In the 1920s, Ahmed Lutfi al-Sayyid nominated himself for elections within his constituency of the West Delta district in Egypt. His contender was a notable and feudal lord in the area that did not enjoy the reputation Lutfi al-Sayyid possessed at the time. Lutfi al-Sayyid was the first Egyptian to assume the Presidency of the Egyptian university. An intellectual, with many supporters among Egyptians, he was prominent writer familiar with European and in particular with the French culture, as he had graduated from one of its faculties in Paris. Nevertheless, his contender managed to defeat him and keep him away from Parliament previously established in Egypt in 1896. Al-Sayyid was defeated by his competitor because the latter and his supporters had spread among Al-Sayyids constituency that he was an Infidel Democrat.
Democracy at the time was perceived as infidelity, similar to how the term secularism is currently perceived. The majority of the nation believes someone secular to be an infidel and an apostate of religion and our nation. Promoted until recently, democracy was considered an infidelity or at least a Western concept that had nothing to do with Arabic and Islamic culture. Some stated that the Shoura (consultation) system was analogous, but Shoura ways differ from the Wests concept of democracy. The promotion of this idea was seen as serving the whims of its promoters. The same was said about democracy serving the interests of those connected to the throne of authority. Here democracy and its institutions as granting the Arab shah (ruler) and his philosophy that gave him complete authority, be it out of hereditary or heavenly right. It was said this type of democracy granted him this authority through unmatchable wisdom. The nation would then have to bow to heaven for granting it such a wise leader.
It was only logical then, for the Arab leader to begin demanding his people support this so-called democracy. He did this even if in doing so it was more in submission to another wave and deluge that swept the earth and its nations. The deluge of democracy has become a sword wielded by Americans and Zionists against Arabs to adopt it as the only Way. The submission of the Arab ruler and his people to the deluge of American and Western democracy is an excuse to avoid overthrowing the shah or checkmate it and devour the entire Arab pawns on the chessboard. The Arab shahs (rulers) and their entourage do not believe in a democracy whose people and political parties aspire to shake them from their thrones nor in institutions who would call them accountable for everything. Therefore Arab rulers are not embarrassed to create new tricks and designs within that American-Western game called Democracy.
For this reason the Arab player now says to himself, his entourage and his nation: Let democracy to pass to avoid the Arab checkmate or to have his throne shaken. Any individual of this nation who does not understand this game, has only to look around him to realize the truth. The truth is Arab rulers would not have accepted Democracy had it not been for fear of American pirates making an excuse to deal him a deadly blow. To internalizing this within the nation is an escape from realizing an Arab checkmate.
Thus everyone witnesses elections held under states of emergency and extraordinary laws written, as well as witnessing Israeli artillery bombardment and Americas destructive machines in Iraq. That is the game played by the Arab shahs and their governments, the Americans, the West and the Israelis. None of them are interested in the democracy that the Arab national, out of a deep naivety, has enthusiastically believes and gets burned with.
The question is will Arab shahs play into this democracy until some other new idea comes; until American or Western ideals disappear? Is democracy merely balloting boxes and media propaganda? Where are the civil and democratic establishments that without which there is no use for any elections? Has the Arab ruler really been checkmated with the sword of democracy, or by time and development which he does not understand and is powerless to stop? Would any Arab shah die because he is unable to listen to the steps of time and development?
Atif Awad is an Egyptian journalist and short story writer residing in Yemen.
#1
I'm a big fan of Fijordman and he may be right about a popular rebellion against the EU (secret) agendas. I see a number of straws in the wind that indicate Europe may be saveable, like the sharp drop in support for the Paleos.
But I am pining my hopes on a modern Anglosphere (wrong name but we have been calling it this for a while). An alliance of democratic, rule of law, trading states spanning the USA, Australia, India, Japan, Singapore and others.
#2
Love the bits in the comments about the need of the mandarins in the Euro elite for a thug class, hence the encouragement of Muslim immigration.
Reminds me of the puppies in Orwell's "Animal Farm".
Posted by: no mo uro ||
06/08/2006 9:37 Comments ||
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#3
One view from a man I respect, Claude Reichman, is that France's Enlightened Elite/Oligarchy/Technocracy (statist and socialist high-level civil servants graduated from the various "grandes écoles") suppresses its rival the middle class both by suffocating it with taxation and regulations to attack it from above, and by using the "dangerous class" (Youths, most notably) as a "lumpen proletariat"(Tm) to attack it from below.
The middle class is thus living in insecurity, paralyzed, and the Oligarchy can rule without opposition.
You're an enlightened world citizen. Your T-shirt says "9/11 was an inside job." You're pretty sure we're living in a fascist state, that President Bush taps the Dixie Chicks' phones, Christian abortion clinic bombers outnumber jihadis, and the war on "terror" is a distraction from the real threats: carbon emissions and Pat Robertson. Then you learn that 17 people were arrested in a terrorist bomb plot. How do you process the information? Let's take it step by step. . . .
Go read it all.
Posted by: Mike ||
06/08/2006 07:54 ||
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#1
Even if he doesn't like bluegrass, Lileks is a treasure. In a better world he would be writing in the NYT instead of submorons like Dowd.
One of the reasons the Repubs must hold on to the reins of power is that if the Dems do get control the very first thing they will do (even before impeaching W) is to try to reestablish their hegemony of the information stream that existed prior to the internet's prominence. They long for the days when America had no choice but to get their information from the MSM.
They cannot afford to give Lileks and Reynolds and Wretchard and Rantburgers even the limited forum that exists now - it has been deadly to them. If they do manage to get back in power, they'll go after the center and right (and perhaps even the left) in the cyberworld with every weapon they can muster - taxes, regulation, etc.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
06/08/2006 8:15 Comments ||
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#2
He doesn't care for the Blues either, but I won't hold it against him.
By David Warren In the words of one of my correspondents, I have been going around trying to believe that we havent been harbouring a Fifth Column, a blatant Fifth Column, and, lo, we have.
My reply to everyone in her condition is, now you know. And now that you do know, do not forget what you know.
The arrest of 17 alleged terror cell members around Toronto last weekend could not surprise anyone familiar with police and intelligence work in this area. We have been repeatedly warned that fanatical Islamists have been organizing, with a view to terror strikes -- not only abroad, but here. And as we should have observed already from England, and elsewhere in Europe, they have surprisingly little difficulty recruiting suicidal young Jihadis from the second and third generations of peaceful Muslim immigrants.
These are facts that we must face, one way or another. Pretending its not happening, or that it will stop happening if we meet some fanciful demands (such as withdrawing from Afghanistan, or surrendering Andalusia), does not change the reality.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/08/2006 01:14 ||
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#1
I have been going around trying to believe that we havent been harbouring a Fifth Column, a blatant Fifth Column, and, lo, we have.
#2
"Still, be clear: this does not come from the Muslim majority, who have no desire whatever to be associated with acts and arguments that give Muslims a bad name."
#4
Even if only a small percentage actually place the bombs, an equally great worry is the much larger percentage who wouldn't but support the end goal of destroying the West.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
06/08/2006 8:35 Comments ||
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#5
Don't be too hard on the moderate Muslims: after all, a key point of terrorism is to terrorize, and you start by terrorizing the people closest to you. The moderate Muslims understand, I think, very well just how crazy and serious the fascists are, and they also understand how quickly they could die.
And it's asking a lot of a 'pink' person (to use the pink/grey idea, or 'sheep' if you prefer the sheep/sheepdog/wolf comparison) to sacrifice himself, the wife and kids to turn in someone at the mosque. Takes a brave man to do that. Most people aren't that brave.
We could help buck up the moderates by making clear we understand the situation and by getting after the radicals even harder. We'd also need to get the MSM to get with it. Needless to say that isn't happening.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/08/2006 14:55 Comments ||
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#6
It only takes an anonymous phone call to tip the police.
Posted by: ed ||
06/08/2006 14:58 Comments ||
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#7
I can't stop laughing about the Pollyanna picture. I haven't thought about that show since I don't know when.
By Robert W. Tracinski
TIADaily.com | June 8, 2006
Algore is trying to resurrect his environmentalist crusade--and, perhaps, his political career--with a new film that depicts him as a courageous voice in the wilderness, speaking up for "an inconvenient truth" that challenges the entrenched political establishment.
This is, of course, laughable. Everyone knows that the global warming theory is the dogma of the entrenched establishment. We know this because we are relentlessly barraged with global warming hysteria from political leaders, the mainstream media, and the government-scientific complex. We are constantly told that we are in imminent danger of dying from everything as catastrophic as massive flooding or as trivial as runaway poison ivy.
What the general public may not have heard about is the courageous band of researchers who are the ones actually speaking up for science in the face of this global warming juggernaut. Ironically, some of the reporting prompted by Gore's film has allowed some of these scientists to be heard--and we ought to listen.
Let's look at just one scientific issue: Gore's claim that global warming is causing an increase in the frequency and intensity of hurricanes. It's fair to single out this claim, because that is what the filmmakers have done. Posters for An Inconvenient Truth feature an arresting image of the swirling storm-clouds of a hurricane emerging from an industrial smokestack.
But the truth about this claim is very inconvenient for Al Gore and the environmentalists. The Washington Times published an article surveying a number of top hurricane scientists, whom it found to be "divided" on the merits of Gore's claim. Chris Landsea of the National Hurricane Center even doubts that hurricane intensity has increased as much as claimed over the past thirty years, pointing out that scientists couldn't accurately measure hurricane wind speeds until 1984. We don't know how much of the increase in Category 4 and Category 5 hurricanes recorded in recent years is due to an actual increase or whether it is, as he puts it, an "artificial increase," an illusion produced by our improved ability to measure hurricanes.
Meanwhile, Phil Klotzbach, a hurricane forecaster at Colorado State University, points out that increased hurricane activity in the Atlantic has been balanced out by a decrease in the number of tropical storms in the Pacific. "When these two regions are summed together, there has been virtually no increase in Category 4-5 hurricanes."
The May 30 Los Angeles Times carries a profile on Klotzbach's mentor, Colorado State University professor emeritus William M. Gray, who pioneered the science of forecasting hurricane activity. The article notes: "Like many hurricane forecasters, Gray rejects the theory that the recent uptick in storms is due to climate change. He points out that the U.S. had an unusually low number of storms from the 1970s to the end of the century and says the law of averages is simply catching up." At age 76, this distinguished scientist is devoting his retirement to refuting the entire notion that global warming is caused by human activity, an idea he describes as "one of the greatest hoaxes ever." Gray is "not one to just go along with the crowd," Klotzbach concludes.
Now isn't that interesting? It turns out that the man taking an independent stand and refusing to "just go along with the crowd" on global warming is not a lifelong politician rewarded with a fawning documentary and inside-the-beltway adulation--but rather a distinguished scientists who is a global warming skeptic.
So if the splashy movie-poster claim of An Inconvenient Truth turns out to be dubious and hotly contested--very far from an established "truth"--where does that leave Al Gore's status as the brave truth-teller? A fawning New York Times profile on Gore admits that he avoids "making direct causal links that most scientists say are impossible to substantiate" but instead "uses imagery and implication" to make his case. That's about the most tasteful description of the methods of a flim-flam artist I have ever read.
But not to worry, another New York Times article tells us, because two new studies have confirmed the link between global warming and hurricanes. Have you ever noticed this little trick used by global warming scaremongers? They will insistently repeat a claim for five years--then tell you that it is justified by a study released last Tuesday. Maybe so, but how does that justify their making that claim five years before it was "proven"? And as for the new "proof," even the New York Times report admits that "neither the authors nor other climate experts say it is conclusive." The reporter even gives the last word to a skeptic--Stanley Goldenberg of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration--who dismisses the new papers: "There's going to be an endless series of articles from this circle that is embracing this new theology built on very flimsy interpretation."
I guess some of the truth is starting to get a hearing--no matter how inconvenient that might be for Gore and company.
#1
So if the splashy movie-poster claim of An Inconvenient Truth turns out to be dubious and hotly contested--very far from an established "truth"--where does that leave Al Gore's status as the brave truth-teller?
By Richard A. Posner
The terrorist arrests in Toronto this week have revealed a gap in the U.S. intelligence system. The arrests were made by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, but the plot had been discovered by surveillance conducted by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, a different kind of security organization that our media have dubbed Canada's "spy agency." That is true, but misleading.
When we think of a spy agency, we think of the CIA, which conducts foreign intelligence. CSIS, however, conducts only domestic intelligence. It corresponds to England's security intelligence agency, commonly known as MI5, and to similar agencies in almost all major countries other than the United States. Such agencies are not in the law enforcement business. They have no powers of arrest or prosecution. Their sole mission is to detect and foil terrorism, sabotage, espionage and other internal threats to national security. Sometimes they hand over terrorists or other state enemies to the police, but often they thwart terrorists by other means, such as exposure, disinformation or "turning"--persuading the suspect to become a double agent.
In the U.S., domestic intelligence is primarily the responsibility of the FBI. Canada took the same approach until 1984. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Canada's counterpart to the FBI, had a division called the Security Service that dealt with national security threats. But in that year the service was removed from the Mounties and made a separate domestic intelligence agency, CSIS.
Why split domestic intelligence from criminal investigation? Because these activities differ so profoundly that trying to combine them into one agency causes underperformance of both. A crime has a definite locus in time and space, a characteristic profile (it's a bank robbery, or credit-card fraud, etc.), physical evidence, witnesses and often suspects. These circumstances enable a tightly focused investigation that usually leads in a reasonably short time to an arrest, prosecution, conviction and sentence. National security intelligence does not operate with such a clear path to success, especially when confronting a terrorist threat. For then the main objective is to discover who and where the terrorists are, what their plans and capabilities are, who finances them and what links they have with other terrorist networks. Obtaining such information is a laborious, painstaking and frustrating process, full of dead ends and wrong turnings. It is uncongenial activity for an agency, such as the FBI, that is primarily oriented toward conventional criminal investigations.
Continued on Page 49
#1
The vast majority of North American Muslims are loyal; and even among those who hate our governments and way of life only a tiny minority would ever turn terrorist.
Getting killed in a skyscraper or other site by a terrorist does not take the "vast majority." It only takes a few, along with the looking away of others, which is a Muslim duty. Posner's comments should be no comfort.
Islams jihad is a struggle against idolatry, sexual deviation, plunder, repression, and cruelty. The war waged by [non-Islamic] conquerors, however, aims at promoting lust and animal pleasures. They care not if whole countries are wiped out and many families left homeless. But those who study jihad will understand why Islam wants to conquer the whole world. All the countries conquered by Islam or to be conquered in the future will be marked for everlasting salvation. For they shall live under [Gods law]. ...
Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those [who say this] are witless. Islam says: Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all! Does that mean that Muslim should sit back until they are devoured by [the unbelievers]? Islam says: Kill the [the non-Muslims], put them to the sword and scatter [their armies]. Does this mean sitting back until [non-Muslims] overcome us? Islam says: Kill in the service of Allah those who may want to kill you! Does this mean that we should surrender [to the enemy]? Islam says: Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to paradise, which can be opened only for holy warriors!
There are hundreds of other [Koranic] psalms and hadiths [sayings of the prophet] urging Muslims to value war and to fight. Does all that mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim.
Posted by: DanNY ||
06/08/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Would that this were delivered, in full without edits or cleansing, above the fold of every newspaper and leading every news broadcast.
#3
One must again remember to thank the French government and people for keeping this old heathen on ice in Paris until he recieved the call...I remember the full page ads he and his ilk published in U.S. leading newspapers announcing their agenda from gay Paree...
#5
Not to further bash in my compatriots (or rather, the "arab street" at the quay d'Orsay), but the french Elite is also the force which saved the mufti al husseini from being hanged after WWII, sheltered and protected him, all this in the name of the never-ending struggle against the english fiends.
#6
The French: they turn the Jews over to the Nazis
To channel JFM, they turned Jews over to the nazis much less than in most other occupied cointries, either Holland or Poland, or any given esatern Europe one. Criticize them for what they do (and there is a lot to criticize, really), not for clichés.
#8
RE anon #6: VICHY voluntarily passed harsh antisemitic laws, far beyond what the Nazis demanded. French "police" rounded up children for extermination, when the Nazis authorities demanded "only" adults. These are not cliches...these are proven statements showing bloody hands. (Additionally it is ridiculous to compare France to Poland: the former proclaimed itself the home of liberty and equality - Poland never had now wanted such lofty aspirations and was run by a dictastorship prior to WW 2...)
#10
Sounds to me like it's a fight to the death. Which is fine with me, we got bigger bombs.
Posted by: Charles ||
06/08/2006 14:41 Comments ||
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#11
Borgboy
There were a lot of them in most East-Europe outside Hungary and Serbia. In France there were none. Oh, there were bastards between the politicians and high ranking civil servants and policemen who obeyed iniquitous orders but the population didn't go in Jew hunting. In fact in many places like Montauban Jews lived openly between the population without them being turned but also without the cops moving a finger to arrest that Mr Bernstein who had a shop just in front of the police station.
You see there is what Laval told the Germans (perhaps trying to soften the very harsh armistice conditions), then what he effectively ordered to the ministers, then what the ministers ordered to their staff and so on until the base cop who drags his feet or the peasant who even if he doesn't hide Jews decides not to warn the authorities about those he has seen.
At the end of the day Jews had a much higher rate of survival in France than anywhere else outside Italy or Denmark. But Italy is speial case (an ally so the Germans could not do what they wanted) and Denmark, due to a juridical fiction, was considered to never having never been at war with Germany and its authorities had a lot more leeway thn the French authorities while German occupation forces kept a much lower profile. Compounded to that Danish held a much higher position in the Nazi racial scale than the French. Note that I am not sayong that the French would have worn yellow stars as the Danish did.
#13
JFM: Thank you and anon. for your insights. For the record, one eastern european country did a relatively commendable job in not caving in to Nazi judeophobia: the axis ally Bulgaria. Much of the Holocaust depended on local indifference to the welfare of the Jews: the miniscule size of the Einzatzgruppen in relation to their death tolll is phenomenal...I am sure how everyone has recently read of the plans to send an Einzatzgruppen from Athens to Palestine after a Rommel mideast triumph, one can imagine that Arab collaborators would have lined up for blocks to shoot Jews in the killing pits...
#14
one can imagine that Arab collaborators would have lined up for blocks to shoot Jews in the killing pits...
Borgboy ("You'll be assimilated!"), cf. that frontpage article, plus the various palestinian pogroms under british mandate. There would have been massive participation, you're certainly right.
The controversy over UN Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown's criticism of ... what? US policies? The US? The American people? should begin with a verbatim rendering of Brown's words themselves. US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton has called these remarks "a very, very grave mistake". Those remarks were delivered at a conference sponsored by the Security and Peace Initiative, a joint initiative of the Center for American Progress and The Century Foundation.
The complete roster of speakers as given in the program is listed below.
1. Madeleine Albright, Principal, The Albright Group; former U.S. Secretary of State
2. Mark Malloch Brown, U.N. Deputy Secretary-General
3. Introduced by Jeffrey Laurenti, Senior Fellow, The Century Foundation Download
4. Jim Leach,J U.S. Congressman from Iowa
5. JRichard C. Leone,J President, The Century Foundation
6. JJohn Podesta, President, Center for American Progress and Dr. Evil himself:
7. JGeorge Soros, Founder and Chairman, Open Society Institute
The verbatim remarks are themselves to be found in this PDF file, but for purposes of analysis I will present these remarks in two long table columns because the length of the speech makes it necessary to focus on the passages which are controversial. Mr. Brown's remarks are on the left. My commentary is on the right.
[..] Go to link for the analysis.
#1
Those remarks were delivered at a conference sponsored by the Security and Peace Initiative, a joint initiative of the Center for American Progress and The Century Foundation.
Don't tell me. They're all "non partisan" groups. Right?
#3
From the last fisking: The fact that mercenary companies have suggested that they could provide better services at a fraction of the cost for most UN missions indicates that bargain bin price may not be quite as low cost as Mr Malloch Brown suggests - if that $1 billion/year were handed over to the mercenaries it might well go a lot further and be a lot more effective in keeping the peace in places where there isn't any peace at the moment as well as where there is.
A week old, but very interesting reminder.
By Abraham H. Miller
Today marks the 65th anniversary of the Farhud. Arabic for violent dispossession, this is the word used to describe the infamous pogrom of June 1, 1941, against the Jews of Baghdad. In its wake, the Farhud left some 200 dead, 2000 injured, and 900 Jewish homes destroyed. It was the beginning of the end of the Jewish community of Iraq, a community that had existed for twenty-six centuries, preceded Islam by a thousand years, and once numbered over 125,000 souls.
Today, not a single Jew is left in Iraq. Arab apologists trace the dismantling of the Jewish communities of the Arab world (Mizrachim) and of North Africa (Sephardim) to anti-Jewish sentiment growing out of the creation of Israel. Implicit in this is the imposition of collective responsibility, as if the Jews of the Arab world and North Africa were directly responsible for whatever Israeli Jews did or did not do.
Although the Arab and Muslim communities in America and the West publicly cry foul when the terrorist attacks of September 11 are linked to them or their religion, they do not hesitate to ascribe collective responsibility to Jews. For instance, writing in the interfaith newsletter in Contra Costa County, California, Dr. Amir Araim, the Imam of Concord, California, and an Iraqi who once represented Saddam Husseins regime to the United Nations, links the dismantling of the Jewish community of Iraq directly to the controversial events at Deir Yassin, the Arab village that was captured by Israel during the Arab-Israeli war of 1948 and where pro-Arab propagandists have long claimed a massacre took place.
Even leaving aside that highly contestable claim, Araims allegation that there is a direct line running from Deir Yassin to the Farhud in Baghdad is woefully ahistorical: the pogrom occurred long before there was an Israel or even a single Palestinian refugee. The Farud began at 3 PM on June 1, 1941, the Jewish holy day of Shavout. The violence erupted when a pro-Nazi mob attacked representatives of the Jewish community as they crossed Baghdads Al Khurr Bridge to greet the returning Iraqi Regent Abdul-al Ilah. The mob then murdered, burned and raped its way through the Jewish community. Jewish infants were special targets, killed as helpless parents looked on. The superintendent of police refused to stop the riots. He was not about to kill or injure Muslims to save Jews.
The Farhud is doubly embarrassing for Arab apologists. First, it resurrects the problem of the nearly one million Jewish refugees from the Middle East and North Africa. In contrast to Palestinian Arab refugees, they received no recognition from the United Nations and no assistance outside of the Jewish community and the State of Israel. Instead of languishing for four generations in refugee camps, like the Palestinian refugees, within a few years they became both contributing members and citizens of Israel and Western societies.
Second, the Farhud was a Nazi riot. The Farhud was the result of the work of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin el Husseini. The Mufti cut a deal with the Nazis to overthrow the British-sponsored government of Iraq and provide Hitler with Iraqi oil vital to Germanys war efforts. In return, the Nazis would eliminate the Jewish problem in Mandate Palestine. In October of 1939, the Mufti came to Iraq to precipitate a coup that was to be led by Iraqi officers who embraced Nazism and were known as the Golden Square. As a unifying inspiration for the coup, the Mufti invoked Nazi propaganda themes of anti-Semitism focusing on the Jews as enemies of the state.
The coup failed. The Mufti fled Iraq to Berlin and the hospitality of SS Chief Henrich Himmler and later Hitler himself. Although the Nazis held the Arabs in only slightly higher esteem than they held Jews, IIRC, hitler called arabs "our painted monkeys"
the Nazis saw the Mufti as a useful ally against the British, and his anti-Semitic propaganda broadcasts in Arabic from Berlin further served mutual purposes. The Muftis legacy of anti-Semitism became part of Iraqi culture.
This is embarrassing because while Arab propagandists routinely use Jew and Nazi in the same breath, Nazism is historically very much a part of Arab political culture. In 1947, when the United Nations took up the question of the Palestine Mandate, Iraqis organized new pogroms and used Nazi confiscation techniques to seize Jewish property. Similarly, the Baath socialists of Iraq and Syria draw their inspiration from Nazism. IIRC, "baath party" translated name is pan-arabic national-socialist party; also, see thoses numerous pictures of nazi salutes given by the iraqi or syrian baath... as well as hizbollah or hamas, or plo...
This further belies the Arab claim that anti-Semitism is exclusively a Western and not a Middle Eastern phenomenon.
The aftermath of the Farhud spelled the end of Iraqs Jewish community. On September 23, 1948, Safiq Ades, Iraqs wealthiest Jew was publicly hanged on phony charges and his property seized. His body swung in the public square in Basara where Iraqi celebrants mutilated it. A month later, all of Iraqs Jews employed in the civil service were summarily fired. Iraq then set about systematically seizing Jewish assets and impoverishing its Jews. With a degree of almost unmatched cynicism, the Iraqi political oligarchy profited by requiring expelled Iraqi Jews to use Iraqi travel agents in order to flee to Israel. All the while, Iraq saw the imposition of 15,000 penniless Jews a month on the newly created Jewish state as a mechanism to defeat Israel by precipitating a major economic crisis. Indeed, Israel accepted these Jews at a time when there were not even enough tents or refugee camps to house them.
Iraqi Jews went to Israel and lived in refugee camps. So little is known about the plight of the Mizrachi and Sephardic Jewish refugees that even informed Jews are dumbfounded upon learning this. Yet, within the space of a few years, these refugees were absorbed into Israeli society. Unlike the Palestinian Arabs, they were not abandoned to languish without hope for generation after generation in impoverished camps.
Slowly but inevitably the truth about the one million Jewish refugees from Arab lands is coming to light. Remembering the Farhud is part of restoring the history of an oppressed and forgotten people, whose suffering and persecution have too long been ignored. Arabs and Muslims must ultimately take responsibility for the anti-Semitism of their world, a racism that resulted in Arab Jews becoming the largest ethnic group in Israel.
Why did the United States suddenly reverse course and agree to negotiate directly with the Iranians over their development of a nuclear arsenal?
There are a few reasons. It's an election year, and the Bush administration knows the American public is in no mood for even a hint of more hostilities in the Middle East. After failing to talk sense to the Iranians, the embarrassed multilateral Europeans want us to buck up their dialogue. The Russians and Chinese - for both commercial and mischievous reasons - have warned America they'll stonewall at the United Nations unless we begin horse-trading with Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And, finally, it's always smart to allow a loudmouth like Ahmadinejad enough public rope to hang himself.
So, if negotiations occur - a big if - what can we expect?
For that answer, it's worth remembering the scorpion scene in "The Appaloosa," an otherwise forgettable Western from 1966. For excruciating minutes, the hero, played by Marlon Brando, arm-wrestled the talkative, confident villain who had tied a scorpion to the top of the table. In the same manner, we will go back and forth with the Iranians, each sounding off until one side's arm weakens, hits the table and gets stung.
The Iranians know from recent history that their acquisition of a bomb would have little downside. They figure that had the Israelis not destroyed Saddam Hussein's nuclear reactor at Osirak in 1981, Kuwait would still be the 19th province of Saddam's untouchable Iraq.
North Korea is the model of a rogue nuclear state. It thumbs its nose at the international community, but over the years has still earned billions in aid money (essentially bribes) from the U.S., South Korea and China. Only the bomb allows an otherwise failed, murderous regime in Pyongyang to achieve status with nearby democracies in Taiwan, Japan and South Korea.
Then there's Pakistan, a so-called American ally that, thanks in large part to its nuclear-weapon capability, can shrug off our pleas to ferret out Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri.
With a few nuclear missiles, Iran knows it could dictate the strategic landscape of the Persian Gulf - bullying Gulf sheikdoms over border disputes and petroleum output and claiming the forefront in the Islamist struggle against Israel. A "Persian bomb" wins national prestige and quells dissidents at home, while ensuring enough unpredictability to keep oil prices sky-high.
For those reasons, a nuclear Iran would be a Western nightmare. Periodically, we would have to reassure states within missile range of Tehran, from Germany to Saudi Arabia, that the United States is willing to go to war to keep them safe - and thus they need not go nuclear themselves.
Given these circumstances, why would the U.S. and Iran ever face off at the negotiating table?
Because each thinks the breathing space works in its own favor. Iran views talking with the U.S. as a reprieve from the threat of a military strike - or at least American-inspired embargoes and sanctions at the U.N. If the mullahs can sweet-talk the Americans while secretly pressing ahead to get the bomb, they might get home free yet. Indeed, in 2008, with the "cowboy" George Bush out of office, the next U.S. president might deal with Iran's nuclear aspirations as America did with Pakistan's in the 1990s - stern lectures but little action.
The U.S. wants more time before a showdown as well so that we can make a better case to the international community that the oil-exporting theocracy really wants more than peaceful nuclear power.
Time also provides a window to learn exactly where Iran is on the road to full uranium enrichment, and perhaps even to allow Iranian dissidents to strengthen, or nearby democratic Iraq to stabilize, or our own military to refine its 11th-hour plans.
Such a breather would be reminiscent of the Paris Peace Talks with the North Vietnamese, from 1968 to 1973, in which each side thought protracted negotiations would favor its cause. The U.S. always insisted on a free autonomous South; the North never gave up its dream of a unified communist Vietnam.
In that impasse, we thought talking and periodic ceasefires would buy time for the South Vietnamese to strengthen enough to resist the inevitable aggression to come. The North Vietnamese were equally convinced the American public in the interval would grow ever more tired of the Vietnam "quagmire" - and then they could pounce.
After endless negotiations, the Watergate scandal and the Senate's curtailment of aid to the South, North Vietnam patiently waited for its moment and then renewed the war. By 1975, the communists had won what they could not in 1968.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad surely remembers that precedent. No wonder he wants us to arm-wrestle over his nuclear scorpion.
Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and author, most recently, of "A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War."
#2
The Bomb(s) the Norkies = Un-annexed Chinese officially don't have??? As for Iran, MadMoud-Mullahs are hell-bent for GLOBAL EMPIRE, NOT JUST REGIONAL - any Iran-centric/dominated ME Empire is in reality an intermediate agendum, NOT THE FINAL AGENDUM, A MEANS TO AN END. Will say again that any defeat by the USA in the GWOT over IRAN = NORTH KOREA-TAIWAN WILL BE INTERPRETED AS A DECLINE IN US POWER-INFLUENCE = ENEMY ARMIES IN CONUS-NORAM. The absurd, moronic Lefty US Ninth's decision declaring Amer to be an illegal and unconstitutional nation > AMERICA CAN NEITHER WAGE WAR NOR DEFEND/PROTECT FROM WAR, NEITHER TO ATTACK AND INVADE NOR DEFEND FROM ATTACK AND INVASION, NEITHER PROSECUTE ANYONE
[e.g. Saddam] NOR DEFEND [Saddam, USA]FROM PROSECUTION, ETC. vv "LEGITIMATE" SOVEREIGN NATIONS. Americans can neither do anything, to anyone andor ourselves, nor save or protect ourselves from anything.
This cracked me up--Imagine if the NYT coverage of Yankees games was as "unbiased" as its coverage of the WoT. The author, Don Surber, has a real gem here. The Quagmire at Yankee Stadium Bias? In the NYT? What if John F. Burns were recalled from Baghdad to cover this week's Yankees-Red Sox series? Wouldn't that be fun? Here is how I imagine that report of Game 1 at Yankee Stadium would go:
Fans came trickling into Yankee Stadium amid fears that their hometown team would implode. Only 55,246 fans attended the game.
Yankees pitcher Mike Mussina was in trouble early as Covelli "Coco" Crisp opened the game with a double for the Sox of Red.
The higher paid Yankees were futile as they tried to deal with the insurgent Crisp. Their battle plan was wrong, and coaches in the field admitted as much off the record. Although the next three batters each struck out, Mussina was a tired, overpaid pitcher, ill-equipped to deal with the flexibility of the speedy Crisp.
In the home half of inning Johnny Damon walked, but was quickly erased in fielders choice. the Yankees were hemmed into a Green Zone by Josh Beckett's pitches.
Yankee batters lacked the proper body armor to face Boston pitchers as Jorge Posada would discover when he was hit with a pitch later, in the bottom of the third. It was a near-fatal blow that the trainer admitted could have been deadly if the pitch had been thrown faster and at his temple, and he had his helmet off.
In the top of the second, the Boston assault began in earnest with the Yankees unable to tell when the Sox of Red would next score. First Trot Nixon singled. Then Kevin Youkillis singled. Then Mike Lowell singled to tie the game at 1.
The Red Sox had Mussina on the ropes. It was the 2004 playoffs all over again. You could see it in the eyes of the fans. They knew the Yankees could not stop the Boston team.
Jason Varitek gave himself up in a sacrifice double play and Boston soon ended the inning with twice as many runs as the Yankees.
It was useless. The Yankees were too far behind. Caught in a quagmire after but 1 1/2 innings, experts in the Yankee clubhouse said they would give up soon.
The Yankees tried to rally as Posada and Robinson Canó somehow managed to get on base. But Andy Phillips ended the rally with a three-run homer.
Sure, Bernie Williams, Miguel Cairo and Damon each singled to continue the inning. But Melky Cabrera grounded into a fielder's choice. Again. Just like he did in the first inning. That made Jason Giambi's home run a three-run blast instead of a grand slam.
Experts agreed that even with an 8-2 lead, there was no way the Yankees could ever win this battle.
Beckett walked the next batter and decided that with the Yankee team this far behind even though the score was 8-2, he could go home early and save his arm for another day. He let Jermaine Van Buren finish the inning.
A play-by-play of the rest of the game was unnecessary. The Yankees were outnumbered.
Reports had it that the Yankees battered Van Buren for 5 runs in the bottom of the third. President Steinbrenner vowed to appoint an independent investigation to see if this was true and to take appropriate action.
The Yankees had scored a few runs early, maybe 13, but late in the game, when it would have mattered if the game had been close, they were unable to score. This showed a team whose batters were tired from running around the bases, obviously out of shape. Manager Joe Torre refused to answer questions about the lack of conditioning for the team.
But the facts are the facts. The team's offense gave up after a mere three innings.
David Riske faced 12 batters and none of them scored. Two struck out. Julian Tavarez faced 8 batters. None of them scored. Two struck out. Manny Delcarmen faced 3 batters in the 8th and none of them scored.
That showed the Yankees took on the Boston team without the proper training, body armor or manpower.
While the scoreboard showed the Yankees 13, Red Sox 5, it was a moral victory for Boston and bodes poorly for the rest of the season for the New York team, which was expected to win easily instead of giving up so many runs.
Posted by: Dar ||
06/08/2006 09:17 ||
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#1
dammit--was so busy ensuring the formatting was decent I didn't post in Opinion. Sorry, admins!
Posted by: Dar ||
06/08/2006 9:25 Comments ||
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#2
No probs, fixed it. Funnny read!
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/08/2006 9:54 Comments ||
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#3
Boys, you are aware that the Times owns 17% of the Red Sox, aren't you?
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.
In the words of one of my correspondents, I have been going around trying to believe that we havent been harbouring a Fifth Column, a blatant Fifth Column, and, lo, we have.
By Robert W. Tracinski 
Islams jihad is a struggle against idolatry, sexual deviation, plunder, repression, and cruelty. The war waged by [non-Islamic] conquerors, however, aims at promoting lust and animal pleasures. They care not if whole countries are wiped out and many families left homeless. But those who study jihad will understand why Islam wants to conquer the whole world. All the countries conquered by Islam or to be conquered in the future will be marked for everlasting salvation. For they shall live under [Gods law]. ... 
