Chris At Home

• The diverted Amsterdam plane? Another false alarm, the 12 passengers have been released.
  

  "From the statements of suspects and witnesses, no evidence could be brought forward that these men were about to commit an act of violence," a prosecution statement said, adding police had searched for explosives on the plane but found none.
  
  Prosecutors told a news conference the crew had raised the alarm after the men handed each other mobile phones and laptops during the flight and refused to follow their instructions.
  ...
  "After the plane took off a mobile phone rang and the men started cheering," he said. "They kept exchanging plastic bags and looking in them and laughing. Irritating passengers."

  
  
• Why we can't leave Iraq yet: there is a new Hezbullah waiting in the wings.
  

  While opposition to the U.S. military presence in Iraq remains one of its core tenets, the Sadr movement's militia, called the Mahdi Army, took heavy casualties in two military uprisings against better-armed, better-trained U.S. forces in 2004. Today, according to Sadr leaders and outside analysts, the movement is husbanding its strength and waiting for American troops to go.
  
  Sadr "clearly is the most potent political figure, and the most popular one," in Iraq, said Joost Hiltermann, Middle East project director for the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. "Unless directly provoked, Sadrists will lay low, because they know the Americans' time in Iraq is coming to an end," he said. "Why would they risk another major loss of fighters if it's not necessary? Americans in their eyes are already defeated -- they're going to leave."

  
  The story is obviously a Rovian ploy to defend the President's stubborn refusal to "Bring The Troops Home Now!" I question the timing. No, its the Jews fault! Or something. Anyway, there is no terror threat!
  

  Under a tithing system followed by Sadr's movement and many other mainstream Shiite groups, those who are financially capable give one-fifth of their income, capital investments or both to their religious leaders.

  
  Can I be your religious leader? I'll cut the tithe to 18%.
  
  
• Another Marine says the Haditha shootings were justified.
  

  A sergeant who examined the scene hours after Marines killed two dozen Iraqis in Haditha last year said the shootings appeared to be an appropriate response to a coordinated insurgent attack, according to a sworn statement obtained by The Washington Post.
  
  Sgt. J.M. Laughner, part of a Marine human-intelligence exploitation team that was hunting down insurgent bombmakers, went from house to house in Haditha on Nov. 19, 2005, and acknowledged finding two dozen bodies, including some of women and small children.
  
  But Laughner said the scenes of the slayings appeared to match the version of events the Marine squad provided that day and did not seem especially out of the ordinary, according to a transcript of Laughner's interview with military investigators in March

  
  Here is a story attacking Murtha's credibility based on his war record. Abscam, his quotes on Haditha, and a reported admission on the floor of the U.S. House that he didn't deserve his Purple Hearts. I don't need the last instance to have no respect for the man.
  
  
• Israel still has an offensive going in the PA. I had forgotten about it.
  

  Israeli forces crossed into the Gaza Strip early Thursday in a raid that captured a local Hamas militant leader and left his brother dead near a Gaza border town, Palestinians witnesses and officials said.
  ...
  The violence came as Israel continued its offensive in the Gaza Strip, which it began June 28, three days after Hamas-linked militants tunneled into Israel, attacked an Israeli army post and captured a soldier, Cpl. Gilad Shalit.
  
  Israel said it would maintain its offensive until Shalit was released and militants ceased firing rockets into Israel.

  
  Headline says Israel killed a civilian in Gaza raid. How do they know he was a civilian since his family were Hamas? His neighbors say so, and that is good enough for Reuters.
  
  
• Who kidnapped the Fox news crew? Allah has the suspects. The JPost says Fatah did it, Fatah denies it..
  

  The two Fox News employees kidnapped in the Gaza Strip recently are being held by one of Fatah's militias, Palestinian Authority security sources and Hamas activists told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.

  
  
• Scary opinion in the JPost:
  

  ranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, if he ever became the supreme decision maker in his country, would "sacrifice half of Iran for the sake of eliminating Israel," Giora Eiland, Israel's former national security adviser, told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.
  ...
  But, Eiland went on, "if Ahmadinejad were to succeed him - and he has a reasonable chance of doing so - then we'd be in a highly dangerous situation."
  
  The 49-year-old Iranian president, he said, "has a religious conviction that Israel's demise is essential to the restoration of Muslim glory, that the Zionist thorn in the heart of the Islamic nations must be removed. And he will pay almost any price to right the perceived historic wrong. If he becomes the supreme leader and has a nuclear capability, that's a real threat."

  
  He lays out the usual 3 options for the US in dealing with Iran, finds them all bad. Here is a take that shows the West as hostages to Iran if we allow them to get nukes:
  

  Decades ago, the United States underestimated the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's appeal to the Iranian masses and his ability to convert the latent hostility to modernism into political clout. Khomeini overthrew the shah and took more than 50 Americans hostage, thus delivering a significant blow to U.S. prestige and clout in the Middle East.
  
  Now the U.S. is underestimating Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his willingness to use proxies — Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Muqtada Sadr in Iraq. In the short term, Iraqis, Lebanese, Palestinians and Israelis are paying for this sneaky strategy with their lives, but in the long term, it is the United States that will suffer the most.

  
  
• Who lost the war in Lebanon? The Palestinians and their own state:
  

  The same is now true of pan-Islamists. They dream of a universal Islamic state, either under Iranian Shiite leadership (as with Hezbollah), or under the leadership of Salafi movements. In their vision, there can be no distinct Palestinian identity, let alone Palestinian nationalism.
  
  Muhammad Khatami, the mullah who was president of the Islamic Republic, has dismissed nationalism as an illegitimate child of the European Enlightenment which led to colonialism, imperialism and world wars. In this view, the idea of a nation-state of Palestine is a Western concoction, alien to Islam. Even the "one state" formula (the fusion of Israel and Palestine) is only an intermediate step. Such a state would eventually be absorbed into the single universal Islamic domain.
  
  The Palestinians, including Hamas leaders, need to do some hard thinking. Do they want their problem to be transformed into a messianic cause again, and geared to larger strategies in the shaping of which they have no part?

  
  There are many critics of Hezbullah's victory claims in Lebanon.
  

  The Green Flood has been unleashed to silence criticism of Mr. Nasrallah and his masters in Tehran. But the trick does not seem to be working. "If Hezbollah won a victory, it was a Pyrrhic one," says Walid Abi-Mershed, a leading Lebanese columnist. "They made Lebanon pay too high a price--for which they must be held accountable."
  
  Hezbollah is also criticized from within the Lebanese Shiite community, which accounts for some 40% of the population. Sayyed Ali al-Amin, the grand old man of Lebanese Shiism, has broken years of silence to criticize Hezbollah for provoking the war, and called for its disarmament. In an interview granted to the Beirut An-Nahar, he rejected the claim that Hezbollah represented the whole of the Shiite community. "I don't believe Hezbollah asked the Shiite community what they thought about [starting the] war," Mr. al-Amin said. "The fact that the masses [of Shiites] fled from the south is proof that they rejected the war. The Shiite community never gave anyone the right to wage war in its name."
  
  There were even sharper attacks. Mona Fayed, a prominent Shiite academic in Beirut, wrote an article also published by An-Nahar last week. She asks: Who is a Shiite in Lebanon today? She provides a sarcastic answer: A Shiite is he who takes his instructions from Iran, terrorizes fellow believers into silence, and leads the nation into catastrophe without consulting anyone. Another academic, Zubair Abboud, writing in Elaph, a popular Arabic-language online newspaper, attacks Hezbollah as "one of the worst things to happen to Arabs in a long time." He accuses Mr. Nasrallah of risking Lebanon's existence in the service of Iran's regional ambitions.

  
  France (and other European countries) will send more manpower to the UN's peacekeeping force, France stills want to command it.
  

  “Two extra battalions will go on to the ground to extend our numbers within” the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), Chirac said. “Two thousand French soldiers are thus placed under blue helmets in Lebanon,” he added, referring to the colored headgear that members of UN peacekeeping forces wear.
  
  “These 2,000 soldiers include the 400 military personnel already present on the ground,” he added after meeting with Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, as well as his foreign and defense ministers and military chiefs.

  
  
• Israel's right to exist? How about Japan? More examples edited out.
  

  For example, according to Wikipedia: "Japanese citizenship is conferred jus sanguinis, and monolingual Japanese-speaking minorities often reside in Japan for generations under permanent residency status without acquiring citizenship in their country of birth." Why does Japan have the right to exist as a Japanese state? Has this question ever been asked?
  
  An Irish government Web site states: "If you are of the third or subsequent generation born abroad to an Irish citizen (in other words, one of your grandparents is an Irish citizen but none of your parents was born in Ireland), you may be entitled to become an Irish citizen"--if, as I understand it, you register properly. Does Ireland have the right to exist as an Irish state?
  
  Several other countries recognize a "right of return" similar, but often broader, than Israel's (via Wikipedia):
  
  • Armenia. "Individuals of Armenian origin shall acquire citizenship of the Republic of Armenia through a simplified procedure."
  
  • Bulgaria. "Any person . . . whose descent from a Bulgarian citizen has been established by way of a court ruling shall be a Bulgarian citizen by origin."
  
  • Finland. "The Finnish Aliens Act provides for persons who are of Finnish origin to receive permanent residence. This generally means Karelians and Ingrian Finns from the former Soviet Union, but United States, Canadian or Swedish nationals with Finnish ancestry can also apply."
  

  
  
• Fighting between the CIA and the White House are hurting national security.
  
  
• A review of Oriana Falacci's new book says there is no conspiracy to create a Muslim empire in Europe, the changes are caused by multiculturalists who despise the West. It also notes factual inaccuracies.
  
  
• Iran has returned the Romanian oil rig. It was a contract dispute.
  
  
• Bomb components found in my general region, believed to belong to Abu Sayyaf terrorist group. I guess I had better switch sides and support Jihad...
  
  
• Mark Steyn guest-hosted on Rush Limbaugh. You can listen here. Transcript of a speech in Australia here.
  

  One hundred and twenty women are murdered and their murders go uninvestigated because the cops thought it was just some multicultural thing. I believe you had a similar issue here when one of your state police departments announced that it was changing the basis on how spousal abuse and battery of women was investigated according to what cultural community you happened to belong to. So in other words, in parts of Australia, law enforcement takes the view that whether you're allowed to beat up a woman depends on who you are. If I try it, I'll be going to jail; but if other people try it, it's part of their rich cultural tradition. You cannot have a society organised on that basis. I don't want to live in a country where honour killing is regarded as part of the rich tapestry of cultural diversity, like a slightly livelier version of a national dance at the Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony. So those are the sorts of things you can make judgements about competing culture, judgements on liberty, on religious freedom, the rule of law, we need to recover the cultural cool that General Napier demonstrated. That's really the word: cool. You don't have to go through a whole lot of excitable talk about nuking Mecca and all this kind of thing; that's all a waste of time. If we knew who we were, we wouldn't have a lot of the problems that we seem to be having and rousing ourselves to defend our society. If we know who we are, if we're secure in our sense of where our society came from, we'll be fine.

  
  Read it all.
  
  
• UK poll says citizens feel threatened by Islamists. Anyone who reads polls of Muslims would feel the same way; if someone tells you they are Muslim, not British, and support terrorism, then you should believe them:
  

  The YouGov survey for the Daily Telegraph found 53% were concerned about the impact of the religion - not just fundamentalist elements - up 21% from 2001.
  There had also been a near doubling of the number agreeing that “a large proportion of British Muslims feel no sense of loyalty to this country and are prepared to condone or even carry out acts of terrorism”.
  A total of 18% backed the statement - compared with just one in 10 in the wake of the terrorist bombings in London last July.

  
  
• British laws banning glorification of terrorism don't work. They can still get you for racism if you insult Islam, however.
  
  
• How-To available: How to Kill a Westerner. This notice is provided as a service to my Jihaid readership.
  
  
• Kofi wants negotiations:
  

  Mr. Annan said he believes that “direct negotiations with the Hidden Imam can defuse all of this talk of the end of the world, which I’m confident is nothing more than a bargaining chip.”
  
  In any case, the world’s end is expected to have little effect on the work of the United Nations, according to Mr. Annan.
  
  “The U.N. will continue to be just as effective at resolving conflicts and ensuring world peace as it was before the end of the world,” he said.

  
  
• Pepsi: terrorist tool! Terrorists claim they poisoned Pepsi to kill Iraqi troops. Skepticism abounds.
  
  
• Walmart has a Communist party branch in China. Note that it is unionized.
  

  Wal-Mart, capitalist retailer for the masses, now has its own Communist Party branch. Earlier this month, Communist Party and Communist Youth League branches and a trade union were set up at a Wal-Mart outlet in the northeastern industrial city of Shenyang, a staffer in the store's communications department said Thursday, confirming Chinese media reports.

  
  
• Details of the punishment my favorite lesbian moonbat would face under Shari'a. this part wounds me deeply:
  

  Article 134. If two women, who are not consanguineous, go under the same bed cover while nude and without justification, they shall be given fewer than one hundred lashes. In case of repetition of the act for a third time each shall be given one hundred lashes.

  
  Does a guy in the middle count as justification? If not, I definitely oppose Shari'a.
  

Capping years of intense debate, astronomers resolved today to demote Pluto in a wholesale redefinition of planethood that is being billed as a victory of scientific reasoning over historic and cultural influences. But already the decision is being hotly debated.

Officially, Pluto is no longer a planet.

• In a major surprise, Iran turns down nuclear offer and the US doesn't like it. Neither does Israel, and Iran hints its program has reached the point of no return:
  

  Israel is carefully watching the world's reaction to Iran's continued refusal to suspend uranium enrichment, with some high-level officials arguing it is now clear that when it comes to stopping Iran, Israel "may have to go it alone," The Jerusalem Post has learned.
  ...
  "The Iranians know the world will do nothing," he said. "This is similar to the world's attempts to appease Hitler in the 1930s - they are trying to feed the beast."
  
  He said there was a need to understand that "when push comes to shove," Israel would have to be prepared to "slow down" the Iranian nuclear threat by itself.
  
  Having said this, he did not rule out the possibility of US military action, but said that if this were to take place, it would probably not occur until the spring or summer of 2008, a few months before President George W. Bush leaves the international stage. The US presidential elections, which Bush cannot contest because of term limits, are in November 2008.

  
  Iran says bow and surrender to Iran. The arrogance is amazing.
  
  What is Iran's surprise? 'A senior official in Teheran said Wednesday that in the next few days, a "surprise" was expected regarding Iran's nuclear program, Al-Jazeera reported.'

WITH Iran confidently defying pressure to curb its nuclear programme, Israel has signed a contract with Germany to buy two more submarines capable of firing nuclear missiles, it emerged yesterday.

Israeli security sources said the submarines are needed to counter long-range threats from countries such as Iran, whose president has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map".

Israel has been expanding its military in the light of Iran's nuclear ambitions. It already has three Dolphin-class submarines which can fire nuclear missiles, but the newer models can remain submerged far longer.

Israel should prepare for the possibility of a missile attack from Iran, a cabinet minister said on Tuesday.

"We are liable to face an Iranian missile attack. The Iranians have said very clearly that if they come under attack, their primary target would be Israel," Rafi Eitan, a member of the decision-making inner cabinet, told Israel Radio.

In autumn 1991 Nursultan Nazarbayev, the president of Khazakhstan, sold three nuclear warheads to the Iranians. The Iranians wanted to use them as a prototype for their own bomb manufacturing. The price was said to have been 7.5 billion USD. Whether this amount is true or just the fantasies of a less paid government official, I cannot verify. The amount was to cover all bribes and kick-offs and military protection during transport. Every country involved had demanded their fair share of the deal.

Apparently, HRW thinks it's okay to accuse a country of war crimes based solely on hearsay evidence of male "villagers", acquired while the war was ongoing, who are hanging out in a POG stronghold during an Israeli bombardment, after being warned to leave. Even if these villagers were not POG affiliates (but maybe they are) or even sympathizers, how do you think Hezbollah would have reacted if they had been quoted in an HRW report during the war as stating that Israel was only carefully targeting POG strongholds? I certainly wouldn't issue life insurance to them under such circumstances.

The executive director of Human Rights Watch seems to think that even if hundreds of rockets are being fired from a Lebanese town at Israeli cities on the days before and after an Israeli attack, the Lebanese town should be immune from attack so long as no rockets were fired in the hours immediately preceding the attack. That standard is unrealistic for Israel, which has to plan its military operations in advance and is trying to defend itself from a terrorist group trying to kill Israeli civilians. The alternative to air strikes is ground operations in which Israeli soldiers risk being ambushed. How many Israeli ground troops does Mr. Roth think should die to satisfy his qualms about the timing of Israeli air raids? ...
Mr. Roth claims to have half a staff member out of 230 devoted to researching Israeli “abuses.” How, then, one wonders, can he have been so sure, in a matter of hours, that Israel had committed a “war crime” at Qana? How can he be so certain that in “two dozen cases” there was “no evidence of Hezbollah”? He’s trying to have it both ways — claiming, on the one hand, that he’s got lots of authoritative researchers investigating Israeli war crimes while, on the other hand, claiming that he only has one person devoted half-time to Israel.

"[In a report accusing Israel of war crimes, Amnesty International] accused Israel of applying an overly broad interpretation of what constituted a military objective when it attacked power plants, bridges, main roads, seaports and Beirut's international airport, all of which are 'presumed to be civilian.'"

I'm no military expert, but every book, movie, documentary, etc., I've ever seen on war assumes that at least bridges [how many WWII movies have a scene focused on taking a bridge?], roads and seaports are important military targets, and in modern times I'd have to put airports on that list, too. The idea that a country at war can't attack the enemy's resupply routes (at least until it has direct evidence that there is a particular military shipment arriving) has nothing to do with human rights or war crimes, and a lot to do with a pacifist attitude that seeks to make war, regardless of the justification for it or the restraint in prosecuting it [at least if it's a Western country doing it], an international "crime."* Not to mention that the Beirut airport was only temporarily shut down with minor damage, and is already reopen. [If Amnesty International wants to make the case that the Party of God would not and could not use any of the relevant targets for resupply, and Israel knew it, that's a different story, but I'd love to see such evidence, which, to say the least, would be counter-intuitive.]

• Europe doesn't want to send troops to Lebanese peacekeeping operation, says the plan is too undefined. Australia says no because they won't be allowed to disarm Hezbullah...I love the Aussies. The OpinionJournal asks Condi how she feels after being lied to by the French.
  
  Heh:
  

  In recent weeks, France stepped forward to act as a broker of peace in Lebanon. “Act” is the key verb in that last sentence, as it now would seem that the only other verifiable part of the sentence is “in recent weeks.”
  
  To correctly parse that sentence, one must understand that when France suggested it wanted to broker peace in Lebanon, it did not necessarily mean “broker” or “peace” or “Lebanon” in the way we might understand those words. The same is true when France further suggested it wanted to “lead” a “strong” “multinational” “force” there.
  ...
  I wish I could be charitable here and find some good excuses for the French. Ernest Hemingway, who had a soft spot for them, used to like to say, “Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk.” But Hemingway, unlike the French, had a sense of honor.

  
  Israel asks Italy to lead peacekeeping force.
  
  Meanwhile, the UN sent state of the art British night-vision equipment to Iran, which provided them to Hezbullah to kill IDF soldiers.
  
  The US blocked an Iranian shipment of missiles and launchers to Hezbullah.
  
  
• Ralph Peters is optimistic:
  

  Israel's recent defeat, for one thing. Yes, you read that right. The truth is that Israel got a relatively cheap, if embarrassing, wake-up call. And Israel's a part of Western civilization, not of the Middle East's decaying cultures. That means that Israel doesn't just wallow in blame - like Americans, Israelis figure out what went wrong and then fix it. After the post-war soul-searching and investigations are finished, failed leaders will be replaced and Israel will re-emerge with a renewed sense of mission, a stronger government and a powerfully reformed military - the next time the IDF goes to war, watch the way it devastates its enemies.
  
  The "unity of Muslims" confronting the West is history (it was always a bogus, ramshackle affair). Sunni-Arab leaders increasingly grasp that the real threat isn't from the United States or Israel, but from the explosion of Shia ambitions, prowess, wealth and desire for vengeance. The future of the Middle East could go a number of ways, but we may find ourselves as bemused spectators, while our sworn enemies and phony friends kill each other. Afterward, we'll pick up the pieces.

  
  
• Saudis demand apology for use of term "Islamofascist."
  
  
• Are American and IAF planes flying over Tehran and Damascus? A report says yes.
  
  
• A stunning poll shows Americans are waking up to the threat:
  

  The Investors Business Daily poll found: A majority of Americans, 51 percent, believe that "militant Islamism is no less a threat in the 21st century than Nazism, fascism and communism were in the 20th century," 63 percent are "very concerned" about the desire of Islamo-fascists to establish a worldwide Muslim rule, and 58 percent doubt that diplomacy or negotiation will work in dealing with Islamic fascists.
  
  And Americans are now most aware of the Iranian role in promoting fascism: 58 percent in the poll think Iran is now the "main promoter of Islamic fascism in the Middle East," and 76 percent believe Iran must be prevented from obtaining nuclear weapons "at any cost."

  
  
• What the ceasefire hath wrought:
  

  The upshot of all this is that the idea of wiping Israel off the map, something that no one seriously advocated even a year ago, is now forcefully presented as a realistic and achievable goal. Suddenly all the talk about the "road map", a "two-states formula", and even "unilateral transfer of land to Palestinians" appears out of context. If the whole of Palestine, including the part known as Israel, can be "liberated", there is no reason why those who always saw the creation of the Jewish state as a "nakbah"(catastrophe), should settle for only a small parcel of the "usurped land."
  
  If one takes the conflicting claims of victory seriously, only one conclusion seems possible: The protagonists are in no mood to modify, let alone abandon, their rival projects to remove the threat of war. There will be no place for the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Baathist regime in Syria and the Hezbollah in an American-designed "Greater Middle East". At the same time, there could be no place for Israel, US influence, and pro-American regimes in a Middle East where the Islamic republic and its allies, including non-state players, set the agenda.

  
  
• Iranian writes on Useful Idiots for Islam. He describes the symptoms.
  

  The Useful Idiot may even engage in willful misinformation and deception when it suits him. Terms such as "Political Islam," or "Radical Islam," for instance, are contributions of the Useful Idiot. These terms do not even exist in the native parlance of Islam, simply because they are redundant. Islam, by its very nature and according to its charter "the Quran" is a radical political movement. It is the Useful Idiot who sanitizes Islam and misguides the populace by saying that the "real Islam" constitutes the main body of the religion; and, that this main body is non-political and moderate.

  
  

Melinda Gates, for example, attacked politicians who insist on attaching "stigma" to "sex workers" -- that being the politically correct term for prostitutes. Such stigma is "irrational," said the wife of the computer-software mogul, because "people who are involved in sex work are crucial allies in the fight to end AIDS." My guess is that it would be hard to get elected governor of the state of Washington on such a platform, let alone governor of Waziristan or Wake Island.

Then, still bathing in audience approbation, she continued, "Stigma makes it easier for political leaders to stand in the way of saving lives." Now let's stop right there for a second. Ms. Gates just said that political leaders in various countries are willing to see their own people die rather than wave away the stigma of the sex trade. So let's ask ourselves: Even if that accusation is true -- and it might be -- how will such words be received in Third World countries? Will a rich white woman be an effective voice for social transformation in, say, India? Or in Nigeria? Or Indonesia? Will leaders in these countries slap their foreheads, and say, "I'm wrong! Mrs. Gates is right! I'll change my hoary attitudes on whoredom!" Is that the way human nature works? Is that the way politicians think?

Peter Piot, the head of UNAIDS, waded even further into rhetorical neocolonialism. He told the same crowd that one "leg" of the anti-AIDS effort is "investments in prevention." But another "leg," he added, to rising applause, is "social change," addressing "gender inequality" and, of course, "homophobia." One can only wonder how those words played outside of Toronto, outside of Canada.