Hitchens on Tenet

George Tenet was in the Clinton administration, and he was in the Bush administration. And now he's selling his book.

But Hitchens has the skinny: A Loser's History: George Tenet's sniveling, self-justifying new book is a disgrace

Notice the direct quotes that make it clear who is the author of this brilliant insight. And then pause for a second. The author is almost the only man who could have known of Zacarias Moussaoui and his co-conspirators—the very man who positively knew they were among us, in flight schools, and then decided to leave them alone. In his latest effusion, he writes: "I do know one thing in my gut. Al-Qaeda is here and waiting." Well, we all know that much by now. But Tenet is one of the few who knew it then, and not just in his "gut" but in his small brain, and who left us all under open skies.

Read it all.

From Roger L. Simon's comments, former intelligence officers ask for Tenet's to return his Medal of Freedom.

Time to dismantle the CIA? Update For now, Scrappleface dismantles Tenet. Cassandra, however, says it best,

I can forgive Bill Clinton, Sandy Berger, and Richard Clarke for failing to kill Osama bin Laden, for weighing the risks and benefits differently than I do, or even did. I can forgive them for not singling out one Presidential Daily Briefing entitled "Bin Ladin Preparing to Hijack US Aircraft and Other Attacks", even though on his watch the World Trade Center had already been attacked, and acting to remove the threat.

What I cannot forgive is the lying and historical revisionism of Bill Clinton and his Clinton-era holdovers who contradict their own past statements in a transparent attempt to shift the blame from an administration which had EIGHT YEARS to do something about al Qaeda and numerous opportunities to kill Osama bin Laden to an incoming administration which, during a time of transition following a contested election, only had EIGHT MONTHS and, according to the head of the CIA's bin Laden unit, no opportunities to kill Osama bin Laden.

For your listening pleasure:

My podcast starts at noon EDT, in less than 1/2 hour. Update I talked about my days in Real Estate, back in the late 1980s.

And then at 1PM, Siggy will be a guest of the BBC's World Have Your Say program. You can listen live here. Siggy fans around the world rejoice.

Two great posts from Friends I Haven't Met Yet

Here are recent posts from two of the best bloggers around:
Statistics 101 from Scheiss Weekly, where Mamacita's homework assignment to her college students was,

Topic: "The Perfect Spouse/Partner"

Each of 56 students (ages 18-64) (average age: 36) (31 women, 25 men) made a list of the top 12 attributes of the perfect spouse/partner. Here are the results, averaged, and ranked in order of importance.

Over at Eternity Road, yesterday Francis Porretto posted one of his excellent Sunday Ruminations, Intimacy, Inference, and Identity

My main point here is that each of us has an identity to himself based on incomplete knowledge or comprehension. Such a reflexive identity -- the psychological term for it is "self-concept" -- is composed partly of fiction far more often than not. The fiction helps us to paper over those flaws and shortcomings in ourselves we can't bear to face.

Empirical substantiation is easily available. Virtually everyone believes himself to be above average in most of the measures that people prize. It's so easy to evade objective assessment of oneself that nearly everyone believes himself to be more moral than average, more congenial than average, smarter than average, a better athlete than average, and (of course) a better driver than average. That's not possible even in Lake Wobegon, but study after study indicates that it's the way we view ourselves -- consciously.

Why? Because we need to have a good opinion of ourselves if we're going to face others, and the challenges of life, with any confidence. Apparently, a "good opinion of oneself" seems to demand the belief that others aren't quite as good in the ways that "matter." In other words, we deceive ourselves about our failings because in this instance, deception, by making our self-concepts palatable, improves our survival prospects. In other words, it enhances our security.

Read both - and bookmark their blogs.

Update Make that three posts from Friends I Haven't Met Yet - St. Catherine and Manly Men

Catherine was a woman who was all that she was born to be. She advocated that in everyone and said, “If you are what you should be, you will set the world on fire,” so it makes sense that she would like manly men who had not lost their birth-gifts to fear of the world's regard.

If you are not being what and who you were born to be, you're going through life unfulfilled - and the world is missing whatever it was you were supposed to contribute.

------------------------------------------------------------
Don't forget to listen to today's podcast at noon.

More blogging later.

Introducing: DragonPig

Yes, it's DragonPig, who, disguised as Pig Kent, mild-mannered pig from a great metropolitan area,

is also a fire-breathing counterJihadist,

fighting a never-ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way!

In other pig news...

(And yes, it was hard to hold the fiery DragonPig in a way such that you can still tell what it is.)

If you know anyone undergoing chemotherapy...

please insist that they read this article, Chemotherapy Fog Is No Longer Ignored as Illusion

Once, women complaining of a constellation of symptoms after undergoing chemotherapy - including short-term memory loss, an inability to concentrate, difficulty retrieving words, trouble with multitasking and an overarching sense that they had lost their mental edge - were often sent home with a patronizing "There, there."

But attitudes are changing as a result of a flurry of research and new attention to the after-effects of life-saving treatment. There is now widespread acknowledgment that patients with cognitive symptoms are not imagining things, and a growing number of oncologists are rushing to offer remedies, including stimulants commonly used for attention-deficit disorder and acupuncture.

"Until recently, oncologists would discount it, trivialize it, make patients feel it was all in their heads," said Dr. Daniel Silverman, a cancer researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, who studies the cognitive side effects of chemotherapy. "Now there's enough literature, even if it's controversial, that not mentioning it as a possibility is either ignorant or an evasion of professional duty."

Read the rest.

Saturday afternoon Ray

Ray's on TV, and here's a YouTube for you,

"Off with their breasts!"

Continuing on the police action in Iran trying to force all women into BMOs, the BBC reports that the the crackdown includes young men, too:

Young men are being cautioned for wearing short sleeved shirts or for their hairstyles.

The women continue to be relentlessly harrassed.

And now comes the really misogynistic and truly bizarre part,

One shopkeeper selling evening dresses told us the moral police had ordered him to saw off the breasts of his mannequins because they were too revealing.

He said he wasn't the only shop to receive this strange instruction.

The shopkeeper "sawed off the breasts of the mannequins on his window display and covered them with sticky tape", at the insistence of the police, and the BBC has a video.

Makes one wonder what the Sanity Squad would say, doesn't it?

Here are more photos on the fashion crackdown.

Meanwhile, over at Gateway Pundit... Banned In Iran... A Helpful Guide For Prisoners of the Regime

Cross-posted at MNM and DNN
Update: 1001 Nights

Update, Sunday 29 April Welcome, readers from The Corner. I agree 100% with Michael Ledeen

Yes, they really are crazy. And sick. And they're after us. Somebody tell the secretary of state, please.

While you are here, you might want to listen to my podcasts. Please visit often.

Update, Monday 30 April: Welcome, Michelle Malkin readers. Please visit often. Michelle correctly points out,

Activists say that while world attention has focused on the West's standoff with Iran over its nuclear program, the abuses of women's rights have intensified, using fear of a U.S. attack as a pretext.

In Memoriam: Mstislav Rostropovich

Mstislav Rostropovich, 1927-2007
I couldn't find a YouTube of his playing at the Berlin Wall, but this of Bach's Bouree, Ste #3 is lovely:

And here's the Prelude from Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 in G major, BWV 1007

Friday afternoon news: Senior al-Qaida operative captured

Claude Chafin emailed the news,

Pentagon says senior al-Qaida operative captured, taken to Guantanamo Bay

WASHINGTON - (AP) The Pentagon said Friday it has custody of one of al-Qaida's most senior and most experienced operatives, an Iraqi who was attempting to return to his native country when he was captured.

Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said the captive is Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi. He was received by the Pentagon from the CIA, Whitman said, but the spokesman would not say where or when al-Iraqi was captured or by whom.

The Pentagon took custody of him at Guantanamo Bay this week, Whitman said.
Whitman said the terror suspect was responsible for plotting cross-border attacks from Pakistan on U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

NAME
'Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi

PHONETICS
AHB-dahl HAH-dee ahl-eeRAHkee

KEY ALIAS
Nashwan 'Abd al-Razzaq 'Abd al-Baqi (true name)

AFFILIATION
Al-Qa'ida

NATIONALITY
Iraqi

'Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi was one of al-Qa'ida's highest-ranking and experienced senior operatives at the time of his detention. He had been one of the organization's key paramilitary commanders in Afghanistan from the late 1990s and, during 2002-04, was in charge of cross-border attacks in Afghanistan against Coalition forces. In recent years, he also directed plots to assassinate perceived opponents of al-Qa'ida, including Pakistani President Pervez Musharaf and a United Nations official.

· 'Abd al-Hadi was trying to return to his native country, Iraq , to manage al-Qa'ida's affairs and possibly focus on operations outside Iraq against Western targets. 'Abd al-Hadi also met with al-Qa'ida members in Iran and believed that they should be doing more with the fight, including supporting efforts in Iraq and causing problems within Iran .

· 'Abd al-Hadi provided leadership and reconnaissance support during a rocket attack in the fall of 2003 against US military forces in Afghanistan .

'Abd al-Hadi was born in Mosul, Iraq, in 1961. He is a former member of the Iraqi military who spent more than 15 years in Afghanistan . Before September 11, 2001, he was a member of al-Qa'ida's ruling Shura Council - a now-defunct 10-person advisory body to Usama Bin Ladin - as well as the group’s Military Committee, which oversaw terrorist and guerrilla operations and paramilitary training. 'Abd al-Hadi has been a member of al‑Qa'ida since the late 1990s, working for a long time as an instructor in one of al-Qa'ida's training camps in Afghanistan .

· 'Abd al-Hadi was known and trusted by Bin Ladin and Ayman al-Zawahiri. 'Abd al-Hadi was in direct communication with both leaders and, at one point, was Zawahiri’s caretaker. 'Abd al-Hadi also interacted with other senior al-Qa'ida planners and decisionmakers, such as Khalid Shaykh Muhammad and Abu Faraj al-Libi, and deceased al-Qa'ida members Hamza Rabi'a and 'Abd al-Rahman al-Muhajir.

· 'Abd al-Hadi associated with leaders of other extremist groups allied with al-Qa‘ida in Afghanistan and Pakistan , including the Taliban. Abd al-Hadi worked directly with the Taliban to determine responsibility and lines of communication between Taliban and al-Qa'ida leaders in Afghanistan, specifically with regard to the targeting of U.S. Forces.

More at the BBC
-----------------------------------------------------
In other (totally unrelated) news, my next Blog Talk Radio guest will be filmmaker Tim Montgomerie, who made the World Without America videos. Join us at noon Monday, April 30.

Third bloggers' conference call with Sen. John McCain

Sen. McCain started by mentioned his official announcement to run for President. Today’s he’s in Iowa, tomorrow in Nevada and later in Arizona.

Q: How about that statement from Mitt Romney that Bin Laden not worth capturing?
McC; We will get Bin-Laden and we'll bring him to justice – OBL is a major factor and we'll will over extremism through the psychological side.

Q. Funding the war:
McC The military have to plan ahead and have the assurance and commitment of the funding in order to give the men and women the maximum capability to do the job. If he was the President he'd probably veto it because of the pork involved make those projects famous. The pork is a practice that has to stop.

Q. Romney & Giuliani are against civil unions in NH - what is McC's position?
McC: Opposed to the legislation – he's a Federalist but if he was a citizen of NH he would opposed it.

Q. A reporter that heckled Sen. McCain now says we have an obligaton to stay in Iraq. Is there a shift?
McC: Sen. McCain didn't hear of that but saw in the Charlie Rose that others said that to withdraw would bring chaos. Suicide bombers continue to be the focus of the effort. Tthere continues to be progress in Bagdhad.
What concerns him most is the Malaki government which wants to take two months off for the Summer but needs to prove they are an inclusive government.
The Ambar province has dramatically improved. Gen. Petreus is concerned on importation of suicide bombers from Iran and Syria. There is measured but small progress taking place, but the Malaki government has to step up to the place.

Q. How about the deadline on Sen. McCain's letter to the Secreatry of the Air Force?
McC: Sen. McCain hasn't been in his office for the last week but he'll get an update immediately.

Q. Saudi plot on oil field, considering how oil is a national securit issue – are hybrid cars a priority?
McC: Oviously there's a huge national security component to oil importation. Sen McCain supporst ethanol fuel importation, no subsidies to corn ethanol; we need nuclear power and to streamline the process through licensing; and hybrid and electric cars are important. He's not ready to impose government controls or intervention. What happens in the ME is very important to us but if we weren't dependent of oil it wpuld be a different situation

Q. The question started on Pres. Bush's communication skilss at the last press conference - Has Sen McCain noticed if he's getting different treatment from the media?
McC: The President gave a detailed briefing on the war last week; having the Pres. update and shows a grasp of the issues to the people is important. Sen. McCain doesn't blame the media; he (the Senator) just needs to do a better job and will continue to include the media and the bloggers.

Q. On the issue of pork: the blogger's local fire dept applied to Home Security for $35,000 for weights and washer machine. How would McC direct Home Security?
McC: It's laden with pork and doesn't reflect where the dangerous areas are. The thing that confuses people is whether a project is worthwhile or not, but there has to be competion, justification and authorization, so it’' the process that's broken where people put in these earmarks. He's judging the process of earmarks, where it's so corrupt we end up with congressmen going to jail.

Q: On abortion rights: would his SCOTUS appointees be conservatives?
McC: He would not have a litmust test, but he believes in having people who have a proven record of strict interpretation of the Constitution, as the Founding Fathers wanted. McCain would appoint people with judicial experience, but with other life experiences, too – time in the military corporation, small business, with knowledge of the real world. A strict interpretation of the constitution is most important.

Q: How about Social Security and Medicare?
McC: As President he would reach out to Dems and would tell the Amer people to insist that they reach back like Reagan and Tip O'Neil, and would make it a key domestic issue: 2 choices either go bankrupt or work it out.

Q: Is he running as the anti-Bush?
McC: He has the same positions he's always had. Basically the positions he's been holding – even when 63% of the American people think he's closely tied to the President because of the Iraq war but his positions have not changed.

Q: Looking at the electoral college map: Are there any states he could pull to red side?
McC: California can not be ignored any longer and also both Oregon and Washington. We can't be going into election by writing off large electoral states. Penn, NY, other New Engl states should also be in the running.

Q. (from Rob Bluey, whose employer, the Heritage Foundation, got a compliment from the Senator for its index of Economic Freedom) On defense: Romne wants 4% of GDP for defense?
McC: McCain's emphasis would me more on what we do rather than we spend. Defense must be fully funded. Look at Putin's reaction. We also need to emphaise reform: equipment, intelligence, relevancy of equipment, get the costs overruns under control. He'll go the smartest guys in America and ask them to hep with acqusitions and reform. Fundamental reforms should be made; heads of services should be more involved in the acquisitions process. We need to ask, are we buying the things we need to fight radical Islamic extremism

Q Would McC support a fair tax?
McC would b supportive of any offer that would reform that the majority of the people through Congress would support. There are problems with each of the proposals, but we're a long way away from a flat tax of 20%.

Thank you to Patrick Hines for inviting me.

SC&A's series: a must read

Sigmund, Carl and Alfred has a series of posts this week that you must read.
Starting with Birth of a nation, a garden blooms on the birth of Israel,
continuing with Temptations And Choices,
examining The Poison,
and looking at The Promise,
Siggy concludes his series today with The Third Rail Of Palestinan Failure.

Siggy did me the honor of being my most recent Blog Talk Radio guest, and it is a privilege to recommend his excellent posts.

BMOs

For the past week I've been getting a few dozen visitors from the Middle East looking for these two posts, Marie Claire's Mecca Stars, and Following up on Marie Claire's Mecca Stars, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and a few visitors were also looking for this post, The Veil Controversy.

Iran has been cracking down on women who don't wear the full hijab. Clearly the women are not willing to become BMOs, and the Iranian police are now forcing them. Some traditional bloggers object to the crackdown, where the police takes away young girls that are not properly attired:

Wikipedia has an explanation on the abaya or loose robe, hijab or headcovering and niqab or face veil. One of the arguments I've heard for these garments is that "They are liberating".

As Siggy puts it, Islam has a problem with women. "Liberating" is not the word that comes to mind.

Mr. Beans, and today's items

"It doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world."
------------------------------------------------
In more serious matters,
Separation Clause Invoked over Postal Contractor
------------------------------------------------
TigerHawk Liveblogged the Democratic Presidential Debate so we wouldn't haZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Update: Dozing off to the Dems
------------------------------------------------
Africans for Wolfowitz
Third World reformers resist a coup by rich Europeans

The real World Bank scandal is that Mr. Wolfowitz's enemies don't care much about Africa. The French and Brits who want him ousted have never entirely shaken the paternalism they developed during the colonial era. Their real priority is controlling the bank purse-strings and perquisites.

------------------------------------------------
One Choice in Iraq

Indeed, to the extent that last week's bloodshed clarified anything, it is that the battle of Baghdad is increasingly a battle against al-Qaeda. Whether we like it or not, al-Qaeda views the Iraqi capital as a central front of its war against us.

------------------------------------------------
Will Franken: Comedy, Not Political Correctness
------------------------------------------------
El Cafe Cubano continues the Friday fast for all political prisoners in Cuba
------------------------------------------------
It's pouring rain again. Will make sure to keep the modem dry.

Late afternoon blogging: The Shining ... romance

I posted about this song a couple of years ago:

Midnight, with the stars and you,
Midnight, and a rendezvous.
Your eyes held a message tender,
Saying, "I surrender all my love to you."
Midnight brought us sweet romance,
I know all my whole life through
I'll be remembering you,
Whatever else I do.
Midnight with the stars and you.Yes, that's the end of The Shining. However, when I hear this song I think of women in Mainbocher gowns and sixteen-button gloves and men in white tie dancing in Art Deco ballrooms.

Lawrence Wright on "Al-Qaeda: Past, Present and Future"

Yesterday afternoon TigerHawk and I attended Lawrence Wright's lecture on "Al-Qaeda: Past, Present and Future." These are my notes:

Mr. Wright started his lecture by asking what drew the 9/11 attackers to al-Qaeda? They were college educated Saudis, not the products of religious schools, with no obvious mental disorders, not religious. What draws these young men to al-Q?

Social factors:
In the 70s: Most al-Qaeda recruits came from rural areas of Egypt – displacement was the most common element among them; they joined the jihad in countries away from home.
Another factor is feeling marginal in the culture you're in. The recent plots in UK by second- and third-generation Brits but whose feelings of marginality persisted through 3 generations. There's not a clash of civilizations, but aa clash of identities within a civilization. For instance, in Belgium the most common babies' name is Mohammed. For that Mohammed, not surprisingly, Mohammed becomes more than a religion, but an identity.

We're more blessed in America with a Muslim community that's part of our society. The average American Muslim makes a higher wage than the average American.

Displacement doesn't explan everything: there are nihilists and idealists in al-Qaeda.
There are economic reasons: 1/5 world's population lives in Muslim countries but those countries account for 1/2 of the world's poor. If you take the oil out of those economies, 300 million Arabs produce less than Nokia corporation.
1.3billion Muslims mostly living in the 57 countries of Organization of Islamic Countries produce less than the German GDP.

Another factor is the lack of civil society: no movies, no plays, no dating, no political life, no museums, few parks, no unions. Nothing between the government and the mosque except shopping. No wonder that a study on depression showed that 65% boys, 72% of college age girls in college were depressed.

The separation of the sexes takes a toll on women. Saudi woman can't drive, need permission of men to travel; can't check into a hotel. One of his reporters when he worked in Saudi Arabia, Najia, slept on carpet of mosque at the airport in order to be able to attend a press conference she wanted to report on.
It also takes a toll on men, who are deprived of the solace of women's companionship. The guys didn't spend adolescence molding their behavior trying to please girls. Women are referred to as BMOs - Black Moving Objects.

The element of humiliation:
Many Muslims are personally humiliated, for instance, in Egypt's prisions. But Mr. Wright saw video of Bin Laden talking at a mosque in the 1970s - on the theme of humiliation: Why did this rich young charismatic man feel humiliated? P

There's a profound sense of cultural humiliation: on 9/11/1683 at the Gates of Vienna marked the end of Islamic superpower. This sense of humiliation is linked to a desire to strike back. Mr. Wright quoted Bernard Lewis on the movement from "how did this happen" to "who did this" to us.
The sense of injustice is reinforced by images of Muslims under siege in Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan.
Fox News and al-Jazeera show images of the continuing humiliation of the Arabs. CNN showed a pair of US Marines ignoring "quivering lips of little girls" (LW's phase), and a family kneeling in front of Marines; this image was repeated endlessly.

The sense of humiliation is expanded by fact that nearly everything you own is made elsewhere. Measurements for excellence, such as Nobel Prizes, are practically absent from the Muslim world at large.

Al-Qaeda:
Bin-Laden wanted the US to replicate the errors of Soviets. After the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan the USSR dissolved. Bin-Laden miscalculated. 80% of al-Qaeda's membership was captured or killed, and was repudiated all over the world. The WOT was essentially dead; then, Iraq sparked the flames.

A-Qaeda had planned for day when a country's leadership would be smashed.
The old al_Qaeda was run from the top-down. The new is a network of small groups. In a way, it follows the model of street gangs: flat-horizontal groups tied together by internet. Al-Qaeda makes tremendous use of internet, leaving a legacy for future jihadists. Training's a vital element in al-Qaeda.

Now al-Qaeda has training camps in Mali, Iraq, Pak, Somalia, Afghanistan, and roots in many different countries. How has it been able to reconstitute?
Al-Qaeda believes in the management of savagery: through savage acts, and taking advantage of danger opportunity, such as attacking oil fields so the government neglects other areas. Once the government falls, people look to other sources for safety.

Mr. Wright mentioned how Al-Zarqawi came to the fore: he cut off the head of a hostage, and began bombing Shiite mosques, thus creating a civil war.

In 2005 Fuad Hussein outlined al-Qaeda's master plan in Zarqawi's biography, as a 20-year plan:

9/11: The Awakening. This first stage ended in 2003 when US entered Bagdhad.
2d stage, up to 2006: recruiting
3rd stage: Syria Turkey, Israel
4th stage: 2013 al-Qaeda overthrowing Arab governements as US power continues to decline
5th stage: Caliphate. Israel won't be able to defend itself
2016 total confrontation: Caliphate Islamic army on the attack
2020 definitive victory, which is defined as, "falsehood will come to an end. Islamic state w/lead mankind to shore of safety ...and happiness".

A failure of the US in Iraq will embolden al-Qaeda.

Measures we can take to defeat radicalism:
1. Fix our intelligence, and emphasize understanding, penetrating, disrupting AQ. FBI agent Ali Safan came close to stopping 9/11, but there are fewer Arabic speakers now than in 9/11. The head of FBI doesn't know the difference between Suni & Shiite. [SEE NOTE BELOW] We need native speakers. Instead, there's a new tier of bureaucracy: the Dept. of Homeland Security. We need skilled people on the ground. There are only 6 fluent Arabic speakers in the Iraq embassy. Spurned Arabs & Muslims can’t get a job in security after serving 4 yrs in the Army.
2. Need allies in this effort. "Antiamericanism seemed to have vanished from the lexicon after 9/11". Many countries have a stake in Iraq, for instance Sweden, and the countries harbroing millions of refugees in Iraq's neighbors.
3. We're in pregnant moment in Israeli-Palestinian crisis. It's difficult to make people make peace but it's clear that the Arabs are suing for peace and want peace. This offers a great opportunity to restore our reputation and focus in the settlements. If we want Israel to survive, need to create prosperous successful Palestine. We need to succed in Israel and Palestine as this will reduce the flow of recruits and inflammation.

3 reasons why al-Qaeda won't win:
1. Everyone is its enemy: Shiites, Israel, USA, Westeners, NATO, Russia, China, and "atheists, pagans and hypocrites", too.
2. Most of a-Qaeda's victims are Muslims: for instance, in Casablanca, Instanbul, Algiers, Bali.
3. Al-Qaeda offers nothing to the people that follow it. Bin-Laden never thought in terms of politics because al-Qaeda doesn't believe in the future. Al-Qaeda offers one thing: death. For instance, death, not victory, over the Soviets. Al-Qaeda is a suicide machine.

Questions and anwers:
Q: Humiliation issue; Why do the Turks, Albanians and Bosnians why feel less humiliated?
LW: There are no Turks that he knows of in a-Q, and very few Bosnians. A young Turk has the opportunity to affect his society, prosper, marry and date – no reason to look to old stories of former greatness. Al-Qaeda has used Spain's Caliphate beauty, tolerance, learning, poetry, history selectively to inflame their followers.

Q. What's the best way to extricate ourselves from Iraq?
LW: I'm ppposed to getting out. We have the moral burden to do as well as we can to the Iraqi people to try to create a space of calm so the Iraqis can organize themselves.
Al-Qaeda's happy if US stays because the civil war's prospering like crazy; a-Q's happy if the US withdraws and leaves a likely genocide, spreading to other countries. We should not fool ourselves with thinking there are easy paths out.

Q. aQ offers people something to do – could you address other sources of humiliation in that part of the world?
LW. Al-Qaeda's like an engine that runs on the river of despair in the Muslim world. We need to fight despair w/hope: jobs, greater sense of justice, but there's a limit on what we can do.
Egypt has the roots for democracy, but its future is 1. the Mubarak regime perpetuates itself, or 2. the Muslim Brotherhood comes to power through democratic means. It won't be pretty. The Muslim Brotherhood's a shallow political organization, with the jihad, and now people are beginning to look at democracy in a different way; if they come to power through democracy it'd be better [than through other means].

Q; In the West we do not look forward to death, but they look forward to death through religious teachings. Why does [LW] say he say it's not a cultural religious war, then?
LW: Jim Jones had an organization drawn people, even when knowing it celebrated death. Death has attraction not exclusive to al-Qaeda.
Qatar's more open & tolerant, profoundly different from Saudi Arabia; the rotten political systems are stifling & humiliating the ambitions of so many young people.

Q. The person commented on the concept of humiliation in American foreign policy: Attempt to humiliate Lebanon, Abu graib, "Bring them on", the US's unwavering support of Israelis, & therefusal to recognize Pal elections.
LW. Wishes for a humble foreing policy, and a far more modest role in foreign relations.

Q. On the culture of death – culture of an alternative to life; what comes after death?
LW. It's remarkable that the Muslims commit suicide – Mohammed said that suicides spend all of eternity repeating the act of killing himself w/ same instrument.
The suicide killings are justified because (using a suicide killing in Egypt) first there are no innocents because everyone in Egypt were perceived as supporting the advance of Islam. Suicidal choice is made because of those who die for the greater glory of god are not considered suicides but martyrs.
LW asked, why doesn't everyone see through this sophistry – because there's awillfulness to believe in this philosophy.

Q. General Petreus said there's no diplomatic solution - only through diplomacy [NOTE: see my prior post on this statement]
LW. Only the military can provide some kind of protection to the Iraqi people because the diplomats aren't going to do that. LW's not an expert on subject. He worries about staying or pulling out. Anyone who advocates one or the other has to acknowledge the dangers of either course.

Q. The West Bank had been in the hands of Jordan; Gaza was held by Egypt. Is the sense of humiliation misplaced because a state could have been created by the Arab world and it wasn't?
LW. No one who cares for Arabs can't help but feel anger by missed opportunities to make pace. There's an opportunity and we have to seize it.

Q. (This was a very wordy statement on the commenter's study of Palestinian suicide bombers: honor students; the whole society is disaffected. Gangs in US, Colombine, etc., all are disaffected by socty around them.)
LW. Agreed

Q. What are the Islamic intellectuals doing to counter this lack of civil society?
LW. In the Arab world there are different things going on in different places. Entrenched autocrats have an investment in staying in power. We face a chove: they help us on terrorism or we democratize (for instance, in Egypt). The US has helped train people for democracy in Yemen. There are no rapid chgs in the Middle East.
There's only a certain amt of chg people can take. For instance, the Editor of his paper (where LW worked in Saudi Arabia) had been a young shepherd, and graduated at the U of Texas, but lived an entire industrial revolution in his lifetime. The whole flood of change has been so instant there's a kind of reluctance for more. Saudi Arabia's so stuck: frustration, hopelessness, anger. What force is greater? Fear is that force. Fear not of the government (which is not as cruel as Egypt's), but fear of change. Change does not equal progress in the Middle East.

Q. What lies ahead for Europe?
LW. Europe's very exposed to attack. There are many radical Muslims in the UK; tis'a much different situation than here. LW was at a mosque when someone asked for more beheadings and he watched the nodding heads of community approval. There's a real problem in England right now. All over Europe, France Spain, Germany, the jihadi vets returning & joining new cells with the network now created in Iraq. The future in Europe's not very attractive.

NOTE On the matter of the head of the FBI not knowing the difference between the Sunni and the Shiia, I was wondering if Mr. Wright had in mind Democrat Silvestre Reyes, head of the House Intelligence Committe instead. Unfortunately I didn't have the opportunity to ask a question.

Other links:
Hugh Hewitt interviewed Lawrence Wright on Tuesday
Lawrence Wright's Official Website
Lawrence Wright is the author of

The Five Myths Of Harry

The Dem Cong's been busy, hasn't it?

Captain Ed has The Five Myths Of Harry

MYTH #3:
General Petraeus Says There Is No Military Solution

SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV): "...There Is No Military Solution In Iraq. General Petraeus, The Commander On The Ground, Has Said So Himself." (Sen. Reid, "Reid: As Situation In Iraq Worsens, America Can And Must Change Course," Press Release, 04/22/07)

FACT:
General Petraeus Believes "Improv[ing] The Security" With "Additional Forces" Is Necessary To Achieve A Political Solution

GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS: "I want to assure you that Lieutenant General Odierno and I would not have asked to maintain the surge force levels in Iraq – a request that led to your tour extensions – if we did not view the additional forces as being absolutely necessary to our ability to accomplish our mission. That mission – to help Iraq improve the security for its population – is intended to provide Iraqi leaders with an opportunity to begin to tackle the crucial issues that must be resolved to achieve a sustainable outcome in Iraq." (Gen. David Petraeus, Letter To Soldiers Serving In Multi-National Force-Iraq, 4/14/07)

David Broder:

Instead of reinforcing the important proposition -- defined by the Iraq Study Group-- that a military strategy for Iraq is necessary but not sufficient to solve the myriad political problems of that country, Reid has mistakenly argued that the military effort is lost but a diplomatic-political strategy can still succeed.

Meanwhile, Jeff Emmanuel's reporting from Iraq.

Too bad Harry can't read Red.

Update: Harry Reid agrees with George W. Bush!

The Hubble anniversary, and today's items

When I first moved to the Princeton area I had the opportunity to see parts of the Hubble Telescope being assembled. Today Maria reminds me that the Hubble is 17 years old HubbleSite.

Now, that's real science.
-----------------------------------------------------
Maria also sent this link to this article about a new magazine, Salvo
-----------------------------------------------------
Via Larwyn, Gates of Vienna writes about Naser Khader, A democratic Muslim
-----------------------------------------------------
Also from Larwyn, The Anchoress wants to Stow the Summer Concerts, Save the World

The writing on the wall

Today Tony Blankley asks, Is There Writing on the Wall? (emphasis added)

It would appear that the great divide in both public opinion and between politicians is not Republican-Democrat, liberal-conservative, pro or anti-Bush, or even pro or anti-war (or, in Europe: pro-or anti-American). Rather, the great divide is between those, such as me, who believe that the rise of radical Islam poses an existential threat to Western Civilization; and those who believe it is a nuisance, if, episodically, a very dangerous nuisance.

Blankley concludes,

Thus, while others and I will continue to make our case in public, it seems probably inevitable that the correctness or incorrectness of our views will only become persuasive to the multitude when history teaches its cruel, unavoidable lessons. It was ever thus, which is why history is strewed with broken nations and civilizations that couldn't read the writing on the wall. Of course, it is also strewed with sad hulks of false predictors of doom.

Dr. Sanity has been exploring these issues at her blog. In today's post, Symptom or adaptation? she asks

Now ask yourself, is the ubiquitous, almost casual, antisemitism of the Islamic world a healthy, adaptive response to some injustices perpetrated by Jews that muslims have to deal with in the real world; or is it a projection that is symptomatic of some serious psychopathology within the muslim culture?

ShrinkWrapped:

In the Muslim mind, where there is no cause and effect, everything occurs at the whim of Allah. Such a world risks becoming a frightening place filled with seemingly unpredictable events and when bad things happen it is because Allah wanted them to happen. A tsunami is then evidence that Allah is displeased with his people...unless, you can find a suitable entity, an almost God, who caused the grief. After the Indonesian tsunami, rumors and conspiracy theories were rampant int he Muslim world that the Israelis (and sometimes the Americans) had caused the tsunami. No longer was Allah angry at his people; now there was an explanation that allowed the Muslim world to avoid looking int he mirror and asking the obvious question: When the Arab world is awash with oil money, how is it that they could not spare a tiny amount for their co-religionists and build a tsunami warning system? (Actually, they would have had to buy a tsunami waring system, a related issue.) If Israel and/or America had caused the tsunami, such a warning system was not only unnecessary but foolhardy. Instead of looking inward, fro one's own shortcomings that have facilitated or caused disasters, one can look outward, focus one's wrath on the feared and hated demi-God, and please Allah at the same time. No longer is a disaster a sign of Allah's displeasure, but an opportunity to gain even more of his approval by attacking his enemies.

In a similar vein, the home grow[n] despair of failed societies, which in other nations has been redirected and used to build modern societies around the world, has no internal outlet; it must be directed outward so that the societies of the Muslim world can pretend to stay unchanged and unquestioned.

This week Sigmund, Carl and Alfred has a series of most interesting posts on the subject which you must read in their entirety since abridging will do them no justice. But one particular sentence stood out in yesterday's post,

In any event, in the Arab world, any expression of western ideas, ideologies or beliefs are deemed 'satanic.' The choice of imagery and words are no accident.

Last week SC&A posted on Crime and terror, which brought to mind the Dem's former policy of treating "terrorism as a nuisance", as if it were a criminal matter. One of Siggy's commenters linked to The Myth of the Invincible Terrorist (emphasis added)

Relativists do not understand the depths of their error when they pronounce that "terrorism is just a word for violence we don't like," or "terrorism is a Westerners' epithet." Terrorists are living, breathing men and women using vile but calculated means to make political gains, and it is vital that politicians and academics and police chiefs continue pointing that out. Terror is ugly, making terrorists morally ugly; this ugliness is weakness in the struggle for public opinion. More must be made of that, in the service of truth and of counterterrorism. Another lesson flows from the facts above: Groups and their leaders may well be vulnerable to psychological operations. As circumstances allow, counterterrorism can play up rivals around the leaders, or create fissures between working partners, or throw doubt over loyalties of old comrades.

So, as Tony Blankley stated, there are those who see an existential threat from a group of terrorists who have demonized all that is good in our lives and culture and are willing to drag us all to hell. And there are those who just want to ignore that threat and believe it's such a simple nuisance that, in their grab for power, they are taking ownership of a defeat in Iraq.

They are, indeed fighting on the wrong side of the psychological war. Each of their words, each of their actions, is and will continue to be repeated by our enemies, and will embolden them and motivate them to do more evil.

Note to Harry: "Your words are killing us" now, and will continue to kill us.

And those are no "sad hulks of false predictors of doom".
------------------------------------------------------
(Note: The writing on the wall refers to Daniel 5 in the Old Testament.)

Michael Fumento's in Afghanistan

And he's been writing excellent articles,
A Blog on Warblogging

When you make a decision to go to a war zone and leave behind the comforts of home, you do just that. There are true pleasures to being out there with guys defending our country and there are true deprivations. Of course, there are war zones and there are war zones. In Iraq's International Zone (Green Zone) or in Baghdad hotels or even a major base like Camp Fallujah and Camp Ramadi, you have a real degree of comfort and ease in going about your work. Likewise for Bagram Air Base or Kandahar Air Base in Afghanistan. But join the troops at a Forward Operating Base (FOB) and comfort and ease of work plummets. Those are the places I go to and I only have two real concerns when I get there.

First, I want every chance to see combat, and hence be in a dangerous area and go on every patrol. We need reporters who work out of safe areas; I'm just not one of them. That's why I refused to go to Tikrit in Iraq when the Combined Press Information Center (CPIC) tried to send me there. There was virtually no chance of combat and, as it happens, during the time I would have been there was none. Now CPIC is mad at me for not shelling out my own money for airfare and war insurance to spend 12 days where I knew nothing would happen and where nothing did happen.

Second, since while I do write articles when I get back but blog while here I need a degree of internet access. And a degree is all you to get. Connections are almost always mind-numbingly slow. You can wait literally 10 minutes or more just for a website to come up. Some will never come up because they're too loaded with graphics.

A Stick in the Mud
Welcome to Mizan!
Go read all his articles.

Michael was my BLog Talk Radio guest last month, and I hope to have him back as a guest after he returns from Afghanistan.

Indoctrinate U, and today's items

Indoctrinate U"
I wasn't able to attend the screening, but Mitchell Langbert did: A Classic in the Making

On April 23 and 24 the Tribeca film festival in lower Manhattan, which is continuing through May 6, screened Indoctrinate U, Evan Maloney's documentary about political correctness in American universities. The film depicts universities run amuck. Fascistic, intolerant leftists attack Asian Republicans, white males, libertarian females, conservative white females, conservative Sikh males (not to mention libertarian black writers and Asian libertarian conservative males). The film is funny, lively and ultimately frightening. Maloney's delivery is witty and sharp. The film is well-edited. One is riveted to the screen. The interviewees, who include my colleagueKC Johnson and FIRE's Glen Lukianoff, are articulate and brilliant. The film will not surprise the few conservatives in academe who work among the politically correct majority. Nor will it surprise conservative students who have been subjected to the harassment the film depicts and seen their careers ruined by liberal witchhunters, speech code advocates and a wide range of left-wing jackboots. But the public at large, the broader community, those who believe that students go to Yale, Bucknell, Cal Poly Tech, and their equivalents to be educated will be stunned.

Speaking of academia, Cinnamon posts on Brown University Workshop Speaks to Fear and Loathing in Middle East Studies After 9-11

The only problem is workshop participants are almost uniformly composed of academics who are hostile to the U.S.-led war on terrorism, its ally, Israel, and any efforts via higher education to combat radical Islam on college campuses.

---------------------------------------------------
Thanks to Larwyn for today's links
---------------------------------------------------
Time for Dictators But No Time for American Generals
---------------------------------------------------
Gaius fisks Naomi
---------------------------------------------------
Patrick sent a nice YouTube of Giuliani in New Hampshire this week,

Patrick also sent McCain surges among New Hampshire conservatives
---------------------------------------------------
Jeremayakovka sends this article, 'Making War to Keep Peace' is a fine tribute to Jeane Kirkpatrick

---------------------------------------------------
Update: Don't miss Cassandra's NYTimesWatch: The Lynching Of Paul Wolfowitz

Late afternoon blogging: Kathleen Ferrier

During this afternoon's class the professor played Blow the Wind Southerly a folk song made popular in the UK by Kathleen Ferrier. I couldn't find a YouTube for it, but here are the lyrics:

Blow the wind Southerly,
Southerly, Southerly,
Blow the wind
South o'er the bonnie blue sea.
Blow the wind Southerly,
Southerly, Southerly
Blow bonnie breeze,
My true lover to me.

They told me last night
There were ships in the offing
And I hurried down
To the deep rolling sea.
But my eye could not see it
Wherever might be it,
The bark that is bearing
My lover to me.

Here's Ferrier singing Handel:

Two posts on wars we're still fighting

Beware of those rewriting history:
Armenian Martyrs' Day

Denialists of all stripes, from US and EU officials who find turkey's past "annoying", to the turks themselves who believe such raids were justified to "pick up deserters" (yeah, little old men, deserters. right.) have managed to decrease the general public's awareness of these atrocities. But they happened. There was no Photoshop in 1915. All of the horrible pictures you see here are real.

Turkey has funded the $750,000 Chair for Ataturk Studies at Princeton University. Two years ago at PU there was a debate on the subject

In FrontPage Mag: Armenia's Tears

Q. Most readers are not familiar with the historical background, so could you briefly review the Abdul Hamit era, and the triumvirate of the Young Turks or the Ittihad, in other words, the origin of the genocide.

A. The Armenian genocide was the culmination of a decades long process of persecution of the Armenians in the Ottoman empire. That persecution was punctuated in the last two decades of the 19th century during the reign of Sultan Abdul Hamit, the so-called Red Sultan.

Q. Red for blood?

A. Yes. In the period of 1894-1896, some quarter of a million Armenians fell victim, directly and indirectly, victim to a series of atrocious massacres, and what is significant about these pogroms was that there was no retribution against the perpetrators. In other words, impunity became the hallmark of the history of the Armenian persecution and it is the dominant feature of the tragedy of the Armenian people. We have yet to appreciate the incredible ramifications of the problem of impunity in international conflicts. In the most recent three volume Encyclopedia of Genocide, I have a separate article analyzing this problem in order to emphasize [its] immense destructive potential.

And what does that have to do with today's events?

I believe that the greatest danger to Armenia comes from Islamic Turkey. I think the Turkish government that is also essentially Islamic, even though the Turkish government is going through the motions of embracing European values, I call this expedient adaptiveness. That is, to accede to the European Union, and then to use sheer demography, to become a dominant force in the future in Europe. By sheer demography, I mean by rapid population growth, Europe may be inundated by Moslem Turks, who then are bound to change the nature and design of European civilization. It should be noted that the present Turkish government is a reflection of an overwhelming ascendancy of Islam in Turkey, in particular in terms of the Islamic Turkish masses, The proliferation of mosques in Turkey today is a signpost of the ascendancy of Islam; the same proliferation is observable in those European countries with sizable and growing Muslim populations.

-----------------------------------------
Jeremayakovka looks at "The Battle of Algiers" - A Black & White Blueprint For Full-Color Fauxtography

And now for more propaganda from AP

Associated Press is back to shilling for the charismatic-leader-helping-the-poor-offering-free-health-care-education-adult-literacy-and-job-training-initiatives-that-help-millions-of-Cubans^tm through a lie, not that they ever stopped:

Castro, 80, is a leading example of Cuba's healthy life expectancy

Fidel Castro may be ailing, but he's a living example of something Cubans take pride in — an average life expectancy roughly similar to that of the United States.

Living?

Depends how badly:

Homes that were luxurious before Castro's 1959 revolution are now falling apart and many cramped apartments contain three generations of family members. Food, water and medicine shortages are chronic.

But most prescription drugs and visits to the doctor are free and physicians encourage preventive care.

Oh, yeah, I've heard of that. I also know that people who travel to Cuba to see their relatives (who are not allowed to leave Cuba) have to get them the most basic supplies, such as sanitary napkins, aspirin, Tylenol, band-aids, and first-aid ointments like Betadine and iodine. Ask my sister's next-door neighbor, who works at a pharmacy that provides ready-made "care packages" of first-aid items to take to Cuba.

Of course Will Weisert, the AP reporter, hasn't been told that Cubans treated in Cuban hospitals have to bring their own bed linens because the hospitals don't have any. The linens are available in Cuban hospitals only to foreigners paying in dollars.

The article continues,

Cuba's average life expectancy is 77.08 years — second in Latin America after Puerto Rico and more than 11 years above the world average, according to the 2007 CIA World Fact Book.

It says Cuban life expectancy averages 74.85 years for men and 79.43 years for women, compared with 75.15 and 80.97 respectively for Americans.

Here's the CIA Factbook info on Cuban life expectancy:

Life expectancy at birth:
total population: 77.08 years
male: 74.85 years
female: 79.43 years (2007 est.)

For Puerto Rico

Life expectancy at birth:
total population: 78.54 years
male: 74.6 years
female: 82.67 years (2007 est.)

And the USA (by which they mean the 50 states, since Puerto Ricans are Americans from birth)

Life expectancy at birth:
total population: 78 years
male: 75.15 years
female: 80.97 years (2007 est.)

But back to the AP article,

A relaxed lifestyle, which prizes time spent with family over careers, helps keep Cubans healthy, Tache said.

Just ask these Ladies about their relaxed lifestyle:


Just another day of Associated Press Deficit Disorder (APDD)

Update Via Irwin, The Big White Lie
Don't Worry, Be A Commie
Update 2: A Shredding, at Opinion Journal

If an old American lady told a reporter, "Sometimes you have all you want to eat and sometimes you don't," is there any doubt he would write a story bewailing our country's shocking neglect of the elderly, poor and hungry? Why are American journalists more favorably disposed toward an America-hating communist personality cult than their own country?

Q: What did Wolfkowitz do wrong?

A: He didn't work for the EU Commission

In April, Mr. Verheugen, a former German parliamentarian for the Social Democrats, appointed economist Petra Erler as his chief of staff. In August, the couple was spotted au naturel on a Baltic shore. Mr. Verheugen--who also has a wife--has dismissed allegations of impropriety as "pure slander" and asked the German newsweekly Der Spiegel whether "two adults [can't] do as they wish in their private lives?"

In fact, they can't: The EU Commission's Code of Conduct, which he helped draft, observes that "in their official and private lives Commissioners should behave in a manner that is in keeping with the dignity of their office. Ruling out all risks of a conflict of interest helps guarantee their independence."

Here's the real story:

When Mr. Wolfowitz arrived at the World Bank in 2005, it was to an institution ideologically committed to seeing him fail. When he announced that he would make the fight against corruption his signature issue, the ideological opposition became institutional as well. As development economist William Easterly observes, for the World Bank "priority No. 1 is to get the money out the door. When you introduce a wild card like cutting off corrupt governments, you threaten the loan-pushing culture."

Since then, it's been a steady dribble of leaks about Mr. Wolfowitz's every misstep and perceived wrongdoing, most of them to the suggestible Financial Times. The operative theory here, says former Bush administration diplomat Otto Reich, is that if you throw enough mud at a man "the stain will remain even if none of the mud sticks." That's just what has happened in the campaign at the World Bank: Having doused Mr. Wolfowitz in skunk juices, the critics can now say, with justice, that he stinks.

This isn't to say that Mr. Wolfowitz's tenure at the World Bank has been without disappointments: Mr. Easterly faults him for indulging utopian ambitions for what the Bank can do to alleviate poverty and promote democracy.
But that can't possibly justify the furies that have now descended on Mr. Wolfowitz. Like Mr. Verheugen, he sought to use his office to change an organization he thought--mistakenly, as it turns out--that he ran. Unlike Mr. Verheugen, he never really did anything improper. That he is now on the firing line while Mr. Verheugen is not is a point worth noting. That both men, despite the great differences between them, have been thwarted by their bureaucracies should be a reminder to everyone that the government of mandarins is more than just a danger to interloping neocons.

It is indeed.

Traveling bloggers, and today's items

Heading to the Middle East:
Jeff Emanuel and Academic Elephant are on their way to Iraq, and Judith and Mary are on the way to Israel.

Saturday afternoon I had a delightful time with Mary and Judith. Among the topics we discussed was the Vanilla Jesus (read the comments). Thank You Mary!

Does Al know that Greenland just had a baby? Or is the baby a reincarnation?
---------------------------------------------
3 TRACTOR TRAILERS, 4 BUSES, 6 CARS - and ONE SHEET, along with 12 bottles of Grolsch beer, 6 bottles of "local" beer, and a bottle each of "good Australian Cabernet" and "good Merlot."

Lord knows a "bad Merlot" can ruin one's carbon footprint.
---------------------------------------------
Speaking of drink,

The Beeb says, When rulers die, Russians keep shopping. At least now there's merchandise in the stores.
---------------------------------------------
From Larwyn,
Cartoons Condemning the Terrorist Attacks in Algeria and Morocco

Road to Nowhere from the Dem Cong.

What Would It Take for Joe Lieberman to Fire Harry Reid? If he can find him, that is.
---------------------------------------------
After all this talk about the Dem Cong, I made an appointment for a facial
---------------------------------------------
Bob has the post on Alec Baldwin.
---------------------------------------------
When I first met Ed, I hugged him - which is a capital offense in some parts.
---------------------------------------------
In other news,
"Would you like another schnitzengruben?"
Man cuts off his own penis in busy restaurant
And he didn't leave a tip:

The paper reported that police subdued the man with CS spray and recovered his severed penis, which surgeons at St Thomas's hospital in south London attempted to re-attach. It was not known if the operation had been a success.

{{shudder}}

Venezuela: Nascent anti-Semitism?

Under Chavez's Rule, Jews Fear for Future in Venezuela

Although Chavez – a former army officer and coup leader known for his fiery anti-American rhetoric – has never been much favored by Venezuelan Jews, relations between his government and the community started to deteriorate in earnest in 2004.

In November of that year the Club Hebraica was raided by police under a search warrant issued by a local pro-Chavez judge. The warrant, which came after the murder of public prosecutor Danilo Anderson, suggested that the Hebraica was being used to store weapons.

That accusation apparently sprung from rumors that Anderson had been killed with equipment from Israel"'s Mossad spy agency. After searching the school and the club, police left empty-handed.

Incredulous that authorities might think the Jewish community was storing weapons in its school, some observers concluded that the raid really was intended to intimidate the community.

"Chavez must have known about" the raid, one community member said.

"In this society, nothing happens without his permission," this member said. "There was a feeling that the government wanted to send a sign that no group was immune from its control."

The situation deteriorated further a month later, when Chavez said in a speech that "the descendants of those who killed Christ" and "the descendants of the same ones that kicked Bolivar out of here" had "taken possession of all the wealth in the world."

Though the Christ-killer comment clearly appeared anti-Semitic, some commentators said Chavez actually was referring to global capitalism. Indeed, when Jewish leaders soon afterward met with the president at Miraflores Palace, his official residence, he assured them that he had not been referring to the Jewish community.

That meeting in January 2006 brokered an uneasy peace, but the official reaction to Israel's war with Hezbollah in Lebanon last year unleashed what Freddy Pressner, head of CAIV, the Jewish community"'s umbrella organization, calls "an explosion of anti-Semitism in Venezuela."

Chavez repeatedly compared Israel's behavior to that of the Nazis, a stance that locals say encouraged a wave of similar slanders. Sammy Eppel, a Jewish journalist in Caracas, catalogued a host of violently anti-Israel and anti-Semitic writing and cartoons in the local government and pro-government media.

In one article, which appeared last September in Diario de Caracas, a pro-government newspaper, journalist Tarek Muci Nasir wrote of the "Jewish race" that "the only resource they have left to stay united is to cause wars and genocide."

A cartoon that ran last year in Diario VEA, a state-owned newspaper, depicted Hitler saying, "How they've learned from me, these Israelis!"

One worrying trend is the extent to which these sentiments appear to be approved and encouraged by the government. The Ministry of Information last year organized a demonstration outside the main Sephardi synagogue in Caracas, an act that Pressner called "insensitive and imprudent."

After the demonstration, the wall outside the synagogue was daubed with "Jews, killers – leave" and "Zionist baby-killers." At other times, graffitti has appeared there with slogans such as "Jews go home" and "Here are the murderers of the Palestinians."

A more worrying development was the appearance of a Venezuela-based Web site claiming to be the local branch of Hezbollah. The site warned, "Hizbolla Latin America is analyzing placing explosives against a U.S. ally in Latin America. This would indicate the launch of Hizbolla Latin America."

Another concern is over Chavez's increasingly close economic and political ties to Iran. As the world has condemned Tehran's nuclear ambitions, Venezuela has emerged as one of Iran's few solid allies in the world.

At the same time, Chavez effectively cut all diplomatic ties with Israel last year by withdrawing his charge d'affaires. He had recalled his ambassador three years earlier.

Is this part of a trend?

Only time will tell.

CHANGE IN SCHEDULE: Podcast today at 11:30 tomorrow at 11AM

Upddate: We had phone connection problems so tomorrow April 24 at 11AM we'll have Angela talk about her book, hopefully without broken phone connections.
Please tune in, and thank you for your patience

Please note that Angela's travel schedule was changed by her airline, so our podcast today will be at 11:30AM
We'll be talking about her book, Bamboozled: How Americans are being Exploited by the Lies of the Liberal Agenda


Please join us!

Drawling Hillary with a memory hole, and today's items

Now that Hillary has acquired a habit of drawling, Larwyn sent a brief itemization of the Clinton administration:

- The only president ever impeached on grounds of personal malfeasance
- Most number of convictions and guilty pleas by friends and associates*
- Most number of cabinet officials to come under criminal investigation
- Most number of witnesses to flee country or refuse to testify
- Most number of witnesses to die suddenly
- First president sued for sexual harassment.
- First president accused of rape.
- First first lady to come under criminal investigation
- Largest criminal plea agreement in an illegal campaign contribution case
- First president to establish a legal defense fund.
- First president to be held in contempt of court
- Greatest amount of illegal campaign contributions
- Greatest amount of illegal campaign contributions from abroad
- First president disbarred from the US Supreme Court and a state court

* According to our best information, 40 government officials were indicted or convicted in the wake of Watergate. A reader computes that there was a total of 31 Reagan era convictions, including 14 because of Iran-Contra and 16 in the Department of Housing & Urban Development scandal. 47 individuals and businesses associated with the Clinton machine were convicted of or pleaded guilty to crimes with 33 of these occurring during the Clinton administration itself. There were in addition 61 indictments or misdemeanor charges. 14 persons were imprisoned. A key difference between the Clinton story and earlier ones was the number of criminals with whom he was associated before entering the White House.

Using a far looser standard that included resignations, David R. Simon and D. Stanley Eitzen in Elite Deviance, say that 138 appointees of the Reagan administration either resigned under an ethical cloud or were criminally indicted. Curiously Haynes Johnson uses the same figure but with a different standard in "Sleep-Walking Through History: America in the Reagan Years: "By the end of his term, 138 administration officials had been convicted, had been indicted, or had been the subject of official investigations for official misconduct and/or criminal violations. In terms of number of officials involved, the record of his administration was the worst ever."

STARR-RAY INVESTIGATION:
- Number of Starr-Ray investigation convictions or guilty pleas (including one governor, one associate attorney general and two Clinton business partners): 14
- Number of Clinton Cabinet members who came under criminal investigation: 5
- Number of Reagan cabinet members who came under criminal investigation: 4
- Number of top officials jailed in the Teapot Dome Scandal: 3

CRIME STATS:
- Number of individuals and businesses associated with the Clinton machine who have been convicted of or pleaded guilty to crimes: 47
- Number of these convictions during Clinton's presidency: 33
- Number of indictments/misdemeanor charges: 61
- Number of congressional witnesses who have pleaded the Fifth Amendment, fled the country to avoid testifying, or (in the case of foreign witnesses) refused to be interviewed: 122

SMALTZ INVESTIGATION:
- Guilty pleas and convictions obtained by Donald Smaltz in cases involving charges of bribery and fraud against former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy and associated individuals and businesses: 15
- Acquitted or overturned cases (including Espy): 6
- Fines and penalties assessed: $11.5 million
- Amount Tyson Food paid in fines and court costs: $6 million

CLINTON MACHINE CRIMES FOR WHICH CONVICTIONS HAVE BEEN OBTAINED:
Drug trafficking (3), racketeering, extortion, bribery (4), tax evasion, kickbacks, embezzlement (2), fraud (12), conspiracy (5), fraudulent loans, illegal gifts (1), illegal campaign contributions (5), money laundering (6), perjury, obstruction of justice.

Why Were Dead Soldiers OK When Clinton Was in Charge?

------------------------------------------
Peacebonding weapons
------------------------------------------
Two from Maria:
Lee Iaccoca's asking Where have all the leaders gone?
Bert's Picking a fight with pacifism
------------------------------------------
Greta asks Cheryl, Can You Spare a Square?
Cheryl's one square away from no-paper living.
Happy Earth Day! (via Jeremayakovka)

Tomorrow on Fausta's Blog Talk Radio: Angela McGlowan

Tomorrow at noon 11:30 (please note change in time), my Blog Talk Radio Guest will be Angela McGlowan, author of Bamboozled: How Americans are being Exploited by the Lies of the Liberal Agenda


Please join us!

French elections round-up

6:20PM:
The decisive factor will now be which of the two is more successful in attracting voters from the centre ground in the May 6 runoff election. Update Don't miss also Daniel's post on the results.

3:30PM
Bloomberg, Monsters and Critics, BBC, all mention the 85% turnout. More (in French) at France2

2PM:
The results are in: Streaming video at France24 (click on "Live Feed") Sarkozy 30%; Royal 25.2%; Bayrou 18%
Sarko and Royal go to the runoffs on May 6.
LePen's out of the game.
Nidra Poller reports from the street.

Earlier this week, AJC Briefing - French Presidential Elections and The Economist had commentary.

1:30
Via Jeremayakovka, Party Poopers

11:30AM:
Times (UK) Sarkozy all smiles as France goes to the polls

11:05AM:
France 24

10:40 AM:
Red State: FRANCE-Pres: Poll Analysis and Outcome
No pasaran: Election Watch: the French obliged to look elsewhere to learn what's going on at home
Pajamas Media who says, You know something strange is up when a French presidential contender poses in a red plaid shirt on horseback. What, no Stetson?
Washington Post
Can France be saved?

In French:
Le Figaro and France2 are talking about high turn-out.
13 Heures
---------------------------------------------
Will continue to update throughout the day.

Spring today

After last week's flooding, we're enjoying a glorious weekend.
Here are some pictures in the vecinity of casa de Fausta:


TigerHawk has a slide show of the pictures he took at the PU campus yesterday.

Porch-blogging weather, for sure!

Sunday blogging: Stupid women of romantic comedy

AMC is playing right now An Unmarried Woman, a movie that drove me crazy when I first saw it in a cinema in the late 1970s and still drives me crazy today.

Granted, I've been a fan of Alan Bates ever since I first saw him naked in Women In Love, back when I was young and impressionable. Here he is in Women In Love talking about figs:


In An Unmarried Woman Alan Bates (who in real life was the most beautiful man on earth - trust me on this) played the sexiest most tender man on earth and he was madly in love with Erica. Lucky Erica, would you say? But the premise of An Unmarried Woman is that Erica's going to be independent no matter what, so she drops him.

Idiot.

Give Erica 5 long years of independence, bad dates, and living with too many cats and she'd have had time to regret her stupid decision. By which time he would have found someone who appreciated him for who he was.

Or as Judy Benjamin put it,

"Did you happen to see that movie An Unmarried Woman?
Well, I didn't get it... I mean, I would've been Mrs. Alan Bates so fast that guy wouldn't have known what hit him!"

Anyway, Dr. Sanity has the Carnival,