Germany has a nerve. It is sending its chancellor over here on a state visit so Bush can be admonished in person for the existence of the Guantanamo Hilton. According to Ex Patica:

	Chancellor Angela Merkel is likely to receive a warm welcome when she visits Washington this week with a senior White House official praising Sunday the closer ties that had developed between Berlin and the US since Germany’s September election.
	[…]
	However, during talks Friday with President George W. Bush, Merkel is expected to press for Washington to close America’s controversial detention camp at Guantanamo Bay.

This bit of self-righteousness from a country which released Mohammed Ali Hamdi to Lebanon after he served only eighteen years of a life sentence for the torture and death of an American serviceman, US Navy Petty Officer, Robert Dean Stehem.

Michael Ledeen features the letter written by Stenhem’s brother to President Bush, demanding that something be done about the situation:

Date: January 8, 2006 4:15:57 PM PST
To: president@whitehouse.gov
Cc: vicepresident@whitehouse.gov
Subject: ROBERT DEAN STETHEM

Mr. President,

I would like to provide you with an explanation as to why Muhammed Ali Hammadi’s recent release by Germany, and your Administration’s lack of any attempt to prevent it, is so upsetting to our family and to Americans everywhere. I am not writing you out of grief or anger but out of a hope that his example will inspire you to follow act on your own words and the dictates of your conscious in this War on Terror.

Robert Dean Stethem was singled out, beaten beyond recognition and tortured in order to make him scream into a transmitter (so that the tower would send a fuel truck). Not a cry was heard to come from him, despite the brutal beating he endured. Instead he chose to remain silent and endure the beatings because he knew that the only way a rescue attempt could be conducted by U.S. forces was if the aircraft remained on the ground.

After Robert was beaten and tortured and bleeding from puncture wounds all over his body, he was placed next to a 16-year old Australian girl. As bad as Robert was beaten, he had the courage and strength to comfort and console her. He told her that, “She would be okay and that she would get out of here alive.” When she tried to return the comfort, he said, “No, I don’t think so. I am the only one in my group that is not married and some of the guys have children, too.” Some time later, Robert was again taken up to the cockpit and tortured in order to get the fuel. But it didn’t work, he would not give in to them.

One of the hijackers, Muhammed Ali Hammadi, was so enraged that he dragged Robert to the door, pulled a trigger and shot Robert in the head. Then he dumped Robert’s body onto the tarmac. While Robert was being dragged to the door, he knew that all he had to do in order to live was to cry into that transmitter, but he wouldn’t do it. He would not give in to the demands of the terrorists. He would not allow the honor and dignity of America to be intimidated by the fear and pain that Hammadi and terrorists everywhere represent. Robert sacrificed his life in order to protect our liberty and defend our way of life.

You have rightly said, “Whether we bring our enemies to justice, or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done.” You have truly said that “We are in a fight for our principles, and our first responsibility is to live by them.” Robert lived by them. Robert also died by them. The motto of the USS SSTETHEM (DDG-63), named in Robert’s honor, is “Steadfast and Courageous.” I hope that his example, and the example of other heroes like him can inspire you to understand why allowing Germany to release Hammadi was a wrong. Justice was not done, Robert was not honored and Americans are not safer by allowing Hammadi to return to Lebanon and Hezbollah.

You know this, we know this and the American people know this.

The Stethem family

So Chancellor Merkel is going to come over here and tell us what to do about Guantanamo? She needs to clean house first, then come share whatever wisdom accrues to her in the process.

Meanwhile, from The American Thinker:

	Lebanon is claiming double jeopardy, and refusing to turn Hamdi over. Congressman Fossella [NY, 13th Congressional District] is threatening to shut off the current $35 million per year in aid to Lebanon. His eloquent statement of purpose speaks for itself:
	America’s path is clear: We will pursue terrorists wherever they seek refuge. No individual responsible for the taking of an American life should evade the judgment of an American court. Lebanon can choose to be either a partner in ridding the scourge of terrorism or another obstacle that cowers to the most radical elements of society.
	The question is whether Lebanon is up to the task.

Well, that’s one question all right. Another question is whether President Bush is going to put equal and opposite “pressure” on Chancellor Merkel for her government’s very, very unfriendly gesture in simply letting go the murderer of one of our military men.

Which path is it to be, Mr. President?

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NOTE: Over at LGF, commenter Gymnast has suggested that President Bush arrange a meeting between Chancellor Merkel and the Stethem family. Excellent idea! Perhaps they could have their confab aboard the USS STETHEM. No doubt the ship’s commanding officer would be amenable to the idea of entertaining the Stethems and the Chancellor. And the MSM would be right on the story…

Hat tip: LARWYN

The Counterterrorism Blog celebrated its first anniversary on the 4th of January. If you don’t have their site bookmarked, I suggest you do so ASAP. Besides the cogency of their posts, the sidebars offer news updates, frequently refreshed. It often carries stories you won’t see elsewhere.

Today, they have a link to a news story from Yahoo in which the Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, not only turns down overtures from Afghan President Hamid Karzai, but promises the usual exploding party line:

	“The Taliban attacks in Afghanistan will further intensify in this New Year, which will force Americans to leave Afghanistan very soon,” he said in a message carried by the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) news agency.
	[…]
	Omar, whose whereabouts have been unknown since U.S.-led forces toppled his government in late 2001, said jihad was a religious obligation for Muslims as the United States was “the biggest enemy of Islam.”
	“Muslims should stand prepared for the sacrifice of jihad on the great day of Eid al-Adha because armed jihad is the only way to safeguard the Islamic world.”

This particular representative of the Religion of Peace used the three-day Muslim religious festival as the occasion to repeat his tired call for Jihad against the US — and of course against President Karzai, that “American puppet.” What other kind of puppet is there? Don’t you kind of miss the time when we were the “running dogs of imperialism”?

Meanwhile, in Kandahar, a southern province in Afghanistan which borders Pakistan, the assault against the United States Army continues. This particular phase of their miltary campaign targeting the American Army appears to involve burning down schools:

	Suspected Taliban gunmen destroyed a coed primary school in the main southern Afghan city Sunday, first tying up two security guards before setting the buildings on fire, officials said.
	The attack in Kandahar was the latest in a spate of assaults that have forced many schools to close. The insurgents claim that educating girls is against Islam and they even oppose government-funded schools for boys because they teach subjects besides religion.
	Suspected Taliban insurgents last Tuesday beheaded the headmaster of another coed school in the region.
	[…]
	Dozens of schools have been attacked and burned since U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban in 2001 for sheltering terror leader Osama bin Laden. Most of the attacks have come at night and not caused fatalities.

I guess the occasional beheading doesn’t count as a fatality? Don’t the Associated Press and CNN have flair?

Meanwhile, congratulations to the Counterterrorism Blog. It is a treasure.

 
So far so good: The Danes continue their stand against the arrayed forces of political correctness.

The Brussels Journal reports that the Muslims took it to court, as the Danish Prime Minister had suggested they do. And the courts said —- to paraphrase: too-bad-so-sad-free-speech-trumps-ignorance.

Essentially, the public prosecutor in Viborg, Denmark dismissed the charges brought by eleven Danish Muslim organizations against Jyllands-Posten for its temerity in publishing cartoon examples of Muhammad. According to Danish law, the publication was within its rights to publish the cartoons; the Muslims are within their rights to be offended. According to the Brussels Journal, though, the offended Muslims aren’t done yet:

Legal experts say this was to be expected. However, the Muslim organizations are disappointed and are considering appealing to the State Prosecutor and even to the European Court of Human Rights.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister spoke about the issue and someone in the Danish government had the good sense to have the speech translated into Arabic. The basic courtesy of acts like this communicate far more than the law can.

And the Foreign Minister of Denmark, Per Stig Møller, initiated a call to Amr Moussa, the Secretary General of the Arab League, suggesting they needed to move along on this issue:

	Møller contacted Moussa after the league expressed their ‘surprise and indignation’ over the Danish government’s reaction to the protest of both Danish Muslims as well as Muslim ambassadors in Denmark.
	In addition to agreeing to end the controversy, Moussa also accepted the Danish position that while there needs to be mutual respect between religions, that politicians should not get involved in what the media chooses to publish.

This contretemps is going to die a slow, lingering death, but die it will. Not all the hot air from all the thin-skinned Muslim balloons can breathe enough life into this non-issue to keep it going.

Which is not to say they won’t try. And Jyllands-Posten proved its point: free speech in Denmark is alive and well and principled men are in charge of its government.

Denmark 3*, Offended Danish Muslims O.

*The three points are awarded for (1) having published the cartoons in aid of an author seeking some examples; (2) the government’s refusal to get embroiled despite the pressure from Arab diplomats — and some of their own retired foreign service airheads; and (3) letting the courts decide the issue. The Muslims were awarded zero points in the hope they’ll realize eventually that they’re not in Mecca anymore.

A link from Regime Change in Iran to M. Ledeen at NRO:

…according to Iranians I trust, Osama bin Laden finally departed this world in mid-December. The al Qaeda leader died of kidney failure and was buried in Iran, where he had spent most of his time since the destruction of al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The Iranians who reported this note that this year’s message in conjunction with the Muslim Haj came from his number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, for the first time.

Ledeen notes the passing of many leaders in the Middle East and says we are in a transitional moment, a time of rapid change which is ours to shape…or not:

	This remarkable tempo of change is not likely to diminish, as old and/or sick men are in key positions in several countries: Israel’s Shimon Peres is 82. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is 82 (and his designated successor, Prince Sultan, is 81, and was recently operated for stomach cancer). Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, although probably in his sixties, is said to have serious liver cancer, and is not expected to survive the next year.
	And, of course, the patient activities of the Grim Reaper are not the only source of revolutionary change in the region. Saddam was a relatively young man (mid-sixties) when he was toppled by Coalition forces; the deposed Taliban leaders were relatively young as well (Mullah Omar is barely 50); and the likes of Bashar Assad, the Iranian mullahs (Khamenei is probably in his early sixties), and even the legions of the Saudi royal family have to contend with mounting animus from the West, and mounting cries for freedom from their own people.
	Much of the demographic component of rapid change comes from the enormous disparity between leaders and people…

Ledeen is always at his best when he is in prophetic mode, as he is here:

In short, both demography and geopolitics make this an age of revolution, as President Bush seems to have understood. Rarely have there been so many opportunities for the advance of freedom, and rarely have the hard facts of life and death been so favorable to the spread of democratic revolution.

The architect of 9/11 and the creator of Palestinian terrorism are gone. The guiding lights of our terrorist enemies are sitting on cracking thrones, challenged by young men and women who look to us for support. Not just words, and, above all, not promises that the war against the terror masters will soon end with a premature abandonment of what was always a miserably limited battlefield. This should be our moment.

The “winners” of this moment will shape it and leave their legacy. For us, even though Arafat and Osama (please be right, Mr. Ledeen) are gone, we are left with their smoking craters.

And it’s hard as hell to climb out of such deep, destructive holes…

 
This morning Dymphna received an email from a young man named Patrick. He had read her posts about the dhimmification of Europe, and needed some advice:

	Hi, I’m applying to study abroad at Lund University in Sweden from June to December of this year. I am currently attending UCLA. After reading about all the troubles with Muslim and other immigrants, I am worried, especially since Lund is right next to Malmo. I used to have the “grass is greener on the other side” (other side being Europe, to which I’ve never been) syndrome. But now I’m thinking that my time in Sweden and the rest of Europe might be ruined. What are your thoughts and advice on this?
	Your input appreciated,
	Patrick

I wrote him back and told him that I knew the status of Malmø, but had no information about Lund. So we couldn’t help him directly.

All was not lost, however. Even though the renowned Norwegian blogger Fjordman has quit blogging, he still reads his email. So I forwarded him Patrick’s message along with a brief note, and this evening I got a reply:

	Hello, Baron. Happy New Year 🙂
	Lund is considered to be one of Scandinavia’s best universities, and is not a bad choice. It is situated a bit outside of Malmø, and shouldn’t be a problem yet. Sweden is a much larger country geographically than, say, Holland, which means you can usually avoid the worst areas. Maybe that won’t be possible a generation from now, but it is still.
	I see he is studying at the UCLA. Tell him to think of it as southern California: Some areas are just fine, whereas some parts of Los Angeles, or in this case Malmø, is gang territory. If he’s used to the scene in LA he shouldn’t worry that much about Sweden just yet.
	I consulted a couple of other Scandinavian observers about this, and they said the same thing. He should go to Lund, and enjoy his stay in Sweden. But he should also observe how the situation is becoming in parts of Malmø now, and be glad he didn’t ask this question in 2015-2020. I might not have given the same answer then.

I have passed this information on to Patrick, and now he should be able to make an informed decision.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *Think about it: this morning a college student in California had concerns about the Great Jihad in Sweden, and contacted us. By this evening he had received an expert opinion from Scandinavian sources. Is this a great blogosphere, or what?

A generation ago, before the internet, it would have been all but impossible to accomplish this. Patrick would have had no recourse but to rely on information passed through the PR offices at the University of Lund or Swedish tourist bureaus and government agencies. Even now, all of them have a compelling interest in downplaying the potential problems he might find living among Muslims in Sweden.

The media would have been useless — for them, the entire issue could only have been viewed through the prism of white racism.

His own university would question his motives for asking. Scared of Muslims, are you? Obviously, you must be a racist! Time to take a diversity sensitivity training course — if you ever want to receive your undergraduate degree, that is…

What’s more, the downside of the Internet Age is that the mujahideen have access to the same communication tools, and many of them appear to be quite skilled at using them. Since they can count on the MSM to cover their back, the scales are tilted against a balanced assessment when questions like Patrick’s arise.

More than anything else, our confrontation with the Great Islamic Jihad is a war of information. We’re going to have to be consistent and persevering if we want to succeed against this foe.

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Cross-posted at Infidel Bloggers Alliance.

 
I love the European conservative blogs. They give me hope that all is not lost or dying there. Today, a visit on our site meter led me here.

Snouck (is that a Dutch word?) has many interests, not the least of which is the rampant damage being done to his country by the collectivist welfare system. In his leading post, he discusses the fraudulent uses to which it is put by the immigrants and their low level of participation in the economy:

	[A]while ago I heard in a tram two Moroccan girls discussing how smart their father was. Father received 75 percent from the money he used to earn as a worker in a logistics centre. The benefit was granted because of health problems that made it impossible for him to work in his old job. But he was offered other jobs now and he was dodging those jobs because he did not want to work.
	Shortly thereafter I encountered two Moroccans who disappeared from their jobs. Really young chaps, in their mid-twenties, who had been working for less than 5 years. Both were receiving benefits for “health problems”. One of the employers bluntly told me that he had seen it happening with quite a few Moroccans in his employ. He thought that they were scamming the system and know how to get doctor’s certificates.
	All in all the work participation rate of Moslims is very low. Something like 50 percent.

That is leech level, and leeches is what Snouck calls people who don’t work. The ones who are employed he terms the “woodchoppers,” citing the old German saying (also the old redneck saying around here):

Germanic values tell us: “Go chop wood for the fire, and you will get warm two times, once from work, and once from burning the logs. Odinsstrength, this land is cold!”

His thesis is that the cause is Islam itself, with its long history of pillage:

Islam teaches the faithful that the way to riches is robbing other groups and gaining jeyza taxes from Dhimmis and war booty. Labour is not appreciated as a way of gaining an income. The problem for Muslims is of course that it does not work anymore once a county becomes majority Muslim. Then they have to stand on their own feet or become vampires sucking from vampires.

I know educated Muslims, and I know Muslims who own their own businesses and work hard. The cases I do know, however, involve secular Muslims, so that may be the difference. Steep yourself too deeply in Mohammed’s angry, defensive brutality and you begin to think the world owes you… on the other hand, I’ve known regular old Americans who have that same chip on their shoulder…

In other words, it’s a character disorder — I must ask Shrinkwrapped and Dr. Sanity to diagnose it more precisely — that can occur anywhere. One only has to read British psychiatrist Theodore Dalrymple to know how frequently it occurs in Britain, and not just with immigrant populations. The malaise he describes is soul-deep and has been brought on by a Utopian system that gives without demanding — as much of Europe does now.

Hmmm… that sounds an awful lot like a mother/child situation when it gets off track. Dads, on the other hand, tend to be less… less — perhaps the word is lenient? or accommodating? — with their offspring, and more inclined to make sure the kid can stand on his own as an adult.

In another post, Snouck reports the complaints of a Belgian politician who doesn’t like the strictness of the Netherlands’ laws regarding the importation of foreigners for the purpose of marriage. To get around the law, immigrants from the Netherlands move over to Belgium for a bit, send for the spouse-to-be and once married, move back “home” — i.e., back to their Dutch city or region:

	Some background on these marriages: every summer ninety percent of Dutch Muslims go back to the countries of origin. They meet family there and have lots of parties. During the frolicking the heads of families arrange marriages between youngsters of families. A marriage contract with a Muslim with a residence permit or a citizenship of a EU country is worth up to 30.000 Euros or Dollars above the sum for a normal marriages. This shows the huge economic net worth of EU citizenship for immigrants, financed by transfer payments by EU taxpayers.
	[…]
	The marriages are a form of institutionalised nepotism to the financial and national detriment of the Dutch individual and nation.

The complaining Belgian thinks the Netherlands needs to get in line with the rest of the EU. Snouck doesn’t agree:

People are waking up to the nightmare of the EU. During referenda on the EU constitution in 2005 more than 60 percent of French and almost 70 percent of Dutch voters voted against additional powers for the EU.

In line with this blogger’s recommendation re the EU, I also endorse regular reading of The Brussels Journal. They give me hope for Europe, too.

Who knows if Snouck and Co. will succeed? This is the country of the Dutch girl who held back the water with just one finger. Such a country will not go gentle into that dhimmified night.

It is heartening to know they are raging against the dying of the light.

 
Trambo has very kindly tagged me with the latest germ being passed around the blogosphere, namely the Childhood Meme. So here goes…

My life as a child (under 15) in 50 words or less:

I was a smartass little nerd, but I liked to play baseball. My big brother kept beating me up, and I always deserved it.

My favorite thing in all the world to do was to hang around the creek and swamp behind my house and look for turtles.

Where were you a kid?

The DC suburbs, seven years in Virginia and then eight in Maryland.

Given the choice, were you barefoot or shoed?

Barefoot. I still prefer it. By the way, I believe you mean “shod.”

Were you a city kid or a country kid?

In between. A new suburb at the very edge of the Washington D.C. sprawl. Now part of the great Boswash Megalopolis.

Stupidest thing you did before the age of 15:

Smelted lead over an alcohol lamp in a bottle cap. No goggles. Splattered a drop off molten lead onto the cornea of my right eye.

For some reason, I can still see out of it.

Do you know how to play Kick the Can?

Depends on whose can.

What else did you play in groups?

Baseball, football (tackle), basketball.

Worst injury?

See the question above about the stupidest thing I did.

Do you agree with Bob Seger’s line in Against the Wind, “I wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then”?

Boy, do I. Every day

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Next in line to be tagged:

Greg, Bill, and Always on Watch.

Nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah!

 
Bill Keezer is home from the hospital. And like any dedicatedcompulsive blogger, he put up a post a few days ago from his hospital bed. It’s a good one, too. He features Elbert Lewis, Jr. — a retired engineer, an ex-Marine who served in Vietnam, an artist, and a science fiction writer. All these experiences and talents give Mr. Ellis the scope to address his issue in the Cincinnati Enquirer. And his issue is the asinine treatment by the blowhards in the black community re the execution of “Tookie” Williams.

In the conflicted and strait-jacketed journalistic world, it is Mr. Lewis’ black heritage which allows him to speak, though no doubt he is roundly criticized for daring to state the facts behind the mess this putative “village” makes:

	If it takes a Village to raise a child, what happens when the Village fails?
	When the Village fails, the execution of Stanley “Tookie” Williams is not used to send a resounding message to our black youth that this is where you end up when you fail to educate yourself, follow the law and conduct yourself as a productive citizen.
	Instead, members of the Village, from the Rev. Jesse Jackson to callers to the local urban radio talk shows, idolized a murderer who organized a street gang that still terrorizes many urban communities and is responsible for hundreds if not thousands of deaths, rampant drug dealing and other criminal activities. They portrayed Williams as a victim of a racist system, and some even vowed to give him a funeral worthy of a statesman. How asinine.

As you can see, Mr. Lewis and I agree on the Tookie Williams situation: “asinine.” Well, actually I stole the descriptive from him, but I’m giving him credit here. The whole, stupid mess is asinine.

Last month on Baldilocks’ blog, a white student from the College of William and Mary got on the comments and railed against those who took exception to the (at the time) coming execution of Williams. His comment was so ignorant, so lacking in syntax or sense, I was embarrassed for the College. It is, after all, the alma mater of several generations of the Baron’s family, including his Boy, who is currently a junior. To get the full flavor, here’s Jeremy’s comment:

how come you all seem to be picking on tookie. about his impending execution when no one that has posted anything on this page was not in the court room when his trial took place you didn’t here the evidence. so dont comment about it. As for his impending execution I hope Gov. Arnold gives him clemency because even if tookie did those murders. I believe and so do thousands around the world believe that stanley ‘tookie’ williams has done more good then bad. It is possible that he commited those murders and killed four people. But he has saved thousands check that millions from making those same mistakes that he made and probable has saved many lives in the process. Oh and another thing people talking about killing tookie because he may be a murderer. How about we kill the actual murderers like charles manson and stop protecting him behind laws. Oh yeah he’s white.

from a 19 year old white william and mary student

Putting aside the fact that this child’s utterances demonstrate that he obviously doesn’t belong in college, let us use them to make Mr. Lewis’ point about the failed “village” metaphor:

	When the Village fails, an atmosphere of “anti-academic excellence” prevails where only the strongest black students overcome the peer pressure not to excel. As a result, more young black men go to prison than to college. Fifty percent of the current generation is allowed to drop out before finishing high school, the boot camp of life, thereby relegating themselves to the lowest rung of the employment ladder.
	When the Village fails, black families do not produce enough police officers and firemen to protect their community; enough teachers, doctors, engineers and other professionals to serve their needs or enough entrepreneurs to maintain a viable economic base.
	When the Village fails, an anti-white attitude predominates to the point where fratricide is preferable to assisting in effective law enforcement administered by the white majority. Young black kids are forced to join gangs out of self-preservation, and the elderly huddle in fear of home invasion and dare not venture out after dark.

But, as Jeremy proves, when the village metaphor fails in real life, it can still grab the fantasy of marginal people and rabble rousers. What on God’s green earth is there to admire about a killer? The metaphor is simply a way to get the spotlight, to defraud the very people it is supposed to help, and to intimidate those people, black (Bill Cosby) or white (Arnold Schwarzenegger) who refuse to follow the Pied Piper of the mandarins in academia and the MSM.

Recently, when Arnold’s home town in Austria took him to task for the execution of a cold-blooded murderer, he upped the ante and closed the conversation:

	In a letter that began “Dear Mister Mayor,” Schwarzenegger said he decided to spare the Graz city council “further concern” should he be forced to make other clemency decisions while he’s governor. Another inmate is scheduled to be executed in California Jan. 17.
	“In all likelihood, during my term as governor, I will have to make similar and equally difficult decisions,” Schwarzenegger said in the letter. “To spare the responsible politicians of the city of Graz further concern, I withdraw from them as of this day the right to use my name in association with the Liebenauer Stadium.”
	[…]
	Schwarzenegger also said he would no longer permit the use of his name ‘to advertise or promote the city of Graz in any way’ and would return the city’s ‘ring of honor.’

Arnold and Mr. Lewis and Bill Cosby are putting the lie to that asinine idea of some mythical village raising our children. Scratch that canard and peel back the painted layer and all you’ve got is collectivism under another name.

I dare Hillary to mention it in her primary speeches. Bring it on, Madam.

 

Note to people arriving here via a search engine: the story you’re investigating is a HOAX. See this post.

Longtime Gates of Vienna readers will recall that last April this blog was blessed with a real surge of traffic due to a rumor in the Muslim world that Bill Gates had converted to Islam. It turned out to be an urban legend which began as a hoax on a Kuwaiti website, but it proved to be The Meme That Would Not Die. A steady trickle of searches has arrived here looking for the story in the intervening months, since we come up in the #2 and #3 spots for it in Google searches.

I wrote at length about the phenomenon last July. Back then I promised to report back in a few months with an update.

Well, as it turns out, in the last few days the “Bill Gates Islam” search has enjoyed a comeback. Especially last night — for a while, about 15% of our hits were coming from various searches for it. Given the comparative traffic, that’s almost as large an avalanche as the one last April.

So if anybody knows what’s going on, please leave a comment or email me. Is it a new television spot on Al-Jazeera? An Arabic-language radio program about the story? I’m dying to find out…

 
Ariel Sharon’s death is a great misfortune that has befallen Israel and the Middle East. But even as he lay dying, rabbis in his country were split on whether or not to pray for his recovery:

	Both chief rabbis called on the public to pray for Sharon. Rabbi Shlomo Amar led a special prayer for the prime minister during a rabbinic conference near Zichron Ya’acov.
	However, Rabbi Shmuel Eliahu, Chief Rabbi of Safed and son of former Sephardi chief rabbi Mordechai Eliahu, said it was forbidden to pray for something one did not really believe in.
	“If you fear that Sharon will continue to cause pain to Jewish families if he recovers, don’t pray for him,” said Eliahu in response to a question from a settler who was evacuated from Gaza. The question and answer appeared on Moriya, a religious Zionist Internet site.

And the rest of the Middle East was split also. The “man-in-the-street interviews were quite happy with the news. Others were more disturbed:

	“We don’t know what will happen after him,” said Ismail. “Will it be someone aggressive or someone softer? But we’re not worried. Nothing worse can happen that hasn’t already.”
	Other Arabs were worried and expressed regret that Sharon would no longer be the leader of Israel at a time when he has shown he is ready to withdraw from land conquered in 1967.
	“It’s a pity because it really looked like he was going to deliver,” said Hisham Kassem, a senior Egyptian media persona speaking to The Jerusalem Post by phone from Cairo.
	Kassem, like many other Arabs, recently saw in Sharon a man who could make a final peace agreement with the Palestinians. “Now I’m worried that whoever takes over won’t be able to do it. Then we end up another 10 or 15 years before some kind of settlement is sorted out. The last thing I want is to see [Likud Chairman Binyamin] Bibi Netanyahu in power again.”
	Hussein Serag, Deputy Editor-in-chief of the Egyptian political weekly, October, said that the views of Arabs on Sharon depended on their level of education.
	“The educated people who understand politics know that Sharon is a strong man who can make peace, like Begin who was strong and made peace with Sadat,” Serag told The Post. “We want him healthy not because we like him but because we believe he can make peace.”

But now that possibility is gone, and people are not hopeful about the future. Charles Krauthammer calls Sharon’s death “a calamity.”

The stroke suffered by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon could prove to be one of the great disasters in the country’s nearly 60-year history. .. [it] could be disastrous because Sharon represented, indeed embodied, the emergence of a rational, farsighted national idea that seemed poised in the coming elections to create a stable governing political center for the first time in decades.

Krauthammer says that Sharon’s genius was to find a “third way” between the Left and the Right, between capitulation — called “negotiated peace” — and hanging onto the Gaza strip no matter what:

	Sharon’s genius was to seize upon and begin implementing a third way. With a negotiated peace illusory and a Greater Israel untenable, he argued that the only way to security was a unilateral redrawing of Israel’s boundaries by building a fence around a new Israel and withdrawing Israeli soldiers and settlers from the other side. The other side would become independent Palestine.
	Accordingly, Sharon withdrew Israel entirely from Gaza. On the other front, the West Bank, the separation fence under construction will give the new Palestine about 93 percent of the West Bank. Israel’s 7 percent share will encompass a sizable majority of Israelis who live on the West Bank. The rest, everyone understands, will have to evacuate back to Israel.
	The success of this fence-plus-unilateral-withdrawal strategy is easily seen in the collapse of the intifada. Palestinian terrorist attacks are down 90 percent. Israel’s economy has revived. In 2005, it grew at the fastest rate of the developed countries. Tourists are back, and the country has regained its confidence. The Sharon idea of a smaller but secure and demographically Jewish Israel garnered broad public support, marginalized the old parties of the left and right, and was on the verge of electoral success that would establish a new political center to carry on this strategy.

But now, what is to be? Krauthammer doesn’t think anyone can replace Sharon. Unfortunately, he could be right. Sharon’s untimely death may give the advantage to those who do not wish Israel well, as is the case wtih many Leftists in Europe –e.g., those in Sweden calling for a boycott of Israeli goods, including the archbishop of the Lutheran Church of Sweden, as well as Sweden’s ambassador to Berlin.

If you doubt that one man matters that much, consider what Lincoln’s assassination cost the United States in the forty years following the Civil War. The South was penalized, humiliated, and became deliberately obstructionist for generations afterwards. Had Lincoln lived — this man whose genius lay in pulling together factions who would not otherwise have joined hands — the bitterness on both sides would have been quicker to heal.

The South would have been permitted to recover more quickly, the North would have been more likely to forgive, and the “Rebels” might well have faded within a generation. Certainly, the KKK would not have been able to establish, much less maintain, a toehold in the South and parts of the lower Midwest. With Lincoln at the helm, our history would have been different in ways that would reverberate even today.

But instead we had Andrew Johnson and the cruelty of Reconstruction in addition to the rise of Jim Crow. None of that would have happened – or at least would have been much ameliorated — had Lincoln survived to work out the post-war peace.

And now, likewise, Sharon is gone and with him is vanished the hope of his new party. Krauthammer sees it this way:

	The problem is that the vehicle for this Sharonist centrism, his new Kadima Party, is only a few weeks old, has no institutional structure and is hugely dependent on the charisma of and public trust in Sharon.
	[…]
	Sharon needed time, perhaps just a year or two, to rule the country as Kadima leader, lay down its institutional roots and groom a new generation of party leaders to take over after him.

As Krauthammer points out, Sharon’s party was an idea whose time had come:

But not all ideas whose time has come realize themselves. They need real historical actors to carry them through. Sharon was a historical actor of enormous proportion, having served in every one of Israel’s wars since its founding in 1948, having almost single-handedly saved Israel with his daring crossing of the Suez Canal in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and now having broken Israel’s left-right political duopoly that had left the country bereft of any strategic ideas to navigate the post-Oslo world. Sharon put Israel on the only rational strategic path out of that wreckage. But, alas, he had taken his country only halfway there when he himself was taken away. And he left no Joshua.

No, there will be no Sharon, just as there was only Johnson and no Joshua to follow Lincoln.

And it will be much, much worse for Israel than it was for us.

 
The January 4th edition of The Australian has the story in English:

	President Jacques Chirac has vowed to bring to justice a gang that terrorised hundreds of train passengers in a long rampage of violence, robbery and sexual assault on New Year’s Day.
	The two hour criminal frenzy by between 20 and 30 youths was “totally unacceptable,” he said.

That’s what they can rape, robbery, mayhem and vandalism in France: “unacceptable.” Golly whiz, those youths are a caution.

	The gang boarded the train, bound from Nice on the French Riviera to Lyon, in eastern France, early on January 1, as it carried 600 passengers home from New Year’s Eve partying overnight.
	Once inside, they went wild, forcing passengers to hand over mobile telephones and wallets, and slashing seats and breaking windows.
	A 20-year-old woman cornered by several of the marauders was sexually molested.

So of course the passengers decided they were going to stop these thugs and they managed to subdue them, right? In your dreams.

Well then… plan B: so of course the police were called and they surrounded the train and took the miscreants away in large vans, right? You wish.

It’s true. The police were called. And the train was stopped. And then the police waited for reinforcements before entering the train –while the thugs continued their rampage inside.

And then the police got on the train and the train proceeded on to Lyon. I kid you not:

	The three officers who initially turned up had to wait for reinforcements before boarding, during which time the youths continued to cause trouble.
	The train then resumed its journey with a heavy police presence aboard but, just before Marseille, the youths pulled the emergency stop and escaped by running along the tracks.

What kind of country do you have when the police are not as swift as the criminals? And what does a “heavy police presence” mean? Six fat guys with billy clubs? You get one guess which kind of French “youths” were involved. Ah, mais oui!:

Only three – two 19-year-old Moroccans and a minor, all living in France – were arrested.

Pray tell, where else would they be living, if they jump on a train in Nice?

But never fear. Chirac is on the job:

“Those guilty will be found and punished as they deserve.”

Well, that’s a relief, J.C.

The New Year celebrations depredations do not bode well for 2006 in La Belle France. How do you say “we are up the creek without a paddle” in French?

Hat tip: Sir Humphrey’s

 
The BBC has a report on Gaza that is largely their usual chorus of the “poor Palestinians” mantra, while downplaying the lawlessness:

	All this has to be kept in context. Much of the upheaval has been confined to the south, and to the town of Rafah in particular – and much of the turmoil has about it an element of show.
	There have been few casualties, and very little serious, sustained violence. Protesting gunmen who occupy government buildings often leave as soon as they have made their point.
	[…]
	The chaos has its roots in many problems.
	This society has been radicalised and traumatised by its confrontation with the Israelis, who occupied Gaza decades ago and only evacuated their settlers and troops last summer. Thousands of Palestinians have been killed, injured or lost their homes during years of violence.

And that’s not all. Since Israel pulled out, who can they fight with now?

	There are numerous armed factions that used to channel their violent energies into attacks on the Israelis – but they now have little on which to focus.
	In this broken, crowded, poverty-stricken place there is an intense struggle for resources that can lead to lawlessness. A number of the kidnappings have been carried out by militia groups demanding jobs in the formal security agencies.

And it’s the Palestinian Authority’s fault, of course, for not being able to keep the levee intact. Just how many fingers can they put in a dam so full of holes that it looks like Swiss cheese? The clans and militia groups often team up opportunistically to fight the police and then the latter back off. People ask for jobs at gunpoint. That doesn’t bode well for employer morale. The truth is, most jobs are those within the government, which is riven by factions and paranoia.

Thank you, Arafat. What a legacy you have bestowed on these people. Being an Egyptian, they were never “yours” anyway, were they? More like your golden goose, the ones the world’s useful idiots paid you to take care of.

But as anarchy descends, someone is finally willing to speak up and call it correctly (and the BBC, after paragraphs of excuses, is willing to give him voice):

	But there is now a growing appreciation of the depth of the malaise in Palestinian society.
	Hafiz Barghouti, the editor of the newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadeed, has written: “It appears we are neither prepared to change, nor admit that we have failed in running our own affairs. Everyone is busy calculating how to make the biggest possible gains at the homeland’s expense.
	“While most Palestinians find it easy to blame the occupation for all our ills, it is a fact that the occupation was not as bad as the lawlessness and corruption that we are now facing.”

So the Palestinians are learning the hard way that getting what you pray for can be more than you ever wanted or were prepared to pay for. In the Old West, it was “shoot first and ask questions later.” In Palestine, they’ve eliminated the second clause.

All they know how to do is detonate.

My workplace is located on the outskirts of Richmond, Virginia, in an affluent suburb recently bulldozed out of woods and farmland. It is an area where upscale yuppie housing mingles with office parks occupied by finance companies, insurance agencies, and high-tech firms.

One of the features of these office parks is the elegantly landscaped pond or lake, often with a fountain in the center and surrounded by brick sidewalks and ornamental shrubbery. In the architects’ sketches well-dressed office workers stroll among the glassy high-rises, all reflected perfectly on the surface of the adjacent lake.

And one of the unintended consequences of these artificial wetlands is Branta canadensis, commonly known as the Canada Goose.

Geese find suburban lakes particularly attractive. There they have no natural predators, and are protected by law, so that the only risk they face is being run over on the nearby roads. The well-watered lawns and cultivated flowerbeds afford them tasty delicacies, even if kind-hearted animal lovers don’t toss food to them.

So why should they leave? Migrate, schmigrate! These geese stay year ’round, strutting and fretting and honking and flapping. And hatching goslings — lots and lots of ugly little goslings.

I remember when I was a kid, Canada geese were a rarity. Occasionally in the fall or spring a migrating flock would go honking overhead, trailing their characteristic V-formation past the treetops. So beautiful and so romantic! And when a flock landed on somebody’s pond for an overnight stay, it was a real treat.

But not anymore.

I thought about all this yesterday afternoon when I looked out my office window and saw a huge flock of geese outside, crowding the lawn and the parking lot and crapping all over the sidewalk. Their green turds are everywhere, turning the lake a muddy olive color and causing a miasma of stench to hang over the area near the water. The scattered droppings make us do a little dance of avoidance on our way to the front door.

And these geese have nasty tempers. When they raise goslings in the spring they are particularly likely to attack the unwary pedestrian if he strays too close. Never would rough men in camouflage and hip boots and carrying shotguns be more welcome!

So it’s no wonder that they’re considered pests now, and almost universally loathed by those who have to spend any time among them. They may be prettier than cockroaches or rats, but they’re a lot bigger and a lot more visible. There’s even a service called Canada Goose Management, dedicated to keeping these oversized pigeons under control. Just call 1-866-POOP BE Gone!

But guess what? The Canada Goose is protected by law, and you can’t just shoot the buggers and be done with it. You have to scare them away with loudspeakers or fireworks or something, making sure to follow the Geneva Convention so that your treatment of them never rises to the level of torture.

All this is because the Canada Goose was an endangered species forty years ago. As a result, laws were enacted to protect them, and the wildlife management folks made a massive effort to rebuild the population. Why, flocks of them were even imported into Europe — can you imagine?

In addition, their habitat had to be protected, and so the notorious process of “wetlands preservation” began. Time was, draining swamps contributed to the public health and was considered a civic duty. But nowadays if water stands in a low spot long enough to hatch mosquito larvae, Uncle Sam stands ready to bring the full force of the federal government to bear on the unlucky property owner who tries to do anything about it.

So we’re in the ridiculous situation of having to endure a noxious nuisance, restrained by law from taking action. And the geese are bad for our health — when their excrement gets tracked into our buildings and dries out, it enters the ventilation system as dust and becomes dangerous for asthmatics and people with other respiratory problems.

This is a paradigm for our times writ small: continue to follow outdated rules, ones formulated long ago. So what if the situation they apply to no longer exists? Ignore the detrimental effects of what we do — we have good intentions; isn’t that enough? The high-minded elites know what’s best for us, particularly when they don’t have to hang out with the damned geese themselves.

Now think of the same paradigm writ large. Think of the terrorists on whose conversations we may not eavesdrop. Think of the murderous mujahideen who must be treated with kid gloves, given three squares and a soft bed, and then released back into the wild. These Islamist geese will do more than crap on our sidewalks if we let them go.

Because I say such things, you know that I must be a racist.

You’d better hope that William Blake was right when he said, “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.” You’d better hope that the fool who persists in his folly becomes wise.

Because as long as we persist in applying trivial rules to our current circumstances, we put ourselves in grave danger.

And all because of rules formulated long ago, when gentlemen fought civilized wars with each other and did not read each other’s mail. Back in those days we played by the rules because the enemy did, too, or at least mostly. Back then there were no terrorists with VX gas or dirty bombs. Back then there were scarcely any terrorists at all, and the few that existed confined themselves to Russia or the Rub al-Khali.

But not anymore.

American mother, Cindy Sheehan. Palestinian mother, Umm Nidal.

These women are not opposites. They are negative images of one another. Sheehan’s world view says nothing about America is worth dying for. Mamma Nidal says she saved her sons for Allah by making them jihad suicide killers. Hers is only nationalist on the surface. Scratch a little off and you’ll see a world wide ummah.

Do you see the perversion of absolutes in each world view?

One sacrifices nothing because there is nothing worth sacrificing for. She refuses to honor her son’s decision to serve his country and put his life at risk for his country. He went against his mother’s Absolute: there is absolutely nothing in America worth that sacrifice. Her world view could not sustain her son so he rejected it.

The second deliberately inculcates in her sons the wish to die for her belief, and to take others with them, others she sees as evil. If women and children die along with her sons? An Islamic shrug — Allah wills it. Their glory is all the greater in Paradise. Jihad is their absolute, taken in with their mother’s milk and spilled out for all eternity.

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

Each woman has sons who died in battle. Each of them is running for office based on their sons’ deaths.

Is this picture perverted or what?

Cross-posted at Infidel Bloggers’ Alliance