Gates of Vienna has been reporting recently on the trial, conviction, and sentencing of the family of Ghazala Khan for her honor-killing murder in Slagelse, Denmark. During a 36-hour period on Wednesday and Thursday I noticed that a lot of internet searchers were finding their way here, looking for Ghazala Khan. Out of 295 searches during that time, 119 (more than 40%) were trying to find out more information about her.

Re-creating some of the searches showed that Gates of Vienna was indeed in the top three sites listed, in most instances.

I’ve standardized the spelling and punctuation of the search strings involved in order to consolidate the statistics in the table below:

Search string		#		Pct
denmark ghazala		1		0.3%
denmark honor-killing		2		0.7%
denmark killing women		1		0.3%
father jail danish honor killing		1		0.3%
ghazala khan		23		7.8%
ghazala khan abu laban		1		0.3%
ghazala khan blog		1		0.3%
ghazala khan convicted		1		0.3%
ghazala denmark		25		8.5%
ghazala father brother denmark prison aunt in law years		2		0.7%
ghazala khan ghulam abbas		1		0.3%
ghazala khan honor		2		0.7%
ghazala khan denmark honor killing		4		1.4%
ghazala khan kill		1		0.3%
ghazala khan killing		3		1.0%
ghazala khan malkin		1		0.3%
ghazala khan murder		3		1.0%
ghazala khan site:.com		1		0.3%
ghazala khans		1		0.3%
ghazala khans husband		1		0.3%
honor killing case denmark		1		0.3%
danish honor killing		30		10.2%
honor killing ghazala		1		0.3%
honor killing of ghazala khan		1		0.3%
honor killing sentence denmark		1		0.3%
honor killing slagelse		1		0.3%
honor killing trial in denmark		1		0.3%
honor killings viking		1		0.3%
news ghazala khan		1		0.3%
nine family member denmark		1		0.3%
sentence killing daughter denmark		1		0.3%
stories of honor killings ghazala khan		1		0.3%
symbols of courage in denmark		1		0.3%
true story about murder of ghazala khan in copenhagen		1		0.3%
Totals		119		40.3%

Most of the searches seemed to originate from within Denmark. I couldn’t pull the countries of origin for the ISPs directly from the site meter statistics, since I was dealing with a subset of all the searches; instead, I had to go through the details of each search individually. It was a laborious and time-consuming process, and I ran out of steam after doing 58 of them, but here’s the breakdown for those:

Location		#		Pct
Denmark		33		56.9%
The rest of Europe		6		10.3%
Other		19		32.8%

Of the non-Danish Europeans, three were from Sweden. Most of the “other” locations were in the USA and Australia, but there was one from the UAE and one from Turkey.

What puzzles me is why the Danish searchers were looking in English-language sources for information about the case. On Wednesday and Thursday, when I was looking for information in the online Danish newspapers, there seemed to be plenty of stories available about Ghazala Khan and the trial; there was no news blackout. So why would Danish readers need to do English-based searches in Google?

Do the Danes doubt the accuracy or completeness of information in their own media? Or are there other reasons for these searches? Scandinavian readers are welcome to venture their opinions in the comments.

Dymphna’s theory is that the Danes want to see how the news media in the Anglosphere are handling the story. If that’s the case, they must have noticed by now that our MSM outlets — the keepers of Truth, the guardians of the portals to all news worth reading — were almost completely silent on the topic.

It’s good to know that the Secretary of State is in agreement with Gates of Vienna.

Of course, she had to travel all the way to Russia to express her concern re their attitude, while we could do it from the comfort of our pajamas, right here at home.

It seems yet another microphone got left on, allowing the whole world a glimpse behind the scenes of the diplomatic curtain, a chance to hear the real conversation for a change:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking unknowingly into an open microphone, chastised her Russian counterpart yesterday for bemoaning the killing of five Russian diplomats in Iraq, saying it was wrong to focus on the deaths of diplomats when so many others are dying there.

“The implication that by somehow declaring that diplomats need to be protected, it will get better, I think is simply not right,” Miss Rice said during a closed luncheon as the foreign ministers from the Group of Eight leading industrialized countries negotiated their meeting’s final statement.

I love the folks who leave these microphones on. It makes life more real for all of us when we get to hear the real deal for a change. Had we not had this glimpse into the G8 luncheon, who’d have cared about whatever got reported. It would be one of those usual fill-in-the-blanks diplo-speak joint communiqués.

Or maybe the audio-visual people are doing everything right. Maybe they are leaving those microphones turned on. Perhaps this is another case where the devil angel is in the details.

Hmm…wonder what Vlad’s thinking right now? I pity the poor guy who had the microphone detail. Hope he likes Siberia.

Hat tip: Commenter eatyourbeans.

UPDATE: Commenter Ypp gives us the real reason Vlad is mad:

Why russians are really outraged is not so much because the victims were diplomats, but because they considered themselves friends of insurgents. In reality they are very disappointed and are trying to hide that by producing angry resolutions.

For those fortunate few who can read Russian, here’s Ypp’s blog: Янки После Пьянки.

Through no desire of her own, Oriana Fallaci will spend her final days as the focus of a trial in her native country. She has been charged with defaming Islam in eighteen separate statements in her book, The Force of Reason.

Defamation is the politically correct term for telling unpleasant truths about extremely thin-skinned cultures who refuse to acknowledge that their own leaders have previously proclaimed what Fallaci says is their goal: the subjugation of Western civilization. Surely everyone by now has heard the imams in Britain who boldly state that their goal is to have the flag of Allah flying from No. 10 Downing Street, or the grandiose “speeches” from Osama bin Laden telling the West how Islam will conquer us all. Not to mention Iranian leaders who scold American presidents and warn of our destruction, or the inciteful propaganda put out on a global basis by Saudi Arabia.

However, in our Alice in Wonderland world, such statements are not hate speech. Killing Jewish Frenchmen after torturing them is not anti-Semitism. Israel’s incursion into Gaza to retrieve its soldier is “revenge.”

If you have read The Force of Reason you will have been moved by Fallaci’s own force and passion. She lays it out, chapter after chapter: the Muslim version of Khrushchev’s promise to bury us. After they finish with the pigs and apes in Israel, that is.

9/11 was a conversion experience for Fallaci, as it was for many people. In fact, for those who did not awaken to a new world on 9/12, one must wonder if they are not the walking dead. If the annihilation of thousands of innocent Americans — Ward Churchill’s “Little Eichmanns” — did not change minds and hearts, then a hundred more falling buildings or chemical and biological weapons let loose in this country will not change them either. As the Pslamist says, they have hearts of stone.

Now Fallaci’s book has her on trial in Italy. She faces prison time — should she return to Italy — for saying things like this: “Over the last twenty years terrorists have killed six thousand people to the glory of the Qur’an.” Such are the strictures binding free speech in Europe that even factual statements or tentative opinions can get you in trouble via the “anti-incitement laws,” laws which can mean imprisonment:

Britain’s then-home secretary Jack Straw remarked in 1999 on criminal activity by people, many of whom posed as gypsies or “travelers”—hardly a slur on all gypsies even without that qualifier. But a travelers’ group filed a complaint of inciting racial hatred, prompting a formal investigation and extensive media coverage asking whether Straw was racist. In 2002, the prominent French novelist Michel Houellebecq was charged with inciting racial hatred in a novel and interview in which he referred to Islam as “the stupidest religion.”

Fallaci calls Islam much more than stupid. And for doing so, Adel Smith, president of the Muslim Union of Italy has brought charges of defamation against her. This is the same Adel Smith who is up on charges himself for defaming the Catholic Church. But, of course, Mr. Smith sees his statements about the criminal church as merely truth and will have his day in court to make his case.

Now comes (as they say in American legal documents) www.OrianaFallacitrial.org. That’s the name of the site dedicated to solidarity with Fallaci in her latest — and probably last, given her terminal cancer — ordeal. It is aimed at collecting signatures from around the world from those interested in standing with her in this battle for freedom of speech in a land which looks increasingly like a cross between Orwell’s 1984 and Alice in Wonderland. What genre exists for a mixture of farce, tragedy, and systemic, sleep-walking injustice?

Gates of Vienna has received an email, as surely other blogs have, requesting that we publicize their efforts:

I write on behalf of Future Europe association (Europa Przyszlosci) from Poland. We have organized an action, “The end of free speech – the end of democracy”. One point of that action was a letter of solidarity with Oriana Fallaci that was signed by prominent Polish politicians, journalists, scholars and artists. The letter itself and description of Oriana Fallaci’s case and freedom of expression is on our page www.intl.orianafallacitrial.org. Since we would like to make our action more visible, could you please put a link to the above-mentioned page on your web page. Attached you will find the logo for our action.

Thank you for support.

Here is the image this group — The “Europa Przyszlosci” (FUTURE EUROPE) association — is using in association with their campaign. Go here to read the petition and sign onto it if you wish. Note that Lech Wałęsa is one of the signatories.

In a world of worthy causes, in a universe of injustice and suffering, this one remains important. An old lady, still an icon of journalistic integrity, is dying. Like Saint Sebastian, she is also being tortured with arrows from moral midgets and cultural imbeciles.

It behooves all of us to do the little that we can.

A Danish guy emailed us yesterday with a tip about his website, “Minut”. Since it’s mostly in Danish, it’s largely mysterious to me. I can see that it has a blog (also in Danish), and an articles section. It also features a comic strip, which is tantalizing, because (based on the images) it’s probably quite amusing, but I’ll never get the joke.

The reason he emailed us was to offer us the use of some of Minut’s excellent posters, which are found in the Propaganda section of the site. The tag with the link says, “Konservativ propaganda lige til at printe ud.” Almost makes sense, right?

I’ve reproduced a few of the English-language examples here (click one of these small images to bring up the full-sized poster). Some of the Danish-language posters are very good, too, even if I don’t understand all the text. One of them features Abu Laban in a clown suit as a part of the “Arabiske Statscirkus”.

Anway, I recommend that all our readers, Anglosphere and otherwise, drop by Minut and take a look around. Use the contact page and send those guys a note (English is OK — that’s how they wrote to me).

These Danes may be boring from within, but they’re certainly never boring.

As anyone knows, Vladimir Putin doesn’t tread lightly. Thus, the obviously mentally challenged terrorist group calling itself the Mujahideen Shura Council — the idiots who posted their video of the bloody executions of two of those Russian diplomats kidnapped in Baghdad — are in doo-doo so deep that even the Coalition Forces won’t be able to save them… even if they were inclined to do so.

Of course, per Putin, it’s our fault his diplomats are dead, because if we weren’t there, well, no problemo, right? They could have been carrying on with their oil-for-food corruption without all this malarkey about freedom and elections and associated balderdash (what is the Russian equivalent of “balderdash”?).

The BBC reports the story (and carries a great picture of Putin that is worth clicking the link to see):

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered special services to “find and destroy” the killers of four Russian diplomats taken hostage in Iraq.

The head of Russia’s security services immediately pledged to see Putin’s order carried out.

[...]

The head of the Federal Security Service (FSB), Nikolai Patrushev, promised to carry out the task “however much time and effort it requires”, Interfax reported.

Separately, the lower house of the Russian parliament approved a statement condemning the killings, and appearing to blame Iraq’s “occupying powers”.

“The whole responsibility for the situation in Iraq, including guaranteeing the security of its citizens, and also foreign specialists, as before lies on the occupying powers,” the statement said.

Meanwhile, back at the Mujahideen Shura Council, what do you suppose the perps are doing? Besides writing out their last wills and testaments, I mean? Americans play by all these silly little rules that don’t impede the Russians and never will. Perhaps they are considering finding some less freshly-stained boxers and cleaning up a bit before throwing themselves on the mercy of the coalition forces? Fat lot of good that will do. Mere walls do not a safe prison make… not when the Russkies are after you.

Somehow, Mr. Putin’s visage brings to mind the unforgettable wisdom of Jim Croce’s admonition:

You don’t tug on Superman’s cape
You don’t spit into the wind
You don’t pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger
And you don’t mess around with Jim Vlad, da do da do…

Start counting the virgins who await you, boyos, ’cause your film careers are over. It won’t be long now until you are the unlamented Mujahideen Shura Council, lately of Baghdad.

Note: I have closed the comments section on this post. Things were getting ugly, and I don’t want to monitor the comments all the time to weed out the nastiness and obscenities.

Those who wish to exchange epithets, and you know who you are, should move on to other blogs.

The deafening silence you heard last week was the sound of the world’s “human rights” NGOs and the major media of Europe condemning the barbaric torture, mutilation, and murder of American servicemen in Iraq. Or maybe their condemnation was drowned out by the wailing over the poor Gitmo detainees, or the outcry about the horrors of extraordinary rendition by the CIA, or the protests over hideous tortures inflicted on terrorists at Abu Ghraib prison, or some such. In any case, there was no evidence that people whose primary concern is human rights had even tertiary concern over the human rights of Americans in Iraq.

We posted a couple of times about this issue, and the resulting comment threads became quite contentious. Anger at the hostility of “Old Europe” — and its indifference to American casualties in the struggle against Islamofascism — eventually boiled over into recriminations against Europe in general. Some of our commenters have gone beyond pessimism about Europe, and have ended up in dogmatic certitude that the continent is a lost cause, mired in a mixture of dhimmitude, passivity, and anti-Semitism.

The arguments became so toxic that they drove away at least one of our frequent Danish commenters. He emailed me yesterday to say this:

Well, most commenters here are Americans and accordingly it seems to me that every discussion winds up in a cul-de-sac, namely:

  1. Europe is doomed and lost, no matter what.
  2. All Europeans are anti-Semitic dhimmies.
  3. No European will stand up for Israel.

Okay — I’m a busy man. I have a job and a family. Not much time for rubbish. So, in my spare time I’d prefer to concentrate on the task at hand — which is to help revving up the momentum of European resistance in general and Danish resistance in particular.

You may call it “friendly fire”, but taking flak from remote echelons stateside forces me to fight a two-front battle. And I don’t want that. There’s a war going on over here. So far it’s quite “phony”, but when things start to roll I won’t waste too much effort in guarding my rear…

It pains me that this doughty Dane was forced to defend himself against attacks by those who should be his allies. I’m not talking about trolls here: the folks who were arguing so strenuously are in broad general agreement with one another. None of us wants to see the reign of Multiculturalism extended. Each of us is primarily concerned with the struggle against the Great Islamic Jihad. And all of us are pro-Israel.

It may well be that Europe is completely lost, and there’s no hope, and the vast majority of Europeans are imam-appeasing anti-Semites. But I don’t think so, and, in any case, the evidence isn’t all in yet. You can’t go by the major European media, which are firmly controlled by the socialist appeasers. And you can’t even go by public opinion polls — not only are the questions in MSM polls always phrased in such a way to evoke the “correct” response, but many people are afraid to display their true opinions, even in a supposedly anonymous poll. The true feelings of Europeans will not be evident until the real crisis comes.

In the meantime, the people who show up here are a self-selected group who are already standing in opposition the smelly little orthodoxies of our time. Some have painstakingly acquired English so as to engage in conversation here, and many of them go to the trouble to translate Danish, German, Swedish and Norwegian sources so that we monoglots can find out what’s going on outside the Anglosphere.

We do a disservice to these brave and dedicated people by lumping them in with the dhimmis and Jew-haters. If change is to occur in Europe, it will come from people like them, people who are primarily from the “New Europe”, with Denmark leading the way.

And I hope the New Europeans who have honored us here with their presence will continue their patient and civil arguments against the nay-sayers. I hope their optimism eventually will infect us all.

No one’s mind has ever been changed by insults and angry accusations. If the anti-Semitism of Europe is to be overcome, it will happen in the same way that anti-black racism was overcome here in America, by decent-minded people speaking out opposing it, by patient repetition of the moral case against it, and by reasonable and humane argument. Invective convinces no one. Racial prejudice in America is still with us, but it was made vulgar and publicly unacceptable by the efforts of the non-racists among us.

The change starts out small, and then grows. It starts out with ordinary, average people taking a quiet stand.

I won’t have an effect by screaming at people who will never listen anyway. I won’t make a difference by calling you or Nils or Friedrich or Stanislaus or Henrik or Pierre an anti-Semite. I will make a difference by saying this:

I Stand With the Jews.

The world can only be changed incrementally, one mind at a time.

Update: Exile has responded to this post. A quote:

If ‘divide and conquer’ is still the same tactic that it has always been, then this has worked. Is there a hidden agenda here? Or have these people merely been so blinded by their own obsessions that they don’t recognise support even when they see it?

He also has advice for our Danish commenters.

UPDATE: Rune has given us the actual sentences meted out:

The sentencing is just in. According to preliminary reports, the murdered girl’s father received life in prison for the killing of his daughter. The brother and two uncles were sentenced to 16 years. The aunt and a cousin got 14 years. The remaining three got between 8 and 10 years.

While this is much less than one could wish for, it must be said that in a Danish context, these are very severe sentences indeed. I don’t remember a single case at all wherein the convicted persons received such long sentences, or where such a large number were sentenced. A few days ago I would have though between 8-12 for the killer, somewhat less for the father and less than 4 years for the rest. So this is definitely, for me, a positive result. Though apparently only three will be expelled from Denmark after their prison time (the rest have Danish citizenship). There have been suggestions in the parliament that serious crimes should automatically result in a stripping of citizenship. I think that is a route we now should pursue.

I reported yesterday on the Danish trial conviction of nine family members and friends for the “honor killing” of Ghazala Khan last September. There was some apprehension that the perpetrators would receive light sentences as sop to political correctness, but that does not seem to be the case.

According to a translation made by commenter Rune:

No reduced sentence

Eight of the nine will receive a minimum of five years prison time for the “honour” killing on Ghazala Khan. One may possibly receive a lesser sentence.

That was the verdict of the jury this evening. The penalty range goes from five years to life in prison.

One of the convicted persons — a 30 year old man, whom was employed as a taxi driver by the family — is the only one who could possibily get a sentence of less than five years, decided the jury. But he also can receive a sentence of greater than five years.

Prior to the sentencing, Rune had offered these observations on the situation in Denmark:

Perhaps the positive in the case is not so much that the actual sentencing likely will be much less what we could wish for (I’d guess less than 4 for all but the brother and the father), but that, for the first time, the whole network behind the killing has been unravelled and convicted. Likely it will set a precedent throughout Europe, whereby not only those who do the actual killing can be convicted — but also all the those who support the killing. Reportedly much of the immigrant community is in shock over the verdict. In a longer perspective it is expected the verdict will have a great preventive effect. But also that we in the future should be more aware that girls will be abducted to their homeland in the Middle East and murdered there.

What is nearly mind boggling is the massive support the killers have received from their community, even after the killing. Several of the jurors have received anonymous threats and have had some of their things vandalised. Immediately following the killing a group of unknown people visited several hospitals asking for the wounded husband of the murdered girl, supposedly to finish off the job. He had to witness in court heavily disguised and in a separate chamber — a thing that has also been witnessed in other similar cases with violence against women from the immigrant communities. Women’s shelters in particular have had many problems with family members of fled women who try to locate them and force them home. Most now have several policemen to protect them; they never order a taxi with an immigrant driver to transport women, always only have one women of each nationality at the shelter (since it was becoming common that a woman’s female relatives would enter the shelter and try to pressure the women to come back to the violent husband) etc.

There will always be maniacs. There have also been sad cases where children have been killed by their ethnic Danish fathers. But it’s the whole tacit or active support of the community that sickens me.

As usual, I’m huffing and puffing to catch up on past due Council posts, announcing the winners. So this week I am taking the penitent’s route: two weeks in two days. I’d do two days in one go, but I’m too ADDled to stay the course and you wouldn’t be able to decipher the second part. I know: having tried to write it, even I couldn’t read what I’d written. Better to spare you and make two posts. Besides, it allows more focus on the winners.

So here’s the first late edition, for the week of June 16th:

Rightwing Nuthouse’s essay on the Dem/MSM alignment when it comes to peeing on the Cheerios of the good guys was done in his ususal brilliant style. Talking about the Coalition-caused death of al Zarqawi, Rick notes that the Unwholesome Twosome – the Democratic Party and the MSM outlet of your choice – had, by the end of the day returned to their tired old “what-have-you-done-for-me-today” mantra, this time demanding to know why Osama was still stalking the streets. One certainly has to give them credit for chutzpah in their gratitude.

As Rick says:

That the media began to spin the story every which way from Sunday was no surprise. In any other context, their desperate attempts to deflect attention from the death of Zarqawi and put the emphasis on the unsuccessful hunt for bin Landen could be seen as a pitiful attempt at comedy, so riotously off kilter their killjoy attitude became by day’s end. It makes one wonder what kind of headlines they would have generated during World War II following the death of Hitler: “German Chancellor dead: No Effect on Quagmire in the Pacific Seen.”

Gates of Vienna tied for second place with Done With Mirrors. The Gates entry was a rant, I’m afraid; one of the hazards of blogging and having one’s ankles bitten too often. Apologies to all who snoozed through it. Mirrors, however, has a gem, and I will give you only his headline, so as not to spoil the post. Go read “Hix Nix Chix.” You’ll be jealous you didn’t think of such a splendid title for such odiferous behavior.

In the non Council posts, A Newer World earned first place with his explanation of “One Liberal’s Argument for Still Staying in Iraq.” While the premises of his argument are not to my thinking, I admire the conclusions he draws from them, and the courage it must take to make his stand based on those ideas:

Can anyone seriously argue that this situation will improve rather than worsen if U.S. forces were to immediately withdraw? Can anyone seriously argue that it will be good for the people of Iraq if we just pick up and leave?

The invasion and occupation of Iraq was and remains an unforgivable castatrophe. The United States has created a humanitarian disaster. Leaving now will only make that disaster worse.

IMHO, Saddam Hussein was a “humanitarian disaster” of a greater order of magnitude than anything the United States has done in Iraq or will ever do anytime, anywhere. I find what we have done not only forgivable but as far from a catastrophe as one can get and still understand the meaning of that word. In fact, for me, the liberal mis-use of the English language by Liberals is one of the problems I have with their “side” of this issue.

Those who stand and do nothing but wring their hands will never have the gratitude of the families of those skeletons rotting in the mass graves we respectfully unearthed so they could have decent burials. And for all the chaos, we have not begun to approach the suffering that Stalin’s biggest admirer imposed on his own people. The only thing they had to look forward to was rule by Uday and Qsay.

A Newer World’s ideas will not create anything novel if they are in this vein. Instead we will have more Pol Pots, more Che Gueveras, more Idi Amins, more corrupt ngos pretending to do something besides line their own pockets.

I’ll go with the karma we’ve created, thanks anyway. Full of mistakes, we still dare to act. And for that we stand proud.

Wretchard at the Belmont Club was second for his fisking of Malloch Brown’s criticism of the U.S.

Remember Mr. Brown? He’s the UN Deputy-Secretary General who gave us a good talking to for being so…so, oh, I don’t know…maybe just so unalterably, unattractively American.

Here’s part of the speech Wretchard quoted:

…my underlying message, which is a warning about the serious consequences of a decades-long tendency by US Administrations of both parties to engage only fitfully with the UN, is not one a sitting United Nations official would normally make to an audience like this.

But I feel it is a message that urgently needs to be aired. And as someone who has spent most of his adult life in this country, only a part of it at the UN, I hope you will take it in the spirit in which it is meant: as a sincere and constructive critique of U.S. policy towards the UN by a friend and admirer. Because the fact is that the prevailing practice of seeking to use the UN almost by stealth as a diplomatic tool while failing to stand up for it against its domestic critics is simply not sustainable. You will lose the UN one way or another.

Oh, please, Mr. Brown. From your mouth to God’s ears. For all our sakes, move your organization lock, stock and barrel to Belgium. Steal the silver on your way out — whatever — be our guest as long as you’re no longer our boarder. Just gooooo.

They’d love you in Brussels and we’d breathe free, having gotten rid of the rotten mollusk on Oyster Bay…

Be sure to read Wretchard’s amusing fisk, done in a table, of Mr. Brown’s speech. Needless to say, John Bolton had a few choice words for Kofi’s stand-in.

The ever-patient Watcher still has the links up. Go here and read the rest.

*** UPDATED***

Thanks to Rune for the corrections.

Dymphna wrote earlier this month about the honor killing of Ghazala Khan in Denmark. In a precendent-setting move, the Danish authorities put nine family members on trial, and not just the actual killer.

Now the verdict is in: Guilty. Reader kepiblanc, translating from Danish sources, has kindly provided the following summary:

The trial of an entire family of nine for the September “honor” execution of Ghazala Khan (18) ended today…

The trial marks a turning point in Danish judicial history. It sets a precedent and there will be no turning back. Until now contemporary jurisprudence would imply that the killer (executioner) is the one to blame and accordingly face punishment. But as from today not only the man who actually pulls the trigger, but his family and friends as well are held responsible and must face the consequences of their barbaric deeds.

The jury deliberated for about 20 hours and the verdict was very clear: All defendants were found guilty of premeditated murder as charged. They will face anything from 3 years to life in prison. Sentences can be appealed to the Supreme Court, but the verdict stands.

Deportations will likely be enforced.

The trial was unusual in more than one respect, even in these “honor killing” cases. Members of the jury were threatened, witnesses openly feared acts of violence from the Muslim community and thus were reluctant to testify. Several times during the proceedings the judge had to warn the Muslim audience that he would not tolerate intimidation. Seemingly unaware of the Islamic tradition of lying through one’s teeth whenever it suits one’s purpose, he had to warn several witnesses of severe punishment if they continued to do so.

The verdict sends ripples of shock across the Muslim community in Denmark…

Those convicted are as follows:

Ghulam Abbas:		57 years old
(father)		Convicted for urging the murder of his daughter and her husband
Aktar Abbas:		30 years old
(brother)		Convicted for the murder of his sister and for attempted murder of her husband.
Perveen Khan:		40 years old
(aunt)		Married to the brother of the mother of the murdered girl. Convicted for setting up the trap that led to the murder of the girl.
Walayat Khan:		46 years old
(mother’s brother)		Helped setting the trap for the girl, by way of a trick “reconciliation meeting”.
Anser Iqbal:		45 years old
(father’s brother)		Convicted for participating in the hunt on the girl.
Asghar Ali:		42 years old
(the elder)
Naweed Sharif:		30 years old
(friend of the family)		Taxi-driver; helped in the hunt for the girl.
Asghar Ali:		31 years old
(the younger; brother of aunt)		Helped in the attempts to track down the girl.
Ghulam Ahmed:		36 years old
(friend of the family)		Taxi-driver; helped in the hunt for the girl.

I had originally thought those were sentence lengths, and not the ages of the convicted perpetrators. Sentences have not yet been handed down.

I don’t know how early a parole the Danish system will allow, but in many European countries 15 years is what the average murderer will serve.

This does indeed seem to mark a turning-point in European jurisprudence dealing with Islamic honor killings. It will be interesting to see if other countries follow suit.

Note: I had Rune’s help in the translation of the lsit of conspirators and their relationships to the victim. There was some discrepancy between Rune’s version and the original Jyllands-Posten list. Further corrections from our Danish readers will be welcomed; I’ll amend the list and update the post if changes come in.

The Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. John W. Snow, has a letter to the dissembling editor of The Old Grey Doxy. In his epistle, which appears here through Editor and Publisher Mr. Snow makes it plain that the administration’s efforts were anything but “half-hearted” as the paper – in its paper-thin and seditious defense – claimed:

Dear Mr. Keller:

The New York Times’ decision to disclose the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program, a robust and classified effort to map terrorist networks through the use of financial data, was irresponsible and harmful to the security of Americans and freedom-loving people worldwide. In choosing to expose this program, despite repeated pleas from high-level officials on both sides of the aisle, including myself, the Times undermined a highly successful counter-terrorism program and alerted terrorists to the methods and sources used to track their money trails.

Your charge that our efforts to convince The New York Times not to publish were “half-hearted” is incorrect and offensive. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Over the past two months, Treasury has engaged in a vigorous dialogue with the Times – from the reporters writing the story to the D.C. Bureau Chief and all the way up to you. It should also be noted that the co-chairmen of the bipartisan 9-11 Commission, Governor Tom Kean and Congressman Lee Hamilton, met in person or placed calls to the very highest levels of the Times urging the paper not to publish the story. Members of Congress, senior U.S. Government officials and well-respected legal authorities from both sides of the aisle also asked the paper not to publish or supported the legality and validity of the program.

Indeed, I invited you to my office for the explicit purpose of talking you out of publishing this story. And there was nothing “half-hearted” about that effort. I told you about the true value of the program in defeating terrorism and sought to impress upon you the harm that would occur from its disclosure. I stressed that the program is grounded on solid legal footing, had many built-in safeguards, and has been extremely valuable in the war against terror.

Additionally, Treasury Under Secretary Stuart Levey met with the reporters and your senior editors to answer countless questions, laying out the legal framework and diligently outlining the multiple safeguards and protections that are in place.

You have defended your decision to compromise this program by asserting that “terror financiers know” our methods for tracking their funds and have already moved to other methods to send money. The fact that your editors believe themselves to be qualified to assess how terrorists are moving money betrays a breathtaking arrogance and a deep misunderstanding of this program and how it works. While terrorists are relying more heavily than before on cumbersome methods to move money, such as cash couriers, we have continued to see them using the formal financial system, which has made this particular program incredibly valuable.

Lastly, justifying this disclosure by citing the “public interest” in knowing information about this program means the paper has given itself free license to expose any covert activity that it happens to learn of – even those that are legally grounded, responsibly administered, independently overseen, and highly effective. Indeed, you have done so here.

What you’ve seemed to overlook is that it is also a matter of public interest that we use all means available – lawfully and responsibly – to help protect the American people from the deadly threats of terrorists. I am deeply disappointed in the New York Times.

Sincerely,

John W. Snow, Secretary
U.S. Department of the Treasury

The bloody hands of The New York Times write their treason, and having writ, move on to the next bit of treason on their agenda.

It is time to boycott this noxious blood-letting organization and all its little imitators.

Whole-hearted liars: that’s what they are.

As I noted last year, one can judge the character of a man by the quality of his enemies.

Thus, it gives me great pleasure to report that James Wolcott, the éminence grise of Vanity Fair, he of the impeccably tailored raiment and the delicate ocicats, a man of exquisite taste and sartorial refinement — James Wolcott Himself has taken notice of Gates of Vienna again!

Dymphna has instructed me not to link to his post. She said, “He doesn’t deserve it.” I said, “Hey, fair is fair; he gave us a link.” Increased our traffic considerably, as a matter of fact. So who cares if all the new visitors were members of the Comintern?

But she is adamant. Anyway, here’s what he said:

For readers willing to don miner’s [sic] helmets to explore a smoke-filled ass just off the main highway, behold the cavern of Baron Bodissey.

How did we come to deserve such favor? With all the other juicy and low-hanging fruit on the tree of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, why pick us? Why not the succulent plum of Little Green Footballs? Or the ripe red apple of Instapundit? Or even the tempting pomegranate of Roger Simon?

But, no, he chose Gates of Vienna. I guess today is just our lucky day.

I’m floating on a cloud!

That’s what Larry Kudlow calls the New York Times for its latest criminal release of information re the United States’ attempt to track terrorists and to protect the integrity of our country.

That royal appellation is a much nicer title than this treasonous, duplicitous, hubristic, and deeply biased yellow rag deserves for its ongoing treachery.

The New York Times has been undermining our country for years. In the past we could ignore it – “the past” being pre 9/11. Sure, they had their traitors like Walter Duranty and their prevaricators like Jason Blair, and their ignorant “economists” like Paul Krugman (Somewhere there may be an economist with a worse record, but if there were, surely the Old Gray Whore would have had him/her on board by now. But Krugman is so thoroughly and frequently wrong that he couldn’t survive outside the Times or some soft spot, equally removed from reality, in academia. Just to keep the record straight, some blogs even keep a running record of his idiocies, mistakes, and ignorance).

Larry Kudlow sums it up:

The saboteurs at the Times provided secret details into the Bush administration’s use of subpoenas to gather large troves of data from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a Belgium-based consortium that handles international bank transfers. Financial data is used to identify terrorists before they get a chance to kill. It is an eminently sensible program, and one that has reaped rewards.

In one instance, the SWIFT program was used to capture a top Al Qaeda operative, Riduan Isamuddin, in Thailand in 2003.

The folks running the printing presses at the Times don’t seem to care about any of this. They went ahead and made the determination that the SWIFT program was “a matter of public interest.”

President Bush met with the press in the Roosevelt Room this morning. He had something to say about the resident enemy journalism in New York City:

Q: Sir, several news organizations have reported about a program that allows the administration to look into the bank records of certain suspected terrorists. My questions are twofold: One, why have you not gone to Congress to ask for authorization for this program, five years after it started? And two, with respect, if neither the courts, nor the legislature is allowed to know about these programs, how can you feel confident the checks and balances system works?

THE PRESIDENT: Congress was briefed. And what we did was fully authorized under the law. And the disclosure of this program is disgraceful. We’re at war with a bunch of people who want to hurt the United States of America, and for people to leak that program, and for a newspaper to publish it does great harm to the United States of America. What we were doing was the right thing. Congress was aware of it, and we were within the law to do so.

The American people expect this government to protect our constitutional liberties and, at the same time, make sure we understand what the terrorists are trying to do. The 9/11 Commission recommended that the government be robust in tracing money. If you want to figure out what the terrorists are doing, you try to follow their money. And that’s exactly what we’re doing. And the fact that a newspaper disclosed it makes it harder to win this war on terror.

Such criticism is necessary but not nearly sufficient. With all due respect, Mr. President, it is time to call in some favors. It is waaay past time to sic Congress on this seditious, disgusting bunch who are so tightly focused on your ruin that their snipes never sleep. You must lead a miraculously sinless life, because if there was one iota, one scintilla of scandal, they would’ve found it by now. Since they can’t bring you down that way, they’ll bring the house down around the rest of us in their deranged fervor to destroy you.

Gabriel Schoenfeld gave his opinion to the New York Sun on this latest revelation:

“They’re courting prosecution. … They’re increasingly behaving like if we were in the middle of World War II and they learned of plans to invade Normandy. Because they decided it’s a matter of public interest, they’d publish it,” Mr. Schoenfeld said. “I think this is reckless and likely to encourage Attorney General Gonzales to prosecute them, if not for this story, for some of the other things they’ve done.”

Mr. Schoenfeld said that the latest disclosure by the Times about the financial surveillance was less clear cut as a legal violation because it did not appear to involve communications intelligence, which is specially protected under federal law.

Mr. Schoenfeld said the new report would increase anger against the paper. “They really are testing the limits of congressional and executive branch patience. There’s a lot of displeasure with what they’re doing,” said Mr. Schoenfeld, who edits Commentary magazine and writes a weekly column on chess for the Sun.

However, the editor said he still considered a prosecution unlikely, on balance. “I’m not sure the Bush administration has a stomach for a fight with the media of that magnitude, but it’s become more and more clear that it’s necessary,” Mr. Schoenfeld said.

Well, some members of Congress may indeed have “the stomach” for this overdue confrontation:

The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee called yesterday for criminal prosecution of The New York Times, saying that its report Friday on U.S. government surveillance of confidential banking records “compromised America’s anti-terrorist policies.”

Interviewed on Fox News Sunday, Rep. Peter T. King, a New York Republican, accused the newspaper of compromising national security when it exposed a Treasury Department program that attempts to track terrorist financing by secretly monitoring worldwide money transfers. The program, instituted after the Sept. 11 attacks, bypasses safeguards put in place to ensure against government abuse.

Of course, not every member of the Imperial Elected Capitol Hill agrees with Representative King. Thus, the usual suspects, like Senators Biden and Specter, are putting their fingers up to test the political wind. They are no better than the perfidious Times. And more scared of the MSM than they are concerned for this country’s integrity. Scurrilous, that’s what they are. Combined with the Times, and other elitists, they are concerned to bring this President down – and if the US goes down, too, hey… that’s the breaks, huh?

Larry Kudlow put it best:

The New York Times is blinded by its hatred of George W. Bush. And, because of this, these boneheads compromise the lives of all Americans.

Here’s the link to research your congressman’s or senator’s position, or simply to register your desire to see the Old Grey Doxy and her companion yellow journalists brought to heel before they literally kill us all.