Gates of Vienna News Feed 9/23/2010

Gates of Vienna News Feed 9/23/2010Four more suspects have been arrested in the northern English town of Gateshead on suspicion of viewing a video showing the burning of a Koran. This makes a total of six who have been detained so far for this heinous crime.

In contrast, a judge in East Lansing, Michigan, has refused to consider a charge against the man who left charred pages of the Koran on the front steps of a mosque. The judge says that no one was threatened by the act, since the man who did the burning was the only one present at the time. He also says that he can find no crime that was committed under Michigan law, and that the First Amendment protects the right to burn a Koran, just as it does the burning of a U.S. flag.

In other news, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran gave a speech at the United Nations in which he asserted that 9-11 was an inside job by the United States to revive its flagging economy and help out the Zionist Entity. Representatives of the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and all 27 members of the EU walked out of the speech. Strangely enough, the Zionist Entity was not listed among the offended delegations. Perhaps it had not been invited to attend.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to AMT, Andy Bostom, C. Cantoni, DF, DS, DT, Fausta, JD, KGS, Kitman, Srdja Trifkovic, TB, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

Clowns and Psychotics

Yunus Effendi Habibie, the Indonesian ambassador to the Netherlands, caused a bit of a kerfuffle recently when he indicated that voters who preferred Geert Wilders’ party might in fact be psychotic. He and the government he represents have taken offense in the last few months over the less than complimentary things Mr. Wilders has said about Islam.

The PVV responded by demanding that the Foreign Ministry have a little talk with the ambassador to set him straight. Since the proposed new government is dependent on the support of the PVV in its formation, the ministry complied surprisingly quickly with Mr. Wilders’ demand.

Our Flemish correspondent VH has translated a series of five articles, beginning with the original interview with Ambassador Habibie published in Het Financieele Dagblad:

Indonesian Ambassador: “I do not want my president to be put down as a clown here”

by Alexander Weissink

Yunus Effendi HabibieIndonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono will pay a state visit to the Netherlands from October 6 to 9, 2010. “Relations are super-smooth, but the circumstances are not that pretty,” the Indonesian ambassador Yunus Effendi Habibie [brother of former President of Indonesia (1998-99) Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie] said.

Would the possible support of the PVV for a new cabinet stand in the way of a visit by the Indonesian President?

“The president had already promised to visit the Netherlands, before it was clear what [coalition] government was being formed. He is ‘a man a man, a word a word’. But the circumstances are not that nice. If Mr. Wilders had become part of a new government, the upcoming state visit might have been very doubtful. The president of course will not come over when there is someone in the government here [the Netherlands] who calls the Islam backward. I do not want my president to be put down as a clown here.

Will the support of the PVV for a Dutch [coalition] government influence the relations with Indonesia?

“I see no reason why we cannot cooperate, unless the Dutch Government implements an anti-Islamic policy. If Mr. Wilders remains outside the government, he may shout whatever he wants. As long as he stays barking outside the cabinet. Why would we mess up our relations because of this one man? Incidentally, I observe hate speech in his words. Moreover, my uncle, was repeatedly thrown into jail by the Dutch because of sowing hatred against the Dutch colonizer, but put that to the side.

If you offend someone, you ask for a response. If Mr. Wilders calls Islam barbaric and backward, maybe he has to learn more about Islam. That in Baghdad there was already a medical school when here in the Netherlands there were still only quacks wandering around. I will not lecture him, as long as he doesn’t have influence on Dutch policy.

Does the growing influence of the Party for Freedom already have an effect on bilateral relations?

“Relations are being disturbed by the presence of Mr. Wilders. I’m annoyed with what he says. It distorts economic and political relations. I’ve always argued for the Netherlands in Jakarta, but that becomes ever more difficult. We will and should not interfere in the internal Dutch affairs, but of course we do follow the developments closely. If Mr. Wilders forces the government to implement his ideas, our relationship will be put under pressure. When government policy leads to insulting Islam, then we have a problem. If Indonesians cannot come to the Netherlands because Indonesia is an Islamic country, we have a problem. Indonesia however, will never become an Islamic state, even though 85% of our population is Muslim. The Pancasila [the philosophical foundation of the Indonesian state, that was actually formed by the Dutch from a variety of islands — translator] guarantees equal rights and equal responsibilities for all.”

What conclusion do you draw from the growing popularity of Geert Wilders and the PVV?

“It is a fact that many people voted for Mr. Wilders. When people want to listen to him, that’s their good right. Maybe they suffer from a fear psychosis. But they will have to realize that the hegemony is not of the Christians. The world is getting ever smaller and we are sitting closer and closer to one another. Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance. There are radicals and terrorists in all religions. You may not judge more than a billion people based on a thousand or so extremists. When you suffer from criminal Moroccans, just pick them up. Those aren’t good Muslims. They blacken our name. Ultimately, I believe the Dutch people know what’s good for them. We will continue to build on our relationship in good faith, but I don’t think my president wants to meet Mr. Wilders. “

Why does the state visit takes place at this time?

“The last obstacle to our relations was removed when the Dutch foreign minister Bernard Bot came over to Jakarta in 2005 and accepted our Independence Day, August 17, 1945. We never asked for that recognition, but it was always a psychological barrier that hindered our relationship. Since then our relations are super-smooth, and we can go hand-in-hand towards the future. Actually, the president wanted to visit the Netherlands sooner, but could not do this because Garuda [Indonesian airline] was banned from flying to Europe six years ago by the European Commission. He of course will not go [to the Netherlands] on KLM or Singapore Airlines. No way. The Netherlands then helped us greatly with solving the shortcomings of Garuda. The [Dutch] Ministry of Transport sent experts to Jakarta. Since June there have been daily flights again between Jakarta and Amsterdam.”

Will this state visit further improve the ties between Indonesia and the Netherlands?

“The president will sign a comprehensive partnership. With that our relations will be underlined and legalized. This should further facilitate political and business relationships. It lays the foundation for all kinds of agreements such as a treaty to eliminate double taxation. We want to expand our current position and make use of the Netherlands as our gateway to Europe.”

2. From NRC Handelsblad:

Wilders wants Verhagen to have a talk with ambassador

PVV leader Geert Wilders wants the Indonesian ambassador to be “have his ears cropped diplomatically” if he expressed himself in a negative way about the PVV and its electorate on behalf of his own government. “We cannot let this pass,” Wilders said Thursday.

Earlier in the day Wilders demanded that Verhagen [outgoing Foreign Minister] act against the ambassador. Verhagen should summon the ambassador and denounce him, following his “offensive statements” in his interview, Wilders said.

3. From the PVV website:

PVV: Summon the Indonesian Ambassador

Questions from members [of Parliament] Wilders and Kortenoeven (both PVV) to the Minister of Foreign Affairs [Verhagen] about the outrageous statements by the Indonesian ambassador concerning PVV leader Geert Wilders and the Dutch electorate that voted for the PVV.

1.)   Have you noted the article “Visit from Jakarta despite Wilders’*, in which the Indonesian ambassador to the Netherlands, Yunus Effendi Habibie, makes defamatory statements about the alleged incompetence, the ‘hate sowing’ and ‘shouting’ and ‘barking’ of PVV leader Geert Wilders; and in which he insinuates that the Dutch who voted for the PVV suffer from a “fear psychosis”?
2.)   Did the Indonesian ambassador speak on behalf of the Indonesian government?
3.)   Do you agree with me that the statements by Habibie are inaccurate and inappropriate? If not, why not?
4.)   Are you willing to summon Ambassador Habibie to pass on to him your dissatisfaction with these statements?
     
*   See also “Indonesian Ambassador: ‘I do not want my president to be put down as a clown here’”, above.

4. From Elsevier:

Verhagen wants to consult with ambassador over statements about Wilders

Outgoing Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen (CDA) wants a talk with the Indonesian Ambassador, Yunus Effendi Habibie. The ambassador said among other things that the people who voted for the PVV live with a fear psychosis.

“The ambassador of Indonesia, in a country where freedom of expression is of paramount importance, is free to say what ever he wants,” Verhagen says. But he finds that the descriptions Habibie uses for the PVV electorate are not wise. On Thursday Verhagen will immediately contact the Indonesian representative.

5. From De Telegraaf:

Ambassador swallows his words about PVV voters

THE HAGUE — The Indonesian Ambassador Junus Effendi Habibie has made known in a conversation with a senior official of foreign affairs that he should not have spoken in such terms about the PVV electorate. A spokesperson for the department in The Hague made this known on Thursday.

In an interview with Het Financieele Dagblad [see interview above] the ambassador of Indonesia said among other things that “Wilders’ voters may suffer from a fear psychosis.” Habibie realizes that it would been better if he had not spoken in these terms about the PVV electorate, Foreign Affairs said.

The senior official replaced outgoing Minister Maxime Verhagen (Foreign Affairs), who is busy with the formation [of a government with the VVD and supported by the PVV]. Verhagen had already stated that he found it “not wise” that the ambassador had expressed himself this way about the electorate of the PVV. The interview aroused the anger of PVV leader Geert Wilders, who insisted that Verhagen must summon the ambassador [and so he did].

In the conversation it also became clear that Habibie and Verhagen agree that the ambassador “is completely free to make clear the concerns of Indonesia about the picture that the PVV sketches of Islam.”

An Archaic Parallel Society

Below is a news report from German television about the forced marriages and domestic violence that are a normal part of the parallel Turkish society in Neuköln. Many thanks to Hans Erling Jensen for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitles:

A full transcript is below the jump:

00:08   Turkish woman: Many (Turks) who live here think it’s ok…
00:12   they find it normal, that a girl actually marries against her will.
00:16   …and has sex against her will for the rest of her life!
00:20   …every time it was like having a knife in my heart…
00:24   when he touched me or was close to me!
00:28   But it shall come to an end…she wants a divorce and she breaks another taboo…
00:32   straightaway by openly telling her story to our camera!
00:37   I’ve already lost one sister to this violence, this concept of forced marriage; she was forced to marry,
00:41   marry against her will… like so many other girls…it was by no means a single case.
00:45   …I want to help other girls avoid the same fate!
00:49   Three women in Neuköln, three apparently modern and well integrated immigrant women.
00:53   They dont wear veils or other traditional garments
00:57   No outsider can tell that they are nevertheless still unwilling parts
01:01   of the archaic Turkish parallel society.
01:05   The oldest, Elif, is 38 years old.
01:09   In 1989, aged 17, she was forced to marry a man whom she didn’t love
01:13   She is still hiding from him.
01:17   Her youngest sister, Nazan, aged 22, works as a child care worker.
01:21   In 2002, when she was 14 years old, she attempted suicide to avoid…
01:25   a forthcoming forced marriage.
01:29   The second sister succeeded (in committing suicide)
01:33   Mevlüda died at only 17 years of age. She killed herself in 1991
01:37   as a last resort to avoid a forced marriage.
01:41   And even the next generation (of Turkish girls), who are born here
01:45   (in Germany), are to be bartered away as if they where live stock.
01:49   Elif’s daughter, Kader, aged 19, is attending high school.
01:53   Her father wishes to give her away in marriage to a cousin, whom she doesn’t know.
01:57   But her mother, Elif, has had enough of it. She left her husband,
02:01   who in 2010 treated his own daughter as a slave.
02:06   The girls in fact suffer more (under archaic traditions) here in Germany
02:10   than in Turkey itself. The people their are…
02:14   actually far more modern-minded, compared to the parents who came here 30-40 years ago,
02:18   who seem to be stuck in an obsolete mindset.
02:22   That’s why she’s afraid — because it’s not only the old who do not appreciate
02:26   women with a will of their own.
02:30   Wolla…how should I put it…it’s wicked; Sluts may be a harsh expression, but it’s no good!
02:38   When the right one has been found (by the parents) the woman must obey.
02:40   I don’t think that’s wrong,
02:42   I find it to be okay!
02:46   That’s how we go about it…simply our culture!
02:50   Time and again she wants to end our feature with her.
02:54   She is, as a woman in the 21st century, in reality without rights
02:58   in the middle of Berlin, and hence in real danger, just because
03:02   she wishes to tell us how her life really is and was.
03:06   Only when we leave Neuköln and drive to a suburb can she speak freely.
03:10   When she was 11 it was arranged she should later marry her cousin
03:14   and she was sent away to her uncle in Turkey.
03:18   He (the uncle) wanted me to marry him (the cousin) when I was only 13
03:22   I was also heavily mistreated. Not only physically…
03:26   but mentally as well…he was calling me names and so on…in the end…
03:30   I was mentally completely devastated
03:34   And I was heavily beaten up…among other things I sustained serious injuries to my back.
03:39   The Berlin teenager struggles for six years. Then she can no longer stand the pressure.
03:47   All my relatives put pressure on me — “if you dont marry as planned,
03:51   this or that person will end up getting killed” – you know, references to honor killings.
03:55   “you are to blame for all the tragedies that will follow, if you dont marry etc., etc.!”
03:59   At the end I told my father: Okay then, I’ll do as you want
04:01   to end all this misery.
04:05   Thus began her martyrdom — a loveless marriage as the wife of a cousin whom she hates.
04:09   Sex is experienced solely as rape.
04:14   Every time it was like having a knife in my heart…when he touched me or was close to me!
04:17   It was dreadful.
04:22   Elif laughs even when tears where more fitting. She wants to be strong.
04:25   She secretly postponed pregnancy for seven months. But then it happened.
04:33   I tried to provoke an abortion by eating a lot of pills. I didn’t want a child with
04:37   a man whom I didn’t love…the child should not …
04:41   be born into the world under such circumstances. I didn’t know what would happen
04:45   to me and the child didn’t deserve to come to a place without love.
04:53   The birth of her daughter, Kader, didn’t change the marriage…it only became worse.
04:58   He was violent…grabbed knives…tried to…well even towards the child…
05:01   I have a recording where the child is terrified of her father
05:05   “my dad hits me all the time!…he always had his belt readily at hand”
05:09   he frightened us with his violence…back then I could do nothing
05:13   I was always in fear of doing something wrong.
05:17   he threatened us with knives…I (often) stood in a corner with my child
05:21   and waited for his rage to settle!
05:29   Elif’s three children are not love children but they are being loved nevertheless!
05:37   How old where you then?
05:41   Just turned 16…! 16!…Yes, it was in the late eighties…!
05:46   You look older…!
05:50   Yes…I looked older than my real age from early on…I had more or less developed breasts at age 11, giving me a mature look.
05:54   She has often explained to her oldest daughter that she was born
05:56   of a forced marriage and that she does not.
06:00   want her daughter to repeat that pattern. Today Elif wants to show
06:04   the 19-year-old where she grew up and tell her what she witnessed then.
06:08   We were seven siblings…with your aunts and uncles.
06:12   Back then it was only a one and a half room apartment.
06:16   it was awful. There was no bathroom and no modern heating system like nowadays.
06:20   Instead mental pressure and habitual beatings…
06:24   administered by the father were the order of the day.
06:28   Beatings which eventually killed Elif’s two-year-younger sister Mevlüda.
06:32   Well, then…I will never forget it, it was really dreadful
06:36   you were five months old then. We shared a room. I noticed that
06:38   Mevlüda was dead the next morning.
06:42   While living next door to german neighbors she awoke beside
06:46   her dead sister. The then 17-year-old had used pills to take her own life.
06:50   So many people came to us afterwards. Many of whom we didn’t even know.
06:54   They couldn’t believe that such a young and strong girl had passed away.
07:00   In 1991 she could see no other way out, as she was to be (forcibly) married.
07:04   Eleven years later, in 2002, nothing had changed in the Berlin-based family.
07:08   The youngest daughter Nazan, then 14 years old,
07:12   was to marry a 30-year-old during her summer vacation
07:20   In Turkey there was this…roof…high up with a long drop down.
07:24   I had planed to jump out from there…but they prevented it.
07:28   Why did you think of doing that?
07:32   Well, I simply couldn’t stand the thought of it all.
07:36   By now Nazan has freed herself form the grip…
07:40   and lives in a shared flat. Her big sister Elif
07:44   often seeks refuge there when her former husband forces his way into her apartment.
07:52   On behalf of my children I wish
07:56   my former husband would show more respect and tolerance,
08:00   that he would understand how difficult a time we had coping with him for so many years…
08:04   that he at least would leave me alone and not threaten me all the time…
08:09   .I wish he would accept and realize that we live in separate apartments.
08:13   that would the first step…it’s a great achievement actually…
08:17   (to be able to think so at all)…four years ago I would never have imagined
08:19   that I could take such steps.
08:23   If she (Elif) can find an affordable apartment which her ex-husband cannot enter,
08:27   the women of the Kaya family could actually stand a chance…
08:31   of arriving in Germany in the year 2010 after 30 years of purely superficial integration.

Acquit Geert Wilders!

Ellian, Zwart, Sackers and De Roos


The four professors (left to right): Ellian, Zwart, Sackers and De Roos (image printscreen De Pers)

The trial of Geert Wilders is about to reconvene, and although the proceedings are pre-cooked — “railroading” is probably too mild a term for what is being done to Mr. Wilders — some of the most prominent legal scholars in the Netherlands have spoken out against the case.

Our Flemish correspondent VH has translated an article on the topic from Elsevier:

Law scholars want Geert Wilders acquitted

Four law scholars are strongly opposed to the prosecution Geert Wilders being prosecuted for hate speech. Thus, in their opinion, the PVV leader must be acquitted. “This prosecution does not befit a civilized country.”

So says Tom Zwart, Professor of Human Rights at the Utrecht University, in an interview with the free newspaper De Pers.

Acquittal

Tom Zwart is backed by three other law scholars: Theo de Roos, Professor of Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure at the University of Tilburg; Henny Sackers, Professor of Administrative Sanctions Law at Radboud University in Nijmegen, and Elsevier blogger Afshin Ellian, Professor of Social Cohesion, Citizenship and Multiculturalism at the Leiden University.

The four professors believe that the prosecution should never have taken place, and plead — now that he has to appear in court — for acquittal. The trial against Wilders will resume next month.

PVV voters

Theo de Roos: “What I have a big problem with is that the ruling of the Court does not judge the one-liners of Wilders in their context. If you do, you can see he has a consistent story about protecting Dutch culture against Islam. You may find that evil or ridiculous, but it is a contribution to the public debate. “

“What do you say now with those proceedings to all those people who voted for the PVV? Actually you say they must also be put behind bars,” Tom Zwart says.

No witness

The four interviewees were to have been called as witnesses by Wilders, but the judges ruled otherwise. They consider themselves to have “learned enough” and a sufficient number of articles by others.

By giving an interview, they hope to still be able to exert influence on the criminal court. “We may among ourselves think differently about the content of Wilders’ statements, but we are looking at this as law scholars. And it comes down to this: you do not have to agree with what Wilders says, to find that he may say that,” Afshin Ellian says.

Hatred

Wilders must answer a charge of hate speech in court. He is accused of insulting Muslims and ethnic minorities and incitement to discrimination and hatred.

Initially the Public Prosecutor (OM) in Amsterdam did not want to prosecute the politician, because he made those statements in newspapers and on the internet as part of the public debate.

The court in Amsterdam, however, thought differently, and saw possible offenses in Wilders’ remarks about Islam. The proceedings for a judgment of fact were started by the anti-racism Club “Netherlands Admits Color”, headed by René Danen [the extreme left agitator — translator].

A Churchyard Rape in Oxford

Cultural Enrichment News


It can’t be repeated too often that Muslim men establish dominance over infidel women (or any women not protected by other Muslim men) through rape. In a traditional context, captive non-Muslim women are raped, and then either consigned to slavery or forcibly converted to Islam and married to their rapist.

Note: the Mohammed Coefficient of the following incident is 100%. According to the Beeb:

Man jailed over churchyard rape in Oxford

A man who admitted kidnapping, raping and robbing a 19-year-old student in Oxford has been jailed for nine years.

Yasin Mohamed, 25, of Aston Street, Oxford, was also placed on the sex offenders register for life.

The woman was attacked in St Clements Street on her way home in March, Oxford Crown Court heard.

After being assaulted in St Clements graveyard, she was attacked for a second time at a property in the east of the city.

‘Terrifying ordeal’

Following the case, CPS case lawyer Jenny Jonckheer said: “Yassin Mohamed subjected his victim to a terrifying ordeal.

“He raped her in a churchyard and then took her to his home address where he raped her again twice.

“This was an appalling crime and I would like to commend his victim for her courage in coming forward to police.

“In doing so, this man has been brought before the courts and has been sentenced for his crimes and sent to prison for many years.

“I hope this fact helps this young woman come to terms, in some way, with what she has been through and she can move forward in her life.”



For a complete listing of previous enrichment news, see The Cultural Enrichment Archives.

Hat tip: The G-Man.

Playing Chess With the Imams

Muslim-Christian chess


As is often noted, political Islam — which is sometimes referred to as “radical Islam” or “Islamism” — is a totalitarian ideology. All four schools of Sunni Islamic law, along with Shi’a jurisprudence, affirm the orthodox political interpretations of the Koran and the hadith that justify the establishment of an all-powerful theocratic state by any and all means. These interpretations of Islam’s core scriptures are validated by traditional doctrine as taught by scholars at all major Islamic universities, especially the most prestigious of them all, al-Azhar University in Cairo.

For these reasons we may assert that Islam is inherently totalitarian. Muslims themselves may or may not have totalitarian tendencies — it’s certainly true that many millions of Muslims, whether they really believe in their religion or not, are politically apathetic and indifferent to any practical political application of their creed. But official Islamic doctrine promotes a totalitarian political philosophy.

Hassan al-BannaWesterners who long for a “reform” of Islam — which they imagine will somehow purge Islamic theology of its violent tendencies — fail to realize that a reform is already well underway. The latest wave began in 1928 in Egypt with the founding of the Muslim Brotherhood by Hassan al-Banna, and it continues to this day. Followers of al-Banna have returned to the core scriptures of Islam and studied the life and sayings of Mohammed. They take what is written in these texts and commentary seriously, and are thus driven to implement various totalitarian political practices, through violent means or otherwise.

John J. Dziak points out that political Islam, like other totalitarian systems such as those of China, Cuba, the U.S.S.R., and Nazi Germany, takes the form of a diffuse counterintelligence state, with its typical characteristics:

The residual influence of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia on Islamism may be seen precisely in the assimilated features of the counterintelligence state absorbed by both radical Islamic movements and radical Islamic regimes: the multiplicity and redundancy of intelligence and counterintelligence services with counterintelligence being the preferred tendency; fixation with conspiracies and incessant conspiratorial intrigue; provocation and associated deception; conspiracy-laced propaganda and very sophisticated information warfare campaigns; draconian police state tactics, this time justified by theocratic strictures vice party dogma. In its drive to nuclear power status Iran, especially, has shown adeptness at deception in masking the weapons side of its program, and in information warfare and propaganda with its bombast of military prowess aimed at strong anti-war sentiment in the U.S.

Many Westerners had trouble grasping the nature of the U.S.S.R., and they are no better at understanding the workings of the Islamic counterintelligence state. Iran is a good example: we treat it as if it were a Western democracy, with a parliament (the Majlis) as a legislative authority, a judiciary (the mullahs and ayatollahs) and an executive (President Ahmadinejad). However, there is at best a superficial resemblance between these structures and their Western counterparts. Politics in Iran is conducted quite differently from what we are used to. It is opaque to us because its operations proceed according to the internal logic inherent to a counterintelligence state.

As a made-up example, imagine that three American charity workers in Iran are arrested and detained by the Revolutionary Guards, and then later charged with being spies for the CIA. We’ll assume for the sake of argument that they are not really CIA spies.

So what is Iran up to?

Iranian flag with the Bomb


It may be quite difficult to determine the motives for such an arrest. If talks on Iran’s nuclear program are about to begin, the act may constitute the first move in the chess game of those negotiations. When backdoor discussions about the hostages are initiated, Iran may discreetly hint that a relaxation in the IAEA inspection regime might just result in the release of the captives.

Chess — PawnOr the arrest may be some other international gambit in a complex game — an effort to influence Russia, or Afghanistan, or Iraq, or Saudi Arabia.

Or the real reason may be found within the internal politics of Iran itself. Political disagreement and maneuvering in a counterintelligence state generally proceed out of sight. Publicly staged political events simply ratify what has been decided by other means — that is, through the struggles between the factions that form the power structure of the state. In Iran, as in any other Third World country, Western hostages — particularly Americans — are very valuable. They function as a big bank deposit for the faction that holds them. Taking the three prisoners may well have given the Revolutionary Guards or their allies more leverage in ongoing internal factional struggles.

By the time the captives are released by a smiling Ahmadinejad during a carefully staged photo op, the political issues of their capture have already been settled. The tearful erstwhile prisoners thank the president for his gracious help, the cameras and the journalists depart, and the real game moves on to the next move, unnoticed and unrecognized by the vast majority of Western observers.

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


Moving beyond Iran, we leave the realm of state totalitarianism and enter the world of diffuse non-state Islamic radicalism. Non-state actors such as Al Qaeda and the various affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood display the same characteristics as the counterintelligence state, but they operate in a different context. Their goal is not to maintain internal control within a discrete political entity, but subversion: they aim to turn non-Muslims into dhimmis by stages, without the intended targets being aware of what is happening until it is too late.

Chess — RookTo accomplish this goal, the Ikhwan uses all the techniques — provocation, penetration, diversion, disinformation, etc. — familiar to students of Soviet counterintelligence. These methods serve to undermine and subvert the targeted society below the level of public awareness.

One of the most successful counterintelligence operations yet mounted by the Muslim Brotherhood was the notorious “Flying Imams” affair. In November 2006 a handful of imams affiliated with Muslim Brotherhood front groups managed to paralyze the Transportation Security Agency (and through it the Department of Homeland Security) with an easy and inexpensive provocation at the Minneapolis airport. Their belligerence and litigiousness served to neutralize the already weak attempts by TSA officials to monitor and act upon specific behaviors that might be expected from potential Islamic terrorists.

The superficially apparent objective of the operation — to test security systems and procedures using a terrorist dry run — was accomplished. However, by drawing attention to their particular tactics, the imams compromised the future effectiveness of such methods. The subsequent out-of-court shakedown of USAirways could hardly suffice as a motivation for such an audacious public operation.

Chess — KnightUnderstood from the point of view of the counterintelligence state, however, the Flying Imams were an enormous success. The incident was a probe, a diversion, and it neutered the capacity of domestic security agents to evaluate and react to evidence of Islamic terrorist behavior. By rewarding targeted lawfare, it ensured that no TSA or DHS official who values his career will ever take into consideration any obvious radical Muslim behavior until a bomb actually detonates.

The incident may accurately be labeled a “diversion” because the exact modus operandi of the probe — belligerent behavior, loud Arabic prayers, the demanding of seat belt extensions, etc. — is unlikely to be used again. What it accomplished instead was to restrict the scope of America’s available responses, so that the real attack, in whatever form it may take, will be impossible to deal with until dozens, hundreds, or thousands of Americans are already dead.

Seen from a counterintelligence standpoint, the Flying Imams gig was an enormous success achieved at almost no cost. The value of the operation was greatly enhanced by the fact that very few Americans are even aware of the scope of the Muslim Brotherhood’s achievement.

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Feisal Abdul RaufThis brings us to Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and the proposed Ground Zero mosque.

References to Imam Rauf in the following discussion should be understood to encompass not just the imam himself — who, after all, is simply the oily-tongued spokesman for the Cordoba Initiative, chosen for his soothing glib demeanor as displayed on television — but also the more powerful movers and shakers of the international Ikhwan who put him in place to help the planned mosque come into being.

For a number of months the Park51 project flew mostly under the radar. Then, as news began to spread through patriotic anti-jihad networks, the protests and resistance began to emerge. All through the summer of 2010 the controversy grew hotter, to the point where it made headlines every day in the mainstream media.

The more prominent the news about the Ground Zero mosques, the more Americans who opposed it. Despite the best efforts of local, state, and federal officials — not to mention the media — to spin the issue as one of religious freedom involving an innocuous place of worship, ordinary citizens woke up to the fact that the building of the mosque would in fact be a celebration of a Muslim victory at Ground Zero. The more they learned, the less they liked it.

Chess — BishopThe affair climaxed on September 11th during protests and demonstrations against the mosque that were staged at Ground Zero, across the rest of America, and all over the world.

There were rumors just before 9-11 that Imam Rauf was going to back down and announce at the last minute that the Park51 project would be moved to another location. When I read those reports, I thought, “Of course — what a brilliant move!”

By allowing the “Islamophobes” to gain public prominence, and then deflating their cause, Mr. Rauf would marginalize opposition to the mosque simply by moving the planned structure a few blocks away.

Members of the hard-core resistance to Park51 — including such people as Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, Andy McCarthy, and Brigitte Gabriel — insist that moving the mosque is not enough, that it must be stopped. But the vast majority of the opponents of Park51, probably more than 90% of them, would have been content with its being moved.

At one stroke Imam Rauf could have deflated the entire anti-mosque movement, fragmented the opposition to Park51, discredited its more strident opponents, and made it that much easier for the Muslim Brotherhood to build mosques elsewhere.

Chess — QueenAs icing on the cake, in the process of relocating it he could have taken up Donald Trump (or one of the other potential buyers) on his offer, sold the property, and made a fifty million dollar profit on the deal.

So why didn’t he do it?

Considering the affair as a counterintelligence chess game, relocating the mosque at the last minute was the obvious move — it was a pawn-takes-queen gambit. In order to work, however, it had to be a 9-11 moment — once the anniversary passed, the enormous propaganda impact of the move would have been diminished. The eve of 9-11 was the peak opportunity, but Imam Rauf and his handlers let it pass.

Why?

To understand why Islamic radicals sometimes fail to make certain moves that would otherwise serve their interests, we must examine the details of Islamic law. Although the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood are totalitarians at heart, unlike their Soviet counterparts they are constrained by an internally recognized set of limits: sharia law.

Consider this passage from ‘Umdat al-Salik (Reliance of the Traveller). In Book O, “Justice”, o9.16, al-Misri has this to say concerning truces:

Truces are permissible, not obligatory … for it is a matter of the gravest consequence because it entails the nonperformance of jihad, whether globally or in a given locality, …

In other words, there must be an acceptable reason to halt a jihad, because Muslims are required to wage it if they possibly can. Reliance of the Traveller continues:

There must be some interest served in making a truce other than mere preservation of the status quo. Allah most high says, “So do not be fainthearted and call for peace, when it is you who are the uppermost.” (Koran 47:35).

If he is not engaging in deception, the only reason a Muslim fighter can call for a truce, according to Islamic law, is that he is too weak to fight. That is, once a jihad is launched, the mujahideen must continue it until victory is achieved, because to cease the jihad would be to acknowledge that they were too weak to fight it in the first place, and thus that Allah was not with them. This is tantamount to suicide — and not the sacred martyrdom kind.

This feeds into the core Islamic concept of jihad. Those fighting jihad in the cause of Allah may have setbacks, as Allah says in the Koran. But victory is guaranteed if it is in the cause of Allah. Continuous defeat in jihad is an indicator that the jihad was never sanctioned by Allah. In such circumstances, the Muslim community will turn against the jihadis.

So, if truce is denied them, the mujahideen will go out and fight as if their eternal souls depended on it. They have to throw everything into the battle.

Abu Musab al-ZarqawiThis is exactly what happened in Iraq to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Zarqawi put a bomb in a souk and killed a lot of women and children, but no Americans were present. The Salafists were outraged; they said this was the murder of innocents (where the “murder of innocents” means to kill Muslims without just cause).

Zarqawi managed to finish himself off not long afterwards when he detonated a bomb in an employment line and killed a number of men. This made the Salafists condemn him even more: they turned on him, gave his location up to the American military, and collected the bounty.

Zarqawi’s actions demonstrated that he had launched a jihad that he could not win, and also one that violated the tenets of Islamic law. This proved he had sinned against Allah, and his life was forfeit.

From this we can deduce that Jihad fighters do not respond to their own perceived weakness in the same way that a typical “insurgent” does. If the mujahideen ever concede that they are losing, then they have lost the entire jihad. Rather than withdraw, they will return to the fight with increased ferocity, otherwise they will have broken one of the core rules of Islam. They are well aware that the entire Muslim world treats such lawbreakers with utmost severity.

The Ground Zero mosque project is not a “hot” jihad, but it is jihad nonetheless. To pull back now from the Park51 jihad would be to admit that that Imam Rauf and the mosque’s backers were actually too weak to succeed in their stealth jihad. They would be discredited, and would be subject to sanction under Islamic law.

So the only possible response is to double down and push even harder to get the Ground Zero mosque built. And that is exactly what seems to be happening: as Phyllis Chesler reports, Muslim organizations are repeating their insistence that Park51 must go ahead as planned.

Chess — KingOne can’t help but feel that the KGB would have handled the matter differently. As the undisputed masters of the greatest counterintelligence state in history, they would have calculated the odds, and then made the move that best served their interests.

But unlike Imam Rauf, they were not bound by the constraints of sharia (or anything else, for that matter). If Islam has an Achilles heel, it lies within the restrictions imposed by Islamic law itself.

This characteristic can be useful to us, but only if we study and understand Islamic law. Total immersion is required: we must learn to think like Salafists.

This is the only way we can win a chess game with the imams. Unfortunately, to our great detriment we are still playing checkers.

Gates of Vienna News Feed 9/22/2010

Gates of Vienna News Feed 9/22/2010China has retaliated against Japan for the seizure of a Chinese fishing trawler by blocking the export of rare earth elements to Japan. China dominates the market for such elements, which are crucial to many manufacturing processes.

In other news, there are reports that female suicide bombers from Algeria are being prepared for major terrorist attacks in Europe.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to Andy Bostom, C. Cantoni, CR, DF, Gaia, heroyalwhyness, Insubria, JD, JP, KGS, Mary Abdelmassih, RRW, Vlad Tepes, Wally Ballou, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

[This post is a stub — nothing further here!]

“The Multicultural Society Doesn’t Work”

The latest reports from Sweden indicate that the establishment parties plan to use parliamentary maneuvers to limit Sverigedemokraterna’s access to the levers of power. The fact that the oligarchs who run Sweden are willing to openly discuss blocking the Sweden Democrats from influential committee posts is a sign of how afraid they are of these “Islamophobic” upstarts.

And with good reason. Take a look at this interview with Kent Ekeroth, the international secretary of SD, and you’ll see why he gives the Powers That Be such a bad case of indigestion. Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for YouTubing this video from British TV:

A Few Reasons for Cautious Optimism

The Fjordman Report


The noted blogger Fjordman is filing this report via Gates of Vienna.
For a complete Fjordman blogography, see The Fjordman Files. There is also a multi-index listing here.


In his article Dreaming of a Culture War, Paul E. Gottfried at the website Alternative Right criticizes my essay Thilo Sarrazin vs. the Ruling Multicultural Oligarchs, which he claims is “full of dubious assumptions.” He states that “‘democracies,’ and particularly the ones that look after their ‘citizens’ with tax monies and custodial oversight of behavior, generate widespread loyalty because of their uninhibited paternalism and because the people are made to believe they consent to having their brains laundered. This is a political success story unparalleled in human history.” Furthermore, “While [Fjordman]’s into happy talk, I’m trying to understand why the current oligarchs have done so well for so long. And I find absolutely no evidence that their string of successes will not continue into the indefinite future.”

Thilo Sarrazin: Outbanked


I agree that far too many Westerners stubbornly keep voting for bad political parties. I was personally disappointed during the previous parliamentary elections in Britain, when rather few citizens voted for real alternatives such as the BNP or the UKIP and instead supported the three established left-wing parties. And yes, I consider the Tories to constitute a centrist or center-left party today. It is unfortunately true that many of the establishment so-called “conservatives,” from Merkel via Sarkozy to George W. Bush, are little better than the left-wing parties. This exposes serious flaws in the democratic system. Apart from that, I disagree with most of the assumptions Mr. Gottfried makes and I believe his conclusions are incorrect.

Immigrants #2Ordinary Westerners are indeed guilty of not putting up enough resistance to the ongoing Multicultural destruction of the West, but they are not the driving force behind it. The common people are divided, but with a large and rapidly increasing percentage of them rejecting the anti-Western Multicultural propaganda of the ruling elites. The ruling elites — or perhaps we should call them oligarchs since “elites” is how they view themselves — are still almost uniformly behind the deliberate program of flooding the West with mass immigration to demographically and culturally transform Western countries. Dissenters from this policy are branded as heretics and formally expelled from their ranks, as is happening to Sarrazin.

This is uncontroversial as far as I am concerned. The interesting question is why the ruling elites are doing this, and what they hope to gain from their destructive policies. My bet is that many of the Leftists are informed by a Marxist understanding in which the West is the evil inventor of capitalism that needs to be destroyed for its sins to pave the way for a just world order. The Big Business supporters simply want unrestricted access to markets, raw materials and workers and feel less and less loyalty to any specific nation. In general, all the elites, not just the Leftists but the centrists and large segments of the “establishment Right,” believe that dismantling Western nation-states is necessary because functioning nation-states constitute an obstacle to a Globalist world order. Also, it is quite possible that some of the oligarchs suffer from “Third World envy” and want to turn the West into a giant Mexico, where the wealthy elites lord over a vast sea of serfs and with no significant middle class to challenge their rule.

Raza studiesWhile the Multicultural oligarchs remain in control, they are less firmly so now than they were a few years ago. Although it would be an exaggeration to say that they are scared, some of them might be getting a little nervous. Despite having near-total control over the propaganda flow in the form of the mass media, they find it increasingly hard to convince the common people that being mugged in previously safe cities is “enriching,” that importing dysfunctional Third World tribes is “good for the economy” or that Islam is a “religion of peace.” A critical mass of ordinary individuals in the West currently know that they are being lied to on a daily basis and that they have been deceived by their own leaders for decades.

Even the nuclear weapon in the Multicultural arsenal, the “racism” card, is not as intimidating as it used to be, especially since rapid advances in genetics are making it clear that there likely is a genetic component to intelligence. White Westerners are sick and tired of being abused and dispossessed second-rate citizens in their own countries, of being the subject of constant ridicule and unfair demonization and above all of being the only peoples on the planet who do not have the right to preserve their culture and heritage, despite the fact that they have created the most dynamic and innovate civilization that has ever existed in the history of mankind.

Sweden DemocratsA rising tide of white anger is one of the most significant political developments in the Western world today. This change is real, not imaginary. In September this year the Sweden Democrats, operating under appallingly repressive conditions in what is probably the most totalitarian country in the Western world, were swept into the Swedish parliament. I have noticed when talking to random people that many of the subjects that I write about which were considered highly controversial only five years ago are finding more acceptance.

This movement is gradual, but for the first time in generations it is going in the right direction. I choose to see the cup as half full in this case rather than remain a grumpy professional pessimist. Also, as Islam is becoming increasingly unpopular among the masses, so too will its apologists in the West become. If all of your enemies are in the same boat this potentially makes it possible to hit all of them with the same torpedo, figuratively speaking.

Does this mean that I think we have won? Of course it doesn’t. We have tremendous challenges ahead of us. I’m merely saying that something resembling a genuine opposition is finally emerging. It is not sufficiently organized and it needs guidance, but let us then focus on how to provide that guidance. The opposition movement has potential, especially if the economy keeps deteriorating in the near future, which is a very real possibility. If Mr. Gottfried has failed to notice the rising popular resentment against the lying Multicultural oligarchs then I fear that he no longer understands what is going on in his own civilization.

Gates of Vienna News Feed 9/21/2010

Gates of Vienna News Feed 9/21/2010Hackers broke into a web page belonging to the Sweden Democrats and were able to download a dataset of personal information on people who had requested information on the party — many of them potential recruits or members. The information has been offered online as a way for opponents to discover who the Sweden Democrats in their neighborhood are.

In other news, the Federal Reserve has decided to leave interest rates unchanged — which means they won’t be raised, since they can hardly fall — and left the door open to future “quantitative easing”, given the persistently weak economy with its high unemployment. The stock market in Japan rallied in response.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to Andy Bostom, C. Cantoni, Caroline Glick, CSP, Erick Stakelbeck, Fjordman, JD, JP, KGS, Kitman, Sean O’Brian, Srdja Trifkovic, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

[This post is a stub — nothing further here!]

Charges Dropped against Gregorius Nekschot

Nekschot cartoonWe’ve been following the case of Gregorius Nekschot for two and a half years. Mr. Nekschot — not his real name — is a Dutch cartoonist who inflamed the multicultural sensibilities of the state. Back in 2008 he was rousted out of bed in the middle of the night and hauled off to the slammer for a few hours of bright lights and intense questioning.

And all because of his “racist” political cartoons. When he was released by the police with a charge hanging over his head, he was warned to watch his step. Otherwise his pseudonymity might just happen to disappear, and everyone would know who he was and where he lived, including the Moroccan thugs who wanted to kill him.

Now, more than two years later, the charges against him have been dropped. He is free and clear — until, that is, he draws another “racist” cartoon.

According to Dutch News:

Discrimination Case Dropped Against Cartoonist

The public prosecution department announced on Tuesday it is dropping its case against a cartoonist arrested in 2008 on discrimination charges.

The cartoonist, who operates under the pseudonym Gregorius Nekschot, published the controversial cartoons on his website. He was arrested in 2008 following a complaint made in 2005.

Although the department considers the cartoons discriminate against Muslims and ‘people with dark skins’, it made the decision to drop the case because the cartoons have not appeared on the website since shortly after Nekschot’s arrest. In addition, the cartoonist spent 24 hours in jail following his arrest, reports the Volkskrant.

The fact that the complaint was made as far back as 2005 and there have been no further complaints also played a role, the paper says.

The Nekschot case demonstrates that the Netherlands possesses a legal culture of absolutely arbitrary prosecution. Whether you are charged or not hinges on the whim of the prosecutor. With so many laws and regulations and so much flexibility given to the prosecution, it is completely at the discretion of public officials whether anyone ever gets prosecuted at all. No citizen can ever know for certain what constitutes a prosecutable offense, nor when he might be hauled off without notice to help the police with their enquiries.

As Fjordman pointed out earlier today, the entire process is even worse than arbitrary: it is deliberately calculated to intimidate the natives — the “persons of Dutch background” — and only them.

This technique well-known to totalitarian states. It induces more fear and apathy than straightforward draconian laws, because citizens are compelled to live in a state of continuous anxiety. It’s a very effective tool of control.

El Ingles, however, notes that this sort of practice is evidence that the EU’s soft totalitarian regime is inherently weak. Without a gulag and an armed secret police to whom unlimited powers are granted, European pseudo-democracies are reduced to three basic techniques for controlling their citizens:

1.   Financial. Virtually all citizens depend on the state for some or all of their livelihood and well-being. The threat of withdrawal of state benefits is a powerful incentive to keep a restive populace in line.
 
2.   Shunning. This technique has reached a baroque extreme in Sweden, but it is used in all Western European countries. If you express any doubleplus ungood thoughts, you can expect to be ostracized and avoided. Your career may be harmed. Your neighbors may report you to the police on any pretext.

Keeping quiet about your unorthodox opinions is the best option under the circumstances.
 

3.   Nuisance prosecution. Lionheart in the UK and Nekschot in the Netherlands are two notable examples of this technique. Citizens are picked up for the most nebulous of thought crimes — “hate speech”, “incitement to ethnic hatred”, “hets mot folkgrupp”, etc. — held for a while, interrogated, and then released with a possible charge pending. They are forced to retain counsel, endure repeated questioning, and undergo stressful official bureaucratic procedures while their case drags on for years.

Then suddenly all the charges are dropped: “You’re free to go, mate, but I’d watch my step if I was you.”

Or not — some prosecutions actually proceed to trial and conviction, as with Tomashot and Jussi Halla-aho in Finland and Dahn Pettersson in Sweden. The cases of Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff and Geert Wilders have yet to be resolved.

When you think about it, this is a pretty flimsy framework on which to erect a totalitarian state. Without a full apparatus of armed suppression and mass internment, the state is quite vulnerable.

This is especially true with regards to technique #1. A fiscal implosion will remove most of the coercive power of the modern welfare state. Severe reductions in state payouts will consign more and more citizens to the class of “those with nothing to lose”. This is the raw material out of which revolutions are built.

Given the current global financial crisis, it’s a sobering thought. By the time all these “hate speech” prosecutions run their course, the game may have changed entirely.



ADDENDUM FROM DYMPHNA


The page, Steyn in Scandinavia, has a number of entertaining stories about his evening at the Free Speech Awards in Copenhagen. It sounds like a most enjoyable time.

[The original was in Danish, here]

The last story, different in tone and texture, concerned Nekshot’s appearance for his award.

The burka-man from Holland
The tone was more subdued when the Dutch cartoonist who goes under the pseudonym of Gregorius Nekschot entered the podium. His irreverent drawings poking fun at everything from Christianity and Islam to various secular ideologies have made him a man under threat. For that reason Nekschot appeared in a burka so as not to reveal his identity. As he made clear, he has ample reason to fear Muslim rage and reprisals if he were to show his face.

Muslims are not the only ones who in recent years have tried to make his life miserable. Almost three years ago he was arrested by Dutch police on suspicion of having offended against the country’s anti-discrimination laws. After a while he was released but it is yet to be determined whether his cartoons are offensive enough to warrant a trial.

License to kill
“A trial may be long and exhausting,” said Nekschot. “And if I am forced to appear in court without a veil, that will give every religious fanatic a ‘license to kill’“. As Nekschot explained, free speech in Holland has been changed into a sort of Russian roulette, whose outcome it is impossible to predict.

“In Holland freedom of speech has been subjugated to freedom of religion. With the support of the multicultural establishment religious people have the right to do whatever they think their religion demands of them. Critics of a multicultural utopia on the other hand have no rights. But as an artist I cannot accept these limitations. For me self-censorship is not an option,” said Gregorius Nekschot, who had brought his own bodyguard to the meeting and who hurriedly left the hall after his speech.

Molly Norris needs to take a look at a genuinely suppressed cartoonist. This is what I meant by having gravitas and why she has none.

Dex Quire points out that Norris’ home town (Seattle) is so far out of the reality loop they don’t care. Maybe being wrapped in all that blue Progressive fuzz, where nothing matters but porn stars and puffery, is what makes the denizens of Seattle so indifferent to her fate or to her dramas. Just don’t get in the way of their latte, though.

Nekschot is a real victim because he hasn’t the luxury of governmental indifference. He has been truly silenced by the grim strictures of modern Holland.



Previous posts about Gregorius Nekschot:

2008   May   17   Welcome to the Dutch Democratic Kingdom
        17   Solidarity with Gregorius Nekschot
        18   Interview with Gregorius Nekschot
        20   “sacrific[ing] free… speech at the altar of stan…
        22   Gregorius Nekschot and the Dutch Political Situati…
        28   Standing up for Gregorius Nekschot
    Jul   12   “What Used to be Known as Christendom”
    Oct   27   Holland’s Systematic Campaign Against Free Speech
2009   Feb   3   Gregorius Nekschot in Copenhagen
2010   Mar   22   Fighting the Taliban With Pencil and Paper

Hat tip: DF.

In Vino, Semper Fi

Well, at least those sentiments exist in this fine wine.

Jarhead Red One of our readers mentioned having seen Jarhead Red at his local Kroger’s. Hmm…we skip the wine department these days (she said sadly), but there must be lots of oenology enthusiasts out there willing to buy a bottle in support of solidarity with the Marines. Just to test the waters, so to speak.

A riffling of the rolodex (yes, I still have one) led to Apollon Zamp. His return email didn’t bring back just a “will do” but rather a “mission accomplished”.

But before we get to Captain Zamp’s assessment, a bit about the winemakers. Here is their mission statement:

“The Marine Corps gave us both a remarkable opportunity to serve our country. Along the way, we learned invaluable skills and forged friendships that will last a lifetime.

With Jarhead Red, we aim to give back while honoring the men and women who defend our nation. Each bottle of Jarhead Red supports the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation, which provides educational assistance to children of U.S. Marines, with special consideration given to families of fallen Marines.

While Jarhead Red is made by Marines, for Marines, it will appeal to anyone who enjoys a robust red wine crafted in an approachable style. Semper fi.”

And for those of you so inclined, here is Jarhead Red’s Facebook page. You’ll find other assessments there.

But here is Captain Zamp’s After Action Report, compiled especially for Gates of Vienna readers (the American ones, anyway). Somehow, looking at the bottle one doubts it sells well in, say, Berkeley or Vermont:

Report on 2008 Jarhead Red

(Mourvedre, Cinsault, Syrah, Grenache)


Appearance: Surprisingly clear–not opaque. Very attractive garnet color. Reminiscent of some plum wines. (9/10)

Aroma: Spicy! Peppery , with hints of raspberry and plum. Earthy, but not exceptionally so. Very forward. (13/15)

Palate: Gamey without being too heavy or full-bodied. Strawberry and other red berries. Supple tannin. Firm without being grippy or harsh. (13/15)

Finish: A bit weak, but not unpleasant. No lingering aftertaste to speak of. Some slight earth/game character. No residual tannin. Somewhat disappointing when compared to the buildup of the aroma and mouthfeel. (4/10)

Score (added to a base of 50 points): 89

Overall rating: This wine is well-made and captures the essence of the region(s) it is emulating (obviously the Rhone and Southwest of France), and will pair well with a variety of appropriate cheeses, sausage, red sauces, etc. The finish, as noted, is slightly off-putting, but by no means a dealbreaker. An above-average and enjoyable wine.

As I recall, the reader who recommended looking into Jarhead Red said it was about ten or eleven dollars. But a portion of every sale goes to the Marine Corps Scholarship Fund. Sheesh, a wine page where you can actually enlist. How gung ho can you get?

When you enlist in the Jarhead Wine Club, you will receive our new releases conveniently shipped to your home or business once per year. You will also enjoy an exclusive 15 percent savings on all other Jarhead wine purchases.

Membership is complimentary. There’s no better way to treat yourself—or your favorite Marine—to a steady supply of Jarhead wines. Proceeds from the Jarhead Wine Club benefit the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation.

You will receive your annual shipment in early November, just in time for the birthday of the Marine Corps on November 10.

So…do your duty. Enlist today. Or re-up, for the bonus discount. And when it arrives lift a glass or three to Gates of Vienna!
Heck, impress the postman and just knock off the top of a bottle and drink it straight. A few glass shards never stopped a jarhead.

The Myth of the “Isolation of Turkish Cypriots”

Below is a recent press release containing a message to the United States Senate by the Cyprus Action Network:

Matt Bryza’s pro-Turkish devotion incompatible with human rights principles

Honourable Members of the United States Senate,

We have heard that the US Senate Foreign Relations committee chairman John Kerry, in response to a request by Senator Barbara Boxer, has postponed the committee vote on the nomination of US Ambassador to Azerbaijan designate Matt Bryza.

We welcome this move and hope that enough time will be allowed and enough research will go into the preliminary work needed to establish the suitability or not of Mr. Bryza to this post.

We remember Mr. Bryza very well and his statements during 2006 when he toured our area.

In his July 21, 2006 press conference, Matt Bryza responded to a question from a Turkish reporter from the Anatolia News Agency asking “what does the U.S. Government plan to help these people [Turkish Cypriots] end their isolation?” Mr. Bryza responded “that we have done a number of things. We are providing $30.5 million in assistance to the Turkish Cypriot community. So we are already actively working to end the isolation of Turkish Cypriots — or to ease the isolation of Turkish Cypriots.”

That was an insult to us Greek Cypriots, victims of a brutal Turkish invasion and continued occupation of half of our country Cyprus, a member of the UN and the EU. The Turkish Cypriots are not in any isolation whatsoever. That is a fabricated myth by Turkish propaganda. The Cyprus issue is not “the isolation of the Turkish Cypriots” but the fact that Turkey invaded Cyprus in 1974 and still holds under occupation half of a sovereign country.

The Turkish Cypriots supported and welcomed the Turkish invading forces and joined them in their invasion against us the Greek Cypriots. To this day they condone Turkey in her violations of our human rights. It is us the Greek Cypriots who are isolated in that since the Turkish invasion in 1974 for 36 years Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots do not allow us to return to our land and properties. The Turks, Turkish Cypriots and the imported Turkish Anatolian population (purposely imported by Turkey in order change the demography of the occupied area and fill in the gap she created by the forceful uprooting of us the 200,000 Greek Cypriot refugees) are using however our stolen properties without our permission.In total violation of our human rights. The Turkish Cypriots enjoy the benefits of “both worlds”. Unlike us the victims and uprooted Greek Cypriot refugees, are free to travel anywhere in Cyprus, have been issued passports of the Republic of Cyprus, identity cards, they travel thus as citizens of the EU anywhere and their children enter European universities, they enjoy free medical care, they come every day to the free part and work and get paid without paying taxes, whereas we the Greek Cypriots have to pay for our health coverage. They are paid pensions, welfare, and all the benefits as citizens of the Republic of Cyprus without paying a penny in taxes and obligations. We the Greek Cypriots have in fact become second class citizens in our own country because it us the Greek Cypriots who subsidise them!

Furthermore Turkey in 1974 has murdered thousands of Greek Cypriots, 1619 are still missing presumed murdered as well and Turkey still does not reveal the whereabouts of these people in order relieve their families of the misery of waiting and dying without knowing what happened to their loved ones.

The Turkish invading army raped well over 800 Greek Cypriot women of all ages. The actual number to be precise reaches 2,000 and the 800 number represents those who had abortions.

At a press conference on July 21, 2006 on his return from a ten day trip to Turkey , Greece and Cyprus , in response to a question on the status of the Annan Plan and whether it’s off the table, he stated:

“I would just repeat what I said, that the basic ideas that are-that became known as the Annan Plan reflect wisdom and hard work and a spirit of fairness, I would argue.”

The Annan Plan was a monstrosity of the worst kind that provided Turkey 99% of all her demands over Cyprus i.e. giving her the control of the whole island on a platter. (Statement of admission by Turkish veteran journalist M.A. Birand). That plan excluded the 200,000 Greek Cypriots from returning to their homes, was that American “wisdom” and “fairness”? That plan opened Turkey an avenue to turkify the island in only few years after that. The people of Cyprus rejected that plan during the referendum on 24 April 2004. 76% of the Greek Cypriots rejected it and if one separates the vote of the illegal settlers from those of the Turkish Cypriot votes will find that even the indigenous Turkish Cypriots rejected that apartheid solution. Which favoured Turkey and only Turkey.

Mr. Bryza in his July 21 2006 statement found “wisdom” in it, “hard work” and “spirit of fairness”. Well, wisdom and fairness are two things that plan definitely did not reflect. What Mr. Bryza’s statement reflected though was his pro-Turkish stance which relates to his undisputable conflict of interest which stretches to his Turkish contacts. Starting from his Turkish born wife who is a major producer of Turkish invasion denial propaganda over the years.

Mr. Bryza is considered a major asset for Turkey but not for America .

We hope the Senate will use adequate judgement in taking the proper and right decision in respect and protection of the principles of human rights. To protect the victims and not those who offend.

Yours sincerely,

Fanoulla Argyrou
Refugee from occupied Nicosia, Cyprus .
London



According to information provided by the Cyprus Press and Information Office of the Republic of Cyprus Christofias Government up until December 2009 had given the Turkish Cypriots 167.28 million Euros! (And that is only from the present Government.)

Breakdown of figures:

22.62 million Euros for medical services
117.9 million Euros in social benefits
1.22 million Euros for child benefits and student grants
9.25 million Euros in education
4.22 million Euros for electricity supply to the occupied
0.26 million Euros for telecommunications
7.46 million Euros in looking after the Muslim places of worship and houses in the free part of Cyprus, the Turkish language department at the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation and retaining the check points.

Cyprus Action Network of America (CANA)
2578 Broadway #132
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The Mother of All Silence From the Fever Swamps

Well, it’s nice to be proven right — and by the Seattle MSM, no less: Molly Norris is 49 years old. Detective Baron Bodissey, Prussian Sleuth Extraordinaire, nailed it.

I’d like to say, “You heard it here first,” but you didn’t — this article in The Seattle Times was published last Saturday.

Why didn’t y’all tell me? It would have saved me a lot of work and allowed me to get a good night’s sleep last night.

Most of the article is full of the usual smarmy blather and bumf that you would expect from a high-toned Seattle newspaper columnist. But there’s more in there to interest us than the fact that Miz Molly really is as long in the tooth as I expected (although not anywhere near as decrepit as yours truly).

Here’s how the author, one Danny Westneat, described the situation:

The FBI had insisted a U.S. citizen renounce her identity, all because some radical in Yemen doesn’t like her art?

It turns out to be more complicated than that. The FBI says it never insisted Norris go underground. But it is true, her friends say, that an al-Qaida terror threat is driving a Seattleite to change her name and give up her art. It has happened without a peep of concern, either public or private, from Seattle’s political power structure.

So it’s as we suspected: Molly Norris has made things appear just a bit more extreme and alarming than they really are. I speculated on her motives in my previous post, so there is no need to cover that ground again here.

The back story is that last April, Norris, 49, drew a satirical cartoon calling for an “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!” She was protesting the TV network Comedy Central, which, under threat of violence from a Muslim group, had edited out references to the Islamic Prophet Muhammad from an episode of “South Park.”

Norris felt the network should stand up for free speech.

What happened next is that Norris lost control of her story to the fever swamps of the Internet.

“[T]he fever swamps of the Internet” —that’s us, folks!

We’re the whackjob racist boobs who live out here in flyover country and are always ready to go berserk and make life miserable for the effete urbanauts in places like Seattle.

But [Special Agent David] Gomez told The Seattle Times the FBI did not insist she vanish into a sort of witness-protection program.

“Whatever she did, it is what she decided to do,” Gomez said.

So the FBI gave her a lot of advice about how to protect herself, and left it at that. Her high-profile disappearance was her own decision. Presumably her protection plan was light on Smith and Wesson, but it was certainly heavy on headline space in the Seattle Weekly.

Pete Jackson, a local freelance writer, said he had lunch with Norris on Friday — two days after the Weekly story ran. It was his understanding the FBI’s advice consisted of things like varying walking routes and, “How to do the bomb walk around your car.”

[…]

Yet there’s been a “low-grade indifference” to Norris’ plight, Jackson says. Public officials haven’t contacted her, not even privately.

I’m not sure why anyone thinks such official attention would be de rigueur, but we’ll let that one pass.

“Here’s a case of a wanted terrorist demanding the head of a Northwesterner,” Jackson wrote on the Web site Crosscut. “Why, then, has Molly Norris been met by the mother of all silence?”

Now, wait a minute here.

Just a few exquisitely crafted paragraphs ago, the author told us that Ms. Norris “lost control of her story to the fever swamps of the Internet”. That is: the right-wing freakazoids went bonkers talking about her case. They loaded the web up with so much wordage that it made googling up the skinny on her that much more difficult for me late last night.

And then, when she “went into hiding”, they gave her even more screen pixels and RSS bytes.

She got her first fifteen minutes, and then ordered up another fifteen minutes — but she still wants more. Or at least her publicist friend Mr. Jackson does.

You know, it’s devilishly hard to craft a viable business plan for helping out Molly Norris. Her chosen methodology — sucking up to Muslims as much as possible — just isn’t going to work. It won’t make her problem go away, not ever.

Face it, Molly. You goofed. You dissed the prophet, and that can never, ever be taken back. Ask Theo Van Gogh — blasphemy is forever.

So you now have three choices:

1.   You can continue to hide and skulk and complain and apologize and beg, but a mujahid may cut your throat someday anyway.
2.   You can stand up proud and present a middle finger to the Islamic world, proclaiming a newly-discovered loyalty to the anti-jihad resistance. And, yes, a mujahid may still cut your throat someday.
3.   You can convert to Islam. It’s really easy: you just cover your head with a big black cloth and say, “La illaha ila Allah, wa Muhammadun rasul Allah.” After that you give up pork and alcohol and walking in public without a male family member accompanying you. You have to do whatever your husband or your father or your brother or other male relative tells you to do. But you will be able to stay alive — no one will cut your throat.

Those really are your only choices. I’d go for #2 if I were you, because it’s better to die on your feet than live on your knees.

Besides, if you join the resistance, there’s at least an outside chance that Islam will be pushed back far enough to make the fatwas against you relatively meaningless. It’s unlikely that this will happen within your lifetime, but it’s possible.

Or you might prefer #3. You’d be safe and taken care of. And I doubt they’d make you undergo FGM at your age.

It’s your call.



Nat tip: Nilk.