All Things Beautiful

A Bloody Fight For The Integrity Of Iran Ignored By The Media

Cross posted @ NewsBusters

Iran is blocking news from leaking out about the current student unrests and bloody riots on University campuses throughout the country. This however is no excuse for the Western media, who have shamefully ignored the tens if thousands of Iranians protesting against the regime. We should take note:

Iranian security forces fired live bullets, and shots were fired at homes outside the university. One of the students told Rooz: "The university campus is on fire, raids are being conducted throughout the campus, and the students are in fear and anxiety... Gunfire is heard from all directions... There is blood everywhere". The university's telephone lines were reported to have been cut.

Iran Press Service (IPS) reports, that "the new wave of students unrests started a month ago when, on the proposal of Mr. Ahmadi Nezhad [our Thug-In-Chief of course], the government decided to burry remains of “martyrs” of the Iraq-Iran War in the campuses of universities across the nation."

The "enemy", for the Iranian ruling officials is, besides the "Great American Satan" the dynamic, active, prosperous Iranian Diaspora with which Mr. Ahmadi Nezhad, on advises [sic] from the leader, is trying to cut all links.

This isn't just a small band of unruly students. As soon as you are talking about 75% of the entire student body participating in the protests, you have some credible momentum.

Independent sources on the scene said 3,000 of the 4,000 students attending the main campus, and another 2,000 from the law and political science campus were taking part in the protests.

Not surprising, is the Mullahs' attempt to blame the unrest "on trouble-makers disguised as students; [...] the ultra-conservative daily “Kayhan”, a mouthpiece of Ayatollah Khameneh’i, called the student leaders "representatives of the American Congress in Tehran University" and said that the “rioters” had come from outside the university"; [...] "foreign agents" and “professional trouble-makers getting orders from the enemies”.

The 'Deadly Charm' Offensive

 

Ed Morrissey hits the nail on the head when summing up the Der Spiegel interview with Thug-In-Chief Ahmadinejad (don't miss reading the extraordinary back-and-forth exchange on the issue of Holocaust denial between the interviewer and Ahmadinejad - it would be funny if it wasn't so serious in every respect):

He [Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] means to prepare the world for some kind of action against them [the Jews], and this attempt at a charm offensive in Germany was no accident.

'Charm offensive' means of course our Thug-In-Chief's effort to strengthen anti-Semitic neo-Nazi groups in Germany. "I believe that the German people today are also prisoners of the Holocaust." These kind of statements are bound to fall on some fertile ground, especially amongst some particularly economically challenged communities. But I am happy to say, that overall the impact is both politically and socially largely insignificant. The German people know their history and have undergone a thorough catharsis vis-a-vis their collective guilt towards international Jewry.

However, much more significant is the mindset revealed by our Thug-In-Chief. Two possibilities exist. One, he is a Thug - no question about that - and is truly ignorant about historical facts; utterly unschooled, a regular illiterate really. Problem is, he is academically highly accomplished, always the best in his academic and scientific pursuits as well as his executive positions; not to forget his extensive 'accomplishments' as a journalist; writing various political, social, cultural and economic articles; serving as managing director of Hamshahri newspaper, launching various affiliated periodicals and on and on and on. Not the kind of person who doesn't know any better...

Second possibility: Both our Thug-In-Chief and his protégée are setting the stage for a simple but cunning political checkmate for Israel along the lines which I explained two months ago:

His [Mohammad-Ali Angel-of-Death Ramin] logic is as simple as it is evil: Should his committee determine that indeed 6 million Jews had been killed by the Nazis, then another committee must be assembled and determine a just punishment for Germany, which, oh quelle surprise, must include the transfer of German territory so as to establish a Jewish State.

Should it however establish, that Holocaust was a 'Myth', Ramin would have successfully vilified the Jews and exonerated the Nazis. He would then hope to re-open the debate questioning the legality of the State of Israel and bring him one step closer to return Israel's territories to Arab rule. Destruction of Israel is only the last resort option. Much preferred is to usurp Israel 'peacefully', and hand control over to Arab leaders. I wonder what he'd call the new nation...

Much more likely.

Pride And Prejudice

"Witches in the Air" by Goya 1797-98, Museo del Prado, Madrid

 

Every Christmas and Easter, a story of sorts surfaces relating to a vicious attack on Christ or our faith in general. This year it was time to spin the Gospel of Judas again in time for Easter, preceded by the usual declaration of war on Christmas, timed perfectly to coincide with our celebrations.

True to tradition, and right on time, Memorial Day is no exception. The otherwise sombre occasion gets polluted by glimpses of human nature's uglier custom: Blatant opportunism, in the form of another anti-war push from the left with Rep. John Murtha leading the charge. It follows his outrageous Press Conference earlier this month, which we covered here, [don't miss the photo, it's priceless] announcing that U.S. Marines had killed civilians "in cold blood", marking a six month anniversary of his last spectacular political failure, when he tried to implement the cut and run policy favored by the Democrats.

So now as the nation observes Memorial Day, a time to remember the brave, and weep for the fallen U.S. soldiers, we have an all out brazen Murtha Memorial Day attack, appearing on every talk show that would have him, with his "in cold blood" mantra, claiming in advance a verdict of guilt, ahead of any court martial or even the release of formal charges. For a person holding the public office of Congressman this is an inexcusable behavior. We have a judicial process which is taking its course at this very moment, concluding in official charges and a subsequent verdict, neither of which we have had.

The anti-war brigade are right on time, with their own political agendas which have little to do with the the efforts of hundreds of thousands of American and coalition servicemen in Iraq, and everything to do with discrediting their very existence.

As one of the Marines, Ilario Pantano, exonerated from an incident last year avers:

The system is not served by such grand pronouncements of horror and guilt without the accuser even having read the investigative report.

Mr. Murtha's position is particularly suspect when he is quoted by news services as saying that the strain of deployment "has caused them [the Marines] to crack in situations like this." Not only is he certain of the Marines' guilt but he claims to know the cause, which he conveniently attributes to a policy he opposes.

Members of the U.S. military serving in Iraq need more than Mr. Murtha's pseudo-sympathy. They need leaders to stand with them even in the hardest of times. Let the courts decide if these Marines are guilty. They haven't even been charged with a crime yet, so it is premature to presume their guilt -- unless that presumption is tied to a political motive.

It Is Not Liberalism It Is Lunacy

 

The highest ranking Democrat Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, described the Senate bill making English the national language of the American people as "racist."

One of my readers who goes by the nom de guerre of "Slowtrain" responds with a comment, simply begging for a post of its own:

"The notion that English language should not be the official and national language of the United States of America is unbelievable silly, yet completely insane. It is not liberalism, it is lunacy. The leadership of the Democratic Party is either unbelievably gullible or is exhibiting clear symptoms of “excessive group allegiance” where sentiments have completely overtaken reason.

As one with first hand experience with the deleterious effects of many official languages on democracy and unity of purpose within a nation, I must recommend that they take a trip to Nigeria, Cameroon, Turkey, Afghanistan or even Canada or at least try to study a little about all the countries of this world where many official languages undermine democracy and unity.

In the book Tribalizing America, the author wrote,

“Yet there is nothing to suggest that anything—not a nation of many years of democratic existence such as America, not even an idea or principle such as democracy—is beyond erosion and destruction. To that end, no one should be under any illusion as to take for granted the threats posed by the issues of many competing common national languages. After all, just a few years ago, Canada was faced with a crisis that threatened her existence (and almost split her in two). The primary cause of that crisis was perhaps her dual national languages (and the attendant problems thereof), which inevitably created similar barriers as we have seen in less developed and less democratic countries.

In fact, in the minds of many Canadians and people outside Canada, there is a tacit assumption that there are two distinct national entities within Canada: the “English Canada” and the “French Canada.” Perhaps some day America will have a similar situation, where there will be a tacit assumption that two national entities (for example, the “English America” and the “Spanish America”) exist within the United States of America.

Many other countries faced with similar situations have not been as successful as Canada in dealing with and resolving the situation, at least so far. Countries such as Afghanistan, Indonesia, Burma, Bosnia, Turkey, Macedonia, Kosovo, Iraq, and most countries in Africa are all dogged by the problems engendered by multiple and competing languages, among other problems. In fact, the absence of a common language is the most prevalent way to create and preserve division, thereby perpetuating cultural polarization, which in turn leads to fragmentation and disunity in a nation.”

 

No Regrets

"Christ at the Sea of Galilee" by Tintoretto c. 1575/80, National Gallery of Art, Washington

BUMPED UP AND UPDATED THROUGHOUT THE DAY WITH MORE MEMORIAL DAY BLOGGING LINKS, MEANWHILE PLEASE SEND URGENT CONDOLENCES TO THE ANCHORESS WHO HAS SUFFERED A GREAT LOSS WITH THE DEATH OF HER LIFE LONG FRIEND AND BROTHER IN LAW

Victor Davis Hanson has another must read perfectly poised for this Memorial Day weekend, looking back at our accomplishments in Iraq:

"There may be a lot to regret about the past policy of the United States in the Middle East, but the removal of Saddam Hussein and the effort to birth democracy in his place is surely not one of them. And we should remember that this Memorial Day.

Whatever our righteous anger at Khomeinist Iran, it was wrong, well aside from the arms-for-hostages scandal, to provide even a modicum of aid to Saddam Hussein, the great butcher of his own, during the Iran-Iraq war.

Inviting the fascist Baathist government of Syria into the allied coalition of the first Gulf War meant that we more or less legitimized the Assad regime’s take-over of Lebanon, with disastrous results for its people.

It may have been strategically in error not to have taken out Saddam in 1991, but it was morally wrong to have then encouraged Shiites and Kurds to rise up — while watching idly as Saddam’s reprieved planes and helicopters slaughtered them in the thousands.

A decade of appeasement of Islamic terrorism, with retaliations after the serial attacks — from the first World Trade Center bombing to Khobar Towers and the USS Cole — never exceeding the occasional cruise missile or stern televised lecture, made September 11 inevitable.

A decade was wasted in subsidizing Yasser Arafat on the pretense that he was something other than a mendacious thug.

I cite these few examples of the now nostalgic past, because it is common to see Iraq written off by the architects of these past failures as the “worst” policy decision in our history, a “quagmire” and a “disaster.” Realists, more worried about Iran and the ongoing cost in our blood and treasure in Iraq, insist that toppling Saddam was a terrible waste of resources. Leftists see the Iraq war as part of an amoral imperialism; often their talking points weirdly end up rehashed in bin Laden’s communiqués and Dr. Zawahiri’s rants.

But what did 2,400 brave and now deceased Americans really sacrifice for in Iraq, along with thousands more who were wounded? And what were billions in treasure spent on? And what about the hundreds of collective years of service offered by our soldiers? What exactly did intrepid officers in the news like a Gen. Petreus, or Col. McMaster, or Lt. Col Kurilla fight for?

The Constitution Promises Freedom Of Religion Not Freedom From Religion

Photo by the talented Shane J Montgomery

 

The Memorial Weekend is a time to remember....

Emily Zanotti @ American Princess has been waging a relentless war around the clock on behalf of The Thomas More Law Center, to keep the Mt. Soledad 43 foot tall stone Cross Monument up. Erected  in San Diego, California in 1954, it today honors veterans of World War I and II and the Korean War.

“In bitter irony, the very freedoms Captain Martino and Major Jerry Bloomfield died to protect are being perverted by the ACLU and atheists to deprive them and their grieving families the honor and solace they deserve,” said Richard Thompson, President of the Thomas More Law Center.

Emily, who is a fellow member of The Cotillion group of brilliant girl bloggers, tells me: "Last summer, after the city had voted to just tear down the cross and keep the land, the people of San Diego voted to hand over the land to the federal government, which would put the cross out of the reach of the ACLU (thanks to some quick thinking by Congress, the feds declared it a national monument), but the city still didn't want to give it up, and 76% voted to save the cross."

The 17-year vicious battle over whether religious symbols can be displayed on public land, has of course been fought against the dreaded ACLU, who have finally on May 3rd (how dare they spoil my Birthday) won an order against the City of San Diego to have the mountain top cross removed within 90 days or face a daily fine of $5, 000.

Now the fight picks up the pace, and Emily's concern grows stronger, as time is not on their side. The petition which hopes to achieve 100, 000 signatures this week, can be found here, together with a letter to be sent to the President, asking him to take the land under the federal government's powers of eminent domain:

Postmortem On The Immigration Bill

"St Jerome and the Angel" by Simon Vouet 1620s, National Gallery of Art, Washington

 

Do you have that heavy headed feeling this morning? Like the one you may have experienced after a little too much to drink the night before...

Well that is how this postmortem on the Immigration Bill feels to write about. I have gone around the block and back in my assessment of this issue, and during my trip, so many points have come up clouding my judgment, that quite honestly taking a migraine pill may do the trick. Perhaps I'll simply start writing, and pray for some clarity. I certainly shan't get it from the left, who are busy with their own agenda.

Prior to the conference committee slamming it, and this actually never getting to end up on the President's desk, let's look at what we have:

The Senate yesterday approved legislation that would trigger the biggest changes to U.S. immigration policy in decades, by strengthening border security, establishing a guest-worker program, and providing the means for millions of illegal immigrants to stay in the country and possibly become citizens.

The product of a tenuous bipartisan coalition that faced tough conservative opposition, the measure calls for 370 miles of triple-layer fencing along the Mexican border, a complicated three-tiered system for determining who can stay and who must leave the country, and more jail cells for those awaiting deportation. It would declare English the country's national language, a gesture that many advocates found insulting but accepted in hopes of helping millions of undocumented workers achieve legal status.

The Senate bill passed 62 to 36, with 23 Republicans joining 38 Democrats and one independent in one of the few displays of bipartisanship on a big piece of legislation in years. The President won one of his very few acknowledged victories, and yet the complications I see coming forth are plentiful, despite the passing of Binghaman's Amendment limiting the total number of aliens, including spouses and children, granted employment-based legal permanent resident status to 650,000 during any fiscal year. Heh

Gen. Edwin Meese, who served as Attorney General under President Ronald Reagan, cuts through the chase in his New York Times column, and points to the similarities with the 1986 Simpson-Mazzoli Act, which granted amnesty, in the present climate a dirty word.

Manipulated Intelligence By Any Other Name

 

I have bandwidth problems today, and blogging is impossible, so I thought I would post some food for thought I read as a comment on Lorie Byrd's post @ Wizbang, about media bias and manipulation, from Martin A. Knight, who has posted brilliant comments on ATB before:

The reason the Administration is down in the polls has a great deal more to do with the success the Press and their friends in the Democrat Party have had in pressing forward the narrative that until the Bush Administration, no one had ever observed, thought, said, much less written anything that would have led anyone to believe;

    * That Saddam Hussein possessed and maintained stockpiles of WMD.
    * That Saddam Hussein sponsored, sheltered and provided training to terrorists.
    * That Saddam Hussein's terrorist connections included Al Qaeda and a collaborational relationship was possible.
    * That Saddam Hussein had a record of lying to and deceiving UN Weapons inspectors.
    * That Saddam Hussein's hatred of the United States, taken together with the above, made him a significant threat to America's national security.

Apparently, all these obviously ridiculous notions sprang, fully formed, like Athena out of the top of Zeus' head, from the diabolically creative imaginations of the Bush Administration's voluminous cast of nefarious characters, who then proceeded to sell this hitherto unheard of idea that Saddam posed a threat to the United States to a gullible American public through a pliant American Press.

So today, we're treated to the thoroughly absurd spectacle of journalists publicly castigating themselves, slapping their foreheads and shedding hot tears, for "not doing our jobs" and "aggressively questioning" the Administration's supposedly clearly false assertions about Iraq, Saddam, WMD, terrorism and everything else under the sun while they're at it.

But the fact is; even if given a thousand years, not a single one of the mendacious hacks wailing and gnashing their teeth about being "misled" by the White House on WMD and Iraq would ever have thought to question the Bush Administration's assertions about Saddam Hussein's ties to terrorists, his WMD programs and his willingness to attack American interests.

The Liberal Thought As We Know It

 

As I have now joined the elite ranks of anti-idiotarian bloggers who have been labeled "Nazis" for having the temerity to identify Islamofascists as the true heirs of the Third Reich, and a racist, a xenophobe, as well as of course an Islamophobe, for daring to be in favor of preserving our sovereignty free of Shari'a oppression, and a bellicose Christian for having the audacity to advocate it vociferously, whilst still confirming my Christian beliefs, I feel the Democrats have now been uplifted to new dizzying heights of verbal lunacy:

The highest-ranking Democrat in America, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, described the Senate bill making English the national language of the American people as "racist." And the New York Times editorial page labeled the bill "xenophobic."

Welcome to the thoughtless world of contemporary liberalism. Beginning in the 1960s, liberalism, once the home of many deep thinkers, began to substitute feeling for thought and descended into superficiality.

One-word put-downs of opponents' ideas and motives were substituted for thoughtful rebuttal. Though liberals regard themselves as intellectual -- their views, after all, are those of nearly all university professors -- liberal thought has almost died. Instead of feeling the need to thoughtfully consider an idea, most liberal minds today work on automatic. One-word reactions to most issues are the liberal norm.

This is easy to demonstrate.

Here is a list of terms liberals apply to virtually every idea or action with which they differ:

Racist
Sexist
Homophobic
Islamophobic
Imperialist
Bigoted
Intolerant

And here is the list of one-word descriptions of what liberals are for:

Peace
Fairness
Tolerance
The poor
The disenfranchised
The environment

These two lists serve contemporary liberals in at least three ways.

First, they attack the motives of non-liberals and thereby morally dismiss the non-liberal person.

Second, these words make it easy to be a liberal -- essentially all one needs to do is to memorize this brief list and apply the right term to any idea or policy. That is one reason young people are more likely to be liberal -- they have not had the time or inclination to think issues through, but they know they oppose racism, imperialism and bigotry, and that they are for peace, tolerance and the environment.

Third, they make the liberal feel good about himself -- by opposing conservative ideas and policies, he is automatically opposing racism, bigotry, imperialism, etc.

So now keeping English as a unified language is racist. It seems like this verbal disease is spreading through the Democratic party, down from the very highest ranks, who have proven constitutionally incapable of reining in their superciliousness, and spreading the hyperbolic invectives through the ranks to the Democratic foot-soldiers, like a deadly virus. Have these people gone completely mad? According to my friend the gracious Neo-neocon anger is still in style on the left side of the world.

Standing With Israel - The Birth Pangs Of An Important Alliance

 

IMPORTANT UPDATE AMIR TAHERI ISSUES A PRESS RELEASE

Marc Hess points me to a very interesting question and answer between KLo @ NRO and David Brog who is the author of "Standing with Israel: Why Christians Support the Jewish State". A former chief of staff to Pennsylvania Republican senator Arlen Specter, Brog explains that “the evangelical Christians who support Israel today are nothing less than the theological heirs of the righteous Gentiles who sought to save Jews from the Holocaust.”

As all of you who have been reading my blog know, I am a devout Christian and a staunch supporter of Israel, and obviously this subject interests me a great deal. I have always been fascinated why anti-Semitism is rife and there is so much global resentment directed at the Jewish population for rising from the ashes and making an incredible success of their lives. Or are we still harboring the centuries old gripe? Can we get over it already? Now if they could just get their land back...

It is inconceivable to me, that we are still debating whether we should have diplomatic relations with the Palestinian authority, when we are fully aware that they are a front for the Liberation of "Palestine".

Charles Moore asked a pertinent question not so long ago: "All I want to ask my fellow Europeans is this: are you happy to help direct the world's fury at the only country in the Middle East whose civilization even remotely resembles yours? And are you sure that the fate of Israel has no bearing on your own? In Iran, the new President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad makes the link. The battle over Palestine, he says, is "the prelude of the battle of Islam with the world of arrogance", the world of the West. He is busy building his country's nuclear bomb."

I firmly believe that our resolve not to allow Islam and the law of Shari'a to bully its way into our haven of liberties, will play an integral role in strengthening the unity between Christians and Jews in this climate of apocalytptic uncertainty.

As Professor Bostom said: "A perverse, depressingly real-life scene from the “Wizard of Oz” fantasy is now unfolding in Western Europe. EU bureaucrats—playing the well-known aquiline-nosed, broomstick-riding character from movie version—have cast a spell (“Sleep…Sleep”) on their non-Muslim constituent Dorothys, Scarecrows, Tin Men and Cowardly Lions, hoping to keep them slumbering in fields of poisonous poppies. Regardless of whether they awaken, it may already be too late."

Kathryn Jean Lopez: Which Christians in the U.S. are most Zionist and why?

David Brog: The evangelicals. No contest. Their Zionism comes directly from their theology. But, as opposed to what most people think, this theology is driven by the biblical promises of the Book of Genesis, not the biblical prophecies of the Book of Revelations.

Lopez: Was there an event that made this alliance stronger? Has it always been under the radar?

Brog: Evangelical Christians largely shunned politics until the late 1970s, when Jerry Falwell created the Moral Majority and led them back onto the political playing field. Israel was among the priorities of the Christian Right from the start. In fact, when Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority he made support for Israel one of the group’s four organizing principles along with the issue of abortion, traditional marriage, and a strong U.S. defense.

While Israel was always important to evangelicals, a recent event did make Israel even more of a priority. On September 11, 2001, evangelicals recognized along with many other Americans that radical Islam was the greatest threat facing our country and that we were in a war with its proponents. And in this war, Israel is seen as an ally and as the first line of defense of Judeo-Christian civilization. Support for this embattled ally has moved to center stage.

The Legacy Of Pax Islamica

"The Pax Islamica" Hawk Dove

SCROLL DOWN FOR IMPORTANT UPDATE

Professor Andrew Bostom has been a hero of mine ever since I finished reading what is now considered the Jihad Bible otherwise entitled "The Legacy Of Jihad". It came as a breath of fresh air amidst the rancid sea of apologists on the left, who have never quite understood the meaning of the word "Jihad", and were busy defending it as a mere spiritual struggle in the path of Allah.

My position on this has been crystal clear from the outset of my writing this blog, and although I have written about it many times before, I shall repeat it for the readers that may not be so familiar with the workings of the "Religion Of Peace".

Recently, apologists in the West have asserted that Jihad means primarily "spiritual struggle." There are several things to be said about this. First of all, the tradition to which they are referring is a late Sufi tradition, of the eleventh century, which divides jihad into a "Jihad of the Sword" and a "Jihad of the Spirit," stating that the former is the "lesser" Jihad and the latter is the "greater." This tradition is not contained in any of the canonical volumes of Sunni traditions, however, and has occupied, historically, only a very minor place in the Islamic tradition.

How do we know this to be so? There have been thousands of books composed on the religious duty of Jihad throughout the 14 centuries of Islamic history. Every last one of those books was about the "Jihad of the Sword" but one - and that one was composed only in the 20th century, by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a Shi'ite, and not exactly a pacifist. Second, and far more important: all that this tradition states is that the "Jihad of the Spirit" is the greater Jihad; it does not in any way abrogate the "lesser Jihad," the "Jihad of the Sword"- on the contrary. It is not accidental that the word for a Sufi monastery and for a fortress of volunteer border warriors (ribat) is identical in the Islamic languages; the same people who were "struggling in God's path" in the Jihad of the Spirit were simultaneously "struggling in God's path" in the Jihad of the Sword; even the Sufis who invented this tradition saw the two types of Jihad as being complementary, not mutually exclusive. Moreover, even had the late Sufi tradition actually been the dominant one in Islam, it would in no way abrogate the militaristic Qur'anic verses which order the believers variously to "fight' or to "kill" the unbelievers.

Every classical treatise on Islamic government has viewed the primary duty of a ruler as essentially that of ordering the world according to God's will. The world is divided into two mutually antagonistic parts: the "Abode of Islam" (Dar al-Islam), in which God's rule has already been established, and which is ruled according to Muslim law; and the "Abode of War" (Dar al-Harb); that portion of the world which is not yet under God's rule, but which the Muslims must eventually bring into the Islamic oecumene by force or by persuasion. What the apologists are not revealing when they talk of Islam as a religion of peace is that the "peace" they are referring to is a Pax Islamica.

Today we continue with the struggle of sending the message which if understood, will have a profound effect on how we deal with the sort of information given to us by Amir Taheri in the last few days, and which despite constant criticism from the left, culminating even in attempts to discredit him as the sterling journalist which we all know him to be, and calling me a Nazi, still needs to be explained further. Dr.Zin @ Regime Change provides a perfectly  logical explanation: "Why does he say it "envisages" it [the law]? Perhaps it is because it has been reported that a separate dress code for minorities has been included in earlier versions of the proposed law," and the Anchoress makes an intelligent deduction: "Just because a document “makes no mention” of something doesn’t mean a thing is not - under a definition of “standard” - implied."

The Dissident President

"The Triumph of Faith" by Charles Le Brun 1658-60, Château, Vaux-le-Vicomte

 

Think again.

We need to be reminded of the qualities of a dissident. Natan Sharansky spent nine years as a political prisoner in the Soviet Gulag. A former Deputy Prime Minister of Israel and currently a member of the Knesset he experienced the meaning of staying the course undoubtedly the hard way.

"Years later, following his release, Sharansky stressed his need throughout his imprisonment to remain emotionally independent. He attributed his survival of the lengthy incarceration and the brutal conditions to his resistance to any sort of emotional surrender. Hence Sharansky's expression of the paradox that while an ordinary Russian, he was in fact a slave to the system; but that once he discovered his Jewish roots and was restricted for his allegiance to them, he was in reality a free man. Sharansky's memoirs of his years as a prisoner of Zion are described in his book Fear No Evil.

During the years of his imprisonment, Sharansky became a symbol for human rights in general and Soviet Jewry in particular. A campaign for his release was waged tirelessly by his wife, Avital, who emigrated to Israel immediately following their wedding with the hope that her husband would follow shortly. Intense diplomatic efforts and public outcries for his release were unsuccessful until 1986, when Sharansky was released as part of an East-West prisoner exchange. Freed on the border of a still-divided Germany, he was met by the Israeli ambassador who presented him immediately with his new Israeli passport under the Hebrew name of Natan Sharansky. He arrived in Israel on February 11, 1986, and was greeted by leading government officials, including then Prime Minister Shimon Peres, and was given a hero's welcome."

We should listen to him when he tells us about the 'dissident' qualities of our President:

There are two distinct marks of a dissident. First, dissidents are fired by ideas and stay true to them no matter the consequences. Second, they generally believe that betraying those ideas would constitute the greatest of moral failures. Give up, they say to themselves, and evil will triumph. Stand firm, and they can give hope to others and help change the world.

Political leaders make the rarest of dissidents. In a democracy, a leader's lifeline is the electorate's pulse. Failure to be in tune with public sentiment can cripple any administration and undermine any political agenda. Moreover, democratic leaders, for whom compromise is critical to effective governance, hardly ever see any issue in Manichaean terms. In their world, nearly everything is colored in shades of gray.

That is why President George W. Bush is such an exception. He is a man fired by a deep belief in the universal appeal of freedom, its transformative power, and its critical connection to international peace and stability. Even the fiercest critics of these ideas would surely admit that Mr. Bush has championed them both before and after his re-election, both when he was riding high in the polls and now that his popularity has plummeted, when criticism has come from longstanding opponents and from erstwhile supporters.

With a dogged determination that any dissident can appreciate, Mr. Bush, faced with overwhelming opposition, stands his ideological ground, motivated in large measure by what appears to be a refusal to countenance moral failure.

Truth Or Dare

"Cerberus" by Peter Howson 1992, Private Collection London

SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATES

It really doesn't matter whether or not the Iranian Mullahs have actually passed the law forcing Iranian Jews and Christians to wear colored badges identifying them as non-Muslims. To wait for the final approval of Khamenehi, the very person who would have instigated the revival of the 2004 drafted Katami law in the first place, is hardly cause for a credibility check of the supposed "secondary motion" that fits the pattern of laws that Iran has already instituted.

What matters is, that they are not only perfectly capable of passing such a law, but that Thug-In-Chief Ahmadinejad and his cohort Mullahs are most certainly breathlessly awaiting the day when such laws are testament to their progress towards establishing the Caliphat, complete with Shari'a laws imposing segregation of first class, i.e. Muslims and second class citizens, otherwise known as Dhimmis, whose right to live depends at best on their ability to pay 'protection tax', or Jizya poll tax. Amir Taheri confirms in the article today (NP's is free though), which the New York Post runs defiantly despite yesterday's controversy:

The law mandates the government to make sure that all Iranians wear "standard Islamic garments" designed to remove ethnic and class distinctions reflected in clothing, and to eliminate "the influence of the infidel" on the way Iranians, especially the young, dress.

It also envisages separate dress codes for religious minorities, Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians, who will have to adopt distinct color schemes to make them identifiable in public. The new codes would enable Muslims to instantly recognize non-Muslims so that they can avoid shaking hands with them by mistake, and thus becoming najis" (unclean). [...]

The new law, drafted during the presidency of Muhammad Khatami in 2004, had been blocked within the Majlis. That blockage, however, has been removed under pressure from Khatami's successor, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. [...]

According to Ahmadinejad, the new Islamic uniforms will establish "visual equality" for Iranians as they prepare for the return of the Hidden Imam. [...]

Religious minorities would have their own color schemes. They will also have to wear special insignia, known as zonnar, to indicate their non-Islamic faiths. Jews would be marked out with a yellow strip of cloth sewn in front of their clothes, while Christians will be assigned the color red. Zoroastrians end up with Persian blue as the color of their zonnar. [...]

The new law imposes a total ban on wearing neckties and bow ties, which are regarded as "symbols of the Cross." Will Iranian Christians be allowed to wear them, nevertheless? No one knows. [...]

One aim of the new law is to impose a total ban on imports of clothes and dress designs from the West. The Majlis hopes that all jeans will disappear form the Iranian scene within five years. The boutiques selling haute couture Western gear for men and women will also be closed over the next few years. A total ban on designer items, marked by logos, will come into force by the end of the year.

'There is no sense in a Muslim man or woman wearing something that is, in fact, an advertisement for an infidel designer or clothing merchant," says Pourhardani. [...]

What is already labeled "the Islamic clothes revolution" will not be limited to Iran. Tehran has already sent a team to Lebanon to inform the Hezbollah of the new law and train cadres to impose it on Lebanese Shiites.

"Our aim is to make sure that every Muslim, wherever he or she happens to be on this earth, is a living and walking symbol of Islam," says Pourhardani.

In any event, if Iran is able to split hairs with their categorical and absolute denial, beware not to take aim at the messenger (I am so sickened by absolutely outrageous journalism like this, that I had better refrain from commenting any further) but instead at the source. Taheri's reporting is based on his deep understanding of the Iranian Mullahs and their long-term intentions. Indeed, we should all be experts, as Thug-In-Chief makes no qualms about his vision, lest we belong to the "reality-based community at Daily Kos".

One can only imagine the rage caused in Tehran's Führer-Haupt-Quartier by each and every new indictment, coherently and expertly penned by Taheri and read by previously ignorant Millions; who believed 'Pax Islamica', or "Islam - the Religion of Peace", to be an unqualified truth; who were ignorant of the still far too little known fact, that it only applies to a dark future, during which all mankind has finally converted to Islam; when finally Jihad is no longer necessary, as all have been subjugated as slaves to Allah.

The immediate benefit of the story is that it serves as a test balloon gaging international reaction and resolve; the windfall for the Mullahs is that it further provides an excuse (as if they ever needed one) for disseminating yet another barrage of anti-Semitic bile and to further fuel Zionist conspiracy theories, along with many who hate Bush more than Thug-In-Chief Ahmadinejad.

Convert Or Die ... Excuse Me? (UPDATED)

"Painting" by Francis Bacon 1946, The Museum of Modern Art, New York

SCROLL DOWN FOR IMPORTANT EXTENSIVE UPDATES SATURDAY MAY 20TH

Anyone awake here?

How many buttons does this man have to push and how far will we let him go? We are out of time already...and we know what the Thug-In-Chief really wants.

A new law has been passed by the Iranian Parliament, (still to be approved by Khamenehi)  to revive the old Caliphate tradition dating back to 717 AD, during the reign of Caliph Omar II, who "did his best to force Jews and Christians to convert to Islam. After a siege of Jerusalem in 638 AD, the Christian and Jewish population finally capitulated to the Arabs and handed over control of the city.

In exchange for their lives and religious identity, the Jews and Christians agreed to an archean set of segregation laws, commonly known as the "Pact of Omar." One of the provisions was that they had to wear a yellow sash in public known as the zunar. Later in the 9th century, it was changed to a yellow Star of David, and a yellow cross."

Adopted by their kindred spirits in arms the Nazis during the Holocaust, no doubt due to the friendship between the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and Hitler, it now rears its ugly head again:

The law mandates the government to make sure that all Iranians wear "standard Islamic garments" designed to remove ethnic and class distinctions reflected in clothing, and to eliminate "the influence of the infidel" on the way Iranians, especially, the young dress. It also envisages separate dress codes for religious minorities, Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians, who will have to adopt distinct color schemes to make them identifiable in public. The new codes would enable Muslims to easily recognize non-Muslims so that they can avoid shaking hands with them by mistake, and thus becoming najis (unclean).

The new law, drafted during the presidency of Muhammad Khatami in 2004, had been blocked within the Majlis. That blockage, however, has been removed under pressure from Khatami's successor, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Make no mistake about it, Thug-In-Chief Ahmadinejad is no fool. This is much more than stubborn provocation; this is about paving the way for the 'final solution'. It is an ice-cold calculation, especially when expressly joining Jews and Christians together as Infidels. The purpose is not to find out how far he can push, but a systematic strategy to de-construct previously held taboos, and by taboos, I mean those established and upheld ever since the Holocaust.

Furthermore, it is a mistake to believe, the target audience is limited to fellow Muslims the world over. It is not, for they are rabid anti-Semites since time immemorial. No, this is first and foremost directed at the West; to expose the intellectual hypocrisy separating Jews and Christians both in Europe and in the U.S.

Christians have no emotional connections to the label and will in most cases simply ridicule the measures. The moment that attitude sets in, it directly undermines the ability to respond with all force and united outrage against this segregating legislation. If one faction brushes it off as an act of anachronistic folly, it cannot stand united with the other in utter condemnation.

Mark my words, all this outrage will do here in the West is in a tragically perverse way not dampen, but instead give rise to hitherto hidden or dormant anti-Semitic sentiments as opposed to galvanize solidarity between Christians and Jews in their uncompromising rejection and immediate formulation of concrete measures which would force the Thug-In-Chief to back down. Nothing less will do. Alas, the tragic reality is, that instead, nothing will be done.

Geraghtyites vs. Tapscottians

"Prince Charles of Viana" by Jose Moreno Carbonero 1881, The Prado, Madrid

 

I just learned that Dean Barnett @ Soxblog and I seem to share Hugh Hewitt as our Blogfather. Well, Dean just penned a brilliant article, which I want to share with you in its entirety as it truly reflects my thoughts with such clarity, that reading it, had almost a therapeutic effect on me - don't worry, I am not going to comatose on you any time soon...

It started with Jim Geraghty saying "...put me down as one of those guys who cannot comprehend the argument that conservatives ought to sit out this election to “punish” the GOP so that they’ll “learn a lesson” and get better/more conservative in the future..", and caught momentum following Hugh Hewitt's Geraghtyites v. Tapscottians post:

Jim Geraghty essays on the results the "stay-at-homers" will be bringing about if they succeed.

Mark Tapscott embraces his inner purist.

Both are my friends, and rightly influential in the new media.

But I am a Geraghtyite --as one would suspect from the author of Painting the Map Red.

Then there are the follow-ups from Jim Geraghty here, here and here and from Mark Tapscott here, here, here  and here. Take time to read these gems, it will give you a fountain of information, and a powerful injection of crystal clarity of the thought process you should be engaging in.

Gathering Storm

"The Fall of the Rebel Angels" by Luca Giordano 1666, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

 

Is it time for Prozac to lift our gathering gloom? No wait, says the Washington Times, remembrance is a better cure. I say keep the lid on the Prozac bottle for rainier days, or try placebos. And if that doesn't work, think of the headache the CIA is facing when Hayden starts spring cleaning and radical downsizing.

Ah, but there is a distraction, the Da Vinci Code; try the critics. Or even better, what about this one: Shortly after Thug-In-Chief Ahmadinejad's surprise election last year, he read Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code and had an epiphany. Just when the West comes to terms with the fact that Christ was the Prophet he knew him to be all along, a mere man, not a God, our Thug-In-Chief would explode onto the world stage and proclaim the arrival of salvation for all through the return of the 12th Caliphat, the realization of the global Dar-al-Islam, the time when Islam has subjugated the whole world, the time when Islam will be 'tolerant' for there will be none left to oppose or differ.

And what are the moderates saying? Not the whole world at first; just a "Caliphat that would stretch from Indonesia to Morocco and contain more than 1.5 billion people". Not exactly what the neighbors have in mind.

Meanwhile Turkey is set to become the stage where all witness the undoing of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's legacy of a secular Islamic society.

Now if the Da Vinci Code hasn't inspired our Thug-In-Chief, we sure appreciate the revelation of his ancestry - miraculously separated from yours and mine of course.

There is something there with this ancestry story and our Thug-In-Chief's reaction: “They say they want to give the Iranians incentives. They are treating us like a four-year-old child who can be given nuts and chocolate in exchange for gold,” or was it Bananas...

The Murtha Court-Martial

 

Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa), one of the Bush Administration's chief critics, and an ex-Marine himself has made a public accusation that U.S. Marines had “killed innocent civilians in cold blood” after allegedly responding to a roadside bomb ambush that killed a Marine during a patrol in Haditha, Iraq, Nov.19th.

What happened in Haditha we know not, but we can tell you that Murtha's description is false, for the simple reason that it is self-contradictory. If the Marines "overreacted," then the killings were not premeditated. They could not have killed both in the heat of the moment and in cold blood. Murtha therefore either is slandering the Marines by exaggerating their guilt or making excuses for horrific war crimes.

Why would he do such a thing? The key is that phrase "because of the pressure on them." They're depraved on account of they're deployed: Murtha seeks to maximize the evil of the alleged crimes while simultaneously deflecting blame from the actual perpetrators to those who have applied "pressure" to them--i.e., civilian leaders in the executive branch.[...]

Sound familiar? This was just what John Kerry did back in 1971, when he told tales (many of them false) of war crimes in Vietnam. Yet in his own mind, he wasn't accusing troops of anything, as he explained in a 2004 CNN interview:

I was accusing American leaders of abandoning the troops. And if you read what I said, it is very clearly an indictment of leadership. I said to the Senate, where is the leadership of our country? And it's the leaders who are responsible, not the soldiers. I never said that. I've always fought for the soldiers.

The fact that the incident is still under official investigation does not seem to bother Murtha, nor does the fact that this supposed 'brand new allegation' was already reported back in March seem to bother NBC, who are hyping this to be the hottest news story. Hardball's Chris Mathews is all ablaze at the 'revelation', video @ Political Pitbull:

MATTHEWS: Draw us a picture of what happened in Haditha.

How Do We Legalize Illegality?

"The Holy Family with St Mary Magdalen" by El Greco 1595-1600, Museum of Art, Cleveland

 

You know posts like this really tee me off. On Monday I said the vultures were out and of course they were just revving up, culminating into the usual feeding frenzy. So now if we disagree with the President on anything, it's labeled "Bush cult impeachment hysteria", and we, the supposed Bush cultists are now Judases reincarnate and ready to burn the President, and

that the cult-like reverence for Bush would begin to disintegrate once he weakened and it became clear that he was too weak and unpopular to support the movement. They would then turn on him and depose him and seek to replace him with a new leader.[...]

Ever since he dropped below 40% - and he is now at 29% - that is what has been happening. Harriet Miers was the real start. Dubai was next. And we now have open warfare. Dissent of this type was never seen for the first four years of his presidency - except from those who were deemed outcasts - which is why the open conflict during the Miers nomination was so notable. Because it was so new.

Please try to explain this to Tom Maguire, Jeff Goldstein and that circle - slowly and clearly - so that I don't have to repeat this explanation every week for the rest of my life to the hordes of people who come here from those blogs and excitedly and with great self-satisfaction make this same "point" over and over like they've discovered the cure for cancer.

Eh? Glenn Greenwald my friend, you are full of bull.

I along with a large majority of the President's supporters, wrote this on Monday:

The Address. It is quite obvious that the Administration is not committed to border control, and are just giving us lip service. This was a lame speech with some sort of an apologist center solution where 6,000 unarmed National Guard officers will be decorating the border for one year, not apprehending illegals, but ahem, deterring. Yeah right. This half way message has not even been communicated down from the President to his foot soldiers, who are clearly stating the opposite to what we are being told. Fence, what fence? Julie Myers does not even know what we are talking about. Is that a border, what border?

I have no problem with reason and patience, if we are talking about the same solution, but I fear we are not. Political suicide may be fashionable, but does it have to be televised?

John is right "He had his chance and blew it". The vultures are already circling. Jeff is right there: "And?"

Disappointing to say the least, I just hope that my assumption in my original text post above is correct, otherwise, we would have lost credibility for absolutely nothing. At the moment, even this is beginning to sound better, and the "Open border drinking game" better still. We are now resorting to reminiscing about our accomplishments, and going off the wall completely? Sorry Mr. President you have totally lost touch with reality here.This is certainly one sell he did not make. Check here and here for the rest. It's time to turn toward Mecca, and our favorite Allah.

Does the President really think we are such cheap dates? Heard it all before? Or should I say it may not end up being the way it was before....Fausta wisely thinks this is a start. I dearly hope she is right.

And? We disagree with the President on the immigration issue, and so what? The Dems don't even have an immigration plan to disagree on. We are Bush cultists whilst the going is good, then we abandon the cult the moment we disagree with the President. If we support Bush, we are cultists, if we  oppose him, we have decided to miraculously ride tandem with someone else in order to follow in a different direction. Yeah right.

An Offer We Must Refuse

 

I know we covered the real meaning of Thug-In-Chief Ahmadinejad's letter to the President in the update of my post Ahmadinejad's Lorem Ipsum, but this article "Mahmoud on a Mission" by Hossein Bagher Zadeh, a human rights activist and commentator on Iranian political and human rights issues, must not be ignored:

The letter by President Mahmoud Ahmadi Nezhad to President George W. Bush generated a lot of speculations both inside Iran and in the outside world. It was the first time that a president of the Islamic Republic had directly written to the leader of the “Great Satan”, and used polite terminologies in addressing them.

At home, the reformists welcomed it as a breakthrough in the long-standing estrangement between the two governments, while the conservative press hailed it as a grand gesture on par with letters sent out some fourteen centuries ago by the Prophet Mohammad to leaders of the then empires inviting them to the bosoms of Islam. The latter group knew more about the Islamic President than the formers, and their judgements must be nearer to the truth. Ahmadi Nezhad seems to be on a Messianic mission to save the world.

The Islamic Republic President appeals to the religious sentiments of President Bush and in religious texts, finds a common language to talk to him. He reminds him of the follies of the Americans past and present and puts America in the duck for many of the ills of the world. He advises him that “democracy and liberalism” have failed the humankind and invites him to join “people of the world” by submitting to the truth.

He is there to offer him salvation. At the same time, he warns him of the consequences for people who do not follow the right path. He ends his 18-page letter by the words “will of God will prevail over all things” in order to remind the leader of the most powerful nation in the world that some other forces are in action and that he better watch himself lest he finds himself in the wrong camp.

That the letter has been dismissed by its addressee is not of much concern to its writer. It is said that when messengers delivered the Prophet Mohammad’s letter to the leader of the Persian Empire it was dealt with contempt. Soon afterwards, the Empire was trembling under the feet of Moslem soldiers, and then it was history.

The Numbers Game (UPDATED)

UPDATED WITH THE PRESIDENT'S LAME SPEECH AND REAX

China has become the factory of the world. 1.2 billion Chinese ensure a seemingly limitless source for cheap, but mostly unskilled labor, even at the current one-child-only policy.

It seems the US wants to hedge its bet by competing with China and India on the Numbers Game, whilst partly hoping to keep a trump ace up its sleeve: Flooding America in the next 20 years and beyond with a new mix of skilled and unskilled labor. This is in contrast to the Chinese and Indian model where wage competitiveness relies on the seemingly never ending supply of rural, unskilled labor in the foreseeable future.

Hours before President Bush's address on immigration reform, today's report by the Heritage Foundation on the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act (CIRA) is an absolute must read! It highlights the fact, that the raging debate over the fate of 11 Million illegal immigrants is actually a mere sideshow given the projected influx of legal immigrants over the next 10-20 years for which the CIRA would pave the way. LGF just posted the link Senate Immigration Bill Would Allow 100 Million New Legal Immigrants over the Next Twenty Years adding that it "...should make Americans very uneasy. [...] Even if you support legal immigration, this bill seems completely nuts."

If enacted, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act (CIRA, S.2611) would be the most dramatic change in immigration law in 80 years, allowing an estimated 103 million persons to legally immigrate to the U.S. over the next 20 years—fully one-third of the current population of the United States.

Much attention has been given to the fact that the bill grants amnesty to some 10 million illegal immigrants. Little or no attention has been given to the fact that the bill would quintuple the rate of legal immigration into the United States, raising, over time, the inflow of legal immigrants from around one million per year to over five million per year. The impact of this increase in legal immigration dwarfs the magnitude of the amnesty provisions. In contrast to the 103 million immigrants permitted under CIRA, current law allows 19 million legal immigrants over the next twenty years. Relative to current law, then, CIRA would add an extra 84 million legal immigrants to the nation’s population. The figure of 103 million legal immigrants is a reasonable estimate of the actual immigration inflow under the bill and not the maximum number that would be legally permitted to enter. The maximum number that could legally enter would be almost 200 million over twenty years—over 180 million more legal immigrants than current law permits.

These projections are simply staggering. As the report points out, "if enacted, CIRA would be the most dramatic change in immigration law in 80 years," and would dwarf the Great Migration:

The Dutch Code Of Honor (UPDATED)

                           
"Fall of Phaeton" by Sebastiano Ricci 1703-04, Museo Civico, Belluno

SCROLL DOWN FOR IMPORTANT UPDATES MAY 15TH & 16TH

It all started with an urgent e-mail from my friend, the talented young blogger from the Netherlands Michael van der Galien on Friday morning, letting me know that our heroine in the fight against Islamist supremacism, Ayaan Hirsi Ali was under attack, and it was all over the news in Holland the entire day. He was the first to break the story of this astonishingly cowardly act, whilst the International MSM and the Blogosphere were still asleep at the wheel.

On Saturday, the story developed further, and we all became quite concerned. Michael writes:

RTL Nieuw reports that Dutch minister of integration Verdonk is starting an investigation about Ayaan's naturalization process:

As a result of that broadcast (re: the documentary by Zembla I reported about yesterday) members of Parliament, among others Hilbrand Nawijn, asked questions about this case. Friday, Verdonk said that Hirsi Ali had nothing to fear. Verdonk's spokesman didn't want to say, she does have something fear now.

So, one might ask, what is the danger? The danger is quite real; they could take her nationality from her. The Leeuwarder Courant reports: (Dutch newspaper)

According to professor Kees Groenendijk, from the Centrum voor Migratierecht in Nijmegen (center for migration law), possible to take someone's Dutch nationality from him / her if that person received that (re:nationality) through a false declaration.
[...]
That is possible until 12 years after the naturalization. Loes Vellenga-van Nieuwkerk, chairman of the Association Asylum lawyers and -jurists Netherlands (VAJN), confirms his (re: from professor Kees Groenendijk) story. "Lying about your reasons to flea (re: to escape) is a reason to take away the Dutch nationality".[...] Hirsi Ali received her Dutch nationality in 1997.
[...]
In the VVD (re: Ayaan's [and mine may I add] political party) there are critical noises as well. VVD-spokesman for asylum cases (re: immigration cases) Arno Visser finds it 'ironical' that especially the VVD, who stands for a strict immigration policy, has a member of Parliament that lied in their asylum procedure (re: immigration procedure / process). "I did not know this and I never talked about it with her. She has a problem.

There we have it. I reported about it yesterday and I thought to myself; this could get completely out of hand. Now, politicians are already saying that she should resign and even that she should turn in her Dutch nationality.

Did she lie about her reasons to come to the Netherlands? Sure she did. She admitted that in 2002 already. Was that 'right'? No of course not. But they left her alone for 4 years, until some communist network made a documentary about her. Now, all of a sudden, it is a huge scandal.

Those people should be ashamed of themselves. Ayaan is one of the most outspoken people we have in the Netherlands. She is continuously struggling to preserve our freedom of speech. People have threatened her life because of what she said. People continue to threaten her. But she perseveres.
And what do we do? We threaten to take her nationality from her. How fricking characteristic.

So let me get this straight, first they drive her out of her house then they drive her out of the country, and discredit her.

Liberal Justice

 

There is something wonderful about a group of 10 immigrant students, who sued for California's high school exit exam to be suspended on the grounds that it "discriminates against poor students and those who are learning English". And won.

Over 1,100 high schools and potentially 47,000 students are affected; the Alameda County Judge however sided with the undoubtedly least privileged students, predominantly Mexican immigrants (there is no information available about their status, but we can assume a fair portion to be illegal alien), confirming "There is evidence in the record that shows that students in economically challenged communities have not had an equal opportunity to learn the materials tested".

It is wonderful, because it evidently shows that even the poorest members of our society can not only have their grievances heard in Court, but also persuade a County Judge to rule in their favor, no matter the consequences for a vastly larger majority:

Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell said the state would immediately appeal the ruling, which he said creates "chaos" for more than 1,100 high schools that are completing graduation preparations.

"There are students who are within days of graduation. They are left with uncertainty over whether they will be granted a diploma," O'Connell said in a teleconference. "How are these students and these schools to plan for their futures?"

It is wonderful, because it prompted Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to "increase the amount of money available to schools to help students pass the exam to $70 million, up from a proposed $40 million earlier this year", despite the fact that "he agreed with O'Connell's decision to appeal the ruling". So, no matter the final outcome, their suit can already claim to have brought about the additional $30 million.

It is wonderful, because the state's contention that six out of the ten students "failed the exam because they have poor English skills, not because they were denied a good education", was rejected on the grounds that learning English is unreasonably harder in economically challenged communities.

It is wonderful, because it shows that the Judge's heart is on the right spot when he resisted the reflex reaction to demand harder work from those who choose to seek their fortunes in a foreign country until they have learned the language of their newly adopted homeland.

It is wonderful, because we seemed to have evolved from the dark ages during which Irish, Italian and German immigrants, to name but a few nationalities, worked extremely hard to fulfill the All American Dream in conditions which most certainly rivaled today's economically challenged communities.

It is wonderful, because it shows further signs that instead of raising the bar of educational excellence, the example of content creation for network TV is followed and the bar is continually lowered to accommodate the lowest common denominator.

It is wonderful, because it shows to all that you can have your cake and eat it: One of the 10 plaintiffs asked to be dropped from the suit after passing the exam (no idea why another three also asked to be dropped, but there you have it).

It is wonderful, because this suit is just one of many; it has brought the dream of many Spanish speaking immigrants one step closer to impose their language onto their newly adopted homeland:

Friday's ruling came in one of three lawsuits filed against the exam. Earlier this year, in a separate lawsuit, special education students won a one-year reprieve on the requirement. Next week Freedman is scheduled to hear arguments in a third suit, which claims state officials failed to consider alternatives to the test, as the law required.

What law would that be, pray tell...

Re-Hash Of An Old Story

 

Well excuse me for not being over-excited about a re-hash of an old story, the timing of which stinks to high heaven. The "hysterical drama queens on the left" are out in full force. Ahem

No sooner had the man who ran the National Security Agency for years been nominated to head the CIA than USA Today rushed out details of our efforts to use technical means to find terrorists using the phones. And no sooner had USA Today disclosed details of an apparent attempt by the National Security Agency to defend Americans from terrorists than the Democratic Party and its leading politicians and interest groups went on the attack. Not against the terrorists but against President Bush.[...]

Mrs. Clinton might want to have a talk with her husband. It was President Clinton who signed into law the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994, after it was passed in both the House and Senate by a voice vote. That law is an act "to make clear a telecommunications carrier's duty to cooperate in the interception of communications for law enforcement purposes, and for other purposes." The act made clear that a court order isn't the only lawful way of obtaining call information, saying, "A telecommunications carrier shall ensure that any interception of communications or access to call-identifying information effected within its switching premises can be activated only in accordance with a court order or other lawful authorization."

The law that President Clinton signed into law and that was approved by voice votes in 1994 by a Democrat-majority House and a Democrat-majority Senate not only made clear the phone companies' "duty" to cooperate, it authorized $500 million in taxpayer funds to reimburse the phone companies for equipment "enabling the government, pursuant to a court order or other lawful authorization, to access call-identifying information that is reasonably available to the carrier." Again, the law, by referring to "other lawful authorization," states clearly that a court order isn't the only form of lawful authorization possible.

It is hardly likely to get anyone's underwear in a twist unless there is a mass hysteria in progress to cancel your AT&T Bell South and Verizon accounts, although didn't you, um, authorize the NSA. The usual suspects are banging their old worn out drum about the "ACLU's lawsuit seeking an injunction against the Bush administration's warrantless eavesdropping program", getting medieval on their own and screaming "If any Democrats start making noises about not investigating — because investigations are so unpleasant and upsetting and partisan — smack them fast and smack them hard", "The war on terror versus your privacy", "Ratings are down", "Bush lied people...", "Don't fear al-Qaeda, fear your President", after all this is preposterous, the President is advocating that the NSA should be allowed to do its job because "as a general matter every time sensitive intelligence is leaked it hurts our ability to defeat this enemy." Shocking:

The Obedient Son

"Study of Isabel Rawsthorne" by Francis Bacon 1966, Louise and Michel Leiris Collection, Paris

 

It is only too easy to forget that those who shape our future are real people like you and me. To understand more about their personal background it often helps putting far reaching decisions into a much more meaningful context.

Given the geopolitical importance Pakistan enjoys as an ally to the U.S. in the war on terror, makes it particularly important to learn as much as possible about Pakistan's leader, President Pervez Musharraf.

Zareen Musharraf, the elderly mother of the president, sits in the tea room of her house in the military residential community in Rawalpindi, wearing an elegant yellow sari. She has fond memories of the days before the founding of Pakistan, when her family still lived in Delhi. The office of her son Pervez is only a stone's throw away from her house, on the other side of a garden path.

The president's mother has three sons. Zareen Musharraf says that she predicted the future careers of two of her sons when they were still young. The eldest was the ideal doctor, she says, while the youngest showed some talent for becoming a civil servant. Only the middle son was constantly behaving poorly, refusing to focus on his studies and interested in nothing but sports. That middle son was Pervez.

The door swings open and her son, the president, saunters into the room, wearing an open jacket and a checked shirt, as he sits down next to his mother. "You were afraid that I wouldn't turn into much, that I was useless," he gloats. The two are a well-practiced team. Mother Musharraf talks about how she was "attracted to the glamour of uniforms" at an early age. In the end, she dispatched her middle son into the military with clear instructions to "make it to the top." And as president, she says, it is his duty to lead the entire country "to the forefront of all nations." She is convinced that her now obedient son will also carry out her instructions this time around. Her plans have always come to fruition in the past.

By now, I am sure you are thinking the same thing as I did when I first read these lines. The remarkable similarity to the kind of relationship President Bush has with his mother, Barbara Bush. How much such similarities matter in the relationship between these two leaders is not known to me. But I am sure you won't be surprised when I remind you that the personal chemistry between world leaders is an often ignored or underestimated ingredient, which more often than not influences decisions to a far greater extent than routinely acknowledged.

A towering example of a most fruitful and positive relationship is of course the one ultimately characterized by mutual respect and genuine personal sympathy between President Reagan, PM Lady Thatcher and President Gorbatchev. On the negative side, few long term relationships, or should I say near feuds, have given cause to endless bickering and procrastination and animosity than the one between PM Lady Thatcher and Chancellor Helmuth Kohl of Germany; I was fortunate enough to have had several occasions during which I discussed both the positive and negative example with Lady Thatcher a few years ago. But I digress.

Ahmadinejad's Lorem Ipsum

 

SCROLL DOWN FOR IMPORTANT UPDATE THURSDAY MAY 11TH

Thug-In-Chief Ahmadinejad scored quite a success with his 18-page letter to President Bush. Timing was of course carefully orchestrated to coincide with his high-profile visit to a key Muslim country, Indonesia.

Remember 'Lorem Ipsum', the standard placeholder text used in publishing and graphic design to demonstrate the graphic elements of a document or visual presentation? Well, as soon as we realize that our Thug-In-Chief might as well have used such dummy text, that the content never mattered, we understand this simple but as it turns out most effective strategy to shift the dynamic away from being in the defensive and to firmly place the ball into the opponents court. Amir Taheri puts it best:

Something interesting is happening with regard to the crisis over Iran's nuclear ambitions. Slowly the blame is shifting from the mullahs to the Bush administration as the debate is redirected to tackle the hypothetical question of U.S. military action rather than the Islamic Republic's real misdeeds. "No War on Iran" placards are already appearing where "No Nukes for Iran" would make more sense.

The attempt at fabricating another "cause" with which to bash America is backed by the claim that the mullahs are behaving badly because Washington refuses to talk to them. Some of this buzz is coming from those who for years told the U.S. to let them persuade Iran to mend its ways. They include German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his British and French colleagues in the European Union trio that negotiated with Iran for years. Preparing to throw in the towel, they now say the U.S. should "directly engage" Iran. That would enable them to hide their failures and find a pretext for blaming future setbacks on the U.S.

The letter is of course just one building block in this effort to ultimately shift the perception of 'Mistrust' from the lying, cheating and generally contemptuous Iranian Mullahs to that of our Administration. Most of our Liberal friends are of course only too eager to support the Thug-In-Chief in his effort, as Mark Noonan @ Blogs for Bush points out:

Honestly, except for his closing mumbo-jumbo about everyone getting ready to worship his version of Allah, there isn't the slightest difference between Ahmadinejad's letter and the average speech by Al Gore, Howard Dean or Russ Feingold.

We are also little surprised to be told by Iranian political analyst Saeed Leilaz that the letter "could have been the beginning of a new process," and that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's reaction, which has of course already been labeled as a 'quick brushoff', would fuel anti-American feelings in Iran; that her response would "strengthen the suspicion (inside Iran) that the U.S. is thinking of a military option only and not a political solution" to the standoff over Iran's nuclear program.

Just what the Left wants to hear.

Meanwhile, Iran Focus confirms that 8 out of 10 foreign insurgents in Iraq come from Iran, with the remaining more or less coming from Afghanistan.

Restoring Humility To Our National Psyche In The Face Of Nihilism

 

Victor Davis Hanson has a fine essay out today called "The Prison of the Present".

I rarely disagree with him and on his many brilliant insights, especially when put so expertly in historical context, as Hanson has again succeeded to do.

The question "..aren't choices usually between the bad and the far worse?.." leads to very relevant historical comparisons, which do not seek to "..excuse present mistakes by citing worse ones from the past--or to suggest that all wars are always the same. Much less should history's examples be used to stifle necessary contemporary criticism that alone leads to remedy."

Instead, Hanson believes that "..knowledge of the capricious nature of wars of the past can restore a little humility to our national psyche":

We need it. Ours is the first generation of Americans that thinks it can demand perfection in war. Our present leisure, wealth, and high technology fool us into thinking that we are demi-gods always be able to trump both human and natural disasters. Accordingly, we become frustrated that we cannot master every wartime obstacle, as we seem otherwise to be able to do with computers or cosmetic surgery. Then, without any benchmarks of comparison from the past, we despair that our actions are failed because they are not perfect.

The key question to me, one which is constantly on my mind these days, is the one concerning the level of the current collective "Confidence" in ourselves as a Nation and whether such confidence or the lack of it, if this is indeed the case, lies at the heart of the acrimonious divide which has beset our nation in the face on the war on terror.

Hanson certainly seems to think so and believes that we as a Nation are less confident than our fathers and forefathers were decades ago under far worse circumstances and he provides very compelling arguments to support his view:

But why did a poorer, less educated, and more illiberal United States in far bloodier and more error-ridden wars of the past still have greater confidence in itself? Was it that our ancestors, who died younger and far more tragically, did not expect their homeland to be without flaws, only to be considerably better than the enemy's?

Perhaps we have forgotten such modesty because we have ignored the study of history that alone offers us guidance from our forbearers. It now competes as an orphan discipline with social science, -ologies and -isms that entice us into thinking that the more money and education of the present can at last perfect the human condition and thus consign our flawed past to irrelevance.

The result is that while sensitive young Americans seem to know what correct words and ideas they must embrace, they derive neither direction nor solace from past events. After all, very few could identify Vicksburg or Verdun, much less have any idea where or what Iwo Jima was. In such a lonely prison of the present what are historically ignorant Americans to make of a Fallujah or an Iranian madman's threat of annihilation other than such things can't or shouldn't or must not happen to us?

So, of this present war, I think our war-torn forefathers would say to us that both messy Afghanistan and Iraq are better places without their dictators even if they never will resemble Carmel or Austin.

They would add that it is not unusual to be confronted with new crises even after such apparently easy victories. And they would shrug that however scary Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Iran now appears, it poses nothing new or insurmountable to a confident and strong United States that has dealt with far more serious enemies in the past with its accustomed wisdom and resolve.

Which begs the question, how would those opposed to the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, those opposed to the use of military force to depose dictators no matter how much blood they have on their hands and those who subscribe to the notion of an 'imperialistic' America respond to such history lessons. What would their reaction be, after they'd learned about the immense heroism on both the U.S. side and that of Japan during the Iwo Jima campaign? Would it make any difference?

I fear not. I rather suspect, it would be dismissed outright and all involved derided as 'fools' and 'idiots' at best and 'war criminals' at worst.

Which leaves me in doubt as to whether the lack of 'National Confidence', if indeed found to be true, is in fact an important reason for the opposition and divide. Furthermore, I am not at all sure whether we suffer from a lack of confidence; on the contrary, I believe we suffer from acute selfaggrandizement and individualistic hyperbole, which in the final analysis is nothing but ignorant arrogance as it is both hollow and superficial in all its aspects.

All the more reason why Hanson's call for humility is absolutely key. I just don't believe, that there is anything anyone can do or say that will instill a growing sense of humility other than a growing believe in the power of faith in God the Almighty. And that isn't exactly a convincing argument is it...

In many ways, the term 'Clash of Civilizations' contains the seeds of a most comprehensive truth. I am afraid though that we will have to come to terms with the fact, that the lines will prove to be much more blurred and drawn criss-cross throughout our society. Just when we reluctantly acknowledge the reality of a long-drawn-out conflict centering around religious beliefs; just when we thought that the factions could be limited to those of Judea-Christian beliefs versus Islamic ones, must we realize, that the scope is far wider: Faith versus Skepticism with all its variations such as cynicism, pessimism, disbelief, agnosticism, atheism, and anti-Semitism. In short, the rejection of all religious and moral principles, often in the belief that life is meaningless, otherwise called Nihilism.

"Allahu Akbar" Indeed

SCROLL DOWN FOR IMPORTANT UPDATE ON THE MURDER OF ATWAR BAHJAT

Friday evening, time to party. Parents are delighted as boys and girls stay separated; no worrying there. Except, some sons and daughters have not returned home on time. Initial phone calls to friends fail to shed any further light on their whereabouts.

Then comes the phone call from the AVP. You wonder what AVP stands for? Anti Vice Police. "We have arrested your daughter. She was caught attending a mixed-sex party." Anxiously you ask to speak to her. "Not possible, she's still unconscious."

Unconscious? Why unconscious. What happened to her. But then the full extent of the offense begins to dawn on you. Of course, you think, she would have been flogged inside the offices of the Ministry of Justice. They don't wait to carry out the punishment. It's instant. After all, there is no need for a hearing of sorts, no possibility or denial. She was attending a mixed-sex party, that's an unassailable fact.

You picture her back covered in deep lacerations. The pain would have been too much for her to bear. Her beautiful soft and blemish-free skin; she was always so proud of her lovely complexion. And the shame, you begin to feel her utter shame and horrendous humiliation when they forced her to strip off her shirt and bra in front of all these men. No doubt they were cracking jokes and being rude. After all, in their eyes she was practically a prostitute, and as such fair game.

By now your agony is unbearable. You know that this night will forever change her life for the worse. You collapse onto your knees and sob uncontrollably. The shame, the shame she has brought onto your family. What will her father say....

Tehran, Iran, May 05 – Iranian authorities flogged 54 people for attending a mixed-sex party in the northern province of Mazandaran, a state-run daily reported.

The men and women were arrested by the “anti-vice police” in a park in the suburbs of the town of Babol as they were partying during the night, the daily Iran wrote on Thursday.

The report said that all 54 men and women were flogged inside the offices of the Ministry of Justice in Babol.

Co-ed parties are banned in Islamic Iran. Thousands of teenage boys and girls were arrested last year for taking part in similar parties. Some were flogged in public.

These are real people, somebody's real sons and daughters. It's hard not fall into the trap laid out for us by the dry rhetoric of the laconic reporting, if indeed there is any.

Every time this happens, we must allow the enormity of these barbaric actions carried out routinely by the Iranian government to take full effect. We must each time contrast them with our values and beliefs and with our liberties we so treasure.

Every time Iranian youths are subjected to the barbarism of 100 lashes, every time their backs are left covered in huge bloody welts, we need to repeat out loud the words of OutRage!

The Untouchables

Vice President Cheney as "Charles III" the original by Anton Raphael Mengs 1761, The Prado, Madrid

 

Have you noticed the subtle new trend of calling for ways how the U.S. can help its allies.

Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel is just the latest beneficiary of this new direction.

The best kind of partner for America is a country that is growing. [...] Her [Merkel] own instincts are in the right direction. She lacks the support in the Bundestag to rule without the Social Democrats. No wonder she has had a good time while in the States. She can talk about the sort of change she likes here and find an audience that understands her. No doubt she wants to take those ideas back to Germany and apply them. The challenge for Mr. Bush is to find a way to help her.

And plenty of help is needed, especially on the joint effort in the war on terror and to reign in Iran: Loyal friend Tony Blair is on his way out, Jack Straw has been demoted away from the Foreign Office, and there is plenty of uncertainty surrounding the succession. Porter Goss, the Director of the CIA has just resigned as a part of the White House shake up, and the left are already busy spinning the scandal. France is caught up in what seems akin to pre-1789 atmosphere - who knows, there may even be some positive change somewhere down the line. Roman Prodi, the new Italian Prime Minister, has yet to come out and show his true colors despite his dovish remarks in the recent past; whether he'll do a u-turn on Berlusconi's hawkish stance remains to be seen. Spain's Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero still sticks in our minds for pulling all Spanish troops out of Iraq the minute he was elected in 2004 - although he increased the troops in Afghanistan, he still is a far cry from his predecessor Prime Minister Aznar's staunch support in the war against terrorism. I could go on...

Mother Russia needs a different kind of help. Its by now one-party leadership needs to know where to draw the line. Putin has done much good for his country since Yeltzin, but his ambitions must not be allowed to be furthered at the expense of U.S. interests and those of our allies, which is exactly what he has been doing in the recent past. Vice President Dick Cheney is leading the charge and the Times is right to claim: "Thank goodness someone is speaking plainly about Russia".

Mr Putin has been very publicly accused of international blackmail and of trampling on individual rights by Mr Bush’s deputy, Dick Cheney. [...]

The list of US concerns about the Kremlin includes not only its creeping authoritarianism and brazen use of energy as an instrument of foreign policy, but also its pointedly obstructive stances on Iran’s nuclear programme and UN reform. [...]

In the absence of robust European criticism of the Kremlin, largely because of Europe’s dependence on Russian gas, it is better that someone in the West challenge Mr Putin’s relentless accretion of power than no one at all. It is better for the US to do this openly and bluntly than, for example, by assisting Moscow-based pressure groups, only for them to become unwitting fodder for Russian nationalist conspiracy theorists. And it is better to challenge Mr Putin now than when it is too late. [...]

Mr Putin’s suppression of political opposition and critical media have gone much farther than the reimposition of order required. His is now effectively a one-party state, shorn of Soviet ideology but not of the systemic corruption that helped to destroy Sovietism. [...]

The US and the European Union can still stop that truculence blurring into paranoia, but only with straight talk. Mr Cheney’s example is worth following.

I say, this is the kind of leadership we can be proud of.

The Professor Of Anti-Semitism

"Blind Leading The Blind III" by Peter Howson 1991, Private Collection, London

 

The anti-Semites of this world have never been perturbed by real massacres and genocides, true viciousness and injustice. No, as Golda Meir once said, "Israel is the Jew among nations" therefore to be an anti-Semite one’s moral compass has to be warped beyond repair.

The academics amongst them for some reason feel that the right to self-determination for the world's oldest nationality extant-- one which has acted, by any moral barometer, with infinitely more compassion, civilization, and care for human life than the new-fangled murderous one they are always championing--seems to be extremely limited if it exists at all. That is the classic definition of anti-Semitism: one standard for everyone else, and then an impossible one for the Jews. Yeah right.

A  warped moral equivalence is a favorite trick of the left, something they did all the time during the Cold War (US no better than Soviets with their gulags, etc.) To quote Tolkien from the Lord of the Rings, when the Ent, Treebeard, muses that he might lash out like Saruman if his home were threatened: "The difference is that you never plotted to cover the whole world with your trees..."

A case in point is Kevin MacDonald, a tenured professor of psychology at the California State University at Long Beach, who has been denounced as an anti-Semite by, among others, the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization notoriously keen to pronounce anything inconsistent with its far-Left assumptions as “hate” speech. But MacDonald is indeed an anti-Semite.

For an academic, MacDonald has trod an usual path. An anti-war student radical at the University of Wisconsin in the sixties, MacDonald has since migrated to the opposite end of the political spectrum becoming a passionate spokesman for his pseudo-scholarly thesis that Judaism must be regarded as a self-interested “evolutionary strategy” created and used by Jews to deprive non-Jews of resources in an ongoing, zero-sum Kulturkampf. (Although MacDonald identifies himself as a “conservative,” one can’t help but note the similarities between his writings on Jews and Karl Marx’s “On the Jewish Question.”) That the thesis owes no debt to serious scholarship has not deterred a gallery of anti-Semites from David Duke to Israel Shamir from applauding it as an empirical confirmation of the innate wickedness of the Jews.

The source of their enthusiasm is not far to seek. MacDonald’s writings are distinguished by their scarcely disguised subtext that Jews are the enemies of Western civilization. Reading through MacDonald’s books and articles one finds that they bristle with indignation at what he sees as a calibrated Jewish strategy for “destroying Europeans,” part and parcel of “the deep-seated Jewish hostility toward traditional Western culture.” Indeed, the “Western intellectual world has become Judaized,” merely one instance of Jewish “cultural imperium in the West.” But the West is merely the latest target of the Jewish cultural onslaught. Historically, MacDonald argues, Jews have been a “hostile elite--hostile to the traditional people and cultures…they came to dominate.” Far from assimilated, they nurse “historically conditioned hatreds.” 

The Spineless Nancy Pelosi

"Araignee du soir... espoir" (the latter part of a French proverb: "A spider in the morning, anguish; a spider in the evening, hope") by Salvador Dali 1940

 

O.K. so it's my Birthday today, and I do not want to be reading comments about my xenophobia, racism or Islamophobia, my blind love for Israel, and my supposed hatred for democracy or my reactionary thoughts that embrace personal nuclear ambitions. That includes calling me a bellicose Christian with a visually compelling site - there was a compliment in there somewhere I felt sure...

I am however feeling particularly Bolshy, about the sheer chutzpah of the constant barrage of balderdash coming from the left, ranging from hating the President more than they fear al-Qaeda, to refusing to admit that there is an Islamofascist/Christian war going on in Darfur, to being soft on the über-Fascist Ahmadinejad, who is getting ready to annihilate Israel, whilst we propose to sit on our hands AGAIN, watch, and talk some more. Why, because we have a war to fight in Iraq, which the lefties did not wish to engage in, had they known what a great guy Saddam Hussein really was, and that of course we cannot afford emotionally and financially any more aggression especially as after all it is Israel and not the US which will receive the first hit. Sound familiar?

Now hot on the agenda is the immigration issue, which along with the rest of the sizzling topics such as white supremacy (Steele dares to say "enough of the white guilt already" and is of course torn apart by the usual suspects) is again down to the left to lay the accusations that we are wishing to form a fascist state, that we have "killed people to take this country for ourselves" simply because we want to control our borders, defend our national security and make illegal aliens exactly what they should be, ahem, illegal. So now enforcing the US laws makes us rightie fascists, and the left calmly do their usual switch hitting, according to what would hurt the Administration most, and not what is best for the country:

Another little noted fact is that House Democrats are responsible for keeping “felony illegal” provisions in the House Immigration Bill, HR 4437. In a slick maneuver December 16, House Democrat Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, was one of 191 Democrats who joined only 65 Republicans providing the majority voting to block an amendment to the HR 4437 immigration bill which would have removed provisions making a federal felony of illegal entry or presence in the U.S. HR 4437 sponsor James Sensenbrenner, R-WI, himself had offered an amendment removing it. Only eight Democrats joined 156 Republicans voting to remove the felony provision. HR 4437 also reduces the number of legal immigrant visas by 50,000 per year whereas Senate bills under consideration sharply expand legal immigration. [...]

Speaking on the House floor immediately after her December 16 felony vote, Pelosi turned around and called the bill, “punitive, mean-spirited legislation.” Without a hint of shame, she complained about the provision she had just voted to keep in: “For the first time in our history, this bill before us would make it a federal crime, instead of a civil offense, to be in the United States in violation of an immigration law or regulation. This provision would turn millions of immigrants currently here into criminals, hindering their ability to acquire any legal status – and would effectively frustrate the proposals that would provide real immigration reform.”

HR 4437 felony provisions are a key focus of recent demonstrations by illegal aliens and their supporters in many U.S. cities. Ironically many of the demonstration leaders are also liberal Democrats. This move parallels the position taken by the Sierra Club anti-immigration faction. One hand washes the other. [...]

Dissident Amir Abbas Fakhravar Escapes To The U.S

"Earth could not answer nor the Seas that mourn"

 

"On April 29 secular author and opposition activist Amir Abbas Fakhravar successfully escaped from Iran and is heading for America."

Excuse me, where was I when the news broke out?

Who is he and what is he likely to tell the Administration when he arrives?

Mr. Amir Abbas Fakhravar was born in 1975, is single, and experienced his first jail when he was 17 years old and has been imprisoned 18 times since. He studied law but was forced to abandon it.

In November 2002, Mr. Fakhravar was sentenced to eight years in the 'Evin' prison for criticizing Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’i, the leader of the Islamic Republic in his book Inja Chah Nist ('This Place is not a Ditch'), short listed for the 2001/2002 Paolo Coelho Literary Prize.

On 18 March 2006 Mr. Fakhravar appeared in court for an appeal hearing but was denied representation by his lawyers. After an argument with the judge he was beaten in front of Bench 26 before being transferred to prison. He is a longstanding critic of the Iranian government and has been demanding a referendum on the future government of Iran.

He has been exiled several times to remote areas in Iran, as well as abducted and thrown into an unknown prison in Oroumiyeh (north-eastern Iran) where he was tortured.

Mr. Fakhravar collaborated with several reformist newspapers, wrote three books, including “Here is Not a Ditch”. After newspapers in Iran reported that the book was presented to the Paulo Coelho Literary Award, security forces raided his house and office and took all the copies, but a diskette was saved and sent abroad, where the book was translated into English and published.

Another book, "Prison Papers”, is an account of life and torture practices in Iranian prisons."

Let us hear what Mr. Fakhravar has to say about the Iranian regime in the following interview with the Iran Press Service (IPS) to get an idea of what we'll learn from him when he gets debriefed over here:

State Sanctioned Dhimmitude In Europe

"Cats Fighting in a Pantry" by Paul de Vos 1592, Prado Museum, Madrid

 

This is absolutely disgraceful...I have just learned from Brian Maloney @ Hot Air that one of my favorite women, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, faces eviction from her home due to a court ruling, at the request of her neighbors, who are objecting to her security concerns.

One of the most sharp- tongued critics of political Islam, and a target of radical fanatics, her provocative film "Submission" led to the assassination of it's director Theo van Gogh in November 2004. The attacker, a 26-year-old extremist Muslim of Dutch-Moroccan descent, left a death threat against Hirsi Ali stuck to his corpse with a knife. After a brief period in hiding, the 36- year- old member of Dutch parliament from the neo-liberal VVD party has returned to parliament and is continuing her fight against Islamism. She recently published a book, "I Accuse," and is working on a sequel to "Submission." She was also one of the loudest voices backing the Muhammad cartoons.

So now the Court in the Hague has used a European law to underpin it's ruling to evict her. I have asked my Dutch friend and blogger Michael van der Galien to translate the original article for me. Here are the highlights:

VVD member of Parliament Ayaan Hirsi Ali has been ordered to move out of her secured home within four months from now. Thus ordered the Court of Appeals in The Hague Thursday in a lawsuit instigated by some of Hirsi Ali's neighbours. They complained about their own safety risk. Thus said Minister of Justice Donner Thursday after a EU-meeting in Luxembourg.

Hirsi Ali is shocked by the decision, she says in response "I find it terrible, awful to be forced to leave again. I live here with a lot of joy and I feel safe", said the liberal conservative. She has had to live with security for years due to threats on her life.

Donner thinks about bringing the case before the Supreme Court. [...] A lower Court in the Hague dismissed the case from the neighbors before. On Thursday however the Court of Appeals agreed with them.

The Court considers in its ruling that the neighbors have been put into a situation that has contributed to them feeling less safe in their own house. That feeling is extended to the communal living spaces of the apartment complex, but also to their own apartments. The court argues that this is a severe violation of one’s private life (as per Article 8 of the European Treaty for Human Rights).

Ali hopes Donner will bring the case before the Dutch Supreme Court of course, and in the last paragraph the neighbors say that it was "not personal". But that they "didn't feel safe in their own homes anymore" and that they "feel really sorry for Ayaan Hirsi Ali". Really.

Hirsi Ali has not broken any laws. The European Treaty for Human Rights is being used to throw a person whose life is in danger out of her own home, in order to protect those whose life is inconvenienced, at the very least, and at best blame who blame the Government for not making sure that the security benefits the entire complex. They may have a point there, but this is not the way to go about achieving a resolution if this is indeed their primary concern.

Why is the Dutch Government not deporting the Islamists who are issuing fatwas, which are clearly contrary to the judicial system within the Netherlands' own borders? Mark Noonan is incensed:

This is an example of European cowardice. Now, its not like I desperately want someone hunted by terrorists to be living next door to me, but if I had one then no power on Earth would ever make me try to force that person out. In fear and trepidation, I'd stand with my neighbor.

Someone please explain to me just how Europe is a model for America...