#1
Reciprocy only works one way with many Moslems. It's kind of like half a hinge. They stick it on a door deviding them from the west, complain about the broken hinge and push the door down into anyplace that does not resist and proceed to take over. It's been that way since Mohammed started this warrior religion. Not all Moslems agree with it's domination style but many do and far too many others go along.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
02/04/2009 11:05 Comments ||
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Homosexualists who want to use government power to impose their agenda on the military know that in the new Obama administration, gpeople are policy.h To achieve their most radical goals through the courts, these activists surely are counting on Elena Kagan, Pres. Barack Obamafs nominee for Solicitor General of the United States. If confirmed by the Senate, Kagan will be in a position to make or break scores of government policies and laws affecting the military, without the inconvenience of having to deal with elected representatives of the people in Congress.
The Solicitor General, who is legally required to be glearned in the law,h supervises and conducts government litigation before the U.S. Supreme Court. He or she determines which cases to appeal to the Supreme Court, and usually presents oral arguments in the most high-pressure environment any lawyer can face. (Ms. Kagan, Dean of Harvard Law School, has no experience before the Supreme Court.)
The Solicitor Generalfs office participates in the preparation of petitions, briefs, and other papers filed by the government in Supreme Court proceedings. In addition, the office reviews gall cases decided adversely to the government in the lower courts to determine whether they should be appealed and, if so, which position should be taken.h
When the Solicitor General allows adverse decisions to stand without appeal, lower-court judges sometimes are empowered to reinterpret, weaken, or incrementally nullify duly enacted laws. An example relevant to the Kagan nomination involves the Solomon Amendment, a law named for the late New York Republican congressman and former Marine Gerald Solomon. In 2003 a consortium of law schools and faculty called the Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights (FAIR) challenged the Solomon Amendment in the federal courts.
FAIR argued that Congress erred in passing a law that withholds federal funding for colleges and universities if they deny access for military recruiters on the same basis as civilian employers invited to participate in on-campus career days. This mandate, they said, is not fair to colleges and universities that forbid discrimination based on several factors, including sexual orientation.
FAIR further maintained that colleges and universities should be permitted to accept federal funds even if they refuse to provide equal access to any employer, including the military, which does not accept homosexual applicants. This presentation wrongly implied that the armed forces are no different than any other gequal opportunity employer.h
In November 2004 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit agreed with FAIRfs argument and declared the Solomon Amendment unconstitutional. The Solicitor General appealed the case, FAIR v. Rumsfeld, to the U.S. Supreme Court. Prof. Elena Kagan was one of 54 law school faculty members who filed an amicus brief supporting FAIRfs legal argument against the amendment.
Voting 8-0, (new Justice Sam Alito had not heard oral arguments) the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the legislation, and firmly rejected FAIRfs argument. If the Kagan amicus brief had any merit at all, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and other liberals on the court would have found a reason to agree. Instead, the Supreme Courtfs opinion was a unanimous rejection of the FAIR/Kagan argument.
The outcome of this case would have been dramatically different if Dean Kagan had been the Solicitor General instead of a law professor endorsing a losing argument. Absent an appeal, the Third Circuit ruling would have nullified the Solomon Amendment by judicial fiat, without any review by the Supreme Court.
Army veteran Flagg Youngblood of the Young Americafs Foundation, who advocates for student rights, takes issue with elite schools that claim they have a right to taxpayer funding while simultaneously barring our military. In a Washington Times op-ed titled gSolicitor General FlimFlam,h Youngblood noted that six major universitiesStanford, Caltech, Columbia, the University of Chicago, Harvard, and his own alma mater Yaleare still assigning gsecond-class, back-of-the bus statush to students who want to serve their country.
In 2006-2007 Youngbloodfs gShameful Sixh schools accepted almost $5 billion in taxpayer funding while continuing various strategies to circumvent the Solomon amendment. Students must travel miles away to other campuses if they want to take advantage of military opportunities that academic elites disdain with haughty contempt. Even Pres. Barack Obama, who was asked about this issue during the 2008 campaign, said that he disagrees with anti-military policies on college campusesthe same practices that his own nominee, Elena Kagan, has endorsed.
Members of the Senate should question Dean Kagan closely and determine whether her elitist views in the Solomon Amendment case place her so far out of the judicial mainstream that she does not merit confirmation. Questions are even more important because easy confirmation would put Kagan on the short list for possible nomination to the Supreme Court.
For starters, members of the Judiciary Committee should ask Kagan whether she can put aside her personal views and vigorously defend the Solomon Amendment, which protects the militaryfs right of equal access to inform college students of available opportunities.
The senators also should ask Kagan whether she will defend the 1993 law stating that homosexuals are not eligible to serve, Section 654, Title 10, which is usually mislabeled gDonft Ask, Donft Tell.h The federal courts of appeal have upheld that statute several times. Will she follow those courts and zealously defend the law, or will she take the opposite position and undercut existing law by declining to appeal adverse lower-court rulings?
Senators and the American people need to know whether Kagan really believes that the military is no different from other employers. If this is her view, will she respect Supreme Court precedents recognizing the principle of gdeferenceh to the executive branch and Congress on matters of regulation and law affecting the military?
If Dean Kaganfs answers are not satisfactory, senators should not vote to confirm her as America's next Solicitor General. Enormous power should not be entrusted to an official whose liberal philosophy and skewed priorities would do great harm to the all-volunteer force.
Some of us have been warning that it was not healthy for the U.S. media to have deified rather than questioned Obama, especially given that they tore apart Bush, ridiculed Palin, and caricatured Hillary. And now we can see the results of their two years of advocacy rather than scrutiny.
We are quite literally after two weeks teetering on an Obama implosionand with no Dick Morris to bail him outbrought on by messianic delusions of grandeur, hubris, and a strange naivete that soaring rhetoric and a multiracial profile can add requisite cover to good old-fashioned Chicago politicking. . . .
This is quite serious. I can't recall a similarly disastrous start in a half-century (far worse than Bill Clinton's initial slips). Obama immediately must lower the hope-and-change rhetoric, ignore Reid/Pelosi, drop the therapy, and accept the tragic view that the world abroad is not misunderstood but quite dangerous. And he must listen on foreign policy to his National Security Advisor, Billary, and Sec. of Defense. If he doesn't quit the messianic style and perpetual campaign mode, and begin humbly governing, then he will devolve into Carterismangry that the once-fawning press betrayed him while we the people, due to our American malaise, are to blame.
Posted by: Mike ||
02/04/2009 09:32 ||
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To hear the politicians tell it, taxes are really hard, and you just can't blame a guy (by which we mean an ex-Senator) for not being able to tell whether, say, a car and driver provided by a major party contributor constitutes compensation, or just a massive "gift."
Now would be a good time for Obama to clear this up:
MEMORANDUM
To: Anyone who sent his or her resume to my transition team
From: The President of the United States
Please pay your taxes. We kinda need them, what with the financial crisis and the massive stimulus spending and whatnot. Thanks.
____________
PS: In case you're confused -- personal gifts are things like sweaters and bottles of wine, or -- if you're really lucky -- maybe a Wii or Sox-Yanks tickets or something. If you're honestly deluded enough to believe that daily use of a goddamn Town Car and a goddamn chauffeur is a "gift," you're probably too divorced from everyday reality to work for the people of the United States.
Do not mock Trapper John the Kos Kiddie, for what you see here are the first stirrings of Figuring It Out. Our friend Trapper here has just noticed that Tom Daschle, that pillar of the Party of Working People, is an elitist bastard who is "too divorced from everyday reality to work for the people of the United States." At some point, if he continues on this path of clear-eyed perception, he will come to the same realization about Pelosi, Reid, various Kennedys, and, ultimately, about the Obamamessiah Himself. Let us be encouraging and supportive of him, and of any other Obama fans who are starting to figure it out.
Posted by: Mike ||
02/04/2009 08:55 ||
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#1
Indeed. We are here for Trapper John when the time comes.
The peaceful polling was remarkable and so were the results. All the Islamic parties lost ground, especially that associated with the so-called "Shia firebrand", Moqtada al-Sadr, whose share of the vote went down from 11% to 3%. The principal Sunni Islamic party, the Islamic Party of Iraq, was wiped out.
The only Islamic party to gain ground was the Dawa party of the Shia prime minister Nouri al-Maliki - and even that party dropped the word Islamic from its name. The power of Maliki, who has emerged a stronger leader than expected, is further enhanced by these elections. Now no Islamic parties will be able to control any provinces on their own. The election is thus a big defeat for Iran which had hoped that Shia religious parties would control the south and enable Iran to turn them into a mini Shia republic.
Instead, a new generation of Iraqi politicians is coming forward. Many of them are young and secular. They have lived always in Iraq, not in exile; they are Iraqis with local roots first and foremost - they are not pan-Arabs or pan-Islamists. Nor do they have connections to the US.
But in the last two years the "surge" of US troops under General David Petraeus appears to have destroyed much of the terrorists' infrastructure and support. Now, as US troops begin their phased withdrawal, the new American-trained Iraqi army is defending the country against Islamist violence.
There will be further setbacks. But who knows, Iraq may yet even become a model for democratic change in other Arab countries. If so, who deserves some credit? The much maligned President Bush. And Tony Blair.
#1
A new generation of politicians emerging after only two years of practicing democracy? And they're secular instead of religious? The Iraqis are climbing an impressively steep learning curve.
#2
Tipper,
The tactics in your article are not such a big departure from normal Jihadi practice. It's been know for some time that many of the male suicide bombers are teenage victims of seduction/rape by adult men. These victims tended to see martyrdom as a way regain status as well as atone for sins.
The idea of holding the rape victim (male and female) reponsible for the crime is well documented in Islam.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
02/04/2009 11:54 Comments ||
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Iraq's peaceful elections and strong voter turnout last weekend were a major success for both that country and the United States not that there was much celebration in American news coverage. Critics of the Iraq war claimed that overthrowing Saddam Hussein in 2003 strengthened Irans position. Had we left Mr. Hussein in power, the theory goes, Iran would be less of a global threat. This argument is fundamentally wrong.
Long before the American ouster of Mr. Hussein, Iran was supporting terrorist groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank. It was seeking hegemony in Syria and Lebanon, and was well along in its clandestine program to acquire nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. After Mr. Husseins conviction and execution, Iran increased efforts to advance its radical brand of Shiite Islam in Iraq. But the success of the election should substantially retard those efforts.
Mr. Hussein defended his repressive regime and his pursuit of weapons of mass destruction in the name of protecting Arab nations from Iran. Western critics of Mr. Husseins removal are basically parroting the arguments of a tyrant. Surely some other Iraqi government could have advanced the Arab cause without invading Kuwait, or using chemical weapons against its own citizens.
Iraqs provincial elections actually weaken Tehrans hand. First, they were not entirely dominated by Shiite voters. After mostly boycotting the 2005 Iraq elections, Sunnis participated on Saturday in large numbers. Many of them seem to recognize that their abstention had been a mistake. If they follow through in the general elections that should be held later this year, the composition of Iraqs Parliament will change substantially.
Moreover, its unfair to assume that Tehran calls the shots among Iraqi Shiites. This gives too much credit to Iranian propaganda, and too little to the good sense of the Shiites themselves. Now they must decide whether taking orders from mullahs in Tehran is really more attractive than electing their own representatives in Baghdad.
Despite these successful elections, the sectarian and communal violence will not necessarily end, and we may even see the ultimate fragmentation of Iraq. Nor will the elections put an end to Irans ambitions. Tehran appears to believe that its influence in the region is expanding, and that its neighbors and the United States have failed to respond effectively. This belief is unsurprising, given the Obama administrations acquiescent attitude toward Tehran.
Still, the elections could make a deep impression on the citizens of Iran and its vassal, Syria. Young, educated, sophisticated Iranians, dissatisfied with their countrys religious orthodoxy and economic failures since the 1979 revolution, will draw their own conclusions from Iraqs peaceful democratic process.
Uncomfortable though it may be for some on the American left to admit, the surge continues to work, politically and militarily. The moment has come for the Obama administration to acknowledge what those fingers dipped in purple ink truly represent a triumph for democracy.
#1
Uncomfortable though it may be for some on the American left to admit, the "surge" continues to work, politically and militarily. The moment has come for the Obama administration to acknowledge what those fingers dipped in purple ink truly represent -- a triumph for democracy.
The implication is that the left supports classical democracy. That is a false assumption beyond the modern Marxist concept of Peoples' Democratic Republics. What the left supports is the facade of democracy while they retain the power. That is why democracy in Iraq will not be celebrated by the usual suspects. It's always been about power.
Must be "Hamas is Full of Shit Day"...
Multiple recent media reports have charged that Israeli shelling destroyed Al Quds Hospital in Gaza City. The Associated Press, for example, reported that:
On Friday, health workers went through the smoldering wreckage of the five-story Al Quds hospital run by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, which was hit by three Israeli shells the day before.
There was nothing left to salvage inside the blackened hulk. (Jan. 16, 2009, UN says Gaza hospitals in crisis)
And the Times of London reported that:
Worst hit was the al-Quds hospital in Tel al-Hawa. Hospital staff had to remove 500 patients in the middle of the night as fire raged.
"I was sitting on the ground floor when suddenly there was a huge explosion," said Mohammed al-Helou, an ambulance worker.
"I rushed to help carry some of the patients down to the lower floor, and I heard another explosion. That was when I realised the hospital itself was under fire." (Jan 18, 2009, Israel declares ceasefire as it hails success of bloody Gaza onslaught)
However, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which can hardly be accused of pro-Israel sympathies, reported that services at the supposedly destroyed hospital would be "back to normal in three to five days" after the repair of damaged water pipes:
Repair work at Al-Quds Hospital, which is run by the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), is under way after a quick assessment jointly carried out with ICRC staff. Water pipes supplying the facility were badly damaged by the shelling. Hospital services are expected to be back to normal in three to five days. The PRCS warehouse, which was also shelled on Thursday, was reduced to ashes. Very substantial stocks of relief goods were destroyed. (Jan. 17, 2009, Gaza: Civilians continue to suffer despite hopes for imminent cease-fire)
That is, according to the ICRC report, it was a neighboring warehouse that was destroyed, not the hospital. Despite this, the AP and the Times of London and many other news sources credulously parroted false Palestinian claims that the hospital had been destroyed by Israel.
Furthermore, it is not even clear that Israeli shells set the warehouse alight. Since there was an intense battle in the area, it may well be that it was hit by Palestinian fire. The battle near the hospital was described in a January 15 AFP report (as usual for the French agency quite critical of Israel), which stated that an Israeli advance into the area triggered "furious battles with Palestinian fighters." The report continued:
A deafening cacophany (sic) of tank shells, missiles, artillery, helicopter gunships and automatic rifles filled the air as battles unfolded less than 300 metres (yards) from the facility beneath a thick pall of smoke.
Palestinian fighters met the advancing troops with mortar and anti-tank rockets. Tanks fired shells on the ground and planes hit the area with missiles from above.
Armed Hamas fighters dressed in blue and black uniforms, one of them carrying the green flag of his Islamist movement, ran down a street 100 metres from the hospital, firing Kalashnikov rifles.
Considering the intensity of the battle and the Palestinian use of mortars, it seems difficult to say at this point exactly whose shells hit the warehouse, or exactly what set it on fire. However, it should be noted that in recent days Palestinians have fired at least one mortar with a white-phosphorus warhead into Israel, so if the warehouse was hit by white phosphorous (which starts fires that are difficult to extinguish), it may well have been fired by Hamas.
Unfortunately this is not the first time that the international media has simply parroted false Palestinian claims intended to paint Israel as committing war crimes, while ignoring genuine Palestinian war crimes that have placed both Israeli and Palestinian civilians squarely in the line of fire.
In doing so these reporters and editors only prolong the conflict and the undeniable suffering on both sides.
But, according to Ma'an, "Shut up, boys! We've found a mark"...
Bethlehem -- Ma'an/Agencies -- The government of France plans to rebuild a hospital in Gaza that was partly destroyed by Israeli bombing last month, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced on Tuesday.
"France has approved a project to rebuild the Al-Quds hospital in Gaza and this is an extremely important humanitarian project," Abbas told reporters following a lunch meeting with Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner in Paris, according to the news agency AFP."We hope that it will be implemented as quickly as possible."
Kouchner confirmed that he had discussed "urgent" plans to rebuild the Al-Quds hospital and help other health centers in Palestinian territory following Israel's three-week onslaught that killed more than 1,350 Palestinians.
The Red Crescent-affiliated hospital in the Tal Al-Hawa area of Gaza City was hit on January 15 by an Israeli shell and caught fire, forcing hundreds of patients to flee on stretchers and in wheelchairs after dark.
On February 3, Iran fulfilled its promise to launch its first satellite, Omid (Hope), into orbit by its own carrier rocket before the end of the Iranian year (which ends in March).
The world media reported that it has already transmitted a message from the Iranian leader to the effect that the successful launch "officially seals Iran's presence in space."
The technical details of this start may be very interesting, but they are not decisive. What difference does it make if the satellite works in orbit for the declared several months, or merely makes a suborbital flight?
The bottom line is that by deciding to become a fully-fledged space power, Iran will do so by any means. In any other case, the launch of a national satellite into space would not give rise to any apprehensions, let alone fear. In this case, however, Western experts associate what Iran has long declared as its "peaceful space program" exclusively with the development of nuclear missiles.
Are these apprehensions well-grounded, especially considering that the launch was a success? In principle, the answer is affirmative. A number of successful launches of medium-range ballistic missiles and suborbital carriers suggest the scientific and technical ability to test strategic ballistic weapons in the near future.
But that's about it. There is no reason to fear that a country that has made several successful space launches will be equipped with full-fledged nuclear missiles in the near future.
These weapons require certain parameters, such as combat readiness and the ability to complete a very sophisticated flight. Moreover, an attempt to use even a single successfully tested nuclear missile is doomed to failure by current early warning systems and interceptors. What interceptors?
High combat readiness of a nuclear missile force is determined by a prompt reaction to rapid situational changes and the ability to make the right decision.
In the Soviet Union, preparations to launch the famous R-7 missile took 10 hours, but Soviet leaders kept repeating that it had the ability to strike U.S. territory. This was true only in theory, and in practice was highly unlikely. There are no grounds for thinking that Iran will be able to make its strategic weapons combat ready simultaneously with their development. For the time being, it does not even have such weapons.
Moreover, launching a satellite is one thing, while delivering a warhead via intercontinental missile is another. At one time, the Soviet Union was pulling out all the stops in order to get the nuclear stick as soon as possible. However, Sergei Korolev and his team had to make countless tests before they managed to prevent the destruction of warheads in the dense layers of the atmosphere. The triumph of the fall of 1957, when the first satellite produced its "beep, beep" sound, was precipitated by a lack of ideas on how to deliver warheads to targets.
The first sputnik was designed to distract a government that was bent on nuclear arms development. The effect exceeded all expectations, but that is a different story. This might overstate the case against an immediate threat, but it makes some of the same points I and others made yesterday: There is a sizable gap between the ability to launch a satellite of some kind and the deployment of an operational ICBM. A satellite launcher is a big step along that path though.
We also don't know what kind of work the Iranians have done on re-entry and guidance or what sort of technology might have been transferred. Keep in mind that they would pay almost anything for that capability. A billion dollars might look pretty good to a down-and-out ex-Soviet engineer or even certain cynical and disillusioned types in other countries. The existing Shahab guidance, whose accuracy (CEP) is probably no worse than .3% of range, could well be adequate for a terror strike over intercontinental distances. The real hold-up is the warhead itself. A crude and barely workable nuclear device of the kind the Iranians are likely to build is a long way from an ICBM payload, but even that step is not insurmountable with outside assistance.
See Iranian missiles at Global Security, lots of analysis and great graphics by the renowned Charles Vick. (Mr. Vick is the private analyst who correctly determined many then-secret aspects of the Soviet missile and space programs during the Cold War, ie many years before the information was officially released by successor governments.)
When will our luminaries stop making excuses for terror?
By JUDEA PEARL
This week marks the seventh anniversary of the murder of our son, former Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. My wife Ruth and I wonder: Would Danny have believed that today's world emerged after his tragedy?
The answer does not come easily. Danny was an optimist, a true believer in the goodness of mankind. Yet he was also a realist, and would not let idealism bend the harshness of facts.
Neither he, nor the millions who were shocked by his murder, could have possibly predicted that seven years later his abductor, Omar Saeed Sheikh, according to several South Asian reports, would be planning terror acts from the safety of a Pakistani jail. Or that his murderer, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, now in Guantanamo, would proudly boast of his murder in a military tribunal in March 2007 to the cheers of sympathetic jihadi supporters. Or that this ideology of barbarism would be celebrated in European and American universities, fueling rally after rally for Hamas, Hezbollah and other heroes of "the resistance." Or that another kidnapped young man, Israeli Gilad Shalit, would spend his 950th day of captivity with no Red Cross visitation while world leaders seriously debate whether his kidnappers deserve international recognition.
No. Those around the world who mourned for Danny in 2002 genuinely hoped that Danny's murder would be a turning point in the history of man's inhumanity to man, and that the targeting of innocents to transmit political messages would quickly become, like slavery and human sacrifice, an embarrassing relic of a bygone era.
But somehow, barbarism, often cloaked in the language of "resistance," has gained acceptance in the most elite circles of our society. The words "war on terror" cannot be uttered today without fear of offense. Civilized society, so it seems, is so numbed by violence that it has lost its gift to be disgusted by evil.
I believe it all started with well-meaning analysts, who in their zeal to find creative solutions to terror decided that terror is not a real enemy, but a tactic. Thus the basic engine that propels acts of terrorism -- the ideological license to elevate one's grievances above the norms of civilized society -- was wished away in favor of seemingly more manageable "tactical" considerations.
This mentality of surrender then worked its way through politicians like the former mayor of London, Ken Livingstone. In July 2005 he told Sky News that suicide bombing is almost man's second nature. "In an unfair balance, that's what people use," explained Mr. Livingstone.
But the clearest endorsement of terror as a legitimate instrument of political bargaining came from former President Jimmy Carter. In his book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," Mr. Carter appeals to the sponsors of suicide bombing. "It is imperative that the general Arab community and all significant Palestinian groups make it clear that they will end the suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism when international laws and the ultimate goals of the Road-map for Peace are accepted by Israel." Acts of terror, according to Mr. Carter, are no longer taboo, but effective tools for terrorists to address perceived injustices.
Mr. Carter's logic has become the dominant paradigm in rationalizing terror. When asked what Israel should do to stop Hamas's rockets aimed at innocent civilians, the Syrian first lady, Asma Al-Assad, did not hesitate for a moment in her response: "They should end the occupation." In other words, terror must earn a dividend before it is stopped.
The media have played a major role in handing terrorism this victory of acceptability. Qatari-based Al Jazeera television, for example, is still providing Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi hours of free air time each week to spew his hateful interpretation of the Koran, authorize suicide bombing, and call for jihad against Jews and Americans.
Then came the August 2008 birthday of Samir Kuntar, the unrepentant killer who, in 1979, smashed the head of a four-year-old Israeli girl with his rifle after killing her father before her eyes. Al Jazeera elevated Kuntar to heroic heights with orchestras, fireworks and sword dances, presenting him to 50 million viewers as Arab society's role model. No mainstream Western media outlet dared to expose Al Jazeera efforts to warp its young viewers into the likes of Kuntar. Al Jazeera's management continues to receive royal treatment in all major press clubs.
Some American pundits and TV anchors didn't seem much different from Al Jazeera in their analysis of the recent war in Gaza. Bill Moyers was quick to lend Hamas legitimacy as a "resistance" movement, together with honorary membership in PBS's imaginary "cycle of violence." In his Jan. 9 TV show, Mr. Moyers explained to his viewers that "each [side] greases the cycle of violence, as one man's terrorism becomes another's resistance to oppression." He then stated -- without blushing -- that for readers of the Hebrew Bible "God-soaked violence became genetically coded." The "cycle of violence" platitude allows analysts to empower terror with the guise of reciprocity, and, amazingly, indict terror's victims for violence as immutable as DNA.
When we ask ourselves what it is about the American psyche that enables genocidal organizations like Hamas -- the charter of which would offend every neuron in our brains -- to become tolerated in public discourse, we should take a hard look at our universities and the way they are currently being manipulated by terrorist sympathizers.
At my own university, UCLA, a symposium last week on human rights turned into a Hamas recruitment rally by a clever academic gimmick. The director of the Center for Near East Studies carefully selected only Israel bashers for the panel, each of whom concluded that the Jewish state is the greatest criminal in human history.
The primary purpose of the event was evident the morning after, when unsuspecting, uninvolved students read an article in the campus newspaper titled, "Scholars say: Israel is in violation of human rights in Gaza," to which the good name of the University of California was attached. This is where Hamas scored its main triumph -- another inch of academic respectability, another inroad into Western minds.
Danny's picture is hanging just in front of me, his warm smile as reassuring as ever. But I find it hard to look him straight in the eyes and say: You did not die in vain.
Mr. Pearl, a professor of computer science at UCLA, is president of the Daniel Pearl Foundation, founded in memory of his son to promote cross-cultural understanding.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
On February 3, Iran fulfilled its promise to launch its first satellite, Omid (Hope), into orbit by its own carrier rocket before the end of the Iranian year (which ends in March).
