded Europe, making Jews the scapegoats for all social ills. ...
In taunting calls to Halimi's family, the abductors addressed his parents with anti-Semitic slurs and told them to get cash ''from your synagogue." They also contacted a French rabbi, boasting, ''We have a Jew." Even more shocking, investigators believe that many inhabitants of the project were aware that the youth gang was holding a Jewish captive, but none called police or urged the abductors to show mercy." (See also: "Torture and Death of Jew Deepen Fears in France" (Craig S. Smith, The New York Times, 2006/03/05))

"44 Die in Attack on Baghdad Shiite Slum" (Alexandra Zavis and Steven R. Hurst, AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/03/13)
"BAGHDAD, Iraq - The feared resumption of mass sectarian violence erupted Sunday in a Baghdad Shiite slum when bombers blew apart two markets shortly before sundown, killing at least 44 people and wounding about 200. ...
The attackers struck with car bombs, including a suicide driver, and mortars at the peak shopping time, destroying dozens of market stalls and vehicles as the explosives ripped through the poor neighborhood as residents were buying food for their evening meals. ...
Smoke billowed into the evening sky and angry young men kicked the decapitated head of the suicide attacker, who appeared to be an African, that lay in the street at a shop door, according to AP Television News video.
The nature of the attack, its use of a suicide bomber, bore the hallmarks of al-Qaida in Iraq, which has said it hoped to start a Shiite-Sunni civil conflict."

Added today:
"Nine Convicted in Dutch Terrorism Case" (Toby Sterling, AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/03/10)

See the archive for earlier news and commentary.

 

 

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Copyrights of quoted materials belong to their respective owners.

"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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