Muscular Liberals

MOVING HOUSE

2006-10-09T10:58:00.000Z

As of yesterday evening, I've moved house. Well in blog terms anyhow. From now on, I'll mostly be posting at Harry's Place, where I'll be throwing my two-penneth into the mix.

Consequently, things might be a bit quiet here, unless I feel the urge to post on something for which HP wouldn't be appropriate. I'm not sure exactly what that might be, but we'll see.

Thanks to all who commented, emailed, lurked and so on and I'll see you in the comments boxes over there some time.

Tata for now,
Dan.

PS I'm not sure on the protocol here - do I offer up sale of this pitch to the highest bidder? Or do I keep it replete with old cookers and fridges in the front garden until the internet police send the council round to condemn it? Just wondering.

X21'S

2006-10-06T13:28:00.000Z

Joe Lieberman made an interesting remark during his interview with Roger L Simon this time last week. From Politics Central:

SIMON: [I]f you do win — and you’re doing well at the moment — if you do win as an Independent, you will still then become a Democrat, stay as a Democrat and caucus with the Democrats.

LIEBERMAN: Yeah. The critical thing is to caucus with the Democrats because if you don’t caucus with a party, you don’t have the opportunity to hold your seniority in the committee assignments that you’ve got and that’s important to the folks back home.

But, you know, I want to go back. Your question surprised me and it’s an interesting one. So, I’d say, I remain a Democrat but disappointed not to have been nominated by my party and believing that, as much as I am a Democrat, that being a Democrat is not my highest loyalty. My party is not my highest loyalty. My highest loyalty is to the people of the State of Connecticut who were good enough to elect me. It’s to the country.

And that’s why I continued the fight as an Independent candidate. I basically want to give everybody the opportunity to decide whether I should be their senator. I feel strongly that I can do a much better job than either the Democratic or Republican candidates, but in the end it’s not up to me. It’s up to the voters and I want all of them to have a chance to decide in November.

SIMON: Forty-three percent of Connecticut voters, according to one survey that I read, are Independents, which makes them the plurality. In a certain way, by remaining an Independent, like Weiker did —

LIEBERMAN: Right.

SIMON: — you’re essentially representing the plurality of the citizens of Connecticut.

LIEBERMAN: Well, that’s true. I mean, there are about forty-three percent of — the registered voters in Connecticut are unaffiliated. They’re Independents. Democrats are somewhere around thirty some odd and Republicans, twenty some odds. So, you can see, it’s the largest party in the state.

I’ll tell you, there’s something else here, if you’ll allow to just take off from this point. The fastest growing political party in America is no party, which is to say, that the fastest growing group of voters are unaffiliated with either party. And, to me, that’s a market statement, if you will, on the two major parties. People are getting disenchanted with the parties. I think, mostly, for two reasons. One is that each party seems certainly in the primaries to be dominated by the extremes ideologically. And then when they get to Washington, each of the parties seems to basically feel that they’re in some kind of duel in which it’s Democratic against Republican. But then they forget something that’s even more important, which is the national interest, or the interest of their constituents back home.

So, I will say, Roger, that not by choice — my choice was to win the Democratic primary but that didn’t happen. And, therefore, out of necessity, I have become an Independent in this race. I will tell you that I find it to be very empowering and even liberating. And we’ll see where we go from here.

I wondered whether Lieberman was simply spinning furiously by re-emphasising Simon's point and stating "about forty-three percent of the registered voters in Connecticut are unaffiliated." During the ensuing web ramble, I found my way to this at PajamasMedia:

When Pajamas Media was just forming, a fair number of bloggers were uncomfortable with the conventional left-right, liberal-conservative dichotomized pigeonholes of the mainstream media.

We wondered how others felt, so in the fall of 2005 we looked for research on this area. Not being able to find any, we commissioned in October 2005, a poll with Princeton Research. Question 21 of that poll (hence the “X21”) asked if the respondents felt that the labels “liberals” or “conservatives” applied to them. Not entirely to our surprise, an awful lot of people said “no.” A full 43% of those responding felt that the liberal nor conservative labels did not really apply to them, a percentage vastly greater than those who identified with either polarity.

But we also found these people aren’t actually centrists in the conventional sense of that word. They have passionate feelings from all sides of the spectrum, not just the middle ground. Someone could be a complete social liberal while being an adamant war hawk. Or the reverse. In other words - these people are “blends” with some values from the liberal side and other values from the conservative side. They are not 100% partisans that are glued to a typical ideology, and they’re not just watered-down colorless individuals with no strong views.

We’ve been calling these blended people “X21s” in honor of the poll question. But it’s not exactly catchy, so we are now running a contest. Find a new name for X21 – those political hybrids or blends – and win the first pair of official Pajamas Media logo-emblazoned PAJAMAS. Your new name will also replace X21 on our site.

Well they've finished taking submissions but you can now cast your vote here for one of the following:

Autonocrats

Centrocrats

Conglomerates

Positionistas

Flexocrats

Freerangers

Hybrids

Mosaics

PHI (Politically Hybrid Individuals)

Pragmatics

Purples

Patriocrats

Mugwumps

Some are pretty awful: 'Centrocrats' kind of misses the point of the exercise and sadly 'Flexocrat' is a trademarked pulsation dampener (whatever that is).

'Purples' is a nice touch though. Better than being yellow.

CLIVE SOLEY IN MUSLIM NEWS

2006-10-05T15:46:00.000Z

Short post today. Too busy to post much else.

Clive Soley has a piece in this month's issue of Muslim News that's worth a look. In response to their editorial he writes:

If you don’t recognise the importance of the internal religious struggle it will play into the hands of racists and your other opponents who can easily claim that Muslims only blame the West and believe that everything within Islam is peace and harmony. That is not what the Muslims who came to me about Finsbury Park Mosque said.

The majority of British people are tolerant and anxious not to stereotype Muslims. But this large and supportive section of British society needs help from the Muslim community too.

Failure to acknowledge a religious aspect to the current wave of terrorist attacks around the world defies common sense. France was not involved in Iraq neither was Indonesia. Many of the attacks have been against Muslim states and accompanied by supportive statements from groups claiming Muslim legitimacy for the attacks. Osama Bin Laden states that his aim is to reclaim the sacred sites in Saudi Arabia.

These attacks and planned attacks do have a religious content as well as a political one and both need to be addressed in equal measure. The Muslim News is well placed to lead that debate.

Will you rise to the challenge?

A far cry from John Reid's heavy-handed pronouncement of the other week.

SUICIDE BOMBERS AND SCHOOL SHOOTERS

2006-10-04T17:01:00.000Z

Two comments on similarities between suicide bombers and high school shooters, here and here, courtesy of Hak and Sunny respectively.

The first is top notch so here it is in full (for those to lazy to click):

Seeing the footage of Mohammad Sidique Khan again, during the David Aaronovitch program on Channel 5 the other night, it occurred to me that there is no difference between Khan and those of similar kidney, and the sociopaths who shoot up Colorado schools. So, if it's possible - or indeed reasonable - in some quarters to mbunderstand Khan and relativise his actions as some sort of legitimate 'discourse', then it's logical that the same is true of others who seek to redress their 'grievances' against society by taking the lives of random students, co-workers, or pedestrians.

I will not allow that either constitutes 'legitimate discourse' and most, if not all, of those who permit the first would not allow the second, which seems to leave us with a bit of an inconsitency, in that some sociopathic fanstasies are more mbunderstandable than others.

I guess that's the beauty of mbunderstanding: at its heart is faulty reasoning so applying it in a haphazard manner is in keeping with the spirit of the damn thing.

Not that Sunny is engaging in mbunderstanding, you understand. But if someone's going to write an article mbunderstanding the motives behind the recent high school shooters, they'd do worse than start from the premise behind his most recent post:

I believe there are some interesting parallels to be made between high-school killers and suicide bombers. Putting aside the global element to the latter aside for a moment, could it be that the media coverage, moral panic, wild statements by politicians and bungled police raids exacerbate the danger we face?

Think about it. Every time John Reid makes a bid for leadership with a speech telling us how suicide bombers are the greatest threat ever ever and ever, you can bet some kid is sitting there thinking of the potential power and attention they could be afforded.

Everytime George Bush says the threat of Muslim terrorists is greater than anything the west has ever faced before (put aside the absurdity of that statement for now) he only gives Osama Bin Laden and co-conspirators the encouragement they need.

Everytime the media release a poll showing how scared Londoners are of sitting next to brown kids on the Tube the discord that the terrorists wanted to spread is bearing fruition. Remember the four wanna-be suicide bombers of 22nd July? They saw the reaction to July 7th and wanted it for themselves.

Nice theory, but it all hangs on "Putting aside the global element to the latter aside for a moment". Sure, there may be copycat elements to both. But thankfully there isn't a bastardised form of religion promoting high school shootings being funded by rich fuckers who hate the West. Not yet.

In addition, the copycat element will vary from case to case. I doubt very much the media storm over naming and shaming paedophiles caused anyone to think "Aha - now that's how I can get famous!" but I wonder whether the same could be said of happy-slapping.

It would seem to me that yes, kids do copy each other. But the problem for Sunny's argument is that there are other forces at play and that not all suicide bombers are kids.

Nevertheless Sunny does make a good point:

It isn’t unreasonable to ask of our media and politicians that a sensible and measured reaction should be part of any armoury in dealing with the threat of terrorism.

Quite.

But a little naughty of him to claim "a slightly edited version is on comment is free". Slightly edited in that it didn't include this part:

Robert Baer’s ‘Cult of the Suicide Bomber’, a recent documentary showed how suicide bombers were regarded as celebrities in the Occupied Territories

But Sunny posted that on PP at 5.01pm after Cif commenter graemewilliams had replied to Sunny's post at 4.47pm stating:

Robert Baer's Cult of the Suicide Bomber showed how in the Occupied Territories that suicide bombers are regarded as celebrities.

And it's hardly as if Sunny can say he didn't notice as he replied to that post at 5.26pm.

Tut tut. Credit where it's due Sunny! Honour amongst bloggers and all that...

UPDATE 05/10/06 2:00am:
Sunny has changed his post to read

[a shorter version is on comment is free]

Shorter in that it doesn't contain a rewritten paragraph by one graemewilliams.

Curiouser and curiouser...

UPDATE 05/10/06 4:00am:
Sunny finally added his hat-tip. I didn't think he was that shifty. Apparently too much effort to do at the time. Must have taken ages. Good on him.

KILLING ONE BIRD WITH TWO STONES

2006-10-04T16:08:00.000Z

Poor old Simon Jenkins.

Spanked twice in one day.

PUBLIC MEETING

2006-10-03T13:14:00.000Z

Something that might be of interest if you're free next Monday:

Engage and UJS invite you to a public meeting with Israel's education minister Yuli Tamir MK (founder member of Peace Now, former member of Ratz, "The Movement for Civil Rights and Peace") to discuss the academic boycott of Israel and antisemitism on campus.

Panel discussion followed by Q&A

Monday 9 October
6.30-8.00pm

St John's Wood United Synagogue,
37/41 Grove End Road,
London
NW8 9NG
Please RSVP to: ujs@ujs.org.uk

More on the boycott here, here and here.

FASHION JUNKIES

2006-10-02T16:32:00.000Z

Upset they've stopped selling Hizbullah messenger bags?

Well, Jim Hancot has an alternative suggestion:

So from now on, in the UK, if I even so much as sniff a dumbass anti-war demo, the appropriate t-shirt will be donned:

and a can of abusive whoopass cracked open. The gloves are off.

Get the t-shirt and more at Camden Market or online.

As PublicGriefJunkies' sales pitch says:

Link arms! March together! Because apparently the price of candles, beads, henna tattoos and Bob Marley merchandise is going to skyrocket unless everybody everywhere stops shooting and starts dancing, or something. When the shrill, hysterical, and desperate-to-feel-guilty people start talking, you’d better be listening – because they know better than you, about everything. Submit NOW by owning this t shirt.

Just do it. You know it makes sense.

PATRONISING FOKKERS

2006-10-02T16:07:00.000Z

Over at Butterflies and Wheels, Ophelia Benson takes this nonsense apart:

It is now exactly a year since a Danish newspaper published a series of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, which Muslims found so insulting that 140 people died in the ensuing violence.
No. That's wrong, and it's a misleading way of putting it. Some Muslims found the cartoons 'so insulting', and a much much smaller number found them 'so insulting that 140 people died in the ensuing violence' - that is, to interpret that foolishly meaningless phrase, either found them so insulting that they caused lethal violence or found them so insulting that they thought the deaths of 140 people made an appropriate response. Not all Muslims found the cartoons insulting at all; not all Muslims who did find them insulting found them also worthy of protest or criticism of the act of publication; not all Muslims who found them worthy of protest also found them deserving of outright censorship or government action; and so on.

Why do so many people - especially, of all things, well-meaning liberal people who (clearly) see themselves as being kind to and trying to help 'Muslims' - equate some Muslims with all Muslims that way?

Why do they chronically and repeatedly assume that if some Muslims feel insulted or offended then all do?

Why do they not pause to remember that as a matter of fact there are some Muslims who are insulted or offended not by cartoons or papal speeches or operas but by their insultable co-religionists and by liberal columnists who assume that all Muslims are offended by what some Muslims are offended by?

Why do they not also pause to remember that there is, in fact, something quite searchingly insulting about assuming that all people in a particular group think exactly the same thing, particularly on a controversial and contested issue?

Why are they so fokking patronizing?

And why are they so fokking patronizing while thinking they are being kind and empathetic and helpful?

Why don't they think a little harder and look a little farther?

Answers on a postcard...

Meanwhile, this could cause a bit of bother:

Move over, Jesus. Make room on the dashboard for Mohammad ... Bobblehead Mohammad.

A former Marine is hawking the nodding Mohammad doll at his Web site, www.dashboardmohammed.com at $22.99 a pop . . . expect two to four weeks’ delay in shipping due to high demand, 10 percent of all sales to go to Tim Ames’ beer fund.

At $22.99 a bobber, I'm guessing the man is going to be drinking quite a lot of beer over the next few weeks...

BACK ON TRACK

2006-10-02T11:28:00.000Z

Being a Glass-Half-Fuller, I was being wildly optimistic when I suggested I might be back over a week ago. Have had tons of stuff to deal with, which I have, and now find myself with tons more stuff to deal with, albeit at my own pace. So, as you were then.

Whilst I've been away there was much ado about the Labour Party Conference, summed up rather nicely by Anatole Kaletsky:

So in the end it wasn’t Brown versus Blair. It wasn’t even Gordon versus Cherie, or Ed and Damian versus Alastair and Peter. It was the journalists against the Labour Party or, more precisely, media sensationalism against dull truth.
...
The only real “story” I heard, whether on or off the record, even from the most partisan sources was about unity: that the feud between Mr Blair and Mr Brown was essentially over and that, after a largely symbolic leadership contest, the party would back the overwhelming winner, Mr Brown. Call me naive, but this seems to me a full and accurate description of all the important events in Manchester this week — and of the outlook for British politics in the coming months as the transition from Mr Blair to Mr Brown continues its inevitable and stately progress.
...
What is my evidence? The strongest evidence of unity was ironically, the Cherie Blair “that’s a lie” incident. Manchester this week was crawling with resourceful and aggressive political journalists who left no stone unturned to find some new casus belli with which to reignite the Blair-Brown war. So what did all these media bloodhounds bring home? An almost inaudible comment, supposedly muttered under her breath by the Prime Minister’s wife, who is not even a politician, and overheard not by some eminent BBC, Sun or Guardian pundit, but by a US wire-service reporter on her way to the loo. If this was the strongest “Blair-Brown feud” story that the best and brightest of British political journalism could come up with, then surely the Labourites have beaten their swords into ploughshares and the ultra-Brownites can now lie down with the über-Blairites. The fact is that, apart from that one eavesdropped remark, the really extraordinary story from Manchester was the absence of a single aggressive statement from either the Blair or Brown camp against the other.

and Stephen Pollard:

What a load of hypocritical tossers (pardon my language but it's what they are) those Labour members are. They've spent the past decade bitching about Blair, and now that he's off into the sunset they cheer him to the rafters. Well live with it, you idiots. You're the ones who wanted rid of him, forced him to announce his departure, and rendered him impotent. Ha-bloody-ha: now you're going to have to live with the consequence:

Mr Unelectable.

If Pollard's views accurately reflect the electorate, Labour could well be in trouble. But a YouGov poll for the Telegraph suggests British voters are as cynical about the current Tory party as they are of backstabbing Labour Ministers. Gordon can breathe a sigh of relief. For now.

If the Tories get a big conference bounce he'll have to start looking over his shoulder. Welcome to Tony's World.

In other news, there was a big hoo-hah over the NIE report into the bleedingly obvious and a PIPA poll of Iraqi public opinion. Predictably, the devil is in the details, a lesson to all who jumped to premature conclusions based on reports they might have read that emphasised only certain aspects of each story. Two breakdowns I found useful were at HP and over at the Boston Herald where Jules Crittenden summarised things rather nicely:

Also in the news last week, poll results from a University of Maryland public policy institute found that 94 percent of Iraqis hate al-Qaeda. But two-thirds of Iraqis want U.S. troops out within the year. A majority of Iraqis believe the U.S. presence fuels the violence, which is interesting because most of the violence is now Iraqi on Iraqi, Sunni vs. Shia. This remains the most difficult part of the Iraqi equation. Saddam Hussein’s answer to it - the murder of hundreds of thousands of Kurds and Shiites - only fueled the current strife.

Curiously, the poll found a majority of Iraqis believe the departure of the United States will boost support for the U.S.-backed Iraqi government. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his tough-on-militias unity government, which Americans fought and died to establish, has the approval of six in 10 Iraqis. Two-thirds of Iraqis believe Iraq will still be one country in five years. Iraqi confidence in the U.S.-backed Iraqi forces is rising. Apparently, America’s unwelcome presence is producing results.

When the eventual withdrawal does come, will the Stoppers be claiming victory because they've been calling on Blair and Bush to bring the troops back home since Day One? I wonder.

Next up, in a blog-ramble chasing reaction to David Aaronovitch's excellent No Excuses for Terror on Channel 5 (check ModernityBlog for some tips on how to download the whole lot), I came across this rather nice advert over at MPACUK:
58 years, eh?

As Charles says, with this poster not only do MPACUK reveal their hatred of Israel but they show their general stupidity as well:

The Chinese and Japanese text on the sign reads, “End your job.” Not “End the occupation.”

And the Russian text reads, “Finish your homework.”

And shame on the University of Chester for advertising their Muslim Youth Work JNC on the MPAC website. I've no problem with the concept of Muslim Youth Work - after all, before the Daily Mail pick up on this I ought to point out that Chester offer a Christian Youth Work JNC as well. It just seems a little rank that an institute of education is helping to fund such an ignorant organisation.

Finally, remembering that MPAC are affiliated with the Stop the War Coalition, it was with some interest that regarding Darfur I read on the MPAC website:

Currently the situation has reached stalemate with the Sudanese government digging their heels in and many more civilians will continue to suffer. It makes it our job to continue to lobby our leaders to move quicker and further towards resolving the conflict, much as Bob Geldof did today by calling for Superpowers to acknowledge their role in helping to resolve the conflict. The conflict will only be resolved when the Sudanese government is forced to back down and the UN must be pressurised into acting swiftly.

That seems a bit out of kilter with what the Gorgeous One has been saying recently (hat-tip: Disturbingly Yellow). And let's not forget Galloway's stance on Hezbollah differs markedly from North Koreaphile Andrew Murray's. Maybe it's time for the Stoppers to have a Euston moment and reveal what they do have in common. Here's a suggestion to get the ball rolling:

"Despite being an anti-war organisation, many of us were not opposed to Hezbollah rockets shelling civilian targets in Israel."

And completely unrelated to everything else, I'm not sure which of the following has cheered me up more:

Webb and Mitchell coming up with the funniest sketch show I've seen in years:

or Solskjaer putting two past Newcastle in yesterday's training session:

And just as a reminder of just how good the fella was in his prime, here's him coming off the subs bench and scoring four goals in ten minutes against Forest:

And back to work...

ALMOST THERE

2006-09-18T22:42:00.000Z

One hurdle out the way, another to go.

Halfway through sorting out *stuff*.

Let's just say the past four years haven't been in vain.

Now to sort out work shenanigans.

Back on Friday.

PS You'll notice things only go a tad crazy when I'm too busy to blog (or attend Darfur rallies).

PPS Would now be a bad time to publish a quote about "pigs and monkeys" out of context? If people are going to get upset and start killing nuns over the words of 14th Century Byzantine Emperors, why not pull for the Big Daddy and get the supposed words of God out in the open?

I notice the usual suspects (see HP comments around March 06) aren't asking for the press not to reprint what the Pope said for fear of "poking a stick". Not this time. After their hysteria about the Danish cartoons I'd have thought they would, at least for consistency. Hypocrites.

As any fule kno: Jihad is the crunk of Islam.

Rationalists: there's work to be done. Christ.

FINKELSTEIN SMELLS A RAT

2006-09-13T11:46:00.000Z

True to form, Chomsky's chum Norman Finkelstein reacts in predictable fashion to the All Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Antisemitism in the UK.

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I'm snowed under at the moment so don't have time to give the article the thorough fisking it deserves. Perhaps one of the heavyweights over here could do the honours?

Here's my two-penneth for starters.

Disclaimer: Muscular Liberals is not responsible for any damage to any computer equipment as a result of visitors reading the following - you have been warned...

He begins:

A central thesis of my book Beyond Chutzpah is that whenever Israel faces a public relations debacle its apologists sound the alarm that a "new anti-Semitism" is upon us. So, predictably, just after Israel faced another image problem due to its murderous destruction of Lebanon, a British all-party parliamentary group led by notorious Israel-firster Denis MacShane MP (Labor) released yet another report alleging a resurgence of anti-Semitism.

So.

An All Party Parliamentary Report that was started last year was published to deliberately coincide with the ending of hostilities of a war begun by Hezbollah and finished by international pressure, to draw attention away from the results of Israel's actions in Lebanon? This Zionist Lobby is more powerful than I thought.

Quite how the All Party group knew in advance when the war would end is a mystery, unless Finkelstein is suggesting that the Zionist Lobby told the group to hold off and wait for a nod and a wink before publishing.

As Malachi who tipped me off on the article writes:

On this basis it sounds like MacShane and his committee were better informed than the Israeli cabinet!

Quite.

In summary, Finkelstein appears to be saying

End of Israel's war with Hezbollah
Report on antisemitism in the UK
What are the odds of those two things occurring in the same month?
It's a conspiracy!!!

No doubt he'd have said the same had the Report been published during the war or even before it. That's the beauty of conspiracy theories - one size fits all.

The man is beyond parody.

More on conspiracy theory loons here, courtesy of David T at HP.

FOOTIE STUFF

2006-09-12T00:54:00.000Z

I've never bothered with Premiership Fantasy Football - blogging and whatnot already takes up far too much of my time.

But last year Doughnut Boy Andy suggested I have a go at the UEFA Champions League equivalent. No transfers to worry about until the knock-out stages and the system takes care of injuries and bans for you automatically if you can't be bothered.

Well worth a go.

Any readers who are up for it are welcome to set themselves up a team, drop me a line and I'll sort out a league.

From start to finish it took me about 30 minutes to sort out. Bear in mind that last year I came either 6th or 7th out of 8 teams, so the competition's not too hot. Something to do with me starting a week late and blowing my cash on what seemed to be a cheap Dennis Bergkamp, forgetting that, like Mr T, he doesn't do the plane thing. That was the away games gone then. Dang.

If you're up for it, start here but be quick - the matches start tonight...

KAMM ON GREENHAM COMMON

2006-09-12T00:31:00.000Z

Assuming the role of The Thunderer, Oliver Kamm doesn't mince his words in today's Times - Far From Rocket Scientists:

If the Greenham women’s influence on disarmament was nil, their political effect was marginally greater. With other protesters, they tied the Labour Party to an electorally suicidal anti-nuclear policy for a decade, and debased feminism by associating it with bizarrely traditional sexual stereotypes. Whereas in 1914 the suffragettes Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst had urged a “women’s right to serve”, the Greenham campaigners emphasised women’s virtues as nurturers and listeners.

Brian Walden on ITV asked one campaigner how a Soviet military assault should be countered. Her answer — “through love” — replaced what should have been ethical reflection with mawkish anti-intellectualism.

The Greenham women undoubtedly paid a personal price and endured public derision for their stand. Both were of their own making, and the second is well worth reviving.

Ouch.

SILVER LINING

2006-09-11T12:23:00.000Z

ANTI-KHATAMI PROTESTS IN HARVARD

2006-09-11T01:14:00.000Z

Remember this lot, who organised the Iran Freedom Concert back in March to highlight the Iranian government's human rights abuses and to express solidarity with Iranian students?

Well it looks like they,The HAMSA and both the Harvard College Democrats and Republicans did themselves proud yesterday, organising a rally protesting against Mohammed Khatami's visit to Harvard.

Reports and more photos here and here, courtesy of Technicalities and Publius Pundit respectively. (Hat tip: Big Glenn.)

Nice one.

Update: Another report here, courtesy of Miss Kelly.

The Boston Herald has a report of the meeting itself, complete with bald-faced lying from Khatami over Iran's support for Hezbollah:

Khatami faced several pointed questions about Iran’s support for the anti-Israel Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which the United States has branded a terrorist organization.

“You’ve said you love Hezbollah,” asked a Harvard senior. “Do you still feel that way today?”

Khatami denied Iran had given aid to Hezbollah and painted the terror group as “a symbol of Lebanese resistance.”

“If we support Hezbollah, it is only spiritual support,” he insisted.

There's no mention of just how long his nose was by this point.

The editor, Jules Rittenden's reply is a good one - "Time to send message to Iran".

FIVE YEARS

2006-09-11T00:37:00.000Z

YET MORE TERRORIST EASTENDERS

2006-09-10T23:44:00.000Z

Just finished watching "The Path to 9/11" and despite the arguments going on about its accuracy (Hint to those getting hot under the collar: it's a dramatisation, not a documentary - a little bit like that other big film about 9/11 which you didn't seem to object to at the time...), I thought it was rather good.

Apart from the blatant stereotyping of all East End Londoners as terrorists, that is.

I mean, you leave this guy for five minutes to mind your stall on the market:

and the next thing you know, he's running some bomb factory in the Philippines:

As if East Londoners know anything about making bombs.

WHERE DID ALL THE CHOMSKYS GO?

2006-09-10T15:41:00.000Z

He might not have been the most prolific Cif commentator, but it looks like Noam Chomsky has thrown in the towel and left the Guardian's blog.

This Cif thread which contained the remarkably revealing comment from katie182:

I was not always antisemitic but my views are changing!

appears to have been deleted (hat tip Barbara). It followed Chomsky's article: "Their View of the World is Through a Bombsight".

Perhaps the Guardian have been doing some spring-cleaning and purging their site of some of the more obnoxious threads? Judging by what remains on the rest of the blog, I doubt it. It seems it's only Uncle Choms' two articles that have disappeared from the face of the net.

Either way, now it doesn't even show up in Google's Cache and I can't find it using the WayBack machine either.

Good job I saved the lot.

ANTISEMITISM IN THE UK

2006-09-10T13:40:00.000Z

Up to my ears in stuff to do and sadly writing Blogger posts comes somewhere towards the lower end of the list. Things are likely to be this way for a couple of weeks, so bear with me while I try to do my best to convince the Earth to rotate a little slower. I'll happily consider alternative approaches for squeezing more than 24 hours out of a day - to be honest I'm not having too much luck with my current tactic.

More for my own benefit than anyone else's, here's a round-up of the report from the All Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Antisemitism in the UK (with several hat tips to Malachi).

For those without the time to spend perusing all 59 pages, the nice people at Engage have kindly summarised the whole thing over here.

(If you want the Full Monty, it's here, but it might take a little while for dial-uppers to download - you have been warned.)

In between all of last week's in-fighting, the PM's office issued the following statement on September 7th:

We condemn racism including anti-semitism in all its forms.

We believe the Government has a strong record in combating hate crime including anti-semitism and we will continue to work with the Jewish Community to address the issue.

We have co-operated in full with the cross party enquiry and we welcome publication of their report which we will give proper consideration before providing a more detailed response.

All very well and good. Let's see what that amounts to. Perhaps being a little harsher on Party members inviting extremists over for tea?

Norm has links to a fair bit of print coverage, so I'll point you in his direction rather than paste any more links than I have (not that I've ever mucked up my links, *ahem*).

For a short time you'll be able to hear a couple of debates on Radio 4's Today Programme that followed the report's publication: one between Steven Rose and Shalom Lappin, the other between Inayat Bunglawala and Iain Duncan Smith (RealPlayer required).

Norm has an interesting take on Steven Rose's stance in the first debate:

Rose agrees that it [antisemitism] is increasing. However, with only a few minutes to say his piece on the subject, how does he focus the responsibility for it? Not on those who attack Jews or hold prejudicial attitudes towards them. No, on the actions of the Israeli government; and then, when challenged by Humphrys with the observation that the government of Israel is not the same thing as Jewish people at large, on the 'Israel lobby' - who treat Judaism and Zionism, he says, Judaism and support for Israel, as identical, thereby making 'a rod for their own backs'.

Leave aside the elision there from the 'Israel lobby' to all those people on the receiving end of anti-Jewish hostility - like schoolchildren in Manchester. But if there's growing anti-Semitism it's due to a confusion perpetrated by Jews (those who don't agree with Steven Rose's views on Israel). On the resurgence of an age-old form of hatred, not one single word about any other source of it, and not one word of criticism or blame for anybody other than Jews. It's poisonous stuff.

How does an educated man come to be able to speak publicly like this? I can't pretend to know the answer, having no personal acquaintance with him. But here's a hypothesis. The clue could just lie in his reference to members of the aforesaid 'Israel lobby' attacking him as a 'self-hating Jew'. It's not a category I've ever been fond of or found useful, but that's by the by. What the remark suggests is that Rose might think the question concerning a rise in anti-Semitism is about him: about the arguments he's had and what's been said against him. It's a strikingly repellent kind of self-love, in fact, to go on radio to talk about a rather pressing problem, one that affects the lives and the sense of security of many people, and be unable to see that problem except through the lens of your own positioning in a nexus of argument and counter-argument.

David Hirsh also takes issue with Rose's comments:

Rose himself conflates "Israel Lobby" with "Jews" by arguing that "they" build a rod for thier own backs. The "Lobby" builds the rod but it is Jews in general ("their own backs") that get hit by it. So the "Lobby" has already become, in the way that Rose uses the term, a code-word for of Jews-in-general.

Rose does not think it important to discuss who is doing the hitting with this rod that "the lobby" has built for "their own backs". He is not interested in the responsibility of antisemites for antisemitism, or in the responsibility of Jews for opposing and confronting the antisemites.

Quite.

Of course, this kind of thinking wasn't restricted to one dodgy academic on the Today Programme: the usual places were full of similar arguments.

He writes:

What we did is what Parliament exists to do. We examined a problem. We heard witnesses. We read submissions. One MP, the West Midlands Labour MP, Bruce George told one witness : "You are describing a Britain that my constituents do not know exists."

Precisely. There is a tiny slice of Britain - less than a quarter of a per cent of the population - who feel the quality of their lives, their right to their religion, their sense of history, the causes they support is being denied to them because they were born Jews, not Catholics, or Anglicans, or Muslims or Hindus.

I understand all the anger that people may feel about what happens overseas. Many hate America. But we do not throw bricks through schools for Americans in London or seek to desecrate the graves of Americans in Britain. My constituents of Kashmiri origin feel passionately about the behaviour of India in Kashmir. But this does not lead them to attack British Indians, or jostle a British Indian citizen who wears the marks of faith or community.

And yet, despite his plea:

I know what the comments below this short blog will be before they are posted. Can I just respectfully ask Cif readers to hold back a while and read our report.

it took less than an hour before someone with their finger on the pulse managed to completely misinterpret the report, remarking:

Looks to me worryingly like part of a campaign to make any criticism of Zionism or Israel a crime.

Regular commenter Berchmans wrote the following classic:

The present outbreak of anti semitism is a direct result of Israel slaughtering the Lebanese and the frustration caused by the refusal of the Jewish community to be at the forefront of condemnation of this.

This kind of thinking has become all too common, as the report points out.

Firstly, it should be noted that the same commenter has in the past (rightly) taken the position that British Muslims should not be held accountable for actions perpetrated by extremists in the name of their religion. Quite why the same should not hold for British Jews is not made clear. There are a couple of possible explanations for this kind of woolly thinking, neither of which are particular pleasant.

His qualifier later in the thread gives us a hint:

ISRAEL is the cause of the present wave of ANTISEMITISM.

If only he were in a minority of one on those boards. Kudos to those who have the time to spend addressing such prejudice on Cif on a regular basis - it must get rather tiring having to take on the same arguments day after day after day.

Internet polls tend not to be the most accurate devices known to man, so it's probably best not to read too much into the results of a poll from the BBC's Jeremy Vine show, but here they are anyway:

Do You Think Anti-Semitism Is On The Rise In Britain?
Yes 17%

No 83%
Total votes: 1455

Phew - that's all right then.

The final word goes to Hak:

The committee seems to have overlooked the 'fact' that it's Jews who 'cause' anti-Semitism. I heard an example of this form of 'analysis' from the lips of a journalist in the newsroom of a large public broadcaster:
You're asking for it really. If you didn't have security guards outside your schools and synagogues - like you think you're special or something - you wouldn't get attacked.
This admixture of 'classic' anti-Semitism with tall poppy syndrome - the idea that Jews have 'tickets on themselves' - may constitute an entirely Australian variant of the oldest hatred.

Presumably the aforementioned journalist is now out of a job. After all, we know who runs the media, right?

ABU ABDULLAH ARRESTED

2006-09-04T01:47:00.000Z

Spotted one interesting name amongst the fourteen terror suspects arrested over the weekend. From the Times:

A former henchman of Abu Hamza al-Masri is among the 14 men arrested in London on suspicion of involvement in terrorist recruiting.

Abu Abdullah, 42, assumed the leadership of the Supporters of Shariah group when Abu Hamza, the former imam of Finsbury Park mosque, was arrested in May 2004.

He is banned from almost every mosque in Britain but continues to preach an inflammatory message in private “study circles” and has attended camps in the grounds of the Jameah Islamiyah school.

Mr Abdullah, a father of four who is from a Turkish Cypriot family but was born in Britain, is a former youth football coach. He was often seen by Abu Hamza’s side when the cleric preached on the streets of Finsbury Park. Last month The Sunday Times reported comments by Mr Abdullah in which he described the July 7 bombers as “my honourable brothers in Islam” and said that suicide bombing was “halal”, meaning permissible under Islamic law.

He added: “The martyr that goes about his enemies is going to shield his people. He doesn’t have weapons of mass destruction, he only has household chemicals . . . The West is escalating their killing of Muslims. We have a right to defend ourselves. If I had the means to go back there [Afghanistan] and kill an American or British soldier I would love to do so.”

Of course he would. Just like Azzam Tamimi wants to go to Palestine to be a suicide bomber.

Check this CNN interview with the brazen Abdullah and consider why the police might have been keeping an eye on him:

I'm not sure what to make of the commenter who states:

This man should be stoned to death for defiling Islam. Insha'allah

Not the most helpful solution, that.

For more on Abu Abdullah, there's this PBS interview from 2004 in which he states:

And a quick quote -- I'd like to put this as well for a message to my brothers and sisters around the world that calls themselves moderates. I urge them to read the Quran and understand instead of passing a judgment without reading the Quran, because Allah mentioned jihad in the Quran 26 times, and Allah mentioned quital 79 times. Quital is fighting by a physical fighting -- 79 times.

Nice bloke.

EUSTON MANIFESTO DARFUR MEETING AND SADDAM'S SOUTH PARK HELL

2006-08-30T16:27:00.000Z

Busy busy busy.

First, a little reminder about next week's Euston Manifesto Group Darfur meeting:

Next Tuesday 5th September 2006
7:00pm
Kings College London

Tickets available from euston.tickets@gmail.com.

Speakers:Linda Melvern, Lord Clive Soley, representative from the Aegis Trust
Chair: Phillip Spencer

Speakers

Linda Melvern

Linda is the author of A People Betrayed. The Role of the West in Rwanda’s Genocide and Conspiracy to Murder The Rwandan Genocide. She is also a journalist.

Lord Clive Soley

Clive is an advocate of intervention and reform of the UN. He blogs as Lord of the Blog.

Speaker from the Aegis Trust

The Aegis Trust is an NGO which calls for a duty to protect against genocide.
Chair

The meeting will be chaired by Phillip Spencer. Phil teaches at Kingston University and is a founder signatory of the Euston Manifesto.

Should be a winner.

Secondly, this little gem, courtesy of Hugo Rifkind:

The film version of South Park was originally banned in Iraq, largely because it portrayed Saddam Hussein, the then President, as the homosexual lover of Satan. At the Edinburgh International Television Festival, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, its creators, said that marines guarding the ex-dictator made him watch the film repeatedly. Did he laugh?

First commenter to post a link to a blog or article screaming "Torture!" wins a Blue Peter badge or some such.

TROUBLE FUNK

2006-08-25T01:23:00.000Z

I know I'm not sposed to be here, but just spotted this in a friend's inbox and thought it'd make a good Friday post. From Ananova (where else?):

A Chicago man told airport security he had a bomb in his luggage - because he didn't want his mum to know it was a penis pump.

Mardin Azad Amin, 29, was questioned after security at the city's O'Hare Airport discovered a suspicious-looking object in his bag.

Amin, who was set to fly to Turkey, told security the object was a bomb, reports the Chicago Sun-Times.

In fact, he was trying to disguise the fact that the black object was a component for a penis pump.

Amin eventually told investigators he'd lied because his mother was standing nearby and he didn't want her to know about it.

Amin faces up to three years in prison if convicted, said Andrew Conklin, a spokesman with the Cook County state's attorney's office.

Someone taking these guys far too seriously:

And off...

WAR CRIME OR HOAX?

2006-08-24T12:16:00.000Z

Photoblogger Zombie turns their attention to the story of Israel bombing two Red Cross ambulances:

On the night of July 23, 2006, an Israeli aircraft intentionally fired missiles at and struck two Lebanese Red Cross ambulances performing rescue operations, causing huge explosions that injured everyone inside the vehicles. Or so says the global media, including Time magazine, the BBC, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and thousands of other outlets around the world. If true, the incident would have been an egregious and indefensible violation of the Geneva Convention, and would constitute a war crime committed by the state of Israel.

But there's one problem: It never happened.

The Red Cross Ambulance Incident.

Will be interesting to see how this one pans out.

Aside: I'll be off for roughly a week. Going up North for a bit. Probably back next Wednesday. Enjoy the Bank Holiday!

DROWNING OUT

2006-08-23T00:04:00.000Z

Here's MPACUK's Asghar Bukhari debating Melanie Phillips on Sky:

Nothing remarkable happens, so fast forward to just before the 8.00 minute mark when you'll find Bukhari stating:

There's never an excuse for drowning out other people's voices.

Now check this debate, also from Sky, between Bukhari and Oliver Kamm: (Hat-tip: Bevan)

Seems like the man could do with following some of his own advice.

Incidentally, the front of MPACUK's website is currently advertising a thread in its forum entitled "Wow! Check this out! Pentagon Strike!" which links to a conspiracy site denying a 757 hit the Pentagon on 9/11. One of the forum moderators appears quite chuffed about it too. So no change there then.

Once again, why do the likes of Sky bother getting on someone from an organisation only 10% of British Muslims feel represents their views?

PUT YOUR MONEY WHERE YOUR MOUTH IS

2006-08-22T14:28:00.000Z

Shouldn't smile, but...

Following the news that eleven people have been charged in connection with the alleged plot to blow up airliners - specifically that eight of the accused had
On diverse days between 1 January 2006 and 10 August 2006 within the jurisdiction of the Central Criminal Court conspired with other persons to murder other persons (contrary to Section 1 (1) of the Criminal Law Act 1977).
And
On diverse days between 1 January 2006 and 10 August 2006 within the jurisdiction of the Central Criminal Court with the intention of committing acts of terrorism engaged in conduct to give effect to their intention to smuggle the component parts of improvised explosive devices onto aircraft and assemble and detonate them on board (contrary to Section 5 (1) of the Terrorism Act 2006)
I wonder what will happen to the wager between the hedgehog and the kamminator here. Are we about to see the beginning of the Great Banker Wars?

From Hak.

And although this one was more of a gentleman's [hmmm] bet, I wonder how confident terror apologist Azzam Tamimi is feeling today regarding his "I bet you it will turn out to be a hoax" remark?

Scribbles touched on this last week:

Every time I catch some news about the latest developments after the plane plot arrests, I've noticed that I keep hoping the news is that the investigation has turned nothing up. I think instinctively that I want the people to be innocent and for this to be another police fuck-up.

I've mulled this over in my head and I think it comes from the idea that another police fuck-up, as damaging as it would be, and as awful as it will have been for the people arrested, is not as horrific as a plan to blow up several planes to kill lots of people. The world will be a little less scary again and a little more normal.

Well it's not looking that way now. If things really are as grim as the police are making out, maybe we should take solace in:

Our security services thwarting a hideous act of terrorism

Catching those responsible before they blew themselves up

Tamimi and Sonic being exposed for the bullshitters they are

Admittedly, the third isn't exactly high up on the List of Good Things to Come Out of the Foiled Terror Plot, but every little helps as they say.

IF YOU IGNORE THE NAZI IMAGERY, THE MENU'S RATHER INTERESTING

2006-08-21T14:22:00.000Z

Or so I can imagine certain bloggers responding to news of Mumbai's newest eatery - "Hitler's Cross":

A new restaurant in India's financial hub, named after Adolf Hitler and promoted with posters showing the German leader and Nazi swastikas, has infuriated the country's small Jewish community.

'Hitler's Cross', which opened last week, serves up a wide range of continental fare [Potato Waffens anyone?] and a big helping of controversy, thanks to a name the owners say they chose to stand out among hundreds of Mumbai eateries.

"We wanted to be different. This is one name that will stay in people's minds," owner Punit Shablok told Reuters.

"We are not promoting Hitler. But we want to tell people we are different in the way he was different."

Aha. We're different. So different that the best person to represent our differentness from everyone else is, um, Adolf Hitler. Not because we like him you understand, just because he was different, y'know?

Perhaps Punit Shablok ought to come up with a better explanation as to what "the way he was different" really means. Because I for one am having trouble.

"This place is not about wars or crimes, but where people come to relax and enjoy a meal," said restaurant manager Fatima Kabani, adding that they were planning to turn the eatery's name into a brand with more branches in Mumbai.

Opening more branches means hiring more waiters. When it comes to further recruitment, this chap hasn't done much in a while and would be ideal for the job:

There can't be many places where he'd get away with his "Two egg mayonnaise, a prawn Goebbels, a Hermann Goering, and four Colditz salads" line these days.

JON PIKE: THE LEFT'S COMMITMENT TO ANTI-RACISM

2006-08-21T14:00:00.000Z

Spotted a great article over at the Engage Forum - Jon Pike reminiscing about his time in Glasgow some time ago and the response from fellow Leftists to the appearance of racist graffiti:

One day we discovered that the local mini-market had been covered in racist graffiti - “Pakis out” “White Red Road” and all the rest of it. It was a few hundred yards around the corner: it was personal – a personal affront, a personal challenge, not a matter of theory, my neighbourhood.

I did what you are supposed to do: gathered together some pals - members of the left wing group that I belonged to in Glasgow, some from the Militant, but also some anarcho-syndicalists, some people from a group called Red Action who were good at this sort of thing. We did a pretty decisive spray out (late at night, wearing black, feeling noble) as Red Road Anti Fascists or RRAF – and we established a basic minimum – there wasn’t going to be any racist graffiti around our scheme.

We kept that up. The local racists knew that they were opposed, that their slogans weren’t going to last long, that if it came to any kind of ruck, they would find foes. We never found out who they were, - it was just a little bit of low level combativity. I’m quite proud of RRAF – though all it took was a few phone calls and a few forays.

Fast forward to the summer of 2006. I’ve moved on, down south, to salubrious Hove. But some things change and some remain the same. Here’s something that remains the same: there is racist graffiti around the corner. This time it says “Nuke the Jews, You’re next” – it’s on the Progressive synagogue, yards from where I live. It doesn’t come as a surprise. I’ve seen similar graffiti around Brighton recently - “Free Palestein, fuck Israel” (sic) on a bus shelter just north of Preston Park in Brighton. (Yes, that’s similar). And it’s local. It’s personal - a personal affront, a personal challenge, not a matter of theory, my neighbourhood.

Now, I confess, I'm more likely to phone the council than take direct action, but, still, I worry about who I would call. It’s no longer obvious.

Engage is one step in the right direction: its journal and forum both provide essential material to pass onto friends and foes alike who doubt the recent resurgence of antisemitic arguments parading as anti-Zionism within liberal-left circles and beyond. And the odd poem, funnily enough.

SATELLITE DISHES SEIZED IN IRAN

2006-08-18T12:18:00.000Z

Winston at the Spirit of Man highlights a rather progressive move from the Iranian regime - they're confiscating Iranians' satellite dishes.

From ADNKI:

Hundreds of police in Tehran have begun dismantling satellite antenna dishes from the city's rooftops - part of a campaign to prevent Iranians from watching Western television programmes. The move follows a recent police order that all satellite dishes - officially banned but tolerated until now - be removed. The campaign against satellite television was launched by the Minister for Culture and Islamic Orientation, Hassan Saffar Harandi, who said "we have to halt the West's cultural offensive," on Iran.

Photos here and here.

Delightful: cracking down on both what people can watch and what they can write. And according to Reporters sans Frontieres, "Iran is the only country that can ban a journalist from writing for the rest of his life."

But some good news from Iran that passed me by last week:

Mansour Osanlou, leader of the independent union of bus drivers in Tehran, has been released on a bail of 150,000 euros after seven months in jail. The bail was considerable given that the average salary in Iran is 200 euros a month. Mansour Osanlou was arrested in January with other union members after 97 percent of the bus drivers in Tehran participated in a strike they had organized shortly after forming the organization. The bus drivers were calling for better working conditions and a salary increase.

The union of bus drivers was initially founded in 1968 and outlawed after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

In the second half of 2005, Osanlou decided to set it up again and obtained the membership of most workers in Tehran's city transport company.

My guestimate is that in terms of average monthly wages in the UK, that bail is the equivalent of over £1million - a little steep given all Osanlou did was set up a union and organise a strike. But at least he's out. For now.

IGNORE NASRALLAH'S ANTISEMITISM AND HE'S ALRIGHT REALLY

2006-08-18T08:36:00.000Z

Or so says Lenin over at the Tomb, as spotted by Marcus of HP.

"Once you've gone beyond that bollocks, this is a fascinating interview" Socialist Workers Party blogger 'Lenin' clearing his throat before praising his new hero Sheikh Hasan Nasrallah of Hezbollah in August 2006

What is the 'bollocks' he alludes to briefly before launching into an article praising the great hero of the masses? Oh, hardly anything worth dwelling on comrades, just some words uttered in haste...

"It is an open war until the elimination of Israel and until the death of the last Jew on earth."

"If they [Jews] all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide."

If you go to the comments of Lenny's thread you'll find him attempting to get away with a "Some of Nasrallah's best friends are Jewish" line of defence:

Interestingly, however, Hezbollah has Jewish members at least one of whom is in Israeli captivity right now (I discussed this a while ago - Israel insists on enforcing his Right to Return, though he does not want it). It is also interesting that there remains a Jewish presence Lebanon, especially in Beirut, and Hezbollah has never harmed or agitated against any of them. This could be due to their doctrine about the People of the Book, but if they are prepared to accept a Jewish member, they aren't entirely doctrinaire about their position.

I wonder what Len would make of Kapos? I suppose he would say that the Nazis weren't entirely doctrinaire about their position.

And he's wrong about "there remains a Jewish presence Lebanon, especially in Beirut, and Hezbollah has never harmed or agitated against any of them."

He's forgetting those Lebanese Jews Hezbollah kidnapped and killed in the 1980s. But why would Lenny want to let facts get in the way of a good rant in support of his favourite thugs?

It would be funny to watch him trying to squirm his way out the hole he's dug himself if it were all not so grim.

I guess it's to be expected. They do say the camera never lies. Naughty but nice - I can't see Godwin's Law applying when someone is doing their level best to whitewash a Jew-hater who has stated his desire to see every last Jew dead - courtesy of the Drink Soaked Trots.

And Lenny's not alone. A good number of the Guardian's commentariat have followed suit. On today's Oliver Kamm thread over at Comment is free you'll find:

The biggest threat to peace in the Middle east is Israel, not Hizbollah, not Iran, not Hamas, not Syria...Israel has always been an aggressor than can only survive by destroying all around it.

I wonder why America, Britain and Israel want Hizbollah to disarm? It couldn't be something to do with Israel having the right to invade at anytime without any defence could it?

As far as Iran is concerned, how can Israel fight Iran when it cannot even fight Hezbollah. The only thing they are good at is terrorism against the civilian population. When they think about fighting real military, they pass on it.

Hizbullah is not a terrorist organisation. It aims its fire on Israeli soldiers, and sends missiles into Israel only in response to much worse Israeli bombardment of civilian targets in Lebanon. It does not initiate attacks on civilians. [A bit rich coming from someone accusing Kamm of making "false assumptions"]

Of course, a good bit of Israel-baiting wouldn't be complete without someone calling Kamm a Zionazi:

"You are one sick nasty piece of Nazi Zionist shit."

Lovely.

My favourite (good spot, David T):

I live in Los Angeles, and I wish there were a Hizb'Allah free clinic somewhere in the neighbourhood. Got forbid You get sick in this richest country in the world without medical insurance. And believe me, few can afford it. You can say whatever u want about Hizb'Allah, but USA faschist regime doesn't give a f.. about its poor and sick people, hunting down 'illegal immigrants', whose only crime is to work hard to feed there families. Strangely enough, all these 'illegals' are of Latina origin. Canadians can move and work here without a glitch, and there are miilions of them in States. Jim Carrey, Brendon Frasier, Michael Jay Fox, Pamela Lee- all Canadians. I never heard somebody claiming they are taking jobs from Americans. The greed, arrogance and hypocrisy of this country is astounding. I prefer Hizb'Allah to rotten, corrupt, cold-hearted Nazis like Bush, Dick(not even Richard), Condomlease NoRiceNoBread anytime.

As for Israel, I have been living there for 3 years, I don't even want to discuss it. Democracy? I couldn't marry my wife in there, because she was not of German, excuse me, Jewish blood. A CITIZEN OF ISRAEL CAN'T MARRY ANOTHER CITIZEN IF ONE OF THEM IS NOT JEWISH!!! A FALLEN SOLDIER OF ISRAELI ARMY CAN"T BE BURIED IN THE CEMETERY IF HE/SHE ISN"T JEWISH! HAVE TO BE BURIED OUTSIDE THE FENCE LIKE A STRAY DOG! Ever heard of that? Israelis are the most arrogant, intolerant and extremely belligerent people I ever met. They only respect you if you kick them in the groin, the more-the better. I lived there, I know, trust me. Did you?

That last one has to be a Moby. Surely. Or have the comments pages of the UK's leading leftist newspaper really come to this?

DARFUR: AN URGENT CASE FOR HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION

2006-08-18T01:55:00.000Z

More Euston related stuff to tell you about. Next month sees another Euston Manifesto Group meeting, this time on the ongoing crisis in Darfur.

Here's the skinny:

Darfur: An urgent case for Humanitarian Intervention

Euston Manifesto Group Meeting
Tuesday 5th September 2006
Kings College London
7:00pm

Speakers:
Linda Melvern

An investigative journalist, Linda is the author of A People Betrayed. The Role of the West in Rwanda's Genocide and Conspiracy to Murder - The Rwandan Genocide.

Lord Clive Soley

Clive is an advocate of intervention and reform of the UN. He blogs as Lord of the Blogs.

A Representative from the Aegis Trust

The Aegis Trust is an independent, international organisation, dedicated to preventing genocide worldwide.
Chair:

The meeting will be chaired by Phillip Spencer. Phil teaches at Kingston University and is a founder signatory of the Euston Manifesto.

For tickets, email: tickets@eustonmanifesto.org

Further details of the venue will be sent with your ticket confirmation.

If Iraq has slipped off the media's radar with recent events in Lebanon, Darfur has been pushed back even further.

Here's André Glucksmann's take on this:

The outrage of so many outraged people outrages me. On the scales of world opinion, some Muslim corpses are light as a feather, and others weigh tonnes. Two measures, two weights. The daily terrorist attacks on civilians in Baghdad, killing 50 people or more, are checked off in reports under the heading of miscellaneous, while the bomb that took 28 lives in Qana is denounced as a crime against humanity.

Only a few intellectuals like Bernard-Henri Lévy or Magdi Allam, chief editor of the Corriere della Sera, find this surprising. Why do the 200,000 slaughtered Muslims of Darfur not arouse even half a quarter of the fury caused by 200-times fewer dead in Lebanon? Must we deduce that Muslims killed by other Muslims don't count - whether in the eyes of Muslim authorities or viewed through the bad conscience of the west?

This conclusion has its weak spots, because if the Russian Army - Christian, and blessed by their popes - razes the capital of Chechnian Muslims (Grosny, with 400,000 residents) killing tens of thousands of children in the process, this doesn't count either. The Security Council does not hold meeting after meeting, and the Organization of Islamic States piously averts its eyes. From that we may conclude that the world is appalled only when a Muslim is killed by Israelis.

Hat-tip: Jonathan Smith over at All The More Reason.

GOOGLE PODS

2006-08-17T01:08:00.000Z

Don't be evil. And don't google, do a Google Search:

Google has said it intends to crack down on the use of its name as a generic verb, in phrases such as "to google someone."

The Internet search giant said such phrases were potentially damaging to its brand.

"We think it's important to make the distinction between using the word 'Google' to describe using Google to search the Internet and using the word 'google' to generally describe searching the Internet. It has some serious trademark issues," a representative for the search company said.

Has someone had an intelligence bypass at Google? Have they never heard of Hoovers? FFS.

They're not the only ones getting the ache with people using their name incorrectly. Apple are at it too:

Apple has followed Google's example by sending cease and desist letters to companies warning them of the consequences of using the word 'pod' in product titles.

According to media reports, Apple, which has a registered trademark for the iPod brand, has written to Mach 5 Products, which manufactures the Profit Pod, a data collection device for vending machines, and TightPod, which builds laptop protection covers.

Apple's concerns might be more valid, but nevertheless it's a good opportunity for me to post this from b3ta.com's If Apple Made Everything competition:

Heh.

LOOK WHO'S WATCHING

2006-08-17T00:54:00.000Z

And look where they dropped in from.

Should we be wearing our Sunday best?

TRUTH MATTERS

2006-08-16T14:50:00.000Z

Looking for a round-up of the mounting evidence against Green Helmet Guy and his role in staging news from Lebanon, I came across a post over at EU Referendum - Why the Left is Worried.

(WARNING: Contains graphic images on its home page, should you click through.)

Belatedly, the Left is beginning to wake up to the danger of "Qanagate". But they're too late. They haven't even begun to realise how much evidence we already have, and how much more we have stashed away, ready to publish.

So far, the issue has been mainly the province of what are termed "right-wing" bloggers – such as our very own Little Green Footballs. And, to date, the stridency from the Left (not least in the hate-mail I have been receiving) has been focused on our critique as an example of pro-Israeli bias.

Only now that the cease-fire is in place in Lebanon (sort of) have they understood the real target – the liberal (not) media and its constant diet of lies and distortions in support of its favoured causes.

...

The point is that, while we all fight our separate battles, we all have a common enemy that protects our individual enemies – a lying, corrupt, wholly inadequate media. It does not just lie on the Middle East. It lies about affairs on the Beltway, in Whitehall and Brussels, and everywhere else that its malign presence is felt. So, when we see a weakness in the fortress walls, we should not go on hacking at our own little bit. We should all pile in and put our efforts into creating a breach. That's why we, with many others, "piled in" to Qanagate.

And that's why the Left is worried.

Perhaps someone should introduce him to the MediaLens obsessives - they too are convinced that we have "a common enemy that protects our individual enemies – a lying, corrupt, wholly inadequate media." Unfortunately, I'm sure the MediaLensers would conclude that because of their actions, it is the Right and right-wing media who are worried.

I'm unconvinced that poor journalism is exclusively the preserve of the Left or the Right - there are thousands of blogs devoted to fisking incompetent journalists from both camps.

The author is correct in that most of the work exposing Reuters and co has been done by right-wing bloggers and for this they should be applauded.

For those having trouble keeping up with all the fake, fake-but-accurate and accurate-but-fake-looking photos that have been doing the rounds, photoblogger Zombie has collated some of the more compelling examples of Reuters' shoddy journalism over the past few weeks.

Returning to the EU Referendum piece, if he weren't so keen to use examples of photoshopped or staged photographs to score political points by tarring the Left with the same broad brush, the author might have made a very valid point: that there are indeed certain sections of the Left to whom the term "truth" is wholly alien.

Considering the response of some to what can only only be described as Hezbollah propaganda dressed up as reporting called to mind a passage in Ophelia Benson and Jeremy Stangroom's "Why Truth Matters", a great book I read whilst on my travels a couple of weeks ago.

On the dangers of postmodernist thinking, they write:

There is a frivolity, a lack of responsibility, an indifference to canons of coherence, logic, rationality and relevance - which are reminiscent not of the Left or progressivism, but, as Richard Wolin argues, of counter-Enlightenment and reaction.

That is not an accidental association, it is what counter-Enlightenment and reaction are all about: the rejection of reason, enquiry, logic and evidence, in favour of tradition, religion, instinct, blood and soil, The Nation, The Fatherland. That is the sort of thing that remains standing once canons of coherence and relevance are stripped away. The Left is not well-advised to discredit or undermine reason and respect for truth, because those are ultimately the only tools the Left has against the irrationalist appeals of the Right.

Quite.

Despite past form, it was therefore encouraging to see Arianna Huffington congratulating Charles Johnson on CNN's Reliable Sources for his work exposing Reuters' photoshopper Adnan Hajj.

Too often I read apologists for dubious journalism using the "Fake, but accurate" line of defence. The lack of reaction from some on the Left to modified or staged photographs from Lebanon highlights how uncritical people can be when the "evidence" fits their preconception of how Israel behaves.

And not that the Right are immune from this way of thinking - similar excuses were made when stories of banks banning piggy banks to avoid offending Muslims were doing the rounds last year.

Noone with any sense is claiming that Qana never happened or that hundreds of civilians haven't died in Lebanon over the past month. It's just that some of us prefer our news to be news, rather than CrimeWatch reconstructions.

Truth matters.

SHAHID MALIK - RISING UP AGAINST EXTREMISM

2006-08-15T16:02:00.000Z

An interesting column in today's Times from Shahid Malik, Labour MP for Dewsbury - Why Muslims must rise up now and join the battle against extremism:

While being tough on terrorists, however, the Government should be flexible enough to listen to those who have genuine policy concerns. Today I, along with other Muslim MPs, will discuss with John Prescott some of the challenges ahead. The Prime Minister has also indicated that he is willing to meet those with concerns.

This is the way forward. Any British Muslims who are in disagreement with foreign policy must follow the path of others by exercising their right as citizens to influence policy through the established route: that is, by engaging in the political process.

In this world of indiscriminate terrorist bombings, where Muslims are just as likely to be victims of terrorism as other British and US citizens, we have an equal stake in fighting extremism. But more importantly, given that these acts are carried out in our name (Islam), we have a greater responsibility, not merely to condemn but to confront. As an MP for the constituency with the country’s highest BNP vote, I strongly believe that the BNP will only be defeated by white people taking leadership. Likewise, Muslims themselves must take the lead if we are to defeat the extremism within.

With the exception of a very few, mosques in Britain are extremely vigilant about who and what they allow on to their platforms. The greater danger is now posed in the virtual world, by the preachers of hatred accessible on the internet and based virtually anywhere, ever ready to prey on the angry and frustrated.

As I said to some 500 Muslims in a hall in Leeds on Saturday, a whole year on from the heinous acts of 7/7, the Muslim community has not yet risen to the challenge presented by extremism in its ranks. This was depressingly laid bare by a recent Times poll that stated that 13 per cent of British Muslims believed that the 7/7 attackers were martyrs.

What the man said.

Malik is spot on when he identifies the difficulties facing non-Muslims attempting to tackle the problem of extremism within Islam. This is a job that if, it is to be effective, has to be undertaken by British Muslims.

Of course, the support of non-Muslims is vital - without it moderates are stuck between a rock and a hard place - vilified by the extremists within their ranks and snubbed as potential terrorists by the rest of us.

It certainly doesn't help when supposed representatives of British Muslims write open letters to Tony Blair stating that if only our foreign policy were different we would not have the problem of extreme Islamists blowing up civilians. Islamist terrorism did not start with the Iraq War. Or the war in Afghanistan. The letter smacked of 37 heads in the sand and but one idea about how to tackle extremism amongst British Muslims. Thankfully, the signatories were told where to go rather swiftly.

It's not only Muslim representatives who are in denial. Malik highlights how rife conspiracy-mongering is within the British Muslim community. In addition, writing in yesterday's Times, Mary Ann Sieghart took a broad swipe at others she saw as in denial over terrorism, from journalists and their readers to Tony Blair himself.

And finally. Perhaps we're seeing a shift in focus, perhaps the regular editor was away, who knows. In all its entirety, here's the Observer's leader from last Sunday - These ludicrous lies about the West and Islam:

The first Islamist terrorist plot against New York's World Trade Centre was carried out on 26 February 1993 with a car bomb under one of the twin towers. It killed six people but failed in its aim of bringing the whole building down. To achieve that, another plot was hatched.

Meanwhile, British and American foreign policy was focused not on the Islamic world, but on the unstable transition of former communist countries to democracy. Twice during the Nineties, Nato launched military interventions in the Balkans, both aimed at protecting Muslim populations in Bosnia and Kosovo. What Middle East policy there was focused on diplomatic efforts, led by President Clinton, to negotiate lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

This was hardly a Western war against Islam. Britain and America spent much of the Nineties trying to prevent conflicts or to resolve them. At worst, as shamefully in Rwanda, they simply ignored them. They were transparently not running a conspiracy to trample the Muslim faithful underfoot. The people who depicted it that way were a tiny minority telling lies to justify murder.

But things have changed. The argument that terrorism is, in fact, a response to Western actions overseas has gained currency. It was voiced most recently on Saturday in an open letter by a number of influential British Muslim leaders to Tony Blair. The Prime Minister's policy in the Middle East, they said, puts British lives at risk. The implication is that the young Britons who last week were accused of plotting to blow up passenger planes in mid-air would have been less susceptible to al-Qaeda recruitment had Britain not fought wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Policy should be changed, they said, to avoid giving ideological 'ammunition to extremists'.

There is indeed a plausible argument that military action in recent years has made Britain less, not more, secure. In particular, the conduct of the war in Iraq, regardless of the virtues of removing Saddam Hussein from office, has been riddled with error. The absence of weapons of mass destruction, removal of which was the premise for war, has undermined trust in the Prime Minister. Meanwhile, engagement in Iraq has made it harder to secure victory in Afghanistan, where the anti-terror justification for war was rock solid.

But even within the bleakest possible analysis of Mr Blair's foreign policy, it is still simply not true that the West is waging war on Islam. Just as it is not true that the CIA was really behind the 11 September attacks or any other arrant conspiratorial nonsense that enjoys widespread credence in the Middle East and beyond. It is also a logical and moral absurdity to imply, as some critics of British policy have done, that mass murder is somehow less atrocious when it is motivated by an elaborate narrative of political grievance.

If young British Muslims are alienated, that is sad and their anger should be addressed. But anyone whose alienation leads them to want to kill indiscriminately has crossed a line into psychopathic criminality. Policy cannot be dictated by the need to placate such people.

British Muslim leaders are entitled, along with everybody else, to raise questions about the conduct and consequences of Mr Blair's foreign policy. But they have a more immediate responsibility to promote the truth: that Britain is not the aggressor in a war against Islam; that no such war exists; that there is no glory in murder dressed as martyrdom and that terrorism is never excused by bogus accounts of historical victimisation.

Hear hear.

And if it's denial you're after, a hop skip and a jump through the Comments section of that article ought to provide more than plenty.

TIME TO BE RIGHTEOUS

2006-08-14T15:08:00.000Z

Ceasefire or fay knights? We'll see.

Meanwhile, Mustapha from Beirut Spring makes some good points today:

Time To Be Righteous

The time is right for liberal forces in Lebanon to speak with force and belief.

Before July 12, the debate between Hezbollah and the rest of the Lebanese had a classic pattern: When a Lebanese party reproaches Hezbollah for their weapons, they respond with a barrage of intimidation, bullying and self-righteousness. “How dare you question us?” “You sound exactly like the Israelis,” “Who are you to judge us?” sweetened with an assurance that the weapons are only for deterrence and will only be used against the “Zionist enemy,” followed by veiled (and not so veiled) threats: “we shall cut the limbs and heads of those who will try to disarm us and pull their souls out of their bodies”

The problem was not Hezbollah’s responses per say. The problem was the fact that a lot of Lebanese (mainly the Sunnis) actually felt a hint of shame for criticizing a force that appeals so much to populist Arab public opinion. Especially if you watch Aljazeera and the way they insinuate that the Lebanese who don’t support Hezbollah serve the interests of Israel.

At this junction, we need to be more righteous than Hezbollah, because our cause is, in fact, more just.

We should cast aside the shame we feel every time we pressure Hezbollah. We should have an internalized belief that our cause is righter than theirs. Our dream of a prosperous, pluralist, democratic Lebanon is much worthier than their narrow-minded medieval dream of an Islamic resurrection; our culture of life trumps their culture of death and martyrdom. A mother bragging about her son being a doctor is better than a mother bragging that her children are all “martyrs”

We should have an internal belief that modern wars are fought economically, by competing in production and innovation. A prosperous, plural Lebanon is a stronger foe than a militant, xenophobic Lebanon. Prosperity is about uniting families by preventing immigration. It’s about dignity. It’s about prestige and influence. A militant Lebanon will only create destitute, wretched and scattered about citizens who feed off other people’s charities.

When we argue with Hezbollah, we should be firm in our beliefs: We are right. They are wrong.

Also worth a look today: Michael Totten and Lisa Goldman.

SADDAM'S ROAD TO HELL

2006-08-14T14:40:00.000Z

Currently being plugged over at the Euston Manifesto website:

Private Screening: Saddam's Road To Hell

There will be a screening of Saddam's Road To Hell at 7:30pm on Wednesday 30 August 2006 will be followed by a Q&A with filmmaker Gwynne Roberts, interviewed here.

It will take place at the Frontline Forum,
Frontline Club,
13 Norfolk Place,
London.
W2 1QJ

Rate at the gate: £5.

British filmmaker Gwynne Roberts was the first Western TV journalist to interview Osama Bin Laden "and the first Western journalist to enter northern Iraq after the Gulf War. His unequalled access to the Kurdish leadership has resulted in a number of groundbreaking films, including The Road Back To Hell, Kurdistan, The Dream Betrayed, and Saddam's Secret Army. His films have twice been featured on 60 Minutes." (PBS).

From the Frontline Club's website:

Veteran filmmaker Gwynne Roberts and a team of investigators set off on a journey across Iraq to find out what exactly happened to 8,000 Kurdish men and boys who went missing in the early years of Saddam's rule.

The team of investigators led by the Kurdish minister for human rights, Dr Mohammed Ihsan, are trying to establish forensic proof of Saddam's guilt in the 1983 disappearance of Barzani Kurds following their decision to side with Iran against Iraq in the 1980s.

Saddam's butchering of the Kurds has left many in this mountainous part of Iraq in mourning, not knowing what happened to their loved ones.

The experiences of the investigators range from a suicide bombing of Kurds waiting in line to join the police force that resulted in 70 fatalities to the discovery of three mass graves.

See you there.

LOCAL LADS

2006-08-11T15:47:00.000Z

F*ck me.

9 of the 19 terror suspects whose bank accounts have just been frozen come from my manor.

I wondered what all those bangs were in the night.

It might be worth me picking up a copy of the local rag - now there's a first.

PLOTS AND SEMANTICS

2006-08-11T03:09:00.000Z

Reality-challenged community torn between:

The thwarted U.K. plot
was legit. 681 votes - 51 %

was more drama from BushCo to keep us all afraid. 633 votes - 48 %

Let's see how that one pans out.

Have just been listening to BBC Radio 5 Live and Dotun Adebayo stated that when we speak of suicide bombers who happen to be Muslim we ought not to mention their religion.

Fair enough. "Islamic suicide bomber" is a no-go then.

But I think we ought to at least come up with an alternative to describe people who read the Quran a lot, pray to Mecca, follow the teachings of imams who are considered extremist by most Muslims and non-Muslims alike, believe America and Israel to be the Great Satan and cry "Allahu Akbar!" before blowing themselves up hoping to kill others, often civilians, in the process.

"Islamofascist suicide bombers" is a bit of a mouthful but describes the character of the kind of person who blows themselves up on a bus quite nicely. But no. Prominent Stopper Salma Yaqoob of RESPECT doesn't like the word "fascist" associated with radical Islam.

In the comments, Tomahawk lived up to his name:

Islamism isn't like fascism? Just exchange the Ummah for the volk, the Caliphate for the Reich, and believers for Aryans. We find the same hatred of Jews; the same glorification of political violence; the same murderous opposition to democracy; the same assaults on freedom of speech; the same self-pitying victimology and grievance-mongering; the same sentimental anti-rationalism; the same persecution of gays; the same desire to see women in a purely domestic role; and the same lower-middle-class social base. European fascism was racially-based, whereas Islamic fascism is religious. That's the only difference between these two types of totalitarianism.

It's no wonder Salma Yaqoob is having a hissy fit -- her ideological bedfellows are being exposed for what they are.

Ouch.

However, she seems to claim that her version of radical Islam is not Islamism so perhaps "Islamist suicide-bombers" is a go-er. But what about those who want to see the Caliphate restored, perhaps violently, to its former glory but draw the line at suicide bombing and would be just as offended and at risk of a backlash were we to use the word "Islamist" in this way? Well they can go f*ck themselves.

Yaqoob writes:

I have publicly and actively condemned terrorism, whether state sponsored or committed in the name of Islam. I vociferously defend the rights of Muslim women who choose not to wear the hijab and openly tackle reactionary cultural practices within some sections of our community. I also object to any kind of totalitarian state - whether left, right or religious.

If all that is true, what on Earth is she doing hanging out with Gorgeous and Tamimi, two men whose record on these issues can at best be described as piss-poor?

If you've not come across Sally Jacobs before, skim the Cif comments thread for the occasional tidbit amongst the dross and make your own mind up.

FAKE BUT ACCURATE

2006-08-11T02:22:00.000Z

Spotted these. Quite topical.

Hak's going into the student demonstration business:

Her prospects are looking pretty good.

Meanwhile, whilst I was commenting on the man's side-parting, someone visited Will from a random Google Image Search for... Well. Check the image name if you're desperate to find out.

Either way, they'll have hit this:

A nice coincidence and it hits the nail on the nod.

And here's the original shot of the picture Reuters stringer Adnan Hajj decided to photoshop:

There's still something about the smoke that doesn't quite ring true but I can't quite put my finger on it.

CHEERS

2006-08-11T00:18:00.000Z

Personal post time.

I'm now a happily married Mr Dan ML.

Thanks to everyone who sent kind wishes, regards and the like over the past few weeks. I really appreciate that.

For those that didn't find Doughnut Boy Andy's remarks in the comments, the stag do was a bit of a classic - music and dancing and drinking and climbing through far too many stupidly small holes in the middle of nowhere. And reclaiming stolen items of clothing from associates in pub car parks dressed only in boxers by means of threats delivered in association with an eight foot long toilet brush.

The wedding was a bit of a wash-out. Literally. Storm + Norman church = flooded interior, every guest drenched head to toe, roads blocked requiring emergency assistance from old dears and a lightning strike that blew the electric meaning the organ died. Hence no music for my better half to walk in to. We did our best to sing instead. Being forced to have a candle-lit service was a little unexpected, but rather nice if the truth be told.

The reception was a bit of a blur but people seemed to enjoy themselves and each other, some more so than others shall we say.

As DBA pointed out, the honeymoon is traditional a private affair. Although I will say that we did somehow manage to get our car blessed in a rather odd procession, find a village populated by straw men and watch some sort of chariot racing round the local hippodrome in the same day. Quite an achievement.

Right. Back with the programme.

ANOTHER HP FLOATER REARS HIS TURTLE'S HEAD

2006-08-10T12:20:00.000Z

On the subject of Floaters, I see Sonic took Benji's place as U-Bend Denier last night.

At the time of writing I hadn't spotted any "Comedy Gold!!!" but who knows what the future may bring?

The pair of them remind me of mozzie or midge bites. You can scratch all you like hoping the itch will go away but it only gets worse.

Despite the temptation, almost certainly best left alone - the bites only get swollen with pus, as do the comments threads.

Perhaps we need the internet equivalent of this:

Wastemen.

WHY IS THIS MAN WRITING FOR THE GUARDIAN?

2006-08-10T02:50:00.001Z

I'd missed this one the first time around. From earlier in the year, here's Guardian columnist Azzam Tamimi preaching moderation on the issue of Jerusalem, Israel and Palestine:

Choice quotes for the hard of hearing or those whose bosses might not appreciate them belting out Islamists rants whilst at work:

Those who resist, those who fight, put up a Jihad against racism, against Zionism, are the true representatives of the Palestinians and all the Muslims regarding the Palestinian issue.

...

Israel is a menace, is a threat to humanity!

...

They [Bush and Blair] are worried that this spoilt baby of theirs [Israel] is about to be thrown out of this human body of ours! [Nicely put.]

You count my words! And you remember these words! It's a matter of time.

As they withdrew from South Lebanon due to the great jihad of Hezbollah and as they withdrew from Gaza due to the great jihad of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, this black chapter in the history of humanity will eventually come to an end.

And we say we are willing to bring it to an end peacefully.

But if they don't want peace, we have another language. We have another language and we have every right to use that language!

And time will tell and history will tell.

Allahu akbar!

Well that's one less Christmas card I'll be sending this year.

If that's Trafalgar Square, funny how they got away with displaying the Iranian flag. The March for Free Expression organisers were told demonstrators were barred by law from holding Danish (or indeed any other) flags aloft. Hmmm.

And speaking of true representatives, other than being a terrorist shill, who exactly does this man represent?

SAME OLD, SAME OLD

2006-08-10T02:27:00.000Z

It's good to be back.

Well actually, no, it's pretty poor actually. I'm back at work, there's another war going on and my lifetime of married bliss will now be accompanied by a lifetime of crusty lips having been generously donated the herpes virus by some f*cker I paid to eat and be merry at my wedding a fortnight ago. Not that I'm bitter.

But wars and cold sores aside, good to see that some things never change.

Whilst I was away in the land of Calvados, the Drink-Soaked Trots continued to churn out quality articles, throwing my plan to cut down on blogging once I got back well and truly out of the window. Ba$tards.

Elsewhere, Michael Ignatieff wrote another well-considered piece on the role Canada could play in the current crisis whilst Eric Lee seems to have given a good account of his reasons why the Left should be supporting Israel in his debate with the AWL's Sean Matgamna (transcript here - although it would be interesting to hear Matgamna's side of the story as well).

With the escalation of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, Terry Glavin found it "hard to tell the fascists from the pacifists". I had the same problem looking at these photos from the ~~pro-Hezbollah~~ anti-war march held in London last weekend:

Perhaps not unexpectedly, the usual suspects came out in full support of the fascists, from the Gorgeous One ("I glorify the Hizbollah national resistance movement, and I glorify the leader of Hizbollah, Sheikh Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.") to the Not-So-Gorgeous-But-Trying-His-Hardest (you wouldn't catch George with a side-parting like that, it’s everso Weimar Republic) over at Lenin's Tomb who now proudly displays a Hezbollah flag on his website. You certainly can't accuse them of not flying their true colours. Cnuts.

Guardian columnist Azzam Tamimi (the one they always forget to tell you was/is an MAB rep) also got in on the act, but ended up praising the wrong bunch of thugs, instead using his spot at the London Stopper Rally to give a pro-Hamas rant (video here). "Special Envoy" indeed.

More recently, Harold Evans' criticism of the "We Are All Hezbollah Now" mind-set for Comment is Free predictably brought the loons out to froth. I'm afraid I don't subscribe to the "It's all a storm in a tea-cup, that was only one banner!" line - these were mass-produced placards and you can see plenty of them on display here.

Interestingly, the second website at the bottom of the placard is for what at first sounds like a reasonable organisation - the Islamic Human Rights Commission. As it turns out, they're the same outfit who run the "Islamophobe of the Year" competetion. Last year's nominees included Oprah Winfrey.

They're currently upset the Mail on Sunday and the Sun accused them of supporting terrorism, claiming "Neither Mr. Shadjareh or IHRC have advocated or supported terrorism". But doesn't their more recent action of producing and distributing placards stating "We Are All Hizbullah" for the rally on the 5th August not totally destroy their defence? It'd be hard to find a better example of Islamist doublespeak.

Feeling a little left out of the media spotlight, Hugo Chavez decided the best way to raise his comedy villain profile was a trip to see Lukashenko’s model social state of Belarus. He’s rapidly running out of dictators to hang out with although I’m not sure he’s made it to Turkmenistan just yet. I’m sure Niyazov could give him a few ideas.

Over at HP, Harry went back to the old school and dipped into his extensive back catalogue.

So too it would seem did Harry’s Place Floater Benjamin. This thread is a particlarly fine example: a dig at Harry, snide remarks about “Decents”, a swipe at the Euston Manifesto and a few dashings of “old boy” and “comedy” thrown in for good measure. Did Harry really edit Benji’s post of 01:35 AM? Or was “That’s enough Monty Python – Ed.” simply Benjamin trying to hold a conversation with himself to cover the lack of attention he so desperately craves? We may never know.

Finally, once again the folk out East showed the rest of us how it should be done, got off their arses and organised two demos in the space of a week:

(More photos here.)

Perhaps the British Left could do with taking a few leaves out of their book, starting with organising a counter-demonstration to the Al-Quds March in London later this year. Volunteers welcomed.

Anyhow, that’ll do for now. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose as they say.

OFF

2006-07-23T18:45:00.000Z

Stag do.

Wedding.

Now honeymoon.

Back August 7th at the earliest.

Cheers.

NORM AND NICK TAKE ON FRONT PAGE MAGAZINE

2006-07-13T14:32:00.000Z

A Front Page interview about the Euston Manifesto turns into an exercise of four people talking past each other.

Draw your own conclusions but it strikes me as a wasted effort. Horowitz and Glazov seem convinced the Left has consistently attacked liberal democracy, whilst Cohen and Geras disagree.

A real shame, as by the end of the interview, readers will have no better idea about the Manifesto.

The following two comments sum up the exchange rather well:

Horowitz: Well, I guess through leftist lenses every good thing looks red.

and the counter:

Geras: [Y]ou simply recycle the same thought from which both you and Jamie started: namely, that the left is a kind of monolith of badnesses of various kinds, and it's puzzling why we should want to be "part" of this, be "engaging" with it, be "identifying" with it. The thing becomes easier to grasp once you see that, like the right, the left is not in fact a monolith; there is variety within it and there always has been.

A pity that instead of engaging Cohen and Geras on the content of the Manifesto and where it differs from their Rightist standpoint, Horowitz and Glazov preferred to focus on severe errors of judgment from Leftists in the past. Cohen and Geras both acknowledge how disgusting it is that supposed Leftists defend tyrants and dictators and how such views ought to be incompatible with Leftist thought. The interviewers give the impression that such views are inherent to the Left, which is simply untrue.

Certainly, the 20th century saw all kinds of unholy alliances. For current Leftists to be held responsible for the filthy allegiances of the past makes little sense - one might as well pose a similar question to Horowitz and Glazov as to why they feel the urge to belong to a movement that has previously aligned itself with fascists and dictatorships under the guise of realpolitik. It would be nonsense to tar all conservatives with the same brush.

Nick Cohen sums up this "debate" rather well:

I have never been a part of the totalitarian Left, and I'm not at all clear why you say that I have with such confidence. Suppose I were to assert that you were a part of the Nazi or Ku Klux Klan tradition, and you were to reply that you were no such thing. Suppose I were to insist that you were on the basis of no evidence whatsoever, to display a near total ignorance of all the democratic strands on the American Right and to keep repeating the same charge without substantiation or modification.

I suspect you would feel you were debating with a man who was ever so slightly unhinged and give up.

I give up.

A missed opportunity there, Front Page.

LONDON EUSTON GROUP MEET-UP

2006-07-13T14:05:00.000Z

The London Euston Group is holding a meeting: "The Other Iraq: Trade Unions and Democracy in the New Iraq"---on Tuesday 18th July at 7.30pm at Waterloo, London.

Speakers at the meeting will include Gary Kent, Director of Labour Friends of Iraq (in a personal capacity) who recently led a soldarity delegation to Iraq, and Alan Johnson, co-author with Abdullah Muhsin of Hadi Never Died: Hadi Saleh and the Iraqi Trade Unions, just published by the TUC. There will be lots of time for questions and discussion.

Come along if you are interested in the under-reported story of Iraqi reconstruction and the role that the Iraqi trade union movement has in building the new Iraq.

Please email londoneuston {at} googlemail.com to confirm your attendance and so you can be sent directions.

Sadly, Abdullah Muhsin is unable to make the meeting. To make up for it, here's his address to the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) World Peace Forum, delivered a couple of weeks ago.

ONE DARWIN AWARD, ONE COUNTRY HEADING FURTHER UP SH1T CREEK

2006-07-11T15:53:00.000Z

Shan't be losing any sleep over this one - Warlord behind Beslan siege is killed in 'Russian revenge attack':

Shamil Basayev, the Chechen rebel leader behind the Beslan school siege and dozens of other terrorist attacks, was killed yesterday when a truck packed with explosives blew up next to his car.

A Chechen rebel website confirmed a claim by the Russian Government that Basayev was dead — a massive victory for President Putin four days before the G8 summit in St Petersburg.

But a statement on the site insisted that Russia’s most wanted man was killed by an accidental explosion, not in a special forces operation as Russian officials had claimed.

“There was no special operation. Shamil and other brothers of ours became martyrs by the will of Allah,” it quoted Abu Umar, of the rebel parliament’s military committee, as saying. “The Chechen commander died when a truck loaded with explosives accidentally blew up.”

Is it really less embarrassing to be blown up by your own side's explosives than to be taken out by Russian special forces? A Darwin award by proxy.

Meanwhile, things are looking even less rosy in Somalia:

Hundreds of fighters who were battling Somalia's Islamic militia in the capital surrendered early Tuesday after a surge of violence that killed more than 70 people and wounded 150 since Sunday, officials said.

The fighters, loyal to secular warlord Abdi Awale Qaybdiid, turned over their arms and pickup trucks mounted with heavy weapons to the Islamic militia, top Islamic commanders said. The whereabouts of Qaybdiid were not immediately clear.

The people of Somalia are stuck between a rock and a hard place. What would you rather? Warlords or Islamic officials who state:

"The war was inevitable because nobody can have authority in the city beyond the Islamic courts," Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, a top Islamic official, said Monday.

In case you missed the story of a few days ago, this particular implementation of Islam is strictly of the "Fun Is For Infidels" variety:

The militia has forbidden movies, television and music. Last week, militiamen in central Somalia fatally shot two people at the screening of a World Cup soccer broadcast banned because it violated the fighters' strict interpretation of Islamic law. They also broke up a wedding because it featured a band, and men and women socializing together.

But there is some justice in the world after all:

The Islamic group that controls Somalia's capital arrested two of its own militiamen for killing two people who were watching a World Cup soccer match, the group's leader said Thursday.

The two detained militiamen allegedly shot a teenage girl and a businessman who defied their orders to stop watching the match between Italy and Germany on Tuesday.

The increasingly powerful Islamic group has forbidden some Somalis from watching television or movies, in line with its strict interpretation of Islam.

But its leader, Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, whom U.S. officials have branded a terrorist, said the group has not officially banned television or movies.

The fighters will be charged with manslaughter under Islamic law, and punishment could include demands from the victims' families for compensation.

Well that's all right then.

And check this for double-speak:

The Islamic group said peacekeepers may have been needed in the past, but not now. It said the question of sending in foreign troops should "be left for the Somalis to discuss."

Meanwhile, a recruiting video issued by the group's members and obtained by The Associated Press this week shows Arab radicals fighting alongside the local extremists in Mogadishu. It invites Muslims from around the world to join in their "holy jihad."

That'll be the same bunch who claim:

"We believe that alien forces are both unnecessary and counterproductive," the council said in a statement distributed to the visitors. "The Somali problem is a political one, and cannot be resolved by military means."

Uh-huh.

THANK GOD IT'S OVER

2006-07-10T13:38:00.000Z

So that's that then. What began as a fascinating tournament fizzled out due to a cocktail of incredibly negative tactics, an embarrassing amount of diving and some pretty poor sportsmanship.

It's been a competetion that will be remembered for the mistakes. Managers forgetting to include fit strikers in their squad or taking off their most inventive players before conceding an equaliser and having to play extra-time without the benefit of their creativity. Two decisions that left two nations wondering "What if?"

Of course, it wasn't just the managers. Plenty of players got it wrong too. Zidane and Rooney are obvious examples but it went much further than that. At least when those two were on the pitch they were occasionally doing their job.

A bunch of players we were expecting wonders from never turned up: Ronaldinho, Shevchenko, Lampard, Pauleta, Gerrard, van Nistelrooy, Ibrahimovich all spring to mind. Even though he broke the World Cup goal-scoring record, we'll remember Ronaldo more for his size than for anything he did with the ball.

And the gamesmanship and the diving... Even Thierry Henry got in on the act. No wonder the referees made so many glaring errors, although none so funny as our man Graham Poll giving Simunic three yellow cards and the Croat's outrage at being sent off knowing full well he shouldn't have been on the pitch...

The pundits were pretty atrocious too, the ITV anchor referring to the Italians as "Eye-Ties" deserving a special mention. David Pleat did his usual job of mangling the names of anyone playing for a team other than England whilst Ian Wright did his usual job of providing the same incisive input as you might get from the resident drunk down your local. Presumably this was for the benefit of those watching on their own without a local with a resident drunk to hang out with.

Mark Lawrenceson and John Motson were as painful to listen to as ever. Exhibit A:

Motty: Makelele's like an iron out there. Removing all the wrinkles.

Lawro: Yep. He's never pressed.

20 million viewers: How much of our licence fee is paying for this sh1te?

It almost had me yearning for German-style commentary which is rather minimalist to say the least.

The fact that six times as many people watched the BBC's coverage of the final compared to ITV's just goes to show how awful the ITV team were. One can only wonder how many people did the sensible thing, turned the telly to mute and pumped up Alan Green and Co. on Five Live...

Perhaps feeling left out, even FIFA managed to get things badly wrong in the end. The Golden ~~Butt~~ ~~Boot~~ Ball went to Zidane:

A nice way to end your career, in disgrace in front of a billion people. Quite how the Golden ~~Boot~~ Ball could go to a player who only showed up for three games is beyond me. [Edit - this isn't just FIFA's fault. They only drew up the shortlist which the media voted on.]

And their young player of the tournament award went to ~~diving whiner~~ bastion of fair-play, Germany's Podolski, shown here congratulating the smuggest referee I think I've ever seen after Sweden's Lucic was dismissed for a second bookable offence:

It could have been worse. The runner-up? Christiano Ronaldo.

FIFA sure know how to reward honesty, fair-play and the like.

The team who won? I hear they're good at penalties:

It seems an age ago that we were drooling over the quality of the matches and the never-say-die attitude of most of the teams during the group stage.

At the time, the Switzerland-Ukraine game seemed to be an aberration, but within days the fear on display that evening had infected everybody else.

The one team to actually bother with full-out attack seemed to be the Germans, presumably because it took the pressure away from their supposedly ramshackle defence. How cruel that this positive approach was trumped in the dying seconds of extra time by the Italians' fear of taking them on at penalties.

Overall, pretty disappointing. The team playing the best football went out due to their manager losing his bottle and the team playing some of the dullest football won on penalties.

To make up for it, these five goals ought to wake up those who found themselves nodding off during last night's dreary encounter, a reminder of when this tournament was interesting.

And if they don't do the trick, here's the alternative final, courtesy of Ten German Bombers.

More round-ups here and here.

FORGIVE? FORGET?

2006-07-07T02:20:00.000Z

Fùck off.

Two minutes silence at 12:00, people.

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?

2006-07-07T01:18:00.000Z

Lots has happened whilst I've been away, the kidnap of Gilad Shalit being one of the major stories.

Good to see our media being as fair and balanced as I've come to expect. Hat-tip to Snoopy for drawing my attention to Channel 4's Jon Snow, proving just how clueless he really is: (via Shlemazi):

Well, rockets are pretty pathetic things. Nobody gets injured, they are homemade, and you well know they have nothing much stronger than an AK-47: no RPGs, they have no weapons and you are delivering some of the most sophisticated bombardment that has ever been subjected to a defenseless people. Is it an act of terror would you say?

He's not the only doofus in town.

I noticed this today, but once again got beaten to the knock-out punch by the same man:

Blooper of the week award goes to no other than Jonathan Steele for the following passage from the article "Europe's response to the siege of Gaza is shameful":
Finally, Israel must renounce violence, in particular the assassinations of Palestinian leaders. The number of civilians killed in these attacks this year alone far exceeds the number of Israeli victims since Hamas declared its ceasefire last year. The facts do not support the notion that Israel is "retaliating" to provocations.
To repeat: "far exceeds the number of Israeli victims since Hamas declared its ceasefire last year". How do you like that "victims of a ceasefire"? If you know how to solve this moronic quandary, your desk [at the] Guardian is waiting for you.

There is much more where it comes from, but this should be sufficient to show the true colors of Mr Steele.

Let me know the brand of bottled water Snow and Steele drink - I'm not touching it with a bargepole.

Other lunacy of late includes (from the Sun of all places) the head of Al Grrr!abaa, Anjem Choudhury losing his rag over 7/7:

Choudary, 38, right-hand man of exiled hate preacher Omar Bakri, repeatedly refused to condemn the 7/7 bombers at a press conference on the eve of the anniversary of the London blasts.

But when asked if he would inform the police of another suicide mission he said in Walthamstow, East London: “No I wouldn’t. I don’t think Muslims can co-operate with police.”

Then Choudary warned Britain faced CIVIL WAR with its 1.6million-strong Muslim community.

He said: “We are reaching a situation where the Muslim community is increasingly under siege.

“I’m afraid of a Bosnia or Kosovo-style reality here in Great Britain.”

Choudary’s rant came a day after he was fined for organising protests over cartoons about the prophet Mohammed.

For those not up to date with one of the grimmest Muslim sects around, a visit to their website might not be a bad plan.

From the letters page we learn:

The 'stories' of plunder and killing in Darfur are exaggerations and propaganda of extraordinary proportions, there is far more occurring on the doorsteps of the Americans and Europe than the Americans claim, second of all these 'stories' have been narrated by Kuffar who Allah declared that they are liars, moreover, they have come from the sections of the Kuffar (i.e. the media) who are known liars and fabricators even among their own people! So why should we believe accusations about any Muslims? Allah (swt) says,

“When there comes to them some matter touching (Public) safety or fear, they divulge it. If they had only referred it to the Messenger, or to those charged with authority among them, the proper investigators would have Tested it from them (direct). Were it not for the Grace and Mercy of Allah unto you, all but a few of you would have fallen into the clutches of Satan.” [EMQ 4: 83]

and Allah (swt) says,

“Why do not the believing men and women, whenever such [a rumour] is heard, think the best of one another and say, “This is an obvious falsehood”?” [EMQ 24:12]

Furthermore, regardless of the happenings in Darfur , even if they were true, it is not the place of thugs and gangsters from America and the UN to enter into Sudan with their weapons and occupy any Muslim lands. Indeed it is Haram in Islam to allow any of the enemies of Islam to enter with their armies into the Muslim lands and to help them in that is Kufr Akbar. Let alone to allow them to enter with missionary organisations and fight and kill Muslims and force others to their religion.

Finally we should remember the words of Allah (swt) forbidding us to trust the Kuffar, or to believe them when they claim to seek good or salvation for the Muslims, rather they want only suffering and destruction for us.

Abdul Ilaah
Webteam
www.alghurabaa.co.uk

This courtesy of the same team who describe Jabron Hashmi as an apostate traitor to Islam and professional terrorist.

If this lot had their way, it wouldn't only be us filthy kuffar with things to worry about - I'd wager the vast majority of British Muslims would also fall foul of their purity test.

Make of their most recent leaflet what you will - the fatalism contained within is rather disturbing:

With the anniversary of 7/7 only hours away, it seems all the loons have come out to play.

Feel free to post links to additional idiocy in the comments.

BACK TO LIFE

2006-07-06T14:14:00.000Z

[Switches blog-lever to ON]

Am back from Berlin.

Actually, I got back last week but found my computer had forgotten my Blogger password. I can't really complain about my PC's stupidity as it turns out I'd managed to do the same. And the account I'd registered this blog in had become 'deactivated' due to lack of use. Thank God for scraps of paper left lying around bedrooms, eh?

[Memo to self: obscure passwords - good for security, bad for guessing when you've only ever typed them in twice...]

Anyhow.

My World Cup trip was amazing. For various reasons it's all still a bit of a blur (the alien abduction complete with mind-washing didn't help much either), but I owe a Big Thank You to the Doughnut Boy for his incredibly kind hospitality, allowing us Britishers to take up semi-permanent residence in his spare room.

Highlights from the trip included being at the Mexico-Argentina game where I saw the goal of the tournament:

and was mistaken for Pete Doherty:

(Hint: I look nothing like him but decided a daft pin-striped porkpie hat was a better choice for a ~~skinny~~ muscular liberal than a sombrero)

We also found that German kebabs are to English doners as caviar is to crab-paste, and this fine brew:

can be drunk in 35 degrees heat without causing a hangover.

Much fun was had doing our level best not to watch one of the worst games I've ever seen (Switzerland-Ukraine) in a converted swimming pool in East Berlin.

No, not that swimming pool:

It wasn't all work, work, work.

I met a fair number of top anti-Germans, each of whom had unique takes on the Euston Manifesto, some going as far as describing it as "the most important thing to happen to the Left for the past decade" - quite a nice surprise that.

Unfortunately my German is pretty ropey to say the least ("Frank ist krank" and "Schaisser, Ich bin schwanger" being about the sum of my knowledge) so we'll have to wait for a bit until a kind soul can translate the critiques I'm supposedly being sent.

I also met a top man who runs a blog by the name of Jim Hancot. Him and Doughnut Boy Andy were heavily involved in organising the annual AFFI cup - an anti-fascist football tournament with teams from all over the shop. Sadly it was played in intense heat so I missed almost all of it, instead seeking refuge (and catching England-Ecuador) at the impressive fan mile:

where the England fans were singing what everyone back home was no doubt thinking ("We're Shi*, But We're Wi-i-nning") and providing unexpected entertainment for bemused onlookers by dancing like Peter Crouch far more often than perhaps they ought.

On the down side: every train I caught was delayed, we were confronted by a Polish nutter who decided to shake our hands because he had "respect for the English hooligans" (and refused to leave us alone despite vomiting all over our table, so we did instead) and our party became somewhat addicted to the mighty MAOAM:

I'm not even going to mention the abomination that was the Lion Bar cereal. Oops.

But other than that it was a great trip. Football, beer, music and politics.

Top banana.

FREE RENE

2006-06-21T01:47:00.000Z

Dark news from Doughnut Boy Andy - his mate's been banged up in Poland for attending a gay march:

Participants of Saturday’s many thousand strong “Parade for sexual Equality” in Warsaw were arrested and held in Polish jails. One of them, Rene from Berlin, is still being held. “Queer Berlin”, an alliance of different initiatives and projects, is calling for the immediate release of those arrested and calls for the charges and enquiries to be dropped.

During the finishing speeches on Saturday afternoon the situation escalated as the demonstration was attacked from neo-nazis and ultra conservatives, who had attempted throughout to disrupt the peaceful manifestation. Despite a force of 2000 police, officials did not see themselves able to stop an encroachment of the right-wingers or to stop attacks and provocation. What followed was that those attempting to disrupt the non-violent parade managed continually to provoke and attack the demonstration. They succeeded time after time to hold up banners with nauseating homophobic slogans directly along the demonstration route, crying out sexist chants. The demonstration participants were attacked with eggs and even stones.

At the close of the demonstration the police moved in and indiscriminately pulled participants out of the parade and arrested them. 24-year-old Rene K from Berlin was among those arrested. He was part of a group from Berlin invited over to Poland by Polish groups taking part in the event. Rene was beaten down by police during the closing speeches and subsequently arrested. His travelling companions attempted everything possible to find out from the police the reasons for his arrest. When still on the following day no information had come from the police as to why Rene was still being held, a Polish lawyer was arranged for him and the German embassy informed. Rene is being charged with resisting arrest. Why he was arrested in the first place is seemingly irrelevant for the Polish authorities that have still to this day not given a reason.

A spokesperson for the regional court responsible for the case has added to the confusion by describing Rene as “far-right” when talking to journalists and accused Rene of attacking the very parade that he was invited to take part in. Whether his false statements were made through ignorance or to confuse the situation is not known. Rene is the only participant in the parade to be still held in jail.

The actions of the district public prosecution authority are also worth noting in Rene’s case. In contrast to the normal procedure, they firstly informed the German embassy of the Berlin resident’s arrest themselves. A custodial judge then decided that Rene should stay in prison on remand awaiting developments without being given the possibility of requesting a lawyer and legal assistance.

The German embassy in Warsaw’s reaction has also been disgracefully limited, although they were well informed of the case. Despite the failures by the prosecuting authority and custodial judge to follow standard legal procedures against a participant of a peaceful demonstration, the German representatives did not step in during the procedure, although it is their job to do so.

In the meantime a solidarity group “Queer Berlin” has formed to campaign for the release of Rene, working in close cooperation with groups in Poland. In order to be able to continue our solidarity work effectively we will need a lot financial help in order to pay for legal costs and legal observation. Any donation you could make to the following account would help us enormously and be highly appreciated.

Receiver: Rote Hilfe Berlin
Account number: 7189590600
Sorting Code: 10020000
Keyword: Warsaw

For those in or around Berlin there is a solidarity stand planned for Friday the 23rd of June 2006, 3 PM, outside the Polish Embassy. This is at Lassenstrasse 19-21, Berlin-Grunewald (S-Bahn. Grunewald, M19 to Hasensprung). Please come and show your support for Rene and the other peaceful demonstrators arrested in Warsaw.

For those not in Berlin there are other ways of showing solidarity in addition to donating towards legal costs. Please write to your nearest Polish and German embassies, as well as representatives from the press, and inform them of Rene’s case and your opinions and concerns.

Solidarity Group "QueerBerlin"
Tel.: Germany (0049) 0163 388 1037
Mail: warschau_soli@blacksec.org
www.queerberlin.tk

And here's my bit, for what it's worth:

Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany
23 Belgrave Square
London
SW1X 8PZ

Tel. 020 7824 1300
Fax. 020 7824 1449
E-Mail: consular@german-embassy.org.uk

and

Ambasada Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej
47 Portland Place
Londyn W1B 1JH
Tel.: 0870 774 2700
Fax: 0207 291 3573
E-mail: polishembassy@polishembassy.org.uk

Let them know what you think. This is not clever.

HIRSH AND THE MOONBATS

2006-06-20T23:52:00.000Z

He's a sneaky one that Hirsh. Nothing for weeks, then he pops up and knocks a belter for six.

Some might say it's like shooting fish in a barrel, but judging by the comments on the Cif thread, there's some sickly bloaters out there that need putting out of their misery, quicksmart.

David's take:

In January the Chief Rabbi said that he feared that a "tsunami" of antisemitism was threatening to engulf parts of the world. Over-blown analogies detract from rather than illustrate a message and this is frequently true of discussions about anti-semitism and the Palestine-Israel conflict.

...

A producer from Radio 4 contacted me to ask if I would discuss the "tsunami" comments with Lerman but in the end they chose Melanie Phillips. This set up an easy debate for listeners to understand. On one side, Lerman, who is embarrassed by the fuss and who thinks that people wouldn't hate Jews if Israel behaved better, and on the other side Phillips, who argues that "The Arabs", armed with their essentially aggressive religion, have always been the aggressors against Israel because they want to wipe out the Jews.

This is also the framework in which the guardian's Jackie Ashley understands the "debate". In February Ashley uncritically scribbled up Livingstone's spin for the guardian, arguing that because he was elected then he could not be held to account for racist comments, calling the affair "darkly funny", repeating his straw-man defence that he is accused of antisemitism because he dares to criticise Israel, and doesn't he, after all, have a long record of opposing Nazis?

A nicely written essay that points out what to many of us is blindingly obvious: the two extremes of the debate (in this case Phillips and Ashley) are completely missing the point.

A brave move and one that was guaranteed to get the knuckle-draggers on both sides up in arms. Not that Hirsh didn't anticipate the response:

Do you think the antisemites will outnumber the Islamophobes on this thread or the other way round?

Tempting fate maybe, but the comments (hopefully these will not be removed by the Grauniad but I've saved them anyhow) certainly lived up to expectations.

Before you read the following comments, please remember that this is the blog for Britain's most progressive newspaper. Also bear in mind that David Hirsh is forever being attacked for daring to suggest that antisemitism is rearing its ugly head within leftist circles.

Even Charles at The Site That Shall Not Be Named raised an eyebrow at this. Some might argue that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, but compare the resources that one West Coast blogger has compared to those behind a national daily replete with editors, sub-editors, lucky Pierres and the rest. If the Grauniad can't police its own forums, what hope is there for the rest of us?

We begin with a commenter known as Dellis. Unsatisfied with claiming:

originaltony is showing us the articles that the mainstream media in the west hide ......... what you read in the msm is usually written by a jew or zionist neocon sympathiser ........ hence the greater number of islam-haters........

we learn:

infiltration of the media........hmmmm......check out their names........ vast majority of the infiltrators happen to be rabid zionist israel firsters like mad melanie phillips and other not so mad israel firsters like aaronovitch & several guardian commentators.........

Then Dellis drops the bomb. Brace yourselves...

the zionist israel firsters living in the uk or usa are indeed traitors and parasites to the host countries .......... once the hosts armies/economies are used up in their wars of civilisation they move to another host and start again ......... they are already planning on moving to china & india

Aha. I'll just write that up on my invisible typewriter...

One nutjob down, we're onto the real hardcore - the fallen leprechaun known as GoodFairy. Now this fella's a good'un. Almost a Moby-troll, if such a thing exists.

Those who deny the existence of a mutual masturbation club comprising of hard Leftists and Islamists would do well to read his words:

WHY the F**k do Muslims, if they have any pride or fighting spirit at all, not prioritise the overturning of the Egyptian dictatorship? That is the KEYSTONE of Zionist/American power in the Islamic world.

The lesson of Ireland is you deal with the collaborators FIRST. All else follows. If you don't deal with them, NOTHONG follows. Except defeat.

You got that? If not (pedantic references to Sisqo aside):

kmir, whether your lefty friends think the Taliban are "pure Islam" or not is unrelated to my geopolitical argument. What is important to us is that they are opposing US Hegemonism. Far more so than what they actually believe in.

Yep. And the Taliban love you too GoodFairy. Calling you a useful idiot is doing you a favour.

Not content with this, GoodFairy actually castigates the commenter kmir for, well, not being just quite the right sort of Muslim:

"someone above doubts sypmathy for Al Qaeda - my advice is, consult the independent polls cited by Daniel Pipes, where you will find it documented."

And thank God for that, eh Kmir? At least not all Muslims are prepared to prostrate themselves before the Islamophobes.

As you'd say; "Think about it". Obviously millions of your fellow Muslims have thought about and reached the same blindingly obvious conclusion I have.

Get up off your knees. Stop trying to reach-out to folk to whom you are, at best, just an Uncle Tom.

And all on the Guardian website. Brilliant. Muslims such as kmir end up not only being attacked by Islamist hardliners but by supposed Leftists as well. Nice. It reinforces what David Hirsh was alluding to in his article beautifully.

After trawling through the Cif thread I came across something that at least provided me with a little amusement. Here comes the fun:

as a western, liberal, non-Muslim anti-religious agnostic may I say that you Muslims are patient and peaceful almost beyond reason given the assault that is taking place on your Islamic nations and culture by the Great Hegemenon.

Hegemenon? Now there's an unusual word. A quick Google search brings up all sorts of possibilities.

I'm not one to be arguing against anonymity on the net, but check for yourselves, that Hegemenon word doesn't pop up in too many places does it? Ignoring the links to Cif and the Irish Times which are clearly the efforts of the same man, we also have:

The Silver Hegemenon of Calcedony Dreams and Glory (his parents are a bit wierd...) was born rich, one of the members of a powerful merchant family (can't remember the merchant dragonmark family, wasn't it the gorgon one? Anyway...), and raised as any social-climber should. Impeccable manners, fine taste, all the trappings of a young noble. Unfortunately, the Silver Hegemenon gained all of those things, as well as a taste for manipulation. Early on, he learned how to work his silver tongue to get others to do what he wanted. Unlike other manipulators, however, he saw life not as checkers, every piece being able to make the same moves unless you kinged it. No, life didn't work like that. Emotion complicated things a little. Different people would accept and decline different things. Therefore, life was chess, and that philosophy has made the Silver Hegemenon's life far more complex and interesting than the average silver-tongued devil. His tastes are not so vile as the Marquis de Sade, but the Silver Hegemenon is still learning. Who knows?

One other proud user of said word is a pentogenarian of athletic build and unclassifiable religious convictions who reckons (hit 9 if you will):

I don't know about the rest of you, but doesn't it seem that Bush's own efforts at 'defending' America are becoming the catalysing agencies to self fulfilling prophesies ?

I'm starting to think of these events as the historical period in time, that will come to be seen when world events culminate in 'the birthing of the beast'.

Look at halftimedad's accurate synopsis of the present national conditions and throw in some of the forseeable future repercussions, a generation of esculating 'terror', as every campaign of 'defense' only spawns the conditions for the inflamatory passions of counter attack. Mired in a pattern of lethal circular violence and mired in massive debt of sustaning the campaigns. Soaring energy prices, the rising passions of internal divisions, unexpected world alliances take shape, as the mobilization of outside force threats coalesce....

Sorry to be so pessimistic about this .... but I begin to sense the sound of very distant hoofbeats aproaching ....

Three things contribute to influence my mood, I've been watching a documentary on the early Bob Dylan years, the songs are haunting me, it is a cold, dark and windiflled day, I haven't been sleeping well and have taken to watching a tele evangelist preacher, in the dead of night, speak on 'end time prophesies' ...

I've always been skeptical of folk who jump to use words such as hegemony, but it would seem that the hegemenonists are to be treated with even more caution.

Take care out there.

I'm off with a couple of Londonistanis to see Tunisia-Ukraine (restricted view - bound to be a classic) and what looks like being Argentina-Mexico as of tomorrow. There may be the odd post here, but if not, see you in a week.

Oh, and yes, we were cobblers tonight, but then we always are against teams that play in yellow. In the past 8 years we've lost leads to Sweden, Brazil and Romania and been tonked by Australia. That doesn't bode well for a meeting with Ecuador does it? Arse. I thought teams that played in red were supposed to do better than their counterparts? Hmmm.

7/7 HE SAY SHE SAY

2006-06-19T12:15:00.000Z

According to the Times (amongst others) - US 'issued alert' on 7/7 bomber in 2003:

The leader of the July 7 suicide bombers was considered such a dangerous threat that he was banned from flying to America two years before the attack in London, according to a book written by a US intelligence specialist.

Although MI5 has always denied knowing that Mohammad Sidique Khan was a potential danger, the CIA is alleged to have discovered in 2003 that he was planning attacks on American cities.

The disclosures are made in a book by the award-winning author Ron Suskind that is serialised today in The Times.

From today's published extract, US authorities suspected Khan might be up to no good long before 7/7. According to the FBI's main man on Al Qaeda, Dan Coleman:

Khan, Ali and others exchanged e-mails discussing Khan’s upcoming trip to the US and plans for various violent activities. They included a desire to “blow up synagogues on the East Coast”. Other records showed that Khan had been to the US at least three times in the past two years, meeting with fellow radicals.

Dan read the cables intently. “This is a very dangerous character,” he told colleagues at FBI. “We and the Brits should be all over this guy. But we have to do it right. Unless we have some co-ordinated effort between us and CIA to handle him — arrest him on some charge that’ll stick, or work close, co-ordinated surveillance on him and all the people he’s in contact with over here when he comes, we just can’t take the risk. Let’s say he goes and blows up a temple in Washington. You going to explain to the President that we knew what he was going to do and we let him into the country anyway?”

So did they take the risk? Apparently not:

What happened next speaks volumes about the War on Terror, and the perils of a war being fought — in America and abroad — by competing bureaucracies.

...

Dan Coleman’s assessment was passed, hurriedly, to Joe Billy [head of the FBI’s New York office], who called back the CIA New York station. Billy’s focus was on the interdepartmental conflict. He echoed Dan’s concern but didn’t say much about swiftly launching an ambitious, joint FBI-CIA effort to track the incoming Brit. The discussion was about who’d ultimately be responsible for Khan, and who would take the fall if he did anything. “We’d be wide open on this one,” he told the CIA’s New York chief. If Khan managed to do some damage, “everyone — including Langley — will blame FBI. It ain’t gonna happen.”

They had to make a decision. Khan, according to the sigint, was due to fly to the US the following afternoon. After a few more calls between FBI and CIA — tense exchanges that went all the way to top bosses in Washington — Khan was put on a no-fly list. Essentially, inaction. A default.

The next day he arrived at Heathrow for his flight to the US. At the ticket counter, he was informed that the US had a problem with him. He was on a no-fly list. He wouldn’t be going anywhere. Befuddled, and alerted for the first time that he was known to US authorities, Khan quietly returned to his home in Leeds. He knew, now, that he’d have to keep an especially low profile, not do anything that would arouse suspicion, and not talk on phones or send e-mails that might be traceable. All of this was very valuable information to a young man bent on destruction.

We all know what happened next.

If these allegations are true, it's an interesting tale. The US "Not In My Back-Yard" approach was a delaying tactic, forced by circumstances rather than intelligence. The problem only came when Khan was alerted to the fact that the authorities were onto him. A pretty vicious dilemma - the US didn't want him plotting mischief over there but British intelligence on the man was sketchy at best and sticking him on a "No-Fly" list only aroused his suspicions, forcing him underground and making him harder to track.

But not everyone agrees with this version of events. From the original Times article:

The claims contradict evidence from Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, the Director-General of MI5, to the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee that Khan had never been listed as a terror threat before the attack that killed 52 innocent people.

A senior British security source has told The Times that they were aware of the allegations but said that they were “untrue and one of the many myths that have grown up around Khan”.

Clearly our security services aren't always one step ahead of the game, but then neither is Ron Suskin. PowerLine (of RatherGate fame) exposed Suskind for completely misrepresenting evidence to support his version of events leading up to the Iraq War in 2001.

We already know that our security services lacked sufficient resources to tackle the problem of home-grown Islamic extremism. Even if Khan were denied entry to the US, that would hardly make him unique - there are another 300,000 suspected terrorists or supporters of terrorist groups on the US National Counterterrorism Center's watch-list. And from the ISC report we know that British intelligence certainly didn't have the capability in 2001 to track several hundred 'primary investigative targets', let alone trawl through a list of hundreds of thousands of "No-Fly" suspects.

Time will tell whether these allegations hold any weight.

In the mean time (and given his track record) I wonder how much of Suskind's thesis is written through the rosy prism of hindsight?

UPDATE: Suskind's talking cobblers according to the Telegraph. They claim it's a case of mistaken identity.

LYRICAL GANGSTER

2006-06-15T11:10:00.000Z

We've all been there. A couple of sherbets worse for wear, picking up the mic and somehow thinking we're the new Jay-Z.

Well maybe not. But Peter Crouch has. Not content with bringing bodypopping back to the masses, who'd have thought he'd try calling for the rewind and chatting over the top of Ini Kamoze's "Here Comes the Hot-Stepper?"

[If the embedded player doesn't work, click the link above for the full movie, including a nice bit of dancefloor action.]

In other football-related news, HakMao's dug up a brilliant Delia recipe, perfect for knocking up during those half-time breaks.

THERE MUST BE SOMETHING IN THE WATER...

2006-06-14T15:06:00.000Z

Quite a few bits of lariness to report.

Firstly, Oliver Kamm takes Rageh Omaar to task for being a bit, well, pony:

Three years ago the telegenic BBC journalist Rageh Omaar was on the brink of “televisual superstardom”, according to one gushing newspaper profile.

Superstardom was not so easily obtained. Omaar’s book about the Iraq war generated a huge advance and poor sales. But Omaar has re-emerged as a presenter for al-Jazeera’s English-language channel, columnist for the New Statesman and author of a new book on being a Muslim in Britain. Unfortunately his output suggests a reason for his thwarted promise. He is no thinker and no writer.

...

One of the few aspects of the book that rises above the commonplace is Omaar’s opinion of himself. In his account of the US assault on Najaf, he pays tribute to his understanding of the significance of Iraq to Muslim identity. In recounting certain travel difficulties in Ethiopia, he compares himself to Gandhi.

Less original are his use of the idle propagandist’s term “Islamophobia” and his habitual coupling of the importance of free speech with the conjunctions “but” and “yet”.

Nothing prepared me, however, for his comparison of the Somali-born former Dutch MP, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a critic of Islam, to a suicide bomber. If this disgraceful analogy is how Omaar understands argument within a liberal society, his journalistic career is destined to tell us even less than it has already.

Ouch. One book I shan't be bothering with then.

Here's another. On the one hand Tory MP Michael Gove praises Niall Ferguson's "The War of the World" for weaving a "riot of events" into a coherent narrative. On the other, Johann Hari (fresh from losing his spat with Scott Burgess on points) doesn't:

Next week, Channel Four will broadcast a startlingly obscene TV series. A handsome historian will walk around the rubble and mass graves of Soviet Russia and declare with an aggressive smile, “If it hadn’t been Stalin, it might have been somebody worse. In any case, Russia has been ruled by murderous despots for centuries and centuries, so you might as well cast a moral judgement on rain as on Stalin.” He will argue that the collapse of Stalinism was “one of the great tragedies of the twentieth century.”

Sounds impossible? Thankfully, it is. But Niall Ferguson will be doing the same thing for an equally psychopathic form of totalitarianism – one that in fact killed even more people. For over a decade now, Ferguson has built a role as a court historian for the imperial American hard right, arguing that the British Empire from the Victorian period on was a good thing with some unfortunate “blemishes” that have been over-rated and over-stated. “If it hadn’t been the British, it might have been somebody worse,” he says. “In any case, empires have been with us as a means of power and control for centuries and centuries, so you might as well cast a moral judgement on rain as on the British Empire.” He adds, “I am fundamentally in favour of empire,” and says the Americans should be our successors as imperial rulers of the world.

...

Today, Ferguson poses as somebody who is simply providing a hard-headed balance sheet of Empire. Yes, there were “drawbacks”, he admits – but we have to weigh them against the good things. The problem is that his calculations consistently underestimate or ignore the massive crimes of Empire, and grossly overstate the benefits. His historical judgement is constantly skewed, both by his childhood affection and by his almost punk-style desire to spit at historical orthodoxies.

And for some fisking fun, Snoopy the Goon of SimplyJews takes a look at a rather poor Cif post by one Karma Nabulsi. Her previous role as a PLO representative seems to have affected her impartiality somewhat, although it's perhaps more disturbing that she claims to be a "politics fellow of St Edmund Hall, Oxford University". Wow.

PROTESTING OLMERT AND THE MET

2006-06-14T14:29:00.000Z

Nordish has photos of yesterday's anti-Olmert protest in Trafalgar Square.

Pretty poorly attended, probably because it was a school day.

He also has shots of the "Rally for Justice" demo held outside Scotland Yard on Sunday. Interesting that one of the organisers should be sporting such a delightful outfit:

Lovely.

IT'S A SIN

2006-06-13T15:08:00.000Z

One of the more surprising stories of recent days - the Pet Shop Boys have dedicated their current album to two Ahwazi teenagers hung for being gay:

British pop band Pet Shop Boys has dedicated its latest album "Fundamental" to Muhammad Askari (Mahmoud Asgari) and Ayaad Marhuni (Ayaz Marhoni), two Ahwazi Arab teenagers executed after being accused of homosexuality. The album by one the UK's leading pop music acts went straight to number five in the British charts when it was released two weeks ago. It is due to be released in the US on 26 June.

The 17 year olds were executed in July 2005 in Mashhad in northeastern Iran, where their families had been forcibly relocated from Al-Ahwaz (Khuzestan) under the Iranian regime's ethnic restructuring programme. The regime had portrayed them as serial child rapists and professional criminals. In one interview with the regime's Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA), a pro-government academic claimed that people from their social group (implicitly their race) were prone to rape and robbery with violence.

The executions were carried out during a wave of anti-government protests by Ahwazi Arabs in Al-Ahwaz (Khuzestan). Some Ahwazi activists believe that the death sentences, carried out in Mashhad's Justice Square, were staged to portray Arabs in a bad light.

The British gay rights group Outrage! published a lengthy and detailed investigation into the Askari and Marhuni cases and other instances of state violence against gay people, as well as "honour" killings by relatives who fear that their clan and ethnic group will be tarnished by revelations of homosexuality (click here to download the report).

It's all in the sleeve notes apparently.

SISTERS OF MERCY IN IRAN

2006-06-13T12:17:00.000Z

Agh, so much to comment on, so little time. And 4 1/2 hours of football a day to deal with. Others haven't been quite so lucky over recent days.

Yesterday, Iran Press News reported on a violent crackdown on protesters at the General Women's March held in Haft'eh Teer Square in Tehran.

Many of the regime's guards and agents were dressed in plain-clothes and passed themselves off as demonstrators until they began to attack and beat the protestors. They had batons, tear and pepper gases as well as all kinds of other chemical agents that make people sick and disables their breathing and vision which was continuously launched into the crowd.

The regime's new tactic in their so-called attempt at a "kinder, gentler" way of treating protestors is to send out armed, green-clad female thugs and have them beat women demonstrators. The green outfits (as seen in photos) with nun-like hijabs connect in one piece to the rest of the shapeless shroud.

Kind and gentle, my arse.

Yahoo News has a couple of pictures:

Winston has more, as does Kosoof:

Azamehr writes:

"We are women, we are human, but we don't have any rights!" protesters chanted.

This is what they wanted:
Banning polygamy;

Reversal of men's uncontested right to divorce;

Equal child custody rights for mothers and fathers;

Equal rights in marriage (such as a woman's right to choose where she works, to travel freely, etc.);

Increase in the legal age of children to 18 years of age (currently girls are viewed as adults at 9 years of age and boys at 15 years of age, making them eligible to be tried as adults);

Equal value placed on women's testimony in court; and

Elimination of temporary work contracts which disproportionately and negatively impact women.
Yet Elaheh Rostami, a lecturer at SOAS and a promoter of the Islamic regime, claims "Iranian women have more rights now than before the revolution."

How could the British universities have sunk to such a low level to employ such idiots as lecturers?

It's not just British lecturers - have a look at some of the bile directed at Peter Tatchell when he flagged up the treatment of Ahwazi Arabs in Iran for one of his Comment is Free posts.

Trying to brush events like these under the carpet or accusing those of condemning it of sucking up to Bush, Blair and the Neo-Con Fighting Machine (see the comments) isn't doing the Iranian public any favours at all. From the BBC:

The viciousness of the police attack caused men who were passing by in the street to protest, our correspondent says.

"These are our sisters, how can you do this?" passers-by shouted at police.

The women then gathered again on the other side of the square, but the police used pepper spray against them and onlookers.

As the police started making arrests members of the public who had nothing to do with the protest repeatedly shouted: "Leave them alone."

One man screamed at the police, saying: "Why do you take money from the government to beat women like this?"

Do you think that passers-by who had the guts to stand up for the rights of their fellow countrymen and women were worried that in doing so they were "creating conditions for an attack on Iran"? I don't think so.

HOW MANY E.M.-ERS DOES IT TAKE TO CHANGE A LIGHTBULB?

2006-06-09T13:40:00.000Z

I've been called a few things in my time, but being described as "shabbos goy" in this Harry's Place thread came as something of a surprise, as I imagine it did to Will of A General Theory of Rubbish who was also tagged with the same curious label.

It's always good to be accused of being something you don't actually know the meaning of.

Torah.org gives the following definition:

Shabbos goy: A non-Jew who does work on Sabbath that a Jew cannot do.

So far so good.

Delving a little deeper, I came across this rather unusual claim on the SomethingJewish website:

Think of Jewish celebrities and Elvis Presley isn't someone who immediately springs to mind. However, the authors of a new book and accompanying documentary feature have discovered that the rock n'roll legend, while not actually Jewish, had strong links with the Jewish community in Memphis, where he grew up.

According to Max Wallace and Jonathan Goldstein, the authors of Schmelvis: In Search Of Elvis Presley's Jewish Roots, Elvis grew up in a Jewish area of Memphis and as a teenager, lived downstairs from a local Rabbi, Alfred Fruchter. The Rabbi's widow, Jeanette Fruchter, recalls; "He was about 15 years old then and we got along so beautifully. He was such a nice boy, such manners. He called my husband Sir Rabbi."

Elvis got on so well with the couple that he even became their 'Shabbos Goy', visiting them every Saturday morning to turn on lights and do other jobs they were prohibited from doing. "We never told him we called him a Shabbos Goy. Usually, you give a small tip to the gentile who does this for you, but Elvis would never accept any money, he said it was his pleasure.

So to answer my original question, it looks like the answer is two: me and Will.

I'm sure we should take it as a compliment.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

ZARQAWI DEAD

2006-06-08T11:26:00.000Z

From the BBC:

Militant [So much for the BBC deciding to use the T-word where appropriate] leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been killed, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has announced.

"We have eliminated Zarqawi," Mr Maliki said at a news conference, sparking sustained applause. The US said he was killed in an air raid near Baquba.

The Jordanian-born leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq was considered the figurehead of the Sunni insurgency.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq has been blamed for hundreds of bombings that have killed thousands of Shias and US forces.

Pretty militant then. But good news regardless of the language the BBC choose to use.

Omar at Iraq the Model gives a little more background:

Hibhib is a small town several kilometers to the northwest of Baquba and most of its people are from the Azzawi tribes. This small town was traditionally nicknamed Um al-Arak as it was famous for producing some of the finest Arak in Iraq, an industry that flourished in the area for the abundance of date palms. It's even said that Hibhib's Arak can make the fox get drunk!

Of course that was before the Salafi Zarqawi tide reached this once peaceful town.

It was quite visible lately that Hibhib became a place for intense terror activity, especially after the phenomenon of severed heads appeared. Severed heads of civilian Iraqis were found twice in fruit boxes in and around Hibhib; a terrible crime that shocked Iraqis.

Also a few days ago 19 passengers, mostly students were murdered in cold blood just north of Hibhib which indicated that a seriously bloody terror cell was in this area.

There had been several reports about Zarqawi fleeing Anbar to Diyala after the tribes in Ramadi turned against al-Qaeda but obviously, Diyala and its suburbs and Iraqi tribes were not willing to endorse the head chopping criminal.

When heads start cropping up in fruit-boxes, you can understand why the locals weren't too keen to grant Zarqawi an extended stay.

Even Hezbollah hated him with a passion. From Michal Totten:

I mentioned before that I interviewed Hezbollah's Mohammad Afif in the suburbs south of Beirut and that he had almost nothing to say that wasn't boilerplate propaganda. It was boring and useless and I saw no point in publishing it. But he did say two interesting things. The first I quoted here [Also worth a read]. And here is the second:

I asked him what he thought of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, Zarqawi's head-chopping mosque-burning faction in Iraq. I knew he would condemn them, of course, but I didn't expect to find his condemnation convincing.

But I did, as it turned out, find his condemnation convincing.

"We hate them," he said. "They call us cockroaches and murder our people."

It's hard to think he came up with that answer just to assuage me. Hezbollah is Arab and Shia just as many of Zarqawi's victims in Iraq are.

Responding to Glenn Reynolds' theory - "Is it just me, or is the Middle East a lot like 7th Grade with RPGs? - Totten writes:

It's also a bit like a loony bin with RPGs. I mean, for God's sake, Zarqawi is accusing Hezbollah of being a cover for Israel. He would be hilarious if he weren't a psychopath.

Thanks to information from Jordanian security services and handy pointers from locals, that's one less psychopath the world has to deal with.

UPDATE: Bagrec makes a great point - hopefully this news will really annoy Yvonne Ridley:

She described Abu Musab al-Zarqawi himself, after he took responsibility for the Jordanian terrorist attack and was subsequently denounced by his remaining Jordanian family, as a brother she’d much rather put up with than have a traitor or sell-out for a father, son or grandfather – by which she means the Jordanian king. Ridley calls the family renunciation of al-Zarqawi "cowardly".

You backed a losing horse there Yvonne.

GOOGLE SEEING SENSE?

2006-06-07T14:53:00.000Z

From ~~the fifth columnist and terrorists' mouthpiece~~ the Times:

Google has admitted for the first time that it compromised its principles when it entered the Chinese market and agreed to toe Beijing’s strict line on censorship.

Speaking in Washington, Sergey Brin, Google’s billionaire co-founder, said the company, which operates under the motto "do no evil", had adopted "a set of rules that we weren’t comfortable with".

In a hint that Google could adjust its stance in China in the future, he added: "Perhaps now the principled approach makes more sense."

Now to work on Yahoo! and MSN...

ON THE 7/7 REPORT

2006-06-06T02:09:00.000Z

The 7/7 Report came out yesterday.

Rescuers trying to save victims of the July 7 terrorist attacks struggled with poor communications, lack of medical equipment and weak planning, an official report has concluded.

One hospital was alerted only when paramedics went begging for help. Not enough ambulances were available to deal with casualties and a vital radio system for London Underground is still not in place.

The highly critical review by the London Assembly, published yesterday, praises the work of the rescue services but says that they faced difficulties which should never have arisen four years after 9/11. The review calls for a wide-ranging overhaul of plans for major incidents and criticises a strategy which placed too much emphasis on the rescue process and not enough on the victims. In all, 56 people died and 946 were injured when four suicide bombers attacked three London Underground trains, at Aldgate, Edgware Road and Russell Square, and a bus in Tavistock Square.

But the review, which makes 54 recommendations, found that despite all the preparation in London after 9/11, "there is a lack of consideration of the individuals caught up in major or catastrophic incidents".

It adds: "Procedures tend to focus too much on incidents rather than on individuals and on processes rather than people."

I can understand people panicking and making mistakes on the day, but whose bright idea was this?

The review members were concerned to discover that vital London Underground emergency response vehicles which had to respond to the incidents have to pay the congestion charge, have no blue lights and are banned from using bus lanes.

Despite all of this, and in keeping with the views of most I've spoken to who were caught up in the events of Central London that day, the report highlights the many extraordinary efforts made by those at the front line:

3.22 We are in no doubt whatsoever that individual members of the London Ambulance Service, along with the other transport and emergency services, worked extremely hard, under exceptionally difficult circumstances, on 7 July. Their many individual acts of courage, skill and initiative led to the saving of many lives that may otherwise have been lost.

All four sites were ‘cleared’ within three hours, during which time almost 200 vehicles and 400 staff and managers were deployed, and 404 patients were transported to hospital. The fact that there were four separate incidents across London, and that three of them were in tunnels underground, made the emergency response very complex and difficult to manage systematically and effectively.

You can download the full report here.

MCB ELECT DR MUHAMMAD ABDUL BARI

2006-06-05T02:22:00.000Z

The Muslim Council of Britain has chosen Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari to be their new Secretary-General. The BBC gives very few details in their report:

He was chosen from a field of 37 candidates to succeed Sir Iqbal Sacranie, the post holder since 2002.

Mr [sic?] Bari, a 52-year-old Bangladeshi, is a specialist teacher in behaviour support for Tower Hamlets Council.

So far so good. Wander over to their profile of him and you'll find:

As chairman of the East London Mosque he was considered instrumental in helping controversial MP George Galloway secure his parliamentary seat by telling Muslims they had a duty to vote in the last general election, thus ensuring a healthy turnout.

Not that he's too chummy with George, mind you. He was just as disgusted by the Gorgeous one frolicking in a catsuit on Celebrity Big Brother as the rest of us:

Dr Bari told The Times: "It’s a matter of decency. A lot of us find his behaviour very strange."

That aside, one flaw the BBC neglect to remind us of is his appalling judge of character, as witnessed during his interview for Panorama last year. It's worth reading the transcript again:

John Ware: Several MCB affiliates do have links to anti western ideologies from abroad.

The Deputy General Secretary of the MCB is Dr Abdul Bari.

He's also Chairman of the East London Mosque which has maintained good relations with other local faith groups.

Last year a £10m new Islamic centre was opened.

The guests included Christian leaders. The Chief Rabbi and Prince Charles also sent goodwill messages.

The guest of honour was one of the most prominent clerics from Saudi Arabia - the most austere Islamic state in the world whose ideology is the polar opposite of secular Britain.

But London's East End is home to many faiths and the Sheikh's theme was tolerance.

Sheikh Abdur-Rahman Al-Sudais, Imam, Ka'ba, Mecca, Saudi Arabia: The history of Islam is the best testament to how different communities can live together in peace and harmony. Muslims must exemplify the true image of Islam in their interaction with other communities.

John Ware: Sheikh Sudais is a leading Imam from the great mosque in Mecca, Islam's holiest city.

He had one voice for his Western audience - another for his followers in Saudi.

Sheikh Abdur-Rahman Al-Sudais: The worst ... of the enemies of Islam are those... whom he... made monkeys and pigs, the aggressive Jews and oppressive Zionists and those that follow them: the callers of the trinity and the cross worshippers... those influenced by the rottenness of their ideas, and the poison of their cultures the followers of secularism... How can we talk sweetly when the Hindus and the idol worshippers indulge in their overwhelming hatred against our brothers... in Muslim Kashmir...

John Ware: The East London mosque received $1m from the Saudis towards their new centre. The mosque's links to Saudi go back many years.

The mosque's Chairman Dr Bari remains to be convinced that his honoured guest Sheikh Sudais has repeatedly vilified other faiths.

John Ware: Do I take it that if you were satisfied he had said such things you would not have invited him over?

Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, Chairman, East London Mosque, Deputy Secretary General, Muslim Council Of Britain: Well of course if it was proved that he exactly said this thing that you mentioned then why do you invited people who would be saying like this?

John Ware: I mean, let me say what else he's reported to have said, he said: 'There should be no peace with the rats of the world.' Again he refers to Jews as the scum of the human race, offspring of apes and pigs, and he has also referred to Christians as worshippers of the cross.' You don't see Christians in those terms?

Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari: I don't see Christians in those terms.

John Ware: You don't see Christians in those terms?

Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari: No.

John Ware: No. And idol worship, you don't see Hindus as idol worshippers, do you? I'm sure you don't, do you? Do you?

Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari: Well... why are you bringing all this?

John Ware: You, er, I mean you do not regard Hindus as idol worshippers?

Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari: Well Hindu... you mean the definition? When it's idol worshipper, different people worship God in different manners.

John Ware: Mmm.

Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari: Once again you are entering into the theological debate and Muslims worship one monotheistic God and many other communities may have different versions of God.

John Ware: No, I understand that.

Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari: The Trinity may be one of them.

John Ware: I understand that.

Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari: And it all depends how you use the word and explain the word.

John Ware: Sure, but this is harsh.. you wouldn't... I mean no, I accept all that, but this is different, isn't it. This is very harsh language; this in effect denounces other faiths, Hindus, Christians and Jews.

Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari: Well denouncing any faith is not acceptable in Islam, that's not the Prophetic teaching. We need to know the source of this and this is very dangerous thing, that character assassination of Muslim scholars and leaders are getting very widespread.

John Ware: I'm not trying to assassinate his character I'm simply trying to deal with the facts. That's all I'm trying to do.

Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari: No, I know, you are mentioning... you are saying facts but we have a question whether these are facts.

John Ware: The facts are easily checkable - we found a selection of the Sheikh's sermons on a Saudi website covering mosques in the holy cities of Medina and Mecca - with English translations.

Sheikh Abdur-Rahman Al-Sudais: Monkeys and pigs and worshippers of false Gods who are the Jews and the Zionists.

John Ware: The $1m gift from the Saudis to the East London Mosque is but a drop in the ocean compared to the billions they've spent spreading their narrow form of Islam around the world.

Not the sharpest tool in the box then.

In a recent discussion on Pickled Politics, Sunny made his feelings about the man perfectly clear:

Mohammed Abdul Bari - yes of course. I didn’t even think of him. I was in a debate with the guy once. His English was bloody terrible. If he takes over the MCB is truly doomed.

I wonder if that's a line he'll be sticking to?

Personally, I'm not encouraged by his election either. Someone who can't spot Islamist extremism when it's dangled under his nose may not be best suited to deal with the problem of home-grown extremism, a task that as head of the MCB he ought to be in a better position to tackle than most.

At the very worst, Dr Bari does have one major asset his detractors cannot ignore - a truly formidable barnet:

A TALE OF TWO LEFTS

2006-06-02T14:14:00.000Z

I can't remember how I came across it but this essay by Jorge G. Castañeda ought to keep you busy if you find yourself at a loose end this weekend.

Latin America's Left Turn

Summary: With all the talk of Latin America's turn to the left, few have noticed that there are really two lefts in the region. One has radical roots but is now open-minded and modern; the other is close-minded and stridently populist. Rather than fretting over the left's rise in general, the rest of the world should focus on fostering the former rather than the latter -- because it is exactly what Latin America needs.

Just over a decade ago, Latin America seemed poised to begin a virtuous cycle of economic progress and improved democratic governance, overseen by a growing number of centrist technocratic governments. In Mexico, President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, buttressed by the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, was ready for his handpicked successor to win the next presidential election. Former Finance Minister Fernando Henrique Cardoso was about to beat out the radical labor leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for the presidency of Brazil. Argentine President Carlos Menem had pegged the peso to the dollar and put his populist Peronist legacy behind him. And at the invitation of President Bill Clinton, Latin American leaders were preparing to gather in Miami for the Summit of the Americas, signaling an almost unprecedented convergence between the southern and northern halves of the Western Hemisphere.

What a difference ten years can make. Although the region has just enjoyed its best two years of economic growth in a long time and real threats to democratic rule are few and far between, the landscape today is transformed. Latin America is swerving left, and distinct backlashes are under way against the predominant trends of the last 15 years: free-market reforms, agreement with the United States on a number of issues, and the consolidation of representative democracy. This reaction is more politics than policy, and more nuanced than it may appear. But it is real.

Starting with Hugo Chávez's victory in Venezuela eight years ago and poised to culminate in the possible election of Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico's July 2 presidential contest, a wave of leaders, parties, and movements generically labeled "leftist" have swept into power in one Latin American country after another. After Chávez, it was Lula and the Workers' Party in Brazil, then Néstor Kirchner in Argentina and Tabaré Vázquez in Uruguay, and then, earlier this year, Evo Morales in Bolivia. If the long shot Ollanta Humala wins the April presidential election in Peru and López Obrador wins in Mexico, it will seem as if a veritable left-wing tsunami has hit the region. Colombia and Central America are the only exceptions, but even in Nicaragua, the possibility of a win by Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega cannot be dismissed.

The rest of the world has begun to take note of this left-wing resurgence, with concern and often more than a little hysteria. But understanding the reasons behind these developments requires recognizing that there is not one Latin American left today; there are two. One is modern, open-minded, reformist, and internationalist, and it springs, paradoxically, from the hard-core left of the past. The other, born of the great tradition of Latin American populism, is nationalist, strident, and close-minded. The first is well aware of its past mistakes (as well as those of its erstwhile role models in Cuba and the Soviet Union) and has changed accordingly. The second, unfortunately, has not.

It's a long'un and I've not had a chance to finish it yet, but as usual, thoughts and criticisms welcome.

PEDIGREE CHUMPS

2006-06-02T11:24:00.000Z

One for Friday lunchtime: How the world’s media were hoaxed by a petfood salesman with an obsession about capital punishment.

THE macabre tale of a Suffolk craftsman who sold handcarved gallows to despotic regimes such as those in Zimbabwe and Libya gripped the world’s media.

David Lucas, 45, a businessman, told an undercover reporter that he sold his “mobile execution units” for up to £12,000 each. More than 30 top newspapers, including The Guardian, the Daily Mail, and the Sydney Morning Herald followed the story. Commentators condemned his shocking opportunism and Jeremy Vine debated the issue on Radio 2.

BBC and Sky News sent crews to the village of Mildenhall to film him inside his pet-food shop. Amnesty International accused him of making “a mockery of the UK’s efforts to oppose the death penalty around the world”.

Glowering behind his bushy beard, Mr Lucas posed defiantly next to gallows outside his shop, and explained that he had been selling execution equipment for ten years. “It is for law and order, not for bad people to get hold of. You are safer on the streets of Libya and African countries than you are here,” he told reporters.

But now it is the veracity of Mr Lucas that hangs in the balance. His business partner has come forward to claim that the story is an elaborate hoax.

Brian Rutterford, who owns the land where Mr Lucas has his shop, said yesterday that his partner had been fooling everyone. “It is a hoax that has got completely out of hand. I know David well, work closely with him and I know he has built one set of gallows — the one that remains outside his shop on my land. The rest is rubbish,” he said.

“He has no sale receipts for gallows because he hasn’t sold any. He keeps up the pretence because he likes talking to the media about capital punishment,” he added. “David sells pet food from my property and I speak to him twice a week. If he was building gallows for foreign governments, I think I would know about it.”

To be filed under: "You couldn't make it up, but somebody did"...

And full marks to the Times reporters who managed to get away with sarcastically calling the Daily Mail a "top newspaper". Well done.

GOTCHA?

2006-06-02T11:14:00.000Z

The BBC are reporting that:

A man has been shot by police during a raid involving 250 officers carried out under the Terrorism Act.

He was taken to a nearby hospital after police searched a house in Forest Gate, east London. His injuries are not life-threatening.

A 23-year-old man has been arrested and is currently in custody at a central London police station.

SkyNews is claiming that:

Police sources have told Sky's Crime correspondent Martin Brunt detectives expect to find chemical or biological agents in the house in Lansdown Road, Forest Gate, east London.

They were allegedly being primed for a suspected bomb plot against the UK.

He said: "These brothers were being watched for many weeks if not months.

...

"Police are not expecting to find conventional weapons. They are looking to find chemical ingredients of some kind."

We'll see. You'd like to think that 250 police officers don't jump out of bed for an early morning raid over nothing.

MANSOUR OSANLOO UPDATE

2006-06-01T16:01:00.000Z

Remember the striking bus-workers in Tehran?

Here's an update from RoozOnline, courtesy of Regime Change Iran:

Mansour Osanloo, the head of Iran’s bus syndicate who was arrested some months ago continues to be in prison because, in the words of Ayatollah Mousavi Khoeiniha, an advisor to the supreme leader, until the secretary general of Iran’s largest student organization Daftar-e Tahkim-e Vahdat is coerced into a televised confession of purchase of weapons from abroad and links to foreigners.

Imprisoned defense attorney Nasser Zarafshan who was on leave from prison for a few days during the Iranian new year feast (March 22) also brought news of Osanloo’s health and condition in prison. “Osanloo did not agree to make fake concessions or repent as requested by his interrogators,” he said. Recently a letter signed by about 445 prominent Iranians was sent to officials calling for Osanloo’s release. The letter complains about the conditions under which Osanloo is being kept in solitary confinement while being denied all his constitutional rights.

Osanloo was an activist of the Bus drivers Sherkate Vahed syndicate of Iran who was arrested in late January of 2006 in connection with his syndicate activities, along with other activists. All others were subsequently released, except Osanloo. Recently the student committee of a local human rights organization said that Osanloo had suffered serious stomach bleeding caused by pressure but he is still being denied proper medical care at a hospital.

His complainant is Tehran’s prosecutor who despite domestic and international pressure continues to deny a bail for his release.

When the drivers syndicate was formed, Osanloo is on record to have written that they were after peaceful and civil work to attain their professional rights, rejecting any form of violence for their goals. “All we ask is that officials change their pay check for one month with us, workers, and see if they can sustain their life with our pays. If they can, then we would not even need a syndicate,” he has said (see Hanouz webblog).

There's a good timeline of events surrounding this affair on the website of the International Transport Workers' Federation. Although many of the union workers appear to have been released, things are still looking pretty bleak for Mansour Osanloo. Last week the NY Sun reported:

A video surfaced over the weekend of the leader of Iran's striking bus drivers, Mansour Osanloo, discussing and showing the results of his torture, including a gash on his chin and a hole in his tongue, at the hands of his jailors earlier this year.

Grim.

IRAN SAYS NO TO TALKS WITH THE US

2006-06-01T15:59:00.000Z

And so the game of cat and mouse continues. From Yahoo! News:

Iran's foreign minister on Thursday welcomed direct talks with Washington on his country's disputed nuclear program but rebuffed a U.S. proposal that Tehran must suspend uranium enrichment as a condition, state-run television reported.

"Iran welcomes dialogue under just conditions but (we) won't give up our (nuclear) rights," the television quoted Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki as saying.

"We won't negotiate about the Iranian nation's natural nuclear rights but we are prepared, within a defined, just framework and without any discrimination, to hold dialogue about (our) common concerns," he added.

Here's the offer:

"Our message to the Iranians is that one, you won't have a weapon, and two, that you must verifiably suspend any programs at which point we will come to the negotiating table to work on a way forward,"
President Bush said Wednesday.

"I thought it was important for the United States to take the lead — along with our partners," Bush said. "And that's what you're seeing. You're seeing robust diplomacy. I believe this problem can be solved diplomatically and I'm going to give it every effort to do so."

Sensible talk that, for all concerned. Not that the Iranian Foreign Minister sees it quite the same way:

Mottaki said Iran has no intention to halt its uranium enrichment program.

"There is no evidence proving Iran's diversion (toward nuclear weapons). Therefore, Iran is interested in continuing this path," he said.

As you were then.

The prospect of talks is mildly encouraging, but don't get too carried away. Iran's President is still off with the faeries if his interview with Der Spiegel is anything to go by:

SPIEGEL: First you make your remarks about the Holocaust. Then comes the news that you may travel to Germany -- this causes an uproar. So you were surprised after all?

Ahmadinejad: No, not at all, because the network of Zionism is very active around the world, in Europe too. So I wasn't surprised. We were addressing the German people. We have nothing to do with Zionists.

...

Well, then we have stirred up a very concrete discussion. We are posing two very clear questions. The first is: Did the Holocaust actually take place? You answer this question in the affirmative. So, the second question is: Whose fault was it? The answer to that has to be found in Europe and not in Palestine. It is perfectly clear: If the Holocaust took place in Europe, one also has to find the answer to it in Europe.

On the other hand, if the Holocaust didn't take place, why then did this regime of occupation ...

SPIEGEL: ... You mean the state of Israel...

Ahmadinejad: ... come about? Why do the European countries commit themselves to defending this regime? Permit me to make one more point. We are of the opinion that, if an historical occurrence conforms to the truth, this truth will be revealed all the more clearly if there is more research into it and more discussion about it.

...

SPIEGEL: Well, we are conducting this historical debate with you for a very timely purpose. Are you questioning Israel's right to exist?

Ahmadinejad: Look here, my views are quite clear. We are saying that if the Holocaust occurred, then Europe must draw the consequences and that it is not Palestine that should pay the price for it. If it did not occur, then the Jews have to go back to where they came from. I believe that the German people today are also prisoners of the Holocaust. Sixty million people died in the Second World War. World War II was a gigantic crime. We condemn it all. We are against bloodshed, regardless of whether a crime was committed against a Muslim or against a Christian or a Jew. But the question is: Why among these 60 million victims are only the Jews the center of attention?

So if the Holocaust happened, Israel should be relocated to Europe. If it didn't, Jews should "go back to where they came from". Head I win, tails you lose.

This should serve as a wake-up call for those who claim that Ahmadinejad only spouts his antisemitic nonsense for the benefit of a minority of crazies back home. At least he's upfront and honest about it, unlike some leaders who say one thing to the West and quite another to their own people. The West can hardly say it doesn't know where he stands on Israel.

On the Iraq War, this remark was quite breathtaking in its hypocrisy:

No, we feel animosity toward no one. We're concerned about the American soldiers who die in Iraq. Why do they have to die there?

Why indeed? Perhaps the insurgents who sally to and fro across the Iraq-Iran border might have something to do with it?

UPDATE: Great post from Brownie over at Harry's Place on this. If you've not already looked, do so.

AUT SAYS NO TO NATFHE BOYCOTT

2006-05-31T14:58:00.000Z

Via Engage, a statement from the AUT on the NATFHE boycott:

At its recent annual conference NATFHE passed a motion inviting their members to consider boycotting Israeli academics under certain circumstances.

AUT does not endorse this policy and is strongly advising its members not to implement it. In May 2005 AUT council overwhelmingly rejected an earlier decision to boycott two Israeli universities and reasserted its belief that freedom of expression, open debate and unhampered dialogue are prerequisites of academic freedom.

In addition, the meeting went on to set up a commission to investigate the whole issue of international boycotts. The report of the commission was agreed at May 2006 AUT council. It sets out a very careful, staged approach to boycotts which ensures that they are applied only in exceptional circumstances, are fully justified by the facts, and can be shown to be an effective way of furthering academic freedom and human rights.

The commission considered only the collective boycotting of institutions by the union's membership. It did not consider the boycotting of individual academics by individual union members. This tactic is fraught with difficulties and dangers and should not be followed by AUT members.

On 1 June AUT and NATFHE join to form the University and College Union (UCU). The NATFHE motion is not binding on the UCU. The AUT will argue for the UCU to adopt the report of its commission. It will not support or cooperate in any way with any attempts to implement the NATFHE motion in advance of the first UCU annual national congress in June 2007.

Sensible heads have prevailed at the AUT then.

Best comment on the boycott? Shuggy's:

Collective guilt is assumed, the boycott is collective punishment. The only way you can escape this is if you pass an ideology test - and pass it publicly.

Sort of Cultural Revolution-lite for the decaffeinated generation, which reminds me: do you think they'll be demanding Chinese academics expiate the collective guilt of their government's crimes through the public confessional?

Neither do I.

There are two walls under construction: one across occupied lands, another across unoccupied minds.

Nicely put.

Looks like this is something that isn't going to go away anytime soon. The same old arguments will be trotted out for and against the boycott. For those that want to relive them, halfway down this post is a round-up of a debate between Norman Geras, Eve Garrard and Richard Kuper that puts to bed at least one of the more popular pro-boycott arguments.

Academics should know better. In the words of Norm:

What a disgrace to the profession the NATFHE decision is.

Quite. But hopefully a disgrace that lasts but a few days.

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

2006-05-30T15:39:00.000Z

Amnesty International and the Observer have teamed up to bring you Irrepressible.info, a campaign to fight internet censorship. From Kate Allen's launch article:

Amnesty International is again calling on Observer readers to join with us to take a stand for basic human freedoms. The internet has the potential to transcend national borders and allow the free flow of ideas around the world. Of course there is a need for limits to free expression to protect other rights - promoting violence or child pornography are never acceptable - but the internet still has immense power and potential.

Just by logging on to my computer I can exchange views with someone in Beijing or Washington. I can read what bloggers in Baghdad think of the situation in Iraq. I can find a million viewpoints that differ from my own on any topic. It is the greatest medium for free expression since the printing press, a meeting of technology and the social, inquisitive nature of human beings and the irrepressible force of the human voice. This is the new frontier in the battle between those who want to speak out, and those who want to stop them. We must not allow it to be suppressed.

We are asking people to show their support for internet freedom by backing a simple pledge:
I believe the Internet should be a force for political freedom, not repression. People have the right to seek and receive information and to express their peaceful beliefs online without fear or interference. I call on governments to stop the unwarranted restriction of freedom of expression on the Internet - and on companies to stop helping them do it. calling on governments to stop the unwarranted restriction of online freedom of expression and on companies to stop helping them do it.
We will use these pledges to urge the release of the growing number of 'cyber-dissidents' imprisoned for sending emails and posting their views on websites. They will be taken to the United Nations when it meets in November to discuss the future of the internet, and used to show companies that internet users - their customers - will not stand for a web that for some is massively restricted.

The campaign is called 'irrepressible. info' and we are launching it today in The Observer. It will harness the power of the internet to mobilise people all over the world to take a stand against repression. We hope it will spread quickly as more people sign up and tell others about it by email and on their websites.

Good stuff.

They've even gone to the bother of designing a nifty little button for bloggers that posts new censored material on your site each time someone logs in.

Their first campaign is a call on the Chinese authorities to release Shi Tao, a blogger imprisoned for ten years after Yahoo! handed over his particulars to the Chinese government. Regulars will already know the ins and outs of this story - the Amnesty campaign ought to further raise its profile, drawing additional attention to Shi Tao's plight.

Sure, there are similar campaigns along these lines, but for all its flaws, Amnesty pulls more weight than most and this move ought to be applauded. The surprising thing is that it's taken them so long...

Speaking of similar campaigns, Reporters sans frontieres brought this gem to my attention earlier today:

Reporters Without Borders today condemned the closure of online newspaper www.cursiv.ru by its Internet service provider on 22 May, three days after prosecutors being investigating its editor, Vladimir Rakhmankov, on charges of “insulting a representative of the state” under article 319 of the criminal code in an article headlined, “Putin, Russia’s phallic symbol.”

Claiming the article contained “phrases of an offensive nature for the president of the Russian Federation,” Vladimir Galchenko, the prosecutor of Ivanovo (near Moscow), ordered a search of Rakhmankov’s home and office and seized his computer. Rakhmankov has been placed under house arrest for the duration of the investigation, expected to take two months.
...

The offending article was colourfully satirical about President Putin’s appeal to the Russian people to increase the birthrate and thereby defend the country’s borders. It drew parallels with a recent report by the Ivanovo administration that said the city zoo’s animal population had risen.

...

No trial date has yet been set. Rakhmankov faces a heavy fine or a sentence of six to 12 months of hard labour. As part of the investigation, a “linguistic expert” will be asked to assess the gravity of the insult to President Putin.

This would be funny if it weren't true. Hard labour for calling the President a pillock? I wonder how the ChimpyBusHitlerBliarHalliburton rent-a-mob would fare over there?

Speaking of chimps, it wouldn't be right to not join the merry band of bloggers who have undoubtedly already posted similar images in response to the Amnesty campaign:

"Alright! Let battle commence! Wine and... bananas! Bring on the dancing girls!"

BUMP

2006-05-26T16:10:00.000Z

For some reason this post appears to have been posted yesterday, but should in fact be on today's page. Any remedies gratefully received.

NICE ONE CYRIL

2006-05-26T16:05:00.000Z

Here's something for those who fancy seeing their name converted into Russian. Type your name into the box and Hey Presto! - you're as cool as Lenin.

MAY OR MAY NOT BE SAFE FOR WORK, depending on whether your boss has a sense of humour.

LAUNCHED

2006-05-26T11:23:00.000Z

Whooosh.

Last night saw the official launch of the Euston Manifesto. Demand for tickets meant a change of venue, so off several hundred of us trekked to Islington's Union Chapel.

The night kicked off with an introduction from Nick Cohen, who did a great job of chairing the meeting. Norman Geras, Shalom Lappin, Eve Garrard and Alan Johnson followed in quick succession, each keeping to their allotted time of fifteen minutes. This must have been quite tricky because I got the impression that each had easily enough material to give a far longer address.

Of course, this was bound to upset some, but there were others who thought the speeches were too long - you can't please everyone the whole time and on the whole, fifteen minutes seemed a pretty reasonable compromise. After all, this was meant to be a public meeting, not a seminar series.

I was busy sorting out late-comers on the door so wasn't able to take many notes during the speeches. Eve Garrard's criticism of those who have double standards for human rights stuck out, slamming those who fiercely criticise the US for human rights abuses but shy away from condemning regimes further from home for similar or worse crimes (whether that be a by-product of cultural relativism or simply the "the enemy of the US is my friend" way of thinking), describing them as "a moral and intellectual disgrace." Bosh.

Alan Johnson made the most of being last up by delivering a great speech, in which he turned Galloway's "I'm not the only one" against him, highlighting the common feeling that many in the audience clearly related to of feeling homeless on the democratic Left. The great thing about the EM and websites such as Harry's Place is that both have drawn together people who may have felt isolated or alone. As he put it, Eric Lee of LabourStart is not the only one. The folk who run Engage (too many to list here) are not the only ones. Labour Friends of Iraq are not the only ones. And so on.

He quoted Paul Berman as saying the pro-democracy Left is one of the largest untapped political forces in the West today. Those I spoke to said how relieved they were to find blogs that represented their way of thinking when the likes of the Independent and the Guardian have mostly kept such lines of argument out of their comments pages. These are the "invisible ones", the people that only since the invention of Cif and the publication of the EM have many on the Left realised exist.

Noone seemed to disagree when Alan Johnson summed things up by stating that the EM was dedicated to fighting for "justice and liberty for all." With the document originating from the Left, he reminded us it was important to remember that this included "social justice for all" with "noone left behind." Understandably, this went down rather well.

And so onto the business of collecting donations and mobile phones for Iraq and taking questions from the floor. Ideally this would have gone on longer, but here the venue failed us a little - due to the lighting it was absolutely impossible for those on the stage to see the audience and thus engage with them properly.

But no matter. As churches go, the Union Chapel must be a rarity in that it has a fully licensed bar round the back, a far better place for everyone to exchange ideas and work out where we go from here.

I'm not sure the venue were expecting so many people to stay behind for drinks, but we drank the bar dry almost immediately, the Drink-Soaked Trots who couldn't make the launch would have been proud. It was a pleasure to meet everyone who stayed behind - and I'm sure the restaurant we all descended on for tapas were quite pleased as well, especially with Paul's rather effective method of getting us our grub as quickly as possible: getting the staff to choose our food allowing the rest of us to gabble on as before. Genius.

After a couple of drinks it was night-bus time, following a little stroll around leafy Canonbury, a great end to a great night. That said, I didn't much appreciate the rather large drunken lady that almost managed to wedge me into my seat on the bus much to the amusement of the bloke behind me. There was me thinking that sleeping people tend to stay still and not flail their bingo-winged arms all over the shop, but that's buses for you. I'd have been alright if I'd had my buckets with me, but there we are (see next post).

To finish: where the Euston train's headed nobody knows, but there's talk of getting Paul Berman involved in June and a meeting planned on Darfur for September (details to follow). Regional EM groups are being set up around the country, the *ahem* young ones present are working on how to get more young ones involved and more than half of those who filled out our questionnaire volunteered their services, whether those be public speaking, organising events or plain old envelope-stuffing (Ed: Thank G*d for that...)

Alan Johnson was right to describe the Euston Manifesto as a catalyst.

What to do next? Well that's up to you. But we can do more than just sit and wait - let's get to work!

Personally, I need a night off. But he's right - the EM has brought together a whole bunch of people - some experienced politicos, others intrigued newcomers wondering how they can help - who might otherwise have never met. Between us we ought to be capable of keeping the ball rolling.

For now, it will suffice to take a deep breath and thank everyone who made the launch the success it was - from the organisers to the speakers to the supporters, all of whom turned down the opportunity of enjoying the first sunny evening in a while and the chance to watch England play to come and make their presence felt and their voices heard. Twelve hundred quid raised and a bucket full of mobile phones for Iraq isn't too bad either. Raised glasses all round.

More here, here and here.

Oh and congratulations to the anti-EM infiltrators who decided to leave a pile of photocopies of the article cited by HakMao here lying on a table at the end. If the best you can do to fight the EM is to leave literature written by someone who can't distinguish between fictional and genuine journalists, we're not particularly worried. You did make us laugh though and it gave us something to wipe up some spillages with, so thanks.

SLEEP DEPRIVATION DOES FUNNY THINGS TO YOUR HEAD

2006-05-25T11:47:00.000Z

Here's an alternative take on the Euston Manifesto launch.

Whilst you're reading about the amazing speakers, the lovely bunch of people who turned up to show their support or the great after-party, spare a thought for those who had to carry items such as these around the tube during rush-hour yesterday (or run back to their offices with them at 1am):

I'd been told by a friend that the best way to avoid trouble on a bus in Peckham was to carry a bucket as people tend to leave you alone. This turned out to be true of tube trains as well, with commuters shying away from me even more than usual. Partly it was because I probably looked like a proper wrong'un and partly because I was carrying a pair of buckets.

I'm sure there were a couple of nervous glances around me as if Dom Joly were about to pull some stunt for Trigger Happy TV.

I thought about it. After all, if you stick a bucket on your head and sit down next to someone it shouldn't be embarrassing as they can't see who you are. But strangely it is. Or so I'm told.

I suppose there's always the fear that someone might take it off and expose you for the loon you are. But have you ever heard of anyone taking a bucket off someone else's head without their consent? It's just not the done thing. Besides, would you go up to someone with a bucket on their head and pull it off? I think not.

Anyhow, this is pure conjecture as by the time I'd thought it all through I was already sitting on the tube, the whole carriage having seen me struggle on with my buckets thus ruining any chance I had of being Anonymous Bucket Man. A shame.

I clearly need more sleep.

UPDATE
I should have asked these fellas how they felt about the anonymity thing:

Yep. That's Pimms he's drinking.

IT'S GOOD TO TALK

2006-05-24T15:28:00.000Z

There's been a lot of talk about bloggers behaving badly of late. Judging by some of the comments on the Cif pages you'd think we were living in a country on the verge of civil war. So I thought I'd have a look at a few blogs from a region in the world where things actually are a little unstable and see whether flaming, trolling and general nastiness were as prevalent.

Perhaps I was suffering from what Norm referred to as "Blogosphere fatigue." Either way, it's always worth taking a step back from the familiar once in a while and having a look around some new places.

My journey began with a trip to find out that Michael Totten's has just ended: he finished his series of dispatches from the Middle East with some fantastic shots of Beirut. That said, he claims to have a good thousand still to publish so this one could run for some time.

It's worth spending some time going through his archives - there's plenty of vintage articles, including this epic on his trip to Ramallah. As troll medication goes, twenty minutes on his site alone ought to lower the infection rate of the

10: print "YOU STOPPER!"
20: print "YOU 'MONGER!"
30: goto 10

virus making its way into comments boxes.

From there, I followed Michael's link to Lebanese blogger Perpetual Refugee's site, on the basis that this sounded like a fantastic road-trip:

PR: I can image the drive up to Beirut from Tel Aviv. You'd of course take the scenic route. The Mediterranean always on your left hand side. I would assume you'd leave in the morning, the sun already having risen in the east. It would be sunny. It usually is. As you drive north past Haifa, the terrain starts to roll. The hills become mountains. Acre. Nahariyya. Then the border.

The Lebanese customs officer smiles and being Lebanese, starts to chat you up. He'll impress you with a 'Bokaltov' followed by 'Bienvenue a Liban'. You enter without any problems. Your Israeli passport stamped. Your license plates remain as they are. And you drive. The signs are now in Arabic and French. You already feel the difference, and yet, you're comfortable. It still feels good, comfortable. You get excited as you pass the ancient city of Tyre. You feel the urge to stop and see what Alexander the Great found so fascinating about the city. But you don't. You'll be back.

Further north, you reach Saida (Sidon). It's stunning, a bit more Islamic in feel. Again, you want to stop but not today. Today you have a date with Beirut. And you'll fall in love.

We can all dream, I know. But his description of how he found himself (against the wishes of his own government) working in Tel Aviv is well worth a read, as is most of his output. And no snipers in sight. Well, not of the blogging variety anyway.

In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. For whilst in Tel Aviv, Perpetual Refugee met up with Israeli blogger Lisa Goldman and described the meeting thus:

We talked. But it was different. I've spoken with many Israelis over the past year. This night however we were communicating. It was so civilized. Lebanese & Israeli. Face to face. Communicating.

No stereotyping.
No blind hatred.
No official line.

Just real communication. An exchange of ideas. Of experiences. Waging a war against ignorance. Lebanese & Israeli. Proud. Patriotic. Hopeful.

Thank you Lisa for making this paranoid refugee feel at ease in a place he grew up fearing.

I hope that one day a Lebanese citizen will be able to reciprocate such a brave gesture while staring at this same body of water on the shores of another noble city. Beirut.

It can't of been one-way traffic either, for Lisa writes:

We met in Tel Aviv. And it felt sort of clandestine, not because of who he is and who I am, but because of what he is and what I am, and where we live. Which, when you think about it, is absurd.

We sat at a restaurant on the beach and talked about life and the Middle East, and life in the Middle East, and we solved all its problems in three hours, over a good bottle of wine. The fact that he is incredibly smart and cool helped a lot.

If only everyone would listen to us, the Middle East would be such a great place. :P

No, it's not a blogging's answer to Mills and Boon, but a refreshing anecdote highlighting how blogging needn't be purely confrontational. Indeed, as Lisa points out, blogs are becoming a unifying force in a region beset with many difficulties.

From her report on the We Media conference, it's apparent one of the problems they face is the media itself:

The panelists included Rami Khoury, the editor of the Lebanese Daily Star; Jihad Ali Ballout, Director of Al Arabiya's corporate communications; Saleh Ngem of BBC's Arabic service; and from Iraq by satellite Zuhair Al-Jezairy of Aswat Al Iraq.

None of them had heard of blogs. None of them was interested in the fact that Israeli, Palestinian, Jordanian, Egyptian, Lebanese and Saudi bloggers are writing and talking to and about each other and, linking to one another. None of them was interested to learn that quite a few of us are discovering that the Middle Eastern media is doing a pretty crappy job of getting beyond the cliches, the slogans and the dogma, and that we made that discovery through blogs.

When certain governments don't recognise certain other countries' right to exist, clearly blogs can be incredibly useful tools in terms of dispelling regime- or media-driven stereotypes and breaking down cultural barriers between people who would otherwise be barred from meeting or exchanging ideas.

Lisa Goldman provides a handy round-up of her favourite Arabic blogs here, but that's a blog-trip for another time.

Sadly, work and sleep couldn't be fought off with blogging so my journey ended there, after a pitiful three sites. But it was truly refreshing to see the other side of blogging again - it's not all just larey gits throwing their toys out of the pram, Polly!

ASIDE
Of course, there's nothing wrong with an assault with a deadly cluebat when someone says something completely ridiculous. In terms of bish-bash-bosh blogging this thread is quite amusing, if only for the way Flanker ends up agreeing with Johan W's satirical take on the Kos Democrats strategy for taking the White House sometime next century. Priceless.

PROGRESSIVES VERSUS REACTIONARIES

2006-05-23T15:35:00.000Z

From David Aaronovitch in today's Times:

Forget red, blue and yellow. Now the choice is Progressives v Reactionaries.

OH, FOR CLEARER times when men were men and Tories were vermin. Each child born alive was either a little Red or a little Blue, with a few Cornish vacillators wearing the awkward yellow favours of the in-betweenies. Oceans of blood separated us. The Blues loved the Americans, we Reds (sotto voce) thought that the Russians got a bad press. They were for no taxes and lots of poverty, we were for massive taxes and no wealth. They were turned on by soldiers and the Bomb, we were turned on by women with peace symbols painted on their bare breasts. They were for Europe, and then against it. We were against Europe, and then for it. You could usually take someone’s opinion on a single issue, and from it extrapolate her entire world-view.

For years, of course, these allegiances have been breaking up, but the essential divide has been thought to remain. It’s there in the common-place that Tony Blair is right-wing for a Labour man, or that David Cameron is left-wing for a Tory. But the truth has been dawning on many of us for some time now that this way of dividing the political world is an anachronism. It no longer fits the facts. When I look at the candidates for Parliament in my own constituency, the Labourness, Libdemness or Toryness of them no longer seems to be the main question. What I want to know is whether they are a progressive or a reactionary.

Definitely worth two minutes of your time.

It calls to mind a comment Norm made in one of his Gare du Norm (Euston Manifesto Platforms) articles:

I would say for my own part that since September 11 2001, it is not just a matter of specific issues, nor of something occasional. Across a range of vitally important political questions today - questions to do with war and peace, humanitarian intervention, terrorism and the fight against it, America's role in the world, attitudes of indulgence on the left towards regimes and practices that shouldn't be indulged - there is the basis for a common fight that at once unites a part of the left with people who are not of the left and divides it from others who are.

I will even say - and here I do not claim to speak for anyone else - that if I have to choose between a liberal who is also a democrat but not a socialist, and a socialist of illiberal outlook with a frail, or worse than frail, attachment to democracy, then I'll be with the former. Every time.

I'm with Norm on this one.

Thoughts?

RELATIVE VALUES

2006-05-22T12:16:00.000Z

Today Tony Blair made a surprise visit to Iraq, joining Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki for a news conference earlier this morning.

Mr Blair said it had taken "three years of struggle" to reach the formation of a government.

"For the first time, we have a government of national unity that crosses all boundaries and divides, that is there for a four-year term and [is] directly elected by the votes of millions of Iraqi people."

He refused to lay out a timetable for the withdrawal of troops, but said there was no excuse for the "terrorism and bloodshed" to continue.

"If the worry of people is the presence of the multinational forces, it is the violence that keeps us here. It is the peace that allows us to go."

He sharply dismissed reporters who questioned the worth of the invasion of Iraq.

"Here we are at a press conference where you are able to put me, the British prime minister and this, the new Iraqi prime minister, under pressure. That is what has happened in Iraq," he said.

Although the BBC report doesn't mention it, he then had the pleasure of trying to convince the rest of us that life in a democracy is preferable to living under a dictatorship. It might seem obvious to most, but you can never take too much for granted in politics. Even those whose livelihoods are reliant on the democratic process don't necessarily appreciate its importance (although 77% of Iraqis seem to).

It's just a guess, but on current form I'm reckoning Ken Livingstone won't be cheering on the rise of democracy in Iraq. After all, last week he managed to have another one of his "Did he really say that?" moments:

It's been a few months since Ken Livingstone dropped a decent clanger, so thank goodness London's Mayor retains a deeply-held affection for the People's Republic of China.

Back in January, Ken used a visit to Beijing to defend the Communist regime's human rights record, comparing the Tiananmen Square massacre to poll tax riots in Trafalgar Square.

Yesterday, history repeated itself. During his weekly Mayoral Question Time at City Hall, Livingstone, right, decided to stick up for one of the last century's foremost dictators, Chairman Mao.

Asked about his attitude to regimes alleged to abuse human rights (the Tory questioner cited China and Venezuela) Ken claimed Mao's cultural revolution was "justified", because it improved chiropody.

"One thing that Chairman Mao did was to end the appalling foot binding of women," he announced. "That alone justifies the Mao Tse-tung era."

The comment met with disbelief from members of the London Assembly. They note that Jung Chang's recent book on Mao blames him for the deaths of seventy million people.

"At first, we thought it was just a flippant joke," says one. "But it soon became clear that Ken was being serious."

On the one hand he condemns Israel for "horrendous things which border on crimes against humanity" and on the other excuses mass-murderering tyrant for his efforts to improve the state of his nation's feet. No doubt Mao got the trains running on time too, eh?

VANISHING ACT

2006-05-22T12:06:00.000Z

Hello again.

Apologies for my absence - have been rather busy in the real world, getting caught up in events personal and not so personal. If you've received a ticket for the latter, the odds are about 50:50 that I've scoured the web to check you're not a well-known psychopath, troll, medical curiosity suffering from a hideously contagious disease, etc.

Incidentally (on the off-chance you've not heard) the response for tickets for the Euston Manifesto Launch was so great we had to switch venues. Details available on the website.

Should be an interesting week.

BURKE: ON THE ROAD TO KANDAHAR

2006-05-15T11:18:00.000Z

Yesterday's Observer ran with an extract from Jason Burke's forthcoming book: "On the Road to Kandahar."

This interview must have been one of the most unpleasant he's ever had to conduct:

Kassm had joined the Baath party at the age of 15 in the year that Saddam seized power. By the time he was 16, he was working for the Mukhabarat main office in Baghdad. At 20, he was a full-time interrogator. 'At first, it was difficult for me and then it became more easy. Torture is like anything. You get used to it.'

Kassm, sitting in an upstairs room in the security-service offices, gave no indication that he felt any shame.

'How did you torture people?' I asked him. He chuckled and sat back with his fingers crossed over his belly.

'There are multiple ways. We hoist them over a bar with their arms behind them. We use hot things like an iron on their skin. We use an electric cable - here, here and here,' he said and indicated ears, tongue and groin.

'How about fingernails?' I said, thinking of a waiter who had served me a day or so earlier whose fingers ended in smooth nubs of skin.

Kassm looked insulted. 'That's an old technique. We don't do that any more. Though we did occasionally cut off toes or fingers.'

Did you interrogate children?' I asked 'Sometimes,' he shrugged. 'We tortured everyone, men, women and children.'

'Who was the youngest?'

'Newborn babies, I suppose.'

'You tortured newborn babies?'

'Well, not exactly, but sometimes we brought in newborns and threatened to starve them to death to get their parents to talk. We might starve them a bit for effect but we wouldn't kill the child. That was a pretty effective technique, actually.'

'And the older kids?'

'We would hit five- or six-year-olds with a cable.'

'What about rape?'

'My team did not do that but we had a specially designated rape unit.'

'You have a wife?'

'I have been married twice and I have seven children.'

'And you went home to your wife and kids after a day of torturing people?'

'You are a journalist, I am an interrogator. I got paid, got overtime, bonuses, holidays. It was a job.'

Nice.

Burke's take on the media is an interesting one:

I spent many months in Iraq after the war. Oddly, I was always more optimistic about the country's future when I was there than in London. Western news bulletins were dominated by those making the most noise or mess, and the voices of the majority in Iraq, who wanted only to eat and sleep in peace with their families, were barely heard. This was true on a global scale too. In Iraq, the violence was aimed at dividing communities. Spectacular acts of international terrorism aimed to do the same. To an extent, sadly, they have succeeded. In the short term at least, brutality can work. But the dogmatic, the fanatic and the violent are still a long way from outright victory. And that we owe to the good sense and humanity of all those caught in the middle - whether on an Israeli bus, a London tube train, in Baghdad or, indeed, in Kandahar.

I'm heading off for a couple of days (family commitments) - further posting today or tomorrow seems unlikely. See you on Wednesday.

NICE ONE BORIS

2006-05-12T15:12:00.000Z

By now this is compete glassc0ck, but by popular request here's the most popular Tory (outside Liverpool) in the UK today playing in an England-Germany All Stars "friendly": Our Boris playing soccerball.

His defence, according to the BBC:

"There was no malice in my actions. I was going for the ball with my head, which I understand is a legitimate move in soccer."

Priceless.

To be fair, he does get the ball before the man, but with Rooney likely to return to fitness sooner than expected, the odds of a call-up to the England team are sadly looking pretty slim.

The pat on the arse from Ray Wilkins is a nice touch.

IS THE POPE JEWISH?

2006-05-12T14:48:00.000Z

Nice piece in yesterday's Times from the UPI's Martin Walker - "The BBC pro-Israeli? Is the Pope Jewish?":

The official report for the governors of the BBC on its coverage of the Palestine-Israeli conflict found predictably that there was “was little to suggest systematic or deliberate bias” but then went on to list a series of measurements by which the BBC could be said to be biased in favour of Israel.

This produced mocking guffaws in my own newsroom, where some of the BBC’s greatest hits — or perhaps misses — remain fresh in the memory. There was the hagiographic send-off for Yassir Arafat by a BBC reporter with tears in her eyes and that half-hour profile of Arafat in 2002 which called him a “hero” and “an icon” and concluded that the corrupt old brute was “the stuff of legends”.

There was Orla Guerin’s unforgettably inventive spin on the story of a Palestinian child being deployed as a suicide bomber, which most journalists saw as a sickening example of child abuse in the pursuit of terrorism. Guerin had it as “Israel’s cynical manipulation of a Palestinian youngster for propaganda purposes”.

...

There was the extraordinarily naive coverage of the London visit of Sheikh Abdur-Rahman al-Sudais, the predominant imam of Mecca, to open London’s largest new mosque. He was described as a widely respected religious figure who works for “community cohesion”, and a video on the BBC website was captioned “The BBC’s Mark Easton: ‘Events like today offer grounds for optimism’.”

The BBC must have missed his sermon of February 1, 2004, that said “the Jews of yesterday are the evil fathers of the Jews of today, who are evil offspring, infidels . . . calf-worshippers, prophet-murderers, prophecy-deniers . . . the scum of the human race whom Allah cursed and turned into apes and pigs . . . These are the Jews, a continuous lineage of meanness, cunning, obstinacy, tyranny, licentiousness, evil, and corruption . . .”

I must admit, I'd forgotten about the latter example of BBC cluelessness.

As Walker says, these are isolated incidents, but his analysis of how the BBC report came to the conclusions it did is worth reading, for things aren't quite as simple as the initial coverage of this story made out.

Perhaps surprisingly, at the end of the piece Walker actually speaks of the BBC with a hint of admiration. On the report's conclusion that the BBC ought to use the T-word to describe terrorist acts:

[T]he report goes on to say: “While those immediately responsible for the actions might be described as terrorists, the BBC is right to avoid so labelling organisations, except in attributed remarks.”

So think of the poor hack on deadline in a flak jacket trying to remember whether to say some crazed Jihadist killer was “a terrorist from Hamas” rather than “a Hamas terrorist” while squeezing more historical background and more Palestinian talk-time into the news report.It’s amazing that the coverage is as decent as it is, and that most of us in the business concede privately that, for all its flaws, the BBC still does a better job that any other news organisation on Earth.

I think that's what annoys people - we expect more from the BBC than we do from commercial news outlets. And so we should - we're paying for it.

DEAR GEORGE...

2006-05-12T14:20:00.000Z

Another gem from Iowahawk, the London bus of the blogosphere - nothing for ages, then two corkers come along at once. I can't confirm whether he's also big, red and lowers himself so that people in wheelchairs can climb on, but I'd be happy for Ken to use a small fraction of my council tax to help make the service more regular.

This time he's got his mitts on a leaked draft of Ahmadinejad's letter to George Bush:

Young people, university students and ordinary people also have many
questions about the phenomenon of Israel. I am sure you are familiar
with some of them. Questions like, "why does not this country 'Israel'
appear on the old documents and globes, or new United Nations maps?"
And, "can I take the makeup Israel quiz? It is pledge night at the
Mahdi Martyr Mahdi house."

I tell them to study the history of WWI and II. One of my students told me that after WWII, the crafty Jews claimed that six million Jews had been killed, but it was part of a Jew scheme to Jew the life insurance company. This student totally busted the grade curve, and later scored a 1600 on his Paradise Admissions Test.

Again let us go crazy here and fantasize that these events are true. Does that logically translate into the establishment of the state of Israel in the Middle East, building their humiliating Jew pizza parlors right next to the faithful?

Mr President, I am sure you and your crafty neocon accountants know at what cost Israel was established:

- Many thousands were killed in the process.

- Millions of indigenous people were made refugees.

- Whiny tourist ladies from Miami with big sunglasses.

This tragedy has been ongoing for sixty years now.

Another big question asked by people is why is this regime being supported?

Another big question asked is: how many licks does this Zionist regime take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, which has been flavored with the blood of Palestinian infants? The answer is "three," because the Zionist will cheat and bite right into to the delicious blood filling.

The newly elected Palestinian administration recently took office, and is now ordering the needed office equipments such as copiers and Successories posters and national defense martyr belts. Unbelievefully, the Israel regime have put the elected government under pressure and not given it money for toner cartridges and rifle scopes.

But Iowahawk's not the only super-sleuth on the block these days. James Lileks managed to get hold of the original letter which (of course) was never released to the press:

Dear Infidel Crusader Zionist sock-puppet Saudi-lackey depoiler of Mesopotamia woman-touching pigdog fiendish (293 words excised) Shah-licking son of a toad’s offal: I trust this finds you well. I have much on my mind, and have taken the pen to unburden my breast. I have enclosed a self-addressed stamped envelope should you wish to reply.

(429 words concerning Jewish penetration of the Postal System excised)

. . . Do you not realize you are beaten, as a donkey is beaten, but knoweth not his donkeyhood is cursed? Your comics have turned against you in your own lair, and mock you without mercy. We have seen the videos of the Meal of the Correspondents, and we know how your left regards the men of the laugh as prophets and seers. It is only a matter of time before Johnny Carson (applause be upon him) returns from occlusion to request that you, Mr. President, take the Slauson cutoff, get out of your car, and cut off your Slauson, Hi-yo, salaam. And a third part of the Slauson shall be stained with the tears of the womenfolk, and (9323 words excised)

. . . Our people glow with pride over our nuclear efforts, sometimes literally. I repeat that the enrichment is for peaceful purposes only, and we seek only peace, and peace is our goal, and there is nothing more we love than peace. Except death. Sorry; forgot. Death is definitely number one. In third place of things we love, well, there were those nice ice-cream desserts they had at this little place in Tehran. When I was Mayor I had them brought in on Fridays. Good times, good times. But once I found a hair.

On a day when all our papers are plastered with stories about yesterday's 7/7 report, it's good to see some proper investigative journalism still being practised out there.

ON AYAAN HIRSI ALI

2006-05-12T12:19:00.000Z

It's been an interesting week for Ayaan Hirsi Ali. No doubt to promote her book "The Caged Virgin", earlier this week she spoke at Harvard where, by all accounts, she caused a bit of a stir.

On the one hand, she must be incredibly frustrated by the number of closed minds she's encountered, but on the second she ought to have been encouraged by the support she's received from others across the political spectrum.

Here's Hitchens on Ayaan Hirsi Ali:

Before being elected to parliament, she worked as a translator and social worker among immigrant women who are treated as sexual chattel—or as the object of "honor killings"—by their menfolk, and she has case histories that will freeze your blood. These, however, are in some ways less depressing than the excuses made by qualified liberals for their continuation. At all costs, it seems, others must be allowed "their culture" and—what is more—must be allowed the freedom not to be offended by the smallest criticism of it. If they do feel offended, their very first resort is to violence and intimidation, sometimes with the support of the embassies of foreign states. (How interesting it is that the two European states most recently attacked in this way—Holland and Denmark—should be the ones that have made the greatest effort to be welcoming to immigrants.) Considering that this book is written by a woman who was circumcised against her will at a young age and then very nearly handed over as a bargain with a stranger, it is written with quite astonishing humor and restraint.

But here is the grave and sad news. After being forced into hiding by fascist killers, Ayaan Hirsi Ali found that the Dutch government and people were slightly embarrassed to have such a prominent "Third World" spokeswoman in their midst. She was first kept as a virtual prisoner, which made it almost impossible for her to do her job as an elected representative. When she complained in the press, she was eventually found an apartment in a protected building. Then the other residents of the block filed suit and complained that her presence exposed them to risk. In spite of testimony from the Dutch police, who assured the court that the building was now one of the safest in all Holland, a court has upheld the demand from her neighbors and fellow citizens that she be evicted from her home. [Ed. Clearly NIMBYism isn't restricted to Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells]In these circumstances, she is considering resigning from parliament and perhaps leaving her adopted country altogether. This is not the only example that I know of a supposedly liberal society collaborating in its own destruction, but I hope at least that it will shame us all into making The Caged Virgin a best seller.

You can listen to her on WNYC, NPR and at the PEN Festival and watch her being interviewed on Swedish and Norweigan TV here.

You've got to admire her courage and determination, regardless of whether you agree with everything she says. She certainly doesn't go out of her way to give herself a quiet life.

BLOGGING ON BLAGGING

2006-05-11T15:43:00.000Z

Whilst waiting for the 7/7 report to go back online, here's a bit of light reading that I'd normally save for a Friday afternoon. Entitled "In Praise of Loopholes", it's a great piece about blagging.

And despite what you might think from the opening paragraph, it's completely safe for work. Honestly!

21 anos indeed.

Hat-tip: Evariste.

7/7 REPORT

2006-05-11T15:08:00.000Z

A slightly misleading headline from the frontpage of the Times' website: Noone blamed for 7/7.

An official report into the July 7 attacks on London has concluded that MI5 and other security agencies had not understood the sheer scale of the threat posed by "home-grown" Islamic terrorists.

Although the report, by the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), absolves the security forces of specific blame for their failure to identify the four 7/7 bombers and avert Britain's first suicide attacks, it paints a picture of an intelligence community that is largely out of its depth.

The cross-party group of eight MPs and one peer also criticises the Joint Intelligence Committee for its potentially misleading judgement just four months before the bombings that suicide attacks would not become the norm in Europe.

...

The report adds: "Claims in the media that a 'mastermind' left the UK reflect one strand of an investigation that was subsquently discounted by the intelligence and security agencies."

I'm not sure whether that's particularly good news, other than for the relief it provides that our security services didn't lose Mr Big after all.

More worryingly, if this piece from the Independent is anything to go by, MI5 have their eye on another 700 homegrown nutjobs lurking out there with the same twisted mindset as Messrs. Khan, Tanweer, Lindsay and Hussain.

How much the 300% rise in this figure since 9/11 is actually down to the police and MI5's response to 7/7 I don't know, but at least it sounds like the spooks are paying proper attention.

UPDATE: ~~The link to the 7/7 report is currently redirecting to Microsoft's homepage. If anyone knows of another link, please drop me a line. Ta.~~
No need. All's working again, as of 5.07pm.

THE WAY TO BEAT IRAN'S CONFRONTATIONALISTS

2006-05-10T14:49:00.000Z

Courtesy of Iran Press News, an interesting article from Karim Sadjadpour:

Beirut (Daily Star)

As the international community wrestles with Iran's nuclear ambitions, a longstanding debate on the nuclear issue rages in Tehran, and Western policymakers and analysts should not ignore it.

Though Iranian officials publicly project a unified mindset, in reality the country's ruling elites are divided into three broad categories: those who favor pursuit of the nuclear fuel cycle at all costs; those who wish to pursue it without sacrificing diplomatic interests; and those who argue for a suspension of activities to build trust and allow for a full fuel cycle down the road. Understanding and exploiting these differences should be a key component of any diplomatic approach.

The first group, supporters of President Mahmoud Ahmadi Nezhad, comprises confrontationists who romanticize the defiance of the revolution's early days. Believing that former President Mohammad Khatami's "detente" foreign policy earned Tehran nothing but entry into the "Axis of Evil", they argue that Iran should withdraw from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), unequivocally pursue its nuclear ambitions, and dare the international community to react.

They advocate measures such as withholding oil exports and cutting diplomatic ties with countries that side against Iran, confident that "the West needs Iran more than we need them."

The second group, like the confrontationists, argues that Iran is "bound by national duty" to pursue its "inalienable" right to enrich uranium, but unlike them, favors working within an international framework. Lead nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani is representative of this group, arguing simultaneously - perhaps inconsistently - that Iran must not succumb to "Western double standards," but also that "a country's survival depends on its political and diplomatic ties: you can't live in isolation."

The third, more conciliatory group is arguably the most reflective of popular sentiment, but is also currently the least influential in the circles of power. Believing the costs of nuclear intransigence to be greater than its benefits, they claim Iran should freeze its enrichment activities to build confidence and assuage international concerns.

As reformist leader Mustafa Tajzadeh told me, "We have far more pressing concerns facing our country than a lack of uranium enrichment." This group has consistently backed direct talks with the United States, convinced that the Europeans are incapable of providing the political, economic and security dividends Iran seeks.

Compare this situation with pre-War Iraq - there were no second or third groups we could deal with.

In a simlar vein, if you missed it the first time around, Hitchens' "Let the exchange of trade and ideas with Iran begin" might be worth a gander.

FASHION POLICE IN IRAN

2006-05-10T11:12:00.000Z

From a View from Iran:

110

…Iran’s 911.

Saw a police minibus parked on Jordan Street. A bunch of young girls were crowded around it, their big hair lifting their scarves high above their heads.

What does proper Islamic dress mean? “It’s just fashion,” a friend answers. Holland’s Moroccan women who choose to wear Islamic dress all by themselves would be subject to harassment in Iran. Why? Fashion. That’s all.

A friend was picked up. “I knew enough to call 110 when the military police started harassing me and my friend. I mean, their job is to pick up wayward soldiers, not harass women. I got through to the police. ‘Give the phone to the military police,’ they told me.”

She did. The police told them that the way the two women were dressed was none of their business. “Hand the phone back to the women,” the officer on the other line said.

“We told them to leave you alone and quit harassing you. We will call back in ten minutes to make sure you are okay.”

The police called back in three minutes. They called again in ten minutes and again in twenty.

There are so many different police-type organizations roaming the streets of Iran: the Basigi on motorcycles, traffic cops who lazily direct the traffic into bigger and bigger jams, military police just kind of hanging out, diplomatic police, intelligence, and the police police, to name a few.

This is why when some mullahs got upset about plastic manikin breasts, only a few of the offending plastic breasts actually got sawed off. “Why didn’t all of them get sawed off?” a visiting friend asked me.

“Because the police actually have to *want* to enforce that law. It’s too perverse for most of them.”

An interesting piece, given the "Crackdown on Women’s Bad Islamic Behaviour" that was announced last month:

Iran will increase police patrols to enforce women's skirt lengths, proper head scarves and even curtail dog-walking during the summer.

"In our campaign, we will confront women showing their bare legs in short pants", said Tehran's police chief, Morteza Tala’i.

"We are also going to combat women wearing skimpy headscarves, short and form-fitting coats, and the ones walking pets in parks and streets" he added.
Women who do not wear the veil can face 10 days to two months' imprisonment, or a fine.

Skimpy headscarves? How ever will the men control themselves?

Not everyone's listening though:

"They surely wait for the beginning of the week to start seriously repressing", Hessam says. With her coloured hairs that come out from the scarf, and her coat curved out of jeans, Mina Elmi, a 21 year old coed, does not look much afraid. "I do not intend to change my practices. I refuse to be afraid", she says while adjusting her make up with audacity.

At her sides, Sepideh Yazdi, her partner of window shopping, is proud to show us her last purchases: light shoes with arrow ends, the last word for Tehrani modern women.

When an authoritarian regime imposes laws on how people should dress but neither the police nor the populace are willing to oblige, it leaves those in charge looking somewhat foolish. Good.

TEA WITH CHAVEZ

2006-05-09T15:24:00.000Z

Guess who Ken's invited over for tea? From the Times:

Which international leader publicly threatens to blow up his country’s oilfields, supports Iran’s nuclear programme, says that the Falklands belong to Argentina and believes that Robert Mugabe is a "true freedom-fighter"?

The answer is none other than Hugo Chávez, the President of Venezuela, who readily antagonises and hurls insults at the leaders of other nations, including Tony Blair, whom he called an "ally of Hitler". Next week London will have the dubious honour of a visit by Señor Chávez, hosted by none other than its mayor, Ken Livingstone.

Emboldened by a huge windfall of petrodollars due to climbing oil prices, Señor Chávez has no shortage of international cheerleaders. He has become the voice and leader of the resentful of our world. From Argentina to the offices of the Greater London Authority, almost every person bearing a grudge against capitalism, free markets, democracy and the rule of law support his "revolution".

Meanwhile, in the eyes of our European neighbours, our very own chavs have propelled the UK to the top of the yob charts.

UPDATE Why Blogger won't allow comments on this is beyond me. Am checking out WordPress because for all their talk, Google aren't really delivering. But then what can you expect for nowt? Grrr...

CRACKDOWN IN EGYPT

2006-05-08T15:14:00.001Z

From Harry's Place, via Sandmonkey:

Egyptian reformist blogger Alaa has been arrested.

Contact details for the Egyptian Embassy:
Washington:
3521 International Court, NW, Washington DC 20008
Telephone: (202) 895 5400
Fax: (202) 244-4319
E-mail: embassy@egyptembdc.org
URL: http://www.egyptembassy.us

London:
Egypt Embassy
26 South Street
London W1Y 6DD
Telephone: +44 [0]207 499 3304/2401
Says Glenn Reynolds at CiF:
E-mail them, send them letters, harrass them. The last time you did that we got Abdel Karim released. I am not joking when I tell you that I had information from a source inside that this is the only reason they released him.

Time to get on it.

Freedom for Egyptians has more.

PHONES FOR IRAQ

2006-05-08T15:14:00.000Z

Going back to the PIPA poll,

64% of Iraqis "favour having a major conference where leaders from the US, Europe, the UN, and various Arab countries would meet with leaders of the new Iraqi government to coordinate efforts to help Iraq achieve greater stability and economic growth" with only 34% believing "it is best for other countries to stay out of Iraq's affairs."

Interesting.

In the mean time, here's something the rest of us can do to help.

How about injecting some new life into your old brick?

The TUC has launched an appeal for unions and their members to pass on their used mobile phones to the Iraqi trade union movement as an act of 'second-hand solidarity'.

Unions representing workers in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan face incredible challenges in defending working people and rebuilding democracy. One of their requests for solidarity from British trade unionists is the provision of mobile phones - crucial for any union organiser these days, but especially in Iraq where travel can be dangerous and landlines aren't sufficiently reliable or widespread.

But mobile phones can be expensive to buy in Iraq (and UK phone systems don't work there yet), so buying new ones could eat up scarce union resources. Instead, the Iraqi trade union movement has identified a way of easily converting old European mobile phones for use in Iraq. So now the TUC Iraq Solidarity Committee has opened an appeal for used mobile phones.

TUC General Councillor Sue Rogers, Chair of the TUC Iraq Solidarity Committee, said: 'Rather than throwing your old mobile phone out, put it to good use rebuilding trade unionism in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan. Their need is great, and this would be such a small effort, but a big contribution.'

Old mobile phones (and their chargers, of course) should be sent to the TUC Aid for Iraq appeal at Congress House, Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3LS.

No phone? No problem - the TUC also has a separate Iraq Appeal "to rebuild a free and independent trade union movement, and strengthen civil society in Iraq."

Don't like unions? Try Books to Iraq.

Don't like books or unions? Feel free to post alternatives in the comments.

ANDREW MURRAY: UNWANTED, UNLOVED AND ACHIEVING NOTHING

2006-05-08T14:43:00.000Z

This morning I had a wander over to Cif and found: Andrew Murray - "Unwanted, unloved and achieving nothing".

No, not the title of his autobiography, but the same old same old about getting our troops out of Iraq, following this weekend's events in Basra.

He writes:

Whatever may be obscure about this particular incident, it seems clear that the downing of the British helicopter was widely welcomed by the people of Basra, who demonstrated in celebration and attacked British troops sent out on a rescue mission.

Thus the streets confirm the results of an opinion poll conducted for the Ministry of Defence itself, which revealed that in British-occupied southern Iraq only 1% of the population regard the military occupation as helping Iraq, and up to two-thirds (depending on province) believe attacks on the occupying troops are legitimate; some 82% were "strongly opposed" to the presence of British troops.

If this had happened last year, Andrew Murray might have a point. But the poll he cites was taken six months ago, well before the recent elections. Is Mr Murray perhaps being a little selective in his choice of poll to support his argument.

Simply put: yes.

Here's a PIPA poll published the day after those historic elections. Regulars will know this study inside out, but those who continually recycle the memes of Murray, Galloway, German et al. ought to take a look.

We find:

68% believe the new government of Iraq will be "the legitimate representative of the Iraqi people." Contrast this with all the talk of "puppet regimes" emanating from the Stopper camp.

64% believe the country is going in the right direction and even taking "any hardships [they] might have suffered since the US-Britain invasion" into account, 77% of Iraqis believe ousting Saddam was worth it. This figure rises to 98% for Shia and 91% for Kurds. Although they weren't polled, this figure falls to 0% for members of the Stop the War Coalition.

Over half of all Iraqis polled disapprove of attacks on US-led forces. Murray's "depending on province" caveat is key here, as the figure is worryingly high for Sunnis (88%) but falls to 16% for Kurds. Oddly, of the 43% who do support such attacks, only 41% want to see the US leave by August - things are a little more complicated in Iraq than Murray makes out.

Despite the unpopularity of the Coalition's presence, 59% of Iraqis don't think that their own security forces will be up to the job by August. Unlike Murray, the majority of Iraqis don't favour a "Troops Home Now!" approach.

Thus, when Murray writes:

It should be clear by now that anyone shooting at British and US soldiers is going to enjoy popular approval whatever flag they fly, just by virtue of opposing the occupation.

So it is clear more than ever that the British presence in Basra is unloved, unwanted and achieving nothing beyond extending political cover by giving a multinational gloss to George Bush's broader military occupation of Iraq.

he is being disingenuous. In fact, it is far from "clear", as the contradictory results of the PIPA poll show. Here's how the latter explained their findings:

Thus, the presence of US troops may be perceived as an unwelcome presence that produces many undesirable side effects, but is still necessary for a period.

The idea that the United States might actually be doing something useful in Iraq seems to be inconceivable to Murray and his "It's neocolonialist imperialism, stupid!" school of thought.

But perhaps that shouldn't be too surprising. After all, this is the man who wrote:

The drive to seize command of the world economy in the interests of its own monopoly groups now propels the US government to seek to seize command of every corner of the world itself. This does not need any amplification in relation to the Middle East at present. But we should also be alert to the very real dangers in the Fareast and around Peoples Korea. The clear desire of the USA to effect ‘regime change’ in its second ‘axis of evil’ target could well provoke an armed clash there, too. Our Party has already made its basic position of solidarity with Peoples Korea clear.

Presumably that was via the Gorgeous One, who stated:

If it comes to invasion of North Korea, I'll be with North Korea.

They sure know how to pick their friends.

JUAN COLE: THE LOST TRANSCRIPT

2006-05-05T13:34:00.000Z

Following this critique by Hitchens and this toys and pram moment from Juan Cole (via DSTPFW), comes this from the supersleuthing Iowahawk. The first draft of Cole's response to Hitchens - it's amazing what you can find if you root round inside dustbins:

I'd like to take this opportunity to complain about the profoundly dishonest character of "attack journalism." Journalists are supposed to interview the subjects about which they write, not hound them endlessly, anonymously, in their chat rooms and checkout lanes. Mr. Hitchens never contacted me about this piece. He never sought clarification of anything. He never asked permission to quote my private mail. Worse, he continues to taunt me from his secret hiding place in 5th floor bathroom air vents.

Major journalists have a privileged position. Not just anyone can be published in Slate. Most academics could not get a gig there (I've never been asked to write for it, and seriously, what’s up with that shit?). Hitchens is paid to publish there because he is a prominent journalist. But then he should behave like a journalist, not like a hired gun for the far Right, smearing hapless targets of his ire, and by hapless I don’t mean me because I am totally not hapless, and have an advance degree, and serve on many important committees.

That isn't journalism. For some reason it drives the Right absolutely crazy that I keep this little web log, and so they keep trotting out these clowns in amateurish sniping attacks. It is rather sad, to look out one’s office window and see the teeming throngs of deranged rightwing crazy people, and their attack journalism sniper clowns. It is even more sad when the Dean will not approve my request for bullet proof office glass to protect me from the armies of menacing Zionist attack clowns.

The reason for Hitchens' theft and publication of my private IM chat is that I object to the characterization of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as having "threatened to wipe Israel off the map." I object to this translation of what he said on two grounds. First, it gives the impression that he wants to play Hitler to Israel's Poland, mobilizing an armored corps to move in and kill people. Second, even if it were true, Hitchens acts like that’s bad or something.

Since Mr. Hitchens wants to splash my private IMs all over the internet against my will, just like the local Korean agents of the Bush cabal who put secret monitoring devices in my dry cleaning bags, I'm glad to share the message stream from the chat room.
Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 15:34:18 -0400

Ahmad_as_hell: fokkin jewz they gonna get teh nukez!!!!!!!!!!!!
PageGNHS08: lol!!! i no what u mean
PageGNHS08: the jews at GNHS totally blow up grade curve
Ahmad_as_hell: no serius i hate jewz & gt nukez yall!!
Ahmad_as_hell: I m enrichin u rannium bizitchz
Ahmad_as_hell: u r so totlly nuked jews!!!!!
PageGNHS08: whoa dude thts hardcore maybe u shld see ur school counselor
Juan_in_a_millyun: don’t be a narc page hez jst kiddin
Ahmad_as_hell: no way dude those jewz are fokkn ded forilla !!!!!
PageGNHS08: ur creepin me out we saw movie at GNHS abt columbine
PageGNHS08: im jst sayn
Juan_in_a_millyun: shutup page hez jst doin his a mad persian rhyme flow
Juan_in_a_millyun: if u narc u r totally not going to UM or nicks prom party
Maddie_Albrt: hi page!!!! Wow ur pic is so cute!!! my frnd Bill totally wants to meet u
Maddie_Albrt: he used 2 b prez of US heres his pic
PageGNHS08: eewwwwwww
Hitchens is like, “you said that Khomeini never called for wiping Israel from the face of the map,” and I’m like, “dude I never said anything at all about Khomeini,” and he’s like “whatever.” Hitchens should please quote me on Khomeini and Israel and stop talking like he knows what I’m about, because I’m me, and he’s totally not.

Quality.

ON THE COUNCIL ELECTIONS

2006-05-05T12:52:00.000Z

Nationally, not a good night for Labour, leading to today's inevitable reshuffle. And not a good night for community and race relations, with both RESPECT and (more worryingly) the BNP making gains. One positive result was RESPECT National Secretary John Rees failing to get elected in Bethnal Green South, where all three seats went to Labour. Good.

But it's not all doom and gloom in East London. The eight wards in my area had no BNPers standing and only two RESPECT candidates, both of whom were trounced - even the lone Green got more votes. As I'd predicted, the LibDems had a fair showing in my own ward, giving Labour work to do in the future. Perhaps they won't take their supporters' votes for granted next time.

And there was no David Cameron bounce in sight - in one ward all three Tory candidates finished well behind the Greens and only just (~ 30-60 votes) ahead of someone purporting to be from Socialist Alternative. In fact, three of the LibDems gains were made at the expense of the Tories.

All in all, the results for my council look remarkably middle of the road. Seats were only won by the three major parties with Labour out front and the LibDems and Tories battling for second. How very 1997. Reassuring though, that despite the mixed ethnic make-up of my borough (40% of residents are non-white according to the 2001 Census), neither the BNP nor RESPECT have made any in-roads. Either they're putting something in the water (it tastes a lot nicer than the usual London muck) or else people are just a little bit more chilled round my way - long may this continue.

For those with time on their hands, the BBC have a great map you can use to find out exactly what went on around the country.

OOPS

2006-05-04T16:13:00.000Z

Sorry for the state of the site today. Something went horribly awry. Posted a half-finished post by mistake, deleted it and thought all was cool. Apparently not. It should be better now.

LUNACY

2006-05-04T00:49:00.000Z

Sometimes people give me grief for not linking to "Screw 'Em" Zuniga's DailyKos. Now I know he recently had his purge but really, do you honestly expect me to take a website seriously when it publishes a diary entry entitled "moussouai is innocent!"?

Avert your eyes if for some reason you think the Euston Manifesto is a waste of time - you won't like what you see:

do any of you really believe that al-qaeda, or anyone else for that matter, would have employed a clearly deranged person like moussouai to be part of the 9/11 plot?

or did al-qaida know it was completely protected by elements within the american government establishment?

several years ago the cia stated that it would not have been able to pull off 9/11. despite its nearly limitless resources. yet an organization that was under the gun and monitored throughout the world was.

think about that.

For f*cks sake.

Tin-foil hats all round.

To their credit, several commenters say the same damn thing, showing not all is rotten in the state of Denmark.

And not that other big-name Leftist blogs are without their fair share of plums.

From Crooked Timber we're treated to the following nonsense, a supposed critique of the Euston Manifesto courtesy of John Holbo - "Euston, We Have A Problem":

The whole ‘Decent Left’ thing, starting with Walzer’s original “Dissent” piece, is about post-9/11 US foreign policy. It isn’t too much of a stretch to say that it’s narrowed to be about the Iraq War, and everything feeding into it and flowing out of it. Whether you are still on the Decency bus depends on whether you are still, to some degree, on the Iraq bus.

Well that's a great way to start an essay, completely misrepresenting a broad swathe of the Left who've signed the Euston Manifesto despite their differences over the Iraq War. Sensible folk who have better things to do with their time than visit the academics' version of Kos have every excuse to stop here and change trains.

Firstly, let's start with "The whole ‘Decent Left’ thing." Drink-Soaked Trot Will was at pains to state he'd deck anyone who called him "Decent" at the last Euston meeting. He's as indecent as Drink-Soaked Trots come and there are others in the group who'd claim the same.

Letting that slip, describing the Euston Manifesto and the "Decent Left"'s outlook by stating "It isn’t too much of a stretch to say that it’s narrowed to be about the Iraq War" is simply incorrect. Not just a little bit, but entirely.

Let's revisit the Manifesto's Statement of Principles:

1) For democracy.
2) No apology for tyranny.
3) Human rights for all.
4) Equality.
5) Development for freedom.
6) Opposing anti-Americanism.
7) For a two-state solution.
8) Against racism.
9) United against terror.
10) A new internationalism.
11) A critical openness.
12) Historical truth.
13) Freedom of ideas.
14) Open source.
15) A precious heritage.

Quite clearly, it's all about the Iraq War.

I always admired Worzel Gummidge, but even he wouldn't show solidarity with this poor excuse for a straw man.

As initial assumptions go, this is about as daft as it gets. But why let the facts get in the way of a good rant?

We learn:

It is significant that ‘the Decent Left’ is, largely, an academic phenomenon. I think this is due in part to the fact that certain varieties of theatrical nonsense, not to put too fine a point on it, afflict segments of the leftist professoriat.

Fair comment perhaps, but then we read:

Maybe it would be a good idea to think about how the Decent Left exhibits self-lacerating impulses, with regard to the left as a whole, analogous to those the left as a whole is alleged to suffer from, with regard to society as a whole: to wit, a tendency to focus on the mote in one’s own eye rather than the beam in thine enemy’s.

What was that about theatrical nonsense?

The crux of the argument is:

But really maybe the best option is to extend a friendly invitation to these decent folks, who really are on the same side with us: just admit you were wrong and adjust accordingly. The fact that your manifesto attempts to skirt around arguments for and against the war shows that you are genuinely, intellectually, uncomfortable with what you have thought in the past. Come clean. What’s the worst that’s going to happen? Some lefties will gloat mildly for a few days. But mostly they’ll just be glad to have you back.

Have us back? Oh, how very kind. But we never left.

Quite what this has to do with the Euston Manifesto or the anti-War EM signatories I do not know. Presumably he feels the anti-War signatories deep down were actually pro-War and must thus beg for the same forgiveness from the rest of the "Left". I don't think so.

The whole piece reeks of "But this is what you really meant!" logic, setting up false premises which the author is keen to destroy. All very well and good, but what does this have to do with the Euston Manifesto? Not an awful lot.

Quite why pro- and anti-War Leftists shouldn't find common ground in anti-totalitarianism and the other 14 Statements of Principle is beyond me. Apparently it's a bad thing, as upon collaboration on a joint manifesto both become pariahs in need of salvation. I can only presume that to the Sporting Wood brigade being anti-War is everything, a badge of honour if you will, to be rubbed in the faces of those who might feel that despite the incompetence of the Bush administration, seeing millions of purple-fingered Iraqis is a good thing.

From the comments John Holbo makes it clear that for some reason, despite the Euston Manifesto being written by folk with a myriad of opinions on Iraq, being an anti-War Leftist procludes him from signing. Perhaps his initial assumption that the document is a pro-War screed might have something to do with that rather poor judgment.

Harry's Place stalwart Soru says it all:

JH: So you made a mistake. Own up. Formally apologize, for what it’s worth. Get on with it.

Soru: Given that your basic analysis of the motives and thinking of the Euston signatories has been shown to be off base, are you going to be taking your own advice?

Go back, think for a day or two, and write the whole thing again from scratch.

In particular, consider whether the new information you have learnt justifies possibly coming to a different conclusion about whether to sign or not. Failing that, at least provide a new explanation for why it is you are not signing.

Sadly it falls on deaf ears.

And if you think my Kos comparison is out of line, have a look in the commments.

Failed Harry's Place troll Brendan starts spinning the conspiracy wheel:

In other words, despite all the fine words, and fulsome rhetoric, the point of this document is purely and simply to get people to vote Labour, and support Tony Blair. The timing is interesting too. As long as the EMers can persuade people that the major issue of our day is Islamic terrorism and not (as a quick look at the British papers would lead you to believe) the impending disintegration of the Labour party at the council elections, then obviously this helps Blair.

The mindless support of the document from the Guardian and the Observer (which, at least in the latter case, is NOT a liberal newspaper) is based purely on the fact that these papers have a blind spot about Blair, based on ‘97, and they have been completely unable to face up to his recent failings (especially about Iraq).

You've got to chuckle at someone who hasn't noticed that both the Guardian and the Observer have run many, many stories about the "quagmire" in Iraq and thinks that the Observer "is NOT a liberal newspaper"...

Unchallenged, he continues:

Regardless how much we might want to condemn those intellectuals who supported the Leninist/Stalinist tyranny or the tyranny in China under Mao, there is no doubt that the vast majority of them did so because they really believed in Leninism/Maoism. They genuinely thought that authoritarian communism might lead to a Utopia where there was no exploitation or war etc.

Well that's all right. Presumably those of us who thought the invasion of Iraq was a "good thing" are let off the hook then. After all, many of us genuinely believe(d) that things might be a bit better under democracy than under Saddam's murderous regime.

Apparently not.

The meds were wearing off when he wrote:

Could I just add one basic point? That seems to have escaped everyone’s notice?

Why are suicide bombers always referred to as suicide bombers in these discussions? I mean, who gives a shit if the guy with the bombs kills him/herself? It’s a free country (well not Iraq, ha ha ha). Suicide is not illegal. If someone wants to kill themselves it’s their business.

The key point is not that they are suicide bombers but that they are bombers. Can we all get that straight?

Or is the addition of the word ‘suicide’ to create a thick psychological wall between ‘their’ bombers and ‘ours’?

Yup. That's it. Describing people who commit suicide by setting off bombs attached to themselves as "suicide bombers" isn't telling it like it is, it's all about the thick psychological wall. I'm surprised the BBC have the nerve to call them militants.

I did wonder whether these comments were ignored because noone took this loon seriously, but a quick check of other threads shows several folk replying to his nonsense. Ho hum.

Shame the Euston Manifesto went over their heads, but I've never seen the point of Crooked Timber before now and at this rate I never will.

ELECTION, WHAT ELECTION?

2006-05-03T15:07:00.000Z

A letter to the Times that struck a chord - "Shhh. Whatever you do, don't mention the local elections":

Sir, I hope I’m not breaking a secret by telling you that there are local council elections this Thursday. There has been no hustings, no leafleting at local stations, no campaigning and no posters. These elections are discussed on television and in the press, but nothing is happening on the ground. It seems they exist for politicians and commentators, with just a bit-part for the local electorate.

Quite. I've had a glossy pamphlet from the council outlining the parties that are standing and the usual gumph from the LibDems about how whatever the local Labour councillor says about speed bumps is wrong, but not a peep from the boys in red or blue.

The area of London I live in has traditionallly voted Labour so the Tories don't stand a chance, yet after the events of last week I wouldn't discount the possibility of the LibDems doing rather well in tomorrow's local election. I can understand the Tories not bothering to send anyone out, but Labour sitting on its hands? They either know something I don't and are focussing their efforts elsewhere, or they're being particularly slack.

This silent election raises a number of concerns. First, how can the results of the election be worth anything when the electorate has had no information on which to base its vote? Secondly, how can anyone criticise non-voters when they are given nothing to engage with, and the contestants seem equally apathetic or smug about the election? Finally, with party political funding in the news, I wonder where the parties’ money goes when a local election is judged not worth the expenditure?

It may be that Bromley is overlooked by the democratic process and other areas are hotbeds of electoral activity. Lucky them — I just want an election leaflet and something to vote for or against. It’s a local election, and I was hoping to base my vote on something other than Charles Clarke’s travails or David Cameron’s bicycle.

NIGEL CORBETT
Bromley, Kent

Well Mr Corbett, it's not just Bromley. I've seen lots of council-funded adverts telling me that my vote is really important but had just the one political pamphlet land on my doormat. If Labour loses in my ward, they'll have noone to blame but themselves.

UPDATE And, as if by magic, a Labour leaflet was sitting on my doorstep when I got home last night. Better late than never.

R.I.P. PAUL SPIEGEL

2006-05-03T14:51:00.000Z

Sad news. Hard to do the man justice in one blog post.

Here's two obituaries.

From the second:

Paul Spiegel held one of the most delicate posts in European public life. As president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany his every utterance was liable to touch raw nerves.

In Germany the Holocaust is not history; its aftermath is the stuff and content of everyday politics. All parties represented in the German parliament, the Bundestag, share an unyielding “never again” attitude. But at the slightest whiff of danger, real or perceived, every Central Council president since the late l940s has felt obliged to warn and protest. Spiegel was no exception.

The ever-present Holocaust memory also influences most government policies, internal and external. They range from welfare to education, and embrace tactical and constitutional questions about the most effective way to check the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party. And they extend to the federal Government’s policy towards the state of Israel — because today’s German Jewry still feels insecure, Spiegel has maintained the Central Council’s unwavering support for Israel. As far as the Central Council is concerned, public policies are always combustible and potentially explosive.

Relations with the federal Government were greatly smoothed during his incumbency of more than six years because he had an easy rapport with Gerhard Schröder, who was Chancellor for most of that time. Each understood the other. That is why the Spiegel presidency is likely to go down as the most tranquil in the post-Holocaust history of German-Jewish relations.

His initial task was mountainous because he followed Ignaz Bubis, a man of great charisma and powerful personality, who had dominated the Central Council and at times the German media. By contrast, Spiegel brought to the post personal modesty, warmth and kindness, and a transparent decency.

His achievement is the greater in that the Central Council is a small organisation with a tiny staff and massive tasks. Whatever its formal constitution says, the heavy duties rest in the hands of the president. He is the instant spokesman and decision maker. Spiegel performed his tasks with speed, judgment and never-flagging devotion.

And from the Herald:

Chancellor Angela Merkel mourned an "exemplary democrat" and a passionate supporter of Jewish life in Germany. "He warned, where others remained silent. His engagement for civil courage, for tolerance and mutual respect and against hatred of foreigners and anti-Semitism set standards," Merkel said.

President Horst Koehler described Spiegel as a "German patriot" who helped ensure that "we Germans learn the right lessons from the Nazi crimes".

Hat-tip to Doughnut Boy Andy.

GOOD NEWS FROM EUSTON

2006-05-02T14:46:00.000Z

Whilst many of us spent the long weekend trying to pretend that Rooney and Terry currently possess more than two good legs between them, I see a certain Christopher Hitchens was seriously considering adding his name to the list of Euston Manifesto signatories.

As usual, Hitchens has a fair bit to say so it's worth reading the lot, but for those in a hurry - here's his summary:

The “Euston Manifesto” keeps it simple. It prefers democratic pluralism, at any price, to theocracy. It raises an eyebrow at the enslavement of the female half of the population and the burial alive of homosexuals. It has its reservations about the United States, but knows that if anything is ever done about (say) Darfur, it will be Washington that receives the UN mandate to do the heavy lifting.

It prefers those who vote in Iraq and Afghanistan to those who put bombs in mosques and schools and hospitals. It does not conceive of arguments that make excuses for suicide murderers. It affirms the right of democratic nations and open societies to defend themselves, both from theocratic states abroad and from theocratic gangsters at home.

I have been flattered by an invitation to sign it, and I probably will, but if I agree it will be the most conservative document that I have ever initialled. Even the obvious has now become revolutionary. So call me a neo-conservative if you must: anything is preferable to the rotten unprincipled alliance between the former fans of the one-party state and the hysterical zealots of the one-god one.

Very nice.

For those who need to know, I can confirm it was indeed an O'Neill's in which this whole devillish plot was hatched, so no wonder the bitter was non-existent. Picture here courtesy of Anthony Cox, who also reports the good news that the number of signatories has now reached the 1,000 mark.

Good stuff.

POLITICAL SPAM

2006-04-28T11:34:00.000Z

It's not every day that you get forwarded such a classic piece of spam - the first bit of political spam I've ever set eyes on, originally sent by one Adam Ghaznavi:

Resist USA Nuclear Fascism:

Dump the $ Go 4 Gold

UNTIL the moment the Iran war starts, the USA (petrodollar based, speculative/ credit expansionary) regime has control of the geo political economic agenda because of its operational insanity.

But because (to prop up petrodollar hegemony) USA cannot stop without immediately destroying their legitimising narrative (triggering crash of petrodollar & with it the entire global political economy) they must carry on bombing (presumably including nukes)

The options are stark. Accept global slavery under an ever more rapacious & annihilatory USA nuclear fascist tyranny…

OR bring USA empire crashing down; not just by resistance in states afflicted/ threatened with occupation, but most effectively, by dumping the worthless enslaving dollar & going for gold (especially for oil trading).

The consequent catastrophic geo pol/econ fallout from collapse of apocalyptic credit expansionary system, triggered via re-establishment of gold standard (which is inherently deflationary).

In turn creates both imperatives & potential to re-engineer the entire global political economy through establishment of a (global reserve Bank of Jerusalem &) single global energy based (instead of gold or fiat) currency.

Which entails literally pumping liquidity (oil/gas before the means to pay for them have been developed) into the market to buy time to effect (with a WARTIME will) the global transition to solar power microgeneration.

In exchange for which USA/ Europe etc agree to accept the constraints of a new global security architecture/ constitution.

The price of consolidating the globally pivotal Medina (oil) superstate will be Jewish admin of Mecca (asmuslims do with Christian Sepulchre, to prevent general war among Christian factions) to prevent warring Sunni/Shia factions razing Mecca (again) or entire region, when Israel has woken up to threat of USA Rapture psychology as per `Revelations7:4’.

You've just got to love those capital letters and italics - it seems that Da Vinci Code cobblers is everywhere these days.