À La Recherche du Temps Trouvé

 
But I tell you, Monsieur, zees ees zee real Tour Eiffel!My heart was gladdened tonight when I discovered this French AOL search site. Yes, that’s right — the French are using America Online.

How can they stand it? Quelle indignité!

Actually, you’ll notice that l’Amerique does not appear on the page, just the abbreviation AOL. A few English words creep in here and there — the dreadful but unavoidable “shopping”, for instance — but, at a glance, you wouldn’t notice that the page had been contaminated by Anglo-Saxon culture.

So, by all means, recherchez jusqu’à ce que les vaches viennent à la maison!

The Council This Week: Race Relations; a Memoir; and Options in Iran

Watcher's CouncilThe Watcher of Weasels has a fine selection this week.The voting pattern in the Council posts was unusual: the top two winners took the majority of the votes. It is not usually this one-sided, but this phenomenon speaks to the subject matter both winners presented.

First place went to Done With Mirrors for his essay, “Chaos or Community.” He speaks of two pictures of the same people. The pictures are separated by decades and the two women have since changed a great deal:

Almost half a century after the event, many people are still familiar with the Little Rock desegregation picture of a neatly dressed young black girl walking to school with a white girl following her, her face twisted into a mask of spitting hatred, shouting, “nigger, nigger, nigger!”…How many have seen the photo taken years later, by the same photographer, of the same two women, now matronly? They are chatting cordially on the high school steps about mutual friends.

Such has been the deep, lasting change in relations between the black and white people of America. If I had known back then that I would someday have African American nephews, a niece who is part black and part Asian, I’d have had more hope for my country than I did then. I’d have known it would be okay eventually. Of course, problems remain:

So much was accomplished; it was fast and amazing work, and by the early ’70s the goal seemed in sight. Jim Crow was dead, and it must have seemed that one more push would bring America to racial equality.

…we’ve been stalled on the edge of that dream for more than 30 years now. Busing was a deadly wrong turn. Nothing much since then has panned out. One wonders if we haven’t abandoned the dream altogether. What would Martin Luther King make of our fetish for “diversity” and “multiculturalism”?

Who knows? Would he have bought into it? My disappointment in Dr. King’s decision to copyright his “I Have A Dream” speech and make it available only to those who could buy it took away some of my hope. So did the racism conference leader who informed me that only whites could be racist; blacks were excused from any such designation. I left the conference after he announced that — I knew then that getting together to discuss “RACISM” was a dead end waste of precious time and would solve nothing. So far this has proved to be the case.

Done With Mirrors has a fine recommendation for a book written by a woman in that era:”Everybody’s Grandmother & Nobody’s Fool,” by Frances Freeborn Pauley. Scroll down to read his quotes from her.

Nowhere, however, does he mention Daniel Patrick Monyihan’s predictions all those years ago about what would happen if we adopted the socialist welfare system of Europe. We would, he predicted, destroy the black family. And he was right.

Now we have a huge and resentful underclass, filled with both black and white professional victims. I call them The Resenters. They are willfully uneducated, suffer from a bad case of living solely in the present, and spend their days in idle bread and circuses entertainments.

What a waste.



Dr. Sanity placed second for her moving remembrance of meeting Ronald Reagan in a brief moment during a tragic time: the Challenger disaster, which happened when she was the crew’s surgeon for that mission. When Reagan came to honor those who had perished in the explosion he stopped to speak to her:

As the crew surgeon for that mission, I accompanied the families of the crew to a private meeting with President and Mrs. Reagan before he spoke to the large crowd of employees and officials. I felt a little out of place at this private meeting, so I tried to stay off to the side as, one by one, Reagan greeted all the immediate family members and talked with them.

Much to my surprise, after he visited with them for a while, he walked over to where I was standing. Apparently he had asked who I was, because he addressed me as “Doctor” and held out his hand, saying, “It must be especially hard for you today to have lost those who looked up to you as their doctor and who put their trust in you.” He said it very quietly and his sincerity and genuine concern for what I was experiencing resulted in bringing tears to my eyes. Until that moment, I had managed to keep it all together and not show my feelings in public.

The next thing I knew, the President of the United States had put his hand on my shoulder and was comforting me; telling me that he understood my loss and that he knew I had been trying to be strong and take care of all the family members of the crew; but that he could see I was suffering too.

It’s amazing how closely her memory aligns with that of others who met him in similar circumstances.



The Non-Council first place overwhelmingly went to the nonpareil Winds of Change for the submission, “Just A Second – It’s Not That Dark Yet (And We Have A Really Big Flashlight).” Written by Armed Liberal, the essay is an examination of our options in Iran and whether or not it is a good idea to pre-emptively strike that country because of our fear of their nuclear capability:

We’ve made a series of errors that have gotten us to this place; for convenience’s sake, I’ll start with Carter’s ineffective nonresponse to the taking of our embassy in Iran – which in my mind marks the real beginning of the modern Islamist war against the West. Since then, we’ve done nothing to lessen our dependence on imported oil, across three Presidents. Most recently, I’ll lay blame at the feet of President Bush, who missed two clear opportunities: to build the strength of the military over the last four years – which would have required sacrificing domestic programs plus a real effort to spend political capital building support for the war, and to engage the Iranian regime and reach out to the non-insane citizens and politicians that make up a large part of the Iranian polity.

But we’re here, now, and no where else.

Could we smash the Iranian oil infrastructure, depriving them of cash and Europe and China of fuel? Of course. Child’s play. Could we drop the Iranian electricity grid, possibly slowing the centrifuges to a halt? Sure. Could we destroy the Iranian army, and do a smash-and-grab raid on the suspected weapons development sites? Probably.

So given all this, why not just get it over with? Well, as AL says “then what?

He gives four steps, more or less in parallel, that we could start right now. His first step, a good one, is this:

First, we need a national energy policy. It’s not a matter of saving trees, it’s a matter of national defense. We should have done it a decade ago, but tomorrow’s the soonest we can start. Doing this not only has real impacts, but sends clear signals about our intentions and capabilities as well.

This is a damn good idea except for one thing: reality. The fissures in the political/cultural ground of the American experiment have never been deeper, more hysterically reactive, or less amenable to reasonable dialogue. We need to do this, but I’ll be damned if I know how we’ll accomplish it.

I like his ideas but they don’t seem doable right now. Of course, I never could have predicted the fall of the Soviet Union or the crumbling of the Berlin Wall.

So maybe Armed Liberal is right and his four steps can be accomplished. I hope and I pray.

Avenging Mohammed: They’ll Blow Up Denmark

Abbagav has a post on the Danish food fight:

Ironically, I love Muslim boycotts like these — they remind me that collective punishment is indeed an Islamically accepted principle, so long as it is harnessed to a just cause, like protesting cartoons.

Then he links to a fellow in Houston, Lou Minatti (a “serious gardener” –I’m going to have to get back there). Mr. Minatti has posted two images from what he terms a “Saudi entity”. He gave the link, but I couldn’t find the pictures on the linked site so I lifted his instead:

Glory Brigades In Northern Europe


Glory Brigades In Northern Europe

He means the Saudis will pay someone to do Denmark for them. It was Pakistanis who blew themselves up in Britain.

Islam is just chock full of resentful bullies. Nothing like abysmal failure to transform the soul into a seething mass of hatred and dreams of revenge.

I say we not only buy Danish food, we should start prayer groups dedicated to the poor people whose souls are being distorted so grotesquely that their only solution is eternal revenge. Something that toxic will not yield to men’s attempts to change it. Noo… this is not irony. These people need someone to pray for them while they dream their infantile fantasies of revenge. Besides, it’s prayers or bombs and I’m fresh out of the latter right now.

Maybe we could designate Wednesday as “Pray for Muslims Day.” And it could be followed by lunch with Danish cheese and some of those butter cookies most of us shouldn’t eat. However, if it’s in a good cause….

Spare Change?

 
It’s no surprise that Hamas considers the cutoff of foreign money to be “blackmail.” After all, that’s what a teenager always considers the threatened withholding of his allowance to be.

“Dad! You can’t do that; it’s not fair!”

According to this AP story,

A top Hamas official said Tuesday the Islamic militant group will not be “blackmailed” by international threats to cut off aid to the Palestinians and is searching for new sources of funding.

Excuse me sir, could you spare half a billion for a cup of coffee? You’d be helping out a poor mujahid…

Hamas leaders, who have tried to portray a more moderate image since the election, sought to assure the donors that aid would go only to ordinary Palestinians and not be used for attacks.

Translation: the Western media have been trying to make Hamas appear more moderate. Trust the MSM to do their best with this one. Watch for prime-time news videos of Hamas day-care centers and AIDS clinics.

And promises are all you’ll get about the disbursement of the money. Remember: Fatah gave out 500 million dollars in cash, no paper trail. Think Hamas will be any different? We’ll just have to take their word for it.

Analysts say that although most wealthy Gulf nations will not stand by and watch the Palestinians starve, the Arab and Muslim world is unlikely to provide the kind of cash Western nations have given.

Now we come to the important part: Sheikh Dublooni, for whom a hundred million dollars is pocket change, can’t match those nasty ol’ infidel Westerners, dollar for dollar.

He’s the same race as the Palestinians. He speaks the same language. He’s a Sunni, just like they are. He believes Jews are apes and pigs, just like they do.

But he won’t pony up!

Funny about that.

And remember where all that money that went to Fatah has been coming from: your tax dollars.

That’s right: you paid for Yasser Arafat’s Mercedes and his falafel and his nancy boy “bodyguards”.

If our governments decide to start sending Hamas money, we in the West better get ready to YELL REAL LOUD.

Foggy Bottom and Jamaat ul-Fuqra

 
The Politics of CP notes that Jamaat ul-Fuqra (see previous posts on JF here, here, and here) was removed from the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations during the waning days of the Clinton Administration. For some reason the Bush Administration has yet to return the group to the list. Even with the departure of Colin Powell and the accession of Secretary Rice, the situation has not changed. Why?

I have yet to determine what reasonable explanation could be given for their removal. They didn’t just go away. Their members haven’t disbanded. Their “isolated rural compounds” haven’t been sold off and abandoned. Their criminal activities have not ceased. Their ties to other terrorist groups have not been broken. Their leadership has not been captured (and they’re not even on the run!).

The only explanation I can come up with is that it was guided by a view that this group was “small-time” and could best be handled as a “law enforcement issue”. The September 10th mentality was that individual murders, a firebombing here and there, and white-collar crimes were just ordinary criminal occurrences and didn’t fall under the purview of real counterterrorism. The country didn’t yet fully realize what these activities meant in the context of militant Islamic extremism.

But, as I said and as I have documented in my reports, the activities of Jamaat ul-Fuqra did not cease in 1999 or 2000. Law enforcement in New York still considers them a terrorist organization. Officials in California and Colorado still consider them a terrorist organization. The Department of Homeland Security still considers them a terrorist organization and the list goes on.

CP points out that the military is less sanguine about JF. They certainly consider it to be a terrorist organization, and list it in TRADOC DCSINT Handbook No. 1: A Military Guide to Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century:

Jamaat ul-Fuqra is listed in the 2003, 2004, and 2005 editions (although the information is unchanged). In Appendix A, entitled “Terrorist Threat to Combatant Commands,” they are listed in the Area of Operations (AOR) of both NORTHCOM and CENTCOM with an asterisk denoting a history of anti-U.S. activity.

So what’s with the State Department? Does the stripey-pants set find itself more in harmony with gun-running terrorists than it does with the U.S. Military?

It’s time we got honest about the kinds of people that are operating among us. Yes, here they pose as a harmless group of rural Muslims. In Pakistan, there is no doubt they are a militant jihadi group. Both are sincerely loyal to the same Sheikh Gilani. They are a threat. Let’s put two and two together here, folks.

Secretary Rice, put them back on the list! And, as Michael Ledeen would say, “Faster, please!”

CP has a lot more material on Jamaat ul-Fuqra. He has done a lot of first-rate investigative reporting on the group; just go on over to his place and keep scrolling.

The Danish Food Fight

 
Gates of Vienna has been tagged by The Adventuress to discuss the latest details on the Islamicists’ tantrum regarding those Danish cartoons of Mohammed.

The beat goes on. Defeated in court, but still pissy and hypersensitive, the so-called moderate imams from Denmark have been touring the Middle East, spreading lies about Denmark and how Muslims are treated there.

Saudi BoycottThese sore losers, who don’t blink an eye at practicing taqiyya if it gets them what they want, have now instigated a boycott of Danish goods. One company which distributes Danish products, Arla Foods, has information on events in Saudi Arabia. There, the Danish Embassy’s website has posted a letter from the Ambassador. Newspapers in Saudi Arabia have refused to publish it, though they did allow a paid advertisement to be run which displayed the letter.

The amounts of money involved in this imbroglio are not insignificant:

Arla’s turnover in the Middle East is DKK 2.6 billion annually – of which DKK 1.2 billion derives from Saudi Arabia. The company employs a workforce of 1,000 in the region.

And all this brouhaha over some cartoons of Mohammed which the Jyllands-Posten had the nerve to publish.

Every day, Muslims in the Middle East kill, maim, and steal from the small remnant of Christians still alive there. But so what? How does the trivial affair of the deaths of infidel children compare with blasphemous cartoons of Mohammed?

This Islamic tantrum has been going on since September, when the government refused to intervene and punish the Danish newspaper. The pressure on the Danish prime minister by various factions, including his government’s own retired foreign service officers, has continued unabated. And still the government holds firm to its principles of free speech.

The Brussels Journal has kept this issue on the front burner. The MSM in America, of course, has ignored it while stories of what Alito did or didn’t say, do or think since he came of age have taken up all the ink and air time:

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen is shocked at the way in which some Muslims are misrepresenting Denmark in the Islamic world. “I am speechless that those people, whom we have given the right to live in Denmark and where they freely have chosen to stay, are now touring Arab countries and inciting antipathy towards Denmark and the Danish people,” Rasmussen told journalists yesterday.

Rasmussen was responding to the recent visits by certain imams, Muslim intellectuals and representatives of Danish Muslim organizations who toured a number of Muslim countries to “explain” the Danish cartoon affair to local political and religious leaders and media. The affair started last September when the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published 12 cartoons of Muhammad.

Are you wondering why we are being treated to this hyperbole by the mad imams from Denmark? The Astute Blogger offers an explanation:

The controversial Jyllands-Posten cartoons were published in September. Er um… that’s FIVE (5) months ago! SO: Why is this coming to a head NOW?

BECAUSE IRAN WILL BE TAKEN UP FOR REVIEW IN THE UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL… and DENMARK IS ON THE UNSC AND WILL SOON CHAIR THE UNSC (JUNE)! And they’ve already come out against Iran!

The Adventuress, Dhimmi Watch, and many others are urging people to counter the Muslim tantrums.

Rosenborg Brand Buy Danish foods. My favorite is the Rosenborg brand of cheeses. There is an especially nice one, little cubes of bleu or feta cheese packed in oil with herbs and spices. You can use the cheese in salads — and dig at the bottom of the jar for some of the herbs to season the greens. If you look closely at the image you can see the hexagonal jar way over on the right.

The Astute Blogger is somewhat more ferocious in his approach:

Denmark will not be cowed. Danes are not like the French or the Spanish. Danes are brave and true. In fact, 80% of the Danes oppose any capitulation to the Arab Muslims on this issue – and their parliament just voted to INCREASE their troops presence in Iraq! Even as Libya and other Arab Muslim nations withdraw their ambassadors and threaten a boycott of all Danish goods.

The Free World ought to boycott the Arab Muslim nations who boycott Denmark. The Danish shipping lines – two of the biggest in the world – ought to stop carrying Arab Muslim goods or shipping in or out of Arab Muslim nations which are boycotting them.

We should let the intolerant, belligerent, xenophobic, misogynistic, cousin-marrying, honor-killing, freedom-hating, racist, genocidal Arab Muslim maniacs EAT SAND AND DRINK THEIR EFFIN’ OIL!

Ummm…Mr. A. Blogger seems to have amassed a rather inclusive list of Arab Muslim traits there. At least I can’t think of any further attributes to add.

Oh, yes, there is one small personality quirk: they lie like rugs. In fact, they lie like prayer rugs. And the buggers consider it a virtue, for heaven’s sake.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *


And now I have to choose five more victims participants for this distributive information defense. Let’s see…

1. Neo-Neocon
2. Air Force Family
3. e-claire
4. DryBones
5. New Victorian

If you see ’em before I do, let them know, would you? It can be difficult to dig out the email address for some of the sites.

On Leaving Home…Again

 
Leaving home. Leaving the place you have carved out for yourself: the familiarity of streets, neighborhoods, stores.

Leaving home. Leaving friends, acquaintances, people who know you, who have watched you grow up, have applauded your triumphs, cushioned your defeats.

Leaving home. The smells, the sights, the sounds of the everyday.

This is about the painful abandonment of one’s sense of place and belonging, one of the primary sources of security for most of us. Maybe there are some few peripatetic souls who prefer the rambling road, but for most of us, home is a hard-won sense of place. It is not one we easily surrender.

Nalin Pekgul is leaving home. Again. The first time she was thirteen. It was 1980 and her family fled Turkey for political reasons. Being a Kurd in Turkey and demanding human rights recognitions is a risky business. It was her father’s business and it led to immigration for his family.

They settled in Sweden that year, in a Stockholm suburb called Tensta. It was a place in transition, called by some a ghetto of failures, and by others a multicultural enclave. But Ms. Pekgul says it was not either of these things — or rather that it was both:

Neither of these images painted a complete picture. Yes, we had unemployment and prejudices that led to ethnic tensions. But we also had happy children and ambitious young people with bright hopes for the future.

Funny, isn’t it, when you live an experience rather than merely observe it. You have its truth in your bones in a way no outsider can fully fathom or accurately describe. When Ms. Pekgul says it this way:

I stayed in Tensta as an adult, even though I could have afforded to move to a more prosperous neighborhood. This led to accusations that I lived there just because it’s “politically correct.” I never chose to live in Tensta to improve my image. The only reason I didn’t want to leave was that for 25 years Tensta was my home. Many of my closest friends live there. If my children got sick and we didn’t have any medicine at home, there were always so many families around us to ask for help. This gave me an enormous feeling of security — a feeling most people who choose to live where their roots are probably know.

So what drives her to leave after twenty five years?

One reason: murderous intolerance tricked out in religious fervor:

Unfortunately, the neighborhood I called my home for so many years has changed. It’s no longer the familiar place it used to be and, most importantly, I no longer feel safe in Tensta. The influence of Islamic fundamentalists has grown so much over the years that it is now impossible for me and my family to live there anymore. I’m tired of being expected to speak badly of Christians and Jews just because I’m Muslim. I’m tired of the hate preachers. I’m tired of seeing women condemned for the way they dress. I don’t want my daughter to be exposed to this type of aggression in the future. So I will soon have to leave Tensta.

Ms. Pekgul comes from a long line of educated, forward-thinking Kurds. She looks at the present situation in Tensta through the lens of her family’s history of struggle and development:

As I look back at the history of my family, which for generations has fought for progress and modernization in Kurdish provinces, I’m astonished by the recent developments here in Sweden. Many years ago my grandfather, living as an imam in Turkey, decided to take his children out of Quranic school and send them to Latin school. That was in the 1950s. During the 1980s, my husband was active in the Kurdish-Turkish student movement and fought for the rights of women. I never imagined that in the new millennium, and in Sweden of all places, my five-year-old son would have to defend and explain in his day-care center why his mother doesn’t wear a head scarf.

That’s the new Islam she’s describing and it is a bloody business, one funded by Saudi Arabia and spreading through Europe and America. It is a cancer in the form of Wahhabi Islam.

AngiogenesisI use the metaphor of cancer deliberately. A tumor is a group of cells that have gone wild. In order to grow and spread, it must have blood; it must send out orders to attract blood vessels to those first cells. This signal and returning answer is angiogenesis, the building of blood vessels. Without this essential feature, tumors cannot grow or later metastasize.

The tumor is the Wahhabists, vascularized by petroleum, swollen and metastasizing its death cult over the whole world. The Wahhabi Saudis are a death-driven cancer. Without their oil, fundamentalism would wither and die, just like a tumor deprived of its blood supply. Ms.Pekgul has seen this and she despairs:

Muslim fundamentalists have focused on strengthening their position in Europe for many years now. The first time I ever met Muslim fundamentalists was in 1993. I had read in Turkish newspapers that Saudi Wahabbists were trying to set up organizations in Europe in order to isolate the European Muslims from the rest of the population. These young men I then met in Tensta were educated but also full of hate against the West. I didn’t take them seriously back then.

But today I must admit that they have succeeded. The Muslim fundamentalists are now getting stronger by the day. When the Islamists complain how the Europeans don’t show any respect for the Muslim way of life, you get the impression that all they want is that we all make small, little adjustments out of consideration to their customs. But when have Islamists ever shown any consideration or respect for other people’s way of life?

When you have seen Islamists throw acid in the faces of women because they don’t wear head scarves, then there is no room for compromise. They want to impose their ideology on the rest of society.

So what drives an individual to find this kind of life attractive? Ms. Pekgul says the original driving force in the advances Wahhabi fundamentalism has made lay originally in the feelings of being outsiders who were discriminated against. In a certain sense she is right, but she has only part of the truth there. Because she lives inside the system it is difficult for her to see beyond it to another kind of culture.

What is killing Europe is the unintended consequences of cradle-to-grave social welfare working in tandem with the European inability to let outsiders fully participate in a given culture and mingle on an equal level with the native population. Unlike the American experiment of welcoming immigrants whole-heartedly, Europeans cut themselves off, afraid perhaps of the concomitant changes that accompany any widening of the group. At the same time, they use their welfare programs to keep the strangers in their midst housed and fed, but hardly employed at their level of competence. This breeds resentment more surely than if they had left them homeless and hungry:

The Islamists’ solution to the discrimination is for Muslims to distance themselves even further from the European society. Influenced by the fundamentalists’ propaganda, the young men begin to mold their identity exclusively around one central theme — that of being offended and injured Muslims. This was also a contributing factor for the riots in the French suburbs.

Ms. Pekgul says this puts moderate Muslims in a difficult position. I say it puts them in an untenable position. They cannot go up against an organized terrorism that will ratchet up the ante immediately if they disagree publicly. It is unreasonable to expect moderate, secular Muslims to deter these people any more than the average Irishman could have affected any detente with the murderous IRA.

Caught between a rock and a hard place, reasonable people like Ms. Pekgul must leave in order to survive. It is up to the political, legal, judicial and social structures of European countries to sort out this mess. Unfortunately, they set up a system they have yet to find a way to direct or control.

Until they figure this out, the moderate Muslims have the same three sad choices that befall anyone living under tyranny: they can keep silent, they can join up with the fundamentalists, or they can flee.

Ms. Pekgul is honoring her family tradition: once more, another generation is fleeing terrorism.



Hat tip: Reader Annlee

Islam’s Nancy Boys

 
Doing what comes naturally in KandaharDymphna’s post on Friday about Mukhtar Mai included the following assertion about pederasty under Islam:

…they don’t call it pedophilia in Muslim countries, nor do they consider anal rape of boys by older men as homosexual behavior if a man is the aggressor against the boy. Those acts are just standard operating procedure and this allows them to get around the strictures of Sharia law.

This provoked a question from Pastorius:

I’ve got a question. How does one document this statement?

The reason I am asking is because I have read these kinds of statements about Islamic society many times, but, there is no documentation.

This is not to say that I don’t believe that this kind of thing exists. I think it does exist in primitive societies all over the world. It exists in most prisons as well. And, of course, what is prison life, if not primitive life?

The thing is, as I can not document the above statement, when I have posted such things on my blog, I expect that liberals will think I am simply posting slander against Islam. I would really prefer to document what I write about, rather than going on anecdotes.

Dymphna responded to Pastorius, citing some sources that she has used in the past and providing additional information.

Then ik — a frequent commenter here at Gates of Vienna — supplied a reference to an article (originally found in The Times, but no longer available) about pederasty as it is traditionally practiced by the Pashtuns in Afghanistan. Correspondent Tim Reid was reporting from Kandahar four years ago:

Now that Taleban rule is over in Mullah Omar’s former southern stronghold, it is not only televisions, kites and razors which have begun to emerge. Visible again, too, are men with their ashna, or beloveds: young boys they have groomed for sex.

Kandahar’s Pashtuns have been notorious for their homosexuality for centuries, particularly their fondness for naïve young boys. Before the Taleban arrived in 1994, the streets were filled with teenagers and their sugar daddies, flaunting their relationship.

It is called the homosexual capital of south Asia. Such is the Pashtun obsession with sodomy — locals tell you that birds fly over the city using only one wing, the other covering their posterior — that the rape of young boys by warlords was one of the key factors in Mullah Omar mobilising the Taleban.

Mr. Reid goes on to describe the changes instituted by the Taliban as they imposed their strict interpretation of Sharia, including the now-infamous practice of toppling stone walls onto homosexual offenders.

But the Taliban have been hustled into the dustbin of history, and the traditional ways are re-emerging:

‘In the days of the Mujahidin, there were men with their ashna everywhere, at every corner, in shops, on the streets, in hotels: it was completely open, a part of life,’ said Torjan, 38, one of the soldiers loyal to Kandahar’s new governor, Gul Agha Sherzai.

‘But in the later Mujahidin years, more and more soldiers would take boys by force, and keep them for as long as they wished. But when the Taleban came, they were very strict about the ban. Of course, it still happened —the Taleban could not enter every house — but one could not see it.’

But for the first time since the Taleban fled, in the past three days, one can see the pairs returning: usually a heavily bearded man, seated next to, or walking with, a clean-shaven, fresh faced youth. There appears to be no shame or furtiveness about them, although when approached, they refuse to talk to a western journalist.

‘They are just emerging again,’ Torjan said. ‘The fighters too now have the boys in their barracks. This was brought to the attention of Gul Agha, who ordered the boys to be expelled, but it continues. The boys live with the fighters very openly. In a short time, and certainly within a year, it will be like pre-Taleban: they will be everywhere.’

What is one to make of all this? Does NAMBLA have a position paper on the overthrow of the Taliban?

Islam holds sway over a large part of the world where brutality has been the way of life for millennia. In Islamic tribal cultures, women are a scarce commodity, hoarded by rich and powerful men, leaving unattached men in the same situation as men in prison.

And the outcome is the same: the young and the weak become the “nancy boys” of the older and more powerful men. A culture of pederasty develops, consisting of dominant men and their catamites. Raised on a regimen of brutality, the young boys grow up to inflict it on the next generation.

Talk about a “cycle of violence.”

Want Shrapnel With That?

 
Those bloody limeys — at least the leftists ones, whose hatred of America obliterates their common sense. Take a gander at this interpretation of Hamas’ win in Palestine:

Hamas’s triumph in Wednesday’s Palestinian elections is the best news from the Middle East for a long time. The poll was a more impressive display of democracy than any other in the region, outstripping last year’s votes in Lebanon and Iraq both in turnout and the range of views that candidates represented.
Whereas in Iraq parties that opposed the occupation had to downplay or even obscure their views, Palestinian supporters of armed resistance to Israel’s expansionist strategies were able to run openly. It is true that Hamas candidates did not make relations with Israel the centrepiece of their campaign. They focused on reform in the Palestinian Authority. But few voters were unaware of Hamas’s uncompromising hostility to occupation and its record in fighting it.

Wednesday’s election was remarkable also in owing nothing to Washington’s (selective) efforts to promote democracy in the Arab world. Instead, it was further proof that civil society in Palestine is more vibrant than anywhere else in the region and that Palestinian politics has its own dynamics, dictated not by outside pressure but the social and economic demands of ordinary people in appalling conditions. Providing a forum to freely express hopes and fears, debate policy and seek agreed solutions is, after all, what democracy is about.

Good Lord and His Blessed Mother! Where do you even begin to dissect this man’s ideas?

How about the first sentence: Hamas’s triumph in Wednesday’s Palestinian elections is the best news from the Middle East for a long time. Because…why? Because the better terrorists won?

Or perhaps this bit of ummm…wisdom? Wednesday’s election was remarkable also in owing nothing to Washington’s (selective) efforts to promote democracy in the Arab world.

This piece drips with scornful envy. Is he mad because the sun set on the British Empire before he had his chance to be king of the hill? Mr. Steele continues:

In Israel and Washington reaction to Hamas’s victory has been predictably negative. European governments should take a more sensitive view. The first watchword is caution. Applaud the process but don’t take issue with the result. While the dust settles and Hamas works out its own priorities for government, Europeans should calmly analyse why Hamas got so much support.

Now why do you think Hamas got so much support from a culture which celebrates suicide bombers?

You may send your cluebags to Mr. Steele here: j.steele@guardian.co.uk.

Send prayers to the usual place.



Hat tip: Epaminondas from Villagers With Torches. His site is well worth a visit.

Death to Apostates

 
Palestinians exercise the perquisites of democracyAccording to the Sydney Morning Herald, Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas is not totally antipathetic to the idea of dealing with Hamas:

Acknowledging Hamas’s new standing as a political powerhouse, Mr Abbas told reporters: “We are consulting and in contact with all the Palestinian groups and definitely, at the appropriate time, the biggest party will form the cabinet.”

But the more faithful members of Fatah have vowed to kill any member who defects to Hamas:

The militant al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, part of Fatah, issued a statement threatening to “liquidate” the faction’s leaders if they changed their minds and joined a Hamas-led administration.

Isn’t this the Ummah writ small? Islam in miniature? Apostates must be killed! Remain loyal to The Faith, or pay with your life!

Maybe it’s the start of a trend, with smaller and smaller sub-units of Islam promising death to defectors.

The patrons of Walid’s Café vow to kill anyone who patronizes Ali’s Lunch Counter!

In other news, the Rotary Club of Boise formed a shotgun militia do defend its prerogatives. “Anyone who joins the Lions Club will be hunted down and killed like the dog that he is!” announced its leader, the self-proclaimed Generalissimo Steve. “No rival to the true Rotarian faith will be tolerated.”

Mukhtar Mai Still Perseveres

I Could Scream: Examining the plight of women under Islam
The Glittering Eye has a post up earlier this week on Mukhtar Mai’s latest slap-down by Pakistan. This one is a bit different since it happened at the UN:

Ms. Mai had long been scheduled to make an appearance called “An Interview With Mukhtar Mai: The Bravest Woman on Earth” in the United Nations television studios, sponsored by the office for nongovernmental organizations, the Virtue Foundation and the Asian-American Network Against Abuse of Human Rights.
Mukhtar MailBut on Thursday night the organizers were informed that the program would have to be postponed because of Pakistan’s objections.

Mukhtar Mai is an embarrassment to Pakistan. They fervently wish they could get rid of her, but they don’t dare. She’s too big, too much a symbol of courage in the face of impossible circumstances. She should be dead. She was supposed to be dead. But she not only lives, she flourishes.

Now Gateway Pundit reports on her latest efforts, using a quote from Pakistan’s The Age:

Wrapped in a shawl she embroidered herself and wearing traditional shalwar kameez, a baggy tunic and trousers, Ms Mai was jubilant as she anticipated the election of two housewives from her village of Meerwala to a district council.

“I hope these women will help resolve problems of all women. This can only be done if women are fully empowered,” said Ms Mai, who caused a storm of bad publicity for Pakistan and became an international symbol for women’s rights after speaking out over her gang rape ordeal three years ago.

The elections aim to give women a greater say by reserving them seats in representative bodies.

The first phase of elections for district councils was held on August 19, when 53 of the country’s 110 districts voted. The remaining districts will cast their ballots tomorrow [this was last week ed.].

Turnout was put around 50 per cent in the first round, but among women it was less, ranging from 43 per cent in populous Punjab province to 16 per cent in North-West Frontier Province, where there have been allegations that women were barred from casting their ballots in some constituencies.

”Allegations,” huh? I’ll bet they were threatened with being accused of bringing shame on their families. If there is one thing Ms. Mai has taught the West it is what consequences follow from shaming the family.

Interestingly, in many stories of her treatment by the village council, it is reported that she was raped because of her younger brother’s behavior in being with a young woman without a chaperone. In reality, her younger brother was raped by several members of a prominent family in the village. When asked if he planned to tell his family, he replied that he would. As a consequence, he was placed in a room with a girl from this clan and the police were called. He was then arrested and Muktar Mai’s fate was sealed. Or so they thought.

Eventually the pedophiles were tried and convicted. Only they don’t call it pedophilia in Muslim countries, nor do they consider anal rape of boys by older men as homosexual behavior if a man is the aggressor against the boy. Those acts are just standard operating procedure and this allows them to get around the strictures of Sharia law. Doesn’t every culture rape its boys regularly? Well, Middle Eastern cultures do.

WE CANThere is hope, however. The movement to free women is growing. We Can End Violence Against All Women , known as “WE CAN” is a regionally organized campaign. Its Pakistan location reports that the interior minister admits to 2,774 deaths of women in the previous five years due to honor killings. Common sense tells you that the figure is much higher, since many human rights groups claim that at least eighty per cent of Pakistani women are abused. It would be a toss-up between Pakistan and Palestine as to which place is more bestial toward women and children. They both suffer badly from a hair-trigger reactivity when it comes to their putative “honor.”

Any culture or country that so despises half their population and so routinely bestializes its young is a doomed project. It just takes awhile.

As Michael Ledeen would say, faster please. Oh please!

Surprise Landside Vote for the Klan on the South Bank

 
Sorghum City, Alabama (AP) — The stunning electoral victory by the Ku Klux Klan in this small southern town has taken veteran political observers by surprise. The political wing of the KKK won a total of 12 out of 16 seats on the city council, plus the offices of mayor and district attorney. Jimmy Carter, a former governor of the neighboring state of Georgia, headed a team of election observers who certified the election as “free and fair, within the limits to be expected in a strife-torn region like Alabama.”

Many locals are concerned about the future of the peace process between the white residents and the town’s Negroes, which the KKK refers to as an “occupation force.” Under the more moderate outgoing administration of the Democratic Party, negotiations with the black community had been pursued, even as the Democrats continued to assert their rights in the struggle against the “brutal Negro.”

A happy KKKidBilly Bugline, a member of the more militant “military wing” of the KKK, celebrated the election victory with his family last night. As his cousins fired guns in the air, he held up his youngest son Leroy, who was clad in the traditional white head garb of the Klan and waved its “holy book”.

“We will never give up the struggle against the infernal Negro,” said Mr. Bugline. “As long as the sacred soil of Sorghum City remains occupied, we will struggle against the enemy with any available weapons. Guns and bombs, tar and feathers — all of these, and more, are available to us.”

Questioning the history of blacks in Alabama, Mr. Bugline said, “There’s no real historical evidence that ‘Slavery’ ever happened. It’s just a story cooked by the sinister African Cabal.” He cited a book called The Protocols of the Elders of Kilimanjaro as evidence of his contention. The book, however, has long been discredited, and is widely considered a forgery created in the 1950s by the South African Secret Police.

Other residents are less extreme in their views than Mr. Bugline.

“I voted for the Klan because it means a change,” said Mrs. Flossie Needlefoos as she stood in front of the feed store with other local residents. “We’re all tired of the corrupt ‘business-as-usual’ attitude at City Hall. It don’t mean I want to kill all the Negroes. I just want them to return to their proper place.” Heads around her nodded in agreement.

Political analysts speculate that the KKK, now that it has gained real political power, will become more pragmatic in its outlook and withdraw its long-standing call for the extermination of all black people. That would lay the groundwork for a return to the negotiating table and a resumption of the long-stalled peace process.

Only time will tell.

Judge I. Dithers and His Dilemma

 
60 daysJudge Dithers Cashman of Vermont is beginning to see the error in his thinking — the error that led him to give a pedophile with a history of four years of ongoing abuse a mere three months for his sins. Perhaps, just maybe, he is growing an idea, one that involves his recognition that he may not be as knowledgeable about this kind of crime as he thought he was.

That’s the thing about judges: they stay in that bubble on the throne in the courtroom for too long, being shown a medieval kind of respect, and they forget they’re just folks.

At The Neighborhood of God two weeks ago, “In Cast Adrift by Judge Cashman” I parsed the evident sloppy thinking on the part of the judge. To announce that “anger is corrosive” as an excuse for his brief sentence meted out to this criminal may be the most ignorant thing I’ve heard from a local judge. Anger is a self-regulating response to being attacked. It allows us to defend ourselves. So this judge was going to solve everyone’s “anger” problem by giving the perp three months and lots of “treatment.”

As I said then, pedophiles are resistant to treatment, if not downright waterproof. Judges like this, who side with predators, are harmful to the commonweal. Parents are frightened when they hear how few consequences these life-destroyers face. It is almost unbearable to think that your child could be abused for four years, that you face decades of helping her stabilize and he gets three months. How’s that for a “bim-bam-thank-you-ma’am” outcome?

Fox News says he’s changed his mind and given the man a heavier sentence, but when you read the story, tell me if you understand what is being said. Is it Judge Dithers that makes the story confusing or is it the Fox reporter? It’s hard to tell.

To end on a happier note, I will tell you the funniest story I know about a judge and a pedophile. I heard this story many years ago at a child abuse conference. The man telling it was a certified child sex abuse expert — that is, the courts had qualified him as such when it came to examining alleged sex abusers and reporting his findings. The story he told us went like this:

There was a man on trial for repeatedly sexually abusing his thirteen year-old daughter. The man didn’t deny the abuse. His excuse was that he had to get his daughter up for school every morning and because they lived in a trailer, the hall was very narrow. When his daughter had to get by him in order to move to the living room, things were so crowded that his penis kind of “fell into” his daughter’s vagina. Therefore it wasn’t his fault. It was the trailer’s fault.

The judge pondered a bit and said to the man: “You’re absolutely right. You’re innocent.” At which point the man began to smile. “However,” the judge went on, “your penis is guilty as hell and I’m sentencing it to ten years in prison. You can go with it if you want.”

That judge was a genius. Too bad Judge Dithers didn’t have his good counsel before he tried this particular pedophile.

Atlanta Rofters Prepare for Israel’s Destruction

 
Good satire is always in short supply. And Atlanta Rofters isn’t a satirist’s blog per se. Point Five can breathe a sigh of relief.

Nonetheless they’ve put up a post to rival PF’s droll wit:

We’re all familiar with the motto of those homophobic Boy Scouts, right? The one about being prepared?

For Muslims, the motto seems to have been expanded to “Be Prepared To Be Offended.”

Here’s a part of AC’s juicy bite out of the Muslim apple:

American Islamic Leaders Warn Of Anti-Muslim Backlash Following Next Month’s Nuking Of Tel Aviv

     Bleurters News Service, (WASHINGTON)
The D.C. Islamic Eternal Justice Endeavor against War and Stereotyping (DIEJEWS) yesterday issued a strongly worded statement condemning a rising backlash against Muslims following next month’s nuclear bombing of Tel Aviv, Israel by Iran. The press release warned against an increase in anti-Muslim discrimination, hate crimes, and government harassment following the destruction of the unofficial Israeli capital city next month, as announced by the Iranian government.
“We call on all Americans of goodwill to hold fast to our traditional American values of tolerance and diversity,” the statement said in part. “No justification is possible for the heightened tensions and increased suspicions against innocent Muslims following next month’s tragic events. The chilling of Islamic-American relations will overshadow the great strides made since 9/11 in rolling back jingoism.” The statement stopped short of calling the nuclear bombing of Tel Aviv by the Islamic Republic of Iran a terrorist act, but called for “restraint by both sides” in future crises.
“Next month’s nuking of Tel Aviv and the subsequent dancing in the streets by Muslims worldwide have nothing to do with Islam,” DIEJEWS spokesperson Marysuellen al-Shahid said in a telephone interview. “We condemn what’s going to happen. People claim they are doing it for Islam, but it’s really in spite of Islam. The first people to suffer, after the victims, are the Muslim community.

Oh, that’s right. So let’s be prepared, too, to comfort the afflicted, shall we? Even the ones dancing in the streets have their secret sorrows. Actually, not so secret. In fact, they should maybe tone it down a bit? Allah may be enjoying the hi-jinks, but Yahweh hasn’t weighed in with an opinion yet.

Better hedge your bets, fellows.

Highly recommended: Atlanta Rofters…but what’s a rofter??