I've been waiting to see if The BBC would weigh in on the CNN/Eason Jordon affair. I figured they would screw it up and I wasn't disappointed.
Heck, the title of the BBC article shows how little the BBC understands bloggers and the blogsphere. The Internet is open world wide 24/7 and so are bloggers. The blogsphere and its influence on old media, like the BBC, isn't limited to America; something I hope the BBC will be painfully aware of soon.
It's interesting to note that the BBC used the Jordan affair to highlight the growing influence of bloggers. The Rather scandal was far worse.
The furore was touched off after bloggers questioned comments Mr Jordan made at the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland about journalists killed in Iraq.
At the forum, he said that he believed that several journalists had been targeted by the military.
Let me show the BBC how the blogsphere works.
You see Auntie Jordon isn't the first so called journalist to make this outrageous unsubstantiated claim. Oh, no Auntie. That distinction actually goes to none other than your own Nik Gowing.
He was quickly challenged by many at the forum who thought he was implying that it was official US policy to target journalists.
And he was applauded by many anti-American journalists as well.
Mr Jordan qualified his statements saying that he was trying to differentiate between journalists who died as a result of being at the wrong place at the wrong time and those who were mistaken for the enemy.
Sure, after he was caught redhanded. There were members of the US Congress in the audience that heard the remarks. Besides Auntie, you aren't telling the whole story. This is not the first time Jordan has made the remarks and he and your Nik Gowing go way back.
Mr Jordan attempted to qualify his comments publicly, but it was too late, and Mr Jordan abruptly resigned.
No it wasn't too late. All he or CNN had to do was ask for the tape to be released or at least a transcript. The fact that they didn't shows there was more to Eason's remarks than he claims.
Finally the BBC gets around to Rathergate, the name for the scandal Dan Rather of CBS created when he tried to use forged documents in an attempt to smear George Bush and effect the US presidential elections. But what does the BBC do? Set Rather up as the victim.
Dan Rather, long a target of conservatives, is resigning as the anchor of the CBS nightly news after the network could not vouch for the authenticity of documents he used as the basis for a story questioning President Bush's military service.
Got that? Rather was the target instead of Bush. Bullshit Auntie, you're telling porkies. Bush has long been a target of CBS and Rather. Mary Mapes who produced the segment that resulted in Rather's resignation admitted they had been working on the story for over 5 years.
Minutes after the segment aired, conservative bloggers were calling the documents forgeries and had reproduced convincing copies of the reportedly more than 30-year-old documents using word processing software.
Yes and so were CBS's own document experts. In fact they told CBS they could not authenticate the documents but that didn't stop CBS. The bloggers did.
One thing both bloggers and some journalists can agree on is that business as usual is over in the American media.
Kevin Anderson of the BBC wrote this from Washington. I wonder how the BBC here in the UK feel about his piece for the same applies here whether the BBC like it or not.
"If (CBS and Eason Jordan) had been literate at all in the internet, they would have saved themselves a lot of trouble," he said.
Same goes for you Auntie. For as I wrote recently:
Bloggers aren't about just taking "political scalp" we want some media scalp as well. We are getting closer to that moment every day; just ask John Simpson. The BBC's retraction is here.
Have you noticed how quiet Simpson has been since that debacle?
See here for a long list of your sins Auntie.
MSM still haven't learned in the US and it will be sometime yet before MSM here in the UK learn that, as the article points out, "Suddenly, the tools of mass media are in the hands of the public".
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Saturday, February 19, 2005
Iraq - George Galloway is a Buffoon
Call a spade, a spade, I say: George Galloway is a buffoon.
Here is pretty Boy George (not to be confused with the real(?) Boy George), crying in his oil that his murderous pals are not still in power in Iraq.
THE estimable Iain Macwhirter (February 2) is seriously mistaken if he thinks last weekend's "election" in Iraq was free, fair or democratic.
Well gee George, your pals in the UN seem to think so.
17 February 2005 – With today's announcement of final election results, the Iraqi people have shown the world that they were really up to the occasion and that made this process an immense success, the chief United Nations election expert in the country said.
And
The Council pledged full UN support for a federal, democratic, pluralist and unified Iraq as the new legislators face the challenges of writing the constitution and holding new elections for a permanent assembly and government by the end of the year.
Pretty boy George is so upset that his pal Saddam is gone that he begins to lose the plot.
The most popular parties in Iraq were either banned from participating or chose to boycott the process – as did more than three-quarters of Iraqi voters living abroad and thus beyond any intimidation, and more than half of the voters in Iraq.
Where to begin? This paragraph is so full of bullshit you'd need a ton of The Heralds to clean it up.
The Shites make up over 60% of the population so the "most popular parties" were not banned. Not all the Sunnis boycotted the elections and even among those that did many were threatened. It's call voter intimidation George.
As for expat Iraqis voting, the voting process was hastily set up after a last minute decision to let expats vote. Even then they had few places to vote, had to travel long distances and had to make the trip twice. Notice the "beyond any intimidation" part. Asshat George ignores the fact that many expats have relatives still living in Iraq. Some of those who wanted to vote expressed fear of reprisal for their loved ones back home if their registration details leaked out.
George is so distraught he can't even count. What's up with this "more than half of the voters in Iraq, George?" Are you calling The Times a liar?
Fifty-eight per cent of registered voters, 8.456 million people, turned out for the vote.
Got that pretty boy? 58%
The rest of Galloway's rant is pure bullshit; no surprise there considering the source.
Even Galloway's constituents are getting fed up with this buffoon. Eric the Unread posts a letter from one who is fed up with pretty boy.
As the UN oil for food scandal probe continues I hope they find enough evidence to put pretty boy in a cell where they appreciate pretty boys.
Hat tip The Cabarfedih Page.
UPDATE
I had read that the Sunni's regretted their decision regarding the elections and tried to find it via google. I should have read further down The Cabarfeidh Page.
Pretty boy should read his own propaganda machine, The Guardian.
"Our view is that this election was a step towards democracy and ending the occupation," said Ayad al-Samaray, the assistant general secretary of the Iraqi Islamic party. He said unnamed Sunni leaders blundered in depicting the election as a deepening of the occupation.
You see pretty boy, even the Sunnis disagree with you. Come to think of it, other than like minded moonbats, does anybody agree with you?
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Here is pretty Boy George (not to be confused with the real(?) Boy George), crying in his oil that his murderous pals are not still in power in Iraq.
THE estimable Iain Macwhirter (February 2) is seriously mistaken if he thinks last weekend's "election" in Iraq was free, fair or democratic.
Well gee George, your pals in the UN seem to think so.
17 February 2005 – With today's announcement of final election results, the Iraqi people have shown the world that they were really up to the occasion and that made this process an immense success, the chief United Nations election expert in the country said.
And
The Council pledged full UN support for a federal, democratic, pluralist and unified Iraq as the new legislators face the challenges of writing the constitution and holding new elections for a permanent assembly and government by the end of the year.
Pretty boy George is so upset that his pal Saddam is gone that he begins to lose the plot.
The most popular parties in Iraq were either banned from participating or chose to boycott the process – as did more than three-quarters of Iraqi voters living abroad and thus beyond any intimidation, and more than half of the voters in Iraq.
Where to begin? This paragraph is so full of bullshit you'd need a ton of The Heralds to clean it up.
The Shites make up over 60% of the population so the "most popular parties" were not banned. Not all the Sunnis boycotted the elections and even among those that did many were threatened. It's call voter intimidation George.
As for expat Iraqis voting, the voting process was hastily set up after a last minute decision to let expats vote. Even then they had few places to vote, had to travel long distances and had to make the trip twice. Notice the "beyond any intimidation" part. Asshat George ignores the fact that many expats have relatives still living in Iraq. Some of those who wanted to vote expressed fear of reprisal for their loved ones back home if their registration details leaked out.
George is so distraught he can't even count. What's up with this "more than half of the voters in Iraq, George?" Are you calling The Times a liar?
Fifty-eight per cent of registered voters, 8.456 million people, turned out for the vote.
Got that pretty boy? 58%
The rest of Galloway's rant is pure bullshit; no surprise there considering the source.
Even Galloway's constituents are getting fed up with this buffoon. Eric the Unread posts a letter from one who is fed up with pretty boy.
As the UN oil for food scandal probe continues I hope they find enough evidence to put pretty boy in a cell where they appreciate pretty boys.
Hat tip The Cabarfedih Page.
UPDATE
I had read that the Sunni's regretted their decision regarding the elections and tried to find it via google. I should have read further down The Cabarfeidh Page.
Pretty boy should read his own propaganda machine, The Guardian.
"Our view is that this election was a step towards democracy and ending the occupation," said Ayad al-Samaray, the assistant general secretary of the Iraqi Islamic party. He said unnamed Sunni leaders blundered in depicting the election as a deepening of the occupation.
You see pretty boy, even the Sunnis disagree with you. Come to think of it, other than like minded moonbats, does anybody agree with you?
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EU Constitution to end UK embassies
Be careful what you wish for.
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Iraq - Pictures You Won't See
Here are some pictures from Iraq that you won't see in your local paper or TV news.
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Kyoto - The global warming scam
Melanie Phillips observes:
Some readers may have heard me on Wednesday night's Moral Maze on BBC Radio Four on the subject of Kyoto (repeated on Saturday night at 2215). I was battling vainly against a green witness, my three fellow panellists and the chairman to get them to acknowledge not just that there was a division of scientific opinion about global warming but that, one by one, the key claims supporting the theory wwre being demolished. Now theWall Street Journal draws attention to the fact that one of these claims, which was absolutely crucial in informing the Kyoto protocol, has turned out to be not worth the paper it was written on.
And Biased BBC notes more BBC bias on the issues.
With the expensive and badly conceived Kyoto treaty the major news of the week, the BBC has been running full steam to blame everything on Bush.
This morning whilst getting my daily dose of Bush-hating bias, BBC World News ran a story on the coal industry in the USA. In summary the story was something like this:
Coal industry chiefs are gathering at a trade show in Las Vegas, where equipment manufacturers are recording a boom in sales. The reason is that the coal industry is doing well, with high demand and prices. By talking about the Bush White House we are lead to believe that somehow the administration is the reason for this bonanza. In fact, the story wraps up with the line:
With President Bush in the White House for another 4 years, the coal industry is looking forward to more good times ahead.
This is a gross misrepresentation of the situation as five minutes of googling proved to me.
What he found led to this conclusion.
In their rush to blame Bush, the BBC gives a totally unprofessional, biased and ignorant piece on an industry they obviously do not understand.
Ouch!
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Some readers may have heard me on Wednesday night's Moral Maze on BBC Radio Four on the subject of Kyoto (repeated on Saturday night at 2215). I was battling vainly against a green witness, my three fellow panellists and the chairman to get them to acknowledge not just that there was a division of scientific opinion about global warming but that, one by one, the key claims supporting the theory wwre being demolished. Now theWall Street Journal draws attention to the fact that one of these claims, which was absolutely crucial in informing the Kyoto protocol, has turned out to be not worth the paper it was written on.
And Biased BBC notes more BBC bias on the issues.
With the expensive and badly conceived Kyoto treaty the major news of the week, the BBC has been running full steam to blame everything on Bush.
This morning whilst getting my daily dose of Bush-hating bias, BBC World News ran a story on the coal industry in the USA. In summary the story was something like this:
Coal industry chiefs are gathering at a trade show in Las Vegas, where equipment manufacturers are recording a boom in sales. The reason is that the coal industry is doing well, with high demand and prices. By talking about the Bush White House we are lead to believe that somehow the administration is the reason for this bonanza. In fact, the story wraps up with the line:
With President Bush in the White House for another 4 years, the coal industry is looking forward to more good times ahead.
This is a gross misrepresentation of the situation as five minutes of googling proved to me.
What he found led to this conclusion.
In their rush to blame Bush, the BBC gives a totally unprofessional, biased and ignorant piece on an industry they obviously do not understand.
Ouch!
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Limbaugh to visit Afghanistan
Tomfoolery of the Highest Order notes this gem in an Al Reuters article.
WASHINGTON, Feb 17 (Reuters) - Conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh is expected to visit Afghanistan with the top U.S. aid official to spotlight America's aid work there, officials said on Thursday.
Political commentator Mary Matalin, a former White House aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, will also be on the trip. She said she was not being paid to go and would pay her own way to Dubai but she believed the U.S. government would cover the cost of her visit to Afghanistan from there.
The Bush administration has come under sharp criticism for the Education Department's payment of $240,000 to conservative commentator Armstrong Williams to tout President George W. Bush's education plan.
Spokesmen for Limbaugh were not immediately available to comment.
What the...?? What does Limbaugh going to Afghanistan have to do with the Williams story?
This may be a clue.
"Everybody I have talked to who has actually seen what is unfolding is so amazed and proud of the people," Matalin said in an interview. "I hope, to the extent I can, to tell the story that I believe is not being told as well as it can be."
Asked what was the untold story, she said: "The absolute gut desire of the Afghanis to be free and to put together a democracy, or their version of a democracy, and to put in place those institutional hallmarks of a modern state."
Now we can't have a truly amazing American success story without injecting some negativity, now can we?
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WASHINGTON, Feb 17 (Reuters) - Conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh is expected to visit Afghanistan with the top U.S. aid official to spotlight America's aid work there, officials said on Thursday.
Political commentator Mary Matalin, a former White House aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, will also be on the trip. She said she was not being paid to go and would pay her own way to Dubai but she believed the U.S. government would cover the cost of her visit to Afghanistan from there.
The Bush administration has come under sharp criticism for the Education Department's payment of $240,000 to conservative commentator Armstrong Williams to tout President George W. Bush's education plan.
Spokesmen for Limbaugh were not immediately available to comment.
What the...?? What does Limbaugh going to Afghanistan have to do with the Williams story?
This may be a clue.
"Everybody I have talked to who has actually seen what is unfolding is so amazed and proud of the people," Matalin said in an interview. "I hope, to the extent I can, to tell the story that I believe is not being told as well as it can be."
Asked what was the untold story, she said: "The absolute gut desire of the Afghanis to be free and to put together a democracy, or their version of a democracy, and to put in place those institutional hallmarks of a modern state."
Now we can't have a truly amazing American success story without injecting some negativity, now can we?
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Bloggers - The Daily Show
Check out video clip from The Daily Show on bloggers. Absolutely hilarious.
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Lebanon - Opposition declares independence uprising
UPI reports "BEIRUT, Lebanon, Feb. 18 : The multi-sectarian Lebanese opposition Friday demanded Syria end its military presence and called for dismissal of the government."
"In response to the policy of intimidation and terrorization by the Lebanese authorities and the Syrian authorities, the Lebanese opposition declares the launching of the democratic and peaceful uprising for independence," the opposition said in a statement.
"We demand the dismissal of the government, which has no legitimacy, and the formation of a transitional administration to protect the Lebanese people and ensure the immediate withdrawal of the Syrian army from Lebanon to pave the way for holding free and honest legislative elections."
Things are moving swiftly in the middle east since the death of Arafat and the Iraqi elections. Now if only the people of Iran could rise up and overthrow the mad mullahs.
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"In response to the policy of intimidation and terrorization by the Lebanese authorities and the Syrian authorities, the Lebanese opposition declares the launching of the democratic and peaceful uprising for independence," the opposition said in a statement.
"We demand the dismissal of the government, which has no legitimacy, and the formation of a transitional administration to protect the Lebanese people and ensure the immediate withdrawal of the Syrian army from Lebanon to pave the way for holding free and honest legislative elections."
Things are moving swiftly in the middle east since the death of Arafat and the Iraqi elections. Now if only the people of Iran could rise up and overthrow the mad mullahs.
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Friday, February 18, 2005
Terror Attacks - Dozens Foiled
Radio Netherlands reports "Since 11 September 2001, at least 15 major terrorist attacks have been prevented in Europe, according to a Norwegian research institute."
But some say the number could be 20 to 30.
In another reaction to the Norwegian estimate, terrorism expert Glenn Schoen, of the US security firm 'Transecur', pointed out that the number of foiled terrorist attacks could be elevated to 20 or even 30 depending on the definition of "major attack".
Higher estimates
More specifically, he listed five thwarted attacks in France and an equal number in Spain, three each in Germany and Britain, and one in Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands. Added up, the total would be 19, four more than estimated by the Norwegian research body.
And those 19 are only cases about which the authorities has chosen to release details. The real number must therefore be higher, somewhere between 20 and 30, according to Mr Schoen.
Sooner or later one will succeed.
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But some say the number could be 20 to 30.
In another reaction to the Norwegian estimate, terrorism expert Glenn Schoen, of the US security firm 'Transecur', pointed out that the number of foiled terrorist attacks could be elevated to 20 or even 30 depending on the definition of "major attack".
Higher estimates
More specifically, he listed five thwarted attacks in France and an equal number in Spain, three each in Germany and Britain, and one in Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands. Added up, the total would be 19, four more than estimated by the Norwegian research body.
And those 19 are only cases about which the authorities has chosen to release details. The real number must therefore be higher, somewhere between 20 and 30, according to Mr Schoen.
Sooner or later one will succeed.
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Iraq - Zarqawi Aides Captured
Last week I posted about the arrest of some aides to terrorist Zarqawi. Seems those arrests have led to more arrests.
Ahh, the noose tightens.
IRAQI security forces had captured two suspected members of a militant group headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq, the Iraqi Government said today.
Brothers Hutheyfa and Mohammed Abdul-Jabbar were picked up on February 12 in Baghdad, based on intelligence extracted from other suspected insurgents under interrogation.
"It's clear from information and evidence gathered from the raid that Hutheyfa is a member of al-Qaeda," the Government said.
Iraqi security forces have rounded up scores of suspected guerrillas in recent weeks.
Note the term "guerrillas" instead of terrorists.
The Iraqis made clear their feelings when they voted - time to go Zarqawi.
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Ahh, the noose tightens.
IRAQI security forces had captured two suspected members of a militant group headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq, the Iraqi Government said today.
Brothers Hutheyfa and Mohammed Abdul-Jabbar were picked up on February 12 in Baghdad, based on intelligence extracted from other suspected insurgents under interrogation.
"It's clear from information and evidence gathered from the raid that Hutheyfa is a member of al-Qaeda," the Government said.
Iraqi security forces have rounded up scores of suspected guerrillas in recent weeks.
Note the term "guerrillas" instead of terrorists.
The Iraqis made clear their feelings when they voted - time to go Zarqawi.
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Afghanistan - Militia Disarming
Bloomberg reports "
Afghanistan has disarmed 80 percent of its estimated 50,000 militiamen under a joint program with the United Nations, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said.
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Afghanistan has disarmed 80 percent of its estimated 50,000 militiamen under a joint program with the United Nations, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said.
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Jihad - Ways to Fight It
Daniel Pipes has some idea.
(4) Engage in research. This is the new element. There are some remarkable stories of private individuals becoming learned in the ways of radical Islam and their activities have led to all sorts of important results, including the arrest of an apparent terrorist, discrediting an expert witness, canceling an official reception, shutting down a conference, and closing an Internet site. I advise researchers to focus on their geographic area – a city, a region, a university, or (in the case of small ones) a country. There is an unending need to look critically at Muslim institutions and individuals, so as to distinguish the extremists from the moderates, the enemies from the allies.
Or to put it more starkly, Rita Katz of the SITE Institute says in the current issue of Newsweek, "Almost every [Islamist] Web site has a section on how to do jihad over the Internet" and these advise would-be holy warriors: "If you can't do jihad physically, do it on the Internet." The same applies to counterterrorists.
I would add, learn Islam's war plan and then counter their tactics where ever you find them being employed.
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(4) Engage in research. This is the new element. There are some remarkable stories of private individuals becoming learned in the ways of radical Islam and their activities have led to all sorts of important results, including the arrest of an apparent terrorist, discrediting an expert witness, canceling an official reception, shutting down a conference, and closing an Internet site. I advise researchers to focus on their geographic area – a city, a region, a university, or (in the case of small ones) a country. There is an unending need to look critically at Muslim institutions and individuals, so as to distinguish the extremists from the moderates, the enemies from the allies.
Or to put it more starkly, Rita Katz of the SITE Institute says in the current issue of Newsweek, "Almost every [Islamist] Web site has a section on how to do jihad over the Internet" and these advise would-be holy warriors: "If you can't do jihad physically, do it on the Internet." The same applies to counterterrorists.
I would add, learn Islam's war plan and then counter their tactics where ever you find them being employed.
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Middle East - Unsung Victories
Victor Hanson great as usual.
Here's a snippet but be sure to read the whole thing.
The American effort to democratize postwar Afghanistan and Iraq has placed a heavy burden on the United States to develop a coherent and consistent policy of supporting reformers throughout the Middle East. We should continue with demands for elections in a Lebanon free of a tyrannical Syria, elevate dissidents in Iran onto the world stage, pressure for change in the Gulf, and say goodbye to Wahhabi Saudi Arabia. If Western elites are really worried about the legitimacy of past elections in Iraq, let them go instead to Lebanon where they can worry first about having any at all, and then later complain about the proper degree of voter participation. The forces of history have been unleashed and we should cease apologizing for the deluge and instead steer the waves in the right direction.
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Here's a snippet but be sure to read the whole thing.
The American effort to democratize postwar Afghanistan and Iraq has placed a heavy burden on the United States to develop a coherent and consistent policy of supporting reformers throughout the Middle East. We should continue with demands for elections in a Lebanon free of a tyrannical Syria, elevate dissidents in Iran onto the world stage, pressure for change in the Gulf, and say goodbye to Wahhabi Saudi Arabia. If Western elites are really worried about the legitimacy of past elections in Iraq, let them go instead to Lebanon where they can worry first about having any at all, and then later complain about the proper degree of voter participation. The forces of history have been unleashed and we should cease apologizing for the deluge and instead steer the waves in the right direction.
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Islam - Spreading Hate
In the Red Zone has more "from the Center for Religious Freedom's absolutely essential report..."
To be disassociated from the infidels is to hate them for their religion, to leave them, to never rely on them for support, not to admire them, to be on one's guard against them, never imitate them, and to always oppose them in every way according to Islamic law.
-- literature found by the Center for Religious Freedom's researchers at the the Saudi Arabian-supported Islamic Center of Washington, D.C. (For a pdf-formatted version of this eye-opening report, go here; for an executive summary, here.)
Which reminded me of a recent post of mine.
The world is engulfed by a war declared on it by Islam but you would hardly know it from the western media.
Islam has a great strategy for waging war on the world; use the freedoms of democracy against the world. Protected by freedom of speech and religion they spew their hate from their mosques. Our laws, designed to protect people's rights, are being used as shields by terrorists the world over; incorporating Sharia Law these shields are being turned into weapons. Charities and so called civil rights groups funnel money and support to jihadists. Our universities educate the terrorists and provide another fourm to spread their hate. All the while the elite media provide the propaganda mouth piece.
It is a great plan. While playing the role of the victim they attack; just like the terrorists in Falluja feinged death before blowing themselves up and killing all around them.
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To be disassociated from the infidels is to hate them for their religion, to leave them, to never rely on them for support, not to admire them, to be on one's guard against them, never imitate them, and to always oppose them in every way according to Islamic law.
-- literature found by the Center for Religious Freedom's researchers at the the Saudi Arabian-supported Islamic Center of Washington, D.C. (For a pdf-formatted version of this eye-opening report, go here; for an executive summary, here.)
Which reminded me of a recent post of mine.
The world is engulfed by a war declared on it by Islam but you would hardly know it from the western media.
Islam has a great strategy for waging war on the world; use the freedoms of democracy against the world. Protected by freedom of speech and religion they spew their hate from their mosques. Our laws, designed to protect people's rights, are being used as shields by terrorists the world over; incorporating Sharia Law these shields are being turned into weapons. Charities and so called civil rights groups funnel money and support to jihadists. Our universities educate the terrorists and provide another fourm to spread their hate. All the while the elite media provide the propaganda mouth piece.
It is a great plan. While playing the role of the victim they attack; just like the terrorists in Falluja feinged death before blowing themselves up and killing all around them.
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BBC - Enemy of the State
My regular readers are well aware of my loathing for the BBC. I have a permanent link, The case against the BBC, which I update regularly, on the top left of the page.
Discover the Network does a great job of documenting the national disgrace the BBC has become. It is truly sad to see this once great organization reduced to a blubbering left wing jihadist propaganda machine.
Some snippets from Discover the Network and thanks to commenter JohninLondon for the link.
But when Prime Minister Blair and President George W. Bush worked as allies to remove terrorist-supporting Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, the BBC responded by slanting its reporting heavily against the military effort, exaggerating British casualties, and giving airtime to every politician and anti-war activist who criticized Mr. Blair.
BBC reports from Iraq became so out-of-kilter that even its own defense correspondent at the coalition command center in Qatar, Paul Adams, filed an internal BBC memo that leaked and was reported in the Labourite newspaper The Guardian:
“I was gobsmacked to hear, in a set of headlines today, that the coalition was suffering ‘significant casualties.’ This is simply not true,” wrote Adams. “Nor is it true to say – as the same intro stated – that coalition forces are fighting ‘guerrillas.’ It may be guerrilla warfare, but they are not guerrillas….”
“Who dreamed up the line that the coalition are achieving ‘small victories at a very high price?’ The truth,” wrote Adams, “is exactly the opposite. The gains are huge and costs still relatively low. This is real warfare, however one-sided, and losses are to be expected.”
BBC reporting so heavily played on the theme of British soldiers wounded and killed in Iraq that in March 2003 the BBC felt compelled to promise more sensitivity to the feelings of soldier family members back home, and that it would show no more footage of seriously injured soldiers.
As a reflection of the bias of its reporters, in February 2003 the BBC had to order some of its top news anchors and reporters not to participate in an anti-war march. Junior BBC staff was permitted to participate as anti-war activists, but then-Director General of the BBC Greg Dyke urged the staff to remain “independent, impartial and honest.”
The flagship of the Royal Navy is the HMS Ark Royal. Its crew in the Persian Gulf became so disgusted with the one-sided anti-war slant of the BBC that they tuned their television sets to Sky News.
The BBC admit, though not publicly, that they are doing a terrible job.
The scrutiny this case focused on the BBC revealed that such bad journalism was common. The London Telegraph obtained other internal BBC memos and emails. In them, one of BBC’s “most senior news managers,” Hugh Berlyn, criticized BBC’s news reports as untrustworthy, littered with errors, inaccurate and potentially libelous because the corporation’s journalists frequently fail to check their facts, and because BBC often broadcasts these stories without oversight by an editor.
The BBC's hatred of America was made clear during the last US presidential elections.
As to its view of capitalism and the United States, the BBC’s choice of commentators for its coverage of the American election in 2004 spoke volumes. One of the only Americans chosen to explain the U.S. elections to the British people was hatchet-man and propagandist for Democratic President Bill Clinton’s Administration Sidney Blumenthal. Another was Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. The third was former Central Intelligence Agency director (and this panel’s only moderate) James Woolsey. The fourth was a self-identified hater of President Bush, Daddy Warbucks for leftwing organizations supporting Democratic candidate Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, and billionaire financier whose hostile currency speculation in the British Pound led him to be known as “the man who broke the Bank of England” George Soros. The fifth and final American election commentator chosen by the BBC was anti-Bush documentarian and radical Michael Moore. This is how the BBC fulfills its charter requirements for “impartiality” and a “respect for truth.”
All of which has led the BBC to become an enemy of the state. Melanie Phillips notes:
Britain is gripped by an unprecedented degree of irrationality, prejudice and hysteria over the issues of Iraq, the terrorist jihad and Israel. All three are intimately linked; all three, however, are thought by public opinion to be linked in precisely the wrong way. This is because all three have been systematically misreported, distorted and misrepresented through a lethal combination of profound ignorance, political malice and ancient prejudices. [...]
The public has been grossly misled by the British media, and falsehoods have become accepted as fact, so much so that any statement of actual facts which undermine this mindset are excised from the debate altogether.
Islam has declared war on the world and one of its most potent weapons is the BBC - enemy of the state.
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Discover the Network does a great job of documenting the national disgrace the BBC has become. It is truly sad to see this once great organization reduced to a blubbering left wing jihadist propaganda machine.
Some snippets from Discover the Network and thanks to commenter JohninLondon for the link.
But when Prime Minister Blair and President George W. Bush worked as allies to remove terrorist-supporting Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, the BBC responded by slanting its reporting heavily against the military effort, exaggerating British casualties, and giving airtime to every politician and anti-war activist who criticized Mr. Blair.
BBC reports from Iraq became so out-of-kilter that even its own defense correspondent at the coalition command center in Qatar, Paul Adams, filed an internal BBC memo that leaked and was reported in the Labourite newspaper The Guardian:
“I was gobsmacked to hear, in a set of headlines today, that the coalition was suffering ‘significant casualties.’ This is simply not true,” wrote Adams. “Nor is it true to say – as the same intro stated – that coalition forces are fighting ‘guerrillas.’ It may be guerrilla warfare, but they are not guerrillas….”
“Who dreamed up the line that the coalition are achieving ‘small victories at a very high price?’ The truth,” wrote Adams, “is exactly the opposite. The gains are huge and costs still relatively low. This is real warfare, however one-sided, and losses are to be expected.”
BBC reporting so heavily played on the theme of British soldiers wounded and killed in Iraq that in March 2003 the BBC felt compelled to promise more sensitivity to the feelings of soldier family members back home, and that it would show no more footage of seriously injured soldiers.
As a reflection of the bias of its reporters, in February 2003 the BBC had to order some of its top news anchors and reporters not to participate in an anti-war march. Junior BBC staff was permitted to participate as anti-war activists, but then-Director General of the BBC Greg Dyke urged the staff to remain “independent, impartial and honest.”
The flagship of the Royal Navy is the HMS Ark Royal. Its crew in the Persian Gulf became so disgusted with the one-sided anti-war slant of the BBC that they tuned their television sets to Sky News.
The BBC admit, though not publicly, that they are doing a terrible job.
The scrutiny this case focused on the BBC revealed that such bad journalism was common. The London Telegraph obtained other internal BBC memos and emails. In them, one of BBC’s “most senior news managers,” Hugh Berlyn, criticized BBC’s news reports as untrustworthy, littered with errors, inaccurate and potentially libelous because the corporation’s journalists frequently fail to check their facts, and because BBC often broadcasts these stories without oversight by an editor.
The BBC's hatred of America was made clear during the last US presidential elections.
As to its view of capitalism and the United States, the BBC’s choice of commentators for its coverage of the American election in 2004 spoke volumes. One of the only Americans chosen to explain the U.S. elections to the British people was hatchet-man and propagandist for Democratic President Bill Clinton’s Administration Sidney Blumenthal. Another was Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. The third was former Central Intelligence Agency director (and this panel’s only moderate) James Woolsey. The fourth was a self-identified hater of President Bush, Daddy Warbucks for leftwing organizations supporting Democratic candidate Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, and billionaire financier whose hostile currency speculation in the British Pound led him to be known as “the man who broke the Bank of England” George Soros. The fifth and final American election commentator chosen by the BBC was anti-Bush documentarian and radical Michael Moore. This is how the BBC fulfills its charter requirements for “impartiality” and a “respect for truth.”
All of which has led the BBC to become an enemy of the state. Melanie Phillips notes:
Britain is gripped by an unprecedented degree of irrationality, prejudice and hysteria over the issues of Iraq, the terrorist jihad and Israel. All three are intimately linked; all three, however, are thought by public opinion to be linked in precisely the wrong way. This is because all three have been systematically misreported, distorted and misrepresented through a lethal combination of profound ignorance, political malice and ancient prejudices. [...]
The public has been grossly misled by the British media, and falsehoods have become accepted as fact, so much so that any statement of actual facts which undermine this mindset are excised from the debate altogether.
Islam has declared war on the world and one of its most potent weapons is the BBC - enemy of the state.
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BBC Bias
More people are paying attention.
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Iraq - Scott Ritter Traitor
Former US Marine and UN weapons inspector, Scott Ritter, who has a history of soliciting underage girls for sex, now writes for Al Jazeera.
Black Five has some thoughts.
There's no facts, no sources for his claims of Americans raping, torturing, and creating death squads out of the Kurds and Shia to kill the Ba'athists. Ritter writes, "according to press accounts", but he doesn't identify which "journalist" from Iran or Syria or North Korea is reporting this info.
He's a lying disgrace and his column could incite violence against Americans. And I'll stop now because this is a PG-13 blog...
The Fox article notes the same lack of proof.
"Offering no proof whatsoever, Mr. Ritter accuses the U.S. of conspiring with Iraqi assassination squads..."
Hopefully Ritter will meet the fate he deserves.
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Black Five has some thoughts.
There's no facts, no sources for his claims of Americans raping, torturing, and creating death squads out of the Kurds and Shia to kill the Ba'athists. Ritter writes, "according to press accounts", but he doesn't identify which "journalist" from Iran or Syria or North Korea is reporting this info.
He's a lying disgrace and his column could incite violence against Americans. And I'll stop now because this is a PG-13 blog...
The Fox article notes the same lack of proof.
"Offering no proof whatsoever, Mr. Ritter accuses the U.S. of conspiring with Iraqi assassination squads..."
Hopefully Ritter will meet the fate he deserves.
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Bloggers - Silencing Free Speech
Weblog, Batesline, was threatened with legal action by a local newspaper for exercising his freedom of speech. Batesline is fighting back with his own legal team.
The left and the ACLU are strangely quiet on this one. I guess freedom of speech only applies to the left.
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The left and the ACLU are strangely quiet on this one. I guess freedom of speech only applies to the left.
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Iraq - And More
Jay Nordlinger comments on Iraq, Mark Steyn and more.
I was reading an op-ed piece by Fareed Zakaria in the Washington Post, and he began by quoting Jon Stewart, the comedian, who said, "We did it! We had the election. And now we can say to Iraq, 'Goodbye!'"
The words "We did it!" brought me up short. I thought, "What do you mean, we?"
It will be just like the Cold War, I think. George W. Bush and his allies will make progress in the Middle East, and then, with selective amnesia, those who fought Bush & Co. tooth and nail will say, "We, we, we." We liberalized Afghanistan, we liberalized Iraq, blah, blah, blah.
If it had been up to Jon Stewart and his ilk, that election in Iraq would never have taken place.
"We did it!" indeed.
And he quotes Steyn.
May I give you a little Mark Steyn? You never object to a little Mark Steyn, do you? I wish to quote from his recent Spectator essay.
Steyn notes that Sir Simon Jenkins has written, "The neocon bragging over a 'beacon of democracy' now being raised over the Muslim world is absurd. There were active, contested elections in Palestine in 1996, Egypt in 2000 . . . "
Steyn interjects,
Whoa, hold it right there. C'mon, man, the winner of Egypt's 2000 election was never in any doubt (though I note that in the 1995 Egyptian elections more people were killed than on Iraq's polling day). As for Palestine, Sir Simon complains that "America refused to acknowledge Yasser Arafat as a democrat." Maybe that's because he was elected in 1996 to a five-year term: You do the math. He stayed on till he died — and, indeed, if the rumors coming out of that French hospital were true, for several days after he died. If he hadn't been carried out by the handles in the ninth year of his five-year term, he'd doubtless be planning big public festivities to mark its tenth anniversary. If Bush were to stay on till, oh, 2011, I doubt that Sir Simon would be eager to acknowledge Dubya as a democrat. The fact is the Europeans' willingness to string along with that kind of sham "democracy" is one reason why Arafat felt under no pressure to change his ways.
Steyn continues,
Arafat fetishization was embarrassing enough when the old monster was still around to slobber all over fawning emissaries from the EU and the Vatican and teary-eyed BBC correspondents. But the thing is he's dead now. Even the Palestinians have moved on. Contempt for the Iraqi electorate is all very well, but frantically trying to jump-start Arafat's corpse to prove your point makes you look as dead as he is. You can't flog a dead horse, even if it's an Arab. And you don't have to subscribe to popular regional theories that the Zionist Entity poisoned him to recognize that Arafat did more for "the Middle East peace process" by dying than he'd done in the previous 40 years. If any kind of peace is to be forced on the Palestinians, it's going to be closer to the Bush-Rice vision of things than the EU Arafat-pandering.
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I was reading an op-ed piece by Fareed Zakaria in the Washington Post, and he began by quoting Jon Stewart, the comedian, who said, "We did it! We had the election. And now we can say to Iraq, 'Goodbye!'"
The words "We did it!" brought me up short. I thought, "What do you mean, we?"
It will be just like the Cold War, I think. George W. Bush and his allies will make progress in the Middle East, and then, with selective amnesia, those who fought Bush & Co. tooth and nail will say, "We, we, we." We liberalized Afghanistan, we liberalized Iraq, blah, blah, blah.
If it had been up to Jon Stewart and his ilk, that election in Iraq would never have taken place.
"We did it!" indeed.
And he quotes Steyn.
May I give you a little Mark Steyn? You never object to a little Mark Steyn, do you? I wish to quote from his recent Spectator essay.
Steyn notes that Sir Simon Jenkins has written, "The neocon bragging over a 'beacon of democracy' now being raised over the Muslim world is absurd. There were active, contested elections in Palestine in 1996, Egypt in 2000 . . . "
Steyn interjects,
Whoa, hold it right there. C'mon, man, the winner of Egypt's 2000 election was never in any doubt (though I note that in the 1995 Egyptian elections more people were killed than on Iraq's polling day). As for Palestine, Sir Simon complains that "America refused to acknowledge Yasser Arafat as a democrat." Maybe that's because he was elected in 1996 to a five-year term: You do the math. He stayed on till he died — and, indeed, if the rumors coming out of that French hospital were true, for several days after he died. If he hadn't been carried out by the handles in the ninth year of his five-year term, he'd doubtless be planning big public festivities to mark its tenth anniversary. If Bush were to stay on till, oh, 2011, I doubt that Sir Simon would be eager to acknowledge Dubya as a democrat. The fact is the Europeans' willingness to string along with that kind of sham "democracy" is one reason why Arafat felt under no pressure to change his ways.
Steyn continues,
Arafat fetishization was embarrassing enough when the old monster was still around to slobber all over fawning emissaries from the EU and the Vatican and teary-eyed BBC correspondents. But the thing is he's dead now. Even the Palestinians have moved on. Contempt for the Iraqi electorate is all very well, but frantically trying to jump-start Arafat's corpse to prove your point makes you look as dead as he is. You can't flog a dead horse, even if it's an Arab. And you don't have to subscribe to popular regional theories that the Zionist Entity poisoned him to recognize that Arafat did more for "the Middle East peace process" by dying than he'd done in the previous 40 years. If any kind of peace is to be forced on the Palestinians, it's going to be closer to the Bush-Rice vision of things than the EU Arafat-pandering.
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Blog Awards
Online Journalism Review takes a look at weblog awards and where they are headed.
Be sure and check out the links to award winners at the end of the article.
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Be sure and check out the links to award winners at the end of the article.
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American soldiers are "decent people."
NRO reports on one journalist's embed experience with the US military.
The panel member who, one would have thought, would have the most to say about the subject of a "reporter as citizen" was Mary Beth Sheridan. But, she explained, she hadn't realized she would have to make a speech at the breakfast, and that her remarks about her experiences in Iraq would be just "free-flowing" — and, indeed, they were.
First of all, she said she was "overwhelmed by the military," but she did learn by being embedded that members of our armed forces were not "blood-thirsty maniacs." Yes, she really did say that.
In fact, she said, they were "really decent people." And even "sweet." Of course, after being shot at they were eager to shoot back — a military attitude that seemed to surprise her.
She also reported that when she asked soldiers why were they in Iraq, every single one told her, "to help the Iraqi people." Again she was surprised that the military could create such a unity of purpose even though, she said, she didn't see any "brainwashing" going on. She also noted that many soldiers had no opinion about the war. They had gone where they were ordered to go, like all good soldiers. Such an attitude seemed to dazzle her as well.
She didn't have anything much to say about "reporters as citizens," but clearly she appeared to be one citizen who had very little familiarity with, or understanding of, or even quite possibly respect for the military before her tour of duty. In a way, it is kind of sad that only after some first-hand experience did she learn what most American citizens believe: that American soldiers are "decent people." And that it is those soldiers, not our journalists, after all, who protect our freedom of the press.
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The panel member who, one would have thought, would have the most to say about the subject of a "reporter as citizen" was Mary Beth Sheridan. But, she explained, she hadn't realized she would have to make a speech at the breakfast, and that her remarks about her experiences in Iraq would be just "free-flowing" — and, indeed, they were.
First of all, she said she was "overwhelmed by the military," but she did learn by being embedded that members of our armed forces were not "blood-thirsty maniacs." Yes, she really did say that.
In fact, she said, they were "really decent people." And even "sweet." Of course, after being shot at they were eager to shoot back — a military attitude that seemed to surprise her.
She also reported that when she asked soldiers why were they in Iraq, every single one told her, "to help the Iraqi people." Again she was surprised that the military could create such a unity of purpose even though, she said, she didn't see any "brainwashing" going on. She also noted that many soldiers had no opinion about the war. They had gone where they were ordered to go, like all good soldiers. Such an attitude seemed to dazzle her as well.
She didn't have anything much to say about "reporters as citizens," but clearly she appeared to be one citizen who had very little familiarity with, or understanding of, or even quite possibly respect for the military before her tour of duty. In a way, it is kind of sad that only after some first-hand experience did she learn what most American citizens believe: that American soldiers are "decent people." And that it is those soldiers, not our journalists, after all, who protect our freedom of the press.
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Eason Jordon - Big Media Cover Up
The Weekly Standard reports on big media's cover up of the CNN/Eason Jordon affair.
Like others, Kurtz failed to mention any of Jordan's other problems that bloggers had brought to light. That lesson did not pass unnoticed by the rest of the national media. When the Los Angeles Times reported on Jordan to its readers on Saturday (for the first time), it also eliminated any reference to the other allegations he had made over the years. On Monday, the New York Times ran a background piece which focused on the dynamics of the blogswarm. By the time the weekend news cycles finished, the story was no longer about Jordan's unsubstantiated accusations against the U.S. military, but about out-of-control, bloodthirsty citizen-journalists.
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Like others, Kurtz failed to mention any of Jordan's other problems that bloggers had brought to light. That lesson did not pass unnoticed by the rest of the national media. When the Los Angeles Times reported on Jordan to its readers on Saturday (for the first time), it also eliminated any reference to the other allegations he had made over the years. On Monday, the New York Times ran a background piece which focused on the dynamics of the blogswarm. By the time the weekend news cycles finished, the story was no longer about Jordan's unsubstantiated accusations against the U.S. military, but about out-of-control, bloodthirsty citizen-journalists.
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Thursday, February 17, 2005
Iraq - Fallujah On the Mend
The Washington Post reports on the US success in Fallujah. Nice to see legacy media finally printing some good news from Iraq for a change.
For these Marines, the relative ease with which they walked through Fallujah one day last week was nearly as jarring as the sudden blasts of gunfire that greeted them during the U.S.-led offensive to retake the city from insurgents in early November. Although Marine commanders declared the battle over about a week after ground forces entered the city, deadly clashes continued through most of December. [...]
Shupp said the greatest assets for the Marines fighting the insurgents are the residents, many of whom are cooperating by reporting the locations of weapons caches and suspects.
"The word on the street is that the residents don't want the insurgents in their town," Shupp said. "They only brought death and destruction."
[...]
"They are onesies and twosies," he said. "They take a shot off, and usually it's ineffective small-arms fire. They have difficulty moving. Right now we really consider Fallujah the safest city in Anbar province and maybe in all of Iraq." [...]
"We're all very happy, everybody," Hussein said, pulling his leather jacket tighter around his gray dishdasha. "We're relaxed. The Americans protect us. We feel safe."
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For these Marines, the relative ease with which they walked through Fallujah one day last week was nearly as jarring as the sudden blasts of gunfire that greeted them during the U.S.-led offensive to retake the city from insurgents in early November. Although Marine commanders declared the battle over about a week after ground forces entered the city, deadly clashes continued through most of December. [...]
Shupp said the greatest assets for the Marines fighting the insurgents are the residents, many of whom are cooperating by reporting the locations of weapons caches and suspects.
"The word on the street is that the residents don't want the insurgents in their town," Shupp said. "They only brought death and destruction."
[...]
"They are onesies and twosies," he said. "They take a shot off, and usually it's ineffective small-arms fire. They have difficulty moving. Right now we really consider Fallujah the safest city in Anbar province and maybe in all of Iraq." [...]
"We're all very happy, everybody," Hussein said, pulling his leather jacket tighter around his gray dishdasha. "We're relaxed. The Americans protect us. We feel safe."
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Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Syria - Underestimating Bush
Syria and Iran still underestimate Bush and it may be too late. The timing of their announcement is not a random choice of dates. Bush forced their hand with the elections in Iraq. Ordinary Syrians and Iranians had to watch as expat Iraqis cast their votes in free democratic elections. Those elections are over and the fuse is lit. Lebanon is the first bomb to go off.
The Belmont Club has a must read on the situation.
More and more the UN and old Europe look they are locked in a time warp back in World War II while Bush looks more like a Jedi master from star wars. Free elections in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Ukraine and for the Palestinians. Presidents and Prime Ministers everywhere. Democracy spreading like the Star Trek Genesis project.
Syria and Iran's actions show they still underestimate George Bush. Let's hope the Syrian and Iranian people don't and rise up and throw off the tyrants mantle.
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The Belmont Club has a must read on the situation.
More and more the UN and old Europe look they are locked in a time warp back in World War II while Bush looks more like a Jedi master from star wars. Free elections in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Ukraine and for the Palestinians. Presidents and Prime Ministers everywhere. Democracy spreading like the Star Trek Genesis project.
Syria and Iran's actions show they still underestimate George Bush. Let's hope the Syrian and Iranian people don't and rise up and throw off the tyrants mantle.
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CNN - What's CNN hiding?
I know, I know, you've probably had enough of the CNN/Eason Jordon saga. But something really stinks about this whole affair. CNN and Jordan caved in far too easily.
CBS and Dan Rather were caught red handed using forged documents to smear Bush during a presidential election; something someone should and may yet go to jail over. But Rather still has his job.
No smoking gun has been produced for the Jordon affair. There were some prominent people who heard Jordon's remarks but Jordon claims he was misunderstood. For some strange reason Jordon offered and CNN accepted his resignation without calling for the videotape of his remarks to be released. Unlike the CBS/Rather affair, that's it, done and dusted, it's a wrap.
Or is it? Why was CNN so eager to get rid of Jordon? Did CNN learn from the Bloggers vs CBS slugfest? Cut your losses quick before the bloggers are on to you, seems to be the plan. Anything but the bloggers.
Could CNN be hiding a deeper, darker secret?
LGF may be on to something.
Jordon admitted that CNN played ball with Saddam in order to keep CNN reporters in Iraq and gain access to Saddam. Now it looks like CNN is doing the same thing with Cuba and North Korea.
CBS's ratings and income dropped like a stone when they got caught.
CNN must be in mortal fear of being exposed pandering to the worlds worst dictators.
Who else has CNN sold themselves out to? Iran? Syria?
Not only are bloggers at the gates of main street media, they are pouring over the ramparts. MSM must feel like they are being assimilated by the borg.
Yes, resistance is futile, you will be assimilated. For a change, that's a good thing.
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CBS and Dan Rather were caught red handed using forged documents to smear Bush during a presidential election; something someone should and may yet go to jail over. But Rather still has his job.
No smoking gun has been produced for the Jordon affair. There were some prominent people who heard Jordon's remarks but Jordon claims he was misunderstood. For some strange reason Jordon offered and CNN accepted his resignation without calling for the videotape of his remarks to be released. Unlike the CBS/Rather affair, that's it, done and dusted, it's a wrap.
Or is it? Why was CNN so eager to get rid of Jordon? Did CNN learn from the Bloggers vs CBS slugfest? Cut your losses quick before the bloggers are on to you, seems to be the plan. Anything but the bloggers.
Could CNN be hiding a deeper, darker secret?
LGF may be on to something.
Jordon admitted that CNN played ball with Saddam in order to keep CNN reporters in Iraq and gain access to Saddam. Now it looks like CNN is doing the same thing with Cuba and North Korea.
CBS's ratings and income dropped like a stone when they got caught.
CNN must be in mortal fear of being exposed pandering to the worlds worst dictators.
Who else has CNN sold themselves out to? Iran? Syria?
Not only are bloggers at the gates of main street media, they are pouring over the ramparts. MSM must feel like they are being assimilated by the borg.
Yes, resistance is futile, you will be assimilated. For a change, that's a good thing.
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Google - Busted
Earlier today I posted about the effect bloggers are having on politics and the media. Bloggers can also take on companies.
On Monday I posted about the bias at Google. Now comes more disturbing news about Google. A must read. Here is a snippet.
Let's add it up: Google a blatantly Liberal entity, is found to have tons of sensitive data archived on its site, and seems to be using the robots.txt files to sniff out where that sensitive information is hidden. Why would they want it, and what do they plan to do with it? The last election was pretty dirty and stuff was being dug up left and right. Could Google be building a “dirt chest” of secrets to unload during the next election?
I warned Google in my previous post.
Shame on you Google. Did you think you could escape the blogsphere?
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On Monday I posted about the bias at Google. Now comes more disturbing news about Google. A must read. Here is a snippet.
Let's add it up: Google a blatantly Liberal entity, is found to have tons of sensitive data archived on its site, and seems to be using the robots.txt files to sniff out where that sensitive information is hidden. Why would they want it, and what do they plan to do with it? The last election was pretty dirty and stuff was being dug up left and right. Could Google be building a “dirt chest” of secrets to unload during the next election?
I warned Google in my previous post.
Shame on you Google. Did you think you could escape the blogsphere?
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Iraq - UK Anti-War Protest Fizzles
The AFP reports on the shrinking anti-war movement.
LONDON (AFP) - Dozens of people opposed to the war in Iraq (news - web sites) held a "die-in" outside the Houses of Parliament in London, demanding that British troops come home, while similar rallies took place across the country.
Would that be two or three dozen?
Maybe people are starting to wake up and find out just who is leading these anti-war groups.
"Our die-in was held to symbolize the tens of thousands who have died in Iraq since the war began. We are also calling for the troops to be withdrawn," said Lindsey German, of the Stop The War Coalition.
Besides disgraced George Galloway's RESPECT London mayoral candidate, who is Lindsey German? A communist.
Kate Hudson, chairwoman of the CND, said that the rally was to step up demands that the "occupation of Iraq should end."
Kate Hudson is vice chair of The Communist University.
In fact all of the anti-war groups are just communist front organizations.
Communism and the Soviet Union were defeated and as these anti-war groups are exposed as communist fronts, they too are being defeated.
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LONDON (AFP) - Dozens of people opposed to the war in Iraq (news - web sites) held a "die-in" outside the Houses of Parliament in London, demanding that British troops come home, while similar rallies took place across the country.
Would that be two or three dozen?
Maybe people are starting to wake up and find out just who is leading these anti-war groups.
"Our die-in was held to symbolize the tens of thousands who have died in Iraq since the war began. We are also calling for the troops to be withdrawn," said Lindsey German, of the Stop The War Coalition.
Besides disgraced George Galloway's RESPECT London mayoral candidate, who is Lindsey German? A communist.
Kate Hudson, chairwoman of the CND, said that the rally was to step up demands that the "occupation of Iraq should end."
Kate Hudson is vice chair of The Communist University.
In fact all of the anti-war groups are just communist front organizations.
Communism and the Soviet Union were defeated and as these anti-war groups are exposed as communist fronts, they too are being defeated.
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Iran to aid Syria against threats
The BBC reports "Iran has vowed to back Syria against "challenges and threats" as both countries face strong US pressure. "
Washington is considering new sanctions against Syria because of its refusal to withdraw its 14,000 troops from Lebanon.
Convenient of the BBC not to mention all the UN resolutions calling for Syria to leave Lebanon. Why is it we never hear the left calling for Syria's occupation of Lebanon to end?
But Syrian Expatriate Affairs Minister Buthaina Shaaban said she was "baffled" by the US reaction to the killing.
"To point to Syria in a terrorist act that aims at destabilising both Syria and Lebanon is truly like blaming the US for 9/11," she told the BBC.
The minister said Mr Hariri had been a "great ally" to Syria and his death was "a scandal against Syria and against Lebanon".
The BBC are happy to print this amazing quote without so much as a raised eyebrow. Probably because the BBC agree with her.
I won't even touch the 9/11 quote which is beyond the pale. But Hariri was not a great ally to Syria. Far from it. In fact he was seeking re-election on a platform to get Syria out of Lebanon.
Having fallen in and out of favor with Damascus over the years, he had recently joined calls by the opposition for Syrian troops to leave Lebanon in the run-up to a general election in May.
The BBC - mouthpiece for terrorist propaganda.
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Washington is considering new sanctions against Syria because of its refusal to withdraw its 14,000 troops from Lebanon.
Convenient of the BBC not to mention all the UN resolutions calling for Syria to leave Lebanon. Why is it we never hear the left calling for Syria's occupation of Lebanon to end?
But Syrian Expatriate Affairs Minister Buthaina Shaaban said she was "baffled" by the US reaction to the killing.
"To point to Syria in a terrorist act that aims at destabilising both Syria and Lebanon is truly like blaming the US for 9/11," she told the BBC.
The minister said Mr Hariri had been a "great ally" to Syria and his death was "a scandal against Syria and against Lebanon".
The BBC are happy to print this amazing quote without so much as a raised eyebrow. Probably because the BBC agree with her.
I won't even touch the 9/11 quote which is beyond the pale. But Hariri was not a great ally to Syria. Far from it. In fact he was seeking re-election on a platform to get Syria out of Lebanon.
Having fallen in and out of favor with Damascus over the years, he had recently joined calls by the opposition for Syrian troops to leave Lebanon in the run-up to a general election in May.
The BBC - mouthpiece for terrorist propaganda.
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UK Bloggers Getting Bolder
The Bunny notes The UK Times article comparing US and UK bloggers. Bunny isn't very happy with the article, with good reason.
I read somewhere recently that the reason legacy media still don't fully understand bloggers, is that legacy media never had any competition before.
Unlike their American peers, British bloggers are yet to take a major political scalp, but there are signs that the growing community of amateur online pundits is becoming an influential force.
This opening paragraph proves what Bunny says: "I can only think this oddity in the piece comes about because Blakely didn't bother to talk to any actual British bloggers. "
Bloggers aren't about just taking "political scalp" we want some media scalp as well. We are getting closer to that moment every day; just ask John Simpson. The BBC's retraction is here.
And the group that Blakely calls "amateur online pundits" has some professionals among that group.
Here is more proof Blakely doesn't know what he is talking about.
"UK bloggers have yet to decide whether blogging is a means to promote transparency in politics or another tool for party campaigning."
It's both and more at the same time. It's the more part that Blakely chooses to ignore or hopes the British public won't find out about it; Transparency in Media.
Let me show the Times how it's done.
Mr Jordan's professional demise follows that of Dan Rather, the veteran CBS news presenter, who came under attack after levelling accusations over President George W Bush's military service. The subsequent probe by the channel, triggered by blog reports, led to the departure of four high-level executives from the network.
Wrong on both counts Times. It was Rather and CNN who attacked Bush using what Rather knew to be forged documents. The bloggers merely exposed the forged documents and Rathers use of them. Only one person at CNN was fired and it wasn't the guilty party - Rather. The other three were asked to resign; something they are refusing to do and have taken legal advice.
Then the Times makes the same mistake legacy media usually make - denigrating bloggers.
There remains significant cultural differences between America and Britain, not least the absence from the US of national tabloid newspapers which have in the past performed a similar role to the American bloggers.
Got that? Bloggers are the same as tabloid newspapers. I bet Rather and Jordon would dispute that.
Bunny goes on to note that there are some great bloggers here in the UK that Blakely could have interviewed but choose not to. Strangely, I'm not on the list. I'm sure it's more a space constraint than an oversight. Right Bunny?
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I read somewhere recently that the reason legacy media still don't fully understand bloggers, is that legacy media never had any competition before.
Unlike their American peers, British bloggers are yet to take a major political scalp, but there are signs that the growing community of amateur online pundits is becoming an influential force.
This opening paragraph proves what Bunny says: "I can only think this oddity in the piece comes about because Blakely didn't bother to talk to any actual British bloggers. "
Bloggers aren't about just taking "political scalp" we want some media scalp as well. We are getting closer to that moment every day; just ask John Simpson. The BBC's retraction is here.
And the group that Blakely calls "amateur online pundits" has some professionals among that group.
Here is more proof Blakely doesn't know what he is talking about.
"UK bloggers have yet to decide whether blogging is a means to promote transparency in politics or another tool for party campaigning."
It's both and more at the same time. It's the more part that Blakely chooses to ignore or hopes the British public won't find out about it; Transparency in Media.
Let me show the Times how it's done.
Mr Jordan's professional demise follows that of Dan Rather, the veteran CBS news presenter, who came under attack after levelling accusations over President George W Bush's military service. The subsequent probe by the channel, triggered by blog reports, led to the departure of four high-level executives from the network.
Wrong on both counts Times. It was Rather and CNN who attacked Bush using what Rather knew to be forged documents. The bloggers merely exposed the forged documents and Rathers use of them. Only one person at CNN was fired and it wasn't the guilty party - Rather. The other three were asked to resign; something they are refusing to do and have taken legal advice.
Then the Times makes the same mistake legacy media usually make - denigrating bloggers.
There remains significant cultural differences between America and Britain, not least the absence from the US of national tabloid newspapers which have in the past performed a similar role to the American bloggers.
Got that? Bloggers are the same as tabloid newspapers. I bet Rather and Jordon would dispute that.
Bunny goes on to note that there are some great bloggers here in the UK that Blakely could have interviewed but choose not to. Strangely, I'm not on the list. I'm sure it's more a space constraint than an oversight. Right Bunny?
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Guardian - US Targets Journalists
Most readers are aware of the CNN/Eason Jordon scandal. If you're not, just do a Google search on Eason Jordon.
What you probably don't know is that CNN's Jordon was not the first main stream journalist to make these unsubstantiated charges. That dubious honor goes to none other than the BBC and Nik Gowing.
Today The Guardian steps in it and I mean that literally.
The article starts out innocently enough describing the power bloggers now enjoy but descends into a defense of Jordon and an attack on the blogsphere.
Keep this in mind as you read: there is a videotape of Jordon's remarks. Neither CNN nor Jordon have asked for its release or a transcript of Jordon's remarks. Why?
Abovitz attended an off-the-record panel in Davos on January 28, addressed by, among others, CNN's chief news executive Eason Jordan that was filmed. During the discussion, Jordan reportedly claimed that he knew of 12 journalists in Iraq whom the US military had deliberately targeted and killed. The Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank, who was also on the panel, asked him if CNN had reported this. Jordan said no. Abovitz asked him if he had any objective and clear evidence to back up these claims, because "if what he said was true, it would make Abu Ghraib look like a walk in the park". Jordan appeared to backtrack. The debate continued and then moved on.
Note the "reportedly" and "appeared to backtrack" to plant a little doubt in your mind. Jordon admits he made the remarks but they were misunderstood; which raised the question again - if that's the case why resign?
Left to the mainstream media, also in attendance, the story would have ended there. Abovitz told the New York Times that he asked some of the journalists if they planned to write about it and they said no, the discussion was off the record. But Abovitz surmised that the journalists were also eager to "protect their own", so he took matters into his own hands, posting a write-up of the conference at 2:21am local time with the headline: "Do US Troops target journalists in Iraq?"
Notice the vigilante comment "he took matters into his own hands".
But Jordan's demise may be much more significant than it first appears. In particular, it has been hailed as a victory of new technology over the old....
The Guardian is feeling threatened and rightfully so.
Jordan's claims cannot be proven and appear, in their details, to be incorrect. According to Ann Cooper, executive director for the Committee to Protect Journalists, 54 journalists and their translators have been killed in Iraq since 2003 - at least nine slain by the US military.
But that's not good enough for the Guardian. Now comes the defense of Jordon.
But his remarks are far from unsubstantiated. In April 2003, American troops bombed the Palestine hotel in Baghdad, where journalists were known to be staying. Al-Jazeera's offices in Baghdad, the location of which was known to the US military, was also hit by a laser-guided missile, killing one journalist, as was its offices in Kabul, which the US claimed was a "legitimate target" of "military significance".
In a chapter of a book, Dying to Tell the Story, about journalists killed in Iraq, the BBC's Nik Gowing writes: "There is evidence that media activity in the midst of real-time fighting is now regarded by commanders as having 'military significance', which justifies a firm military response to remove or at least neutralise it."
There is where the Guardian just stepped in a big pile of it. Nik Gowing of the BBC is the person responsible for starting "the US targets journalists" propaganda in the first place.
Blithering Bunny takes a detailed look, complete with links, at Mr. Gowing's propaganda. Bunny's article on Gowing ends with this revealing quote from Gowing: "we at the BBC and many broadcasters have enormous respect for Al Jazeera."
One site that the Bunny links to, This Isn't Writing, It's Typing shows that Gowing and Jordon go way back and have been spreading this propaganda for years.
Now comes the swipe at bloggers from the Guardian.
Where the internet was once regarded as providing a potential check on the mainstream media it has now in some cases, usurped it - being free from the restraints of editorial meetings, ethical codes, deadlines, schedules and production costs.In the words of one blogger:
"Mr Jordan; I'd like you to meet my friend the internet.
"Mr Internet this is Mr Jordan. I'll leave you to chat for a while. Have fun, and be careful. Internet remembers everything and he's a real blabbermouth."
"Free from ...ethical codes..."? Not if you want to have any credibility. Mainstream media lost both a long time ago.
Jordon and Rather are not the victims of the public; the public have long been victims of the Jordons and Rathers in legacy media. Now the victims have a weapon to fight back, the blogsphere, and the casualties are mounting.
The Guardian is right about one thing though, the Internet remembers everything.
Be afraid Guardian. Be afraid BBC. Be very afraid. Stop your lying and bias or your history; just like Jordon and Rather.
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What you probably don't know is that CNN's Jordon was not the first main stream journalist to make these unsubstantiated charges. That dubious honor goes to none other than the BBC and Nik Gowing.
Today The Guardian steps in it and I mean that literally.
The article starts out innocently enough describing the power bloggers now enjoy but descends into a defense of Jordon and an attack on the blogsphere.
Keep this in mind as you read: there is a videotape of Jordon's remarks. Neither CNN nor Jordon have asked for its release or a transcript of Jordon's remarks. Why?
Abovitz attended an off-the-record panel in Davos on January 28, addressed by, among others, CNN's chief news executive Eason Jordan that was filmed. During the discussion, Jordan reportedly claimed that he knew of 12 journalists in Iraq whom the US military had deliberately targeted and killed. The Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank, who was also on the panel, asked him if CNN had reported this. Jordan said no. Abovitz asked him if he had any objective and clear evidence to back up these claims, because "if what he said was true, it would make Abu Ghraib look like a walk in the park". Jordan appeared to backtrack. The debate continued and then moved on.
Note the "reportedly" and "appeared to backtrack" to plant a little doubt in your mind. Jordon admits he made the remarks but they were misunderstood; which raised the question again - if that's the case why resign?
Left to the mainstream media, also in attendance, the story would have ended there. Abovitz told the New York Times that he asked some of the journalists if they planned to write about it and they said no, the discussion was off the record. But Abovitz surmised that the journalists were also eager to "protect their own", so he took matters into his own hands, posting a write-up of the conference at 2:21am local time with the headline: "Do US Troops target journalists in Iraq?"
Notice the vigilante comment "he took matters into his own hands".
But Jordan's demise may be much more significant than it first appears. In particular, it has been hailed as a victory of new technology over the old....
The Guardian is feeling threatened and rightfully so.
Jordan's claims cannot be proven and appear, in their details, to be incorrect. According to Ann Cooper, executive director for the Committee to Protect Journalists, 54 journalists and their translators have been killed in Iraq since 2003 - at least nine slain by the US military.
But that's not good enough for the Guardian. Now comes the defense of Jordon.
But his remarks are far from unsubstantiated. In April 2003, American troops bombed the Palestine hotel in Baghdad, where journalists were known to be staying. Al-Jazeera's offices in Baghdad, the location of which was known to the US military, was also hit by a laser-guided missile, killing one journalist, as was its offices in Kabul, which the US claimed was a "legitimate target" of "military significance".
In a chapter of a book, Dying to Tell the Story, about journalists killed in Iraq, the BBC's Nik Gowing writes: "There is evidence that media activity in the midst of real-time fighting is now regarded by commanders as having 'military significance', which justifies a firm military response to remove or at least neutralise it."
There is where the Guardian just stepped in a big pile of it. Nik Gowing of the BBC is the person responsible for starting "the US targets journalists" propaganda in the first place.
Blithering Bunny takes a detailed look, complete with links, at Mr. Gowing's propaganda. Bunny's article on Gowing ends with this revealing quote from Gowing: "we at the BBC and many broadcasters have enormous respect for Al Jazeera."
One site that the Bunny links to, This Isn't Writing, It's Typing shows that Gowing and Jordon go way back and have been spreading this propaganda for years.
Now comes the swipe at bloggers from the Guardian.
Where the internet was once regarded as providing a potential check on the mainstream media it has now in some cases, usurped it - being free from the restraints of editorial meetings, ethical codes, deadlines, schedules and production costs.In the words of one blogger:
"Mr Jordan; I'd like you to meet my friend the internet.
"Mr Internet this is Mr Jordan. I'll leave you to chat for a while. Have fun, and be careful. Internet remembers everything and he's a real blabbermouth."
"Free from ...ethical codes..."? Not if you want to have any credibility. Mainstream media lost both a long time ago.
Jordon and Rather are not the victims of the public; the public have long been victims of the Jordons and Rathers in legacy media. Now the victims have a weapon to fight back, the blogsphere, and the casualties are mounting.
The Guardian is right about one thing though, the Internet remembers everything.
Be afraid Guardian. Be afraid BBC. Be very afraid. Stop your lying and bias or your history; just like Jordon and Rather.
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UN - Lost Cause
Mark Steyn thinks so. So do I; only he says it better.
First he takes on the press.
But you get the general picture: on a UN peace mission, everyone gets his piece. Didier Bourguet, a UN staffer in Congo and the Central African Republic, enjoyed the pleasures of 12-year-old girls, and as a result is now on trial in France. His lawyer has said he was part of a UN paedophile network that transcends national boundaries.
Now how about this? The Third Infantry Division are raping nine-year olds in Ramadi. Ready, set, go! That thundering sound outside your window isn't the new IKEA sale, but the great herd of BBC/CNN/Independent/Guardian/New York Times/Le Monde/Sydney Morning Herald/Irish Times/Cork Examiner reporters stampeding to the Sunni Triangle. Whoa, hold up, lads, it's only hypothetical.
Then the UN.
But systemic UN child sex in at least 50 per cent of their missions? The transnational morality set can barely stifle their yawns. If you're going to rape prepubescent girls, make sure you're wearing a blue helmet.
And at least the Pentagon put a stop to Abu Ghraib. As a UN official in Congo told the Telegraph yesterday: "The crux of the problem is that if the UN gets bolshie with these governments then they stop providing the UN with troops and staff."
And the problem with that is?
And
The folks that have been under the UN wing the longest - indeed, the only ones with their own permanent UN agency and semi-centenarian "refugee camps" - are the most comprehensively wrecked people on the face of the earth: the Palestinians. UN territories like Kosovo are the global equivalent of inner-city council estates with the blue helmets as local enforcers for the absentee slum landlord. By contrast, a couple of years after imperialist warmonger Bush showed up, Afghanistan and Iraq have elections, presidents and prime ministers.
When the tsunami hit, hundreds of thousands of people died within minutes. The Australians and Americans arrived within hours. The UN was unable to get to Banda Aceh within weeks.
Another Steyn must read.
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First he takes on the press.
But you get the general picture: on a UN peace mission, everyone gets his piece. Didier Bourguet, a UN staffer in Congo and the Central African Republic, enjoyed the pleasures of 12-year-old girls, and as a result is now on trial in France. His lawyer has said he was part of a UN paedophile network that transcends national boundaries.
Now how about this? The Third Infantry Division are raping nine-year olds in Ramadi. Ready, set, go! That thundering sound outside your window isn't the new IKEA sale, but the great herd of BBC/CNN/Independent/Guardian/New York Times/Le Monde/Sydney Morning Herald/Irish Times/Cork Examiner reporters stampeding to the Sunni Triangle. Whoa, hold up, lads, it's only hypothetical.
Then the UN.
But systemic UN child sex in at least 50 per cent of their missions? The transnational morality set can barely stifle their yawns. If you're going to rape prepubescent girls, make sure you're wearing a blue helmet.
And at least the Pentagon put a stop to Abu Ghraib. As a UN official in Congo told the Telegraph yesterday: "The crux of the problem is that if the UN gets bolshie with these governments then they stop providing the UN with troops and staff."
And the problem with that is?
And
The folks that have been under the UN wing the longest - indeed, the only ones with their own permanent UN agency and semi-centenarian "refugee camps" - are the most comprehensively wrecked people on the face of the earth: the Palestinians. UN territories like Kosovo are the global equivalent of inner-city council estates with the blue helmets as local enforcers for the absentee slum landlord. By contrast, a couple of years after imperialist warmonger Bush showed up, Afghanistan and Iraq have elections, presidents and prime ministers.
When the tsunami hit, hundreds of thousands of people died within minutes. The Australians and Americans arrived within hours. The UN was unable to get to Banda Aceh within weeks.
Another Steyn must read.
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Why Millions Say, Softly, God Bless America
Paul Johnson, eminent British historian and author, writes in Forbes.
Despite all these false friends and hidden enemies, however, democracy is taking its first faltering steps in the Arab-Muslim world. It may well be that in history's long perspective, America's success in turning Afghanistan and Iraq away from tyranny, fear and murder toward the peaceful rule of the ballot will seem a historic turning point. Other successes may well follow, and the chariot of democracy will gather momentum.
Just as the appalling 20th century was the age of the totalitarian state, the Gulag and Auschwitz, so the 21st may come to be seen as the age of government "of the people, by the people, for the people." If so, the U.S., by its courage and persistence, will be able to take primary credit. It has certainly led from the front, and it has shown that it knows how to use its position as the world's sole superpower with judgment, honor and unselfishness.
I think Abraham Lincoln would be proud of what George W. Bush and the U.S. forces have done. After the freeing of the slaves, what more logical and benevolent step could there be than to free millions of Arabs from the slavery of terror? So I say, God Bless America. And I'm confident that countless millions throughout the world say so, too, even if they do not dare--yet--to say so aloud.
Amen brother and pass the ammo.
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Despite all these false friends and hidden enemies, however, democracy is taking its first faltering steps in the Arab-Muslim world. It may well be that in history's long perspective, America's success in turning Afghanistan and Iraq away from tyranny, fear and murder toward the peaceful rule of the ballot will seem a historic turning point. Other successes may well follow, and the chariot of democracy will gather momentum.
Just as the appalling 20th century was the age of the totalitarian state, the Gulag and Auschwitz, so the 21st may come to be seen as the age of government "of the people, by the people, for the people." If so, the U.S., by its courage and persistence, will be able to take primary credit. It has certainly led from the front, and it has shown that it knows how to use its position as the world's sole superpower with judgment, honor and unselfishness.
I think Abraham Lincoln would be proud of what George W. Bush and the U.S. forces have done. After the freeing of the slaves, what more logical and benevolent step could there be than to free millions of Arabs from the slavery of terror? So I say, God Bless America. And I'm confident that countless millions throughout the world say so, too, even if they do not dare--yet--to say so aloud.
Amen brother and pass the ammo.
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Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Iraq - Back from the Battle
David Brooks writes, in The New York Times, about a trans-Atlantic security conference that took place in Munich and meeting some US soldiers in Ireland as they returned from Iraq.
The first thing I'd tell these marines is that when these politicians went abroad to represent the U.S., they didn't take their squabbles with them. There were Democrats and Republicans in this delegation, but you couldn't tell who was who by listening to their speeches.
Instead, what you heard were pretty specific, productive suggestions on winning the war against Islamist extremism. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham lobbied for ways to use NATO troops to protect a larger U.N. presence in Iraq. Democratic Representative Jane Harman was pushing the Europeans to classify Hezbollah as a terrorist group. Hillary Clinton suggested ways to strengthen the U.N., while also blasting its absurdities. Clinton affirmed that the U.S. preferred to work within the U.N., but she toughened her speech with ad-libs, warning, "Sometimes we have to act with few or no allies." [Big departure from Kerry - no?]
The second thing I'd tell them is that the politicians were willing to talk bluntly to the tyrants. McCain sat on a panel with officials from Russia, Egypt and Iran. He began his talk with suggestions on how to use NATO troops in the Middle East. Then it was time for a little straight talk. He ripped the Egyptians for arresting opposition leaders. (The Egyptian foreign minister held his brow, as if in grief.) He condemned the Iranians for supporting terror. (The Iranian hunched over like someone in a hailstorm.) He criticized Russia for embracing electoral fraud in Ukraine. In the land of the summiteers, this was in-your-face behavior. [Notice the "talk bluntly to the tyrants" in the same paragraph as Russia, Egypt and Iran?]
Interestingly, they've all fallen in behind Bush.
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The first thing I'd tell these marines is that when these politicians went abroad to represent the U.S., they didn't take their squabbles with them. There were Democrats and Republicans in this delegation, but you couldn't tell who was who by listening to their speeches.
Instead, what you heard were pretty specific, productive suggestions on winning the war against Islamist extremism. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham lobbied for ways to use NATO troops to protect a larger U.N. presence in Iraq. Democratic Representative Jane Harman was pushing the Europeans to classify Hezbollah as a terrorist group. Hillary Clinton suggested ways to strengthen the U.N., while also blasting its absurdities. Clinton affirmed that the U.S. preferred to work within the U.N., but she toughened her speech with ad-libs, warning, "Sometimes we have to act with few or no allies." [Big departure from Kerry - no?]
The second thing I'd tell them is that the politicians were willing to talk bluntly to the tyrants. McCain sat on a panel with officials from Russia, Egypt and Iran. He began his talk with suggestions on how to use NATO troops in the Middle East. Then it was time for a little straight talk. He ripped the Egyptians for arresting opposition leaders. (The Egyptian foreign minister held his brow, as if in grief.) He condemned the Iranians for supporting terror. (The Iranian hunched over like someone in a hailstorm.) He criticized Russia for embracing electoral fraud in Ukraine. In the land of the summiteers, this was in-your-face behavior. [Notice the "talk bluntly to the tyrants" in the same paragraph as Russia, Egypt and Iran?]
Interestingly, they've all fallen in behind Bush.
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U.N. Oil-for-Food Chief Faces Fresh Charges
The blogshpere has been reporting on the UN oil for food scandal for over two years now. Still, it's nice to see legacy media, like The New York Times doing its job and reporting on the scandal.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 14 - The Senate subcommittee on investigations says it has documents showing that the former head of the United Nations oil-for-food aid program may have made as much as $1.2 million personally from illegal oil shipments by Iraq
Well, surprise, surprise, the UN's own investigation failed to "discover" this.
An independent investigation led by Paul A. Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman, has already accused the former United Nations official, Benon V. Sevan, of a serious conflict of interest. That panel said Mr. Sevan had solicited Iraqi oil for a friend whose company, African Middle East Petroleum, received several oil allocations from the Iraqi government. But it did not find that Mr. Sevan personally benefited from illicit oil exports.
Because they did not want to find it.
Seems there is more evidence against Kojo Annan.
Documents distributed Monday indicated that Kojo Annan had told Cotecna's chief executive months before the awarding of the contract that he had "put in place a machinery" in New York that would be of a "global nature" and would "assist in development of new contacts for the future."
The investigators said that neither the company nor Mr. Annan's son, whom they interviewed in London last Friday, could explain what he meant by that statement. Both Cotecna and Mr. Annan have denied any wrongdoing or conflict of interest in the awarding of the inspection contract to Cotecna.
Sadly, no mention in the Times about how the US was falsely accused of causing the deaths of thousands of Iraqi women and children because of sanctions. We now know that it was the corrupt UN's and Saddam's fault.
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WASHINGTON, Feb. 14 - The Senate subcommittee on investigations says it has documents showing that the former head of the United Nations oil-for-food aid program may have made as much as $1.2 million personally from illegal oil shipments by Iraq
Well, surprise, surprise, the UN's own investigation failed to "discover" this.
An independent investigation led by Paul A. Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman, has already accused the former United Nations official, Benon V. Sevan, of a serious conflict of interest. That panel said Mr. Sevan had solicited Iraqi oil for a friend whose company, African Middle East Petroleum, received several oil allocations from the Iraqi government. But it did not find that Mr. Sevan personally benefited from illicit oil exports.
Because they did not want to find it.
Seems there is more evidence against Kojo Annan.
Documents distributed Monday indicated that Kojo Annan had told Cotecna's chief executive months before the awarding of the contract that he had "put in place a machinery" in New York that would be of a "global nature" and would "assist in development of new contacts for the future."
The investigators said that neither the company nor Mr. Annan's son, whom they interviewed in London last Friday, could explain what he meant by that statement. Both Cotecna and Mr. Annan have denied any wrongdoing or conflict of interest in the awarding of the inspection contract to Cotecna.
Sadly, no mention in the Times about how the US was falsely accused of causing the deaths of thousands of Iraqi women and children because of sanctions. We now know that it was the corrupt UN's and Saddam's fault.
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Monday, February 14, 2005
Germany - Bush Counter Protest
David's Medienkritik is organizing a counter protest to the Bush protesters in Germany later this month.
Bush Visits Germany February 23: Join Us and Organize: Demonstration for German-American Solidarity
Just two weeks ago, Iraqi voters braved bombs, bullets and mortars to vote by the millions. In so doing, they took a stand against terror and took a stand for democracy.
Now it is our turn to take a stand: In ten days, the President of the United States will be visiting Mainz, Germany for the first time in years. Loony anti-American groups, including bushinmainz.de and Not Welcome Mr. Bush have already planned demonstrations to disrupt the visit. For far too long now, only these rabid America haters have taken to the streets to demonstrate unopposed. That cannot stand and we must change it.
Good luck to them.
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Bush Visits Germany February 23: Join Us and Organize: Demonstration for German-American Solidarity
Just two weeks ago, Iraqi voters braved bombs, bullets and mortars to vote by the millions. In so doing, they took a stand against terror and took a stand for democracy.
Now it is our turn to take a stand: In ten days, the President of the United States will be visiting Mainz, Germany for the first time in years. Loony anti-American groups, including bushinmainz.de and Not Welcome Mr. Bush have already planned demonstrations to disrupt the visit. For far too long now, only these rabid America haters have taken to the streets to demonstrate unopposed. That cannot stand and we must change it.
Good luck to them.
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Google Bias - Backing the Democrats
Google refuses to include some of the big name right wing bloggers in it's news search database but includes far left ones like Democratic Underground. The DU isn't even a blog - it's a bulletin board.
Now we know why Google skews its news search engine towards the left and the Democrats.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 14 (UPI) -- Employees of U.S.-based search engine Google gave $207,650 to federal candidates for the 2004 elections -- virtually all of it to Democrats.
A USA Today analysis published Monday indicated 98 percent of the money went to Democrats, the most-lopsided giving of any of the top tech company donors.
Microsoft was the biggest tech donor, with its political action committee contributing $3.1 million last year, 60 percent to Democrats.
Overall, 53 percent of high-tech industry contributions went to Democrats, said the liberal Center for Responsive Politics, a group that tracks campaign spending and contributions.
Republicans must work hard to win support from a company whose employees seem philosophically wed to Democrats, CRP's Larry Noble said.
Google declined to discuss employee campaign contributions but the among the company's top 2004 givers was Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt, whose biggest single donation was $25,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Shame on you Google. Did you think you could escape the blogsphere?
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Now we know why Google skews its news search engine towards the left and the Democrats.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 14 (UPI) -- Employees of U.S.-based search engine Google gave $207,650 to federal candidates for the 2004 elections -- virtually all of it to Democrats.
A USA Today analysis published Monday indicated 98 percent of the money went to Democrats, the most-lopsided giving of any of the top tech company donors.
Microsoft was the biggest tech donor, with its political action committee contributing $3.1 million last year, 60 percent to Democrats.
Overall, 53 percent of high-tech industry contributions went to Democrats, said the liberal Center for Responsive Politics, a group that tracks campaign spending and contributions.
Republicans must work hard to win support from a company whose employees seem philosophically wed to Democrats, CRP's Larry Noble said.
Google declined to discuss employee campaign contributions but the among the company's top 2004 givers was Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt, whose biggest single donation was $25,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Shame on you Google. Did you think you could escape the blogsphere?
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CNN Co-founder - Jordon Got Guys Killed
Johnny Dollar has a video and transcript of Reese Schonfeld, a co-founder of CNN, claiming that Eason Jordon leaked information to the CIA that resulted in the deaths of two individuals. It's not really clear what he's talking about but instead of defending Jordan, Schonfeld's original intent, he winds up creating a new controversy.
SCHONFELD: I'm not sure that he bragged about it. I hope he was just trying to say we have to make hard choices in our life. I take issue on that on another thing. I think he wound up, he leaked some information to the CIA that I think wound up getting a couple of people killed. He leaked it into Amman, and if there's ever been a sieve getting stuff back to Baghdad, it's Amman. And the Jordanese I'm sure let Hussein know what he leaked, and the guys he was talking about were killed.
DOOCY: You're burying the lead here, Reese. Tell us that story real fast. How he got a couple of guys killed.
SCHONFELD: Well, he said, if you remember that piece, that he then informed the CIA about the dangerous thing that he couldn't report. And they told the CIA in Amman. Now I believe that Amman is a sieve, that anything you say there to anybody is going to sneak back to Baghdad, and that those guys that he was talking about were later picked up and killed. And my guess, and this is all guess, and that's why I wasn't trying to make too much of a lead of it, that the word was leaked from Amman from some Hussein supporters back to Iraq, and they picked up the guys and they said here they are. And they were killed.
Absolutely stunning! Stand by for the backpeddling on this one and stonewalling from CNN.
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SCHONFELD: I'm not sure that he bragged about it. I hope he was just trying to say we have to make hard choices in our life. I take issue on that on another thing. I think he wound up, he leaked some information to the CIA that I think wound up getting a couple of people killed. He leaked it into Amman, and if there's ever been a sieve getting stuff back to Baghdad, it's Amman. And the Jordanese I'm sure let Hussein know what he leaked, and the guys he was talking about were killed.
DOOCY: You're burying the lead here, Reese. Tell us that story real fast. How he got a couple of guys killed.
SCHONFELD: Well, he said, if you remember that piece, that he then informed the CIA about the dangerous thing that he couldn't report. And they told the CIA in Amman. Now I believe that Amman is a sieve, that anything you say there to anybody is going to sneak back to Baghdad, and that those guys that he was talking about were later picked up and killed. And my guess, and this is all guess, and that's why I wasn't trying to make too much of a lead of it, that the word was leaked from Amman from some Hussein supporters back to Iraq, and they picked up the guys and they said here they are. And they were killed.
Absolutely stunning! Stand by for the backpeddling on this one and stonewalling from CNN.
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Iraq - Robin 'Cooked' on the BBC
Norm posts about an exchange on the BBC between Robin Cook and William Rees-Mogg. Read the whole thing but here is a snippet.
Cook returns to the matter of WMD, and disarming Iraq, and whether Iraq was a threat, and is then asked by the interviewer, 'Would Saddam still be there?' Here is the money passage, Cook's reply to that question:
"Umm... Well, that of course... the longer the period that passes... it is now
some two years since the invasion... the longer, that becomes a speculative
question. Anybody who has seen Saddam Hussein emerge from his hole and has seen
the disordered, deranged mind that he now has, is bound to ask whether those
that were actually saying at the time of the invasion that Saddam would fall in his time, would probably have been right by now."
Better read it again. (You're right - there's no reference to the Hussein boys, Uday and Qusay.) I referred in my previous post to the 'self-comforting ways' in which some people manage to evade the fact that but for George Bush and Tony Blair Saddam Hussein's regime would still be extant. Robin Cook's answer here is one of those ways, although the particular variant is new to me; and so this post does not fulfill the intention I expressed in that post when I said 'more of which in due course'. More of which, therefore, in due course.
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Cook returns to the matter of WMD, and disarming Iraq, and whether Iraq was a threat, and is then asked by the interviewer, 'Would Saddam still be there?' Here is the money passage, Cook's reply to that question:
"Umm... Well, that of course... the longer the period that passes... it is now
some two years since the invasion... the longer, that becomes a speculative
question. Anybody who has seen Saddam Hussein emerge from his hole and has seen
the disordered, deranged mind that he now has, is bound to ask whether those
that were actually saying at the time of the invasion that Saddam would fall in his time, would probably have been right by now."
Better read it again. (You're right - there's no reference to the Hussein boys, Uday and Qusay.) I referred in my previous post to the 'self-comforting ways' in which some people manage to evade the fact that but for George Bush and Tony Blair Saddam Hussein's regime would still be extant. Robin Cook's answer here is one of those ways, although the particular variant is new to me; and so this post does not fulfill the intention I expressed in that post when I said 'more of which in due course'. More of which, therefore, in due course.
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Islam - Executing the War Plan
Recently I posted about Islam's war plan as related by a Muslim "defector". Part of that plan said: "Western Universities will educate us".
They are starting much earlier than that in the UK.
At GCSE* we do one of the Christianity papers and one of the Islam papers (with corresponding essay coursework). Now I don't have a problem teaching comparative religion generally. I think it is a good thing for both children and adults to know about other religions and understand the cultures around them.
The potential problem has arisen in teaching about Muhammad. The exam board requires that every time Muhammad is written, the letters "pbuh" in parentheses be placed after it. This is shorthand for "peace be upon him". The writer therefore prays a blessing upon him everytime his name is written, as is the custom of Muslims. So I have to tell my students (over and over if there is any hope of them remembering) that they must bless Muhammad every time they mention his name.
Via The Adventuress
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They are starting much earlier than that in the UK.
At GCSE* we do one of the Christianity papers and one of the Islam papers (with corresponding essay coursework). Now I don't have a problem teaching comparative religion generally. I think it is a good thing for both children and adults to know about other religions and understand the cultures around them.
The potential problem has arisen in teaching about Muhammad. The exam board requires that every time Muhammad is written, the letters "pbuh" in parentheses be placed after it. This is shorthand for "peace be upon him". The writer therefore prays a blessing upon him everytime his name is written, as is the custom of Muslims. So I have to tell my students (over and over if there is any hope of them remembering) that they must bless Muhammad every time they mention his name.
Via The Adventuress
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London - Mayor Should be Sacked
London mayor, Ken Livingstone is a disgrace and should be sacked. His latest remarks should be the last straw for London.
London mayor Ken Livingstone has been censured by the London Assembly for a Nazi jibe made to a Jewish reporter.
Two years ago Livingstone said of US president Bush "He is not the legitimate president" and "I think George Bush is the most corrupt American president since Harding in the Twenties."
Recently Livingstone welcomed militant Islamist, Dr Yusuf al-Qaradawi, with open arms.
Ken Livingstone, mayor of London, is preparing to once again welcome with open arms Dr Yusuf al-Qaradawi. "Qaradawi supports female genital mutilation, wife-beating, the execution of homosexuals, destruction of the Jewish people, suicide bombing of innocent civilians, and the punishment of rape victims who do not dress with sufficient modesty. " And he recently stated that the tsunami victims deserved what they got.
Time for this moron to go.
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London mayor Ken Livingstone has been censured by the London Assembly for a Nazi jibe made to a Jewish reporter.
Two years ago Livingstone said of US president Bush "He is not the legitimate president" and "I think George Bush is the most corrupt American president since Harding in the Twenties."
Recently Livingstone welcomed militant Islamist, Dr Yusuf al-Qaradawi, with open arms.
Ken Livingstone, mayor of London, is preparing to once again welcome with open arms Dr Yusuf al-Qaradawi. "Qaradawi supports female genital mutilation, wife-beating, the execution of homosexuals, destruction of the Jewish people, suicide bombing of innocent civilians, and the punishment of rape victims who do not dress with sufficient modesty. " And he recently stated that the tsunami victims deserved what they got.
Time for this moron to go.
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Africa - Aid Money? What Aid Money
Remember this the next time you hear someone wants you to donate money to Africa.
Swaziland's King Mswati III has bought 10 new BMW series 5 cars for his wives.
Swaziland's media reports that it has cost him $820,000. The 36-year-old king frequently hits the headlines with stories about his lavish lifestyle.
Two months ago, Africa's only remaining absolute monarch was criticised for buying himself a $500,000 luxury car.
Swaziland has one of the world's highest Aids rates and about a third of his subjects rely on food aid handouts. [...]
As well as 10 wives, the king has three fiancees.
In recent years, he has asked parliament for $15m to build a palace for each of his spouses and $45m to buy a royal jet.
Street protests led to him abandoning the plans to buy a luxury jet.
Swaziland's unemployment rate stands at 40% while almost 70% of the country's one-million population live on an average daily income of $1 or less.
UPDATE
Some people blame the tsunami relief for the drop in donations to African nations.
Disaster relief officials in Africa are blaming a big drop in funding on the massive world response to December's Asian tsunami.
The UN's World Food Programme says countries in southern Africa suffering after several years of drought have been particularly badly hit.
Millions of people have been relying on food rations paid for by international aid which is now running out.
King Mswati is not exactly helping.
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Swaziland's King Mswati III has bought 10 new BMW series 5 cars for his wives.
Swaziland's media reports that it has cost him $820,000. The 36-year-old king frequently hits the headlines with stories about his lavish lifestyle.
Two months ago, Africa's only remaining absolute monarch was criticised for buying himself a $500,000 luxury car.
Swaziland has one of the world's highest Aids rates and about a third of his subjects rely on food aid handouts. [...]
As well as 10 wives, the king has three fiancees.
In recent years, he has asked parliament for $15m to build a palace for each of his spouses and $45m to buy a royal jet.
Street protests led to him abandoning the plans to buy a luxury jet.
Swaziland's unemployment rate stands at 40% while almost 70% of the country's one-million population live on an average daily income of $1 or less.
UPDATE
Some people blame the tsunami relief for the drop in donations to African nations.
Disaster relief officials in Africa are blaming a big drop in funding on the massive world response to December's Asian tsunami.
The UN's World Food Programme says countries in southern Africa suffering after several years of drought have been particularly badly hit.
Millions of people have been relying on food rations paid for by international aid which is now running out.
King Mswati is not exactly helping.
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Islam - Waging War on the World II
Recently I posted about Islam's strategy for waging war on the world and how the left was all too willing to help.
Euro Pundits sees the same thing.
This newly ever-growing Western left, not only in Europe, but in Latin America and even in the US itself, has a clear goal: the destruction of the country and society that vanquished its dreams fifteen years ago. But it does not have, as in the old days of the Soviet Union, the hard power to accomplish this by itself. Thanks to this, all our leftist friends’ bets are now on radical Islam. What can they do to help it? Answer: tie down America’s superior strength with a million Liliputian ropes: legal ones, political ones, with propaganda and disinformation etc. Anything and everything will do.
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Euro Pundits sees the same thing.
This newly ever-growing Western left, not only in Europe, but in Latin America and even in the US itself, has a clear goal: the destruction of the country and society that vanquished its dreams fifteen years ago. But it does not have, as in the old days of the Soviet Union, the hard power to accomplish this by itself. Thanks to this, all our leftist friends’ bets are now on radical Islam. What can they do to help it? Answer: tie down America’s superior strength with a million Liliputian ropes: legal ones, political ones, with propaganda and disinformation etc. Anything and everything will do.
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North Korea - Every Precaution a Provocation
The Belmont Club takes a look at the current situation and ends with this.
Once upon a time the simultaneous accusations of too much preparation and too little; not enough bribery and too much; a surfeit of strength and a want of it could be made without much trouble. If being on the Left meant never having to say you're sorry; not being on the Left meant being guilty without effort. You could be a Filipino cook jumping from a 110 storey building and still be a "Little Eichmann". The miracles of the saints were as nothing to the transubstantiations of the Left. But the trouble came with memory. The Internet. And with remembrance the dim recollection of betrayal.
Just ask John Kerry about the Swift Boat Veterans - they recollect the betrayal.
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Once upon a time the simultaneous accusations of too much preparation and too little; not enough bribery and too much; a surfeit of strength and a want of it could be made without much trouble. If being on the Left meant never having to say you're sorry; not being on the Left meant being guilty without effort. You could be a Filipino cook jumping from a 110 storey building and still be a "Little Eichmann". The miracles of the saints were as nothing to the transubstantiations of the Left. But the trouble came with memory. The Internet. And with remembrance the dim recollection of betrayal.
Just ask John Kerry about the Swift Boat Veterans - they recollect the betrayal.
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Fashionable anti-Americanism
Open Democracy has some thoughts on anti-Americanism.
So let’s rework this: anti-Americanism that breeds terrorism and tyranny is a major problem for us all and one the United States of America must fully address; anti-Americanism that doesn’t result in suicide missions is not America’s problem, it’s the problem of its moron perpetrators – though it benefits nobody good. Non-Americans that find comfort in blaming America for all the world’s ills – poverty, war, environmental destruction, the death of high culture, their own pitiful inadequacies – suffer for such fatuous bunkum. Their own houses rot as they drone on at dinner parties and terrorist camps about American “crimes against humanity”. The rhetoric of Osama bin Laden is curiously similar to that of Harold Pinter (though notably less profane). Pinter, I hazard a guess, is less dangerous.
They are all morons, but the difference is that America can and should ignore the dinner guests. They pose no threat. Especially not an intellectual one. The philosophy of “damn you if you do, damn you if you don’t” is not worthy of serious contemplation. Insularly isolationist or intensely imperial, America is castigated for both, often by the same people. This is what’s technically known as a no-win situation. “The illogicality at base consists in reproaching the United States for some shortcoming, and then for its opposite,” writes Jean-Francois Revel in his aptly-titled Anti-Americanism . “Here is a convincing sign that we are in the presence, not of rational analysis, but of obsession.”
Many of those who say America does not live up to its own ideals and rhetoric would surely be the first to protest if it did. If America invades and “liberates” Iraq, they say, it should also invade and liberate North Korea, Burma, China, Zimbabwe, etcetera. I’d love to see their reaction if America took up the challenge. Yes, America talks a good game – but this should be celebrated, and, yes, held to account. As it stands, though, whether the “indispensable nation”, the “universal country”, the “last, best hope”, the “shining city upon a hill”, the “global policeman”, the “lone superduperpower”, the “empire in denial” or Jefferson’s “empire of liberty”, the US plays the traditional lead role of the world’s whipping-boy. We might suppose this is inevitable. C’est le prix du pouvoir (as Jacques Chirac might put it).
Read the whole thing.
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So let’s rework this: anti-Americanism that breeds terrorism and tyranny is a major problem for us all and one the United States of America must fully address; anti-Americanism that doesn’t result in suicide missions is not America’s problem, it’s the problem of its moron perpetrators – though it benefits nobody good. Non-Americans that find comfort in blaming America for all the world’s ills – poverty, war, environmental destruction, the death of high culture, their own pitiful inadequacies – suffer for such fatuous bunkum. Their own houses rot as they drone on at dinner parties and terrorist camps about American “crimes against humanity”. The rhetoric of Osama bin Laden is curiously similar to that of Harold Pinter (though notably less profane). Pinter, I hazard a guess, is less dangerous.
They are all morons, but the difference is that America can and should ignore the dinner guests. They pose no threat. Especially not an intellectual one. The philosophy of “damn you if you do, damn you if you don’t” is not worthy of serious contemplation. Insularly isolationist or intensely imperial, America is castigated for both, often by the same people. This is what’s technically known as a no-win situation. “The illogicality at base consists in reproaching the United States for some shortcoming, and then for its opposite,” writes Jean-Francois Revel in his aptly-titled Anti-Americanism . “Here is a convincing sign that we are in the presence, not of rational analysis, but of obsession.”
Many of those who say America does not live up to its own ideals and rhetoric would surely be the first to protest if it did. If America invades and “liberates” Iraq, they say, it should also invade and liberate North Korea, Burma, China, Zimbabwe, etcetera. I’d love to see their reaction if America took up the challenge. Yes, America talks a good game – but this should be celebrated, and, yes, held to account. As it stands, though, whether the “indispensable nation”, the “universal country”, the “last, best hope”, the “shining city upon a hill”, the “global policeman”, the “lone superduperpower”, the “empire in denial” or Jefferson’s “empire of liberty”, the US plays the traditional lead role of the world’s whipping-boy. We might suppose this is inevitable. C’est le prix du pouvoir (as Jacques Chirac might put it).
Read the whole thing.
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Islam - March Accross Europe
In The Red Zone has some thoughts that end with this:
And then turn your attention to Nidra Poller's recent article in the New York Sun, "The Brave New World of Eurabia." It deals with Egyptian historian Bat Ye'or's recently published Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, in addition to a report drafted under the auspices of the European Commission entitled "Dialogue Between People and Cultures in the Euro-Mediterranean Area."
If Europeans are indeed involved in an "undeclared war" against Islamic extremism, they are not winning. All the vigilance and security measures in the world cannot protect them if the citizenry itself no longer accepts, obeys and defends the values inherited from their forefathers. Meanwhile, the bien pensants and Olympian progressives of the continent scoff--and profess to fear--boorish, pugnacious, irrational American patriotism and sense of destiny. But it is precisely our irrational will to believe in and accept--beyond all argument and "nuanced" deliberation--the greatness and universality of our values that will inoculate us from dhimmitude and creeping jihad, and prevent the Muslim Redoubt from erecting its barricades upon our shores.
It's a declared war alright. British Muslim declares war on Britain
UPDATE
Strategy Page has more.
Europe Becomes Terrorism Central
February 4, 2005: Europe remains the most dangerous battleground in the war on terror. European laws and customs provide the most hospitable recruiting grounds and sanctuaries for Islamic terrorists. American counter-terrorism officials have publicly told Europeans that most future terrorist operations against non-Moslems are likely to take place in Europe. Most Islamic violence, however, continues to be directed at the same targets they have been going after for generations. Iraq has become a battlefield in the ancient war of majority Sunni Moslems, against the minority Shias. American troops are backing the Shias, as are the Sunni Moslem Kurds (who find the Sunni Arabs more deadly in the ethnic Kurd-Arab wars, than the Shias.)
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And then turn your attention to Nidra Poller's recent article in the New York Sun, "The Brave New World of Eurabia." It deals with Egyptian historian Bat Ye'or's recently published Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, in addition to a report drafted under the auspices of the European Commission entitled "Dialogue Between People and Cultures in the Euro-Mediterranean Area."
If Europeans are indeed involved in an "undeclared war" against Islamic extremism, they are not winning. All the vigilance and security measures in the world cannot protect them if the citizenry itself no longer accepts, obeys and defends the values inherited from their forefathers. Meanwhile, the bien pensants and Olympian progressives of the continent scoff--and profess to fear--boorish, pugnacious, irrational American patriotism and sense of destiny. But it is precisely our irrational will to believe in and accept--beyond all argument and "nuanced" deliberation--the greatness and universality of our values that will inoculate us from dhimmitude and creeping jihad, and prevent the Muslim Redoubt from erecting its barricades upon our shores.
It's a declared war alright. British Muslim declares war on Britain
UPDATE
Strategy Page has more.
Europe Becomes Terrorism Central
February 4, 2005: Europe remains the most dangerous battleground in the war on terror. European laws and customs provide the most hospitable recruiting grounds and sanctuaries for Islamic terrorists. American counter-terrorism officials have publicly told Europeans that most future terrorist operations against non-Moslems are likely to take place in Europe. Most Islamic violence, however, continues to be directed at the same targets they have been going after for generations. Iraq has become a battlefield in the ancient war of majority Sunni Moslems, against the minority Shias. American troops are backing the Shias, as are the Sunni Moslem Kurds (who find the Sunni Arabs more deadly in the ethnic Kurd-Arab wars, than the Shias.)
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Iraq - Guardian Repeats BBC's Lie
In The Red Zone caught The Guardian repeating The BBC's lie over civilian casualties in Iraq - 11 days after the Beeb apologized!
Jonathan Steele is the so called journalist who spread the lie again. Here is email address. j.steele@guardian.co.uk Write to him and ask for an apology. I did. I'll let you know if he answers.
UPDATE
I haven't gotten a reply from Steele but he left a comment over at The Daily Ablution.
Ooops. My bad. Thanks for catching that error. What can I say? Everybody makes mistakes sometimes and it's not easy writing pro-terror apologetics. I'll try to be more careful in the future when researching and compiling my anti-American propaganda.
Posted by: Jonathan Steele at February 11, 2005 11:21 AM
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Jonathan Steele is the so called journalist who spread the lie again. Here is email address. j.steele@guardian.co.uk Write to him and ask for an apology. I did. I'll let you know if he answers.
UPDATE
I haven't gotten a reply from Steele but he left a comment over at The Daily Ablution.
Ooops. My bad. Thanks for catching that error. What can I say? Everybody makes mistakes sometimes and it's not easy writing pro-terror apologetics. I'll try to be more careful in the future when researching and compiling my anti-American propaganda.
Posted by: Jonathan Steele at February 11, 2005 11:21 AM
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Israel - Abbas Declares War Effectively Over
The New York Times interview.
I think it's too early to tell but things are looking better.
Strange, over 4000 killed on both sides with no sign of peace. And yet when one old man dies of natural causes, suddenly peace breaks out. How many innocent lives may have been spared if Arafat had died years ago?
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I think it's too early to tell but things are looking better.
Strange, over 4000 killed on both sides with no sign of peace. And yet when one old man dies of natural causes, suddenly peace breaks out. How many innocent lives may have been spared if Arafat had died years ago?
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CNN - Media Backlash Over Eason Jordon
Michelle Malkin takes legacy media to the woodshed over their attacks on bloggers who exposed Jordon's remarks and big media's refusal to report it.
For their fine efforts, these citizen bloggers are being attacked as "morons" and "bible-thumping knuckledraggers" and "hounds" by nervous media nellies aghast at the sight of unwashed amateurs beating down effete journalism's gates. Meanwhile, CNN continues to spin.
According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, CNN spokeswoman Christa Robinson insists there's no dispute over what Jordan said. Yet, in a statement Jordan himself sent to his staff Friday, Jordan cited "conflicting accounts" over his remarks as a threat to CNN's credibility. Which is it?
Former CNN News Group Chairman Walter Isaacson took the opportunity to sneer at "talk-show and blogging folks" for not doing "frontline reporting" (as opposed to the rumor-mongering Jordan engaged in at Davos?). And former CNN News Group Chairman Tom Johnson, who had been Jordan's mentor, decried what he called "unjustified and almost irrational attacks on Eason's character."
The only unjustified and irrational attacks on display here are the ones against the bloggers who called on Eason Jordan to account for his words and actions. The MSM better get used to the sound of bloghounds baying. This revolution can't be unplugged.
Now if we could just get these guys to take on the BBC.
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For their fine efforts, these citizen bloggers are being attacked as "morons" and "bible-thumping knuckledraggers" and "hounds" by nervous media nellies aghast at the sight of unwashed amateurs beating down effete journalism's gates. Meanwhile, CNN continues to spin.
According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, CNN spokeswoman Christa Robinson insists there's no dispute over what Jordan said. Yet, in a statement Jordan himself sent to his staff Friday, Jordan cited "conflicting accounts" over his remarks as a threat to CNN's credibility. Which is it?
Former CNN News Group Chairman Walter Isaacson took the opportunity to sneer at "talk-show and blogging folks" for not doing "frontline reporting" (as opposed to the rumor-mongering Jordan engaged in at Davos?). And former CNN News Group Chairman Tom Johnson, who had been Jordan's mentor, decried what he called "unjustified and almost irrational attacks on Eason's character."
The only unjustified and irrational attacks on display here are the ones against the bloggers who called on Eason Jordan to account for his words and actions. The MSM better get used to the sound of bloghounds baying. This revolution can't be unplugged.
Now if we could just get these guys to take on the BBC.
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Syria - Welcome to a Dissident Syrian Blogger
I've added a dissident Syrian blogger, Amarji, to the blog roll.
Looks like he is already in trouble.
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Looks like he is already in trouble.
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UN Sex Scandal
Where is the left's outrage at the UN sex scandal? The left went nuts over Abu Ghraib but doesn't seem to mind the UN raping children.
LAST MONTH A CLASSIFIED UNITED Nations report prompted Secretary General Kofi Annan to admit that U.N. peacekeepers and staff have sexually abused or exploited war refugees in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The worst of the 150 or so allegations of misconduct--some of them captured on videotape--include pedophilia, rape, and prostitution. While a U.N. investigation into the scandal continues, the organization has just suspended two more peacekeepers in neighboring Burundi over similar charges. The revelations come three years after another U.N. report found "widespread" evidence of sexual abuse of West African refugees.
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LAST MONTH A CLASSIFIED UNITED Nations report prompted Secretary General Kofi Annan to admit that U.N. peacekeepers and staff have sexually abused or exploited war refugees in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The worst of the 150 or so allegations of misconduct--some of them captured on videotape--include pedophilia, rape, and prostitution. While a U.N. investigation into the scandal continues, the organization has just suspended two more peacekeepers in neighboring Burundi over similar charges. The revelations come three years after another U.N. report found "widespread" evidence of sexual abuse of West African refugees.
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Islam and liberal democratic traditions
Mark Steyn has some thoughts.
Well, Jeffrey's 17. One day, with a bit of luck, he'll realize Bush isn't Hitler. If he were, Jeffrey would be in the Bush Youth doing patriotic exercises in shorts every morning and singing the special Texan lyrics to the Horst Wessel song, and he wouldn't have time to do dioramas of dissent. But what are we to make of everyone else in this sorry story? The art teacher who gave him an A. The 15 judges in the Rhode Island Scholastic Art Awards who awarded him their ''silver key.'' The proprietor of Alperts Furniture Showroom in Seekonk where the winning ''art'' work is proudly on display. Are there no grown-ups left in Rhode Island?
I'm not worried about Iraq. As they demonstrated on Jan. 30, they'll be just fine. The western front is the important one in this war, the point of intersection between Islam and a liberal democratic tradition so mired in self-loathing it would rather destroy our civilization just to demonstrate its multicultural bona fides. It's not that young Eden knows nothing, but that neither his teachers, judges nor furniture showroom proprietors do. By contrast, our enemies know us very well, at least when it comes to courtroom strategies and canny manipulation of the fetish of ''tolerance.''
It's an open question whether the West will survive this twilight struggle: Europe almost certainly won't, America might; on the other hand, the psychosis to which much of the culture is in thrall may eventually reach a tipping point into mass civilizational suicide. And then the new barbarians will inherit, and young Master Eden will end his days pining for the rosy-hued nostalgia for the Bushitler tyranny.
It's Steyn so read the whole thing.
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Well, Jeffrey's 17. One day, with a bit of luck, he'll realize Bush isn't Hitler. If he were, Jeffrey would be in the Bush Youth doing patriotic exercises in shorts every morning and singing the special Texan lyrics to the Horst Wessel song, and he wouldn't have time to do dioramas of dissent. But what are we to make of everyone else in this sorry story? The art teacher who gave him an A. The 15 judges in the Rhode Island Scholastic Art Awards who awarded him their ''silver key.'' The proprietor of Alperts Furniture Showroom in Seekonk where the winning ''art'' work is proudly on display. Are there no grown-ups left in Rhode Island?
I'm not worried about Iraq. As they demonstrated on Jan. 30, they'll be just fine. The western front is the important one in this war, the point of intersection between Islam and a liberal democratic tradition so mired in self-loathing it would rather destroy our civilization just to demonstrate its multicultural bona fides. It's not that young Eden knows nothing, but that neither his teachers, judges nor furniture showroom proprietors do. By contrast, our enemies know us very well, at least when it comes to courtroom strategies and canny manipulation of the fetish of ''tolerance.''
It's an open question whether the West will survive this twilight struggle: Europe almost certainly won't, America might; on the other hand, the psychosis to which much of the culture is in thrall may eventually reach a tipping point into mass civilizational suicide. And then the new barbarians will inherit, and young Master Eden will end his days pining for the rosy-hued nostalgia for the Bushitler tyranny.
It's Steyn so read the whole thing.
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Iraq - Good News Part 21
Chrenkoff's Good News Iraq - Part 21 is up.
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Islam - Jihad Watch Hate Mail
Jihad Watch posts some hate mail and responses. Here is a sample.
Study Islam before you attack it.
I have written 4 books about Islam and studied it for 24 years.
Jihad does not mean “Holy War”.
I have stated this many times in my books and on this site. But this fact means less than you want it to mean.
There are many forms of Jihad, and fighting is the least important type of Jihad.
Then why, for instance, does Al-Azhar endorse a manual of Shafi'i jurisprudence that devotes 10 pages to fighting and 1 page to the other types of jihad?
Also, fighting is only obligated on Muslims if the faith and community is under attack, which is not something that any one could criticize.
Except that jihadists interpret the faith and community being under attack as meaning just about anything.
Any believers of any other religion would do the same to protect their religion against any aggression.
No they wouldn't. Islam is the only religion that has a doctrine of warfare against unbelievers.
Terrorists use vague Jihad versus from the Quran to justify their actions; however, I have read the Quran and studied the religion for 5 years, and I know that killing innocent people is forbidden in Islam.
Indeed. But who is "innocent"? Osama doesn't think any American is, and there is no Islamic argument against him.
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Study Islam before you attack it.
I have written 4 books about Islam and studied it for 24 years.
Jihad does not mean “Holy War”.
I have stated this many times in my books and on this site. But this fact means less than you want it to mean.
There are many forms of Jihad, and fighting is the least important type of Jihad.
Then why, for instance, does Al-Azhar endorse a manual of Shafi'i jurisprudence that devotes 10 pages to fighting and 1 page to the other types of jihad?
Also, fighting is only obligated on Muslims if the faith and community is under attack, which is not something that any one could criticize.
Except that jihadists interpret the faith and community being under attack as meaning just about anything.
Any believers of any other religion would do the same to protect their religion against any aggression.
No they wouldn't. Islam is the only religion that has a doctrine of warfare against unbelievers.
Terrorists use vague Jihad versus from the Quran to justify their actions; however, I have read the Quran and studied the religion for 5 years, and I know that killing innocent people is forbidden in Islam.
Indeed. But who is "innocent"? Osama doesn't think any American is, and there is no Islamic argument against him.
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Islam - New start for 'extremist' mosque
The BBC reports on the re-opening of Finsbury Park mosque and boldly makes this claim: "Finsbury Park Mosque has made a fresh start. "
Why is the BBC so sure?
The new trustees, co-ordinated by the Muslim Association of Britain, had seized the mosque last Saturday, reclaiming it for the mainstream Muslim community in north London.
Sorry fellas if I sound a bit skeptical but it's hard not to be when Iqbal Sacranie, general secretary of the MCB, makes statements like this:
'There is no such thing as an Islamic terrorist. This is deeply offensive. Saying Muslims are terrorists would be covered by this provision'.
Tell that to all the bin Ladens and bin Laden wannabes.
UPDATE
File under "I told you so".
Hamas link to London mosque
A MUSLIM leader appointed to help to run the recently reopened Finsbury Park mosque in north London is a former military commander of Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist organisation. Mohammed Kassem Sawalha is one of five trustees appointed to give the mosque a fresh start.
Nice to see the Times properly identify Hamas as "the Palestinian terrorist organisation".
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Why is the BBC so sure?
The new trustees, co-ordinated by the Muslim Association of Britain, had seized the mosque last Saturday, reclaiming it for the mainstream Muslim community in north London.
Sorry fellas if I sound a bit skeptical but it's hard not to be when Iqbal Sacranie, general secretary of the MCB, makes statements like this:
'There is no such thing as an Islamic terrorist. This is deeply offensive. Saying Muslims are terrorists would be covered by this provision'.
Tell that to all the bin Ladens and bin Laden wannabes.
UPDATE
File under "I told you so".
Hamas link to London mosque
A MUSLIM leader appointed to help to run the recently reopened Finsbury Park mosque in north London is a former military commander of Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist organisation. Mohammed Kassem Sawalha is one of five trustees appointed to give the mosque a fresh start.
Nice to see the Times properly identify Hamas as "the Palestinian terrorist organisation".
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CNN - Circling the Wagons
Legacy media are circling the wagons around CNN's Eason Jordan. Michelle Malkin has a great round up of legacy media's defense of Jordan; complete with email address and phone numbers to complain.
As noted below, CNN officials are still in full-blown spin mode regarding the events that led to Eason Jordan's resignation. They aren't the only ones. Check out this attack on bloggers by Bertrand Pecquerie (bpecquerie@wan.asso.fr), the Director of the World Editors Forum, the organization for editors within the World Association of Newspapers (WAN):
Sad conclusion in the Eason Jordan affair (see below the New York Times article), sad day for the freedom of expression in America and sad day again for the future of blogging: the defense of the US army honor seemed more important to some bloggers than the defense of reporters' work (and sometimes life)! Nevertheless, there is one advantage in this story: masks are fallen! Within the honest community of bloggers, some of them claimed to be the "sons of the First Amendment", they just were the sons of Senator McCarthy.
Bullshit!
Email them and complain.
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As noted below, CNN officials are still in full-blown spin mode regarding the events that led to Eason Jordan's resignation. They aren't the only ones. Check out this attack on bloggers by Bertrand Pecquerie (bpecquerie@wan.asso.fr), the Director of the World Editors Forum, the organization for editors within the World Association of Newspapers (WAN):
Sad conclusion in the Eason Jordan affair (see below the New York Times article), sad day for the freedom of expression in America and sad day again for the future of blogging: the defense of the US army honor seemed more important to some bloggers than the defense of reporters' work (and sometimes life)! Nevertheless, there is one advantage in this story: masks are fallen! Within the honest community of bloggers, some of them claimed to be the "sons of the First Amendment", they just were the sons of Senator McCarthy.
Bullshit!
Email them and complain.
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Sunday, February 13, 2005
Bush - Blogosphere politics
Barone really understands the blogsphere.
The right blogosphere's greatest triumph came after CBS's Dan Rather on September 8 reported that Bush had shirked duty in the National Guard and the network posted its 1972-dated documents on the Web. Within four hours, a blogger on freerepublic.com pointed out that they looked as though they had been created in Microsoft Word; the next morning, Scott Johnson of powerlineblog.com relayed the comment and asked for expert views. Charles Johnson of littlegreenfootballs.com showed that the documents exactly matched one he produced in Word using default settings. CBS defended the documents for 11 days but finally confessed error and eased Rather out as anchor. MSM tried to defeat Bush but instead only discredited itself. The Pew Center's post-election poll showed a sharp decline in the credibility of newspapers and broadcast TV and a sharp increase in reliance on cable news, especially Fox News, and radio.
So what hath the blogosphere wrought? The left blogosphere has moved the Democrats off to the left, and the right blogosphere has undermined the credibility of the Republicans' adversaries in Old Media. Both changes help Bush and the Republicans.
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The right blogosphere's greatest triumph came after CBS's Dan Rather on September 8 reported that Bush had shirked duty in the National Guard and the network posted its 1972-dated documents on the Web. Within four hours, a blogger on freerepublic.com pointed out that they looked as though they had been created in Microsoft Word; the next morning, Scott Johnson of powerlineblog.com relayed the comment and asked for expert views. Charles Johnson of littlegreenfootballs.com showed that the documents exactly matched one he produced in Word using default settings. CBS defended the documents for 11 days but finally confessed error and eased Rather out as anchor. MSM tried to defeat Bush but instead only discredited itself. The Pew Center's post-election poll showed a sharp decline in the credibility of newspapers and broadcast TV and a sharp increase in reliance on cable news, especially Fox News, and radio.
So what hath the blogosphere wrought? The left blogosphere has moved the Democrats off to the left, and the right blogosphere has undermined the credibility of the Republicans' adversaries in Old Media. Both changes help Bush and the Republicans.
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UN - Oil Scandal
The gift that keeps on giving.
NEW YORK (AP) -- The U.N. oil-for-food program chief under scrutiny for alleged corruption and mismanagement blocked a proposed audit of his office around the same time he's accused of soliciting lucrative oil deals from Iraq, according to investigators.
Legacy media are anxious to report on this scandal now that the bloggers have reported on it for almost two years.
I guess it's too much to expect an apology for blaming the US for causing thousands of Iraqi deaths due to sanctions when we now know it was the UN's fault.
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NEW YORK (AP) -- The U.N. oil-for-food program chief under scrutiny for alleged corruption and mismanagement blocked a proposed audit of his office around the same time he's accused of soliciting lucrative oil deals from Iraq, according to investigators.
Legacy media are anxious to report on this scandal now that the bloggers have reported on it for almost two years.
I guess it's too much to expect an apology for blaming the US for causing thousands of Iraqi deaths due to sanctions when we now know it was the UN's fault.
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