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The four sure things in this world are death, taxes, the intent of Iran’s Khomeinist theocracy to build a nuclear arsenal, and the absolute necessity of stopping them. Saturday’s Paris meeting of Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States, all United Nations Security Council members, plus Germany will consider yet another round of sanctions aimed at inducing Iran to halt its nuclear program.
Today saw one last attempt by the EU to gain some concessions from Iran on their nuclear program prior to the Saturday meeting. It was just the most recent in what has proven to be a wholly fruitless attempt by the EU to convince Iran using stern diplomatic language and mean looks. The end result to this charade was more than predictable. Read the story here. Iran is convinced that the West is too weak, greedy and corrupt to take any actions to stop it, be they economic or military.
Friday, November 30, 2007
An Iranian Saturday
Watcher's Council Results
The winning council post for the week was Buchanan's New Book: “Prepare Ye for the End” by Rightwing Nuthouse.
The winning non-council post for the week was Have Our Copperheads Found Their McClellan in LTG Sanchez by yours truly.
You can find the full results of the vote here.
Interesting News From Around the Web
They are calling it a “dirty-bomb plot” thwarted. Police caught two Hungarians and a Ukrainian with a pound of weapons grade powdered uranium. Uranium is considered weapons grade when it consists of 85% or greater uranium 235. The uranium recovered by the police was 98.6% uranium 235.
‘The Prophet would have not have disapproved of 9/11, because it was carried out in his example. When he came to Medina, the Prophet had a revelation, of jihad. After that, it became an obligation for Muslims to convert others, and to establish an Islamic state, by the sword if necessary.” An interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali
The choice of questions and questioners approved by CNN amounts to a fiasco. Gateway Pundit tells the sordid tale.
Some problems are surfacing in Britain’s NHS. More than 90,000 patients die and almost one million are harmed each year because of hospital blunders, according to a just released report.
Al Qaeda and Iran are the wolves at the door. China is not far behind, and poses a much more potent threat.
And in the “working hard for a good cause” category, one enterprising Chilean prostitute has auctioned off 27 hours of sex for approximately $4,000 to be donated to a charity for poor children. To break that down, that’s about $150 per hour or . . . well, probably best to stop the itemization there . . .
According to Sarkozy, the cause of the riots in the Parisian suburbs were the result more of a “thugocracy” than social problems. As to the social problems, Sarkozy seems likely to beat the unions in France as he seeks to reform the French economy.
Iraq Military & Security Roundup
Security continues to improve throughout Iraq. Even a turkey stuffed Murtha can see it. Bill Rogio provides a good overview of operations. Black Five and CENTCOM have individual engagement reports. DOD has some very positive news about Iraq unit effectiveness and improvements in their intelligence capability. And Michael Yon has up the third in his his riveting report from his embed with British forces:
Recent American military data indicates that for the fourth week in a row, the nationwide weekly number of attacks is at its lowest level since January 2006. The number of civilians killed, as measured by the American and Iraqi governments, continued to decline in November. The number of weekly casualties, wounded as well as killed, suffered by Iraqi civilians, Iraqi forces and American forces, increased last week by 56 percent but was still below the level for most of 2006 and 2007.
Apparently, even Rep. Jack Murtha (D-Pa) can see it. He just returned from a Thanksgiving trip to Iraq and proclaimed "I think the 'surge' is working." I am amazed. Meanwhile, Blackfive is pondering the ingredients in Murtha’s Thanksgiving meal
Bill Rogio at the Long War Journal describes the major operations being conducted:
As al Qaeda in Iraq attempts to re-establish its networks in the Northern provinces, the Iraqi military and Multinational Forces Iraq have been shaping the battlefield in the north for a showdown with the terror group. Iraqi and US forces received a big boost the past week when a significant number of Iraqis formed a Concerned Local Citizens group in the region. Meanwhile, the Islamic Army of Iraq in Mosul has vowed to dig in and fight the Coalition.
Read the entire post.
Blackfive has the story of a successful night air assault northeast of Baghdad
Centcom has daily news releases on the result of operations over the past week:
Coalition forces detained 12 suspects during operations Thursday targeting al-Qaeda operations in central and northern Iraq.
Coalition forces detained 12 suspects, including two local leaders of al Qaeda, Tuesday and Wednesday during operations targeting al-Qaeda networks in central and northern Iraq.
During operations north of Bayji, Iraq, Coalition forces observed several individuals begin to maneuver in and around the area reported to be a logistical sanctuary and safe haven where terrorists allegedly plan and coordinate attacks. Perceiving hostile intent, the ground force called for supporting aircraft to engage, killing two terrorists.
Iraqi Forces, advised by U.S. Special Forces, detained one suspected al Qaeda in Iraq terrorist commander and two suspected extremists, as well as uncovered 18 improvised explosive devices during three separate operations Nov. 25 targeting criminal groups within Iraq. The Habbaniyah Special Weapons and Tactics team, along with U.S. Special Forces, conducted a raid west of Baghdad specifically targeting an AQI commander. The individual is reported to be responsible for murder and intimidation campaigns against Iraqi Police and their families in Saqlawiyah, and multiple improvised explosive device attacks against Iraqi and Coalition Forces.
DOD is reporting signficant increases in Iraqi unit effectiveness:
Iraqi security forces have taken “huge steps forward” in growing and moving toward independent operations, a senior commander in Iraq said today.
And they’ve made this progress despite fighting a war on their own soil and working through an immature bureaucracy, said British Army Brigadier S. M. Gledhill, deputy commanding general for the Multinational Security Transition Command Iraq. The command is charged with helping the Iraqis to organize, man and equip their force and to develop the ministries of Defense and Interior.
“Fundamentally, Iraqis are now taking ownership of the battle space themselves. I think this is an extremely positive move and it really demonstrates their capability,” Gledhill said to a group of Internet journalists and “bloggers” in a conference call.
“An increasing number are moving into the leading role, and I have every confidence that over the next 12 months Iraqi battalions and brigades will increasingly take the lead in the battle space,” he said.
In the past year, the Iraqi security forces have rocketed to nearly a half million, including both the police and army. The 158,000-member armed forces are expected to grow to 190,000. The police forces number more than 300,000, Gledhill said. A year ago, the police forces numbered less than 200,000, and the armed forces were about 135,000 strong.
Between the army and national police, 191 Iraqi battalions are in the fight, with more than half operating without coalition force support, he said. . . .
Read the entire article. And in a related story, the Iraqi intelligence cycle - gathering, processing and coordinating targets - is now producing results on par with U.S. forces.
And last but not least, do read Michael Yon’s Men of Valor Part III. Its riveting.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Of Federalism & Hookers
The federalization of criminal law is both a waste of resources and a gross assault upon the Constitutional concept of federalism - that the powers of the federal government are limited and there are spheres of governing that can and should be restricted to the states.
Yet the federalization of criminal law continues apace. The latest is legislation approved by the House to make prostitution a federal crime. How we get there is a bit of very well intentioned insanity.
The genesis of this legislation arises out the criminal enterprise of human trafficking – itself already a federal crime. Under federal laws, a person is guilty of trafficking if they hold someone else in "a workplace through force, fraud or coercion." In cases where human trafficking is found, it usually involves prostitution or forced labor. There are highly committed activists who are convinced that trafficking is evil and very widespread. The former is beyond argument, the latter is dubious:
The government estimated in 1999 that about 50,000 slaves were arriving in the country every year. That estimate was revised downward in 2004 to 14,500 to 17,500 a year. Yet since 2000, and despite 42 Justice Department task forces and more than $150 million in federal dollars to find them, about 1,400 people have been certified as human trafficking victims in this country, a tiny fraction of the original estimates. Some activists believe that if all prostitutes were considered victims, the numbers would rise into the predicted hundreds of thousands.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Interesting News From Around The Web
Saudi Arabia says they have captured 200 al Qaeda types who planned attacks on the oil infrastructure.
Geert Wilders, a conservative Dutch politician, is making a film to highlight the "fascist" passages in the Quran. Muslim immigrants now account for 1,000,000 of the 16,000,000 in population of the Netherlands.
Musharaff has stepped down as Pakistan’s military commander and been sworn in as President.
“Iraq? What does that have to do with anything?” According to the Hill, “Congressional Democrats will focus on the economy next week in an effort to win political advantage from public fears about an approaching recession.” Perhaps they can explain how spending our tax dollars to fund billions in pork in the Defense and Water bills is helping our economy while they are at it.
Beware!!! Iraq is more dangerous . . . Things are so bad that the UN has had to step in . . . to help Iraq deal with the large scale return of refugees.
But despite this horrendous security situation, Iraqi’s decide to celebrate Baghdad Day anyway
Bank of America now changes its recommendation on New York Times stock to “sell.” Go Pinch. Maybe Murdoch will do us all a favor and make an offer.
Jules Crittenden covers the “mood swing” as Americans begin to see Iraq as going well. That is very bad news for the Copperheads.
Democrats & The Future of Iraq
The Democrats are going apoplectic. Not only does it appear that we will succeed in Iraq, but we will maintain a long term presence to provide internal and external stability. This would be fatal to all the non-principles (America is Bad, Bush is Incompetent, Partisan Political Gain, Iraq was a Mistake, Peace Through Superior Surrender-Power) that our Democrats hold dear. Poor Joe Klein at Time Magazine is even demanding we toss out the Constitution to prevent this one. And Harold Myerson, the legal scholar at the Washington Post, sees this as a nefarious plot by President Bush. Indeed, he warns "Bush's efforts to make the U.S. presence permanent would drape the necks of the Republican presidential and congressional candidates with one large, squawking albatross. " It sounds as if Republicans could be tagged with the eternal shame of success.
With the pax Americana taking hold in Iraq, with Iraqi forces increasing daily in size and effectiveness, and with the drawdown of U.S. forces having begun, it was reported yesterday that President Bush and Prime Minister Maliki had agreed to begin negotiations on the future of U.S. forces in Iraq. Basing troops long term in Iraq would be done, at the invitation of Iraq and for precisely the same reasons as justified statitoning troops in post-war Germany, Japan and Korea: to provide for the internal stability of a nascent Democracy and to protect against external threats. As to external threats to Iraq, Amir Taheri has pointed out that the countries surrounding Iraq have long been planning how to carve it up after the inevitable Democrat-led U.S. withdrawal. And as to internal stability, this from the NY Sun, quoting General Lute:
"From the Iraqi side, the interest that they tend to talk about is that a long-term relationship with us, where we are a reliable, enduring partner with Iraq, will cause different sects inside the Iraqi political structure not to have to hedge their bet in a go-it-alone-like setting, but rather they'll be able to bet on the reliable partnership of the United States," he said.
Read the entire article. (H/T Don Surber)
A stable Iraq is the last thing radical Islamists, Middle East despots, or our Democrats want. According to Time Magazine’s Joe Klein:
The Democrats are lining up. . . . to block any Bush attempt to pass a Status of Forces Agreement treaty with Iraq. The question is, Will Bush try to bypass the Senate by making the SOFA an executive agreement with the Iraqi government? The answer is, of course he will.
. . . But any agreement that opens the door to permanent bases should require Senate approval. . . .
What an ass Joe Klein is. One, a SOFA agreement does not, itself, directly obligate us to station any troops on foreign soil. It merely sets the terms of how such soldiers will be treated in a foreign country. Moreover, SOFA agreements – which we have with virtually every country where our troops are stationed - are not and never have been treaties requiring Senate approval. The President negotiates and signs those agreements as Commander in Chief. As to the whether the Congress can dictate troop deployment once hostilities are ended, that implicates the Constitutional separation of powers between the President as Commander in Chief with day to day control of the military and the Congress whose authority is limited to budgeting and declaration of war. Apparently those nuances of Constitutional law are beyond the grasp of Mr. Klein. Just like the Second Amendment, it would seem that the Constitution need not be consulted when it conflicts with an end that the left is emotionally invested in achieving.
As to the Democrats “lining up,” well, I guess its not as if we have any vital national security interests at stake in Iraq and the Middle East:
Obama has definitively stated that he will "not maintain permanent bases in Iraq." Is it just me, or does that phrasing seem carefully worded?
You can read Hillary’s letter to the White House on the issue here. I love Hillary’s take on this. “To be clear, attempts to establish permanent bases in Iraq would damage U.S. interests in Iraq and the broader region . . .” She does not elaborate on this point, but I would love to hear her explain this in a debate. This is the logic of the far left. America can only succeed by losing. We can only achieve a lasting peace through defeat. It is nihilistic insanity.
John Edwards, though, takes the cake. In demanding a complete withdrawal from Iraq, John Edwards states that “Bush is planning to pursue a 'Korea-style' American occupation of Iraq for 10 years or more.”
How is our stationing of forces in Korea an occupation? An occupation denotes imposing military control over a region. Stationing troops in Iraq at the request of the Iraqi government would be no more of an occupation than was the stationing of our troops in Germany or Japan after their own democratic governments been formed. They are there only at the host country invitation and to provide internal and external stability. And in every foreign country that our soldiers have been so stationed, that is precisely what has occurred. If Mr. Edwards is claiming that Korea does not want our troops there, the man has no touch with reality. The last politician who planned to remove our forces from the Korean peninsula was President Carter. And it was the Koreans who went nuts.
It would seem that our Copperheads are walking ever ever further down the road of defeat in Iraq and the world at large. It is a dangerous road for them indeed.
Annapolis, Iran & Realpolitik
With every major Middle East country but one represented at Annapolis today, the ostensible agenda is to discuss peace between Israel and the Palestinians. But, as Bernard Lewis pointed out in yesterday's WSJ, any major breakthrough in the peace process is unlikely. So what is under the surface that has driven all of these parties together? In a word, Iran.
The Khomeinist Shia theocracy in Iran has been the single greatest destabilizing agent in the Middle East virtually since its inception nearly 30 years ago. Now with a nuclear program that seems all but assured to begin producing a nuclear arsenal in the very near future, the threat Iran poses to the entire Middle East is growing exponentially. And while the rest of the Middle East countries are at Annapolis, Iran is hosting its own Middle East "peace" summit for all of the other parties espousing concern with the Palestinian question - i.e., Hamas, Hezbollah, etc. The participants are expected to unanimously agree to a final solution.
Israel does not scare Saudi Arabia, nor any of the other Middle East countries. Iran does. It keeps them up at night. And they are at Annapolis because of it.
The Middle East peace conference here on Tuesday was officially about ending the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. But there was an unspoken goal just below the surface: stopping the rising regional influence of Iran and Islamic radicalism.Read the article here. And Tom Friedman's column today is of a similar vein. He sees fear of Iran and radicalism driving the agenda, but notes that it will take more courage than fear to succeed in achieving something akin to a peace at the Annapolis summit.
That is why, despite enormous skepticism about the ability of the Israelis and Palestinians to reach a final peace treaty, there is enormous relief among the many Sunni Arab countries in attendance that the United States has re-engaged in what they see as the larger and more important battle for Muslim hearts and minds.
“The Arabs have come here not because they love the Jews or even the Palestinians,” said an adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team who spoke on condition of anonymity. “They came because they need a strategic alliance with the United States against Iran.”
Hovering over Annapolis are deep anxieties over the challenge from a resurgent Shiite and non-Arab Iran, with its nuclear program and its successful allies and proxies in southern Lebanon, Iraq and the Palestinian territories. Those Arab nations fear that the tide of history is moving away from them, and that they are losing their own youth to religious militancy.
“There is a genuine concern and fear among political classes in the Arab world that the Islamic trend hasn’t reached its plateau,” said Hisham Melhem, the Washington bureau chief for Al Arabiya television. “They worry that Iran and its allies act as if this may be the beginning of the end of America’s moment in the Middle East.”
. . . “They’re very worried about militancy and their public’s great sympathy with Hezbollah and Hamas,” Mr. Telhami said, speaking by telephone from Cairo. “They were all stunned by the Hamas takeover of Gaza” in June.
. . . Representative Gary L. Ackerman, Democrat of New York, put it pithily. “Everybody at Annapolis has something in common,” he said. “It’s not love of Israel or the Palestinians. It’s fear of Iran. Everyone needs a relative to protect them from Iran.”
(H/T israel matzav)
A Real Iraqi Benchmark
It's axiomatic that if you want to know the true morale of a military unit, you ask the private. So hats off today to the Washington Post for doing essentially that in attempting to gauge how Iraqis themselves feel about the security situation in their county. WaPo asked Baghdad's cab drivers:
Haider Abbas, a 36-year-old taxi driver, had only a few moments to answer what is often a life-or-death question in this city: Would he drive a passenger home?
The home, on that scorching afternoon last month, happened to be in Adhamiyah, a notoriously dangerous neighborhood where several cabbies had been gunned down. Abbas hadn't been there in two years. But the fare pleaded that it had become safer, so the cabbie reluctantly agreed to go.
"To tell you the truth, I thought I had just traded my life for 5,000 dinars," or $4, said Abbas, who was shocked when he arrived in the traffic-jammed streets of Adhamiyah to see shops open and people strolling in the road. "Then I suddenly realized that security really is returning to Baghdad."
In a city where few residents believe official statements on declining violence, whether from the U.S. military or the Iraqi government, some of the most reliable figures on security improvements can be found on the odometers of Baghdad's taxi drivers.
Read the entire story.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Slandered By The Prince of Wales
Reposted From Feb.27, 2007
England, never known for its culinary accomplishments (never seen a "Billions and Billions Served" sign at a fish and chips shop, have you?), has none the less seen fit to make slanderous accusations about our own venerable institution, McDonalds. Yes, Prince Charles, the monarch in waiting whose subjects' waist lines are ever increasing, has lashed out blindly and without provocation to claim that McDonalds is what lies in the bottom of the belly of the beast -- Britain's growing problem of obesity. And in an act of even greater outrage, he has called for a ban on McDonald's tasty fare.
The Telegraph has published an article documenting the Prince's intemperate remarks while in the UAE -- and then go even one better. They publish on the page a comp
arison between that staple of British food, available on every UK street corner, the Cornish Pasty (Ohhhhh my but they are delicious) and a BIG MAC. In traditional British understatement, they do not comment upon the comparison, but you can almost hear the author clearing his throat and shuffling his feet. It shows that by comparison, the BIG MAC is DIET FOOD. Lolllllll
"Give 'Em Surrender" Harry Reid
Reposted from April 20, 2007.
We as a nation now have two "Harry" bookends to our historical period. At one end is Harry Truman, who led us to victory in World War II, utterly defeating Japan and Germany. Truman then led us part way into the Korean Conflict, where we decimated the North Korean Army and then pushed back the Chinese hordes that crossed the Yalu. That Harry had a nickname. It was "Give 'Em Hell" Harry. And now, at the opposite end of the spectrum in time and substance, we have "Give 'Em Surrender" Harry, the Senate Majority leader.
"Give 'Em Surrender" Harry declared our nascent counterinsurgency stategy a failure and the Iraq war lost yesterday, making an analogy between Bush's surge and the futility of the Vietnam War.
Iranian Press TV reports, in response to Reid's statement:Leader of the Democratic majority in the US Congress, Harry Reid, has said the US has lost the Iraq war, and Bush's troop surge has failed.... Reid's comments came a day after 200 fatalities were reported in bombings in Iraq, despite a much touted US Security Plan which the White House said sought to root out insurgency."
A Republican party e-mail also reported the following as translations of items from Al-Jazeera Online, and Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, "The Leading Arabic International Daily"; please let me know if the translations are inaccurate:"Yesterday the leader of the Democratic majority in Congress, Harry Reid, announced that he conveyed to Bush that the United States lost the war in Iraq and that the additional America forces that were sent there will not succeed in the achievement of any positive progress."
"Leader of the Democratic majority in the US Congress, Harry Reid, has said the US has lost the Iraq war, and Bush's troop surge has failed.... Reid's comments came a day after 200 fatalities were reported in bombings in Iraq, despite a much touted US Security Plan which the White House said sought to root out insurgency."
As I have said before, it may well be quite proper -- and certainly constitutionally protected -- for people to criticize the war; and sometimes the benefits of such criticism, even of the "war is lost" variety and even when said by leading U.S. politicians, outweigh the costs. Yet it seems to me hard to doubt that this statement will have grave cost.
. . . Yet my suspicion is that the harm will be quite substantial indeed.
It is one thing for a dissembling Joe Biden to pronounce the surge a failure, or a New York Times cheerleading for the far left to call the war lost, but quite another when a leader of the Democratic Party and the Senate Majority Leader does so. I am quite willing to bet that Give 'Em Surrender Harry is now the new poster boy for a much energized radical Muslim recruitment from Terhan to Ridyah to Morroco to London, Rome and Washington D.C. Does anyone doubt for a moment that Wahhabi / Salafi clerics the world over, even as you read this, are not praising Give 'Em Surrender Harry's pronouncement as "Allah's will" and pointing to it as proof that more bloodshed will ultimately see radical Islam ascendent throughtout the world.
And if you want to forecast how Give 'Em Surrender Harry's statement will impact upon the average Iraqi who has a choice between supporting us and the Maliki government or the insurgents, be it al Qaeda in Iraq or the Iranian backed Mahdi Army, if you turn to the book authored by General Petraeus, the Army's field manual 3-24: Counterinsurgency, you will find this:
1-134: . . . The populace may prefer the HN [i.e., Iraqi] government to the insurgents; however, people do not actively support a government unless they are convinced that the counterinsurgents - [i.e., U.S. and Iraqi forces] have the means, ability, stamina, and will to win."
Give 'Em Surrender Harry may succeed in his clear objective of gaining political power in the '08 election, but at what cost to America in blood and gold?
Update: Now we know that, in the violent events of last Wednesday that "Give 'Em Surrender" Harry cited as proof the surge has failed, 3 of the 4 al Qaeda bombs were greatly limited by defenses put in place by the surge.
Islam & Defunding the UN
Reposted From March 31, 2007
The reason we face the problem of radical Islam today is that, in its entire history, Islam has seen no Renaissance, no Reformation, no Period of Enlightenment. These titanic events in Western history led to the development of secular values that came out of, but were separate from, the Judeo-Christian religion that birthed them. And these events gradually took religion from the sphere of a government imposition and moved it into the realm of the individual and local community.
The Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment were each developed through the process of critical thought - the questioning and challenging of religious ideals and dogma. It was this critical thought that allowed the West to seperate the wheat -- the belief in God and universal concepts of moral behavior -- from the chaff of religion – dogma that restricted development in all aspects of society: political, artistic, scientific, philosophical. Thus, today do our universities turn out the finest scientists, the finest writers, the finest mathematicians and astronomers, while the universities in Saudi Arabia primarily turn out Wahhabi clerics. And it is why the West leads the world in science and the arts while the morals police in Saudi Arabia hunt down sorcerers and the Saudi courts apply Wahhabi Sharia law to order the flogging of victims of gang rape.
There are seeds from which a Muslim Enlightenment could yet occur. They would require criticism and debate to take root. Yet these seeds are under mortal threat today from the growth of Wahhabi / Salafi Islam.
The Council expresses deep concern at attempts to identify Islam with terrorism, violence and human rights violations; notes with deep concern the intensification of the campaign of defamation of religions, and the ethnic and religious profiling of Muslim minorities, in the aftermath of the tragic events of 11 September 2001; urges States to take resolute action to prohibit the dissemination including through political institutions and organizations of racist and xenophobic ideas and material aimed at any religion or its followers that constitute incitement to racial and religious hatred, hostility or violence; also urges States to provide adequate protection against acts of hatred, discrimination, intimidation and coercion resulting from defamation of religions, to take all possible measures to promote tolerance and respect for all religions and their value systems and to complement legal systems with intellectual and moral strategies to combat religious hatred and intolerance; . . .
The UN is only doing the work of radical Wahhabi Islamists at this point. If there is ever to be a peaceful coexistence with Muslims, the West cannot gag itself as CAIR and the Islamists at UN would have us do. We can coexist with Muslims as long as they are not trying to kill us and impose their religion by coercion or by working fundamental changes to our Western secular values with ridiculous charges of Islamaphobia. Unfortunately, that is not the reality. Thus, it is their religion that needs to change. It needs to go through its Reformation, and there needs to be a period of Enlightenment. The clearest way to stop this transformation from ever occurring is to outlaw criticism of Islam. This would be putting a nail into the coffin of Western civilization, in addition to insuring the ultimate domination of the Wahhabi philosophy in Islam.
If this is what we can expect from UN as reformed, it needs to be defunded by the U.S. In the Senate hearings for his confirmation as the new U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad has argued against defunding the UN but has also stated that the UN faces a “mortal threat" if it fails to reform. There are no reforms on the horizon. It is time to allow the UN to subsist on Rials until it does.
Update: This post cross linked at the American Thinker Blog
Interesting News From Around The Web
Amir Taheri takes a detailed look at the good and bad in Iraq beyond the security situation itself. He has harsh words for the government of Iraq.
Iran is hosting its own Middle East peace summit with all of the attendees being those whose invites to Annapolis were apparently lost in the mail. The participants are expected to unanimously agree to a final solution.
Iraqis are returning to Baghdad in large numbers.
Don Surber is celebrating V-I Day. It is a bit early for that – there still seems to be a lot of fighting to do, and Iran is going to be something between a significant and a huge problem until the Khomeinist theocracy is no longer.
There is the Stop the ACLU Roundup at Miss Beth’s Victory Dance. I am not reflexively anti-ACLU at least to the extent that I will listen to what they have to say before making my decision that its bad for America. Its just happens to be that decision is the one at which I invariably arrive.
We knew that President Bush welcomed the Goracle to the White House to honor his Nobel Prize, but did anyone realize that it was a low carbon event in Gore’s honor?
A 17th century book believed to be bound in the skin of a priest hung, drawn and quartered for treason as part of the famous Gunpowder Plot is up for auction in the UK.
Posterizing Democrats over at TNOY. Hilarious.
Hate America bias amongst our friends at Der Spiegel? I do hope they enjoy the good life they are going to have in the EU.
France's "Punk Jihad" Riots Worst Than 2005
The riots among the Muslim youth in the “suburbs” of Paris promise to be worse than 2005. The rioters are more violent and the response from France’s Interior Minister has been anything but decisive. This from the NYT today:
The number of police officers injured during clashes by French youths in a suburb north of Paris rose to 86 after a second bout of violence overnight in which 60 officers were hurt, including six who are in serious condition, police officials said.
Of the six in serious condition, four were hurt as a result of gunfire, said Francis Debuire, a representative of the General Union of Police Officers in the district where the fighting took place. One of the four lost an eye and another officer’s shoulder was shattered by a bullet after some of the youths used shotguns as well as firebombs and rocks.
Police union officials expressed concern that the violence was more severe than the fighting that had occurred in the Paris suburbs over three weeks of rioting in 2005. “The violence over the last days has been worse than two years ago in terms of its intensity,” Mr. Debuire said.
. . . Among the marchers, a young man who identified himself as Cem, 18, but who refused to give his full name, said: “This is war. There is no mercy. We want at least two policemen dead.”
Read the here. This from PJM’s Nidra Poller, gives a bit more background:
Monday 11 pm
Violence is spreading from Villiers le Bel to a dozen neighboring communities. At least twenty policemen have been injured so far tonight (forty injured last night according to the latest figures), some of them critically. The insurgents are using firebombs, iron rods, baseball bats, and firing buckshot. Journalists are attacked, their cameras are stolen. The mayor of Villiers le Bel is running a crisis center from an undisclosed location. Interior Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie is strangely absent, silent, or ineffectual. This is not the way it is supposed to be happening in the Sarkozy government. Don’t be surprised if Alliot-Marie is replaced early next year.
. . . Police investigators and several eyewitnesses corroborate the patrolmen’s version of the accident. The police car was going at a normal speed, no sirens, no hot pursuit. The mini-motorcycle came down a side street at high speed and made a left turn, crashing directly into the police car. The police remained on the scene for approximately twenty to thirty minutes until the fire department ambulance arrived.
President Sarkozy, on a state visit to China, issued a plea for calm. It must have seemed quite logical from where he’s standing… but it’s totally inaudible here on the receiving end.
Monday morning
The tally on Sunday’s punk jihad outburst is heavy and rising.
. . . According to concurrent reports, the rage broke out immediately. The police claim the motorcycle ran into their patrol car at an intersection; the enraged know better—the police car in hot pursuit of the innocent boys, Moushin and Larami, smashed into their motorcycle. Moushin’s uncle was outraged because the bodies were left lying in the fire station. But it seems that the forces that came to pick them up had to turn back because they were attacked. The boys had gone out to do a little bit of rodeo, a favorite sport in the banlieue projects. Le Parisien posted You Tube videos filmed by reckless kids.
Reckless, yes, but when they get wrecked it’s the fault of the police, the Peugeot dealership, and McDonald’s.
The euphemism for these enclaves — “quartier sensible”—bears a nugget of truth if correctly translated as “touchy neighborhoods.” Villiers le Bel is in the administrative district of Sarcelles / Garges-les-Gonesses about 20 km north of Paris. Not so long ago Sarcelles was the home sweet home of Jewish refugees from North Africa; today it is their nightmare. They endure constant attacks and harassment from the permanently enraged African-Arab-Muslim residents who live cheek by jowl with their still neat clean streets.
Socialist leader François Hollande is demanding the truth, the whole truth and of course the right truth on this incident—it has to be the fault of the police, the fault of the brutal Sarkozy government, the fault of deaf ears turned to the suffering of youths in this, the touchiest of touchy neighborhoods. . . .
Read the entire post at PJM. France has an incredble problem with its immigrant Muslim community that it needs to solve. Sarkozy has discussed cutting off "foreign" - i.e., Wahhabi / Salafi - involvement in existing Muslim community prior to his election. To say that sounds like too little is a bit of an understatement.
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The EU - Europe’s Grand Experiment In Socialism
One of the defining characteristics of today’s left is a belief in the power of the central government to cure all ills of society. The left of today does not trust the individual to exercise responsibility nor to govern themselves at the local level. Power is collected in the central government and ever more control is taken over the daily lives of citizens through regulation and statute. Democracy is minimized. Free speech is manipulated through government investment in, if not ownership of, the media and through government use of its masses of taxpayer funds to manipulate national discourse. Further, in the world of the left, free speech bows to multi-culturalism.
The ultimate manifestation of this philosophy today is the grand socialist experiment that is the European Union. And as the EU grows in power, its omnipresent influence is felt ever more in European society.
This from an article in Der Spiegel:
PERFECTING A SYSTEM OF TOTAL CONTROL
How Brussels Regulates our Daily Lives
. . . The European Commission in Brussels wants to protect European citizens even more effectively against danger and disease. Soon there will be a well-intended -- but mostly completely unnecessary -- regulation for every aspect of life.
Read the entire article. Several months ago, I read a critique by one of our leftist pundits of Fred Thompson, a conservative one-time Senator who was then considering a bid for the Presidency. A significant criticism was that Mr. Thompson had not initiated any new laws or regulatory efforts during his time in the Senate. And therein lies the difference between today's neo-liberal left and the conservatives. The left considers Mr. Thompson a failure for his restraint. A conservative would consider that a great accomplishment. At any rate, if the axiom is true that you get the government you deserve, Europe is in sad straits indeed.
As Overall Violence in Iraq Dwindles, Iran Increases Their Tempo
Any suggestion that Iran's Khomeneist theocracy is stepping back the violence in Iraq by its proxies, the so-called "special groups," is belied by facts on the ground. A little over a week ago, a special group killed and injured scores of civilians when they bombed a market in Baghdad, attempting to disguise it as an al-Qaeda attack. And a few days ago, several hundred thousand Shia in southern Iraq signed a formal petition expressing their outrage at the violence Iran is causing in their areas as Iran attempts to extend its influence. Now this today:
. . . Shiite extremists using weapons linked to Iran have risen to their highest levels in months in and around Baghdad's Shiite enclave of Sadr City, despite a 75 percent decline since May in overall violence in the area.
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